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.
The Katzenjammer Kids is an American comic strip created by Rudolph Dirks in 1897 and later drawn by Harold Knerr for 35 years. It debuted on December 12, 1897, in the American Humorist, the Sunday supplement of William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal. The comic strip was turned into a stage play in 1903. It inspired several animated cartoons and was one of 20 strips included in the Comic Strip Classics series of U.S. commemorative postage stamps.
"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".
Ribaldry or blue comedy is humorous entertainment that ranges from bordering on indelicacy to indecency. Blue comedy is also referred to as "bawdiness" or being "bawdy". Like any humour, ribaldry may be read as conventional or subversive. Ribaldry typically depends on a shared background of sexual conventions and values, and its comedy generally depends on seeing those conventions broken.
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:
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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.
King Features Syndicate, Inc. is an American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles, and games to nearly 5,000 newspapers worldwide. King Features Syndicate also produces intellectual properties, develops new content and franchises, like The Cuphead Show!, which it produced with Netflix, and licenses its classic characters and properties.
Harry Hershfield was an American cartoonist, humor writer and radio personality. He was known as "the Jewish Will Rogers". Hershfield also was a columnist for the New York Daily Mirror. His books include Laugh Louder, Live Longer and Now I'll Tell One. As a comics artist he is best remembered for his newspaper comic Abie the Agent.
Notable events of 1937 in comics.
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.
United States v. One Book Called Ulysses, 5 F. Supp. 182, is a landmark decision by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in a case dealing with freedom of expression. At issue was whether James Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses was obscene. In deciding it was not, Judge John M. Woolsey opened the door to importation and publication of serious works of literature that used coarse language or involved sexual subjects.
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.
Tax protesters in the United States advance a number of constitutional arguments asserting that the imposition, assessment and collection of the federal income tax violates the United States Constitution. These kinds of arguments, though related to, are distinguished from statutory and administrative arguments, which presuppose the constitutionality of the income tax, as well as from general conspiracy arguments, which are based upon the proposition that the three branches of the federal government are involved together in a deliberate, on-going campaign of deception for the purpose of defrauding individuals or entities of their wealth or profits. Although constitutional challenges to U.S. tax laws are frequently directed towards the validity and effect of the Sixteenth Amendment, assertions that the income tax violates various other provisions of the Constitution have been made as well.
Thomas Starling Sullivant was an American cartoonist who signed his work T. S. Sullivant. His work appeared most frequently in the pages of the humorous Life magazine. Best known for his animal and ethnic caricatures, he also drew political cartoons and comic strip toppers, and illustrated children's books. He drew in a heavily cross-hatched pen-and-ink style, with humans and animals depicted with greatly exaggerated features that are nevertheless firmly rooted in his understanding of correct anatomy.
The Hearst-Vitagraph News Pictorial or Hearst-Vita graph was a short-lived company producing newsreels which were coupled with animated cartoons. It was established on 29 October 1915 by the Brooklyn-based Vitagraph Studios and the Hearst Corporation, and produced its first reel in February 1916, but folded in 1916. Previously, Hearst had produced newsreels together with the Selig Polyscope Company from 1914 on, and after the deal with Vitagraph ended Hearst teamed up with Pathé.
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