I'm slightly familiar with this through Frederick L. Schodt's Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics, a great book that even though it's over 20 years old is well worth a place on your bookshelves. The book makes mention of this series by Fujio Akatsuka, a man considered to be “king of the gag manga”. He also created #93 on the list Himitsu no Akko-chan. Since writing that entry I've discovered that the manga that show was based on actually predates Sally the Witch, so is the first Magical Girl character.
Schodt attributes his popularity and success to his appeal across the ages, his gag strips containing slapstick, wordplay and social satire. What I have seen of his manga art is very appealling, with a dynamic cartooning style. The overall impression I get from reading around, is that the dude is of incredible cultural importance in Japan, but overlooked in the West.
There are, as far as I can tell 3 Tensai Bakabon series. Two from the seventies and another in the nineties. “The Genius Idiot” is how Schodt translates the title. A good English language resource on the series is Tensai Bakabon World. And Metropolis has a good English language profile on Akatsuka.