# Doonesbury: Is B.D. Dead? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 1, 2004, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899 "2004-03-01T14:26:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899/1 "2004-03-01T14:26:33Z")
What do we think? Has Boopsie just learned that B.D. has been killed in action in Iraq? ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899/2 "2004-03-01T14:36:04Z")
Nope. I’m betting that, since she took over as football coach for Walden, and since it was a young ponytailed person putting the note in her box, that someone’s reporting a rape by members of the football team. This one could get ugly. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899/3 "2004-03-01T14:41:52Z")
I don’t think it’s related to BD. They wouldn’t inform her by snail mail. It wouldn’t surprise me if **JC** was right about a sexual assault storyline with the football team. ---
**Author:** ![Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chance_the_Gardener)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899/4 "2004-03-01T14:43:14Z")
I’m betting that he’s been wounded, though. It wouldn’t surprise me if he wound up disabled; Trudeau’s the kind of guy who’d change his strip permanently and radically. He’s done it before. I wouldn’t put it past him to make BD a fatal casualty of the Iraq occupation, but I suspect not. However, **Jonathan Chance** ’s point is a good one: it was addressed to Boopsie as a coach, so maybe it has nothing to do with BD at all. The rape idea makes sense. Whatever it is, I can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899/5 "2004-03-01T14:46:22Z")
Remember, kids. There was no postage on that note. And it was delivered in the middle of the night. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899/6 "2004-03-01T14:50:04Z")
I am glad to see this thread. I have been puzzling over DB all day. I would have never thought of the team-rape idea. Now that you put it in my head, it seems obvious. Now, how to make rape funny? ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899/7 "2004-03-01T14:53:18Z")
> [@Jonathan Chance](#): > > Remember, kids. There was no postage on that note. And it was delivered in the middle of the night. Yeah, yeah, you’re right. When I first read your reply to my OP I thought, “What difference does it make whether the letter carrier has a ponytail?” but then noticed the lack of postage and the handwritten addressing to “Acting Coach” instead of “Barbara Ann Boopstein.” So yeah, I’m sure now it’s something about the team and not B.D. I committed a half-cocked OP. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899/8 "2004-03-01T16:52:08Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > Now, how to make rape funny? He figured out how to do something with war and with AIDS… maybe he can do something here, too. I was thinking BD (and then going back and forth because they usually tell them that in person.) I failed to notice the lack of a postage stamp. And somehow I thought it was a regular mail carrier. My powers of observation leave quite a bit to be desired. ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899/9 "2004-03-01T20:09:41Z")
I agree with the rape/sexual harassment letter idea. I also wonder who the woman is. Knowing Trudeau’s character usage history, I suspect it might be Zipper’s sometime girlfriend. Is her name Pepper? ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899/10 "2004-03-01T20:39:44Z")
It couldn’t be anything anti-Bush (anti-Iraq); after all, the strip just endorsed George W. Bush in the 2/29 strip, remember? ---
**Author:** ![BraheSilver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@BraheSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BraheSilver)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899/11 "2004-03-01T22:37:49Z")
Perhaps I’m being wooshed here **rjung** , but wasn’t the gist of the Bush “endorsement” that we’ll never have a better person for the purposes of mocking in a comic strip? ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899/12 "2004-03-01T23:17:42Z")
> [@BraheSilver](#): > > Perhaps I’m being wooshed here Probably. 😉 My point was simply that I didn’t think Trudeau would “endorse” George one day and then hammer the readers with an anti-Bush storyline the next. And I can’t imagine a “Death of BD in Iraq” storyline as being anything _but_ anti-Bush. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899/13 "2004-03-01T23:26:37Z")
The funny thing is, I totally forgot that Boopsie was “Acting As Coach” of the football team, and I assumed that it meant she had taken a part-time job as an “Acting Coach,” based on her former career as a B-movie actress. I agree - probably a Colorado rape send-up. Or, I suppose, they could be getting into the BALCO steroid controversy, even though in real life, that deals with pros and not collegians. ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899/14 "2004-03-01T23:54:00Z")
> [@photopat](#): > > I agree with the rape/sexual harassment letter idea. I also wonder who the woman is. Knowing Trudeau’s character usage history, I suspect it might be Zipper’s sometime girlfriend. Is her name Pepper? Cricket. ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899/15 "2004-03-01T23:56:24Z")
good grief, i never thought of what is going on in colorado… my first thought was a daughter that was given up or her daughter trying to make an appointment with mom. then i remembered her daughter has zonker. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899/16 "2004-03-02T16:15:28Z")
The question has been answered in today’s strip. Yes, it is an alleged sexual assault, and it’s not the first one. And yes, Trudeau did manage to get joke out of it. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2004, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899/17 "2004-04-19T21:30:37Z")
> [@Fiver](#): > > What do we think? Has Boopsie just learned that B.D. has been killed in action in Iraq? Well, how about now? Is B.D. dead? Dying? Blind? Horribly mutilated? ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2004, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899/18 "2004-04-19T21:53:21Z")
My prediction: loss of a limb. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2004, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899/19 "2004-04-19T21:56:25Z")
Whoa…you think B.D. is the cousin of Rob in “Get Fuzzy” ? Rob just found out today that his “cousin William” lost a leg in Iraq. Maybe the “B” in “B.D.” stands for “Bill.” ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2004, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899/20 "2004-04-19T22:05:12Z")
Hey could be! I read ‘Get Fuzzy’ too, so maybe it planted the seed in my head. It would be interesting if the cartoonists did a “crossover”. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doonesbury-is-b-d-dead/231899.md?page=2)