Ziggy

Disambiguation: There are minor characters named Ziggy from LazyTown, Xenosaga, and Quantum Leap. There was also a Big Brother 8 UK housemate nicknamed Ziggy.

Ziggy is a cartoon by Tom Wilson, an American Greetings executive. The character was originally inspired by the comic "Zigfried Schlump" drawn by a college student with the pseudonym "clawmute" at the University of Akron, in Ohio. Craig Yoe (currently comic artist for Big Boy Restaurant), an employee of American Greetings at that time, collected some of these and showed them to Tom Wilson, who was inspired to recast the character as Ziggy.

Ziggy is a small, bald, pantless, almost featureless character (save for his large nose) who seems to have no job, hobbies, or romantic partner, just a menagerie of pets: Fuzz, a small white dog; Sid, a cat afraid of mice; Josh, a discouraging parrot; Goldie, a fish; and Wack, a duck. The appeal of the cast is juxtaposed with the endless stream of misfortunes which befall Ziggy.

Ziggy first appeared in the 1969 collection When You're Not Around, published by American Greetings. The newspaper strip began in June 1971. In 1987 the strip was taken over by Tom Wilson II.

The animated 1982 Christmas television special Ziggy's Gift, which contained the Harry Nilsson song "Give, Love, Joy", won an Emmy Award.

Recurring themes

There are a few recurring themes in Ziggy, most of them involving Ziggy in an unpleasant situation. Here are a few:

• Ziggy is often shown sharing his problems to a doctor. It is always the same person, a skinny man with a beard. Ziggy is often shown sharing his life story, of which the doctor becomes bored and often falls asleep or, in one comic, starts to clip his toenails. Ziggy also talks about how he thinks he is a comic strip character, to which the doctor always reassures him that he is a real person. Sometimes, a hand is shown drawing Ziggy when he complains about not really existing.

• He also is sometimes shown eating at "Mom's Diner", a stereotypical diner. Often, the owner of the place, "Mom", treats Ziggy like a mother would treat her young child, by cutting up his food, telling him to eat his veggies, or telling him to wear a coat outside.

• Trying to get a snowman shipped to Alaska or the North Pole, Ziggy feels sorry that snowmen have to "die" and sometimes keeps one in his freezer during the summer.

• Ziggy is often seen watching the news

• One smaller recurring theme is Ziggy on his rotary phone while someone insults him for not having a touchtone phone. (One example is the person on the other end saying "If you are not using a touchtone phone, get with it, man!")

• Ziggy is routinely visited by aliens interested in buying earth.

In Popular Culture

• Ziggy is also mentioned in an episode of Seinfeld Elaine writes a comic for the New Yorker that turns out to be a rip off of a Ziggy.

• In a 2005 survey of newspaper readers in San Fancisco, Ziggy was voted "Least Humorous" among syndicated comic strips. ^[1]

• In the Simpsons episode The Last Temptation of Homer, Homer Simpson says that he thinks that "Ziggy has gotten too preachy."

References

External links

• Ziggy at GoComics
• Toonopedia
• The ZiGGY Collectibles Museum
• Ziggy
• Ziggy's Gift

Donate to Wikimedia