The Family Circus
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| The Family Circus | |
|---|---|
 An early strip featuring (L to R) Daddy (Bill), Dolly, Billy, Mommy (Thel), and Jeffy. A fourth child, PJ, was introduced in 1962 |
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| Author(s) | Bil Keane |
| Current status / schedule | Running |
| Launch date | February 29, 1960 |
| Syndicate(s) | King Features Syndicate |
| Genre(s) | Humor, Family values, Religious |
The Family Circus (originally The Family Circle) is a syndicated comic strip created and written by cartoonist Bil Keane and inked/colored by his son, Jeff Keane. The strip generally uses a single captioned panel with a round border, hence the original name of the series, which was changed following objections from Family Circle, the magazine of the same name. The series has been in continuous production since 1960, and according to publisher King Features Syndicate, it is the most widely syndicated cartoon panel in the world, appearing in 1,500 newspapers [1]. Compilations of Family Circus comic strips have sold over thirteen million copies worldwide.
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[edit] Characters
[edit] Family
The central characters of the Family Circus are a family whose surname is rarely mentioned. The parents, Bill and Thelma (Thel), are modeled after the author and his wife, Thelma Carne Keane[1][2] [3] Their four children, Billy, Dolly, Jeffy, and PJ, are fictionalized composites of the Keanes' five children. With the exception of PJ, the characters have not aged appreciably during the run of the strip.
Bill (named Steve in the early years of the strip) works in an office, and he is believed to be a cartoonist, most likely based on the writer of the strip because he draws big circles on paper presumably a cartoon version of the Family Circus. Bill is also a veteran of World War II, though this reference seldom occurs now that the youngest World War II veterans are approaching 80 years of age.
Thel is a college-educated homemaker. The Los Angeles Times ran a feature article on the Thelma character when Keane updated her hairstyle in 1996.
The oldest child is seven-year-old Billy. A recurring theme involves Billy as a substitute cartoonist, generally filling in for a Sunday strip. The strips purportedly drawn by Billy are crudely rendered and reflect his understanding of the world and sense of humor. The first use of this gag by Keane was in This Week Magazine in 1962 in a cartoon titled "Life in Our House" which attributed the childish drawings to his six-year-old son, Chris.[4] Keane also modeled Billy after his oldest son Glen, now a prominent Disney animator.
Dolly is modeled after Keane's daughter and oldest child, Gayle. Dolly was Gayle's pet name as a child.
Three-year-old Jeffy is named for Keane's son (and now assistant) Jeff Keane.
Youngest child PJ was introduced to the strip on August 1, 1962, and is the only character to have aged appreciably over the course of the strip. PJ was introduced as an infant and gradually grew to be about eighteen months old. PJ rarely speaks.
[edit] Extended family
Bill's mother (Florence, but usually called Grandma) appears regularly in the strip and apparently lives near the family. Bill's father (Al, called Grandpa by the kids and Bill) is dead but occasionally appears in the strip as a spirit or watching from up in heaven. Bill's father (as a spirit) plays a prominent role in the TV special Family Circus Christmas.
Thel's parents are both alive but apparently live several hundred miles away in a rural area. The family occasionally visits their farm for vacation.
[edit] Pets
The family pets are two dogs—a Labrador named Barfy and a shaggy-haired mutt named Sam—and a cat, an orange tabby named Kittycat.
[edit] Gremlins
In April 1975, Keane introduced an invisible gremlin named "Not Me", who watches while the children try to shift blame for a misdeed by saying, "Not me". Additional gremlins named "Ida Know" (in September, 1975), "Nobody", "O Yeah!", and "Just B Cause" were introduced in later years.
[edit] Location
The Family Circus takes place in Scottsdale, Arizona. They often visit a popular ice cream parlor named the Sugar Bowl, and Jeffy once went to St. Joseph's Hospital for a tonsillectomy. Thel was seen playing tennis with a racket marked "Scottsdale Racket," and Bill mentioned moving up to B class at Scottsdale Racket Club in a 1984 strip. Also, a sign for Paradise Valley, where Keane lives, is seen in one 1976 strip. However, the family has had snow in the strip. Bil Keane commented that he took scenes from his boyhood in Pennsylvania, such as snow, and added them to the strip.
[edit] The Family Car
For more than two decades, the family car had been a station wagon. In 1985, a year after the introduction of the Plymouth Voyager and the Dodge Caravan, the family is seen in a strip trading in its station wagon for a brand-new minivan, which they still get around in today. The family's minivan also bears a striking resemblance to the aforementioned Chrysler-branded vehicles, complete with the Chrysler pentastar logo on its hood.
[edit] Other characters
- Morrie is a playmate of Billy's, and the only recurring African-American character in the strip.
- Mr. Horton is Bill's boss.
[edit] Format
[edit] Daily strip
The daily strip consists of a single captioned panel with a round border. The panel is occasionally split in two halves. One unusual practice in the series is the occasional use of both speech balloons within the picture and captions outside the circle. The daily strip does not generally follow a weekly story arc, with the exception of family vacations.
[edit] Sunday strip
The format of the Sunday strip varies considerably from week to week, though there are several well-known recurring concepts and themes. Among the most popular are the dotted line comics, showing the characters' paths through the neighborhood or house followed by a thick dotted line. (The earliest showing of the dotted line was on April 8, 1962, though on February 25 of that same year, the first strip that had a path appeared.) This concept has been parodied by other comic strips, including Pearls Before Swine, For Better or For Worse, Mother Goose and Grimm, and Marvin.
Other recurring concepts include a single picture surrounded by multiple speech balloons, representing the children's response to the given scenario, although the speaker of any given speech balloon is never explicitly shown (This format began on May 30, 1965).
[edit] Religious themes
One distinguishing characteristic of the Family Circus is the frequent use of Christian imagery and themes, ranging from generic references to God to Jeffy daydreaming about Jesus at the grocery store. Keane states that the religious content reflects his own upbringing and family traditions. Keane is Roman Catholic, and in past cartoons the children have been shown attending Catholic schools with nuns as teachers and attending Catholic church services. [2]
[edit] In other comics
Billy guest-starred in the 75th anniversary party of Blondie and Dagwood in the comic strip Blondie.
[edit] Book Collections
There are 89 compilations of Family Circus cartoons. For a full list of book titles, see the Bil Keane article.[[3]]
[edit] Television
The Family Circus has appeared in animated form in three television specials: A Special Valentine with the Family Circus (1978), A Family Circus Christmas (1979), and A Family Circus Easter (1982).
[edit] Parody
- For a list of sites containing Family Circus parodies, see Dysfunctional Family Circus#External links
The Family Circus has been widely parodied/satirized in film, television, internet media, and other daily comic strips. In an interview with the Washington Post, Keane insists that he is flattered and believes that such parody "...is a compliment to the popularity of the feature..."[4] The official Family Circus website contains an archive of syndicated comic strips from other authors which parody his characters.
Of particular note is the now-defunct Dysfunctional Family Circus website, which paired Keane's illustrations with user-submitted captions. While Keane claims to have found the site funny at first, reader feedback coupled with a trend towards double entendre and vulgarity inconsistent with Keane's Catholic values prompted him to request the site be discontinued.
On Amazon.com and related sites some of the highest rated reviews for Family Circus merchandise are parody reviews.[5]. Though Amazon regularly purges many of these reviews for vulgar content, the Family Circus books on Amazon maintain a higher rate of false reviews than most of its catalog. A recurring sentiment is that author Bil Keane is evil or megalomaniacal.
J. Robert Lennon wrote The Funnies, a 1999 novel about a family whose late patriarch drew a cartoon similar to The Family Circus.
[edit] References
- ^ "Inspiration for 'Family Circus' Mommy dies". CNN.com. Retrieved on 2008-05-26.
- ^ Meyers, Amanda Lee. "Thelma Keane; Wife Of Cartoonist Bil Keane", Associated Press, Washington Post, 2008-05-27. Retrieved on 2008-05-29.
- ^ "Inspiration for 'Circus' mom dead at 82", United Press International, 2008-05-26. Retrieved on 2008-05-29.
- ^ THIS WEEK Magazine, January 7 1962 Issue, Last Laugh Page
[edit] External links
- The Family Circus Official Homepage
- The Family Circus at King Features
- Toonopedia
- Amazon reviews on Family Circus books… - a blog post analyzing reviews from Amazon.com that have since been removed from the site.
- - Washington Post interview with Bil Keane (2002)
