Motley's Crew

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Motley's Crew
Author(s) Ben Templeton and Tom Forman (deceased)
Current status / schedule Defunct
Launch date Flag of the United States September 6, 1976
End Date Flag of World January 1, 2000
Syndicate(s) Tribune Media Services
This is the Mike Motley family tree. All members of the family from Mike and Mabel's parents to Truman and Tacoma's children are included in this family tree.

Motley's Crew was a comic strip by Ben Templeton and Tom Forman that acquired a highly devoted but relatively small group of fans during its 23 years of operation. The comic strip in general was about a blue collar employee named Mike Motley and his wife Mabel Motley. Their son Truman eventually fell in love and married a woman named Tacoma. From that marriage came two sons. Mabel's siblings were Abel and Buffy; they occasionally tormented their brother-in-law Mike even though they secretly liked him.

Templeton and Forman created the comic in 1976. It was first syndicated by what is known today as Tribune Media Services on September 6 of that year. Templeton and Forman were working together on it until Forman's death in 1996. After Forman's death, Templeton continued alone[1]. It continued until January 1, 2000. The final week's strips dealt with the cast dealing with the Y2K bug. On the first day of the year 2000, the final comic strip ever to be printed presented long-time fans and casual readers with a sign with the words "This space for rent." This concept was similar to Sam Malone closing the Cheers bar permanently after the final episode of Cheers. Since then, Motley's Crew comic strips have been sought by collectors of contemporary comic strips.

Contents

[edit] The Motley Family

[edit] Mabel Motley

Mabel Motley lying down on a beach in the summertime. She is not aware that a younger person is the object of attention and not her.

In the comic strip Motley's Crew, Mabel Motley (maiden name: unknown) is a stay-at-home mother (eventually becoming a grandmother much later in the comic strip series). She cooks and cleans while her husband is off to work being the provider for the family unit. During her tenure as a homemaker (a job traditionally associated with passive and subservient wives), Mabel reveals some of her repressed aspects of her personality when she frequently complains about her husband spending his weekends doing nothing but watching sports on the television. She is the element that balances out the masculine elements that the comic strip portrays by providing a feminine angle to attract a female audience as well as a male audience. She is considered to be more of a June Cleaver rather than a Marge Simpson or a Peggy Hill from King of the Hill.

Mabel often has to set her husband straight. After a wedding, she gave strong criticism to her husband Mike for not wearing a necktie to a wedding service. Another time, she had to make her husband put on a "used" three piece tuxedo to look "presentable" in front of her siblings. Notice that the character development of Mike Motley suggested that he wore boxer shorts while resting inside his house. However, Mike wore briefs underneath his pants when he was outside the home. This was not meant to be a consistency error. While most men prefer wearing boxer shorts or briefs exclusively, other men prefer the support that briefs provide when away from home and the more comfortable fit of boxer shorts as outer clothing when relaxing at home. While her husband's hair is brown and balding, Mabel's hair is blond. This is considered to be a media stereotype of women that have "traditional female jobs." The blond hair also serves a stereotype for females with a relatively low level of intelligence.

Mabel likes to wear her hair in "traditional feminine" hairstyle, like a typical housewife. This femininity is extended to her wardrobe, her personality, and her attitudes about life in general. Frequently seen in delicate dresses and almost never seen in trousers, Mabel is like a poster model for the 1950s lady. Mabel got married as a virgin and believes that a woman's place was home being the homemaker. There is no mention of Mabel having any post-secondary education prior to marrying her husband Mike.

[edit] Mike Motley

Mike Motley is shown here playing baseball for his local bar. His team lost the game by a score of 37-0.

In the comic strip Motley's Crew, Mike Motley was a middle aged unskilled factory worker. He worked for his employer Mister Drudge and was married to his equally middle aged wife Mabel. When not working, he was often caught spending most of his Sundays watching football on television. The occasional moments that he spent outside his factory workplace and his home was considered to be spent on doling out masculine humor to the readers of the comic strip that he played the starring role in. During his working days, he often wore a hard hat because his blue collar job was considered to be dangerous work. During the earlier years of the comic strip, he and his wife took care of their son Truman. Eventually, the son grew up and got married because the comic strip had a story arc like a soap opera instead of a floating timeline like a Saturday morning cartoon. Even with his busy schedule of work, family, and bar life, Mike still had time to travel the world.

Unlike Homer Simpson, his lack of hair was caused by advanced age. It was never claimed to be caused by the dangerous chemicals that Mike was forced to deal every day in his job description. If Mike would have maintained all of his hair, his hairstyle would have closely followed that of a crew cut, a typical hairstyle used by young middle class men starting in the 1950s. According to the chronology of the story, Mike Motley would have been around the year 1941. Although his life prior to 1976 was never shown on the comic strip, he was shown as a younger man in the year 1977 when he joined the "working class poor."

Seen here in a classic comic strip from 1977, Mike Motley joins the "middle class poor." Tough economic times forced many middle class people to become poor while still employed in their professions.Mike Motley is receiving a heating bill in the winter time. The mail carrier passes the bill to Mike and he faints because the costs are so expensive.

[edit] Truman Motley

Truman Motley is the son of Mike and Mabel Motley. He is also the husband of Tacoma Motley and the father of her two children. Because he lives in the other side of the country with his wife, he only gets to meet with his parents on Christmas and major holidays. Truman's face looks like his father, except he has more has and his face is rounder. His birthday year would be around the year 1971. That would have made him a young boy when the comic strip began in 1976 and not old enough to remember the 1973 oil crisis that temporarily plagued America.

[edit] Mike and Mabel's Grandsons

Truman and Tacoma Motley's children were born sometime around the year 1988. They were first featured as babies on the comic strip. Their first names were never mentioned in the comic strip and they appeared to be fraternal male twins. Eventually, they grew up to be children in the early stages of puberty that confuse their grandfather's work clothes for the baggy clothing that was popular among youth in the late 1990s. They are frequently seen hanging around their grandfather while he is trying to do his leisure time hobbies.

Although they like their grandfather Mike for their paternal advice, they also like visiting their grandmother Mabel when time does not permit Mike to be with them. Their visits with Grandma Mabel and Grandpa Mike are infrequent because they live with their father Truman and their mother Tacoma. Both the individual and collective fates of the two grandsons are left in an unknown state at the end of the comic strip's run. The only impressions that people were left with was that they never went through high school, got married, or had children of their own before the comic strip was cancelled. Like most children, Truman and Tacoma Motley's sons attended public junior high school and received homework.

Mike Motley's T-shirt and work pants are stolen by his grandsons. During this era, teenage boys confused adult sized clothing for baggy pants and shirts.

[edit] In-Laws and Acquaintances

[edit] Tacoma Motley

Tacoma Motley is Mike and Mabel Motley's daughter-in-law. She married the Motley's son Truman out of her love for him. She refuses to eat meat and she is also an environmentalist, a new age guru. Tacoma also wants to be a psychic, but her predictions always wrong. When she is not exploring her spirituality, she is holding employment as an accountant in the big city. Her lifestyle is considered that to be bohemian chic and oriented towards the career path, the polar opposite of that of her mother-in-law.

Tacoma first met Truman Motley while at a school of higher learning. Their wedding was integrated into the comic strip series. Eventually, she became a mother as grandchildren were introduced to Mabel and Mike Motley much later in the series. Her name could be taken after the city of Tacoma, Washington, which is a liberal community near the western coast of the United States of America. Her willingness to have a career and to be a mother at the same time illustrate the modernity of the Truman Motley family over the old fashioned values of the Mike Motley family.

[edit] Abel and Buffy

Abel and Buffy (last name unknown; as it would be the maiden name of Mabel Motley) provided comic relief when Mabel coerced her husband into embarrassing situations. This fact was especially revealed in a comic strip that was published around July 22, 1997. Abel is in a normal business suit and Buffy is in a summer dress. They enter Mabel and Mike Motley's house to see their embarrassed brother-in-law Mike Motley. He was being forced to dress up in an exceedingly formal manner for an afternoon visit. While being dazed and slightly confused by Mabel hitting him in the eyes and cutting his face, Mike Motley opens the door to greet his sister's siblings. His bald spot is now more clearly shown because his wife didn't know how to comb a man's hair. The shallow attempt of perfection were taken by Mrs. Mabel Motley because she didn't her siblings thinking that her husband was unkempt. According to the caption of the comic strip panels, Mike give his wife's brother and sister a 2 out of 10 (20%) while his wife Mabel gave her siblings a mathematically illogical score of 12 out of 10 (120%)[2].

The white underwear that was slightly revealed through the noticeable rip in the formal trousers was an attempt to capitalize America's newly found obsession with underwear oriented humor during that era. Most comic strips (and eventually other forms of popular culture) would eventually incorporate the use of underwear outside its expected role of underneath a person's trousers - regardless of whether the target audience were children, teenagers, young adults, or older adults. As long as the underwear was depicted in a form that was suitable for all ages, underwear humor was allowed on any comic strip in Western civilization.

[edit] Mister Drudge

Mister Drudge is an autocratic factory manager. He personally runs the fictional corporation Drudge Industries, Inc. which is a construction company in the comic Motley's Crew. His signature is one every paycheck that Mike Motley and his other subordinates receive after working. His coarse and totalitarian nature is what keeps his construction firm in "perfect shape." Traditional gender roles reign supreme in his factory and he has an obedient female secretary always ready to take orders from him. His last name comes from a word that means "labor" or "work." Very rarely did anyone receive a pay raise or a promotion in his construction company. The man is also very young, with red hair and freckles, and appears content in his successful life.

[edit] Earl

Earl is the next-door neighbor of Mike and Mabel Motley. He is Mike Motley's co-worker at Drudge Industries and they are seen working side by side. Earl usually has a cigar in his mouth and is the most incompetent person in the comic strip. When he was captured and forced to steer the ship, he took command of the ship until it collided with land in the middle of Kansas. The humor behind this scenario is that is impossible to sail a ship to Kansas and that Earl is an incompetent sailor.

[edit] Abigail

Abigail is Earl's long-suffering wife. She plays a similar role to the late Mrs. Ned Flanders on The Simpsons. Like Mabel Motley, she is a homemaker and she always overlooks most of her husband's mistakes. Their last name is unknown, similar to the fashion of Mabel Motley's maiden name. Abigail's past was never revealed on the comic strip, giving her the intention of being a stock character.

[edit] Yuri

Yuri was Mike Motley's friend from Russia (which was part of the Soviet Union during most of the comic strip's production). He provided Cold War humor from the perspective of what Americans were conditioned to believe to be the "enemy" during the Cold War years. This character was used the most often during the Mikhail Gorbachev administration. While Yuri was visited by his friend Mike Motley in the then-current Soviet Union, Yuri rarely traveled to America. The reason for Yuri's lack of visits to the United States was that financial and security reasons prevented citizens from the Soviet Union from entering Western Bloc countries during that time. During the 1980s when the Soviets were warming relations with the United States, Mike (representing the United States of America and his capitalist employer) had fewer financial and security restrictions upon entering the Soviet Union.

One of Yuri's recent roles in the comic strip came on the week of March 28, 1994 when he was a proprietor of a casino in Moscow. Ben Templeton has a strong interest in the former Soviet Union and has made a novel about the country called The Last Decathlon[3].

[edit] Mike and Mabel Motley's Community

This is a vintage Motley's Crew comic strip from August 26, 1979. Mike Motley is attempting to pour a drink of beer while his friends cheer him on.

Mike and Mabel Motley were homeowners during the course of the entire comic strip. They lived in the suburbs of an industrial city somewhere in the United States of America. While Mabel did the housework (cooking, cleaning, washing dishes), Mike did all the yard work (raking leaves, cutting the grass, etc.) Even though Mike and Mabel Motley decided that only Mike needed to earn income for the household, Mr. and Mrs. Motley tried their best to keep up with the times and with the changing needs of Middle America.

[edit] Mike Motley's Workplace

Mike Motley was employed in the construction industry and was employed under the manager of Drudge Industries, Inc., Mister Drudge himself. Due to the fact that he was an unskilled laborer, he and his wife lived a menial lower middle class existence.

Because Motley's Crew was intended to be a humorous comic strip on everyday life, certain strips would show Mike Motley wearing his underwear outside of his pants. Unfortunately, due to the cancellation of the comic strip, Mike Motley never got to retire from his workplace. Had the comic strip been published for a longer period of time, Mike Motley would have retired around the late 2000s. The retirement party would have featured the entire cast (including irregular characters like Abel and Buffy, Tacoma and Truman Motley, and Mike's grandchildren) and would have featured underwear worn in an unorthodox manner (either outside of his clothes, on top of his head, or sticking out from his pants - as this type of humor became more acceptable in the late 1990s and in the early 2000s).

However, retirement would have eventually removed a key aspect in the flow of the story. As long as Mike Motley was in an employment relationship with Mister Drudge, there would always be a main rival that Mike would have to impress in order to keep his construction job and maintain a source of income. Compared to his wife's siblings that he had to contend with only on an irregular basis, Mike always had to answer to Mister Drudge and follow his instructions.

[edit] Conservatism in Motley's Crew

Despite other comic strips changing completely with the times to suit a younger audience, older fans of the comic strip wanted to keep traditional gender roles present in the comic strip as much as possible. Therefore, any changes to the main characters were seen as temporary and made to look as foolish as possible in order to create a laughter effect. Like the other suburban residents, Mike owned a car in which he used to travel to work and play. In addition to factories, houses, and office buildings, the neighborhood also had a bar, a health clinic, a church, a beach, and other fine places where Mike, his friends and family all worked and played at. Humor was found in the least expected places like a reception area in a hospital being confused for a place where footballs are caught in an American football field for a touchdown.

Rarely were any of the characters were seen walking, jogging, or using any form of transportation that didn't use fossil fuels on Motley's Crew as the characters lived beyond reasonable walking distance to each other and to their respective hangouts. Also, the lack of hybrid vehicles during the comic strip run made it inevitable for people to use vehicles that ran on fossil fuels. The issue of using gasoline and wasting natural resources was seen as a relative non-issue for the comic strip until the late 1990s brought in a radical increase in gasoline prices that dwarfed that of the 1973 oil crisis that occurred prior to the establishment of the comic strip.

During that era which served as the final 5 years of the comic strip's publication, the comic strip focused on entertaining its established audience with issues that they could relate to instead of bothering them with the "problems of the young generation." It was possible that a second generation of Motley's Crew readers were starting to develop from young adults; the type of humor that keeps a person laughing frequently changes with age. However, they would receive a rude awakening by not being able to understand most of the issues that comic strip portrayed. Most of the issues in the comic strip series dealt more with the middle aged people and the elderly.

[edit] Revitalization attempts

When the creator of Motley's Crew started to see older readers from the 1970s dying off, they introduced physical humor in order to keep a younger audience interested. Things like underwear appearing in strange areas of the body (i.e., outside of a person's clothes, on a person's head, etc.) and Mabel getting revenge on her husband Mike by giving him a black eye once in a while made the comic strip more relevant for the young generation. Items of dignity became objects of ridicule as a three-piece tuxedo is partially shredded without any explanation. While the dinner jacket, formal shirt, vest, and bow tie would remain relatively intact, the formal trousers were given a few shreds which revealed the white briefs (presumably cotton) of Mike Motley.

[edit] When the In-Laws Visit

For Mike Motley, Mabel's relatives were always a thorn in his side. Although Abel and Buffy secretly like him, Mike doesn't seem to like him back because they always embarrass him when he wants to have a quiet weekend by himself. Mabel always gets him in the mood for all their visits because Abel and Buffy are her brother and sister. During one visit, Mike was blissfully unaware that he was going to receive an "extreme makeover" just to meet his wife's siblings - maybe a little too extreme for Mike's liking. Every time that Abel and Buffy conclude their visit, Mike always complains about either Abel or Buffy doing something wrong to him or his property. Since Mabel has to be nice to her siblings, she usually takes his remarks in stride.

[edit] The Problem

Because Mabel and Mike Motley were an "old married couple," there were times where Mabel had to "shape up" her husband before her siblings entered the house. Mike Motley was watching television with a face that hasn't been touched by a shaving razor. During that time, he was wearing a T-shirt with boxer shorts. His wife said to him "What on earth are you doing? Abel and Buffy will be here any moment now." Mike immediately replied with the scornful remark "This is as dressed up as I'm getting," believing that a T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts were suitable attire for a visit by his wife's siblings.

By the relaxed appearance of Mike Motley, the visit by his brother- and sister-in-law took place on a Saturday or Sunday. Out of nowhere, Mabel gave him a pair of black eyes. She also took him upstairs and made him shave his face. Of course, Mabel didn't think that boxer shorts and a T-shirt were suitable clothing to wear for a visit by her siblings so she dressed him in a three piece tuxedo with tails. Because she had to dress him extremely fast before Abel and Buffy's arrival, his white briefs were not tucked adequately and the top portion (that would usually be tucked in with the formal trousers) were sticking out because of a rip that was on the formal trousers[4].

[edit] The Solution

While he could still feel the soreness of his black eyes, Mike Motley was forced to struggle his way to the door. The conversation was quickly started with a "Hi ya" to Abel and Buffy. This was said with a slightly slurred speech because Mike was recovering from the black eyes that Mabel gave him before dressing him up for the event. The slightly slurred speech sounded like "Hi ya Abel Buffy." In the caption that represented Mike's welcome to Abel and Buffy, there was no comma between "ya" and "Abel." In addition to this, the word "and" was missing between the names "Abel" and "Buffy." While saying "hi ya" to Abel and Buffy using informal American English, Mike shook the hand of his brother-in-law Abel. When closely examining the formality of the visit by the in-laws, the meeting seems to conform with Victorian standards. The women are wearing dresses instead of trousers, the men are in formal gear and introducing each other by shaking hands in a traditional manner. Continuity from that comic strip lasted only until the next day's comic strip, where Mike Motley is in his normal clothes and he is complaining to his wife about how his brother-in-law Abel was toying around with his car[5].

This visit with Mabel's brother and sister was assumed to be somewhat of a disaster because no other words are exchanged between Mike, Abel, and Buffy except for the "Hi ya Abel Buffy" line. There are no children present because Truman is already married to Tacoma and occupied with his career and his children by 1997.

[edit] Observations

  • Mike's vest, tuxedo shirt (a more formal shirt that is worn with a tuxedo, as opposed to a dress shirt that is worn with a business suit) and bow tie were white.
  • Even though there was little time until Mabel's siblings arrived, Mike's injuries were adequately bandaged.
  • Mike's formal trousers were in ripped in a manner that revealed the waistband and the top portion of the underwear were revealed to his unsuspecting brother- and sister-in-law.
  • Even though the rip exposed a significant part of his underwear, the fly of the briefs was never shown. The reason is that the fly of the briefs were not shown is because it allows easier access to the penis for urination. Also, it is not considered to be appropriate to show something that is associated with sexuality, defecation, urination, or the expulsion of puke in a family publication.
  • It is assumed from his manner of dress that Mike was wearing dark-colored dress socks and black dress shoes.
  • The wise observant should have also noticed that his wife Mabel was wearing a long dress with a floral design, similar to the kind worn by June Cleaver.

[edit] About Mike Motley's Tuxedo

The rip on the formal trousers could have been caused by these factors:

  • It could have been Mabel's fault because she was not given the time to make her husband put on the tuxedo at a normal pace before the siblings arrive; this could have attributed to the rapid state of disrepair in more ways than one.
  • If it was a rental and was not purchased by Mrs. Motley sometime prior to the visit by her siblings, a numerous amount of users could have used the tuxedo before it was used by Mike Motley. They would have most likely abused it before Mabel eventually found it.
  • Another resolution to this query would be that the tailor was unable to mend the formal trousers before it was rented by Mrs. Motley (assuming the tuxedo was rented and not purchased).
  • The perfect world resolution to this query would indicate that Mike Motley purchased the tuxedo to wear in his wedding (which was never shown on the comic strip). As a result of this, the tuxedo has been gathering dust while Mike Motley gained weight during the years. After trying to get his tuxedo on, a rip emerged in his black formal trousers and his white briefs are revealed because the rip in his formal trousers was the most prominent within the general condition of the tuxedo.

[edit] Television shows similar to Motley's Crew

[edit] 1950s-1980s

[edit] 1990s

[edit] Present

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Artist information. Lambiek. Retrieved on 2008-05-04.
  2. ^ The Simcoe Reformer, July 1997 (date unknown)
  3. ^ Yuri's 1994 appearance. Editor and Publisher. Retrieved on 2008-05-15.
  4. ^ The Simcoe Reformer, July 1997 (date unknown)
  5. ^ The Simcoe Reformer, July 1997 (date unknown)

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