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Family
Circus
I want
to hit Billy in his fat face with a shovel.
written by
Jon originally for Backwords
It’s so difficult not to be a cynic these days.
The world asks for it. It’s the same world, after all, that produced American antenna flags, rap music sensation Fabolous, and the letter X. I hate that letter. Not only is it ugly, it’s completely fucking useless. As a small child, I would flip through every alphabet book I could get my slobber-drenched hands on and head straight for the X word, only to find that the authors had pussied out and used the word “xylophone.” And since there are maybe four words in the English language that start with X, and the other three are “X-cellent”, “X-treme”, and “X-Men”, I was forced to learn about what is probably one of the stupidest instruments ever. Where have you seen a xylophone, other than in a children’s’ alphabet book? Nowhere, that’s where.
Speaking of nowhere, that’s where I was going with all that
So, yeah. Cynicism. I do my best not to spout off at every patriotic fad, terrible musician, and stupid letter that comes around, but I do have my limits, and cartoonist Bil Keane has stretched them with blatant disregard for my sanity.
Keane, as I’m sure you’re unaware of, is the creator of the wretched comic Family Circus. I don’t want to rant about it, so I’ll just say that it’s pretty lame.
THE END
Haha, did you think Boiskov would let you off the hook that easily? That was just a prank! It wasn’t really the end at all! Yaaaay!
…please kill me…
The sad, sad story of Family Circus begins whenever the hell Bil Keane was born. His parent spelled his name with one L because they hated him. Throughout his childhood, Bil longed to play with all the other children with normal names, but he knew they would not accept him. Young Bil became isolated within the bounds of his imagination, which wasn’t very big because he was a stupid retard. Result: A bunch of fat, pasty cartoon characters whose names all end in “Y”. Which, by the way, is such a worthless letter that they put it after X. It looks like a failed, collapsed T, for Godsakes.
The cast of characters:
Daddy represents the tragic element of the comic. His vacant facial expression and complete lack of personality are the utter realization of mediocrity. He’s overweight, and undoubtedly bitter that his offspring have upstaged him. Daddy is a supporting player, a second fiddle in a comic dominated by his fuckwit children. The only thing Daddy can do to generate any interest in the comic is to be killed off by stalling his car across a set of railroad tracks. And I bet he would even make that boring.
Though it’s hardly ever brought up, his real name is Bill, which I think is telling. He’s a reflection of what Mr. Keane wishes he could be – even down to the correctly-spelled name. This is Bil Keane at his most imaginative, ladies and gentlemen. Did I mention that he’s stupid?
Mommy.
She birthed four kids in six years, doesn’t have any friends, spends all day cleaning the house, and has a head shaped like a football. She is trapped in an unfulfilling marriage – one in which her husband demands to be called “Daddy.”
Mommy’s a rather flat character. We never see a side of her apart from her role as a maternal figure. And the fact the she’s printed on a two-dimensional surface doesn’t help, either.
They’re basically the same fat-faced character stretched across age and gender, so I’ll skip the individual introductions. Billy and Dolly are the comic’s adorable show-stealers. Jeffy continues the trend of having a name that ends in Y, and PJ just sort of stands there and drools. There’s nothing really witty that can be said about these misshapen, worthless wads of flesh, so I have to resort to blunt insults. Oh yeah, and they’re fat.
A penguin. But the next paragraph is about Grandpa.
Grandpa has two things going for him: a) his head isn’t shaped like a football, and b) he’s dead. I don’t want to hear any more bullshit about Family Circus being a wholesome comic, because any comic that has a dead guy is pretty damn morbid.
Especially since the dead guy is confined to an eternity of playing voyeur to a bunch of space-wasting, football-headed assclowns. Most comics featuring Grandpa go something like this:
One of the kids: Wow, this [insert family activity] is really fun! I wish Grandpa was here with us!
Grandpa: Ah, but I really AM! [chuckles knowingly]
Comics featuring Grandpa are easy to write, in part because all of them copy the form shown above almost verbatim, and in part because Grandpa isn’t in color – he’s just an outline. Hence, Mr. Keane usually saves these for when he suffers from writer’s block (OD’s on crystal meth).
Family Circus has been littering the comic landscape since the 1960’s, and it’s hard to understand how or why. I could probably come up with something better if I took a piece of paper, blew my nose with it, wiped my ass with it, vomited on it, flushed it down the toilet, fished it out of the septic tank, put it threw a paper shredder, chewed it, swallowed it, shit it out, mixed it with dog food, got my dog to eat it, waited for my dog to shit it out, put it in a paper lunch bag, dropped it on a neighbor’s porch, set it on fire, and ran away.
Well, actually, Family Circus would be a little better. But not by much.
Wait, no. It would be a lot better. God, I’m stupid. Just pretend the last two paragraphs never happened.
And that last one. Forget that happened, too. And forget this one. Thanks.
The target audience of Family Circus is the 60-and-over female demographic. It makes sense, really – both females and old people are stupid, and it takes someone extra-stupid to actually like this comic.
Many who lost sons in the Vietnam War find particular inspiration in Billy, insisting that “little Jimmy was just like that.” It helps to distract them from the painful truth; in most cases, Jimmy died of a heroin overdose after raping a Vietnamese woman.
And, really, who couldn’t find Billy irresistible? Sometimes, good ol’ fun-loving Bil likes to let Billy take over the comic. Billy usually squanders the opportunity on a crudely drawn picture of his father sitting at a desk, with an arrow and a caption that reads, “THIS IS MY DADDY AT WORK.” Real creative there. Upon closer inspection, however, it’s really not that creative at all.
I don’t want to imagine the development process here. All I can think of is Mr. Keane turning around, pulling down his pants, sticking a crayon in his ass crack and drawing by flexing his cheeks. I must say I applaud his anal artistry. (Note to self: form a thrashcore band and name it Anal Artistry.)
Another one of Mr. Keane’s copouts is his “Day in the Life of Billy” panels, in which he parades that poseur Billy around the neighborhood like he’s fucking Dennis the Menace. Billy’s adventures are chronicled by a dotted line, which passes through avenues of potential mischief such as Daddy’s office, the neighbors’ house, and the table saw with the ON switch tragically out of reach. What’s depressing is that his fictional juvenile character leads a much more interesting life than he does. In the infamous “Day In the Life of Bil”, he outlined his daily exploits:
Bed ---------------------------> Hard liquor cabinet -----------------------> Shitter
<------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since the invention of the ‘90s and the arrival of the Internet, Family Circus has come across a landslide of new material. Billy and Dolly love to offer their insights:
Let’s break these two down. In the first comic presented here, Billy explains that he is “mousebreaking” Jeffy. Perhaps Billy meant to say “housebreaking,” because “mousebreaking” is not a word. But even if he did spell “housebreaking” right, it doesn’t make any sense, because Billy is teaching Jeffy to use a mouse, not a toilet.
Shit. I just accidentally added “mousebreaking” to my Word dictionary.
In the second comic, Dolly uses incorrect terminology in observing that the bus is “downloading” kids. Downloading is a term reserved for the transfer of files on the Internet, not kids off a bus. Not really sure where Bil was going here.
I must confess that I have lost much faith in a world in which Family Circus has lasted over 40 years, and Calvin & Hobbes left us after ten. Dolly has offered some words of comfort in this matter.
It looks as if Dolly meant to say “e-mail” rather than “knee-mail.” And if she did, it still doesn’t make sense, because God exists on a spiritual plane through which email does not transfer. But her mention of God and her kneeling position reminds me that it is important to turn to the Lord in times of trouble:
Lord, please smite thy enemy Bil Keane. He does not cease to torment me with his terrible puns, fat-faced comic characters and failure to roll over and die. Please have a tree land on him, or lightning strike him, or a big plane smack into the next skyscraper he walks into.
Your faithful cynic,
Boiskov.
Amen.