Dingbat (disambiguation)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  • A dingbat is an ornament or spacer used in typesetting, sometimes more formally known as a "printer's ornament"
  • Dingbat is also a slang term, used to describe someone who has a silly, foolish, or clownish demeanor. It was a favorite insult of the fictional character Archie Bunker in the 1970s television show All In The Family (particularly when addressing his wife, Edith).
  • Cartoonist George Herriman had a newspaper comic strip called "The Dingbat Family", as it was originally of a small size so that printers could use it to fill space on the comics page like a dingbat. "The Dingbat Family" was an ancestor of Herriman's most famous creation, "Krazy Kat". The comic strip may have influenced the slang usage of the term "dingbat" as given above.
  • The Dingbats of Danger Street were a DC Comics kids' team created by Jack Kirby.
  • There is a board game called Dingbats, in which players must solve rebuses. Following its release, rebuses in this style enjoyed a revival of interest in the UK and the word dingbat was used to describe them. Their popularity peaked in the 1980s, but they still appear in national newspaper's puzzle sections.
  • Dingbat (building) also refers to a building on stilts with room for parking underneath, a style of architecture common to post-war development in Los Angeles.
  • In South Africa (at least), a Dingbat was a popular toy in the 1970s. It was made up of a hard plastic bat connected to a ball with an elastic string.