# Get Fuzzy and Doonesbury get serious **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 21, 2004, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-fuzzy-and-doonesbury-get-serious/241245 "2004-04-21T17:39:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2004, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-fuzzy-and-doonesbury-get-serious/241245/41 "2004-04-22T23:12:19Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > My sig line is 100% factual, and btw I’ve noticed quite a few anti-Bush siglines around, many incredibly juvenile and idiotic. Never said it wasn’t true, and never said it was unique. But I’m not the one who’s complaining about political arguments showing up in theoretically apolitical forums. I don’t have a problem with your sig or with **Menocchio** ’s original comment. I just have trouble seeing how someone could have a problem with one and not with the other. > [@](#): > > But the fact remains, he started the argument. You’re trying to insist he didn’t, for reasons unknown, but you’re quite obviously wrong. Similarly, I never said he didn’t start it. I merely pointed out that, if you’re so offended by political arguments in Cafe Society, the best course of action is to ignore people who are trying to start them, not encourage them by replying. Pretty much the same theory behind the Board’s DNFTT policy. Not that I’m saying anyone in this thread is trolling, of course. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2004, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-fuzzy-and-doonesbury-get-serious/241245/42 "2004-04-22T23:59:02Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Similarly, I never said he didn’t start it. Yet for all your chastisement of me, you never spared a discouraging word for him. Yet you don’t see the problem with this… :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2004, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-fuzzy-and-doonesbury-get-serious/241245/43 "2004-04-23T10:47:16Z")
I think B.D.'s losing a leg is a natural fit for the strip, given that Trudeau’s put this character in Iraq to begin with. While the government isn’t about to give us numbers or anything, it’s clear that all those bombs in the roads, and all those other IEDs and RPGs and whatnot, are causing a lot of loss-of-limb injuries over there. IMHO, that’s been one of the invisible issues of this war, the apparent reality that an unusually high proportion of the wounded will never physically be made whole. Kudos to Trudeau and Conley for taking this on. But especially to Trudeau, since Rob’s cousin will probably drop back out of _Get Fuzzy_ after awhile, but B.D. has been one of _Doonesbury_’s core characters since its creation over thirty years ago, and will continue to be so. As I mentioned in **Cosmopolitan** ’s LJ yesterday, this is making me feel really \* old\* all of a sudden. I was a _Doonesbury_ reader when B.D. decided to head off to Vietnam…to get out of writing a term paper! BTW, I’d guesstimate B.D.'s ‘year of birth’ at around 1951-52, since I was born in 1954, and he ‘was’ a college QB when I was a junior in HS. Of course, even in a strip where characters grow and change, time flows differently than out in the ‘real world’. As some of you remember, Doonesbury, B.D., Mark, Zonker, Boopsie, Nichole, and so forth remained in college throughout the 1970s, moving to the ‘real world’ only during/after Trudeau’s sabbatical ca. 1981. (Yet while the core group was spending a decade as undergrads, Joanie Caucus finished law school in the usual three years.) Wonder when Trudeau’s going to come up with an icon for Kerry? (Along the lines of Clinton’s waffle, Dubya’s asterisk, and so forth.) > [@cmkeller](#): > > Actually, it did have a “special episode feel” to it…it wasn’t exactly a natural evolution in the character, it came about as a from-beyond-the-grave revelation from Andy Lippincott. Whose death from AIDS, as well, had something of that “special episode feel.” Yeah, Mark’s gayness just came out of the blue, and made no sense at all: one of the few times Trudeau’s handling of his main characters has been genuinely clumsy. This is a guy who, if he were a RL person, would have had no reason not to ‘come out’ a decade or two earlier than he did. (I missed the visitation from Andy’s ghost, btw.) Also, Mark’s SO, Chase, is another sour note: they seem to have nothing in common besides their sexual orientation. ---
**Author:** ![xayoz306](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/bc8723/32.png) [@xayoz306](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xayoz306)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2004, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-fuzzy-and-doonesbury-get-serious/241245/44 "2004-04-23T11:34:08Z")
I actually don’t mind the plot line that “Get Fuzzy” has taken. IMO, it could be a way that he is addressing an issue like a RL relative losing a limb 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:** [April 23, 2004, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-fuzzy-and-doonesbury-get-serious/241245/45 "2004-04-23T13:11:16Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > As I mentioned in **Cosmopolitan** ’s LJ yesterday, this is making me feel really \* old\* all of a sudden. I was a _Doonesbury_ reader when B.D. decided to head off to Vietnam…to get out of writing a term paper! Well, heck, man, so was I! But I was 7 at the time… ---
**Author:** ![Illinois\_Boy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Illinois\_Boy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illinois_Boy)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2004, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-fuzzy-and-doonesbury-get-serious/241245/46 "2004-04-23T18:25:18Z")
I’ve been impressed by how both stprylines are progressing. Doonesbury had a greater emotional impact, what with the stump and the helmet. But the next two strips eased off and gave us a little humor. This morning’s strip where BD first sees (off panel) made me laugh out loud. Then of course, I realized I was laughing at a man discovering he’s lost a leg and felt… ummm… conflicted. Get Fuzzy doesn’t have the same wallop, but did a nice job of capturing the uneasy humor with which people might try to face this sort of thing. Comparing the pain of a lost limb to the pain of being a Red Sox fan. It feels true. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2004, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-fuzzy-and-doonesbury-get-serious/241245/47 "2004-04-23T19:55:27Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Wonder when Trudeau’s going to come up with an icon for Kerry? (Along the lines of Clinton’s waffle, Dubya’s asterisk, and so forth.) The chin seems to be a key point for caricaturists, but I don’t think a disembodied chin will work for the strip. In a sidebar, am I the only one who hates _Doonesbury’s_ use of icons/avatars for public figures these days? Clinton’s waffle, Bush’s asterisk, Schwarzenegger’s groping hand… bleagh. I liked the “old” way of doing things, by just drawing a picture of the White House, photocopying it three times, then adding dialog to it. The avatars make the strip less real and more lampoonish, which detracts from the humor. Am I alone here? ---
**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:** [April 23, 2004, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-fuzzy-and-doonesbury-get-serious/241245/48 "2004-04-23T20:37:28Z")
> [@](#): > > In a sidebar, am I the only one who hates Doonesbury’s use of icons/avatars for public figures these days? Ah, he uses them sparingly enough, IMHO. If it ever got out of hand, I’d probably be annoyed, but so far, the only non-Presidents I’ve ever seen him use them for are Schwartzenegger, Dan Quayle (a feather) and Newt Gingrich (a bomb with lit fuse). Oh, and invisibility for George Bush the first, which started when he was Vice President. In fact, it was probably that which began the whole schtick. On the other hand, if Kerry gets in, I have to wonder if he’d drop it. After all, he’s already drawn Kerry realistically in the past. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2004, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-fuzzy-and-doonesbury-get-serious/241245/49 "2004-04-23T21:53:58Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Oh, and invisibility for George Bush the first, which started when he was Vice President. In fact, it was probably that which began the whole schtick. How do you count the Max Headroom knock-off for Reagan (Ron Headrest?)? ---
**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:** [April 23, 2004, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-fuzzy-and-doonesbury-get-serious/241245/50 "2004-04-23T23:33:46Z")
Ron Headrest was (in the strip) created by Reagan’s image-makers to be an alter-ego, not used by Trudeau as an icon to represent Reagan himself. And in any case, I think the George Bush invisibility pre-dated Ron Headrest. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2004, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-fuzzy-and-doonesbury-get-serious/241245/51 "2004-04-23T23:39:48Z")
> [@Illinois\_Boy](#): > > Doonesbury had a greater emotional impact, what with the stump and the helmet. But the next two strips eased off and gave us a little humor. This morning’s strip where BD first sees (off panel) made me laugh out loud. Then of course, I realized I was laughing at a man discovering he’s lost a leg and felt… ummm… conflicted. But I laughed because I could just _hear_ B.D. saying that. Not maudlin, not depressed…just matter-of-fact angry at the situation. It’s exactly what 30-odd years of B.D. has set me up for. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2004, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-fuzzy-and-doonesbury-get-serious/241245/52 "2004-04-24T00:01:08Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > Yet for all your chastisement of me, you never spared a discouraging word for him. Yet you don’t see the problem with this… :rolleyes: Where have I chastised you for anything? I haven’t been offended by anything you said. Or anything **Menocchio** said, for that matter. I just thought that, if **Menocchio** ’s alleged hijacking bothered you so much, it would probably be best not to encourage the hijack by responding to him. Just offering friendly advice, no need to be so defensive. ---
**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 24, 2004, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-fuzzy-and-doonesbury-get-serious/241245/53 "2004-04-24T01:34:44Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Mark’s SO, Chase, is another sour note: they seem to have nothing in common besides their sexual orientation. Shit, I’ve had _plenty_ of girlfriends that we’ve had nothing in common except our sexual orientations. That horny ol’ physical thing can sometimes overwhelm the “You’re a Brahmsian, but I’m a Wagnerite!” division. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2004, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-fuzzy-and-doonesbury-get-serious/241245/54 "2004-04-24T01:41:35Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Also, Mark’s SO, Chase, is another sour note: they seem to have nothing in common besides their sexual orientation. I think part of the problem with their relationship is that we never see any of it, other than the occasional time when Chase is in the studio with Mark. Then they’re at political loggerheads. On the other hand, it’s not unheard of in real life. Look at Mary Matalin and James Carville. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-fuzzy-and-doonesbury-get-serious/241245.md?page=2)