| Irving Phillips | |
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 Irving Phillips as shown inThe Cartoonist Cookbook (1966). | |
| Born | November 29, 1904 Wilton, Wisconsin |
| Died | October 28, 2000 (2000-10-29) (aged 95) Santee, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Area(s) | Cartoonist, playwright, television scriptwriter, film screenwriter, author, illustrator and educator |
Notable works | The Strange World of Mr. Mum (daily comic panel, 1958–1974) Song of the Open Road (1944 film) |
| Awards | International First Prize and Cup of theSalone dell'Umorismo of Bordighera, Italy (1969) |
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Irving Walter Phillips (November 29, 1904 – October 28, 2000) was a noted American cartoonist, playwright, television scriptwriter, author, illustrator and educator. He is best remembered for his daily newspaper comic panelThe Strange World of Mr. Mum.[1]
Born inWilton, Wisconsin, Phillips began his career in show business as a violinist at the age of 17. He also played the saxophone and led his own orchestras. Phillips studied at theChicago Academy of Fine Arts and freelanced cartoons to 36 different magazines during theGreat Depression. He eventually became head of the humor staff forEsquire in the late 1930s.[2]
Phillips scripted for motion pictures, includingSong of the Open Road (1944), which featured the film debut ofJane Powell. Phillips also penned the Powell vehicleDelightfully Dangerous in 1945.[3]
For television, Phillips wrote or co-wrote more than 250 scripts, including a first-season episode ofThe Ruggles (1949), one of the earliest family sitcoms on American television. He scripted plays forMatinee Theater, the afternoonanthology series telecast daily onNBC.[4] Phillips provided scripts and animation art for theAmerican Broadcasting Company children's programCuriosity Shop (1971).
As a cartoonist, he created the comics seriesScuffy, which ran from 1945 to 1951.[5] From 1958 to 1974, Phillips produced his best-known work,The Strange World of Mr. Mum, a pantomime panel which ran in 180 newspapers in 22 countries.[3] It was initially distributed by theHall Syndicate and later by theField Newspaper Syndicate. There was no Sunday edition until 1961. Mr. Mum was a portly, bald and bespectacled character, who—as his name suggests—silently observed various odd, surprising or even surreal scenes. He was sometimes accompanied by his similarly silent dog. Mum was described as a "bystander on life's outer limits," and the feature's anything-can-happen humor is cited as paving the way for such later strips asHerman,The Far Side,Rhymes With Orange andBizarro.[6] With never a word of dialog, the humor of the strip translated well internationally; this was an interesting stylistic choice given Phillips' résumé as a professional screenwriter.
AfterThe Strange World of Mr. Mum ended, Phillips created a few dozen large, full-color paintings based on ideas from the strip. In 1979, he worked briefly on another strip,Barnaby Bungle.
Scripting and cartooning experiences intersected in Phillips's 1955 play calledThe Funnyman. The play features a cartoonist who decides to discontinue a feature calledMr. Rumple, but the Rumple character objects to being canceled. Rumple must persuade his creator to continue his existence. He wrote the book for the Broadway musical,Rumple, concerning a newspaper cartoon character whose creator loses the power to portray him.
Phillips assembled several book collections of his comic panel.Herblock did the introduction forThe Best of Mr. Mum: from The Strange World of Mr. Mum (Putnam, 1965). That book was followed byThe Strange World of Mr. Mum (1967) and the 92-pageNo Comment by Mr. Mum (Popular Library, 1971). He also wrote and illustrated a children's book,Twin Witches of Fingle Fu (1969).[3]
His cartoons and other artwork were shown at theNew York World's Fair in 1964–1965 and at theNational Cartoonist Society. His work was exhibited in solo shows at “Comedy in Art” atArizona State University and at the El Prado Gallery inSedona, Arizona. In 1969, Phillips won the International First Prize and Cup of the Salone dell'Umorismo of Bordighera, Italy.[3] In 2010, a decade after Phillips' death, his paintings and original panels were exhibited atThat's Entertainment inWorcester, Massachusetts in a show calledMr. Mum's the Word: An Exhibit of Comic Art and Haikus. Worcester-area poets presented works based on many of Phillips' paintings.[7]
He taught cartooning and humor writing at Maricopa Tech andPhoenix College inPhoenix, Arizona.[3]Zits creatorsJerry Scott andJim Borgman studied under Phillips.[8]
Irving Phillips died inSantee, California at age 95.[4]
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