Our Boarding House is an American single-panel cartoon and comic strip created by Gene Ahern on October 3, 1921 and syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association.

[citation needed] Ahern initially used his own experiences as a boarder while a Chicago, Illinois, art student as grist for his comic mill, and featured the picaresque peccadilloes and bickering of its residents, presided over by the no-nonsense Martha Hoople.

[2] Our Boarding House began September 16, 1921,[3] scoring success with readers after the January 1922 arrival of the fustian, blustery Major Amos B. Hoople, Martha's husband, who'd returned after some long sojourn.

"A retired military man of dubious achievement like Shakespeare's [comic figure], he boasted of soldierly exploits that were perhaps not all invented, and his buffoonery sometimes concealed real pathos.

The next week, Ahern's The Nut Bros began, featuring loony siblings Ches and Wal in pun-filled, vaudevillian bits of business.

[1] For some of The Nut Bros' run, there was an extra panel filled by a series of different titles running in tandem, including: Comic Scrap Book (1932), Silly Snapshots (1932–1933), One in a Million (1934–1945), Mister Blotto (1935–1946), Major Hoople - Jobs I Would Like (1936–1937), Rummy Riddles (1936–1937), Brainwavy (1938–1939), Honks from Otto Auto (1938–1939), Postcard Pests (1938–1940s), Screwy Scenarios (1943), Looney Letters (1943–1944) and Scientific Corner (1946).

The Sunday strip came to an end on March 29, 1981, and the comic continued as a daily feature until December 22, 1984, when Carroll and writer Tom McCormick retired.

[3] (Coincidentally, Arthur Q. Bryan was the actor who first voiced the role of Elmer Fudd in the Warner Bros. cartoons, opposite Blanc's Bugs Bunny.)

[9] In 1975, the Kitchener, Ontario, pop band known as Major Hoople's Boarding House charted a top-30 Canadian radio hit with the song "I'm Running After You".

One etymologist, without giving citation, said, "The producer and head of the scriptwriting team, David Milch, has been reported as saying in essence that he picked something out of the air to serve as a suitable insult without great concern for its etymology.