Katzenjammer Kids is celebrating 110 years of syndication and still holds the record of the longest running comic strip ever. It first saw print in 1897 on December 12th. It is still being published by King Features, not much jubilee to ceremonialize the event at their end. Long gone is the luster of the strip, but it had a lasting impression on many cartoonists who began their strips after Katzenjammer Kids started to fade into public obscurity. It’s more now as a token series of an attitude and lifestyle long gone. Katzenjammer Kids will always be the forefather of Peanuts, Pogo, and countless other strips that followed it.
Rudolph Dirks created The Katzenjammer Kids in 1897 for the American Humorist, the famed Sunday supplement of the New York Journal. Inspired in part by Max Und Moritz, the famous German children’s stories of the 1860s, The Katzenjammer Kids featured the adventures of Hans and Fritz, twins and fellow warriors in the battle against any form of authority. “The Katzies” rebelled against Mama (their own mother, of course), der Captain (the shipwrecked sailor who acted as their surrogate father) and der Inspector (dreaded representative of the school authorities).The oldest comic strip still in syndication, The Katzenjammer Kids was adapted to the stage in 1903 and inspired countless animated cartoons. Today the feature is drawn by Hy Eisman. The U.S. Postal Service also saluted the Katzies with a commemorative stamp.
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