{"id":104,"date":"2004-03-07T14:29:22","date_gmt":"2004-03-07T18:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/2004\/03\/07\/was-the-family-circus-ever-funny\/"},"modified":"2004-03-07T14:29:22","modified_gmt":"2004-03-07T18:29:22","slug":"was-the-family-circus-ever-funny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/2004\/03\/was-the-family-circus-ever-funny\/","title":{"rendered":"Was &#8220;The Family Circus&#8221; ever funny?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name='a43'><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What can I say about today&#8217;s fear-mongering <a href=\"http:\/\/est.rbma.com\/content\/Family_Circus?date=20040314\">Family Circus<\/a>? Well, maybe just that Dolly should be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ojp.usdoj.gov\/bjs\/pub\/press\/crv92.pr\">a little more scared of Grandpa<\/a> than some random creepy stranger. Back by &#8220;reader demand,&#8221; indeed.<\/p>\n<p>Actually, one thing I <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">can <\/span>say: &#8220;The Family Circus&#8221; was once, indeed, funny, if the comic strip&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.familycircus.com\/files\/files.htm\">archives<\/a> are to be believed. A few strips from the &#8217;60s were both humorous <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">and<\/span> edgy, touching on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.familycircus.com\/files\/60\/6070802.htm\">politics<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.familycircus.com\/files\/60\/6070804.htm\">alcoholism<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.familycircus.com\/files\/60\/6070809.htm\">wife-beating<\/a> (well, not really). The kids were even ugly in that non-sentimental, sub-culture kind of way.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, it looks like the strip fell into the rut we now all know and love as early as the &#8217;70s with the classic &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.familycircus.com\/files\/70\/70b.htm\">Mommy-can&#8217;t-take-care-of-herself-&#8216;cuz-the-kids-are-in-her-hair-and-Daddy&#8217;s-nowhere-to-be-seen-(probablybecausehe&#8217;swithismistresstogetawayfromthishellspawn<\/a>&#8221; panel.\n<\/p>\n<h3>classic Circus-haters<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.largerego.com\/bs-famcirc.html\">Largerego<\/a> (&#8220;Look at the mom in this cartoon.<br \/>\nShe&#8217;s staring longingly<br \/>\nout the window thinking of the days when she was<br \/>\nsingle, living in<br \/>\nthe East Village, and playing bass for the<br \/>\nall-girl band The Hotties&#8230;&#8221;) <\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rockwoodcomic.com\/dfc4.html\">The Dysfunctional Family Circus<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zompist.com\/bob5.html\">Bob&#8217;s Comic Reviews<\/a> (&#8220;And of course if you <i>like<\/i><br \/>\nCute Things Kids Say, and jokes so inoffensive they&#8217;d get a chuckle out<br \/>\nof an ayatullah, why then, this cartoon&#8217;s for you&#8221;; also, why the<br \/>\nDysfunctional Family Circus is actually a compliment to the Keanes)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/weeklywire.com\/ww\/06-01-99\/tw_media.html\">A satirical (?) piece<\/a> imploring the Tucson Weekly should run the Family Circus to appeal to hipsters, because &#8220;it&#8217;s not<br \/>\nfunny in almost exactly the same way that real life isn&#8217;t funny.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.evilrobots.com\/RCFAAR\/COMICS\/familycircus\/familycircus1.htm\">Evil Robots Family Circus Project<\/a> (warning: <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">not <\/span>child-safe)\n  <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To me the most amazing achievement of Mr. Bil Keane is to be able to<br \/>\nsketch a room with a <a href=\"http:\/\/206.138.137.5\/dailytoon\/images\/Fami0312.jpg\">computer<\/a> or a modern home-entertainment center that<br \/>\nlooks<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"> totally authentically &#8217;50s<\/span>, without a hint of retro-chic glamor. Here&#8217;s to keepin&#8217; it real, Family Circus.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Finally, I noticed that today&#8217;s Globe comics section contained a<br \/>\nhalf-page ad for the Flintstones DVD set and dropped &#8212; gasp! &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.comics.com\/comics\/arlonjanis\/archive\/images\/arlonjanis2004031348584.jpg\">Arlos &amp; Janis<\/a>,<br \/>\none of the few comic strips left in the Globe that relies on subtlety<br \/>\nand readers&#8217; familiarity with the characters for its humor. (By<br \/>\ncontrast, the reader learns Garfield&#8217;s personality, such as it were,<br \/>\nthrough the humor, such as it were). They were able to pull this off by<br \/>\ndropping the &#8220;filler&#8221; panels from Doonesbury &#8212; something Watterson had<br \/>\nsuccessfully fought, though <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kingfeatures.com\/features\/comics\/zits\/about.htm\">precious few strips<\/a><br \/>\nhave benefited from that victory. Anyway, I&#8217;m penning a letter to the<br \/>\neditors at the Globe to make sure they aren&#8217;t test-marketing dropping<br \/>\nthis strip when there are so many others that should <a href=\"http:\/\/www.apple.com\/trailers\/fox\/garfield\/\">get the axe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What can I say about today&#8217;s fear-mongering Family Circus? Well, maybe just that Dolly should be a little more scared of Grandpa than some random creepy stranger. Back by &#8220;reader demand,&#8221; indeed. Actually, one thing I can say: &#8220;The Family &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/2004\/03\/was-the-family-circus-ever-funny\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":271,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[413],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comic-strips"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}