Michael Binkley

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Michael 'Mad Dog Mike' Binkley was a major character in Berke Breathed's cartoon strip Bloom County.

Michael, known to all simply as 'Binkley,' was a 10-year-old boy who lived at the Bloom County Boarding House with his father Tom (his mother, Margret, had divorced Tom and moved to Oakland with a Hells Angel). Binkley was in the same class as Milo Bloom, his best friend. Binkley introduced Opus to the gang, thinking he was a dog. Binkley is described as an airhead by everyone who knows him (except Opus).

He constantly wakes up his father in the middle of the night to talk to him about celebrity gossip and other inane things. He also has a closet in his room where his anxieties dwell and plague him at night. Their leader is the Giant Purple Snorklewhacker, but the anxieties can range from typical things like giant snakes to politically-themed ones like a pair of disagreeing macroeconomists. Binkley was interested in an African American girl named Blondie (scandalizing the rather conservative townsfolk, including his father). Binkley campaigned with the Meadow Party, although he and his father are solid Democrats.

In the Sunday strip Opus, it was revealed that Binkley had become a eunuch in Tibet after a disastrous first date.