Dysfunctional Family Circus
Encyclopedia
The Dysfunctional Family Circus is the name of several long-running parodies of the syndicated comic strip
The Family Circus
, featuring either Bil Keane
's artwork with altered caption
s, or (less often) original artwork made to appear like the targeted strips. First distributed anonymously by mail
and fax
in 1989, by 1994 various versions of it began to appear on the World Wide Web
.
The booklet series included 15 titles:
Each booklet measured 4-1/4" x 5.5" and was attributed to an anonymous publisher whose name was a unique anagram of "Bil Keane." A French translation of volume #4, entitled "Qui Veut Voir Un Hamster Dansant?" was distributed by mail, as was an unnumbered volume entitled "Guess Where I Can Fit This!" The booklets spawned two annual calendars, a t-shirt, and a set of drink coasters, before being retired.
Several cartoons from the booklets were reprinted in the Anderson Valley Advertiser
in Boonville, California
, and Browbeat magazine. Others were reproduced in fanzines and as inserts for CDs by the National Hardwood Floor Association
and others. Only one cartoon (#5, page 14) used the original cartoon caption ("The party's not over yet — I just came home to get my siren and handcuffs").
around March 1994.
This version featured one (later expanded to four) original Keane cartoon without captions, and ran submission software to allow viewers to suggest their own captions. Captions were mostly unfiltered. It was discontinued after about a year, and the concept was adopted by Greg Galcik.
from June 1995 to 1999 with a run of exactly 500 comics. It attracted between 50,000 and 70,000 page views per day. Galcik and other editors would select the captions they considered to be the funniest and most original, which would then be saved in an online archive. The humor of these captions ranged from what many would consider the disgusting to the surreal
, and from the low-brow to the cerebral. Bil Keane was aware of the site's existence from early on, and initially had no objection to it, stating that the jokes were sometimes better than his own.
Several running jokes developed over the 500 strip run of the series. Recurring themes included incest
and child abuse
jokes, and aspects of the art itself, such as the Featureless Void
(as Keane's comics frequently lacked a background), and Jeffy's Hypno-Hair (his wavy hair with which he hypnotized others in the family). Another running joke involved breaking the fourth wall and commenting on what Bil drew in the strip that day, such as when Thel was vacuuming with many toys strewn about, one such caption was "That dickhead Bil would draw all this shit in here the one day I vacuum!", and the children were aware that they were stuck within the "circle" that outlined the strip, such as when the scene was full of Christmas presents, a submitted caption was "I tell, ya we could hawk more stuff if you just made the circle bigger!"
(publishers of The Family Circus), citing copyright
violations on the site. Despite the support of the site's fans and round condemnation in, Galcik complied after a phone conversation with Keane. In his closing statement, Galcik said while he believed that Dysfunctional Family Circus could be defended as a work of interactive parody, he had developed a grudging respect for the long and continual effort by Bil Keane. Galcik noted that Keane was both polite and gracious in his request for the strip to end, pointing out that the characters being parodied were based on Keane's own family. Keane also agreed to allow Galcik to continue the strip for an additional week in order to reach strip #500. The captions for the 500th and final strip were completed in November 1999. Despite King Features' wishes, archives of the series have repeatedly appeared in various sites around the web.
SpinnWebe
continued to run "It's A Dysfunctional Life" (later renamed "A1-AAA AmeriCaptions"), which was similar to the Dysfunctional Family Circus, but used viewer-submitted photographs instead of Family Circus cartoons.
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
The Family Circus
The Family Circus
The Family Circus is a syndicated comic strip created by cartoonist Bil Keane and currently written, inked, and colored by his son, Jeff Keane. The strip generally uses a single captioned panel with a round border, hence the original name of the series, which was changed following objections from...
, featuring either Bil Keane
Bil Keane
William Aloysius Keane , better known as Bil Keane, was an American cartoonist. He is most notable for his work on the long-running newspaper comic The Family Circus, which began its run in 1960 and continues in syndication, drawn by his son Jeff Keane.-Biography:Born in Philadelphia,...
's artwork with altered caption
Caption
Caption may refer to:*Caption , a small press and independent comic convention held annually in Oxford, England*Closed captioning, used to provide the text of a show's audio portion to those who may have trouble hearing it...
s, or (less often) original artwork made to appear like the targeted strips. First distributed anonymously by mail
Mail
Mail, or post, is a system for transporting letters and other tangible objects: written documents, typically enclosed in envelopes, and also small packages are delivered to destinations around the world. Anything sent through the postal system is called mail or post.In principle, a postal service...
and fax
Fax
Fax , sometimes called telecopying, is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material , normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other output device...
in 1989, by 1994 various versions of it began to appear on the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
.
The DFC booklets
The Dysfunctional Family Circus was created and began circulating anonymously in 1989 as a series of booklets found in record and book stores, coffee houses and nightclubs in several U.S. and European cities, including San Francisco, Chicago, New York, London and Madrid. They were also distributed by mail to those making requests and posting their mailing address to select Usenet groups.The booklet series included 15 titles:
- Grandma's Not Dead Yet!
- See, I Told You Cats Could Smell Dead People!
- Ibex, My Ass! That's a Goat!
- Who Wants to See a Hamster Dance?
- Eat Snow Hobo!
- Grandma's Starting to Sprout!
- It All Comes Back, Except One Tablespoon!
- This Guy's Wankin' Off!
- Wait, I Think My Dick's Stuck!
- Boy, This Dog is Fucked Up!
- Oh Yeah? Well, Kiss This!
- Her, Us, Motel, Tonight!
- Crotch Shot!
- Mommy! PJ's Tryin' to Get Out!
- Holy Shit! It's a Priesty Boy!
Each booklet measured 4-1/4" x 5.5" and was attributed to an anonymous publisher whose name was a unique anagram of "Bil Keane." A French translation of volume #4, entitled "Qui Veut Voir Un Hamster Dansant?" was distributed by mail, as was an unnumbered volume entitled "Guess Where I Can Fit This!" The booklets spawned two annual calendars, a t-shirt, and a set of drink coasters, before being retired.
Running gags
- IncestIncestIncest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
- PJ's grisly demise
- Sexual promiscuityPromiscuityIn humans, promiscuity refers to less discriminating casual sex with many sexual partners. The term carries a moral or religious judgement and is viewed in the context of the mainstream social ideal for sexual activity to take place within exclusive committed relationships...
- CannibalismCannibalismCannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
- Hallucinations
- Acid flashbacks
- ExistentialismExistentialismExistentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
- Drug abuse
- AlcoholismAlcoholismAlcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
- Oral sexOral sexOral sex is sexual activity involving the stimulation of the genitalia of a sex partner by the use of the mouth, tongue, teeth or throat. Cunnilingus refers to oral sex performed on females while fellatio refer to oral sex performed on males. Anilingus refers to oral stimulation of a person's anus...
- Animal cruelty
- Film homage
- FeminizationFeminization (activity)Feminization is used to describe the practice, especially in female dominance, of switching the gender role of a male submissive. It is usually achieved through cross-dressing, where the male is dressed in female attire, ranging from just wearing female undergarments to being fully dressed in very...
of Billy - SacrilegeSacrilegeSacrilege is the violation or injurious treatment of a sacred object. In a less proper sense, any transgression against the virtue of religion would be a sacrilege. It can come in the form of irreverence to sacred persons, places, and things...
- ScatologyScatologyIn medicine and biology, scatology or coprology is the study of feces.Scatological studies allow one to determine a wide range of biological information about a creature, including its diet , healthiness, and diseases such as tapeworms. The word derives from the Greek σκώρ In medicine and biology,...
Publication
The first two issues were 16 pages each. Issue three expanded to 40 pages. The remaining issues in the main series were 32 pages apiece. The initial press run for each issue was 250 copies. Issues five and eight had secondary runs of 100 copies each.Several cartoons from the booklets were reprinted in the Anderson Valley Advertiser
Anderson Valley Advertiser
The Anderson Valley Advertiser is a small but well-known weekly newspaper published in Anderson Valley, California. It was founded in 1955 as a local, community-based paper...
in Boonville, California
Boonville, California
Boonville is a census-designated place in Mendocino County, California. It is located southwest of Ukiah, at an elevation of 381 feet . The population was 1,035 at the 2010 census.-History:...
, and Browbeat magazine. Others were reproduced in fanzines and as inserts for CDs by the National Hardwood Floor Association
National Hardwood Floor Association
The National Hardwood Floor Association was a group that organized prank calls to a Christian talk radio station in the USA.-Overview:The National Hardwood Floor Association released an album of political prank calls to Christian radio station KPDQ in 1992...
and others. Only one cartoon (#5, page 14) used the original cartoon caption ("The party's not over yet — I just came home to get my siren and handcuffs").
Forerunners
Often called "DFC", the Dysfunctional Family circus was first brought to the World-Wide Web by Mark Jason DominusMark Jason Dominus
Mark•Jason Dominus is one of the founders of Kibology and a leading Perl programmer. He was the managing editor of and was a columnist for The Perl Journal for several years. Mark's other Perl-related articles have appeared in magazines such as Wired and IEEE Software...
around March 1994.
This version featured one (later expanded to four) original Keane cartoon without captions, and ran submission software to allow viewers to suggest their own captions. Captions were mostly unfiltered. It was discontinued after about a year, and the concept was adopted by Greg Galcik.
Galcik's version
Galcik's version became the best known (or perhaps most notorious) and ran on SpinnWebeSpinnWebe
SpinnWebe is the personal website of Greg Galcik, also known as "spinn." It gathered the most fame as the home of the Dysfunctional Family Circus, which ran in the late 1990s...
from June 1995 to 1999 with a run of exactly 500 comics. It attracted between 50,000 and 70,000 page views per day. Galcik and other editors would select the captions they considered to be the funniest and most original, which would then be saved in an online archive. The humor of these captions ranged from what many would consider the disgusting to the surreal
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, and from the low-brow to the cerebral. Bil Keane was aware of the site's existence from early on, and initially had no objection to it, stating that the jokes were sometimes better than his own.
Several running jokes developed over the 500 strip run of the series. Recurring themes included incest
Incest
Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
and child abuse
Child abuse
Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...
jokes, and aspects of the art itself, such as the Featureless Void
Featureless Void
A "Featureless Void" is a common theme in comics where the characters or items appear to float in a blank panel; a panel without context...
(as Keane's comics frequently lacked a background), and Jeffy's Hypno-Hair (his wavy hair with which he hypnotized others in the family). Another running joke involved breaking the fourth wall and commenting on what Bil drew in the strip that day, such as when Thel was vacuuming with many toys strewn about, one such caption was "That dickhead Bil would draw all this shit in here the one day I vacuum!", and the children were aware that they were stuck within the "circle" that outlined the strip, such as when the scene was full of Christmas presents, a submitted caption was "I tell, ya we could hawk more stuff if you just made the circle bigger!"
Common subjects and jokes
(See SpinnWebe Jargon File)- NAMBLA
- IncestIncestIncest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
- Child abuseChild abuseChild abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...
- AlcoholismAlcoholismAlcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
or drug abuseDrug abuseSubstance abuse, also known as drug abuse, refers to a maladaptive pattern of use of a substance that is not considered dependent. The term "drug abuse" does not exclude dependency, but is otherwise used in a similar manner in nonmedical contexts... - RacismRacismRacism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
- PromiscuityPromiscuityIn humans, promiscuity refers to less discriminating casual sex with many sexual partners. The term carries a moral or religious judgement and is viewed in the context of the mainstream social ideal for sexual activity to take place within exclusive committed relationships...
- MurderMurderMurder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
, usually of a family member - Inferences about eating one of the family pets
- The kids' violent nature
- The agelessness of the family
- References to the "circle"
- Thel committing adulteryAdulteryAdultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
- Inside "Zone" and "Asterisk" jokes
- Bil's lackluster artistic abilities, for example:
- Zip-A-ToneScreentoneScreentone is a technique for applying textures and shades to drawings, used as an alternative to hatching. In the conventional process, patterns are transferred to paper from preprinted sheets, but the technique is also simulated in computer graphics...
shading - The melon-shaped characters' heads
- Characters only having one nostril
- Bil's lack of pupils
- Thel's "uniboob"
- Hypno-Hair
- Featureless VoidFeatureless VoidA "Featureless Void" is a common theme in comics where the characters or items appear to float in a blank panel; a panel without context...
- The "psychic fernFernA fern is any one of a group of about 12,000 species of plants belonging to the botanical group known as Pteridophyta. Unlike mosses, they have xylem and phloem . They have stems, leaves, and roots like other vascular plants...
", which seemed to be the only plant in the Keane household
- Zip-A-Tone
- Interaction with characters from other comic strips
- "Uncle Roy", Bil's homosexual lover, who is never seen in the cartoon
- Characters arguing over contractual obligations to the cartoon, particularly Jeffy's prima donnaPrima donnaOriginally used in opera or Commedia dell'arte companies, "prima donna" is Italian for "first lady." The term was used to designate the leading female singer in the opera company, the person to whom the prime roles would be given. The prima donna was normally, but not necessarily, a soprano...
attitude - Depicting the scene as a "memoir" or section from the autobiography of a character (usually Billy or Dolly)
- Depicting the scene as a collector's plate on sale from The Franklin MintFranklin MintThe Franklin Mint is a private corporation founded by Joseph Segel in 1964. The private mint operated from Wawa, Pennsylvania but that operation has now closed...
or QVCQVCQVC is a multinational corporation specializing in televised home shopping. Founded in 1986 by Joseph Segel in West Goshen Township, Pennsylvania, United States, QVC broadcasts in five countries as QVC US, QVC UK, QVC Germany, QVC Japan and – QVC Italy to 200 million households... - Running gagRunning gagA running gag, or running joke, is a literary device that takes the form of an amusing joke or a comical reference and appears repeatedly throughout a work of literature or other form of storytelling....
s, such as references to Soylent GreenSoylent GreenSoylent Green is a 1973 American science fiction film directed by Richard Fleischer. Starring Charlton Heston, the film overlays the police procedural and science fiction genres as it depicts the investigation into the murder of a wealthy businessman in a dystopian future suffering from pollution,...
, "pull my fingerPull my fingerPull my finger is a joke or prank regarding flatulence in which a mark is asked to pull the finger of the illusionist , who simultaneously farts so as to suggest a causal relationship between the pulling of the finger and the subsequent expulsion of gas...
", and multiple jokes born from typos or rejected ("red-zoned") comments. Frequent inclusions from the latter category were "trippin my nutsack in a frenzy of dikplay", "poop holds the tent wher it is", and "log of fag".
The End of the DFC
In September 1999, Galcik received a warning letter from King Features SyndicateKing Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...
(publishers of The Family Circus), citing copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
violations on the site. Despite the support of the site's fans and round condemnation in, Galcik complied after a phone conversation with Keane. In his closing statement, Galcik said while he believed that Dysfunctional Family Circus could be defended as a work of interactive parody, he had developed a grudging respect for the long and continual effort by Bil Keane. Galcik noted that Keane was both polite and gracious in his request for the strip to end, pointing out that the characters being parodied were based on Keane's own family. Keane also agreed to allow Galcik to continue the strip for an additional week in order to reach strip #500. The captions for the 500th and final strip were completed in November 1999. Despite King Features' wishes, archives of the series have repeatedly appeared in various sites around the web.
SpinnWebe
SpinnWebe
SpinnWebe is the personal website of Greg Galcik, also known as "spinn." It gathered the most fame as the home of the Dysfunctional Family Circus, which ran in the late 1990s...
continued to run "It's A Dysfunctional Life" (later renamed "A1-AAA AmeriCaptions"), which was similar to the Dysfunctional Family Circus, but used viewer-submitted photographs instead of Family Circus cartoons.
External links
- The Free-Floating Dysfunctional Family Circus Archive v1.1.2 - a rehosted archive of SpinnWebe's Dysfunctional Family Circus pictures and captions
- Horselover Fat's Inside Guide to the DFC - An explanation of Spinn's site.
- Family Circus Parody Folds Tent
- Archives of the IADL (It's A Dysfunctional Life), the successor to the Spinnwebe version of the Dysfunctional Family Circus