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. Bill also appeared in some of Breathed's illustrated children's books, including A Wish for Wings That Work, which was also made into an animated Christmas television special, and also on greeting cards and other sundry merchandise. The cat's most frequent spoken sentiments are "Ack!" and "Thbbft!", unlike most other animals (and children) in Breathed's work, who not only can speak English, but have advanced vocabularies. The former is a result of his regularly choking on hairballs, the latter sound an approximation of the "raspberry".
Bill the Cat is commonly seen as a parody of Jim Davis' Garfield (Milo Bloom appears to fear a visit from United Feature Syndicate's copyright lawyers surrounding Bill's similarities to Garfield). Breathed has also described Bill as his attempt to create a character so repulsive that it would have absolutely no merchandising potential. But surprisingly, Bill the Cat trinkets and figurines have sold in great quantity, and often appear in the strips.
Bill the Cat was inspired by a colorful economist named Bill Moore. Moore was a graduate assistant at the University of Texas at Austin during the 1970s, and one of Berke Breathed's teachers. Recognizably wild-eyed (and one legged), Moore also became one of Breathed's friends. His name was inspired by a local homeless man of Iowa City, Iowa, who was dubbed Bill "The Cat". Nothing is known of Bill's whereabouts from the early 2000s onward. It is assumed he either moved to a different town, or, more likely, is deceased.
Read more about Bill The Cat: Character Biography, Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the words bill and/or cat:
“Intellectuals can tell themselves anything, sell themselves any bill of goods, which is why they were so often patsies for the ruling classes in nineteenth-century France and England, or twentieth-century Russia and America.”
—Lillian Hellman (1907–1984)
“Every old woman with a wrinkled face, a furr’d brow, a hairy lip, a gobber tooth, a squint eye, a squeaking voice, or a scolding tongue ... a dog or cat by her side, is not only suspected but pronounced for a witch.”
—John Gaule (fl. 1640–1660)