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Comic strip

The Family unit Circus
An early on strip featuring (L to R) Daddy (Bil), Dolly, Baton, Mommy (Thel), and Jeffy. A quaternary child, P.J., was introduced in 1962.
Writer(due south)	Bil Keane Jeff Keane
Electric current status/schedule	Running
Launch engagement	February 29, 1960
Alternate name(southward)	The Family Circle Family-Go-Circular
Syndicate(s)	(Electric current) King Features Syndicate (Previous) Register and Tribune Syndicate (1960–1986)
Genre(south)	Humor, gag drawing, family values, religious
Preceded past	Silly Philly

The Family Circus (originally The Family Circle , likewise Family unit-Go-Round ) is a syndicated comic strip created by cartoonist Bil Keane and, since Bil's decease in 2011, is currently written, inked, and rendered (colored) by his son, Jeff Keane. The strip mostly uses a single captioned panel with a round border, hence the original name of the serial, which was changed following objections from the magazine Family unit Circle. The series debuted on February 29, 1960, and has been in continuous production always since. According to publisher Rex Features Syndicate, it is the virtually widely syndicated cartoon panel in the earth, appearing in 1,500 newspapers.^[1] Compilations of Family Circus comic strips have sold over thirteen million copies worldwide.

Characters [edit]

Family [edit]

The central characters of Family Circus are a family whose surname is rarely mentioned (although the cartoon of Baronial 26, 2013, in which Billy refers to "Grandma Keane" and "Grandma Carne" indicates the same surnames equally the author's family). The parents, Bil and Thelma (Thel), are modeled after the author and his wife, Thelma Carne Keane.^{[ii] [3] [four]} Their iv children, Billy, Dolly, Jeffy, and P.J., are fictionalized composites of the Keanes' five children. With the exception of P.J., no characters have aged appreciably during the run of the strip.

Bil (named Steve in the early on years of the strip) works in an office, and he is believed to exist a cartoonist, most probable based on the writer of the strip because he draws big circles on paper, presumably a cartoon version of the Family Circus. Some early panels referred to Bil equally a veteran of World State of war 2.

Thel is a college-educated homemaker. The Los Angeles Times ran a feature article on the Thelma graphic symbol when Keane updated her hairstyle in 1996.^[5]

The eldest child is 7-year-onetime Billy. A recurring theme involves Billy every bit a substitute cartoonist, generally filling in for a Dominicus strip. The strips purportedly drawn past Billy are crudely rendered and reflect his agreement of the world and sense of sense of humor. The showtime use of this gag by Keane was in This Week mag in 1962 in a cartoon titled "Life in Our House" which attributed the kittenish drawings to his 6-year-old son, Chris.^[6] Keane also modeled Billy after his eldest son Glen, now a prominent Disney animator.

The graphic symbol of v-year-one-time Dolly was modeled after Keane's daughter and eldest kid, Gayle.^[vii] Dolly was a nickname that Thelma Keane called little girls.^[7]

The character of 3-year-one-time Jeffy was named and modeled afterward Keane'south youngest child, Jeff.^[7]

The comic family unit's youngest child P.J. (Peter John) was introduced into the strip through a series of cartoons about the Family Circus Mommy'south pregnancy, which culminated in the baby'southward birth on August one, 1962.^[viii] P.J. grows to exist virtually 1 twelvemonth old, and rarely speaks.

Extended family [edit]

Bil's female parent (Florence, but usually chosen Grandma) appears regularly in the strip and plainly lives well-nigh the family. Bil's father (Al, chosen Granddad by the kids and Bil) is expressionless but occasionally appears in the strip as a spirit or watching from up in heaven. Bil's father (as a spirit) plays a prominent role in the TV special A Family unit Circus Christmas. Al died afterward the launch of the characteristic. However, on November 25, 2012, reference is fabricated to his having died before Jeffy was born even though the character Al was featured in strips prior to his Granddad's death.

Thel's parents are both live but plain alive several hundred miles away in a rural area. Strips in the past accept mentioned them living in Iowa, but one 2007 strip mentioned Florida. The family unit occasionally visits them for vacation.

Pets [edit]

The family pets are two dogs—a Labrador named Barfy and a shaggy-haired mutt named Sam, a stray the children brought home on Jan 26, 1970—and an orange tabby cat named Kittycat.

Other characters [edit]

• Morrie is a playmate of Billy, and the simply recurring black grapheme in the strip. Keane created the graphic symbol in 1967 as a tribute to his close friend Morrie Turner, creator of Wee Pals.^[nine]
• Mr. Horton is Bil's boss.

Location [edit]

The Family Circus takes place in Scottsdale, Arizona. They often visit a popular ice foam parlor named the Carbohydrate Bowl (based on the actual same-named eatery which features many strips signed by Keane), and Jeffy once went to St. Joseph's Infirmary for a tonsillectomy. Thel was seen playing lawn tennis with a racket marked "Scottsdale Racket", and Bil mentioned moving upwardly to B class at Scottsdale Racket Club in a 1984 strip. Also, a sign for Paradise Valley, where Bil Keane lived the latter part of his life, is seen in one 1976 strip. Sometimes the family is depicted enjoying snow at their dwelling in the strip, whereas Scottsdale gets very picayune snow in the wintertime. Bil Keane commented that he took aspects of his boyhood in Pennsylvania, such as snow, and added them to the strip.

Themes [edit]

Religion [edit]

Ane distinguishing characteristic of the Family Circus is the frequent use of Christian imagery and themes, ranging from generic references to God to Jeffy heedless about Jesus at the grocery store. Keane states that the religious content reflects his own upbringing and family traditions.^[10] Keane was Roman Cosmic, and in past cartoons the children have been shown attending Catholic schools with sisters every bit teachers and attending Catholic church services, much as Keane did in his babyhood years at St. William Parish in Philadelphia. Keane was a frequent contributor to his loftier schoolhouse newspaper, The Good News, at Northeast Catholic High Schoolhouse for Boys in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he graduated in 1940.^[11] Some of his comics with scenes in Billy'due south bedroom depict an NC pennant hanging on the wall, a tribute to his alma mater and his Catholic education.

Billy the Substitute Cartoonist [edit]

Sometimes Keane's strips would have crude drawings purportedly done by "Baton, Age 7". Some of "Billy's" drawings would exist explaining vocabulary, merely he does not understand the right give-and-take, such as confusing "hysterical" with "historical" or defining "acquire" equally "a group of singers in church". Oftentimes the "Baton" drawings would show a more detailed cartoon of Keane's, such as Billy crying over losing a game to his father, then the next strip maxim "This is what really happened, by Billy", showing the rough drawing of Billy winning and an annoyed Bil Keane storming off saying "No more games, I gotta depict Sunday'south cartoon!" One series of strip for the dailies in 1990 had the father off on a business trip, whereas "Billy" explains a multitude of kittenish reasons for his absence, such as alien abduction or being broiled into a witch's pie. The story arc ended with a Keane drawing showing the begetter back home and the kids asking about such preposterous happenings, to the dad's la-la-land.

Dotted lines [edit]

One of the best-known features of Keane'due south work is the dotted line comics, showing the characters' paths through the neighborhood or business firm with a thick dotted line. The primeval appearance of the dotted line was on April 8, 1962 (an united nations-dotted path had first appeared on February 25). This concept has been parodied past other comic strips, including Pearls Before Swine, For Improve or For Worse, FoxTrot, Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield, Liō, Marvin, and xkcd. In an interview, Jeff Keane, who now produces the strip, described how he creates the line: by drawing one continuous blackness line and then breaking it into segments with white.^[12] The dotted line has taken on dissimilar formats, such every bit when the family took a vacation to San Francisco and showed them in a dotted line down the famous Lombard Street ("the crookedest street in the earth"), or Jeffy and his grandfather taking a walk in the park, where Jeffy is shown running around pell-mell marked by a squiqqly dotted line, as opposed to a long rigid dotted line marker his gramps's, who stayed on the path. Other strips would show the dotted line with captions, such as when Billy used the restroom when the family was at a pancake house, with captions of Baton's lingering ("helps busboy pick upward pieces of cleaved plate", "finds quarter in payphone", "uses quarter to play at an arcade chiffonier").

Gremlins [edit]

In Apr 1975, Keane introduced an invisible gremlin named "Non Me", who watches while the children try to shift arraign for a criminality by saying, "Not me." Additional gremlins named "Ida Know" (in September 1975), "Nobody," "O. Yeah!," and "Just B. Crusade" were introduced in later years. Although it is clear that the parents do not accept the existence of the gremlins, they did include them every bit members of the family, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, when existence interviewed past a member of the U.S. Census Bureau. Some other time when Thel was sick of hearing well-nigh the gremlins from the kids ("Who's been rummaging in Gramma's purse?" "Not me!"), she asked her mother-in-police if she ever dealt with such absurdity, causing Florence to remark, "Well, I'grand sure that he has been effectually at least since I was a little girl," in which there is a flashback to Florence's childhood with her father demanding to know, "Who scratched my new Glenn Miller record?," with little Florence firmly stating, "Not me!", and the "Not Me" entity smugly standing by.

Grown children [edit]

I theme Keane tried from fourth dimension to fourth dimension was picturing the children equally adults, or what might come of it. Ane time when Billy had been asked past Thelma non to exit the firm until he finished his homework, she told him, "One day when you lot are grown up you volition thank me for this!," causing Billy to imagine the applesauce of himself as a full grown man paying a visit to his elderly mother only to thank her for telling him that as a child. Other developed ideas included the parents telling Jeffy not to be shy when they invited friends over, and and then he is pictured 25 years later as an outgoing tardily dark talk prove host akin to Jay Leno. Another example was P.J. non wishing to exist introduced to the toddler daughter of family friends, simply to prove 30 years later that both are now grown and are celebrating their wedding ceremony day. Yet another had Thel telling Billy she cannot make clean up later on him his whole life, and so imagining a total-grown Baton as a businessman running a chain of "High Lid Hotels", and an aged, weary Thel working every bit one of the maids.

Family car [edit]

For the start 25 years, the family unit machine was a station wagon, first based on Keane'southward own 1961 Buick.^[13] In 1985, a year after the introduction of the Plymouth Voyager and the Dodge Caravan, the family appears in a series of cartoons trading in the station wagon for a new minivan (when the salesman assures Mom and Dad that "Lee Iacocca stands behind every vehicle we sell," the children scuttle around and look backside the van to come across if Mr. Iacocca is dorsum at that place). The family's minivan resembles Dodge/Plymouth twins and includes the Chrysler corporate pentastar logo on its hood. The children relish showing off the new van to their friends: "And information technology has a sliding door, like an elevator." Early on strips also showed the family in a small convertible, a extravaganza based on Keane's Sunbeam Rapier.^[xiii]

Format [edit]

Daily strip [edit]

The daily strip consists of a unmarried captioned panel with a round border. The panel is occasionally split in two halves. One unusual practise in the series is the occasional use of both speech balloons within the picture and captions outside the circumvolve. The daily strip does not generally follow a weekly story arc, with the exception of family vacations.

Sunday strip [edit]

The format of the Sun strip varies considerably from week to week, though there are several well-known recurring themes. 1 recurring theme is a single picture surrounded past multiple speech balloons, representing the children's response to a given scenario, although the speaker of any given speech communication balloon is never explicitly shown (this format began on May xxx, 1965).

Other media [edit]

Book collections [edit]

There are 89 compilations of Family Circus cartoons. For a full list of book titles, see Family Circus collections.

Television [edit]

The Family Circus characters appeared in animated form in three television vacation specials, all broadcast on NBC: A Special Valentine with the Family Circus (1978),^[14] A Family Circus Christmas (1979),^[fifteen] and A Family Circus Easter (1982).^[16] The Easter special featured jazz musician Dizzy Gillespie as the Easter Bunny. This special is a musical and features Dolly singing "Easter Bunny Lumba".^[16]

Feature moving picture [edit]

In October 2010, 20th Century Play a trick on and Walden Media announced that they had caused the moving-picture show rights for a live-action feature film based on the Family Circus drawing.^[17] Nichole Millard and Kathryn Price have been hired to adjust the comic strip equally a live-action project.^[xviii]

Video game [edit]

An educational video game was released for home computers in 1992. Called Our House featuring the Family Circus (a.grand.a. Now and Then), the game compares life in modern times to those when the parents, grandparents and other ancestors of the comic were young.

Parodies [edit]

The Family Circus has been widely satirized in pic, television, and other daily comic strips. In an interview with The Washington Post, Keane said that he was flattered and believed that such parody "...is a compliment to the popularity of the feature..."^[19] The official Family unit Circus website contains a sampling of syndicated comic strips from other authors which parody his characters.^[20]

Some newspaper comic strips have devoted unabridged storylines using Family Circus characters. In 1994, the surreal Zippy the Pinhead comic strip fabricated multiple references to the Family Circus, including an extended series during which the titular character, a pinhead, sought "Thursday' Way" to enlightenment from Bil, Thel, Billy, and Jeffy.^[21] Bil Keane was credited as "guest cartoonist" on these strips, drawing the characters exactly as they appear in their own strip, simply in Zippy'south globe every bit drawn by Zippy creator Beak Griffith.^[21] Griffith described the Family Circus every bit "the last remaining folk fine art strip." Griffith said, "It'southward supposed to be the paradigm of squareness, but it turns the corner into a hip zone."^[22]

For the 1997 April Fools' Day comic strip switcheroo, Dilbert creator Scott Adams swapped cartoons with Keane;^[23] and Stephan Pastis drew a serial in which Family Circus "invaded" Pearls Before Swine in 2007. Pastis, who had a close relationship with Bil and Jeff Keane, created numerous parodies of Family Circus "considering it was an icon."^[24]

The Dysfunctional Family Circus was a satire website which paired Keane's illustrations with user-submitted captions. Keane claimed to have found the site funny at start. However, disapproving feedback from his readership, coupled with the website's use of double entendre and vulgarity, prompted Keane to request that the site be discontinued.

The webcomic Jersey Circus is a mashup of artwork from The Family Circus and dialogue from the reality show Jersey Shore. It juxtaposes the innocent artwork of the comic with the often adult dialogue from the show to parody both media phenomena.^[25]

The 1999 novel The Funnies, by J. Robert Lennon, centered around a dysfunctional family whose late patriarch drew a cartoon similar to The Family Circus. Lennon later said, although in that location was a "resemblance", he did non "know anything about Bil Keane and made up my characters from scratch."^[26]

The cartoon has been the subject of gags on many tv set sitcoms including episodes of Pinky and the Encephalon, Mystery Scientific discipline Theater 3000, The Simpsons, Drawn Together, Robot Chicken, Mad, an episode of Family Guy ("Domestic dog Gone")^{[27] [28]} and the 1999 movie Become.

In the Diary of a Wimpy Child book series, at that place is a comic despised by the primary character and his dad called L'il Cutie. It shares a lot of similarities to Family Circus, similar a child maxim naively innocent things, the writer being inspired by his child, and the son working on the comic as an adult.

Some Pearls Before Swine strips include appearances by the Family Circus characters or parodic Family Circus strips. In one serial of strips, Rat is captured by Family Circus fans later poking fun at the Family Circus. In the week of June 27, 2005, Stephan Pastis portrayed the cartoon Keane family inviting Osama bin Laden into their firm. Bin Laden is captured past the police while post-obit Billy's dotted lines, and the whole family is imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for harboring a terrorist.^[29]

The 2016 graphic novel The Fun Family by Benjamin Frisch tells the nighttime story of the family of the creator of a Family unit Circus-like strip.^[30]

References [edit]

1. ^ The Family Circus Archived 2004-04-01 at the Wayback Machine, King Features Syndicate, www.kingfeatures.com
2. ^ "Inspiration for 'Family Circus' Mommy dies". CNN. Archived from the original on 2008-05-27. Retrieved 2008-05-26 .
3. ^ Meyers, Amanda Lee (2008-05-27). "Thelma Keane; Wife Of Cartoonist Bil Keane". Associated Press Obituaries. The Washington Post. Retrieved 2008-05-29 .
4. ^ Inspiration For Circus Mom Expressionless at 82, United Press International, UPI.com, May 26, 2008
5. ^ Baum, Geraldine (May 23, 1996). "Mommy Finally Makes The Cut". Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles. Retrieved May 9, 2021.
6. ^ This Week, result of January 7, 1962, Concluding Laugh Page
7. ^ ^{a b c} Keane, Christopher (November 2009). "Raising the Large Peak". The Family Circus: Daily and Lord's day Comics 1960-1961. The Library of American Comics. Vol. i. IDW. pp. 22–23. ISBN9781600105487.
8. ^ Keane, Christopher (June 2010). "Adding to the Act". The Family Circus: Daily and Sun Comics 1962-1963. The Library of American Comics. Vol. ii. IDW Publishing. p. x. ISBN9781600106576.
9. ^ Chang, Jeff (2009). "Morrie Turner and the Kids". The Laic (November/December). Retrieved 2013-03-eighteen .
10. ^ Gunty, Christopher, Bil Keane's Family unit Circus, Saint Anthony's Messenger, November 2001
11. ^ "North Cosmic Falcons Merchandise | Celtic Shirts: Your Source for North Catholic Clothes and Trade".
12. ^ "All in the Family unit: A Cartooning Roundtable". December 25, 2017.
13. ^ ^{a b} Keane, Christopher (2010). Adding to the Act. The Family Circus: Daily and Sunday Comics. Vol. 1962–1963. IDW Publishing. pp. 7–18. ISBN978-one-60010-657-vi.
14. ^ Woolery, George Due west. (1989). Blithe Television set Specials: The Complete Directory to the Kickoff Xx-Five Years, 1962-1987. Scarecrow Press. pp. 389–390. ISBN0-8108-2198-ii . Retrieved 27 March 2020.
15. ^ Woolery, pp.139-140
16. ^ ^{a b} Spurgeon, Tom (January 1, 2012). "Bil Keane, 1922-2011". The Comics Reporter . Retrieved 18 April 2015.
17. ^ Fleming, Mike (viii October 2010). "Trick, Walden Media Win 'The Family Circus'". Deadline.com. Retrieved 2012-12-27 .
18. ^ McNary, Dave (October xix, 2012). "Pull a fast one on, Walden set writers for 'Family Circus' film".
19. ^ "Comics: Meet the Artist", Washington Post Online, March 1, 2002
20. ^ archive "Take-Offs Archived 2007-04-05 at the Wayback Machine, world wide web.familycircus.com, retrieved 2009
21. ^ ^{a b} Neb Griffith, Nevertheless asking, "Are we having fun yet?", Interdisciplinary Comic Studies, Vol. i No. 2, 2004, ISSN 1549-6732
22. ^ Pat Seremet, "Zippy and The Family Circus--Together once more!!", The Hartford Courant, July 11, 2002
23. ^ Zitz, Michael (April ane, 1997). "April Fools: This is some funny business". The Gratis Lance Star. p. D1.
24. ^ Pastis, Stephan (November 9, 2011). "The Dotted Line Fades Abroad — A Few Words About Bil Keane (1922-2011)". The Blog O' Stephan Pastis. stephanpastis.wordpress.com.
25. ^ Friedman, Megan (Baronial xxx, 2010). "Jersey Circus Gives Family Values Some GTL". Time . Retrieved Baronial 31, 2010.
26. ^ J. Robert Lennon, Annotate, Rakes Progress, September 29, 2006
27. ^ Haque, Ahsan. "Family unit Guy: "Dog Gone" Review". IGN. Retrieved 2009-12-01 .
28. ^ "The TV Critic.org - Episode eight - Domestic dog Gone Review". The TV Critic.org. Retrieved 2009-12-02 .
29. ^ "Pearls Earlier Swine by Stephan Pastis" Live Journal, retrieved March 6, 2019
30. ^ McMillian Graeme (seven July 2016). "'The Fun Family' Comic Uncovers Darkness Behind Suburban Life (Exclusive Preview)". Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2019-03-06 .

External links [edit]

• The Family Circus Official Homepage
• The Family Circus at King Features
• The Family Circus at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on June 27, 2016.
• Bil Keane Cartoons 1954–1966 at Syracuse Academy (primary source material)

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family_Circus

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