Literature / Jiggy Mccue

"One for all and all for lunch!"

— The Musketeers' Catchphrase

The Jiggy McCue series, by Michael Lawrence, is a series of children's books that center around a young preteen (later teenage) boy named Jiggy McCue and the unlucky, often fantastical situations that he finds himself in.

There are 14 (13 in the relaunch which took out The Curse of the Poltergoose) books in the series:

• The Curse of the Poltergoose (1999)
• The Killer Underpants (2000)
• Toilet of Doom (2001)
• Maggot Pie / The Meanest Genie (2002)
• The Snottle (2003)
• Nudie Dudie (2004)
• Neville the Devil (2005)
• Ryan's Brain (2006)
• The Iron, the Switch and the Broom Cupboard (2007)
• Kid Swap (2008)
• One for All and All for Lunch! (2009)
• Rudie Dudie (2010)
• Evilution: The Troof (World Book Day 2011)
• Murder & Chips (2012)

The series contains examples of:

• Abhorrent Admirer: Much to Jiggy's chagrin, Eejit constantly asks to join the Musketeers. He also has a crush on Angie in The Toilet Of Doom.
• All Men Are Perverts: Angie lampshades this whenever she catches Pete and Jiggy looking at something suggestive.
• Book Dumb:
  • Pete is not the brightest lamp in the shop.
  • Eejit, hence the nickname.
  Jiggy: You'll have to apply in writing.
  Eejit: Writin'?
  Jiggy: Block capitals'll do.
  • Jiggy's dad has shades of this.
  Mel: When I was a kid I knew nothing.
  Peg: And he's proud of it!
• Big Brother Instinct: Inverted. Bryan Ryan saved his little brother Russell from electrocution when they were younger. In return, Russell protects Bryan with his psychic abilities.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Jiggy's narration is hilariously witty but he can't really be bothered with school most of the time. He's also quite good at drawing but doesn't really work on it, he just does it for fun.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • Jiggy does this constantly, often on purpose.
  Miss Prince: Take a seat.
  Jiggy: Where?
  Miss Prince: What?
  Jiggy: Where would you like me to take it?
  Miss Prince: Just sit!
  • In Ryan's Brain, the class try to distract Mr Bakelite by asking about his hobbies. He says he enjoys bell-ringing (as in ringing bells in a church) to which someone replies that Eejit Atkins does that too. Turns out what Eejit actually does is the game where you ring people's doorbells and run away.
• Control Freak: Peg, Jiggy's mum. Jiggy's dad thinks she has OCD.
• Creepy Child: Russell Ryan, younger brother of Jiggy's Sitcom Arch-Nemesis Bryan Ryan.
• Embarrassing Nickname: "Face-Ache" Dakin the Maths teacher and "Eejit"^note a dialect form of "idiot" Atkins.
• Footnote Fever: A defining feature of the series.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: The Toilet of Doom is about a computer program that Jiggy uses which causes him and Angie to swap bodies.
• Funetik Aksent: Eejit's Cockney-esque Simpleton Voice is written this way.
• The Good Old British Comp: Ranting Lane, Jiggy's school.
• In-Series Nickname: Jiggy loves to nickname people he knows, such as "Sugar Ricicle" for Mr Rice and "The Mint" for Angie.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Played with. Sometimes it seems Jiggy's aware he's a book character, and other times he's not.
• Limited Wardrobe: Mr Rice always wears a red tracksuit. Jiggy wonders whether it's always the same one or if he's got a wardrobe full of identical ones.
• Living Clothes: The Killer Underpants is about Jiggy receiving a tacky, talking pair of underpants that control whoever's wearing them.
• Naked People Are Funny: Basically the entire premise of Nudie Dudie.
• Nervous Tics: When Jiggy is nervous, upset, or agitated, his feet dance and his arms flap, hence his nickname.
• One of the Boys: Angie, to the point she says it's a shame she was born a girl.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Jiggy's real name is Joseph, but everyone calls him Jiggy. Similarly, Eejit's real name is Ralph, but everyone except from his mother calls him Eejit.
• Punny Name:
  • Mr Bakelite the "Fodder Technology"^note Cookery teacher.
  • There's also Mr Dent, who teaches woodwork and metalwork.
  • Jiggy's classmate Neil Downey^note kneel down.
• Practically Different Generations: At the end of The Iron, The Switch and the Broom Cupboard, the teenage Jiggy's parents announce they're expecting a new baby.
• Protagonist Title: The entire series is called the Jiggy McCue series, and every book cover has 'A Jiggy McCue story' on it.
• Red Herring: In Maggot Pie, all the signs point to Mr Dent being a genie, but it actually turns out to be sickly-looking Science teacher Mr Flowerdew.
• Sadist Teacher: Mr Hurley (History) and Mr Rice (PE).
• Shout-Out: The cult classic DVD the Musketeers watch in Ryan's Brain is not named, but we can deduce from the plot description that it's The Wicker Man (1973). In the same book, Jiggy finds an old drawing he did of a character from "a kiddie programme about firemen".
• Toilet Humour: As much as you can expect from a book series aimed at young boys.
• Too Dumb to Live: Eejit. When Jiggy has to headbutt the goalpost and injure himself in Ryan's Brain, Eejit ends up in hospital too. He didn't move out of the way like Jiggy told him to because he thought he was joking about that part.
• Two Guys and a Girl: The main characters consist of Jiggy, the protagonist, and his two best friends, Pete and Angie. They call themselves the Three Musketeers.
• Unfortunate Name: When naming their house, Jiggy wrote down several joke names and unfortunately one of his ideas was chosen. Thus, 'The Dorks'.