Get Fuzzy
Encyclopedia
Get Fuzzy is an American daily comic strip
written and drawn by Darby Conley
. The strip features the adventures of Boston
advertising executive Rob Wilco and his two anthropomorphic
pets: dog
Satchel Pooch and cat
Bucky Katt. Get Fuzzy has been published by United Feature Syndicate since September 1999. It appears in over 700 newspapers worldwide.
The strip's humor comes from the conflict between Bucky's and Satchel's personalities, which are extreme stereotypes of cats and dogs. Sweet, trusting, naïve Satchel is routinely subjected to the exploitation of cruel, self-centered Bucky, who is always torturing the poor canine. Rob, the middleman, is often frazzled from dealing with them, or more specifically, from dealing with Bucky's destructive nature and overall nastiness. The three characters live in an apartment on Boston
's Longwood Avenue.
The unusual title of the strip comes from a concert poster that Darby Conley
once created for his brother's band, the Fuzzy Sprouts. "Life's too short to be cool," the poster read, "Get Fuzzy."
reacted angrily to an October 30, 2003 strip. When Bucky, observing that a large number of tourist packages were based on landmark
s or other features, asks a travel agent for suggested destinations "based primarily on smell", the agent promptly produces a brochure from the Pittsburgh Board of Tourism
. This was originally intended as an "in-joke
" jab at a friend who lives in the Pittsburgh area. Conley later confessed shock over the large volume of hate mail
and even death threat
s he received in response, and Pittsburgh city officials publicly denounced the strip. This controversy occurred despite Get Fuzzy not appearing in any Pittsburgh newspaper.
An apology promised by Conley took a rather unexpected form. The 2003-11-17 strip questions why the Pittsburgh joke caused such an uproar and archly notes that several protesters rather hypocritically
stated that New Jersey
smelled worse than Pittsburgh. Satchel closes the strip by explaining that the original strip "should have made it more clear that it was [nearby borough
] Sewickley Heights
that smells", coupled with a post-it note advertising an apology to Sewickly Heights. This failed to appease many who complained.
Conley took things a step further in the next three strips, the first of which showed a survey in which voters ranked the five smelliest places in the United States (and a few in Canada). In order, they were ranked Cleveland, Ohio
("Remember: Get Fuzzy didn't say this one!"), New Jersey ("Not technically a city, but, hey"), Philadelphia ("Or, as 'Burghers call it, 'Filthydelphia'"), Darby Conley's "@##
" ("Again, not technically a city, per se"), and New Orleans ("Worse than Lubbock
, but better than Darby Conley's @##!").
The second showed apparent greeting signs/tourism slogans for people that come into Pittsburgh. Featured were "Pittsburgh: Turn Left at Erie
", "Pittsburgh: If You Smell Anything, It's Coming from Ohio
", and "Pittsburgh: Gateway to Cleveland!"
The third and final one showed Satchel and Bucky as trading cards, with Satchel being "Mario Lepooch" (a parody of Pittsburgh Penguins owner and star Mario Lemieux
) and Bucky being "Buck Tekulve" (after former Pirates reliever Kent Tekulve
). The last panel showed Satchel wearing a Cleveland Browns
hat and Bucky in a LeBron James
Cavaliers
jersey in a final insult to Pittsburghers.
Shortly after the controversy, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
both began running Get Fuzzy in their comics sections.
... drunk?" Rob replies "Lobel? Who knows. He's like some TV outreach program or something." Lobel has been reported as having appeared on air in an intoxicated state which Lobel denies.
Less than a week later, Boston
sportscaster
Bob Lobel
filed a libel lawsuit against Conley, United Features Syndicate, and the New Bedford
Standard-Times newspaper. The New Bedford paper was named specifically because it did not censor the strip as several other Boston-area papers did, including The Boston Globe
; most either refused to run the strip or substituted "Him?" in place of Lobel's name. The lawsuit claimed that the strip was both personally and professionally damaging, especially given that his contract was under negotiation for renewal at the time.
On November 16, 2005, a brief article in the Boston Herald
reported that Lobel and Conley had settled the suit out of court. Conley made a public apology to Lobel, saying the strip was not intended to imply that he had been drunk on the air. Further details of the settlement were confidential, but the Herald quoted an unnamed source as saying Conley had made a substantial donation to charity.
The strip was left out of the Get Fuzzy collection Take Our Cat, Please and the treasury The Potpourrific Great Big Grab Bag of Get Fuzzy.
and a rerun substituted. This was due to Bucky's mail order purchase (on Rob's credit card) of a disguise with which to infiltrate the lair of his enemies, the ferret
s. The disguise turns out to be a poor-quality, damaged raccoon
suit, which disgusts Bucky but is then donned by Satchel, who then begins to speak in a manner suggestive of "Ebonics
", which could conceivably be deemed offensive since the term "coon" has frequently been used as a racial epithet
against blacks
.
Conley received the National Cartoonist Society Newspaper Comic Strip Award in 2002 for his work on Get Fuzzy.
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....
written and drawn by Darby Conley
Darby Conley
Darby Conley is an American cartoonist best known for the popular comic strip Get Fuzzy.-Background:Conley was born in Concord, Massachusetts in 1970, and grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee....
. The strip features the adventures of Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
advertising executive Rob Wilco and his two anthropomorphic
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...
pets: dog
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...
Satchel Pooch and cat
Cat
The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...
Bucky Katt. Get Fuzzy has been published by United Feature Syndicate since September 1999. It appears in over 700 newspapers worldwide.
The strip's humor comes from the conflict between Bucky's and Satchel's personalities, which are extreme stereotypes of cats and dogs. Sweet, trusting, naïve Satchel is routinely subjected to the exploitation of cruel, self-centered Bucky, who is always torturing the poor canine. Rob, the middleman, is often frazzled from dealing with them, or more specifically, from dealing with Bucky's destructive nature and overall nastiness. The three characters live in an apartment on Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
's Longwood Avenue.
The unusual title of the strip comes from a concert poster that Darby Conley
Darby Conley
Darby Conley is an American cartoonist best known for the popular comic strip Get Fuzzy.-Background:Conley was born in Concord, Massachusetts in 1970, and grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee....
once created for his brother's band, the Fuzzy Sprouts. "Life's too short to be cool," the poster read, "Get Fuzzy."
Pittsburgh
Many residents of Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaPennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
reacted angrily to an October 30, 2003 strip. When Bucky, observing that a large number of tourist packages were based on landmark
Landmark
This is a list of landmarks around the world.Landmarks may be split into two categories - natural phenomena and man-made features, like buildings, bridges, statues, public squares and so forth...
s or other features, asks a travel agent for suggested destinations "based primarily on smell", the agent promptly produces a brochure from the Pittsburgh Board of Tourism
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...
. This was originally intended as an "in-joke
In-joke
An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or in joke, is a joke whose humour is clear only to people who are in a particular social group, occupation, or other community of common understanding...
" jab at a friend who lives in the Pittsburgh area. Conley later confessed shock over the large volume of hate mail
Hate mail
Hate mail is a form of harassment, usually consisting of invective and potentially intimidating or threatening comments towards the recipient...
and even death threat
Death threat
A death threat is a threat of death, often made anonymously, by one person or a group of people to kill another person or groups of people. These threats are usually designed to intimidate victims in order to manipulate their behavior, thus a death threat is a form of coercion...
s he received in response, and Pittsburgh city officials publicly denounced the strip. This controversy occurred despite Get Fuzzy not appearing in any Pittsburgh newspaper.
An apology promised by Conley took a rather unexpected form. The 2003-11-17 strip questions why the Pittsburgh joke caused such an uproar and archly notes that several protesters rather hypocritically
Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy is the state of pretending to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually have. Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and is thus a kind of lie....
stated that New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
smelled worse than Pittsburgh. Satchel closes the strip by explaining that the original strip "should have made it more clear that it was [nearby borough
Borough
A borough is an administrative division in various countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing township although, in practice, official use of the term varies widely....
] Sewickley Heights
Sewickley Heights, Pennsylvania
Sewickley Heights is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 810 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Sewickley Heights is located at ....
that smells", coupled with a post-it note advertising an apology to Sewickly Heights. This failed to appease many who complained.
Conley took things a step further in the next three strips, the first of which showed a survey in which voters ranked the five smelliest places in the United States (and a few in Canada). In order, they were ranked Cleveland, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
("Remember: Get Fuzzy didn't say this one!"), New Jersey ("Not technically a city, but, hey"), Philadelphia ("Or, as 'Burghers call it, 'Filthydelphia'"), Darby Conley's "@##
Buttocks
The buttocks are two rounded portions of the anatomy, located on the posterior of the pelvic region of apes and humans, and many other bipeds or quadrupeds, and comprise a layer of fat superimposed on the gluteus maximus and gluteus medius muscles. Physiologically, the buttocks enable weight to...
" ("Again, not technically a city, per se"), and New Orleans ("Worse than Lubbock
Lubbock, Texas
Lubbock is a city in and the county seat of Lubbock County, Texas, United States. The city is located in the northwestern part of the state, a region known historically as the Llano Estacado, and the home of Texas Tech University and Lubbock Christian University...
, but better than Darby Conley's @##!").
The second showed apparent greeting signs/tourism slogans for people that come into Pittsburgh. Featured were "Pittsburgh: Turn Left at Erie
Erie, Pennsylvania
Erie is a city located in northwestern Pennsylvania in the United States. Named for the lake and the Native American tribe that resided along its southern shore, Erie is the state's fourth-largest city , with a population of 102,000...
", "Pittsburgh: If You Smell Anything, It's Coming from Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
", and "Pittsburgh: Gateway to Cleveland!"
The third and final one showed Satchel and Bucky as trading cards, with Satchel being "Mario Lepooch" (a parody of Pittsburgh Penguins owner and star Mario Lemieux
Mario Lemieux
Mario Lemieux, OC, CQ is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player. He is acknowledged to be one of the best players of all time. He played 17 seasons as a forward for the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League between 1984 and 2006...
) and Bucky being "Buck Tekulve" (after former Pirates reliever Kent Tekulve
Kent Tekulve
Kenton Charles Tekulve is a former Major League Baseball right-handed relief pitcher. During a 16-year baseball career, he pitched for three different teams, but spent most of his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates...
). The last panel showed Satchel wearing a Cleveland Browns
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns are a professional football team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They are currently members of the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
hat and Bucky in a LeBron James
LeBron James
LeBron Raymone James is an American professional basketball player for the Miami Heat of the National Basketball Association . Nicknamed "King James", he was a three-time "Mr. Basketball" of Ohio in high school, and was highly promoted in the national media as a future NBA superstar while a...
Cavaliers
Cleveland Cavaliers
The Cleveland Cavaliers are a professional basketball team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They began playing in the National Basketball Association in 1970 as an expansion team...
jersey in a final insult to Pittsburghers.
Shortly after the controversy, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, also known simply as the "PG," is the largest daily newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.-Early history:...
and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, also known as "the Trib," is the second largest daily newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States...
both began running Get Fuzzy in their comics sections.
Bob Lobel
A strip published on May 13, 2005 resulted in legal action. In the original strip, Rob, Bucky and Satchel are watching television. Satchel asks "Is this sportscasterSportscaster
In sports broadcasting, a commentator gives a running commentary of a game or event in real time, usually during a live broadcast. The comments are normally a voiceover, with the sounds of the action and spectators also heard in the background. In the case of television commentary, the commentator...
... drunk?" Rob replies "Lobel? Who knows. He's like some TV outreach program or something." Lobel has been reported as having appeared on air in an intoxicated state which Lobel denies.
Less than a week later, Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
sportscaster
Sportscaster
In sports broadcasting, a commentator gives a running commentary of a game or event in real time, usually during a live broadcast. The comments are normally a voiceover, with the sounds of the action and spectators also heard in the background. In the case of television commentary, the commentator...
Bob Lobel
Bob Lobel
Robert "Bob" Lobel is a former sportscaster for WBZ-TV in Boston, Massachusetts. He anchored the sports segments on the evening newscasts between Sunday and Thursday, and hosted the weekly programs Sports Final and Patriots 5th Quarter...
filed a libel lawsuit against Conley, United Features Syndicate, and the New Bedford
New Bedford, Massachusetts
New Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States, located south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and about east of Fall River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 95,072, making it the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts...
Standard-Times newspaper. The New Bedford paper was named specifically because it did not censor the strip as several other Boston-area papers did, including The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
; most either refused to run the strip or substituted "Him?" in place of Lobel's name. The lawsuit claimed that the strip was both personally and professionally damaging, especially given that his contract was under negotiation for renewal at the time.
On November 16, 2005, a brief article in the Boston Herald
Boston Herald
The Boston Herald is a daily newspaper that serves Boston, Massachusetts, United States, and its surrounding area. It was started in 1846 and is one of the oldest daily newspapers in the United States...
reported that Lobel and Conley had settled the suit out of court. Conley made a public apology to Lobel, saying the strip was not intended to imply that he had been drunk on the air. Further details of the settlement were confidential, but the Herald quoted an unnamed source as saying Conley had made a substantial donation to charity.
The strip was left out of the Get Fuzzy collection Take Our Cat, Please and the treasury The Potpourrific Great Big Grab Bag of Get Fuzzy.
Purported racism
The June 19, 2011 strip was censored by The TennesseanThe Tennessean
The Tennessean is the principal daily newspaper in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Its circulation area covers 39 counties in Middle Tennessee and eight counties in southern Kentucky....
and a rerun substituted. This was due to Bucky's mail order purchase (on Rob's credit card) of a disguise with which to infiltrate the lair of his enemies, the ferret
Ferret
The ferret is a domesticated mammal of the type Mustela putorius furo. Ferrets are sexually dimorphic predators with males being substantially larger than females. They typically have brown, black, white, or mixed fur...
s. The disguise turns out to be a poor-quality, damaged raccoon
Raccoon
Procyon is a genus of nocturnal mammals, comprising three species commonly known as raccoons, in the family Procyonidae. The most familiar species, the common raccoon , is often known simply as "the" raccoon, as the two other raccoon species in the genus are native only to the tropics and are...
suit, which disgusts Bucky but is then donned by Satchel, who then begins to speak in a manner suggestive of "Ebonics
Ebonics
Ebonics is a term that was originally intended to refer to the language of all people descended from enslaved Africans, particularly in West Africa, the Caribbean, and North America...
", which could conceivably be deemed offensive since the term "coon" has frequently been used as a racial epithet
Epithet
An epithet or byname is a descriptive term accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title...
against blacks
Blacks
Blacks may refer to:* All Blacks, New Zealand rugby union team* Black people* Blacks Leisure Group, owner of Blacks and Millets in the United Kingdom* The Blacks , a play by Jean Genet* Zamora, California, formerly called Blacks...
.
Reruns
As per custom for some comic strips, Get Fuzzy often publishes older strips instead of fresh ones; in some cases, the repeat strips were placed in the middle of current storylines already in progress. Since March 2011, a week of repeat strips (currently from 2009) alternated with a week of the current story.Collections
| Title | Publication Date | ISBN International Standard Book Number The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering code created by Gordon Foster, Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H... |
Strips Collected |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Dog Is Not a Toy (House Rule #4) | April 15, 2001 | ISBN 0-7407-1392-2 | |
| Fuzzy Logic | April 1, 2002 | ISBN 0-7407-2198-4 | |
| The Get Fuzzy Experience: Are You Bucksperienced | April 2, 2003 | ISBN 0-7407-3300-1 | |
| Blueprint for Disaster | October 1, 2003 | ISBN 0-7407-3808-9 | |
| Say Cheesy | May 28, 2005 | ISBN 0-7407-4663-4 | 2002-11-17 - 2003-08-31 |
| Scrum Bums | September 1, 2006 | ISBN 0-7407-5001-1 | 2003-09-01 - 2004-06-13 |
| I'm Ready for My Movie Contract | September 1, 2007 | ISBN 978-0-7407-6922-1 | 2004-06-14 - 2005-03-26 |
| Take Our Cat, Please! | May 1, 2008 | ISBN 978-0-7407-7095-1 | 2005-03-27 - 2006-01-29 |
| Ignorance, Thy Name Is Bucky | April 21, 2009 | ISBN 978-0-7407-8098-1 | 2006-01-30 - 2006-12-09 |
| Dumbheart | October 20, 2009 | ISBN 978-0-7407-9189-5 | 2006-12-10 - 2007-10-07 |
Treasuries
Treasuries contain two collections in one binding with some color strips.| Title | Date | ISBN International Standard Book Number The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering code created by Gordon Foster, Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H... |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Groovitude | September 2, 2002 | ISBN 0-7407-2894-6 | Contains The Dog Is Not a Toy and Fuzzy Logic |
| Bucky Katt's Big Book of Fun | April 2004 | ISBN 0-7407-4136-5 | Contains The Get Fuzzy Experience and Blueprint for Disaster |
| Loserpalooza | May 7, 2007 | ISBN 978-0-7407-5709-9 | Contains Say Cheesy and Scrum Bums |
| The Potpourrific Great Big Grab Bag of Get Fuzzy | September 1, 2008 | ISBN 978-0-7407-7367-9 | Contains I'm Ready for My Movie Contract and Take Our Cat, Please |
| Treasury of the Lost Litter Box | May 4, 2010 | ISBN 978-0-7407-9335-6 | Contains Ignorance, Thy Name Is Bucky and Dumbheart |
Reception and awards
Initially appearing in 75 newspapers nationally, the strip grew in popularity very quickly.Conley received the National Cartoonist Society Newspaper Comic Strip Award in 2002 for his work on Get Fuzzy.