Parody
The Family Circus has been widely satirized in film, television, and other daily comic strips. In an interview with The Washington Post, Keane said that he was flattered and believed that such parody "...is a compliment to the popularity of the feature..." The official Family Circus website contains a sampling of syndicated comic strips from other authors which parody his characters.
Some newspaper comic strips have devoted entire storylines using Family Circus characters. In 1994, the surreal Zippy the Pinhead comic strip made multiple references to the Family Circus, including an extended series during which the titular lead character sought "Th' Way" to enlightenment from Bil, Thel, Billy, and Jeffy. Bil Keane was credited as "guest cartoonist" on these strips, drawing the characters exactly as they appear in their own strip, but in Zippy's world as drawn by Zippy creator Bill Griffith. Griffith described the Family Circus as "the last remaining folk art strip." Griffith said, "It's supposed to be the epitome of squareness, but it turns the corner into a hip zone."
For the 1997 April Fool's Day Comic strip switcheroo, Dilbert creator Scott Adams swapped cartoons with Keane; and Stephan Pastis drew a series in which Family Circus "invaded" Pearls Before Swine in 2007.
The Dysfunctional Family Circus was a satire website which paired Keane's illustrations with user-submitted captions. Keane claimed to have found the site funny at first. However, disapproving feedback from his readership, coupled with the website's use of double entendre and vulgarity, prompted Keane to request that the site be discontinued.
The webcomic Jersey Circus is a mashup of artwork from The Family Circus and dialogue from the reality show Jersey Shore. It juxtaposes the innocent artwork of the comic with the often adult dialogue from the show to parody both media phenomena.
The 1999 novel The Funnies, by J. Robert Lennon, centered around a dysfunctional family whose late patriarch drew a cartoon similar to The Family Circus. Lennon later said, although there was a "resemblance", he did not "know anything about Bil Keane and made up my characters from scratch."
The cartoon has been the subject of gags on many television sit-coms including episodes of Pinky and the Brain, Mystery Science Theater 3000, The Simpsons, Drawn Together, an episode of Family Guy ("Dog Gone") and the movie Go (1999 film).
In the Diary of a Wimpy Kid book series there is a comic the main character despises called "L'il Cutie" which shares similarities to Family Circus. A kid saying innocent things, the writer inspired by his child, and the son working on the comic as an adult.
The website losanjealous.com features The Nietzsche Family Circus which pairs a random Family Circus cartoon with a random quote from Friedrich Nietzsche.
Also in some Pearls Before Swine strips, they have appearances by the Family Circus kids or fake Family Circus strips, in one series of strips, Rat gets captured by Family Circus fans for poking fun at the Family Circus (of which he claims Bill Keane likes).
Read more about this topic: The Family Circus
Famous quotes containing the word parody:
“Satire is a lesson, parody is a game.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“The parody is the last refuge of the frustrated writer. Parodies are what you write when you are associate editor of the Harvard Lampoon. The greater the work of literature, the easier the parody. The step up from writing parodies is writing on the wall above the urinal.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“Why does almost everything seem to me like its own parody? Why must I think that almost all, no, all the methods and conventions of art today are good for parody only?”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)