Rooney wanted to do it to celebrate his fiftieth anniversary in show biz, and because his father had played Jiggs in several movies. Hugh Wheeler was to write the libretto. Of course, by the eighties, Maggie and Jiggs were no longer the cultural icons they were in the teens and twenties. producer Gus Hill, the king of the cartoon theatricals, snapped up the rights within months of the strip’s debut in 1913. By February 1914, he had a production hitting regional houses. The following two seasons, he had three companies touring, followed by BRINGING UP FATHER IN POLITICS, BRINGING UP FATHER ABROAD, and the most popular one, 1925’s BRINGING UP FATHER IN IRELAND. That one briefly played Broadway.
Laura in LA, who notes the craze for eating corned beef and cabbage on St. Paddy’s Day is the fault of BRINGING UP FATHER’s creator, George McManus, who made it Jiggs’ favorite meal |
