Mutt and Jeff is a long-running and widely popular American newspaper comic strip created by cartoonist Bud Fisher in 1907 about "two mismatched tinhorns".

Mutt and Jeff remained in syndication until 1983, employing the talents of several cartoonists, chiefly Al Smith who drew the strip for nearly fifty years.

Harry Conway "Bud" Fisher was a sports cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle in the early 1900s, a time when a newspaper cartoon was single panel.

The concept of a newspaper strip featuring recurring characters in multiple panels on a six-day-a-week schedule actually had been created by Clare Briggs with A. Piker Clerk four years earlier, but that short-lived effort did not inspire further comics in a comic-strip format.

But tho Fisher was born in Chicago, it's unknown whether or not he ever saw the Briggs strip, so let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say he had an idea.

Despite the Briggs primacy, A. Mutt is considered the first daily strip because it's the one that sparked a trend in that direction, which continues to this day.[2]A.

A 1908 sequence about Mutt's trial featured a parade of thinly-disguised caricatures of specific San Francisco political figures, many of whom were being prosecuted for graft.

On June 7, 1908, the strip moved off the sports pages and into Hearst's San Francisco Examiner where it was syndicated by King Features and became a national hit, subsequently making Fisher the first celebrity of the comics industry.

[5] In 1918, Mutt and Jeff added a Sunday strip and, as success continued, Fisher became increasingly dependent on assistants to produce the work.

Fisher hired Billy Liverpool and Ed Mack, artists Hearst had at one point groomed to take over the strip, who did most of the artwork.

[6][7] Other assistants on the strip included Ken Kling, George Herriman, and Maurice Sendak (while still in high school).

Mutt and Jeff retained Fisher's signature until his death, however, so it wasn't until December 7, 1954, that the strip started being signed by Smith.

"[citation needed] The original inspiration for the character of "Jeff" was Jacques "Jakie" Fehr, a tiny (4 ft 8 in (142 cm)) irascible Swiss-born shopkeeper in the village of Occidental, California.

A recurring theme in the strip has the two characters interacting with celebrities, including sports figures, actors, and politicians.

The Mutt and Jeff serial was extremely popular and after the Nestor Company established a studio in Hollywood, in late October 1911, Christie continued to oversee a weekly production of a one-reel episode.

Radio & Television Packagers, Inc. were the producers of the film, which received a very limited theatrical release, primarily being shown on the 16MM circuit.