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[[File:Time-magazine-cover-doonesbury_1179.jpg|frame|The cast, circa 1976.]]
''Doonesbury'' is an American newspaper comic strip written and drawn by Gary Trudeau which mixes political satire with college satire and later soap opera plots. A long runner (
The series began as a college satire (featuring nerdy Mike Doonesbury and his perpetual helmet wearing jock roommate B.D.) in 1970; within a couple of years the main cast expanded to feature Zonker Harris (a hippie slacker), Mark Slackmeyer (left-wing radical), JJ Caucus and Barbara Ann "Boopsie" Boopstein (Mike and B.D.'s respective girlfriends), and Zonker's uncle Duke (who was a stand-in for writer [[Hunter S. Thompson]]). While it had its genesis mocking Ivy League college life, the series found its footing when the strip expanded into full-blown political satire. B.D. joined the military (to escape having to write a term paper) and Uncle Duke got himself an ambassadorship to China, which led to him getting his own sidekick, the long-suffering Honey Huan.
Despite the expanded scope of the series, the characters [[Comic Book Time|remained college students for about 13 years]], with the only real change being the group moving off campus into a commune. This changed with a two
This strip won a Pulitzer Prize in 1975, and is generally considered liberal on the [[Strawman Political]] scale. It's so well-known for its political content that some papers choose to run it on the editorial pages rather than the comics pages, sometimes opposite ''[[Mallard Fillmore]]''. (And for some inexplicable reason, the ''Washington Post'' runs the strip on its gossip page.)
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In Britain the strip is carried in ''The Guardian'', which tried to drop it in 2005. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1569255,00.html This did not go down well.]
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{{tropelist}}
* [[Aborted Arc]]: In 1990, Trudeau decided to celebrate the strip's 20th anniversary by doing an arc where all of the strip's gigantic cast all met and interacted; something which hadn't happened since at least the late 70's. One by one, everyone gathers by chance in Mike's apartment and...don't do a whole lot except bicker at each other. Trudeau realized these characters were funnier in their separate spheres than they were thrown together, so he undid the entire storyline by having it be [[All Just a Dream|a nightmare Mike was having.]]
** The most recent Red Rascal storyline ended this way: as after being being abandoned during a rescue mission and taken hostage by the Taliban, the whole thing ended with a Sunday strip where Jeff's mom finds out that the Taliban successfully ransomed Jeff back to the US consulate FOR $90 (a fee that they paid simply because it was so cheap).
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* [[And I Must Scream]]: Toggle shortly after his accident, being unable to speak at all and then only in short bursts. He's gotten better with time though.
* [[Animated Adaptation]]: A rarely seen Doonesbury primetime cartoon special was made and aired in 1977.
* [[Anyone Can Die]]: ''Doonesbury'' was the first mainstream humor comic strip to kill off a character, which caused quite a stir at the time (1986) and landed it on the cover of [[Time (magazine)|''Time'' magazine]]. The deceased, Dick Davenport, was an elderly birdwatcher who had been a recurring character for years. He suffered a massive heart attack while birding but managed to stay alive just long enough to fulfill his life's dream of photographing an extremely rare bird (his last word, spoken right after snapping the picture, was "Immortality.")
** Andrew, a college friend of Joanie's, died of AIDS just after hearing the CD of [[The Beach Boys]]' ''Pet Sounds''.
** Later, Dick's wife Lacey joined him in the hereafter. We get to see her death from her point of view, as she's ushered into heaven by an angel. Her first impression of the place is to say "What ''horrid'' drapes", to which the angel replies "Quiet! Mrs. God picked them out!"
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* [[Cloudcuckoolander]]: Zonker and Zipper/Jeff Redfern. Boopsie was one too when she first appeared, but quickly outgrew it when she married B.D.
** Alex now has the crown, given how over the top her fantasies about life with Toggle are.
*
** Strangely enough, while everyone else has aged normally since 1984, Uncle Duke does not age, appearing to be constantly in his late 40's since he first appeared more than 30 years ago. This means that his nephew Zonker, who was a college student when he first met Duke, is now about the same age as him. No one appears to have noticed.▼
*** Roland Hedley, the amoral TV news reporter, has never aged either, perhaps because he's more of a representation of the media itself than a character in his own right.▼
*** Duke's erstwhile business associate Jim Andrews also hasn't aged in about 30 years...and he was clearly in his fifties when he first appeared.▼
* [[Comically Missing the Point]]: Toggle's reaction to Zipper's tour of Walden College -- since Zipper is basically Zonker Junior, his tours are focused on the slacker-friendliness of "America's safety school". Toggle is a wounded Iraq vet from a working-class family who actually ''wants'' an ''education''.
* [[Continuity Nod]]: In the 1970s, Duke is appointed governor of American Samoa. His mere presence (compounded with an unfortunately timed, sudden shortage of virgin sacrifices) causes disasters, such as volcanoes and tidal waves, which his assistant MacArthur claims is the work of angry gods. Duke dismisses these claims until it actually starts to ''snow'' on the tropical paradise: "I'm a reasonable man, MacArthur, so I know this isn't snow". '''Three decades later''', Mark Slackmeyer and his lover Chase are looking to get married. They travel to Samoa in the hope that their love will be accepted there. MacArthur agrees to sanction the gay wedding, but as they prepare their vows everything starts to go wrong...including volcanoes and tidal waves. MacArthur decides the gods are a little too conservative to be comfortable with this after all, and asks the couple to leave, even mentioning that nothing like this has happened since Duke was governor. Mark and Chase protest until guess what happens. "We're reasonable men, MacArthur, so we know this isn't snow."
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** '70s/early '80s: [[Establishing Shot]] of the White House, and occasionally [[The Voice|off-panel dialogue]] at press conferences and the like.
** [[Ronald Reagan]]: [[Max Headroom|Ron Headrest]]
** [[George
** [[Bill Clinton]]: A floating waffle.
** [[George W. Bush]]: Originally invisible, like his father. Prior to his election he wore a cowboy hat. After the disputed 2000 election he became a large asterisk. The cowboy hat changed to an [[Anvilicious|Americana-themed Roman Legionnaire helmet]] after the invasion of Iraq got underway. It got progressively beaten up as Dubya's term ended.
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*** According to Duke, he has no last name. On his first day of school, he was dropped off by his mother with a nametag that said "Duke" and never picked him up.
*** Of course, this is coming from [[Unreliable Narrator|Duke]].
▲* [[Not Allowed to Grow Up]] / [[Comic Book Time]]: Played straight, then averted since the 1983-84 hiatus.
▲** Strangely enough, while everyone else has aged normally since 1984, Uncle Duke does not age, appearing to be constantly in his late 40's since he first appeared more than 30 years ago. This means that his nephew Zonker, who was a college student when he first met Duke, is now about the same age as him. No one appears to have noticed.
▲*** Roland Hedley, the amoral TV news reporter, has never aged either, perhaps because he's more of a representation of the media itself than a character in his own right.
▲*** Duke's erstwhile business associate Jim Andrews also hasn't aged in about 30 years...and he was clearly in his fifties when he first appeared.
* [[One Degree of Separation]]: Seen most recently where Toggle meets Alex over the internet.
** It's also lampshaded. BD, on discovering that Toggle is dating Alex, says, "She's my college roommate's kid! That's crazy! What are the odds?" The narration replies, "Pretty good, actually. It's a comic strip."
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* [[Real Life]]: When Joanie graduated from Yale University, the real Yale actually had her picture appear in the yearbook, and Trudeau himself got to give a speech at the graduation (as well as pick up her diploma).
** Alex Doonesbury appears in the real-life MIT email directory.
* [[Refuge in Audacity]]: A comparatively subtle example, if such a thing can be imagined. Jeff's fantasies as "The Red Rascal" aren't taken seriously even within the context of the strip, so it might take the reader a while to fully grasp that in one of them, printed in family-friendly newspapers across America, he disemboweled a [[Mooks|Mook]] in full color.
* [[Series Hiatus]]: See above.
* [[Sexual Extortion]]: Melissa, a female soldier teased as B.D.'s love interest, turns out to be in therapy after having been forced into sex by a senior officer. The strip goes surprisingly in-depth on the various conflicts she feels ("I suffered sexual assault for my ''country''?").
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[[Category:Print Long Runners]]
[[Category:Doonesbury]]
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[[Category:Newspaper Comics of the 1980s]]
[[Category:Newspaper Comics of the 1990s]]
[[Category:Newspaper Comics of the 2000s]]
[[Category:Newspaper Comics of the 2010s]]
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