See also the Portnoy

Portnoy

The name Portnoy, sometimes spelt Portnoi, is a Jewish surname of Russian origin. The Russian word 'портной' translates as 'tailor'.The name may refer to any of the following:-People:...

 disambiguation page.

Portnoy is a character in Berke Breathed's comic strip

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....

 Bloom County

Bloom County

Bloom County is an American comic strip by Berkeley Breathed which ran from December 8, 1980, until August 6, 1989. It examined events in politics and culture through the viewpoint of a fanciful small town in Middle America, where children often have adult personalities and vocabularies and where...

. Portnoy was one of the critters that could talk, and was often surly mouthed and bigoted, usually leading Hodge-Podge

Hodge-Podge (character)

Hodge-Podge the rabbit is a fictitious character from Berke Breathed's comic strip Bloom County. His best friends are Portnoy and Cutter John. Hodge is extremely politically conservative and fanatical about most things, though often ignorant and naive about just what those things are...

, his best friend, to have to cover his mouth. When Bill the Cat

Bill the Cat

Bill the Cat, or Bill D. Cat, according to the final Outland strip, is a fictional cat appearing in the works of cartoonist Berkeley Breathed, beginning with the comic strip Bloom County in the 1980s and continuing in Outland and Opus in the following decades...

 became a televangelist denouncing "penguin

Penguin

Penguins are a group of aquatic, flightless birds living almost exclusively in the southern hemisphere, especially in Antarctica. Highly adapted for life in the water, penguins have countershaded dark and white plumage, and their wings have become flippers...

 lust", Portnoy helped run Opus the penguin

Opus the Penguin

Opus the Penguin is a character in the comic strips and children's books of Berkeley Breathed, most notably the popular 1980s strip Bloom County. Breathed has described him as an "existentialist penguin" and the favorite of his many characters...

 out of town. The character was named for Portnoy's Complaint

Portnoy's Complaint

Portnoy's Complaint is the American novel that turned its author Philip Roth into a major celebrity, sparking a storm of controversy over its explicit and candid treatment of sexuality, including detailed depictions of masturbation using various props including a piece of liver...

, a novel about sexual frustration

Sexual frustration

Sexual frustration describes the condition in which a human or animal is in a state of agitation, depression, stress, loneliness or anxiety due to prolonged virginity, sexual inactivity and/or sexual dissatisfaction that leads him or her to want more sex or better sex, or a state in which he or she...

.

Portnoy changed physically over the years; sometimes into an entirely different animal. It was initially unknown what species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 he was; sometimes a squirrel

Squirrel

Squirrels belong to a large family of small or medium-sized rodents called the Sciuridae. The family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels, chipmunks, marmots , flying squirrels, and prairie dogs. Squirrels are indigenous to the Americas, Eurasia, and Africa and have been introduced to Australia...

, a possum

Possum

A possum is any of about 70 small to medium-sized arboreal marsupial species native to Australia, New Guinea, and Sulawesi .Possums are quadrupedal diprotodont marsupials with long tails...

, or a gopher

Gopher (animal)

The term gopher as it is commonly used does not relate to any one species, but is a generic term used to describe any of several small burrowing rodents endemic to North America, including the pocket gopher , also called true gophers, and the ground squirrel , including Richardson's ground squirrel...

. Finally he was revealed as a groundhog

Groundhog

The groundhog , also known as a woodchuck, whistle-pig, or in some areas as a land-beaver, is a rodent of the family Sciuridae, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels known as marmots. Other marmots, such as the yellow-bellied and hoary marmots, live in rocky and mountainous areas, but...

, which he had hidden because Hodge didn't associate with "pig

Pig

A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig, its ancestor the wild boar, and several other wild relatives...

s". Eventually the two made up.

Portnoy and Hodge enjoy human-like entertainment, such as strip bars and playing jokes on others (Portnoy once pretended to be stuffed).