Jerry on the Job


Jerry on the Job was a comic strip by cartoonist Walter Hoban which was set in a railroad station. Syndicated by William Randolph Hearst's International Feature Service, it ran from 1913 into the 1930s.

Origins

When Hoban was given only a weekend to devise a comic strip, he created Jerry on the Job, about pint-size Jerry Flannigan, initially employed as an office boy and then in a variety of other jobs. The strip was launched on December 29, 1913. Comics historian Don Markstein described Hoban's character and work situations:

Sunday strip

The Jerry on the Job Sunday page began in 1919, but on October 19, 1930 it became a topper strip above another Hoban feature, Rainbow Duffy. The daily strip came to an end in 1931, as did Rainbow Duffy and the Sunday strip.
Hoban died in 1939, but his former assistant, Bob Naylor, revived Jerry on the Job as a syndicated strip for King Features, starting on Oct. 21, 1946. However, Naylor's revival was not as successful as Hoban's original strip, and the strip was canceled in 1949.

Animation

From 1916 to 1920, Jerry on the Job was adapted by Bray Studios into a series of animated films, including The Mad Locomotive, Cheating the Piper, A Thrilling Drill, Swinging His Vacation and Without Coal. The animator was Walter Lantz, who recalled, "I animated one 250- foot Jerry on the Job every two weeks."

Cultural legacy

Hoban's work was a strong influence on cartoonist Merrill Blosser and his comic strip Freckles and His Friends, which ran from 1915 to 1971.
During the late 1930s, Hoban's character was used to advertise Post Grape-Nut Flakes. The ads ran on newspaper comic pages and in Woman's Day.