I'm doing some research on Foxy Grandpa. Things like where the cartoon ran and for how long. What newspaper first published it, and who were the main characters? Did the two bad boys have names? Thanks for any help.

"Foxy Grandpa" by Charles Edward "Bunny" Schultze (not to be confused with "Peanuts" creator Charles Monroe Schulz) started on Jan. 7, 1900 in the New York Herald. It was so popular in its first year, a musical comedy based on it was written and produced. Two years later, it moved to the New York American. The New York Press picked it up around 1910, where it ran until it ended in 1918.
The main characters were Grandpa and the two boys (who, oddly, were sometimes referred to as his nephews). None of them were ever given names.
Schultze brought Grandpa back in 1923, as the narrator of a series of animal stories for children, called "Foxy Grandpa's Stories." This strip (actually, more of a cartoon panel) appeared sporadically for about four or five years.

Thanks so much for the information. I read somewhere that the two boys were his grandsons, but it sounds like they were just two nameless boys. Do you know the name of the musical comedy? I came across some information about two Vaudeville shows. Did the Foxy Grandpa story books include the two boys or was it just animals? I never heard about Foxy Grandpa until recently. How do you know so much about it? It's fascinating to find out this. I wonder if my 92-year-old father-in-law remembers it.

My information came from two books: "The Encyclopedia of American Comics" by Ron Goulart, and "The World Encyclopedia of Comics" by Maurice Horn. Neither of them mentions the name of the musical, and both say that the boys never had names. Both books say that the strip was inspired by the "Katzenjammer Kids." However, while the Katzies' pranks drove the adults around them crazy, the old timer always outfoxed the mischievous boys in "Foxy Grandpa".
Since the name of the strip was "Foxy Grandpa," one would assume that the boys were his grandsons. However, the strip occasionally referred to them as his nephews.
Also, "Foxy Grandpa's Stories" was another comic panel by Bunny Schultze. As far as I know, it only appeared in newspapers, and was never published in book form. From what I read, I don't think the boys ever appeared in it.

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© 2003 Robert A. Buethe