"Born forty-seven years ago [i.e., in 1890] in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, Andy Wheat acquired his unusual physiognomy as the result of an infection following the extraction of a tooth, which eventually necessitated the removal of his entire lower jaw.

"[1] The Gumps were utterly ordinary: chinless, bombastic blowhard Andy Gump (short for Andrew), who is henpecked by his wife, Min (short for Minerva); their sons Chester and baby Goliath (plus an unnamed daughter in college and an unnamed son in the Navy); wealthy Uncle Bim; and their annoying maid Tilda.

The idea was envisioned by Joseph Patterson, editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune, who was important in the early histories of Little Orphan Annie and other long-run comic strips.

Smith was the first cartoonist to kill off a regular character: His May 1929 storyline about the death of Mary Gold caused a national sensation.

[2] The Sunday page also included several toppers over the course of the run: Old Doc Yak (Dec 7, 1930 – Feb 25, 1934), Cousin Juniper (Jan 2, 1944–1955) and Grandpa Noah (1955).

The Gumps had a key role in the rise of syndication when Robert R. McCormick and Patterson, who had both been publishing the Chicago Tribune since 1914, planned to launch a tabloid in New York, as comics historian Coulton Waugh explained: "So originated on June 16, 1919, the Illustrated Daily News, a title which, as too English, was almost at once clipped to Daily News.

In 1929, when Smith killed off Mary Gold, she was the first major comic strip character to die, and the Chicago Tribune had to hire extra staff to deal with the constant phone calls and letters from stunned readers.

The strip and its merchandising (toys, games, a popular song, playing cards, food products) made Smith a wealthy man.

The Gumps first aired on WGN in 1931, then moved to CBS Radio for a four-year run (1934–1937), produced and directed by Himan Brown with scripts by Irwin Shaw.

In 1935, Wilmer Walter played Andy Gump with Agnes Moorehead portraying Min during the last two years of the series when Lester Jay and Jackie Kelk were heard as Chester.

[7] Herb Galewitz assembled a selective compilation of the comic strips for the book, Sidney Smith's The Gumps, published in 1974 by Charles Scribner's Sons.

The surgical removal of the mandible can result in a dysmorphism referred to as the Andy Gump deformity due to his character design apparently lacking a jaw.