# I'm old and getting confused re the history of some Doonesbury characters - Assistance appreciated
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-old-and-getting-confused-re-the-history-of-some-doonesbury-characters-assistance-appreciated/556229
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [October 6, 2010, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-old-and-getting-confused-re-the-history-of-some-doonesbury-characters-assistance-appreciated/556229 "2010-10-06T09:40:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2010, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-old-and-getting-confused-re-the-history-of-some-doonesbury-characters-assistance-appreciated/556229/1 "2010-10-06T09:40:50Z")
The current strip (today) has Mike’s daughter, and Joanie Cacus’ granddaughter (effectively) accusing her artist mother (Mike’s ex wife) of adultery as part of a larger conversation. Is this true?
Secondly, IIRC waaaay back in the day Joanie Caucus, now a kindly grandmother figure currently married to aspiring blogger and ex-Washington Post journalist Rick Redfern, effectively walked out on her sexist husband and her kids one of whom, of course, was Mike’s ex wife.
There are times I have missed large chunks of Doonesbury. Normally this would have been a pretty big deal, but I don’t recall ever seeing any strip dealing with the aftermath of this. Did the strip ever deal with how Joanie Caucus and her kids re-united or anything related to this?
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### Author:  [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2010, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-old-and-getting-confused-re-the-history-of-some-doonesbury-characters-assistance-appreciated/556229/2 "2010-10-06T12:27:20Z")
> [@astro](#):
>
> The current strip (today) has Mike’s daughter, and Joanie Cacus’ granddaughter (effectively) accusing her artist mother (Mike’s ex wife) of adultery as part of a larger conversation. Is this true?
>
> Secondly, IIRC waaaay back in the day Joanie Caucus, now a kindly grandmother figure currently married to aspiring blogger and ex-Washington Post journalist Rick Redfern, effectively walked out on her sexist husband and her kids one of whom, of course, was Mike’s ex wife.
>
> There are times I have missed large chunks of Doonesbury. Normally this would have been a pretty big deal, but I don’t recall ever seeing any strip dealing with the aftermath of this. Did the strip ever deal with how Joanie Caucus and her kids re-united or anything related to this?
I was going to try to do this from memory but will defer to Wikipedia. On J.J.
> [@](#):
>
> J.J. Caucus (possibly 4/22/73, as a child, unnamed) - Daughter of Joanie (JJ is ‘Joan Junior’). She was originally engaged to Zeke, but married Mike, **left Mike for Zeke** , and later won a MacArthur Fellowship. Performance artist. Mother of Alex Doonesbury.
On Joanie:
> [@](#):
>
> She first appeared in September 1972 in which she has a fight with her husband, Clinton, over her rights as a woman. She finds that her recently acquired feminist beliefs clash with his idea of how a wife should behave, and she promptly walks out on him. She catches a ride with Mike Doonesbury and Mark Slackmeyer who happen to be traveling cross-country on motorcycle at the time, and travels with them back to Walden Commune.
>
> There she spent several years living with the other characters while running a day-care service for local children (whose parents often weren’t too thrilled when their little girls came home talking about Women’s Rights). While running Walden Day Care, Caucus sent off applications to several real-life law schools (whose actual students petitioned the schools to accept her as a student). She eventually accepted an offer from Boalt Hall, and moved to California. She shared an apartment with Ginny Slade while there, and helped Ginny in an unsuccessful bid for the United States Congress.
>
> After becoming a lawyer, Joanie spent many years working for Congresswoman Lacey Davenport, and married Rick Redfern, a reporter with the Washington Post. **She also reconnected with her daughter J.J., whom she hadn’t seen since she left her family in 1972. Joanie felt incredibly guilty over this, but she and J.J. have reconciled**.
So yes and yes.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2010, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-old-and-getting-confused-re-the-history-of-some-doonesbury-characters-assistance-appreciated/556229/3 "2010-10-06T12:29:41Z")
JJ running away with Zeke was a **huge** arc. One of the books is almost wholly dedicated to it.
eta: ISTR that it was _Washed Out Bridges and Other Disasters_.
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### Author:  [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2010, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-old-and-getting-confused-re-the-history-of-some-doonesbury-characters-assistance-appreciated/556229/4 "2010-10-06T12:47:03Z")
She was inspired to ditch Mike by the movie **The Bridges of Madison County**. She tried to re-create a scene from the movie, basking in her newfound outlaw sexuality; some old geezers observing from their porch responded by saying “Calling Hugh Grant.” Grant had newly been arrested for patronizing a prostitute.
I guess what was good for mom wasn’t good for daughter.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2010, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-old-and-getting-confused-re-the-history-of-some-doonesbury-characters-assistance-appreciated/556229/5 "2010-10-06T16:33:16Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Did the strip ever deal with how Joanie Caucus and her kids re-united or anything related to this?
Joan walked out on her first two kids when they were children. The son was retroconned out of existence. The daughter, JJ, came back into the story when she was around eighteen - she showed up at Joan’s door one day. It was an awkward moment for Joan because, in addition to meeting the daughter she had abandoned all those years, she had also failed to tell Rick that she had children from her first marriage.
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### Author:  [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2010, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-old-and-getting-confused-re-the-history-of-some-doonesbury-characters-assistance-appreciated/556229/6 "2010-10-06T16:47:43Z")
Since we’re on the topic of Doonesbury, have we seen “Jimbo” the newly minted billionaire from a few weeks ago before?
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2010, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-old-and-getting-confused-re-the-history-of-some-doonesbury-characters-assistance-appreciated/556229/7 "2010-10-06T17:02:50Z")
Jim “Jimbo” Andrews was the head of Universal Petroleum. He’s the guy that sent Duke into Iran, which triggered the hostage crisis. He also hired Duke to steal computer files when he got investigated and divorced, leading Duke to commit a quadruple-cross, which he said was “a pain in the butt to bill correctly.”
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2010, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-old-and-getting-confused-re-the-history-of-some-doonesbury-characters-assistance-appreciated/556229/8 "2010-10-06T18:03:28Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> Jim “Jimbo” Andrews was the head of Universal Petroleum. He’s the guy that sent Duke into Iran, which triggered the hostage crisis. He also hired Duke to steal computer files when he got investigated and divorced, leading Duke to commit a quadruple-cross, which he said was “a pain in the butt to bill correctly.”
That’s pretty much was what I was going to post.
**silenus** , I’d suspect we were the same person if you only liked sushi or thai food.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2010, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-old-and-getting-confused-re-the-history-of-some-doonesbury-characters-assistance-appreciated/556229/9 "2010-10-06T18:05:54Z")
Hey, I LOVE Thai food! I’m still burning from the Spicy Fried Rice I had for dinner Monday.
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### Author:  [@Sean\_Factotum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_Factotum)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2010, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-old-and-getting-confused-re-the-history-of-some-doonesbury-characters-assistance-appreciated/556229/10 "2010-10-06T18:07:29Z")
Did anyone thing, in Monday’s strip, that Joanie sounded a bit too much like Lacy? Specifically, the “How’s your young man” question to Alex.
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2010, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-old-and-getting-confused-re-the-history-of-some-doonesbury-characters-assistance-appreciated/556229/11 "2010-10-07T03:36:03Z")
> [@Krokodil](#):
>
> She was inspired to ditch Mike by the movie **The Bridges of Madison County**. She tried to re-create a scene from the movie, basking in her newfound outlaw sexuality; some old geezers observing from their porch responded by saying “Calling Hugh Grant.” Grant had newly been arrested for patronizing a prostitute.
>
> I guess what was good for mom wasn’t good for daughter.
Plus JJ decided that because Mike didn’t appreciate her narcissistic artistic pretensions, that her dissatisfaction with their marriage was all his fault. :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2010, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-old-and-getting-confused-re-the-history-of-some-doonesbury-characters-assistance-appreciated/556229/12 "2010-10-07T03:52:03Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> Jim “Jimbo” Andrews was the head of Universal Petroleum. He’s the guy that sent Duke into Iran, which triggered the hostage crisis. He also hired Duke to steal computer files when he got investigated and divorced, leading Duke to commit a quadruple-cross, which he said was “a pain in the butt to bill correctly.”
Jim was also a business associate of Mark Slackmeyer’s dad, wasn’t he? I always thought the two plump WASP businessmen looked a lot alike.
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### Author:  [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2010, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-old-and-getting-confused-re-the-history-of-some-doonesbury-characters-assistance-appreciated/556229/13 "2010-10-07T08:14:11Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> Jim was also a business associate of Mark Slackmeyer’s dad, wasn’t he? I always thought the two plump WASP businessmen looked a lot alike.
Well, they were until Slackmeyer tried to get Andrews to help him with a corporate takeover and Andrews grabbed Slackmeyer’s firm too. Can’t remember if they reconciled from that.
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### Author:  [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2010, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-old-and-getting-confused-re-the-history-of-some-doonesbury-characters-assistance-appreciated/556229/14 "2010-10-07T17:33:58Z")
Elendil’s heir:
> [@](#):
>
> I always thought the two plump WASP businessmen looked a lot alike.
The Slackemeyer family (pre-divorce and trophy wive(s)) is Jewish, not WASP.
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### Author:  [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2010, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-old-and-getting-confused-re-the-history-of-some-doonesbury-characters-assistance-appreciated/556229/15 "2010-10-07T18:02:30Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> > [@silenus](#):
> >
> > Jim “Jimbo” Andrews was the head of Universal Petroleum. He’s the guy that sent Duke into Iran, which triggered the hostage crisis. He also hired Duke to steal computer files when he got investigated and divorced, leading Duke to commit a quadruple-cross, which he said was “a pain in the butt to bill correctly.”
>
> Jim was also a business associate of Mark Slackmeyer’s dad, wasn’t he? I always thought the two plump WASP businessmen looked a lot alike.
Thats actually what prompted the question. I thought Jim was the elder Slackmeyer, till I remembered the latter was dead, and then started wondering who he was.