''Our Boarding House'' is an American single-panel cartoon and

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

created by

Gene Ahern Eugene Leslie Ahern (September 16, 1895 – March 6, 1960) was a cartoonist best known for his bombastic Major Hoople, a pompous character who appeared in the long-run syndicated gag panel '' Our Boarding House''. Many of Ahern's comic strips took ...

on October 3, 1921 and syndicated by

Newspaper Enterprise Association The Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) is an editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States and established in 1902. The oldest syndicate still in operation, the NEA was originally a secondary new ...

. Set in a

boarding house A boarding house is a house (frequently a family home) in which lodging, lodgers renting, rent one or more rooms on a nightly basis and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months, or years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and ...

run by the sensible Mrs. Hoople, it drew humor from the interactions of her grandiose, tall-tale-telling husband, the self-styled Major Hoople, with the rooming-house denizens and his various friends and cronies. After Ahern left NEA in March 1936 to create a similar feature at a rival syndicate, he was succeeded by a number of artists and writers, including Wood Cowan and

Bela Zaboly Bela P. Zaboly (4 May 1910 – 11 April 1985), a.k.a. Bill Zaboly, was a first-generation Hungarian-American cartoonist best known for his work as the sole illustrator for the daily and weekly strips of ''Thimble Theatre’s'' ''Popeye'' from 193 ...

, before Bill Freyse took over as ''Our Boarding House'' artist from 1939 to 1969. Others who worked on the strip included Jim Branagan and Tom McCormick. The Sunday color strip ended on March 29, 1981; the weekday panel continued until December 22, 1984.

Publication history

In 1921,

created the

''Crazy Quilt'', starring the Nut Brothers, Ches and Wal. That same year, NEA General Manager Frank Rostock suggested to Ahern that he use a

for a setting. Ahern initially used his own experiences as a boarder while a

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

, art student as grist for his comic mill, and featured the picaresque peccadilloes and bickering of its residents, presided over by the no-nonsense Martha Hoople. Horn, Maurice. ''100 Years of American Newspaper Comics'' (Gramercy Books : New York, Avenel, 1996), , . ''Our Boarding House'' entry, pp. 230-231 ''Our Boarding House'' began September 16, 1921,''Our Boarding House''
at

Don Markstein's Toonopedia Don Markstein's Toonopedia (subtitled A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge) is an online encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation, initiated February 13, 2001. Donald D. Markstein, the sole writer and editor of Toonopedi ...

Archived
from the original on October 22, 2016. scoring success with readers after the January 1922 arrival of the fustian, blustery Major Amos B. Hoople, Martha's husband, who'd returned after some long sojourn. "Hoople has been compared to the type created on-screen by

W. C. Fields William Claude Dukenfield (January 29, 1880 – December 25, 1946), better known as W. C. Fields, was an American actor, comedian, juggler and writer. His career in show business began in vaudeville, where he attained international success as a ...

, but was probably closer to

Falstaff Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare and is eulogised in a fourth. His significance as a fully developed character is primarily formed in the plays ''Henry IV, Part 1'' and '' Part 2'', w ...

," writes comics historian

Maurice Horn Maurice Horn (June 28, 1931 – December 30, 2022) was a French-American comics historian, author, and editor, considered to be one of the first serious academics to study comics. He was the editor of ''The World Encyclopedia of Comics'', ''The ...

. "A retired military man of dubious achievement like

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

's omic figure he boasted of soldierly exploits that were perhaps not all invented, and his buffoonery sometimes concealed real pathos." That character depth diminished as the comic became more popular, with Major Hoople becoming "the one-dimensional figure of fun most people remember" of the strip. The primary boarders were the cynical Clyde and Mack, and the only somewhat more trusting Buster. According to comics historian Allan Holtz, a multi-panel

Sunday strip The Sunday comics or Sunday strip is the comic strip section carried in some Western newspapers. Compared to weekday comics, Sunday comics tend to be full pages and are in color. Many newspaper readers called this section the Sunday funnies, t ...

was added on December 31, 1922. This Sunday page had a series of topper strips, beginning with ''Boots and Her Buddies'', which ran from September 12, 1926 to October 18, 1931. The next week, Ahern's ''The Nut Bros'' began, featuring loony siblings Ches and Wal in pun-filled,

vaudevillian Vaudeville (; ) is a theatre, theatrical genre of variety show, variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comic ...

bits of business. This ran until June 6, 1965. For some of ''The Nut Bros run, there was an extra panel filled by a series of different titles running in tandem, including: ''Comic Scrap Book'' (1932), ''Silly Snapshots'' (1932–1933), ''One in a Million'' (1934–1945), ''Mister Blotto'' (1935–1946), ''Major Hoople - Jobs I Would Like'' (1936–1937), ''Rummy Riddles'' (1936–1937), ''Brainwavy'' (1938–1939), ''Honks from Otto Auto'' (1938–1939), ''Postcard Pests'' (1938–1940s), ''Screwy Scenarios'' (1943), ''Looney Letters'' (1943–1944) and ''Scientific Corner'' (1946). The panel cartoons mostly disappeared after 1946, although ''Mister Blotto'' did return sporadically until 1957. Ahern left NEA in March 1936 to create the similar ''

Room and Board Room and board describes an accommodation which, in exchange for money, labour or other recompense, a person is provided with a place to live in addition to meals. It commonly occurs as a fee at higher educational institutions, such as colleges ...

'' for

King Features Syndicate King Features Syndicate, Inc. is an American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product License, licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, columnist, newspape ...

. ''Our Boarding House'' "passed into the hands of a bewildering array of artists and writers" including Bela "Bill" Zaboly at The Comic Strip Project, before Bill Freyse (the father of the American actress

Lynn Borden Lynn Marie Freyse (March 24, 1937 – March 3, 2015) was an American film and television actress. She was known for playing Barbara Baxter in the final season of the American sitcom television series ''Hazel''. Life and career Borden was born ...

) took over the art for ''Our Boarding House'' from 1939 until his death in 1969. Writer Bill Braucher scripted from 1939 to 1958, followed by Tom McCormick on the daily from 1959 on. Freyse's 1960s assistant, Jim Branagan, drew the strip from 1969 to 1971, succeeded then by Les Carroll. The Sunday strip came to an end on March 29, 1981, and the comic continued as a daily feature until December 22, 1984, when Carroll and writer Tom McCormick retired. Others who worked on the strip included writers Wood Cowan in 1946, Tom Peoples on the Sunday strip circa 1968, and Phil Pastoret on the Sunday strip from 1977 on. The finale had Hoople finally striking it rich: a multimillion-dollar project needed a minor patent that he had obtained many years ago. In the last strip, Hoople and Martha embarked upon their new lives of wealth. Ahern once revealed the origin of Major Hoople:

Reprints

There were comic book reprints in Whitman's ''Crackajack Funnies'' and a single issue of

Standard Comics Standard Comics was a comic book imprint of American publisher Ned Pines, who also published pulp magazines (under a variety of company names that he also used for the comics) and paperback books (under the Popular Library name). Standard i ...

' ''Major Hoople Comics'' (1943). In 2005, Leonard G. Lee's Algrove Publishing reprinted Ahern's cartoons in ''Our Boarding House, 1927'' as part of its Classic Reprint Series.

In other media

Radio

The ''Major Hoople'' radio series began on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

Blue Network The Blue Network (previously known as the NBC Blue Network) was the on-air name of a now defunct American Commercial broadcasting, radio network, which broadcast from 1927 through 1945. Beginning as one of the two radio networks owned by the ...

on June 22, 1942. With

Arthur Q. Bryan Arthur Quirk Bryan (May 8, 1899 – November 30, 1959) was an American actor and radio personality. He is best remembered for his longtime recurring role as well-spoken, wisecracking Dr. Gamble on the radio comedy ''Fibber McGee and Molly'' and f ...

in the title role, the 30-minute program aired on Mondays at 4:05 p.m. on the

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

West Coast and 7:05 p.m. on the East Coast. The series was written by Jerry Cady (1903–1948). Patsy Moran had the role of Hoople's wife, Martha. Conrad Binyon and

Frank Bresee Frank Bresee (August 20, 1929 – June 5, 2018) was an American radio actor, radio historian, and board game designer. He hosted the "Golden Days Of Radio" program which began in 1949 and aired on the Armed Forces Radio Network from 1967 to 1995. B ...

portrayed Hoople's "precocious little nephew", Little Alvin.

Mel Blanc Melvin Jerome Blanc (born Blank ; May 30, 1908 – July 10, 1989) was an American voice actor and radio personality whose career spanned over 60 years. During the Golden Age of Radio, he provided character voices and vocal sound effects for come ...

played the star boarder, Tiffany Twiggs. The radio series ended April 26, 1943. No recordings of the ''Major Hoople'' radio program are known to exist. (Coincidentally, Arthur Q. Bryan was the actor who first voiced the role of

Elmer Fudd Elmer J. Fudd is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. ''Looney Tunes''/''Merrie Melodies'' series and the archenemy of Bugs Bunny. Elmer Fudd's aim is to hunt Bugs, but he usually ends up seriously injuring himself and other antag ...

in the Warner Bros. cartoons, opposite Blanc's Bugs Bunny.)

Books

The Saalfield Publishing Company, the maker of Little Big Books, published ''Major Hoople and His Horse'' under the ancillary imprint Jumbo Books (listed as #SS41 1190), in 1940. The 400-page hardcover book was written and drawn by the panel's successor cartoonist Bill Freyse.

Music

In 1975, the

Kitchener, Ontario Kitchener is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario, about west of Toronto. It is one of three cities that make up the Regional Municipality of Waterloo and is the regional Administrative centre, seat. Kitchener was known as Berlin until a ...

, pop band known as

Major Hoople's Boarding House Major Hoople's Boarding House is a Canadian pop band from Galt, Ontario (now Cambridge, Ontario). They have released two albums and several singles, three of which appeared on national charts. History In 1967, Rocky Howell (vocals), Peter Padalin ...

charted a top-30

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

radio hit with the song "I'm Running After You"."Major Hoople's Boarding House"
Borderline Books: "Magic Circus - Major Hoople's Boarding House", via Alextsu.narod.ru.

. Their songs "You Girl" reached #80 in 1976, and "Someone" was #89 in 1980.

Cultural legacy

The first recording of the term "hooplehead" appears in 1980, in Dennis Smith's ''Glitter and Ash'' ("The old man said, 'Speakin' of Maureen, you know she's been acting like a real hooplehead lately, like a kid they let out of Creedmoor sychiatric Centerby mistake.'"). Cited in "Hooplehead", as used by the character

Al Swearengen Ellis Alfred Swearengen (July 8, 1845 – November 15, 1904) was an American pimp and entertainment entrepreneur who ran the Gem Theater, a notorious brothel, in Deadwood, South Dakota, for 22 years during the late 19th century. Personal life Sw ...

on the

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

Old West The American frontier, also known as the Old West, and popularly known as the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that bega ...

television series A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming plat ...

Deadwood Deadwood may refer to: Places Canada * Deadwood, Alberta * Deadwood, British Columbia * Deadwood River, a tributary of the Dease River in northern British Columbia United States * Deadwood, California (disambiguation), several communit ...

'', is an

anachronism An anachronism (from the Greek , 'against' and , 'time') is a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language terms and customs from different time periods. The most common type ...

as it was "probably derive from Major Hoople. One etymologist, without giving citation, said, "The producer and head of the scriptwriting team,

David Milch David Sanford Milch (born March 23, 1945) is an American writer and producer of television series. He has created several television shows, including ABC's ''NYPD Blue'' (1993–2005), co-created with Steven Bochco, and HBO's '' Deadwood'' (200 ...

, has been reported as saying in essence that he picked something out of the air to serve as a suitable insult without great concern for its etymology. It seems he must have heard it somewhere and it came conveniently back to mind while writing the scripts. The name "Martha Hoople" was the basis of the title '' Mott the Hoople'', a novel by

Willard Manus Willard M. Manus (September 28, 1930 – January 19, 2023) was an American novelist, playwright, and journalist based in Los Angeles. His best known book is '' Mott the Hoople'' (1966), the novel from which the British 1970s hard rock band derive ...

, and Manus's novel's title in turn inspired the name of the British rock band Mott The Hoople.

References

External links

June 1997 interview with Frank Bresee who discusses his role on radio's ''Major Hoople''
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061228061855/http://goldenaudio.net/glowingdial/GlowingDialCelebrityInterview-FrankBresee.mp3 , date=28 December 2006
"Your Comic Supplement: ''Our Boarding House'', Gene Ahern"
BarnaclePress.com (sample strips)

ComicStripFan.com (sample 1967 and 1982 strips)

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...

Library Finding Aids: "Abstract: 581 original cartoons from the comic strip ''Our Boarding House'' ... Inclusive Dates: 1966-1967"
"PCL MS-48: Allen and John Saunders Collection: Box 21, Series VIII: Other Professional Work, Subseries A: 'Writing Comics is a Serious Business'"

Bowling Green State University Bowling Green State University (BGSU) is a Public university, public research university in Bowling Green, Ohio, United States. The main academic and residential campus is south of Toledo, Ohio. The university has nationally recognized progr ...