Alphonse and Gaston is an American comic strip by Frederick Burr Opper, featuring a bumbling pair of Frenchmen with a penchant for politeness. It first appeared in William Randolph Hearst's newspaper, the New York Journal on September 22, 1901, with the title "Alphonse a la Carte and His Friend Gaston de Table d'Hote". [1] The strip was later distributed by King Features Syndicate. [2]
Their "'After you, Alphonse.', 'No, you first, my dear Gaston!'" routine ran for more than a decade. Alphonse is short and grotesque; Gaston is tall and grotesque. The premise is that both are extremely polite, constantly bowing and deferring to each other. Neither can ever do anything or go anywhere because each insists on letting the other precede him.
Though never a daily or even weekly feature, Alphonse and Gaston appeared on Sundays for several years. In addition to Hearst collections and licensed products, it was adapted into a stage play and several comedy shorts. In 1909, not-yet-famous director D.W. Griffith made a short (two-shot) split reel comedy for the Biograph company, featuring the characters, titled "The French Duel."
A prolific artist and writer, Opper's other creations included Willie, Hans from Hamburg, Our Antediluvian Ancestors, And Her Name Was Maud and Happy Hooligan . The characters would occasionally make guest appearances outside their own strips. On one occasion, And Her Name Was Maud featured an appearance by Alphonse and Gaston aboard a runaway sleigh, each of them bowing to the other in the seat.
The strip faded from public view shortly after Opper's death in 1937, but the catchphrase "After you, my dear Alphonse" persisted. [1]
The phrase "Alphonse-and-Gaston routine", or "Alphonse-Gaston Syndrome", indicates a situation wherein one party refuses to act until another party acts first. From a September 23, 2009, New York Times editorial: "For years, China and the United States have engaged in a dangerous Alphonse-and-Gaston routine, using each other's inaction to shirk their responsibility."
Alphonse and Gaston exchanges have also been employed by sportscasters during baseball broadcasts when two outfielders go after the ball and it falls in for a base hit. [3] Also, the phrase has a specific meaning in baseball lingo: when two fielders allow a catchable ball to drop between them, it is known as "doing the Alphonse and Gaston." [4]
The 1909 short farce-comedy Alphonse and Gaston by Frank Dumont [5] is based around the characters.
The duo inspired the neologism "gastonette," coined by United States Circuit Judge Jon O. Newman in an opinion in In re McLean Industries Inc., 857 F.2d 88 (2d Cir. 1988): "We have no desire to consign the seamen to a jurisdictional limbo while the courts of two countries perform a gastonette, each awaiting a first move by the other." [6]
The comic strip is referenced in Meyer Levin’s non-fiction novel Compulsion. [7]
Alphons is a male given name recorded from the 8th century in the Christian successor states of the Visigothic kingdom in the Iberian peninsula. In the later medieval period it became a standard name in the Hispanic and Portuguese royal families.
Little Nemo is a fictional character created by American cartoonist Winsor McCay. He originated in an early comic strip by McCay, Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, before receiving his own spin-off series, Little Nemo in Slumberland. The full-page weekly strip depicted Nemo having fantastic dreams that were interrupted by his awakening in the final panel. The strip is considered McCay's masterpiece for its experiments with the form of the comics page, its use of color and perspective, its timing and pacing, the size and shape of its panels, and its architectural and other details.
William Randolph Hearst Sr. was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 with Mitchell Trubitt after being given control of The San Francisco Examiner by his wealthy father, Senator George Hearst.
Zenas Winsor McCay was an American cartoonist and animator. He is best known for the comic strip Little Nemo and the animated film Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). For contractual reasons, he worked under the pen name Silas on the comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend.
In the United States, antitrust law is a collection of mostly federal laws that regulate the conduct and organization of businesses in order to promote competition and prevent unjustified monopolies. The three main U.S. antitrust statutes are the Sherman Act of 1890, the Clayton Act of 1914, and the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914. These acts serve three major functions. First, Section 1 of the Sherman Act prohibits price fixing and the operation of cartels, and prohibits other collusive practices that unreasonably restrain trade. Second, Section 7 of the Clayton Act restricts the mergers and acquisitions of organizations that may substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly. Third, Section 2 of the Sherman Act prohibits monopolization.
"Who's on First?" is a comedy routine made famous by American comedy duo Abbott and Costello. The premise of the sketch is that Abbott is identifying the players on a baseball team for Costello. However, the players' names can simultaneously serve as the basis for questions and responses, leading to reciprocal misunderstanding and growing frustration between the performers. Although it is commonly known as "Who's on First?", Abbott and Costello frequently referred to it simply as "Baseball".
Alberto Santos-Dumont, self-stylized as Alberto Santos=Dumont, was a Brazilian aeronaut, sportsman, inventor, and one of the few people to have contributed significantly to the early development of both lighter-than-air and heavier-than-air aircraft. The heir of a wealthy family of coffee producers, he dedicated himself to aeronautical study and experimentation in Paris, where he spent most of his adult life. He designed, built, and flew the first powered airships and won the Deutsch prize in 1901, when he flew around the Eiffel Tower in his airship No. 6, becoming one of the most famous people in the world in the early 20th century.
George Joseph Herriman III was an American cartoonist best known for the comic strip Krazy Kat (1913–1944). More influential than popular, Krazy Kat had an appreciative audience among those in the arts. Gilbert Seldes' article "The Krazy Kat Who Walks by Himself" was the earliest example of a critic from the high arts giving serious attention to a comic strip. The Comics Journal placed the strip first on its list of the greatest comics of the 20th century. Herriman's work has been a primary influence on cartoonists such as Elzie C. Segar, Will Eisner, Charles M. Schulz, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Bill Watterson, and Chris Ware.
Richard Felton Outcault was an American cartoonist. He was the creator of the series The Yellow Kid and Buster Brown and is considered a key pioneer of the modern comic strip.
Alphonse is the French variant of the given name Alfonso. People called Alphonse include:
Frederick Burr Opper was one of the pioneers of American newspaper comic strips, best known for his comic strip Happy Hooligan. His comic characters were featured in magazine gag cartoons, covers, political cartoons and comic strips for six decades.
My Friend Irma is a media franchise that was spawned by a top-rated, long-running radio situation comedy created by writer-director-producer Cy Howard. The radio show was so popular in the late 1940s that its success escalated the films, television, a comic strip and a comic book that comprise the franchise. Marie Wilson portrayed the title character Irma Peterson on radio, in two films and the television series. The radio series was broadcast on CBS from April 11, 1947, to August 23, 1954.
And Her Name Was Maud is a comic strip by Frederick Burr Opper. It first appeared in the Hearst newspapers on July 24, 1904. After work as a magazine cartoonist, Opper was hired by Hearst in 1899 to draw comic strips for the New York Journal, launching Happy Hooligan, Alphonse and Gaston and And Her Name Was Maud.
Gigot is a 1962 American comedy-drama film directed by Gene Kelly and starring Jackie Gleason.
Greenway is a residential neighborhood in Southeast Washington, D.C., in the United States. The neighborhood is bounded by East Capitol Street to the north, Pennsylvania Avenue SE to the south, Interstate 295 to the west, and Minnesota Avenue to the east.
Happy Hooligan is an American comic strip, the first major strip by the already celebrated cartoonist Frederick Burr Opper. It debuted with a Sunday strip on March 11, 1900 in the William Randolph Hearst newspapers, and was one of the first popular comics with King Features Syndicate. The strip ran for three decades, ending on August 14, 1932.
This is a timeline of significant events in comics in the 1900s.
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution creates several constitutional rights, limiting governmental powers focusing on criminal procedures. It was ratified, along with nine other articles, in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights.
Several statutes, mostly codified in Title 18 of the United States Code, provide for federal prosecution of public corruption in the United States. Federal prosecutions of public corruption under the Hobbs Act, the mail and wire fraud statutes, including the honest services fraud provision, the Travel Act, and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) began in the 1970s. "Although none of these statutes was enacted in order to prosecute official corruption, each has been interpreted to provide a means to do so." The federal official bribery and gratuity statute, 18 U.S.C. § 201, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) 15 U.S.C. § 78dd, and the federal program bribery statute, 18 U.S.C. § 666 directly address public corruption.
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