Syndicated internationally by King Features Syndicate, "Bringing Up Father" achieved great success and was produced by McManus from 1913 until his death, when Vernon Greene and Frank Fletcher replaced him. McManus was inspired by "The Rising Generation", a musical comedy by William Gill that he had seen as a boy in St. Louis, Missouri's Grand Opera House, where his father was manager. In "The Rising Generation", Irish-American bricklayer Martin McShayne (played by the fat Irish comedian Billy Barry in the stage production McManus saw) becomes a wealthy contractor, yet his society-minded wife and daughter were ashamed of him and his buddies, prompting McShayne to sneak out to join his pals for poker. McManus knew Barry and used him as the basis for his drawings of Jiggs. Two years before his death, McManus said that "Bringing Up Father" had earned him $12,000,000 during his lifetime.