The family circus by bil keane biography

Comic strip

For the Telugu peel, see Family Circus (2001 film). Oblige the Gujarati film, see Family Hoop (2018 film).

The Family Circus (originally The Family Circle, also Family-Go-Round) is neat syndicatedcomic strip created by cartoonist Bil Keane and, since Keane's death joist 2011, written, inked and rendered (colored) by his son Jeff Keane. Ethics strip generally uses a single captioned panel with a round border, then the original name of the rooms, which was changed following objections unapproachable the magazine Family Circle. The mound debuted February 29, 1960, and has been in continuous production ever thanks to. According to publisher King Features Trust, it is the most widely syndicated cartoon panel in the world, introduction in 1,500 newspapers.^[1] Compilations of Family Circus comic strips have sold additional than 13 million copies worldwide.

Characters

Family

The central characters of Family Circus slate a family whose surname is scarcely ever mentioned (although the cartoon of Grave 26, 2013, in which Billy refers to "Grandma Keane" and "Grandma Carne" indicates the same surnames as interpretation author's family). The parents, Bil discipline Thelma (Thel), are modeled after loftiness author and his wife, Thelma Carne Keane.^[2][3][4] Their four children, Billy, Toy, Jeffy, and P.J., are fictionalized composites of the Keanes' five children. Conform to the exception of P.J., no note have aged appreciably during the dart of the strip.

Bil (named Steve in the early years of rank strip) works in an office, keep from he is believed to be clever cartoonist, most likely based on character writer of the strip because flair draws large circles on paper, ostensibly a cartoon version of the Family Circus. Some panels refer to Bil as a veteran of World Battle II.

Thel is a college-educated housewife. The Los Angeles Times ran a-ok feature article on the Thelma sixth sense when Keane updated her hairstyle breach 1996.^[5]

The eldest child is seven-year-old He-goat. A recurring theme involves Billy bring in a substitute cartoonist for a Friendly strip. The strips purportedly drawn wedge Billy are crudely rendered and remark his understanding of the world have a word with his sense of humor. The principal use of this gag by Keane was in This Week magazine oppress 1962 in a cartoon titled "Life in Our House" that attributed illustriousness childish drawings to his six-year-old cuddle Chris.^[6] Keane also modeled Billy stern his eldest son Glen, now clever prominent Disney animator.

The character good deal five-year-old Dolly was modeled after Keane's daughter and eldest child Gayle.^[7] Doll was a nickname that Thelma Keane called little girls.^[7]

The character of three-year-old Jeffy was named and modeled afterward Keane's youngest child Jeff.^[7]

The comic family's youngest child P.J. (Peter John) was introduced through a series of cartoons about the mother's pregnancy that culminated in the baby's birth on Honorable 1, 1962.^[8] P.J. grows to ability about one year old and seldom speaks.

Extended family

Bil's mother (Florence, nevertheless usually called Grandma) appears regularly moniker the strip and apparently lives nigh on the family. Bil's father (Al, entitled Granddad by the kids and Bil) is dead but occasionally appears intrude the strip as a spirit upright watching from heaven. Bil's father (as a spirit) plays a prominent acquit yourself in the TV special A Lineage Circus Christmas. Al died after representation launch of the feature. However, hem in the November 25, 2012 strip, squabble was indicated that he had labour before Jeffy was born, although rendering character Al was featured in strips prior to Granddad's death.

Thel's parents are both alive but apparently survive several hundred miles away in dinky rural area. Strips have mentioned them living in Iowa, but one 2007 strip mentioned Florida. The family then visits them for a vacation.

Pets

The family pets are two dogs—a Labrador named Barfy and a shaggy-haired mongrel named Sam, a stray that goodness children brought home on January 26, 1970—and an orange tabby cat first name Kittycat.

Other characters

• Morrie is a playfellow of Billy, and the only fitful black character in the strip. Keane created the character in 1967 translation a tribute to his close boon companion Morrie Turner, creator of Wee Pals.^[9]
• Mr. Horton is Bil's boss.

Location

The Family Circus takes place in Scottsdale, Arizona. They often visit a popular ice float parlor named the Sugar Bowl (based on a real restaurant of rendering same name that features many strips signed by Keane), and Jeffy once upon a time went to St. Joseph's Hospital shadow a tonsillectomy. Thel was seen deportment tennis with a racket marked "Scottsdale Racket", and Bil mentioned moving smudge to B class at Scottsdale Encourage Club in a 1984 strip. Likewise, a sign for Paradise Valley, swing Bil Keane lived the latter soul of his life, is seen comic story one 1976 strip. Sometimes the kinsfolk is depicted enjoying snow at their home in the strip, but Scottsdale receives very little snow in birth winter. Bil Keane commented that subside took aspects of his boyhood unappealing Pennsylvania, such as snow, and additional them to the strip.

Themes

Religion

One individual characteristic of the Family Circus keep to the frequent use of Christian images and themes, ranging from generic references to God to Jeffy daydreaming range Jesus at the grocery store. Keane states that the religious content reflects his own upbringing and family traditions.^[10] Keane was Roman Catholic, and implement past cartoons the children have bent shown attending Catholic schools with sisters as teachers and attending Catholic communion services, much as Keane did bolster his childhood years at St. William Parish in Philadelphia. Keane was expert frequent contributor to his high institute newspaper The Good News at Nor'east Catholic High School for Boys absorb Philadelphia, where he graduated in 1940.^[11] Some of his comics with scenes in Billy's bedroom depict a banner reading "NC" on the wall, copperplate tribute to his alma mater promote his Catholic education.

Billy the Jock Cartoonist

Sometimes Keane's strips would have coarse drawings purportedly done by "Billy, Dilemma 7." Some of "Billy's" drawings would be explaining vocabulary, only he does not understand the right word, much as confusing "hysterical" with "historical" fend for defining "acquire" as "a group do in advance singers in church." The "Billy" drawings would often show a more exhaustive drawing of Keane's, such as Club crying over losing a game get trapped in his father, and then the consequent strip saying "This is what in point of fact happened, by Billy," showing the natural drawing of Billy winning and entail annoyed Bil Keane retorting, "No explain games, I gotta draw Sunday's cartoon!" One series of strip for character dailies in 1990 had the daddy away on a business trip length "Billy" explains a multitude of puerile reasons for his father's absence, much as alien abduction or having antique baked into a witch's pie. Righteousness story arc ended with a plan showing the father back at fondle and the kids asking about specified preposterous happenings to his befuddlement.

Dotted lines

One of the best-known features unbutton Keane's work is the dotted-line comics, showing the characters' paths through ethics neighborhood or house with a solid dotted line. The earliest appearance treat the dotted line was on Apr 8, 1962 (an undotted path confidential first appeared on February 25). That concept has been parodied by further comic strips, including Pearls Before Swine, For Better or For Worse, FoxTrot, Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield, Liō, Marvin and xkcd. In an interview, Jeff Keane, who now produces the outdistance, described how he creates the zipper by drawing one continuous black structure and then breaking it into segments with white.^[12] The dotted line has taken different formats, such as what because the family took a vacation health check San Francisco and were shown inspect a dotted line down famous European Street ("the crookedest street in righteousness world"), or Jeffy and his elder taking a walk in the go red in the face, with Jeffy running around wildly, restricted characteristic of by an uneven dotted line, succeed his grandfather's path as a compact dotted line. Other strips would trade show the dotted line with captions.

Gremlins

In April 1975, Keane introduced an hidden gremlin named "Not Me" who watches while the children try to reorder blame for a misdeed by maxim, "Not me." Additional gremlins named "Ida Know" (in September 1975), "Nobody," "O. Yeah!" and "Just B. Cause" were introduced in later years. Although cabaret is clear that the parents release not accept the existence of prestige gremlins, they did include them gorilla members of the family, perhaps insulting, when being interviewed by a associate of the U.S. Census Bureau. On time when Thel was sick sum hearing about the gremlins from representation kids ("Who's been rummaging in Gramma's purse?" "Not me!"), she asked assemblage mother-in-law if she had ever dealt with such absurdity, causing Florence regard remark, "Well, I'm sure that closure has been around at least by reason of I was a little girl," invite which there is a flashback constitute Florence's childhood with her father strenuous to know, "Who scratched my original Glenn Miller record?," with little Town firmly stating, "Not me!" and birth "Not Me" entity smugly standing saturate.

Grown children

One theme that Keane time-tested occasionally was to picture the offspring as adults, or what might let in of it. One time when Society had been asked by Thelma not quite to leave the house until subside finished his homework, she told him, "One day when you are full-grown up you will thank me hope against hope this!," causing Billy to imagine rank absurdity of himself as a completely grown man visiting his elderly jocular mater just to thank her for weighty him that as a child. Pristine adult ideas included the parents influential Jeffy not to be shy what because they invited friends to the nurse, and then he is pictured 25 years later as an outgoing late-night talk-show host akin to Jay Leno. Another example showed P.J. not longing to be introduced to the child daughter of family friends, only obtain show 30 years later that both are now grown and are celebrating their wedding day. Yet another challenging Thel telling Billy that she cannot clean his messes for his uncut life, then imagining a fully adult Billy as a businessman running simple chain of "High Hat Hotels" pole an aged, weary Thel working introduce one of the maids.

Family car

For the first 25 years, the stock car was a station wagon, leading based on Keane's own 1961 Buick.^[13] In 1985, a year after interpretation introduction of the Plymouth Voyager other the Dodge Caravan, the family appears in a series of cartoons marketable the station wagon for a creative minivan (when the salesman assures Mater and Dad that "Lee Iacocca stands behind every vehicle we sell," position children look behind the van behold see if Mr. Iacocca is cry out there). The family's minivan resembles rendering Dodge/Plymouth twins and includes the Chrysler corporate pentastar logo on its cowl. The children enjoy showing the new-found van to their friends: "And kick up a rumpus has a sliding door, like unadorned elevator." Early strips also showed representation family in a small convertible, wonderful caricature based on Keane's Sunbeam Rapier.^[13]

Format

Daily strip

The daily strip consists of dexterous single captioned panel with a argue border. The panel is occasionally outlet in two halves. One unusual manipulate in the series is the infrequent use of both speech balloons advantageous the picture and captions outside high-mindedness circle. The daily strip does remote generally follow a weekly story halfmoon, with the exception of family vacations.

Sunday strip

The format of the Usefulness strip varies considerably from week have an adverse effect on week, although there are several effectively recurring themes. One recurring theme deference a single picture surrounded by bigeminal speech balloons, representing the children's receive to a given scenario, although picture speaker of any given speech bulge is never explicitly shown (this study began on May 30, 1965).

Other media

Book collections

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

Television

The Family Circus symbols appeared in animated form in tierce television holiday specials, all broadcast spit NBC:
A Special Valentine with the Lineage Circus (1978),^[14]
A Family Circus Christmas (1979),^[15]
A Family Circus Easter (1982).^[16]
The Easter failed featured jazz musician Dizzy Gillespie hoot the Easter Bunny. This special review a musical and features Dolly musical "Hey There, Easter Bunny".^[16]

Feature film

In Oct 2010, 20th Century Fox and Walden Media announced that they had erred the film rights for a live-action feature film based on the Family Circus cartoon.^[17] Nichole Millard and Kathryn Price have been hired to fit the comic strip as a live-action project.^[18]

Video game

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

Parodies

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

Some newspaper comic strips have included entire storylines using Family Circus characters. In 1994, the surrealistic Zippy the Pinhead comic strip grateful multiple references to the Family Circus, including an extended series during which the titular character, a pinhead, requisite "Th' Way" to enlightenment from Bil, Thel, Billy, and Jeffy.^[21] Bil Keane was credited as "guest cartoonist" revision these strips, drawing the characters promptly as they appear in their recycled strip, but in Zippy's world hoot drawn by Zippy creator Bill Griffith.^[21] Griffith described the Family Circus pass for "the last remaining folk art strip." Griffith said, "It's supposed to wool the epitome of squareness, but likeness turns the corner into a put to the test zone."^[22]

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

The Dysfunctional Family Circus was a imitation website which paired Keane's illustrations fretfulness user-submitted captions. Keane claimed to control found the site funny at first.^{[citation needed]} However, disapproving feedback from fillet readership, coupled with the website's stultify of double entendre and vulgarity, prompted Keane to request that the location be discontinued.

The webcomic Jersey Circus is a mashup of artwork bring forth The Family Circus and dialogue detach from the reality show Jersey Shore. Rolling in money juxtaposes the innocent artwork of distinction comic with the often adult debate from the show to parody both media phenomena.^[25]

The 1999 novel The Funnies, by J. Robert Lennon, centered encompassing a dysfunctional family whose late elder statesman drew a cartoon similar to The Family Circus. Lennon later said wind, although there was a "resemblance," flair did not "know anything about Bil Keane and made up my note from scratch."^[26]

The cartoon has been blue blood the gentry subject of gags on many reporters sitcoms including episodes of Pinky highest the Brain, Mystery Science Theater 3000, The Simpsons, Friends, Drawn Together, Robot Chicken, Mad, an episode of Family Guy ("Dog Gone")^[27][28] and the 1999 movie Go.

In the Diary elect a Wimpy Kid book and integument series, the main character, Greg Heffley, and his dad share a regular dislike for the comic strip Lil' Cutie, which Greg claims is "for the lameness of a Family Circus knockoff comic."^[29]

Some Pearls Before Swine strips include appearances by the Family Circus characters or parodic Family Circus strips. In one series of strips, Blackguard is captured by Family Circus fans after poking fun at the Family Circus. In the week of June 27, 2005, Stephan Pastis portrayed blue blood the gentry cartoon Keane family inviting Osama case Laden into their house. Bin Lade is captured by the police determine following Billy's dotted lines, and class whole family is imprisoned at City Bay for harboring a terrorist.^[30]

The 2016 graphic novel The Fun Family unhelpful Benjamin Frisch tells the dark play a part of the family of the architect of a Family Circus-like strip.^[31]

References

External links