Ziggy
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- Disambiguation: There are minor characters named Ziggy from LazyTown, Xenosaga, and Quantum Leap.
Ziggy is a daily single panel cartoon created by Tom Wilson, an American Greetings executive.
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 1968 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.
[edit] Cultural references
- A Ziggy cartoon that is unintentionally plagiarized by Elaine is a key plot device in "The Cartoon", a 1998 episode of the American sitcom Seinfeld.
- In the Simpsons episode "Brush with Greatness", Mr. Burns's assistant Smithers describes to Burns a Ziggy cartoon by saying "So Ziggy goes to the repair shop, there's a sign on the doorbell reading 'out of order'." Burns laughs appreciatively and asks "Ah, Ziggy. Will you ever win?"
- In another Simpsons episode, "Homer's Triple Bypass", Ned Flanders prays in a hospital bed: "Dear God, thank you for Ziggy comics, little baby ducks and Sweating to the Oldies volumes One, Two and Four."
- In yet another Simpsons episode, "The Last Temptation of Homer", Homer, upon realising the many things he and co-worker Mindy have in common, comments to himself: "I'll bet she thinks Ziggy's gotten too preachy too."
- In the comic strip Jump Start, Joe's dad was musing over his baldness in one strip. After contemplating shaving the rest of his hair off and his mustache, decided not to after realizing he'd look like a black Ziggy.
- In the "Shaggy Busted" episode of the animated series, Harvey Birdman, Harvey refers to Ziggy as heartwarming, yet rarely amusing when talking about the 1970's.
- In John Q, before Denzel Washington's character goes to kill himself, he says, "See you in the funny papers."
[edit] Trivia
- One strip had Ziggy mistaken for Charlie Brown by a group of people who stopped to admire him.
- Although he is often shown speaking in the comic strips, in Ziggy's Gift, he does not speak at all.
- The Tom Wilson who draws the Ziggy comics is often mistaken for comedian Thomas F. Wilson, who played Biff Tannen in the Back to the Future Trilogy.
