| The Family Circus |
Article Index for The Family |
Website Links For Family |
Information AboutThe Family Circus |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT THE FAMILY CIRCUS | |
| american comic strips | |
| family circus, the | |
| comic strips started in the 1960s | |
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DESCRIPTION The comics depict the Child hood antics of Billy, Dolly, Jeffy, and P.J., fictionalized versions of the author's own children (and now, grandchildren). Their parents Bill and Thel are based on Keane and his wife Thelma. The family has two Dog s, Barfy and Sam, and a Cat , Kittycat. Grandma makes frequent appearances. Regular concepts include the Spirit s of deceased relatives observing the family (Grandpa being the most common), Ghost ly imps named "Not Me," "Nobody" and "Ida Know" watching while the children try to claim the person who committed a particular misdeed was "not me" or "I dunno", a day or week when Bill turns over the strip to Billy and it is drawn in an intentionally childish style, as if the character Billy was actually drawing it, and an overhead map of the neighborhood where the children's paths are followed with a dotted line. PARODY While the series remains popular in the U.S., some attribute to it a dated feeling and mawkish sentimentality. This has made the strip a popular target of Satirists , including the notorious '' Dysfunctional Family Circus '' parody. Pearls Before Swine went so far as to make a parody of the strip which had the family sheltering Osama bin Laden, the joke being that the family was so out of touch that it didn't know who bin Laden was. Fans defend the series as an endearing depiction of life's sweeter moments, and a reminder of simple Christian values; most of the strip's critics cynically pan it for the same reasons. It has also become common practice on {Link without Title} . As a joke, in 8-Bit Theater Fighter sometimes laughs at random times while thinking of the Family Circus. EXTERNAL LINKS
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