20 years!? Oops, must have gotten Dilbert confused with something else. Well, if there’s anything about a resemblance in Seven Years of Highly Defective People, it’s not in the “boss” section.
Found W.A. Thornhump in the “strike” series. Thornhump with contacts, thinner, and hair pointed straight up would be close to Dilbert’s boss.
“SEEN any?” (Fundamentally Oral Bill guarding against Penguin Lust.)
Deathtongue’s tender ballad Love Rhino.
“Good warfare is good football, sister … Figure this: ya got yer combat unit, yer general havoc and mayhem and of course ya got yer enemy! Ah … here comes a little dogface,now. Damage report, Private.”
“A Bolshevik halfback stepped on my head, Sir.”
I think my favorite storyline was when Lola Granola introduced Opus to her parents and her ex-boyfriend.
I can truely say that I read every single Bloom County, from the first strip to the very last. Bloom County was syndicated by the Washington Post Writers’ Group (their first attempt at distributing a comic strip). Strip #1 was published in 1982, which found me living in the DC suburbs. When I went to college, I actually had my sister clip the strip and send it to me. Eventually the New Orleans paper picked it up and I got my fix firsthand.
Speaking of which… anyone remember how The Bloom Beacon became The Bloom Picayune? Breathed was here in New Orleans for a cartoonists’ convention. After noting the name of our local paper, The Times Picayune, he decided to rename the Bloom County rag, saying something to the effect of: “Any paper that can call itself Picayune and still be taken seriously deserves to be honored.”
Padeye, absolutely saw the Christmas special - A Wish For Wings That Work. Hell, I even have it on laserdisc! It was actually an Outland animated special. I recall great debates at the time as to whether anyone could possibly give a voice to Opus that even remotely matched the one in our heads. In the end, I think they did a good job.
Skott, thanks for jogging the part of my brain that remembers useless crap. That would be “The Society of Blind, Left-Handed Dentists Without Tonsils.” God, I hope Regis asks me this stuff when I finally make it onto Millionaire.
“Herring Whopper, Heavy Mayo… Hold the Head!”
“In my dreams,
you’re all I sees,
boobs, butt and knees
be my main squeeze”
Announcer: And now, Fundamentally Oral Bill reveals the ultimate moral threat to our immoral society. And now, here’s Oral.
Bill: Hello. Ahem. PENGUIN LUST!!! Nothing but URGES FROM HELL!
Opus: Well, this is a fine how-do-you-do.
Operator: Hello, I’m from the bureau of nosy statistics. What is your height? weight? pants size? and sexual preference?
Opus: 2’11. 36 lbs. I don’t wear any pants. And svelte, buoyant waterfowl.
Operator: Thank you.
Opus: No problem. …They’re either going to arrest me or fire her.
“Permission to kill myself, sir.”
"DENIED."
“What do we want to do?”
“Live to see puberty!”
I love “Offensensitivity” as well. I also like the Sunday strip where Opus says, “AUgh! I dropped my ice cream cone on my foot! I am so blasted UNLUCKY!” Oliver proceeds to list the odds against Earth supporting life, flightless waterfowl existing, Opus’ parents mating, and Opus’ extreme good fortune to be standing in the meadow with ice cream on his foot. Of course, the odds are 1:1 in favor of Oliver wearing the remaining scoop by the last panel…
Mr. Rilch likes the one where Steve Dallas’ client trips out in the courtroom, while Steve stands slumped, with his chin in his shirt pocket, thinking, “I could pimp…”
Dunno what you mean by “replacing” C&H, Show_Biz: BC debuted three years before C&H, and Outland ended shortly after C&H did. I seem to remember that it was a triple whammy: Calvin, Outland, and the Far Side all ended within a very short time span. This, of course, left Scott Adams licking his chops, as the field was then wide open for Dilbert.
And Jeff Olsen, Dilbert was around for a long time before it was popular. It wasn’t until the '90s that Adams found his niche and focused exclusively on office gags, but I remember seeing Dilbert in the '80s. May not be 20 years, but close to it.
Ooooh goody!
I love Berke Breathed, and I always feel so alone in this, the other high-schoolers have never heard of bloom county.
I’ve always loved the one where Opus is watching TV and Sam the news reporter freaks out.
TV: “Live from the white house, here is Sam”
Sam on TV: “I got dem happy feet, shuffle right down Pennsylvania street, etc.”
Opus: “I think Sam has freaked out”
TV: “We’re sorry, apparently Sam has freaked out”
Also, I get a bizarre kind of comfort from the strips where Opus takes a dandelion break.
And get this: I’m so pathetic I get choked up whenever I see that last strip, where it shows all the familiar Bloom County places, devoid of life, and Opus is lugging his stuff away, not even looking back at us.
Oh Berke… why did you leave us?
I feel the same way about Bill Watterson. Why did Calvin and Hobbes have to end?
::siiiiiiigghh::
Opus, Steve, Milo, Rosebud and Cutter John, please bring back your happy little 80’s political world.
Berke, could you do just one more book? It’d make my year. But alas, it is not to be.
Bye,
MarxBoy
::Laughing really hard::
Just came across this strip.
http://www.neosoft.com/~bloom/sunday1.jpg
Oh man.
“Methinks this does not bode well”
Gotta love Opus.
Also the time he orders the complete works of “Yodelin’ Joe” or someone like that, then apologizes to the operator tells her he got carried away and to cancel the order, then hangs up the phone and says
“Actually Yodelin’ Joe’s music would gag a goat”
Great mental image.
Just so MarxBoy doesn’t get labeled a thread-killer (jeez, what a downer! :D), I’m going to post more of my favorite quotes.
Cockroach: So push the button, you suicidal goons! We’re indestructible! (Opus steps on him.)
Binkley: Pop, you think pantyhose commercials are a threat to the family.
(Scene: Opus is sleeping in the meadow; the nuclear power plant is in the background, and various noises are coming from it.) Whirr! Click…Poing! Snap!
Oops.
Opus: (Waking up) Hello.
Otis Oracle (at the book burning): Well! Have some foul and vile records there, knave?
Milo: You bet.
Otis: All right! Light 'em up!!
Milo: Where’s the Donny Osmond pile?
OK, OK, one more and I’m gone. Jeez, I could go on all day.
Milo: (during a neighborhood softball game) Mrs. Albaghetti! Stop chasing that ballplayer! He’s not Benito Mussolini!!
How amazing, I was just reading “One Last Little Peek” this afternoon, then I stumble across this thread…
Great stuff. Never fails to make me laugh. Him and Waterson, both.
The series about homosexuality thinly disguised as a series about penguin lust.
Recasting the airline worker strike with Santa’s elves.
Genius.
And Outland was great…what are you guys talking about? I remember the one where Opus and Steve go out to dinner. After the usual “smoking or non-smoking?” the waiter starts asking them about their racial background, ending with “ancestors kicked butt?” To which Steve responds “Yeah!!”
Last frame shows them sitting in the oppressive white male section. Opus leans over to a black woman sitting in the next session and says “may I borrow the salt?” to which she replies “apologize.”
Well, Dad, I guess it’s safe to say we’re not a couple of short, overweight, French-speaking, Hindu, Communist, gay, black women. Nope, racially, ethnicly, physically, sexually, and gender-wise, we’re hopelessly in the majority. For crying out loud, we’re not even in the Moral Majority minority! And there’s darn few of us left! Y’know what that makes us?
A minority.
Right. Power, brother.
I have all but one of the Opus dolls that were released (I have the graduate, the shower, penguin lust, the reindeer, a Hawaiian one, and the standard “plain”). And I have every book there is. I still enjoy his commentary on the time Reagan called him when he was in the shower: “I still regret not saying ‘I think I should tell you, sir, that I’m not wearing any pants.’”
Opus: “I am at one with my brothers on this spaceship earth!” (Looks down at Milquetoast the cockroach) “Except for stupid cockroaches!” Stomp, stomp, stomp. Last frame - lying on the floor “Moral failures are such a bummer.”
Milquetoast: “Brother, you’re on my weiner.”
Lola Granola: “It just doesn’t SOAR, darn it!”
“Even their uzis are pink!”
To this day, I ask people “How goes the great cockroach revolution?” Nobody except my brother, with whom I share a brain, has ever responded with the correct line: “Gloriously, Ahmed, gloriously!”
My favorite strip of all time, set during the 1984 American Meadow Party Convention:
Binkley: I mean, the Presidency! Wow! Leader of the free world! Global destruction at his fingertips! And we nominated a dead cat!! A DEAD CAT!! Maybe we should have found someone with a more appropriate background! A more experienced background…MILO! WE SHOULD HAVE FOUND AN AMIABLE OLD EX-B MOVIE ACTOR!!"
Milo: Don’t be ridiculous.
Binkley (burying his face in his hands): Oh, Milo, we should have called Fred MacMurray.
My second favorite strip:
Milo, on the phone, taking notes: Senator, will you confirm that you sunk Jimmy Hoffa in your backyard pond?
Senator: What? Of course not!
Milo: Fine. I’ll go with “Sen. Bedfellow denies that pond is where he sunk Hoffa.”
Senator: That’s Not True!
Milo: OK, “Bedfellow DID sink Hoffa in pond.”
Senator: I DON’T KNOW WHERE HOFFA IS!!
Milo: “I lost the body”, says Bedfellow."
Even I couldn’t do that, and I started this thread!
Now, that just made my day. 
Damn, I’m getting misty reading this thread.
The reason why W.A. Thornhump, the CEO of Bloom County Inc., and the Pointy-Haired Boss in Dilbert look similar is because they are based on the same people type - the older, overweight good-old-boy boss with the 3/4 natural tonsure. If you look at the early days of Dilbert, the PHB has your basic curly fringe. He has evolved to his present day 'do.
Ah yes, the glorious cockroach revolution.
There’s another one I don’t remember too well - Milo or maybe Opus is trying to get a demonstration going and is talking to some sorority girls. Their response is “We’re talking husbands on the hoof here”
Ah, the nuclear disarmament rally. “You mean like a pep rally?” “Sorry, we’ve got a mixer with the Delts Saturday.” “Delts?” “A fraternity. Real hunks!” “We’re talking the survival of man on earth, here!” “And I’m talking husbands on the hoof.”
Slightly paraphrased, 'cause I don’t have the book handy. That’s the same story line that had them going to college campuses, because they were supposedly “hotbeds of liberalism.” Fraternity response: “Midget commies.”
Yep. That’s why I can’t find my car keys, folks. Brain’s full of comic strips, old song lyrics, and the screenplay from “The Holy Grail.”
Ah, Bloom County - the greatest comic strip of all time, with Calvin & Hobbes a close second. I like Outland too, not so much in its own right, but more because it has the same characters, and a similar sense of humour.
I have a penguin lust Opus toy by my computer as I type.
Milo: That’s right…Bill has agreed to sell Nabisco one of his Boingers songs as a TV jingle for $12 million
Steve: No! (To Bill) You’ve made us rich?!
Milo: Steve, you gave up your subsiduary percentage when you rewrote their contracts in jail last week.
Steve: You’ve sold us out?!
Care Bears always care for drinkin’ and cuttin’ loose!
Pure genius…
Ah, Berke, we hardly knew ye. I have great appreciation for Doonsbury, Calvin & Hobbes and the Far Side (and Bizarro still makes me giggle insanely), but damn, if I could have anything back that I once had, I think it would be Berke and his much-missed cast of characters.
His sense of timing was impeccable, no? Not just the punchline, but the delivery AFTER the giggle is what usually makes me laugh until I cry.
Case in point, since this one is just classic, and I don’t think it’s been mentioned:
Opus: How I love to watch the morn,
with golden sun that shines,
up above to nicely warm
these frosty toes of mine.
The wind doth taste of bittersweet,
like jasper wine and sugar.
I bet it’s blown through others’ feet,
like those of…
<wait for it>
Caspar Weinberger.
Milo, popping up: START OVER!
Gods, how can you improve on perfection?
I can’t BELIEVE none of you have mentioned Rosebud the basselope yet, either. PINKOS! HEATHENS!
(“Fetch me a pickle milshake” is still one of my favourite lines)