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| Get Fuzzy | |
|---|---|
 Logo for Get Fuzzy comic strip. |
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| Author(s) | Darby Conley |
| Website | Get Fuzzy Website |
| Current status / schedule | Running |
| Launch date | September 1999 |
| Syndicate(s) | United Feature Syndicate |
| Publisher(s) | Andrews McMeel Publishing |
| Genre(s) | Humor, Pets, Family |
Get Fuzzy is an American daily comic strip written and drawn by Darby Conley. The strip features the adventures of Boston advertising executive Rob Wilco and his two anthropomorphic pets: dog Satchel Pooch and cat Bucky Katt. Get Fuzzy has been published by United Feature Syndicate since September 1999. It appears in over 200 newspapers worldwide.
The strip's humor comes from the conflict between Bucky's and Satchel's personalities, which are extreme stereotypes of cats and dogs. Sweet, trusting, naïve Satchel is routinely subjected to the exploitation of cruel, self-centered Bucky, who is always torturing the poor canine. Rob, the middleman, is often frazzled from dealing with them, or more specifically, from dealing with Bucky's destructive nature and overall nastiness. The three characters live in an apartment on Boston's Longwood Avenue.
Contents |
Main characters
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This comics-related article describes a work or element of fiction in a primarily in-universe style. Please help rewrite it to explain the fiction more clearly and provide non-fictional perspective. |
Bucky B. Katt
A twisted Siamese cat (Conley felt that tabbies were overrepresented in cartoons[1]), Bucky Katt is selfish, cynical, and "lazy". His ears are nearly always drawn laid back flat on his head in a defiant, aggressive and unfriendly manner, unless he is forced to have them up or has a bedhead. In certain color pictures of Bucky, his eyes seem to be a mix of sky blue and wisteria purple, rather than a plain sky blue. He is a cat in that he does not understand everything that humans (or just about any other animal) do. This, along with being unfriendly, is a bad combination. According to Rob's friend, Joe Doman, Bucky is named after Negro League baseball player Buck O'Neil (a teammate of Satchel Paige in the 1930s and 1940s). However, Rob has mentioned that Bucky was given his name in reference to his fang (which Bucky has referred to as his "pointy"), which protrudes from his mouth much like a buck tooth, but is more or less a "fang". Bucky thinks it is because he is such a "young buck". In several strips Bucky goes by his nickname "Shirley". Bucky has only one upper cuspid, having knocked out the other one in a fight. Rather than having his own room, as his "roommate" Satchel Pooch does, Bucky lives in a dresser located in the hall closet of Rob Wilco's apartment, because he refuses to share a room with Satchel. It has also been mentioned that when they moved to that apartment, Bucky chose the closet because "it was the safest place in case of assault". Much of the storyline has Bucky continually finding ways to antagonize and annoy Rob and Satchel.
In one storyline, when Bucky has his "pointy" knocked out by Fungo Squiggly, they immediately go to the vets office. When a nurse calls the trio in, Rob asks Satchel for the glass of milk the tooth was in. Satchel had drank it, but they recover the tooth with some Ipecac. While in the waiting room, Rob says that Bucky has never actually been in a real fight and that when he finally attempts to get into one, he gets his tooth knocked out. Satchel says that Bucky has won a fight before. When Rob questions him, Satchel says, "Well, to be fair, Mittens was 20 years old, declawed and toothless, and she still managed to get a few good gummings on Bucky's arm. But yeah...yeah, I think technically Bucky won when Mittens fell asleep." Bucky wound up losing two teeth and having the missing his lower right posterior molar replaced by a gold tooth. Following the vet's office fiasco, Bucky sued Fungo and the story sent them to the Judge Judy show.
Bucky is frequently depicted as possessing an abundance of rather disagreeable feline traits, such as anti-social tendencies, delight in random destruction (at times bordering on vandalism) and violence, hostility, and selfishness at a much higher level. Most of this is directed at Satchel, as he endeavors to wreck Satchel's optimistic outlook of life, but usually fails, because Satchel does not have enough intelligence for his rude sarcasm and is often unaware that he is being insulted. In one story arc, however, he gets angry at Bucky in response to Bucky calling Satchel's dog friends "a bunch of Eurotrash", resulting in meek and kinder behavior from Bucky for a period of time. In a mild display of insubordination, Bucky calls Rob "Pinky", referring to Rob's (in Bucky's eyes) shameful lack of fur and skin color. At other times he calls him "Robert","Robbo","Wilco","Bob","Miss","Seniorita","Pinko","Chickless", and "Cracker", rarely using his preferred name, "Rob". Bucky has had two girlfriends, a Persian named Le Beutifal and a Siamese called Darcy.
Three obsessions dominate Bucky's life: The Death of Fungo Squiggly, the ferret who lives next door, his desire to eat a monkey (including Chucky Chimp, an ape at a zoo who mistook him for a rather large banana, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim's "Rally Monkey", and Hartlepool United F.C. simian mascot H'Angus), and wanting a movie made about him. None of these goals has any reasonable rationale behind it, and he fails brilliantly in his repeated attempts to fulfill these obsessions. Fungo routinely disrupts Bucky's schemes, the single encounter he had with a monkey (at a zoo) resulted in the chimp trying to peel Bucky (thinking he was a banana), and his movie schemes always end with a lack of funding after initial rejection by Rob to "invest" into the movie project. Bucky is often shown to be highly prejudiced against members of the weasel family, which may explain his obsession with Fungo.
His attempts at intellectual superiority are undermined by his constant malapropisms and his habit of making ridiculous claims, which he never admits as being factually incorrect, such as saying that owls, locomotives, England and Canada do not exist, even though Bucky has visited the latter. Bucky is furthermore frequently depicted as believing in absurd conspiracy theories, or absurd theories in general.
Bucky owns a miniature teddy bear named "Smacky", obtained by his refusing to exchange toys with Satchel at a McDoodles restaurant even though each had the toy the other wanted. It is one of the few objects Bucky seems to care for. An instance of such affection occurred within one story arc, as Fungo Squiggly demanded possession of Smacky to guarantee the safe return of Bucky's autobiography, which the ferret had stolen. Furthermore, as Christmas gifts, Bucky received two other bears which he named "Cracker" (because the bear was white) and "Punk", but they do not appear as often as Smacky. Satchel's response to the three bears, "Smack, Cracker, and Punk", a play on Kellogg's Rice Krispies' characters Snap, Crackle and Pop. Bucky also owns a rag doll named "Ms. Pretty", similar to Barbie. She has only been seen once, but is occasionally mentioned. Bucky carries the doll in a backpack when he goes outside.She has one arm and rather frazzled hair. Despite his lack of sensitivity, Bucky cares deeply for Smacky and Ms. Pretty. He was also distressed when Rob washed his blanket.
Despite "talk[ing] a lot of smack", Bucky is often shown to be a very poor fighter physically. After working out to look more "buff" for his then girlfriend persian, he asks Rob and Satchel how he looks and if they can tell if he's been working up. Satchel says, "Well...no...you're real fuzzy though; its sort of hard to tell." Rob tells him, "You've focused on your tooth for so long as your main form of intimidation that your body got sort of...flabby."Oddly enough, when Bucky does fight, his weapon of choice is a spork. He also claims to be able to "swing a mean sock of legos".
Satchel also asked Bucky if he was going to give anything to his date, the persian, reffering to flowers and tuna. Bucky replies that he's been holding on to "this big rat for a special occasion...". When Rob sees the gift in a "Shooz" box, he says, "Well, we haven't even met this girl, yet, Satchel; maybe she -HOLY COW!!! I thought it was a toy! Get rid of that thing, dude!"
Bucky claims to be a fan of the "Yankers", even wearing a Yankees hat throughout the series, only because Rob wouldn't let him wear the "'B' is for 'Bucky'" hat. He taunts Rob when the Red Sox play poorly, but knows little about baseball. Bucky's one acknowledgment to Rob's obsession with Rugby Union football came when he inexplicably performed the Ka Mate haka made famous by Rob's favorite national team, the All Blacks of New Zealand.
Bucky spends much of his time watching television, especially early in the comic strip. Early on, it was said that Bucky spent at least half of his day watching television, though this was faded out as the author decided to make Bucky's schedule more nap-oriented. For more than a week at one point in the strip, Bucky pretended that his life was a television show, pretending to be a soda spokesman, a news anchor, and a character he "invented", Dolly Persian. This phase came to an abrupt end as Rob pointed to Bucky, and made a clicking noise, claiming that he had "turned the Bucky Channel off".
Although he professes a lack of interest in the Harry Potter series, Bucky took part in a spoiler-filled discussion of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince with Rob regarding the allegiance of potions master Severus Snape, and also uses the series' fictionality as the basis for his afformentioned claims about trains, owls, England and Canada. At one point Rob asked him if he wanted to listen to him read Harry Potter, but Bucky left the room, and was listening through a crack in the door. Bucky seems to like Slytherin because Satchel is a fan of Hufflepuff House. In addition, Bucky fits the house qualifications of being an ambitious and cunning pure-blooded (and evil) animal.
On most outdoor excursions, when Rob is present, Bucky is carried in a strap-on "Bundle-O-Joy" baby carrier, referenced as a way of keeping the cat out of trouble. Rob has also been known to use a harness leash on him for the same purpose.
Bucky has been shown to hold extremely conservative political viewpoints throughout the strip, but these may not stem from actual convictions as much as a desire to antagonize Rob and Satchel, both apparent liberals. Bucky is also frequently shown to have francophobic and Anti-Quebec sentiments (he regularly says words like frog and canuck, although these, like his politics, appear not to stem from racism or nativism but from the desire to antagonize Satchel for his background). He also has no visible sense of pride as an American.
Darby Conley has made gradual revelations about Bucky's birth and early life. Rob once mentioned that he found Bucky huddled on a trash can, while the cat was only five ounces and a few weeks old, in Hackensack, New Jersey. Though Bucky believes himself to be a Leo, he is revealed by Rob to be a Capricorn. (Rob also called Bucky "a Cancer" when he told Satchel, who had been reading the Sagittarius horoscope, that he was a Leo- although it was probably more a testament to his anger and annoyance towards Bucky than his actual astrological sign.) While Bucky's father has never been mentioned, Bucky gave his mother's maiden name on a credit card application as "Tricky Woo", possibly after a canine character in All Creatures Great and Small. One Sunday comic strip shows early "baby pictures" of a young Bucky clinging to Satchel. Interestingly, this is the only strip that shows Bucky with both upper cuspids.
Starting in September 2006, Bucky's cousin from Manchester, Mac Manc McManx, arrived at Rob's apartment, and subsequently revealed that Bucky's hatred of and desire to eat monkeys is apparently genetic. Bucky ran for President of the United States in 2008, supposedly as an Independent. Some of his campaign ads were references to marijuana, although he appears unaware of that fact (for instance, to promise "a chicken in every pot" he came up with the slogan "Bucky is on pot").
Although he feels the need to maintain an "alley cat" image, Bucky occasionally reveals a kitten-like nature. He has also once voluntarily fixed Satchel's watch, and after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Bucky was badly shaken; while Rob and Satchel left to donate blood, he decorated the apartment with thankful balloons and signs, and baked some cookies for them to show his appreciation.
Bucky Katt has taken to referencing Wikipedia in his delusions of grandeur, to the point of vandalizing this article. A particular Wikipedia user took a page out of Bucky's book and duplicated the edit after reading the strip in question. The article is purported to contain the words "Bucky Katt's Greatest Hits: Volume 2 went fourple [sic] platinum in a record 2 hours." He also claims that the article has a bit "where [he] won Wimbledon".
Satchel Pooch
An overweight (in one strip, it was mentioned he was on the atkins diet), naïve, friendly, and easily amused dog. His father, named Copernicus, a Labrador Retriever and retired guide dog, and his mother, a Shar Pei, live in Cheticamp, Nova Scotia. His father, one of a long line of guard dogs and Army dogs, was disappointed that Satchel had changed his name from "Number 8" to Satchel and also that he had become a "house dog." He has been alleged by Joe, a friend of his sports fanatic "owner" Rob Wilco, to be named after baseball player Satchel Paige.
Satchel is kind, gentle, and sympathetic. These traits, coupled with his naïvete and gullibility, make him a natural target for the scheming Bucky Katt. Although he often seems oblivious to his own exploitation (Bucky once sold Satchel his own Nerf football by writing "Sooper[sic]" above "Nerf" to make it a "Sooper Nerf", and Bucky also once sold him his own moon pie for $5,) Satchel occasionally expresses frustration towards Bucky and his hostile attitude. He seems to have forgotten that dogs are traditionally the natural aggressor in relationships between dogs and cats, and in fact, intimidation appears to be completely alien to the affable and easygoing dog. He has only threatened Bucky with violence once, and it was due to Bucky insulting Satchel's friends, rather than anything aimed at Satchel directly. Satchel did forcibly grab Bucky once after Bucky had turned on every light in the house (as well as putting a sock in the toaster oven) in an effort to force Bucky to turn the unused lights off due to Satchel's concern over global warming. Satchel is normally unilaterally nice to Bucky, and usually receives no consideration whatsoever from the cat in return; rare exceptions to this lopsided relationship include Satchel's gift of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream to Bucky on his birthday, which elicited an unprecedented display of gratitude from Bucky (who apparently believed it contained actual monkeys).
Satchel's jokes tend to deliver either a pun comment or the strip's punch line. Both are usually preceded by his laughter. His jokes often involve him not fully understanding an idea. Often, a punchline provided by another character is followed by Satchel delivering a second punchline.
Satchel's personality serves as foil to that of Bucky's: easy to please, optimistic to the extreme, and perfectly content to peacefully coexist with everyone. He is good friends with Bucky's nemesis, Fungo Squiggly, much to Bucky's dismay. In fact, they are such good friends that Rob had a ferret flap installed in Satchel's room so Fungo could come into the apartment and leave as he pleased (much to Bucky's chagrin, who broke Satchel's piggy bank out of spite when he found the flap).
True to his character, Satchel takes a neutral position in the ongoing sports feud between professed New York Yankees fan Bucky and rabid Boston Red Sox fan Rob. Satchel says he likes the Chicago Cubs. Satchel is also very proud of his Canadian heritage, taking the time to watch Queen Elizabeth II whenever the royal figure is on television. He is a Harry Potter enthusiast, and was once the flustered victim of a spoiler-filled conversation between Rob and Bucky regarding Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. As a fan of the Harry Potter series, Satchel displays a Hufflepuff poster in his room, a house affiliation that naturally suits the loyal and friendly dog. Naturally, Satchel is also a supporter of animal rights.
When Bucky forced him and Rob to recite scenes from "the greatest comic strip ever", his guess as to what the strip was Garfield.
Although Satchel cannot tell time, he wears a watch he calls "Handy." Though the watch was destroyed in an accident with a bicycle, it was later found and repaired by Bucky, who then gave it back to him as a Christmas present. Satchel also received a digital watch on the same Christmas morning that he named "Dingy" (later "Beepy"), though he is still unable to tell time with it. In addition to the watch, Satchel names everything from the carpet ("Rugger Green") to a television ("World B. Shiny") to a lamp ("Lampy") after what they are. Rob was slightly put off when Satchel told Beepy (Rob was on the couch) "Oh look! Rob's sitting on Blue McCushy!"
He was mentioned in one strip as liking the music of Ray Charles.
Satchel was implied to be Christian on one occasion when Bucky got trapped in the apartments air vent. Satchel assumed Bucky was God, and appeared very humble in "his" presence. When Bucky shouted at him that he wasn't God, Satchel assumed he was Satan, and held two pencils up in the shape of a cross.
Satchel's sexual orientation has been jokingly questioned several times throughout the strip's run. One strip in a series of "rejected storylines" was titled "Doggie Civil Unions?" and illustrated with a sketch of Satchel with his arm around the eponymous main character of the well-known comic strip Marmaduke. Satchel once said that he would have to "come out of the closet" he was hiding in to fulfill some demand of Bucky's, whereupon Bucky began to declare that he had been waiting "three years" for this to happen before being cut off by Rob. Bucky also stated that he believed that Satchel could be gay because of his feminine response of "It's faaaaabulous!" to how he liked his Barbara Streisand CD. Satchel has also appeared wearing a sweatband that reads "Lady Foot Locker", as well as his referring to himself as a woman after receiving a copy of InStyle magazine in the mail and reading it cover to cover. However, this aspect of Satchel's personality has never been treated as anything other than a mild amusement, and is counterbalanced by his occasional tendency to fall in love with both human (mostly people on TV) and canine females. In the latter case, Satchel's primary female friend/crush is a black and white dog named Oreo, who has known him since they were puppies. However, apparently Oreo is more interested in a bomb-sniffing dog named Chaser who has joined their playgroup, and Satchel doesn't like it. (This eventually ended in humorous results, as Bucky sprayed spray adhesive under Satchel's "arms" (front legs) thinking it was Rob's deodorant, and as a result Satchel had to have his upper body shaved to get the glue out. This incident resulted in him wearing a sweatshirt reading "Obedience College" for two weeks.) Satchel has started his own chat with shar - pei avatars, icons, and photos to his own MySpace Profile but he changed the name to MyHowl.
Throughout the strip, Satchel has been portrayed as a character who is taken advantage of by Bucky. Satchel sticking up for himself was a rare event, encouraged by Rob. Recent strips (May 2007) show Satchel becoming increasingly aggressive, and often fighting back to Bucky's relentless insults. In some cases, Satchel reacts physically to Bucky, and in a current story where Satchel attempts to write his own comic book, he creates a character called "Wack the Kitty", who meets some kind of physical violence on every page probably based on Bucky; Rob comments that Satchel "may have a bit of passive aggression goin' on...". No explanation has been given for Satchel's sudden change, though he still is portrayed in the strip as friendly and good-natured. As evidenced by his actions when he talks about the "voices" in his head that say "Kill them both Satchel", he is unaware that he is upsetting Rob and Bucky and thinks it's funny.
Satchel was a guest at the 75th anniversary party of Blondie and Dagwood in 2005.
Rob Wilco
Rob is the "owner" of Satchel and Bucky. He works in advertising but is not proud of it. Rob is a vegetarian, friend of Joe Doman, Leo Kottke fan, and a Boston Red Sox fanatic. He is also a rugby union fan, a sport relatively obscure in the U.S. Rob bears an un-rugby-like physique (Joe claimed that he wasn't "big enough to warm the bench effectively") and personality. Rob also enjoys video games. He serves as the straight man between Satchel's goofy naïveté and Bucky's cynical hostility, observing their antics and those of their various animal friends with bemusement, amusement, or both. In the Get Fuzzy universe, virtually all animals (with the possible exception of a few farm animals) talk, a situation that no one seems to find odd.
Rob is portrayed as a bit of an everyman: a mediocre performer in a job he dislikes, not successful romantically, and an all-around relatively quiet guy with a bad haircut and chronic lower back pain (several story arcs have revolved around his back going out). His passions, which often border on obsessions, include sports (particularly the Boston Red Sox and the New Zealand All Blacks), video games, and books. Rob is often shown reading, usually while in bed. He is also a vegetarian due to what he feels are too cruel methods of killing the animals (he occasionally lapses from time to time, often being tricked by Bucky, and he ate meat much more often in the beginning of the strip). He seems to particularly like the Harry Potter series, as does Satchel. According to Bucky, Rob once shoved a nine-year-old girl out of the way in order to obtain the last copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at a midnight release party, although the accuracy of this is questionable. Rob is occasionally seen wearing Gryffindor House colors and gear, contrasting the house affiliations of his pets.
Many of Rob's interests are displayed visually rather than mentioned. From the t-shirts, hats, posters, statements, and books variously seen and heard in the strip, it can be assumed that Rob also likes the New Zealand rugby union team, South Doyle High School Track-and-field team (Conley's high school in Knoxville, Tennessee), Irish Rugby Team, Québec Nordiques (specifically Michel Goulet), St. Louis Cardinals (with a memorial to Darryl Kile inscribed on his hat), Manchester United F.C. (and, oddly, also archrivals Manchester City F.C.), Otago, New Zealand NPC rugby team, Belgian comic character Tintin, MXC, The Da Vinci Code, Dilbert, South Park, The Simpsons, science fiction, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Peanuts, Dungeons & Dragons, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Weta Workshop, Family Guy, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the BBC television program Top Gear, the Marine Corps, the Evil Dead series, and the music of Leo Kottke, The Ramones, Green Day, Dropkick Murphys, Ween, Pink Floyd, Sum 41 (as shown in a few strips where he wheres a shirt which has Sum 41 across it,) John Lennon, R.E.M., Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Regina Spektor, Radiohead, The Strokes, and Sprouts (a reference to Conley's brother's band).
At one time, Bucky, obsessed with a Persian who was living in the building, attempted to grow his hair out with a bottle of Rogaine. After two bottles were used and Rob flipped at the long tufts of hair that sprouted from the cat's head and chest, Bucky mixed some "no hair cream" with Rob's shampoo that he intended to use later. However, Rob got to the shampoo first, and as a result was bald for several weeks.
Although he cares about both Bucky and Satchel, they often irritate him (Satchel with his wimpiness and Bucky with his aggression). At one point in the strip, he was called for jury duty, and when asked if it would be of any hardship to him, he replied that it would actually be "quite relaxing."
Rob's back has put him out of commission for three extended periods in the strip's history. On all three occasions, Bucky used the opportunity to steal Rob's wallet and establish his own dominion over the household.
Despite having love troubles of his own, Rob has helped Satchel deal with his own love problems.
Rob is a sports fan, and it is alleged by his friend that he named both pets after stars of baseball's Negro Leagues – Buck O'Neil and Satchel Paige. Coincidentally, Bucky also has only a single fang, his "buck" tooth. An alternate theory (probably untrue) is that Bucky is named after late-1970s New York Yankees outfielder Bucky Dent who hit a game-winning home run against the Boston Red Sox in a tie-breaking playoff game to determine the American League Eastern Division champion in 1978. This would make sense, since Rob is a Boston Red Sox fanatic and Bucky is an alleged Yankees fan. However, this has not been explored in the strip, but it should be noted that at one point Bucky damaged a Taylor guitar, causing what Bucky called a "Bucky dent". Rob responded by angrily ordering Bucky to "never, NEVER say those words in this house"; naturally, Bucky responded by shouting "Bucky Dent" repeatedly. There is also a strip in which Satchel is seen holding a bat with the inscription "Lowell Slugger", instead of the famous Louisville kind (Lowell is a city in Massachusetts, and is where the Red Sox Class A affiliate plays.). Fungo Squiggly is even once seen with a cup of coffee with the CBS 4 Sports logo (the former branding of CBS' Boston station, WBZ-TV Channel 4). Rob is named after two friends of Conley's graduating class at Doyle High School (now South-Doyle High School) in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Rob's t-shirts often carry messages of a political nature. In the July 3, 2007 strip, soon after the United States Supreme Court issued a decision in the Bong hits 4 Jesus case, Rob was portrayed with a shirt that read "Dumb Hits 4 Judges". The Sunday before this, July 1, Rob's t-shirt displayed the flag of the Republic of Vermont. Political activists at the time of the strip were making headlines by renewing awareness of the effort to have Vermont secede from the United States.
His religion was only mentioned once, and he said (when asked if he minded saying what his religion was) was that he "kind of did mind".
Supporting characters
Other characters that have appeared in the strip, some semi-regularly:
Joe Doman
Rob's friend and co-worker, one of the few people who actually gets along reasonably well with Bucky. He has also pet-sat them a few times. Occasionally, he has complimented Bucky on his lifestyle or sick sense of humor. He also comments on the eating habits of the Wilco household when he is over for dinner. He once stated that Bucky was a sort of feline triathlete because of the reckless destruction he caused. He is African-American. His name may be a play on the phrase "you da man." Although for a period Joe was popularly cast throughout the strip he has not been seen recently, because he got a job in France (although he made a reappearance in early 2008). Joe used to shave his head (a fact revealed while Joe was trying to cheer up Rob following the incident where he lost his hair).
Joe is also a likely fan of rugby, having worn a jersey of the Scottish national team on a golf outing.
Joe was originally drawn with beady eyes, but was later drawn with more detailed eyes (with pupil and sclera).
Fungo Squiggly
A neighboring ferret whom Bucky intensely dislikes (he was his nemesis). The two frequently engage in fights which leave Satchel, Fungo's friend, in the middle. Fungo also smokes cigars, a habit which angers Bucky and annoys Rob. At one point Rob finally asked Satchel to ask Fungo to put his cigar out. Satchel happily reported to Rob that he had done so, failing to mention he had put the cigar out on Rob's carpet then promptly lit up another.
When a new family moved into the apartment next door to Rob, they introduced Fungo as their pet. The amiable Satchel made friends with the newcomer easily, but Bucky immediately regarded him as a mortal enemy. Although he whispers in Satchel's ear on occasion, Fungo does not speak audibly in the strip.
Bucky's attempts to defeat and/or humiliate Fungo almost invariably backfire, and badly. For example, Bucky once tried to trap the ferret in a crude snare. Fungo yanked on the rope, causing Bucky to smack into a wall and lose two teeth: his trademark cuspid and a smaller tooth (the fang was reattached at great expense, and a gold tooth replaced the smaller one). Bucky sued Fungo for that (although he was the aggressor), and took him to the Judge Judy TV show where he lost. To add insult to injury, Fungo was seen wearing the smaller tooth on a necklace. When Bucky saw that, he charged at Fungo, only to be tackled by Satchel and have his fang break off again. Fungo still wears the tooth around his neck to this day.
Other plots have had similarly unintended consequences, such as Fungo's kidnapping of Bucky's beloved toy Smacky (twice). Another instance was when Bucky destroyed a large portion of a wall in an attempt to get Fungo once and for all. However, all that Bucky got was a chunk of plaster to the head, as well as two hours in his closet. Bucky once attempted to booby trap Fungo's pet door, but Rob discovered him in the act and stopped him. One memorably misguided attempt involved Bucky throwing a baseball at a ferret he took to be Fungo; the ball struck Fungo's mother and knocked her down a garbage chute. The two had a pie fight afterward, though Rob broke it up as Fungo had filled his pie with tools. Another involved Bucky challenging Fungo to a duel using a Ms. Pretty prom glove (which Fungo ate), only to have the duel broken up by Chubby Huggs (see below for the reason why).
He is very rough and borderline-thuggish, often turning Bucky's plans into ignominious defeats (similar to the relationship between Calvin and Susie Derkins, minus the thuggishness), and his hobby is allegedly chewing metal.
No explanation is ever given for Bucky's intense hatred for Fungo, save that Fungo seemed a bit aggressive in their first meeting. Bucky may mistake the mustelid for some sort of rodent, or the enmity may be as inexplicable as his desire to consume a monkey. Perhaps it is simply another by-product of Bucky's boundless hostility towards the world in general. In any case, many (but not all) of Fungo's aggressions toward Bucky are simply reactions to the cat's attempted assaults, as Fungo does not seem to go looking for trouble.
Strangely enough, both Bucky and Rob on occasion refer to Fungo as a weasel (Bucky said "weasel" more often in the earlier strips). This, and several other strips point towards the fact the Bucky hates mustelids in general.
Chewie (Wilco?)
First portrayed at, as Bucky calls it, "The little table" at Thanksgiving at Robs' mothers' house with Buttercup, Satchel, and Bucky. He wasn't going to eat because he was waiting for the other three at the "little table" to finish up to "eat all the bones and gristle".
Mac Manc McManx
In a sequence that began September 19, 2006, Bucky met his cousin, Mac Manc McManx, otherwise known as Mac, M3, or M&M&M.
Mac lives in Manchester, England, but uses a considerable amount of rhyming slang and other speech patterns typical of London[citation needed]. He explained that he and Bucky shared a common grandmother. Mac's father came to England during the First Gulf War from a place in the States that Mac only remembers as being called "Otis". (There is an Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod, being a PAVE PAWS radar site and an Air Combat Command base formerly operating F-15 Eagles). Upon hearing this, Rob suggested that Bucky's family was therefore from Massachusetts, to which Bucky replied "Curses! I'm a dratted communist!" In addition, despite Mac's generally cheery demeanor, his ears are laid back flat on his head, much like Bucky's ears, which may indicate that aggression runs in the McManx / Katt bloodlines. It was thought that Mac returned to England on 2006-12-09, after living in the kitchen and using Rob's sweater drawer as a litterbox (to no one's knowledge) for the previous few weeks. However, he was really waiting at the airport for over a month, having been detained by Homeland Security because he lost his ticket and no one could understand him. He revealed that he has either a dinner plate or a teacup embedded in his head, the result of an argument with his girlfriend Julie over which football team was better, Manchester United or Manchester City. They may have also detained him after it was revealed that he had been recently been given a cell phone from his friend Al, which was marked, "Property of Al Kayda"
During Rob's reclaiming of his apartment in late March 2007, Rob had bought him tickets to see Man United in an FA Cup game in an attempt to get him out of the house. However, Mac turned up several days later on the sofa, much to Rob's surprise and/or chagrin. Since then he has become a recurring character, appearing once every few weeks. Despite his appearing on and off for about seven months, he had not been featured in a Sunday strip until June 10, 2007.
Mac's most recent story had Bucky trying to convince him to run for President of the United States so Bucky, who had recently seceded from the United States to form "Buckyvania", would have a voice in government (although he was oblivious to the fact that Mac was unable to run for President for a multitude of reasons, most obvious being that he was not a natural born citizen).
Chubby Huggs
A portly cat who believes positive reinforcement (mostly through hugging) solves all problems, and is referred to by Rob as the "Dalai Lama" of cats for his peacemaking abilities. Chubby is also a cat Bucky disliked the most, or he was his second nemesis. Once Chubby is locked in his hug position, he is unable to move for ten minutes- a fact that Rob used against him by tricking him into hugging a teddy bear tightly so Satchel could carry him home. He once had a "little mouse friend" named Fowly Mouse (whom Bucky was forced to baby-sit) who hated him and was vicious towards him even though Chubby would take the threats as words of kindness (a possible reference to Krazy Kat). Bucky later attempted to kill Fowly by giving him a used gerbil cage with a mousetrap buried under the sawdust, with "a leaky can of Cheez Whiz in it." Bucky passed it off as a "dairy-themed adventure park."
Chubby is one of the few creatures that Fungo Squiggly or Bucky is afraid of, as referenced during the attempted duel and an attempted "cage fight" in the hallway Fungo and Bucky had which Chubby broke up by hugging both of them and refusing to let go until they made up.
He may or may not be a parody of Barney the Dinosaur, with whom he shares some characteristics, such as his saccharine, ultra-positive outlook on life.
Francis Wilco
Rob's father, a retired firefighter and former Marine (from 1969 to 1974) who reluctantly pet-sits Bucky and Satchel from time to time. Francis doesn't like Bucky all that much, and is willing to do a fair amount to keep him out of his hair. He is divorced from Rob's mother and apparently lives alone. He wears glasses, has thinning hair, and is usually seen with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Like Bucky, he generally calls Rob "Robert". His figure and personality is reminiscent of that of Duke's from the "Doonesbury" comic strip. Whether or not this is intentional is unknown.
Mrs. Wilco
Rob's mother, who has not yet been given a name. She lives in an indeterminate place with her cat, Buttercup, and a dog named Chewie (although he has been mentioned before living in Francis' apartment building, so he may not belong to Mrs. Wilco). Rob has visited her apartment on two separate occasions, once for Easter and once for Thanksgiving. The first time (Thanksgiving) Rob had to fly there, but the second time he was able to drive (implying perhaps that his mother moved). She has joined Rob in adopting a vegetarian lifestyle, and has gone further than Rob has with it (see below).
Roger Wilco
Rob's "idiot brother" (according to Francis), who visited to help Rob when Rob injured his back in 2005. He had made a previous, silent appearance in the strip shortly after September 11, 2001 when he was shown with Rob and his father at a memorial service for firefighters killed in the attacks. He also made another appearance alongside his brother and Joe Doman in a Sunday strip parodying Jackass, in which Rob allowed himself to be attacked by Bucky. His appearance in this one consists of him laughing at his brother's misfortune. His name is a pun on "roger, wilco", a phrase from 1940s naval radio code meaning "message received, will comply."
William (Wilco?)
Rob's Marine cousin, called "Willie" by Satchel, who lost a leg in the Iraq War. An uncharacteristically serious story arc showed Rob meeting his plane when he returned home. Like Satchel, he was saddened by the fact that Dunkin' Donuts no longer made crullers. He also missed The Simpsons and Guinness.
Buttercup
Rob's mother's cat, who is very shy and also violent and aggressive (referenced where she threatened, quote, "Now you listen to me, you foreign flea factory-you stink up any part of my house and I'll turn you into tender vittles. Capisce?"). After Rob's mother followed him in taking up a vegetarian lifestyle, she took it to a level where Rob hadn't with Bucky and started feeding Buttercup vegetarian cat food. Buttercup doesn't like it, resorting to asking Satchel to kill her while he was over at the house for late Easter dinner. Buttercup latched on to Rob as he was leaving, begging him to bring her tuna. To pacify her, Rob gave her $400 and a barbecue takeout menu, from which she ordered "Fifteen number 5's" with "extra pig."
Negative reactions
Pittsburgh
Many residents of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania reacted angrily to an October 30, 2003 strip. When Bucky asks a travel agent for suggested destinations "based primarily on smell", the agent promptly produces a brochure from the Pittsburgh board of tourism. This was originally intended as an "in-joke" jab at a friend who lives in the Pittsburgh area. Conley later confessed shock over the large volume of hate mail and even death threats he received in response,[2] and Pittsburgh city officials publicly denounced the strip.
An apology promised by Conley took a rather unexpected form. The 2003-11-17 strip questions why the Pittsburgh joke caused such an uproar and archly notes that several protesters rather hypocritically stated that New Jersey smelled worse than Pittsburgh. Satchel closes the strip by explaining that the original strip "should have made it more clear that it was [nearby borough] Sewickley Heights that smells", coupled with a post-it note advertising an apology to Sewickly Heights.[3] Unsurprisingly, this "apology" failed to appease many of those who had complained.
Conley took things a step further in the next three strips, the first of which showed a survey in which voters ranked the five smelliest places in the United States. In order, they were ranked Cleveland, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Darby Conley's "@##", and New Orleans.
The second showed apparent greeting signs/tourism slogans for people that come into Pittsburgh. Featured were "Pittsburgh: Turn Left at Erie", "Pittsburgh: If You Smell Anything, It's Coming from Ohio", and "Pittsburgh: Gateway to Cleveland!"
The third and final one showed Satchel and Bucky as trading cards, with Satchel being "Mario Lepooch" (a parody of Pittsburgh Penguins owner and star Mario Lemieux) and Bucky being "Buck Tekulve" (after former Pirates reliever Kent Tekulve). The last panel showed Satchel wearing a Cleveland Browns hat and Bucky in a LeBron James jersey in a final insult to Pittsburghers.
At the time of the controversy, Get Fuzzy did not run in any Pittsburgh newspapers. However, the strip now runs in the city's Post Gazette and Tribune-Review papers.
Bob Lobel
A strip published on May 13, 2005 resulted in legal action. In the original strip, Rob, Bucky and Satchel are watching television. Satchel asks "Is this sportscaster... drunk?" Rob replies "Lobel? Who knows. He's like some TV outreach program or something." Lobel has been reported as having appeared on air in an intoxicated state which Lobel denies.[4][5]
Less than a week later, Boston sportscaster Bob Lobel filed a libel lawsuit against Conley, United Features Syndicate, and the New Bedford Standard-Times newspaper. The New Bedford paper was named specifically because it did not censor the strip as several other Boston-area papers did, including The Boston Globe; most either refused to run the strip or substituted "Him?" in place of Lobel's name. The lawsuit claimed that the strip was both personally and professionally damaging, especially given that his contract was under negotiation for renewal at the time.[4][5]
On November 16, 2005, a brief article in the Boston Herald reported that Lobel and Conley had settled the suit out of court.[6][dead link] Conley made a public apology to Lobel, saying the strip was not intended to imply that he had been drunk on the air. Further details of the settlement were confidential, but the Herald quoted an unnamed source as saying Conley had made a substantial donation to charity.
The strip was left out of the Get Fuzzy collection Take Our Cat, Please.
Collections
| Title | Publication Date | ISBN | Strips collected |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Dog Is Not a Toy: House Rule #4 | April 15, 2001 | ISBN 0-7407-1392-2 | |
| Fuzzy Logic | April 1, 2002 | ISBN 0-7407-2198-4 | |
| The Get Fuzzy Experience | April 2, 2003 | ISBN 0-7407-3300-1 | |
| Blueprint for Disaster | October 1, 2003 | ISBN 0-7407-3808-9 | |
| Say Cheesy | May 28, 2005 | ISBN 0-7407-4663-4 | 2002-11-17 - 2003-08-31 |
| Scrum Bums | September 1, 2006 | ISBN 0-7407-5001-1 | 2003-09-01 - 2004-06-13 |
| I'm Ready for My Movie Contract | September 1, 2007 | ISBN 978-0-7407-6922-1 | 2004-06-14 - 2005-03-26 |
| Take Our Cat, Please | May 1, 2008 | ISBN 978-0-7407-7095-1 | |
| Ignorance, Thy Name Is Bucky | March 2009 | ISBN 978-0-7407-8098-1 |
Treasuries
Treasuries contain two books in one binding with some color strips.
| Title | Date | ISBN | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Groovitude | September 2, 2002 | ISBN 0-7407-2894-6 | Contains The Dog Is Not a Toy and Fuzzy Logic |
| Bucky Katt's Big Book of Fun | April 2004 | ISBN 0-7407-4136-5 | Contains The Get Fuzzy Experience and Blueprint for Disaster |
| Loserpalooza | May 7, 2007 | ISBN 978-0-7407-5709-9 | Contains Say Cheesy and Scrum Bums |
| The Potpourrific Great Big Grab Bag of Get Fuzzy | September 1, 2008 | ISBN 978-0-7407-7367-9 | Contains I'm Ready for My Movie Contract and Take Our Cat, Please |
Reception and awards
Initially appearing in 75 newspapers nationally, the strip grew in popularity very quickly.
Conley received the National Cartoonist Society Newspaper Comic Strip Award in 2002 for his work on Get Fuzzy.
References
- ^ supplemental material in Groovitude anthology
- ^ Pittsburgh Not Laughing At Smelly Joke - Travel News Story - KCRA Sacramento
- ^ Comic strip apology to really isn't
- ^ a b Head Games - Boston Magazine
- ^ a b WGBH: Greater Boston
- ^ Error - BostonHerald.com
External links
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