| 1 | [[quoteright:349:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/BloomCounty_7830.jpg]] |
| 2 | [[caption-width-right:349:An early cast portrait circa 1983. Top: Opus. Middle row: Milo, Cutter John, Portnoy, Binkley, Hodge Podge. Bottom: Bill The Cat.]] |
| 3 | |
| 4 | ''Bloom County'' is an American newspaper comic strip written and drawn by Berkeley "Berke" Breathed, running from December 8, 1980 to August 6, 1989 and in a revived form since July 13, 2015. |
| 5 | |
| 6 | It is the second and most famous of a series of comic strips by Breathed which feature the same characters, the others being ''The Academia Waltz'' (1978-1979), ''Outland'' (1989-1995), and ''Opus'' (2003-2008). |
| 7 | |
| 8 | ''Bloom County'' is a character-driven strip featuring a heavy dose of political commentary, and won the UsefulNotes/PulitzerPrize for Editorial Cartooning in 1987, only the second strip to ever do so (the other being ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}'' in 1975). It coincided almost exactly with the presidency of UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan and represents a unique portrait of American politics and culture in the 1980s. The cast tended to shift over the years, but some of the main characters were: |
| 9 | |
| 10 | * Opus, a sweet-natured and lovable but anxious penguin with a huge beak. |
| 11 | * Bill The Cat, scrawny fleabag who is TheUnintelligible at best. Later implanted with the brain of UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump. |
| 12 | * Steve Dallas, a sleazy (human) lawyer whose track record with women is as bad as his track record in court. |
| 13 | * Milo Bloom, a young boy with a sardonic streak. Unprincipled reporter for the local newspaper. |
| 14 | * Michael Binkley, another boy, a wide-eyed dreamer with a closet containing his manifested insecurities. |
| 15 | * Cutter John, an easygoing, wheelchair-bound veteran and ChickMagnet who frequently plays ''Franchise/StarTrek'' with the animal characters. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | Eventually Berke ended the strip because he was tired of it and segued into a new one, ''Outland'', a Sunday-only strip whch ran from 1989 to 1995. Many of the regulars of ''Bloom County'' eventually leached back into that strip, as they later did again with Breathed's second Sunday-only strip ''Opus'', which ran from 2003 to 2008. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | Berke has also made books using the ''Bloom County'' characters, including ''Literature/AWishForWingsThatWork'' and ''Goodnight Opus'' for Opus, as well as ''The Last Basselope'' for Rosebud. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | In 2009, IDW Publishing launched ''Bloom County: The Complete Library'', a hardcover collection of the entire comic in five volumes with [[TheAnnotatedEdition annotations]] explaining outdated pop-culture and political gags and occasional insight from Breathed. Two volumes collecting the entirety of the sequel series ''Outland'' and ''Opus'' followed soon after, with similar annotations. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | In 2015, in anticipation of the 2016 presidential race, Breathed revived the strip as ''Bloom County 2015''. Instead of following the publishing schedule and editorial guidelines of a syndicated comic, he is using [[https://www.facebook.com/berkeleybreathed his Facebook page]] and [[http://www.gocomics.com/bloom-county Gocomics]] to publish the strip online. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | In 2022, an animated series was [[https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/bloom-county-animated-fox-berkeley-breathed-1235182440/amp/?fbclid=IwAR21GiiOkgbFXSGf_ZRcINiIDGUFd_OLUZkQ-xyhR47gxD5-MGFhpnJ6FCs reported]] to be in development for Creator/{{Fox}}, with Breathed serving as executive producer and co-writer. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | For more of Breathed's work, see ''Literature/FlawedDogs.'' |
| 28 | ---- |
| 29 | !!Tropes found in the original ''Bloom County'' (1980-89) and the revival (2015- ) |
| 30 | |
| 31 | * AbandonedArea: The series finale (Aug. 6, 1989) shows various common settings from the strip (Opus's living room, the dandelion patch, Binkley's anxiety closet) abandoned, as Opus walks away. |
| 32 | * AbortedArc: |
| 33 | ** In the early strips, most plotlines would be abandoned a few strips in, abruptly shifting to another setting. This happened some in later strips, too, i.e., the "Olive Loaf Vigilante" plot simply ceasing in the middle of Opus's trial, though a later comic revealed that he got off on a technicality. |
| 34 | ** In the third collection book (1984-86), there's a storyline where Opus is getting ready for a date, which just abruptly ends; even Breathed seems confused by this, and asks anyone who knows the identity of his date to please write in and tell him. Then [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=850417&comic=blm a strip not too long after]] showed Opus participating in a wrestling match to impress a woman who is an obvious NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of Cyndi Lauper. Breathed's comment for this strip reads "Oh, THAT'S who it was..." |
| 35 | ** Opus and Bill's 2016 presidential campaign. In the original strip the 1984 and 1988 campaigns were major arcs, but in 2016 the Meadow Party was mostly forgotten about. Breathed was quoted in an interview stating that he was making an effort to make the humor less political. |
| 36 | ** One storyline had Opus accidentally being given a multi-million dollar grant from the government to make a missile defense program. At the story's conclusion, he's granted ''another'' one, and also seemed to have plenty left over from the first...but these riches were never seen again. |
| 37 | * AddedAlliterativeAppeal: Milo's headline for the Olive Loaf Vigilante story: "Mystery Man Mugs Mimes With Meat: Millions Make Merry!" (Feb. 1, 1985) |
| 38 | -->'''Milo:''' Bad newspapers live for this sort of thing. |
| 39 | * AlcoholInducedIdiocy: There are a few instances where Steve Dallas displays this after drinking too much. |
| 40 | * AllJustADream |
| 41 | ** Zig-zagged a bit. The first ''Bloom County 2015'' strip revealed that Opus had been asleep for the past 25 years, effectively retconning the events of ''Outland'' and ''Opus'' out of existence. However, the Men's Kouch from ''Outland'' has been showing up, raising the question of just ''how much'' was a dream. |
| 42 | ** In the original run, Oliver Wendell Jones has a teleporter accident where he starts turning into Bill the Cat, only to wake up and find out that it was all just a dream...immediately to be followed with an OrWasItADream twist when Steve Dallas appears at Oliver's bedside with his head attached to Opus' body. |
| 43 | ** At another point, a long plot-arc leads to a point where Opus is wandering lost and semi-delirious in the desert. Then suddenly he's back in the meadow in Bloom County, happily saying it was all a dream, only for "Milo" to inform him that the meadow scene is the dream, and he's still really lost in the desert. And sure enough... |
| 44 | * AlmightyJanitor: A possibly literal example with hospital employee Frank in the 2015 revival. Among other things, the man owns or at least has access to a military-grade helicopter. |
| 45 | * AmoralAttorney: Steve Dallas zigzags this throughout the strip's run. He's initially devoid of scruples and common sense whenever he performs his professional duties; he introduces mass murderers as nice guys and has no qualms about plea-bargaining Bill the Cat straight into the electric chair, just so Dallas can go for pizza. Then this gets {{Inverted|Trope}} after he's abducted by aliens and experimented on, turning him into a sensitive, nurturing nice-guy. Months later, after his girlfriend betrays him, [[StatusQuoIsGod he reverted back to his original selfish persona.]] In the strip's current run, though, while Dallas plays the trope straight in court, he also subverts it, becoming a JerkWithAHeartOfGold who has a major soft spot towards a boy dying of cancer. |
| 46 | * AnimatedAdaptation: ''A Wish for Wings That Work'' was made into an animated special. During the ''Opus'' era, plans were made for a movie starring Opus et al. (which is why a line was drawn between his eyes), but it was canceled. |
| 47 | * TheAnnotatedEdition: ''The Complete Library'' has annotations to explain then-relevant pop-culture references and explain who the political figures being caricatured are. Breathed himself pops up from time to time to explain character origins or thought processes, but mostly just to tell us which strips he thinks are his best, which are {{Old Shame}}s, and to make jokes about Garry Trudeau of ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}''. |
| 48 | * AnswerCut: When Dallas, as lead singer and spokesman of the metal band Deathtöngue, negotiates a deal with CBS Records, he quotes the lyrics of their next song which includes "Let's run over Lionel Richie with a tank". Cut to the CBS CEO sitting in front of a huge autographed portrait of Lionel Richie. |
| 49 | ** [[GetOut "You can slam the door behind you."]] |
| 50 | * AntiLoveSong: "U Stink But I (Heart) U", which was {{Defictionalized}} by Mucky Pup in an album included in the compilation ''Billy And The Boingers: Bootleg''. |
| 51 | * ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: |
| 52 | ** Binkley, feeling depressed over the end of the world, [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=850315&comic=blm told Opus]] that "mountains, oceans [and] Taco Bells" would be swallowed by the sun's explosion. |
| 53 | ** From the June 13, 1985 strip, where Opus has accidentally found himself up with Cutter John, whose wheelchair is being elevated by several helium balloons. |
| 54 | --->'''Opus:''' 27,000 feet up in the air on a wheelchair heading for who knows where, and not even a fresh change of skivvies on hand. And the worst... yes the worst indignity of all... no plumbing facilities! ''[turns toward reader]'' Not to mention this is Thursday and I'll be missing ''Series/{{Cheers}}.'' |
| 55 | ** To which Cutter John responds by ''[[{{Hammerspace}} producing]] a [[CrazyPrepared television set.]]'' "Hey, we're not savages up here!" |
| 56 | * ArtEvolution: Look at any comic from 1980, then look at any comic from 1984, and then look at any comic from 1989. The differences are striking. More specifically, the art was very blobby and scratchy in the very first year, and then it started to ape ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}'' for a while (something that even Berke Breathed himself admits to). Over time, it gradually became much finer and clearer, with Berke putting more detail into his inking and even crosshatching at times. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by Opus on the back cover of one of the omnibus editions, where he complains about how the book shows how his nose has grown, like some big ol' goiter. |
| 57 | ** The revival, which is free from both space constraints and time constraints, has considerably more intricate artwork. |
| 58 | * AuthorAvatar: It's probably just a coincidence but Cutter John has an uncanny resemblance to Berke. However, there is some potential credibility, given that Cutter was the OnlySaneMan and one of the few truly {{Nice Guy}}s in the cast. |
| 59 | * AuthorFilibuster: The strip would sometimes launch into an AuthorTract driven set of strips about something that had irked Berke. |
| 60 | ** In one case, it was ''people turning right at red lights''. |
| 61 | ** And of course, his ironically misogynistic views... |
| 62 | --->'''Opus:''' We don't want anybody to get the idea that lately we've been saying ''women can't be trusted''...\ |
| 63 | '''Milo:''' Not at all.\ |
| 64 | '''Opus:''' Not at all! Misses the point!\ |
| 65 | '''Milo:''' By a mile!\ |
| 66 | '''Opus:''' The point is that women... Or rather, ''women''... You know... Women...\ |
| 67 | '''Milo:''' ...will tear your heart out and serve it to the cat.\ |
| 68 | '''Opus:''' I did not say that! |
| 69 | ** Two of Breathed's real-life {{berserk button}}s -- people taking advantage of handicapped parking spaces, and mimes -- receive brutal takedowns. The latter, in particular, are the focus of Opus' wrath when he becomes the "Olive Loaf Vigilante." |
| 70 | * AuthorPowers: In an August 9, 1981 strip that may or may not have been inspired by "WesternAnimation/DuckAmuck", Milo and Major Bloom announce that they are going on strike. The cartoonist then responds by drawing the Major in a tutu and Milo in a Carmen Miranda outfit. |
| 71 | * AxCrazy: Several examples including Steve's little-old-lady murderess of a client, Bill, and Steve himself when trying to quit smoking. |
| 72 | * BackAlleyDoctor: After liposuction is made illegal, Opus visits a back-alley liposuctionist. The liposuctionist is a large, terrifying man with tattoos who claims he is putting himself through medical school with his illegal earnings. His operating room is dimly lit, rat infested, and filthy. Predictably, he botches Opus' nose liposuction, and Opus' nose is thin and shriveled afterwards. |
| 73 | * BackForTheFinale: Cutter John, who had been absent from the strip for several years, returned for a Sunday strip (July 23, 1989) two weeks before ''Bloom County'' ended. Five days later Lola Granola, Opus's ex-fiancée, popped up after a multi-year absence to tell a horrified Opus that she was posing for Playboy. |
| 74 | ** Milo Bloom didn't make the jump from ''Bloom County'' to ''Outland,'' but is visible in the bus that the final ''Outland'' strip takes place in. |
| 75 | * BadMoodRetreat: In older strips, characters would occasionally feel bad about world issues after watching the news and sit in the field of dandelions (referred to as a "dandelion break" in one strip) to feel better. |
| 76 | * BecameTheirOwnAntithesis: Steve Dallas went from AmoralAttorney to NiceGuy after getting his brain reversed. |
| 77 | * BedtimeBrainwashing: |
| 78 | ** Opus tries to get in to see Steve Dallas after an operation. He is refused because the doctor is "debriefing" the patient. |
| 79 | --->'''Dr. [=LeGrunt=]L''' You will not sue. You will not sue. You will not sue. You...\ |
| 80 | '''SteveL''' Mmblgh... |
| 81 | ** In a May 1988 strip Milquetoast, the Bloom boarding house cockroach, is using this to get residents of the boarding house to leave out food for him. |
| 82 | ** A later Sunday strip features cockroaches doing this to control people, making white people unable to understand rap and [[TakeThat convincing George H. W. Bush to pick Dan Quayle as a running mate]]. |
| 83 | * BilingualBonus: The strip for March 11, 1981, features Limekiller charming a woman by speaking French. When Milo asks him what he said, he responds, "Not sure, something like 'Your earlobes resemble fish heads.'" In fact, that's exactly what he said. |
| 84 | * BlackAndNerdy: Oliver Wendell Jones is just that. Quite possibly the trope codifier. |
| 85 | * BlandNameProduct |
| 86 | ** Oliver does his hacking with a "[[Platform/AppleMacintosh Banana Jr. 6000]] computer". It's drawn as an early Macintosh "all-in-one," but it's effectively a walking, talking AI. |
| 87 | ** [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=860622&comic=blm Steve Dallas planned]] a FrivolousLawsuit against the Nikotia ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikon Nikon]]) Camera company because he got beaten up by Creator/SeanPenn while trying to photograph Sean with a Nikotia camera. He won't sue Opus (he's poor), and he won't sue Sean Penn (he's liable to beat him up again), but Nikon has plenty of disposable cash to give him in a settlement just to shut him up.) |
| 88 | * BodyHorror: Opus and his nose get the full brunt of this trope. One strip had Opus (a penguin) wearing a ''human'' nose after plastic surgery; words cannot describe the disturbingness. Another had him cutting his nose completely off when he sneezed while flossing; Opus merely stands there with a grey hole in his face as his entire schnozz lays on the tile at his feet. Still more horror ensued when Opus visited a back-alley liposuctionist, who sucked all the fat out of said nose and left Opus with a needle-thin...thing...that terrified even ''Milo''. |
| 89 | * BookBurning: Otis Oracle stages one. Milo throws "The Pat Boone Story" on the pile. |
| 90 | * {{Bowdlerise}}: |
| 91 | ** Happened occasionally. For instance, in the original strips' run, Bobbi Harlow's mother finds some [[WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones Flintstones]] vitamins in her daughter's bathroom and freaks out because she thinks they're...[[http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1981/08/03 pills]]. In the unaltered version, she freaks out because she thinks they're ''birth control'' pills. |
| 92 | ** The plump middle-aged woman who Bill gets caught reading the Bible with (in the scandal that led to the collapse of Billy & The Boingers) was originally named Edith Dreck, but famed [[MoralGuardians Moral Guardian]] Donald Wildmon claimed that this was a slam against Christians, since "dreck" means "crap" in Yiddish. Breathed, who was unaware of its meaning outside of being an insult, changed her name to Drock in the book reprints. |
| 93 | * BrainBleach: Steve is less than pleased about the anatomically correct fertility idol in New Guinea that resembles him. Oliver is more than pleased. |
| 94 | -->'''Milo:''' STEVE, WAKE UP! COME SEE THE POWER OF A PLUGGED-IN PLANET! |
| 95 | * BreadEggsBreadedEggs: In the January 19, 1983 strip: |
| 96 | -->'''Al [=McMeed=]:''' Yep! I got what you want! Strips about divorce! Strips about babies! Strips about plumbers! Strips about divorced baby plumbers! |
| 97 | * BreakoutCharacter: Opus didn't appear until the strip was six months old, and when he did it was a one-shot gag about Binkley buying a pet penguin. He wasn't seen again for six more months, until early 1982. By mid-1982, Opus was appearing on a regular basis, and he soon became the central character. |
| 98 | ** Bill the Cat was also originally intended to be a one-shot character, the joke being that they were trying to pass off a completely unmarketable character as the next {{ComicStrip/Garfield}}. He has since become nearly as iconic as Opus. |
| 99 | * BrickJoke: One series of strips had Opus bugging 911 with frivolous "crises" (including eating an overripe banana or seeing a woman with horrendous fashion sense). A week later Steve Dallas gets kidnapped by aliens; Milo says "We should call the authorities!" and Portnoy tells him that Opus is on it. The last panel shows Opus frantically calling 911 and them immediately hanging up on him. |
| 100 | * BriffitsAndSqueans: One strip involves coming up with new names for these (e.g. "bulbles" for IdeaBulb). |
| 101 | * BrutalHonesty: One Sunday strip had Binkley deciding to be brutally honest to everyone, such as telling Opus he resembles a puffin, not a penguin, and telling Steve that ''Series/KnightRider'' was a children's show. Opus gets some measure of revenge informing him that he resembles a carrot. |
| 102 | * TheBusCameBack: Senator Bedfellow, Bloom County's corrupt, cynical, drunken Senator, returns in August 2016 after an absence of over 30 years. (He returns to Binkley's anxiety closet, that is.) |
| 103 | ** Not even -- he made a one-strip return for ''Opus'' as well. |
| 104 | ** The new strip marks Milo's first speaking appearance in 26 years, as well as the return of Cutter John and Rosebud (neither of whom reappeared for ''Outland'' or ''Opus.'') |
| 105 | ** An unusual version: [[ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes Hobbes]] had his first role in any strip in an official capacity since 1995 in the online strip in 2021, after 26 years. |
| 106 | * BusesAreForFreaks: In a 1985 strip Milo takes Greyhound, and rides next to a scraggly man who asks permission to drool on Milo's cardigan. |
| 107 | * ButchLesbian: Opus once dated a stereotypical [[DoesNotLikeMen man-hating]] BrawnHilda. After the date, she admitted she liked Opus because he didn't have a single drop of masculinity. |
| 108 | * CallBack: |
| 109 | ** In [[http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1983/02/07 this 1983 strip]] Opus meets a sexy woman who wishes for a flightless waterfowl on which to lavish kisses and affection. He turns to the reader and says "As God is my witness, I haven't the faintest idea what I should do." ''Thirty-two years later'', [[http://www.gocomics.com/bloom-county/2015/11/25 the woman comes back]] and Opus throws himself at her, only for her to reject him because his nose isn't big enough. |
| 110 | ** In a strip from Aug. 27, 1983, Opus charges out of the shower to answer a ringing phone, only for the caller to ask for an "Ernie Dinkelfwat." 33 years later, the caller calls back and asks for Ernie again. |
| 111 | ** A 1989 arc had UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump's brain implanted into Bill the Cat. 29 years later, the Department of Justice opens up Bill's skull to search for incriminating information that may have been left behind. |
| 112 | * CampStraight: Binkley never does very well with all the "manly" activities in which his father tries to train him, has rather "girly" ambitions to be a ballet dancer (for which he wears a tutu in several strips), and just seems rather limp-wristed in every way; and yet he's as interested in the girls as any guy, including a young black girl named Goldie... who turned him down when he asked if she'd go steady with him, however. |
| 113 | * CanonDiscontinuity: |
| 114 | ** All the events of ''Opus'' and ''Outland'', which included Steve Dallas advancing into late middle age and having a son, and Opus apparently being killed off at the end of ''Opus''. The 2015 revival of ''Bloom County'' found Opus waking up in his meadow after a 25-year nap, with all the other characters looking just as they did in 1989. Also the last arc of the original ''Bloom County'', which featured UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump (or rather his brain inhabiting the body of Bill) buying the meadow and paving it over -- in the revival the meadow is still there. |
| 115 | ** A more minor example has Cutter John now (evidently) being a veteran of the Gulf War rather than Vietnam. |
| 116 | * CardiovascularLove: "U Stink But I (Heart) U" (performed by Mucky Pup) from ''Billy And The Boingers: Bootleg''. |
| 117 | * CarryTheOne: In [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=880710&comic=blm one strip]], Oliver completes the Grand Unification Theory and notices that flightless waterfowl are not explained, and Opus [[PuffOfLogic starts to panic as he gradually fades out of existence]]... until Oliver corrects an error in the theory, saying, "Didn't carry the two." |
| 118 | * CasanovaWannabe: Steve Dallas. |
| 119 | * CatchPhrase: "L.H. PUTTGRASS SIGNING OFF AND HEADING FOR THE TUB." |
| 120 | * CerebusSyndrome: It started out as a rural humor strip, but as time went on they started adding more and more political and pop culture satire, which would dominate the strip for the rest of the run. |
| 121 | * CharacterCelebrityEndorsement: Opus "posed" for the label of Honest Tea Peach Ooh-La-Long iced tea as an exchange with the people who started the brand, who he knew in their early years -- they'd make a special "slightly sweet" flavor of tea for him, in exchange for Opus mugging on the label. |
| 122 | * ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: |
| 123 | ** Many characters, including Cutter John, Bobbi Harlow, Lola Granola, Yaz Pistachio, etc. Some were {{justified|Trope}} in that they were {{Flat Character}}s that Berke didn't know what to do with, or were only introduced for a specific story arc. He [[WordOfGod has also said]] that he got rid of Cutter John because he found it too hard to draw a wheelchair within the confines of a comic strip. |
| 124 | ** For its first year or so, the strip focused on the denizens of the Bloom boarding house, including the Russian character Pops Popolov; a talking dog named Rabies (retired because Berke thought there were too many comic dogs); Widow Tucker and her cat, Spartacus; a Creator/HunterSThompson copy named Mr. Limekiller; and so on. By the end of year two, '''all''' of the characters in the house, with the exception of Milo, Binkley, their respective father figures, and Limekiller had been axed. Major Bloom was gone by 1984 or so, without explanation, and Limekiller likewise vanished without explanation after the 1984 election campaign, after his final stint as the Meadow Party candidate. |
| 125 | ** There were several more forest animals who were suddenly written out of the strip, including a bear; most had never even been given names. The only survivors were Hodge Podge and Portnoy. |
| 126 | *** Despite being major secondary characters throughout the entire run of Bloom County, even Portnoy and Hodge Podge disappeared in the sequel strips, making only a handful of silent cameos, usually in flashbacks. |
| 127 | ** And the first teacher, Ms. [[MeaningfulName Bunzwakker]]. |
| 128 | ** Lampshaded in a strip late in the comic's run which reveals what happened to some of the characters who had vanished, giving most of them tragicomic fates. |
| 129 | * ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve: How Opus and Oliver can see [[ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes Hobbes]] [[https://www.reddit.com/r/calvinandhobbes/comments/o9ckjy/newest_strip_from_bloom_county_ch_crossover/ instead of an ordinary stuffed tiger]]. |
| 130 | * ColorMeBlack: Oliver Wendell Jones invented a gadget that temporarily turned white people black, and Cutter John was going to take it to D.C. and use it on the ambassador from South Africa (this was still the time of apartheid, so the ambassador would have been white), but first he tests it on a clueless Steve, who doesn't notice until three strips later, and assumes it's part of a KarmicTwistEnding before searching the nearby bushes for Creator/RodSerling. |
| 131 | * ComicBookTime: |
| 132 | ** Played straight in ''Bloom County 2015'', where everyone looks the same. Steve is back to a younger appearance after being significantly aged in ''Opus'' (which itself may have been AllJustADream). Milo is still a pre-teen, even after 26 years. |
| 133 | ** [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig zagged]] in the case of Cutter John, who has white hair in the revival, even though one strip from the revival implies that he suffered his war injury in Iraq, while [[http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1984/12/14 this strip]] from December 1984 has Cutter John suffering his injury in [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnam]] in 1969. |
| 134 | ** Averted with the ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' crossover: while Hobbes hasn't aged (he's a stuffed tiger), he can't find Calvin because the latter is now an adult. |
| 135 | * ConjoinedEyes: Breathed's regular style as seen with Opus and other characters. (In the original strip, anyway. In the revival Opus is drawn with a line clearly defining two eyeballs.) |
| 136 | * ContrivedCoincidence: Opus meets none other than Mrs. Limekiller in a Greenpeace ship off the waters of Antarctica. Lampshaded when she says "Small world" and Opus says "Small strip." |
| 137 | * CoolShades: Steve Dallas. In fact, they are literally the source of his sleaziness, as shown in the final weeks of the comic. |
| 138 | * CorruptCorporateExecutive: UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump, in the body of Bill the Cat, is ultimately responsible for the destruction of the strip's setting, even paving over Opus' dandelion patch. Also W. A. Thornhump. |
| 139 | * {{Crossover}}: An entire arc from the spring and summer of 2021 has the gang finding out that the cat in the COVID hazmat suit is not Bill, but Hobbes of ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes''. Opus then dedicates himself to reuniting Hobbes with an adult Calvin. |
| 140 | * CryingWolf: Opus calls 911 over [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=880301&comic=blm dry mouth]], [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=880302&comic=blm bad taste]], [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=880304&comic=blm Pat Robertson gaining in the polls]], and [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=880305&comic=blm a leg-waxing accident]]. Finally, he gets an instant hangup when he [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=880310&comic=blm calls over an alien abduction]]. |
| 141 | * {{Cult}}: Right after losing the 1984 presidential election, Bill runs away to Oregon and joins the Rajhneeshis. Milo and Opus have to kidnap him and drag him back. |
| 142 | * CultureShock: Inevitable for Opus, who was asleep for 25 years. The rest of the cast has not been. |
| 143 | * TheDailyMisinformer: The Bloom Beacon/Picayune[[note]] It's been called both with no regards to consistency due to the strip's NegativeContinuity[[/note]] is reliably portrayed as a sensationalist rag which when it's not front-paging outright lies and fabrications is twisting the truth so much there's barely a distinction to be made. Milo Bloom, the paper's resident ten-year-old news hound, frequently twists the statements of people he interviews (Once he managed to finagle a senator into "confessing" that he sunk Jimmy Hoffa and lost the body), and Opus briefly took up the position of the paper's ombudsman and had to deal with a steady stream of complaints and abuse. |
| 144 | * DarkerAndEdgier: The revival is free of corporate censors, and it shows, with Breathed using words like "pecker" and "vagina" that would have never made it to newspapers in the 1980s. |
| 145 | * DeathIsCheap: Bill dies on a regular basis. |
| 146 | * DemotedToExtra: The eponymous Milo Bloom managed to avoid complete ChuckCunninghamSyndrome (see above), but popped up less and less often towards the end of the run as the strip focused on Opus. |
| 147 | * DiabolusExMachina: In the revival plot-arc involving young Sam the Lion being accidentally left alone overnight in the hospital, someone suddenly decides to notice that Opus is an animal and refuses to let him into the facility. |
| 148 | * DisabledMeansHelpless: Played around with Cutter John. He's just as manly and tough as any other typical 80's guy, but he still has to deal with problems such as the brakes malfunctioning while going downhill, or his chair tipping over and refusing to be helped up. |
| 149 | * DisappearedDad / MissingMom: |
| 150 | ** Even in the early days when Milo lived at the boarding house it was with his grandparents; his mother and father never appeared. Averted with Binkley and his divorced father, as well as Oliver and his parents. |
| 151 | ** Opus's lack of a mother and his efforts to find her were a repeated theme. |
| 152 | ** In a December 2015 strip Bill's father is revealed to be -- ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}''. Appropriate enough, since Bill was always a TakeThat against Garfield and Garfield merchandising. [[ParodyAssistance Jim Davis even drew the first three panels of the strip where this is revealed]]. |
| 153 | * DisguisedInDrag: Opus and Bill the Cat do this repeatedly. When Bill was being tried for treason, Opus tried to save him by dressing in drag, telling the courtroom that he was Bill's mistress, and taking responsibility for Bill's crimes. Opus' performance is so silly that it fails to convince the judge. |
| 154 | * DoesNotLikeMen: Alf Mushpie, the rather intimidating woman that Opus goes on an unfortunate blind date with in 1985. She tells him "I don't like men at all", but she winds up liking Opus, because he has no masculinity. |
| 155 | * DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The entire "[[http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/2012/10/09 penguin]] [[http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/2012/10/10 lust]]" [[http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/2012/10/11 story arc]] was a criticism of religious controversies concerning sexuality. |
| 156 | * DoNotAdjustYourSet: Oliver Wendell Jones did this twice — once in a daily strip where he interrupted a network feed with a masked hacker message in revolt to certain networks scrambling their signals to make them inaccessible to satellite dish owners without paying a monthly fee, and once in a Sunday strip to interrupt one of its board members attempting to speak out against such broadcast signal jackings. |
| 157 | * DontSneakUpOnMeLikeThat: In "The Great Bloom County Snake Massacre", several main characters set out to kill a snake at the local swimming hole. In one strip Binkley is carrying a club when the groundhog Portnoy comes up behind him, touches his shoulder and says "See anything?" Binkley, scared out of his mind, starts wildly swinging the bat around and knocks Portnoy unconscious. |
| 158 | * DoubleTake: When Steve and Hodgepodge build a nuclear fallout shelter, the two of them go hunting, and [[BreakingTheFourthWall Hodgepodge tells us what they're hunting]], including rabbit. Cue the next panel, where his soldier's hat pops up, and in the next panel, he turns to Steve and yells, "[[SymbolSwearing Now wait just one *@!!?# minute...]]" |
| 159 | * EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: |
| 160 | ** The early strips focalized Milo and an almost entirely-human secondary cast (chiefly comprising the quirky characters inhabiting both the Bloom boarding house and the wider Midwestern town in which the strip was set), with the sole recurring animal characters being Rabies (an anthromorphized lapdog who [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome vanished nine months into the strip's first year]]) and Widow Tucker's cat Spartacus, portrayed as a largely non-anthropomorphic and nonverbal [[ThoughtBubbleSpeech yet internally sapient]] figure. Following Opus's promotion to a regular (and full-time acquisition of human speech, a trait he only occasionally wielded in his three earliest appearances the previous year) and the increasing prominence of the strip's now-iconic meadow setting (thus promoting a roster of sapient animals, among them prototypical incarnations of Hodge-Podge and Portnoy, to prominent secondary roles) early in 1982, the strip's animal cast both expanded and became increasingly central, eventually rendering Milo, Binkley, Steve Dallas and Oliver (introduced following the transition) the strip's sole full-time human leads by the mid-80s. |
| 161 | ** Binkley pops up in May 1981, but with short hair and glasses. |
| 162 | ** The first time Steve's parents appear in the strip (as voices in a telephone conversation) they are aging hippies who disapprove of Steve's AmoralAttorney lifestyle; when Steve's mother eventually turns up in person... well, see EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas below. |
| 163 | ** When Opus made his debut (June 26, 1981) and for some time thereafter, he looked somewhat more like a penguin, with a much smaller nose/beak. His now-iconic giant, very un-penguin nose didn't fully emerge until mid-1983. |
| 164 | ** Bill the Cat was occasionally fluently verbal in some of his first 1982-83 appearances. Later, he hardly ever spoke, mostly saying "ACK!" or spitting. (In Bill's case this may be an example of CameBackWrong, as he died in 1983 and was resurrected via cloning a year later). |
| 165 | * EasyAmnesia: A long 1985-86 arc involved Opus getting amnesia after his wheelchair balloon trip with Cutter John ended in a crash in the ocean. Opus returns fully functonal but with total amnesia of his past. He's eventually shocked out of his amnesia by a false news report of Diane Sawyer marrying Creator/EddieMurphy. |
| 166 | * EndOfSeriesAwareness: The last few weeks are replete with this trope, as the [[AnimatedActors "actors"]] are fired by UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump (July 13, 1989) and try to find jobs in other comic strips (Steve Dallas turns up as one of ComicStrip/{{Cathy}}'s dates, Oliver integrates ''ComicStrip/TheFamilyCircus'', Milo appears in ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'', etc.). At one point, Opus even laments that "comic strips aren't supposed to end!", and, in one of the last strips, summarily boots Ronald Ann through the doorway to ''Outland'', reasoning that "she was dawdling, and ''ComicStrip/BeetleBailey'' is taking over this space Monday." |
| 167 | * EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: |
| 168 | ** It's a tense, ambivalent relationship, but Steve and his mother do love each other. |
| 169 | ** The October 14, 1985 strip featured this and an OhCrap moment for Opus. Opus tells Steve that a crazy woman is ransacking his room and bellowing like a "great, ugly, squat walrus." Steve asks, "Squat walrus?" Opus says, "Yeah." Steve yells upstairs, "MOM?" and Opus says, "Oh, but a very '''NICE''' squat walrus!" |
| 170 | * EveryoneHatesMimes: A 1985 story arc involves the "Olive Loaf Vigilante" going around and beating on street mimes with olive loaves. The vigilante is revealed to be Opus. Steve Dallas gets him off on a technicality. |
| 171 | * EverythingIsAnInstrument: Bill the Cat played his ''tongue'' in Deathtöngue. |
| 172 | * EverythingSoundsSexierInFrench: From the March 11, 1981 strip. Limekiller arrives at the Bloom Boarding House, and Milo votes that he should be allowed to stay, though his grandfather says that Limekiller looks like a bum. Limekiller takes Milo's grandmother's hand and tells her, "''Ah ... chère madame, vos lobes d'oreilles sont comme des têtes de poisson''," and she responds, "Oh my! That's French isn't it?" Limekiller responds, "''Oui, Madame,''" and she responds, "He stays." Milo asks Limekiller, "What'd you say?" and Limekiller says, "Not sure...Something like, ''Your earlobes resemble fish heads''". |
| 173 | * EvilLawyerJoke: Used, generally regarding Steve Dallas, and popular amongst actual lawyers (to Breathed's disappointment). |
| 174 | * EvilVersusEvil: One story had [[AnimalWrongsGroup the Animal Liberation Front]] taking on [[CorruptCorporateExecutive the Mary Kay Cosmetics Company]]. |
| 175 | -->'''Opus:''' Ah, nabbed from sadists by terrorists... sort of a dream come true, ya know? |
| 176 | * {{Expy}}: |
| 177 | ** By Breathed's own admission, Limekiller (the wacky vagrant from the first couple of years) was heavily inspired by ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}'''s Uncle Duke. |
| 178 | ** An occasional early strip visitor, rock band Tess Turbo and the Blackheads (expy of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts). |
| 179 | * EyePop: Lampshaded both in [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=880810&comic=blm a strip]] and in ''A Wish for Wings That Work''. |
| 180 | * FacialCompositeFailure: Of Opus in [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=850204&comic=blm this]] strip. |
| 181 | * FakeInteractivity: The Banana Jr. 6000 [[http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff278/eotwp1/Bloom%20County/BJrMrRogers.gif abused this]] watching ''Series/MisterRogersNeighborhood''. |
| 182 | * FalseReassurance: After Bill the Cat has a drug-related car accident, one comic strip executive who gets HauledBeforeASenateSubcommittee says that the newspaper comic industry doesn't have a drug problem, any more than [[SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll the music industry]] does. |
| 183 | * FantasticMedicinalBodilyProduct: In one arc, Oliver makes a nearly-magical hair tonic out of cat sweat. It makes balding men grow their hair back overnight. |
| 184 | * FictionalPoliticalParty: The National Radical Meadow Party ran Bill and Opus in 1984 and 1988. In the revival they have changed to the Happy Meadow Monarchy Party and are advocating making the United States a monarchy, but they're still running Bill and Opus -- or rather Opus and Bill, who have changed places on the ticket. |
| 185 | * FlowersForAlgernonSyndrome: Sort of the style of the Trump-in-Bill's-body story. |
| 186 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: After deciding to end the strip, Breathed engaged in some foreshadowing in a couple of spring 1989 strips. |
| 187 | ** In the first strip (May 23, 1989), Opus is asked to make a wish on a shooting star. He says, "I wish I knew if I had meaningful employment after August 6." |
| 188 | ** In the second strip (June 24): |
| 189 | --->'''Milo:''' ...I feel a sense of... permanence.\ |
| 190 | '''Binkley:''' Dabbling in a bit of ironic foreshadowing, are we?\ |
| 191 | '''Milo:''' No, why? |
| 192 | ** [[https://www.facebook.com/berkeleybreathed/photos/a.114529165244512/1918814398149304/?type=3 2018]] and [[https://www.facebook.com/108793262484769/photos/a.114529165244512/2441279182569487/ 2019]] saw ''Calvin County'', foreshadowing a 2021 crossover with ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes''. |
| 193 | * FourthWallMailSlot: Doesn't use actual reader mail. |
| 194 | * FrivolousLawsuit: [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=860622&comic=blm Steve Dallas planned one]] against the Nikotia Camera company because he got beaten up by Creator/SeanPenn trying to photograph Sean with a Nikotia (To be fair, he did explain why it would be a bad idea to sue Sean, [[Music/{{Madonna}} Sean's wife]], or Opus). |
| 195 | * FrozenDinnerOfLoneliness: In one strip a man tells his wife that he's in charge of their household. In the last panel he's shown reading the instructions on a frozen dinner, presumably because his wife has refused to cook dinner for him (if not leaving him outright). |
| 196 | * FunnyAnimal: Several, not the least of which is Opus. |
| 197 | * FunnyAnimalAnatomy: Lampshaded in the "secret female" arc, where Portnoy rushes into the men's room to confirm his own sex, then returns after a BeatPanel, saying "No dice! Comic strip animals aren't anatomically correct!" |
| 198 | * FurryConfusion: |
| 199 | ** In one strip, the narrator asks Hodge Podge what he plans to do about food now that he's a survivalist. He responds, "Well, as I understand it, we'll be huntin'... maybe a little 'coon, 'possum, some rabbit..." then after a BeatPanel, adds, "...NOW WAIT JUST ONE *@!!?# MINUTE..." ([[DontExplainTheJoke The joke being that Hodge Podge himself is a rabbit.]]) |
| 200 | ** Opus at one point meets some real penguins -- and of course, Opus looks nothing like them, making him confused. (At one point in the strip, Binkley points out Opus looks like a puffin, not a penguin. Opus gets revenge pointing out Binkley looks like a carrot.) |
| 201 | * GilliganCut: One set of strips has Opus HauledBeforeASenateSubCommittee, where he finally makes a long speech and ends with something like "That's what I believe in! If that makes me a liberal, then go ahead and label away!" Cut to him out on the sidewalk, literally plastered all over with "LIBERAL" stickers. |
| 202 | * GlassesPull: Oliver does this on [[http://www.gocomics.com/bloom-county/2016/02/03 Feb. 3, 2016]] when contemplating the mysteries of dark matter. (This is also a very rare instance of Oliver's eyes being visible.) |
| 203 | * GoodLawyersGoodClients: {{Subverted|Trope}}. Steve Dallas's clients are generally homicidal maniacs on trial for murder. Steve usually ends up getting them let off, [[HilarityEnsues with disastrous results]]. In a memorable instance, a little old lady on trial for killing her husband is put under house arrest -- ''in Steve's house''. He tries to sell the film rights to {{Creator/Disney}} -- but only after the other studios pass because the axe murders didn't involve any nubile, scantily-clad young women. |
| 204 | * GrossUpCloseUp: Of Bill [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=821205&comic=blm here]]. |
| 205 | * GroundedForever: Oliver's dad [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=850620&comic=blm grounded him until his 45th birthday]] for having launched a shuttle chair to Washington D.C. and almost killing Cutter John and a tuba player. |
| 206 | * GrumpyOldMan: In the EarlyInstallmentWeirdness days before Binkley, Oliver, Opus, and all the animals showed up, the main source of humor was the relationship between Milo and his crotchety grandpa, the Major. The Major hates communists and people with long hair, and only agrees to play Santa after the local store reminds him of his unpaid tab. |
| 207 | * HackedByAPirate: Oliver Wendell Jones once caused global chaos -- cities in flames -- by posting on a stock market computer the message "Avast, ye scurvy corporate swabs! Bank of America is about to go belly up!" In later strips he takes to dressing like a pirate when hacking. |
| 208 | * HauledBeforeASenateSubcommittee: |
| 209 | ** After a confused Defense Department gives "Dr. Opus Spock" $900 million to build a "Star Wars" missile defense system, Opus has to testify before a Congressional committee. |
| 210 | ** In a 1987 arc Steve and Bill get hauled in front of Tipper Gore's inquisition into heavy metal lyrics. Steve, folding under pressure, changes the name of the band from "Deathtöngue" to "Billy and the Boingers." |
| 211 | ** In an August 1988 strip Opus is hauled before a Congressional committee to answer charges that he is a -- gasp! -- liberal. |
| 212 | * HeavyMetalUmlaut: Deathtöngue. |
| 213 | * HisNameIs: One arc is [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=880728&comic=blm kicked off]] when Spuds [=McKenzie=] says that one of the strip's cast is a "secret female"...and then promptly passes out before she can say who. Opus lampshades this by remarking [[NoFourthWall to the reader]] "You and I both know she's not going to wake up until that last statement has wreaked total havoc around here." |
| 214 | * HockeyMaskAndChainsaw: Bill dons a hockey mask and menaces people with a chainsaw in a few strips. |
| 215 | * HollywoodAtheist: Averted by TheSmartGuy Oliver, who is presented as [[UsefulNotes/{{Agnosticism}} Agnostic]] multiple times. In one strip he sees the stars rearrange themselves to spell out "REPENT OLIVER" and thinks to himself "Bloody difficult being Agnostic these days...", and in another he describes himself as athesitic but allows himself a single moment of "wild abandon" in which he screams out "''The universe is a little too darned '''orderly''' to be just a big accident!''" |
| 216 | * HumanlikeFootAnatomy: Opus. |
| 217 | * HypnoFool: Oliver would occasionally hack local TV channels to broadcast subliminal messages to his parents, like "put bologna on your head and stick zucchinis up your nose" or "forget to wear clothes to church tomorrow". Subverted in one instance where Mr. Jones blames him for Mrs. Jones liking Dan Quayle as a politician, and Oliver [[NotMeThisTime insists that he's innocent on this one]]; as his father spanks him, Oliver thinks to himself "Gonna be a looong four years..." |
| 218 | * HypocriticalHumor: One storyline about the excesses of image-driven consumerism ends with Milo, who had been the most outspoken opponent of rampant consumerism, buying a $100+ pair of shoes specifically made for walking in shopping malls. |
| 219 | * IAmNotWeasel: Hodge Podge kept making snide commentary towards Portnoy the groundhog, by saying that he was a "pig". |
| 220 | * IAmSong: "I'm A Boinger" from ''Billy And The Boingers: Bootleg''. |
| 221 | * ICantBelieveItsNotHeroin: Bloom County tackled the "War On Drugs" topic with various drug avatars, including "Snorting Dandelions" and "Cat Sweat Hair Growth Tonic." |
| 222 | * IHaveManyNames: The name of the local newspapers where Milo and Opus worked was either named the ''Bloom County Tribune'', the ''Bloom Beacon'', or the ''Bloom Picayune'', depending on the strip; we're not sure if they're all the same paper, or if they're different ones. This made more sense during the 1980's, as many cities still had different newspapers for morning and evening and weekends, but they were being phased out with television news. |
| 223 | * INeedAFreakingDrink: A harried Opus is the new Bloom Picayune "Ombudsman." After frantically answering phone calls from irate subscribers, we find out why he's called that: |
| 224 | -->'''Opus:''' ''SOMEBODY POUR ME A BUD!'' |
| 225 | * InsistentTerminology: When Opus gets a job as a garbageman. |
| 226 | -->'''Milo:''' You're a ''trash man?''\ |
| 227 | '''Opus:''' I beg your pardon. I'm a "waste-management artisan."\ |
| 228 | '''Milo:''' Right. You're a garbage man.\ |
| 229 | '''Opus:''' I'm a "waste-management artisan."\ |
| 230 | '''Milo: ''You empty trash!'''''\ |
| 231 | '''Opus:''' Milo, do you remember what the President called his Iranian ransom shipments of weapons?\ |
| 232 | '''Milo:''' "Goodwill gifts."\ |
| 233 | '''Opus:''' I'm a "waste-management artisan." |
| 234 | * InterspeciesRomance: |
| 235 | ** Hodge Podge and Rosebud had [[HotSkittyOnWailordAction jackabassalopes]]. |
| 236 | ** Opus was engaged to Lola Granola, which was treated rather casually. |
| 237 | *** Heck, Opus almost exclusively pursued human women as girlfriends. The interspecies part pretty much never came up. Instead, women would be put off by Opus's lack of height, large nose, etc. One strip also had a woman putting an ad in the classifieds for a small waterfowl with a large nose which she would like to lavish "kisses and affection" upon. She gives her address to Opus (who was working in the Classified section at the time), leaving him to comment "With God as my witness, I haven't the slightest idea what I should do." |
| 238 | *** The best relationship he had was with a ButchLesbian StrawFeminist, who commented she felt comfortable around him because Opus didn't have a single gram of masculinity. |
| 239 | * IrrevocableMessage: The first story arc of the 2015 revival involved Opus (who, remember, has been asleep for 25 years and thus missed the Internet) accidentally sending Steve's X-rated message to his girlfriend to Twitter. Much embarrassment ensues. |
| 240 | * ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne: Before Bobbi will go on a date with Steve, he has to dedicate his life to charity, get a partial lobotomy, and cook her a meal. Steve: "Cook a meal!?!" |
| 241 | * ItWillNeverCatchOn: "The first black in the White House will be a conservative" ([[http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1988/04/25 April 25, 1988]]) |
| 242 | * JockDadNerdSon: Binkley and Binkley's dad, especially in the early going, when Mr. Binkley is pushing his son to play football while Binkley signs up for ballet. Or a little bit later when Mr. Binkley is appalled by his son's lack of skill at a neighborhood baseball game. |
| 243 | * KarmicTwistEnding: Spoofed in the arc where Oliver invents a device that turns people black. He uses it on a clueless Steve who, upon finally noticing, assumes it's punishment for occasional racism, delivering an imagined Rod Serling narration (to which Binkley responds "Ooh, sounds like a good episode!") and finally looking in some bushes for Rod. |
| 244 | * LastNameBasis: (Michael) Binkley, to everyone else, including ''his own dad'', though the elder Binkley would sometimes use a nickname he desperately wished his son was macho enough to have actually earned: "Mad Dog" Binkley. |
| 245 | * LessEmbarrassingTerm: In one arc, Opus becomes a garbageman, but insists that he be called a "waste management artisan." |
| 246 | * LionsAndTigersAndHumansOhMy: A rare comic strip example of having both {{Talking Animal}}s and humans; this trend stretched throughout all of ''Bloom County'' and went on to the sequel strips. |
| 247 | * LittlestCancerPatient: ''Bloom County 2015'' features Sam, a little boy with leukemia that the gang visits in the hospital, where they play Franchise/StarWars games. |
| 248 | * MaliciousSlander: One of the series' {{Running Gag}}s was the local newspaper printing all kinds of libel about the local Congressman, Senator Bedfellow. In one memorable Sunday strip, Milo calls him up about an article he's writing but he refuses to give them anything, citing all the nasty things they've said about him. Milo claims that his new article will be fair and unbiased, but then he reads the very first line, which is"Leaving a trail of slime wherever he-" at which point Bedfellow hangs up. |
| 249 | * TheManInTheMirrorTalksBack: |
| 250 | ** Milo looks at himself in the mirror and thinks he could be a Senator or a President. The man in the mirror thinks Milo will be "a shoe salesman with an ulcer" (December 16, 1980). Later, this became a RunningGag for a little while, as Milo and the man in the mirror commisserated about Milo's fears of impending puberty. |
| 251 | ** Opus later talks to the man in the mrror sometimes, like when he's nervous on the eve of the 1984 presidential election. |
| 252 | * MathematiciansAnswer: In the first election series, Milo grills Limekiller to see if he's Presidential material by asking "How do you stand on nuclear waste?" Limekiller's response is to balance precariously on one foot, which Milo approves. |
| 253 | * MeaningfulName: |
| 254 | ** Oliver seems to be a reference to Oliver Wendell Holmes, but what a nerdy black kid has to do with a former Supreme Court Justice.... |
| 255 | ** Senator Bedfellow's last name derives from the expression "Politicians and Businessmen make strange bedfellows", which refers to doing secret or dirty business (such as taking bribes, for instance) while in political office. |
| 256 | * MeetCute: In the original strip, Cutter John is introduced when his wheelchair brake fails on a steep hill. He ends up scooping Bobbi into his lap along the way, which leads to them dating. |
| 257 | * MediumAwareness: |
| 258 | ** Played straight many times, like when the [[MoralGuardians Moral Guardian]] in a 1981 censorship arc promises to clean up ''Bloom County'' for being a particularly objectionable strip, or another 1981 strip where Bobbi Harlow won't give Cutter John a goodnight kiss because "this is the comics page." |
| 259 | ** Somehow, [[https://www.facebook.com/groups/1084827671602309/posts/4541345695950472 Opus never noticed the readers reading the strip anyway]]. |
| 260 | * MisfortuneCookie: Opus [[https://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1988/08/07 receives one]] portending a doomed future as the punchline of political jokes while running for vice president in 1988. His friends try to convince him that it's meant as someone else's fortune instead that got mixed up in delivery. |
| 261 | -->'''Opus:''' I'd like to think [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush George Bush]] is somewhere holding a fortune that says "Your nose will shrink, your herring-breath will go away and babes will flock around like geese." |
| 262 | * MisplacedWildlife: |
| 263 | ** The RetCon of Opus living on his own made him a rather {{JustForFun/egregious}} example. |
| 264 | ** A very literal example occurs when Opus is rescued from the Mary Kay Commandos by the Animal Liberation Guerrilla Front. They make sure to relocate him to his natural habitat...a 7-11 icebox. |
| 265 | * MistakenForRacist: In one storyline, Binkley's father is worried that people will think he hates blacks because he doesn't care for Jesse Jackson. Binkley asks Oliver's father for help, and he reassures Mr. Binkley that you can dislike individuals without it reflecting your attitude towards a whole group. Mr. Binkley follows up by asking "Can I '''loathe''' Creator/BillCosby and his [[SymbolSwearing @!$#ing]] pudding pops?!" |
| 266 | * MixAndMatchCritters: Rosebud the basselope (basset hound/antelope), plus the kids she had with Hodge Podge (see above). |
| 267 | * MondegreenGag: |
| 268 | ** One strip has Opus mangling the National Anthem ("Oh say can you see, by the dawn's early light / what so proudly we snailed, at, um, the starlight's last cleaning..."). |
| 269 | ** In another strip, Ronald-Ann and company take Bill the Cat to the vet's. The receptionist asks if Bill's been "spayed or neutered", to the group's confusion. The last panel shows them preparing to whack Bill's butt with a shovel ("spade") while feeding him a lizard ("newt'red"), while Opus wonders out loud if the SPCA approved this procedure. |
| 270 | * MoralGuardians: |
| 271 | ** Otis Oracle, who first arrives as a censor comes to Bloom County to bring pressure to bear on Ashley Dashley's Bloom County television station, and sticks around to become president of the local chapter of the Moral Majority. He later becomes a source of HypocriticalHumor, like the time he puts his hand on the knees of women sitting next to him on a park bench and then lectures them for being too tempting. |
| 272 | ** Hilariously subverted. In one series of strips, Lola Granola's mother (who has never liked Opus) sics the local priest (who bears a strong resemblance to Donald Wildmon) on him. However, the priest is a very nice guy, and genuinely enjoys the music put out by Opus' death metal band[[note]]Reacting to a song with the lyrics "Let's guillotine grandma/and put grandpa in the soup" with "Something to slip into the hymns next Sunday!", and giving Opus lyrics advice: "'Clearsil messiah from my shelf' doesn't quite rhyme with 'Zapping zits from here to Hell.'" "Gotcha."[[/note]]. You better believe Mrs. Granola wasn't happy with him. |
| 273 | ** "HE SITS IN THE FREEZER AND EATS FISH ENTRAILS!" |
| 274 | * MoralityPet: In the revival, Sam acts as one of these for Steve. |
| 275 | * MouthFullOfSmokes: When Steve Dallas gave up smoking, he gave all his cigarettes to Bill the Cat, who was seen smoking them all at once. |
| 276 | * MushroomSamba: A 1987 story arc had [[TVGenius Oliver]] extracting the hallucinogenic chemical from dandelions for testing, only for his father to drink the entire beaker. He ends up hiding in the tool shed, convinced that Erik Estrada is coming out of his belly button. |
| 277 | * MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels: One story arc begins when Oliver hacks into Pravda's computers, and tries to change the headline story to "[[UsefulNotes/MikhailGorbachev Gorbachev]] Urges Disarmament: Total! Unilateral!" However, since he knows very little Russian, he actually changes the headline to "Gorbachev Sings Tractors: Turnip! Buttocks!" |
| 278 | * NailedToTheWagon: Binkley forces his father to quit cigarettes cold turkey by disposing of all of those in their house and hiding his car keys. Opus comes to severely regret agreeing to assist Steve with a similar operation. |
| 279 | * NerdyBully: When Steve Dallas is mistakenly arrested for computer piracy, the police lock him up in the "hacker tank" with some child computer hackers. They try to bully Steve by threatening to slash his credit rating. |
| 280 | * NeverTrustAHairTonic: One arc features a compound made from cat sweat, originally intended as an underarm deodorant, which causes massive hair growth wherever it's applied. Its creator immediately turns it into a hair tonic instead. Sales are ridiculously, dangerously good for a while... and then customers' hair started falling out. As in, all at once, poof-gone-you're-a-bowling-ball. |
| 281 | * NewYearHasCome: |
| 282 | ** 1981 ends with Milo working as a waiter at a New Year's party. Much drunken revelry is had. 1982 ends the exact same way. |
| 283 | ** 1986-87 has the characters making New Year's resolutions. Steve Dallas resolves, at the point of a pitchfork, to not put ants in Opus's bed. |
| 284 | * NoCanOpener: In Steve Dallas' fallout shelter. Also in relation to the survival rations, Opus packed for Cutter John's fateful wheelchair-balloon voyage. Cans of food, but no can opener. |
| 285 | * NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: |
| 286 | ** One story arc about a concert has "Tess Turbo", an obvious take on Music/JoanJett. |
| 287 | ** Then [[http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/2012/11/22 there's one]] with VideoGame/PacMan in a bar. |
| 288 | --->'''Opus:''' Is this a put-on?! |
| 289 | ** Ashley Dashley III, who comes to Bloom County in 1981 and buys the TV station in order to make it into a television station, is an obvious goof on Ted Turner. |
| 290 | * NoIndoorVoice: FINALLY, A CHANCE FOR L.H. PUTTGRASS TO SPEAK HIS MIND, TO REACH THE PEOPLE, TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE. THE MASSES MUST BE TOLD OF MY IDEAS, FOR THEY ARE OF THE UTMOST IMPORTANCE. THUS, L.H. PUTTGRASS WOULD LIKE YOU TO KNOW EXACTLY WHAT HE FEELS IS LACKING IN THE WORLD. |
| 291 | -->L.H. PUTTGRASS SIGNING OFF AND HEADING FOR THE TUB. |
| 292 | * NoMatterHowMuchIBeg: |
| 293 | ** When Steve Dallas is ordered to quit smoking, he has Opus tie him to a chair and tells him, "Whatever I say, don't release me." He doesn't even make it a full minute before saying "Gimme a ***ing cigarette before I stick you in a blender." |
| 294 | ** The revival has Cutter John getting his girlfriend to chain him to a tree (Oct. 27, 2015) to prevent him from seeing the ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' trailer. |
| 295 | * NonMammalMammaries: A ''nuclear warhead'' has them in a 1983 strip. |
| 296 | * NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer: One strip had new father Hodgepodge wearing a bib which holds bottles to "allows the modern father to share in the experience of breast-feeding". After a BeatPanel, Hodge turns to the reader and says "That's it. The joke is that we're not kidding. $39, Sharper Image." |
| 297 | * NothingIsScarier: When Oliver is trying to extract sweat from Bill the Cat (see NeverTrustAHairTonic above), nothing works. Milo volunteers to give it a try: |
| 298 | -->'''Milo:''' [[UsefulNotes/DanQuayle PRESIDENT QUAYLE!!]] ''[next panel]'' He's sweating\ |
| 299 | '''Oliver:''' ''[looking at his underarm]'' ''I'm'' sweating. |
| 300 | * NotThisOneThatOne: Opus was surprised when his blind date was a hot blond chick ("Your photograph doesn't do you justice"), but it turned out it was a double date, and the hot one was Bill the Cat's date. |
| 301 | * OmnidisciplinaryScientist: Oliver Wendell Jones is a master computer hacker, he invents a device to turn white people black, he builds a working nuclear bomb, he invents a teleporter, he extracts a hallucinogenic chemical from dandelions, and he successfully clones Bill the Cat. In a [[http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1988/05/15 1988 Sunday strip]] he drinks some concoction that temporarily transforms him into a bizarre nightmare beast. |
| 302 | * OneHourWorkWeek: Cutter John is a particularly extreme example; in his first two strips, it's mentioned that he's the new doctor in town. We never actually see him doing anything remotely medical the entire time he's in the strip. (As of March 2017 he seems to have changed careers and become a schoolteacher.) |
| 303 | * OutOfFocus: Milo Bloom, originally the central character, became increasingly peripheral over the course of the comic as Opus took over. |
| 304 | * PaintingTheMedium: ''Bloom County'' being big on medium awareness from early on, this trope occasionally came into play. In the last strip, the standard Sunday frame setup actually fades away as you go from left to right, with Opus walking away in a WhiteVoidRoom space on the right side. |
| 305 | * ParkingPayback: Steve Dallas illegally parks his corvette in a handicapped spot. Milo wasn't able to move it, [[http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/2009/03/27 but he tried]]. |
| 306 | * ParodyAssistance: Jim Davis drew the last panel in the revival strip that reveals Bill's father to be ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}. |
| 307 | * PeculiarPenguin: Opus the Penguin, a bow-tie wearing creature with an anxiety complex who otherwise has no difficulties fitting into local life, is a central character. Unlike other penguins, he has no problem living in the moderate climate of Bloom County and, instead of always being formally dressed, is often seen in just his underwear. |
| 308 | * PerfectlyCromulentWord: Opus occasionally used "renooberate," which Berke said was a PerfectlyCromulentWord his father used. |
| 309 | * PinkElephants: The [[http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1985/01/06 January 6, 1985 strip]] shows the bizarre creatures that Steve Dallas is STILL seeing five days after a particularly epic New Year's bender. |
| 310 | * PoundsAreAnimalPrisons: Opus gets picked up and taken to the dog pound for a week of 1982 strips. The result is a week of prison jokes. Opus manages to start a brawl between rival dog gangs in the mess hall. |
| 311 | * ThePratfall: Opus would often perform these out of sheer surprise. |
| 312 | * RagingStiffie: An August 2015 storyline has Steve Dallas suffering from this after the boner pill he took was apparently too potent. |
| 313 | * RatingsStunt: [[DiscussedTrope Discussed and parodied]] in a week where the entire cast was naked for the entire week, with SceneryCensor in full effect. When it was pointed out that the cast was overwhelmingly ugly and male, it was floated that Opus would visit the Playboy Mansion. [[spoiler:Instead, we get Bill-as-UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump posing with a strategically-placed dollar.]] |
| 314 | * ReadingAheadInTheScript: Opus was once lost without direction in a desert, and finally got a script, and edited it so that the inbred psycho who's picked him up hitchhiking turns into Zsa Zsa Gabor. Then when Zsa Zsa drops him off in Vegas, he leaves the script in the car, and is stuck back in the desert again. |
| 315 | * RealLifeWritesThePlot: At one point Breathed was forced to take time off after an accident left him temporarily in a body cast. When he resumed ''Bloom County'', he had Steve Dallas get in a fight with Creator/SeanPenn so Steve too would end up in a body cast for a few months. |
| 316 | * RedemptionRejection: A 1983 storyline featured Steve, drinking in a bar, being visited by his better self -- a tiny fairy sprite Steve. After showing Steve how he became a "stinker", the fairy challenges Steve to change and be a better man. Steve responds by crushing the fairy with an ashtray and ordering "twenty, count 'em, twenty double martinis." |
| 317 | * RememberTheNewGuy: The Nov. 4, 2015 strip introduces Milo's niece, "Baby Boo", which means Milo must have an older brother or sister. Milo's grandparents were the only relatives ever seen in the strip's original run. |
| 318 | * RippedFromTheHeadlines: Turns out an adult [[ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes Calvin]] was the [[https://www.reddit.com/r/calvinandhobbes/comments/oqs32t/modern_calvin_has_been_found_thanks_to_the/ mysterious UFO spotted by the Navy in 2018]], essentially to FlipTheBird at [[Creator/{{Amazon}} Jeff Bezos]]. |
| 319 | * RipVanWinkle: ''Bloom County 2015'' begins with Opus having woken up from a 25-year nap. |
| 320 | * SamusIsAGirl: The quest to find the "secret female" on the cast sparked by Spuds [=MacKenzie=] hitting on Opus (and conveniently passing out before telling who it was...which was also {{Lampshaded}} by Opus at the time) resulted in Rosebud the Basselope being outed as female. |
| 321 | * SceneryCensor: An entire week of strips in February 1989 had the cast going nude in what was supposed to be a "ratings" stunt. Their naughty bits are covered with scenery censors throughout. Parodied with Opus, who suddenly gets his neck, usually covered by his RingAroundTheCollar, censored by a flower. |
| 322 | * SelfDeprecation: |
| 323 | ** Yaz Pistachio asks Opus to suggest one name more embarrassing than her own. His answer? "Berkeley Breathed." |
| 324 | ---> '''Yaz''': Okay... two. |
| 325 | ** Otis Oracle of the National Coalition for Nice TV reveals [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=810829&comic=blm the ambition of the Coalition itself]]... |
| 326 | ** In a series in ''Bloom County 2015'' about "trump" being used for [[ToiletHumor farting]] in Britain, the target of these jokes, UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump, responds by sending Milo a copy of "British Cockney Rhyming Slang", and a note telling Milo to check the "B section", in particular, the definition of "berk". The definitions themselves are accurate to the actual British slang usage of "berk", with "vagina" being used as a substitute for [[CountryMatters a more offensive term]]. |
| 327 | * SequelHook: The last few strips set audiences up for Breathed's next strip, the Sunday-only ''Outland''. Opus literally kicks Ronald-Ann through the door to Outland on the last daily strip (Aug. 5, 1989) and goes off to search for his mother. (Soon enough Opus would appear in ''Outland'' anyway.) |
| 328 | * SeriesContinuityError: |
| 329 | ** Major Bloom is originally introduced as Major P. Flynn. Mr. Binkley's name changes from George to Tom to Frank to Tom to Frank. Limekiller's name changes from Skip to Charles. Oliver's father is variously named Howard, George, Frank, and Floyd. |
| 330 | ** Opus first appeared in the summer of 1981 and appeared again early in 1982. A December 1988 story arc has Opus's mom sending him away in April 1982 due to the Falkland Islands War. |
| 331 | * ShootTheTelevision: Mrs. Limekiller loses her mind after watching her 37,492nd violent killing on television. She responds by shooting her [=TVs=]. |
| 332 | -->'''Television:''' Mmmm boy! I do love these dandy Georgia avocados!\ |
| 333 | '''Mrs. Limekiller:''' EAT THIS, WILLARD! |
| 334 | ** Later, Milo stares at a bullet-ridden television while talking to Mrs. Limekiller. |
| 335 | --->'''Milo:''' Do we know the victim, or should we check dental records?\ |
| 336 | '''Mrs. Limekiller:''' Vanna White! Got her in mid-spin! |
| 337 | * ShouldntWeBeInSchoolRightNow: Early in ''Bloom County'', Milo and Binkley are shown attending school. Later in the series, the child characters are shown going about their business but never attending school. |
| 338 | * ShoutOut: |
| 339 | ** Several strips featured surreal desert background that were likely shout-outs to ''Krazy Kat''. |
| 340 | ** Breathed has confirmed in the ''Complete'' hardback collections that Milo's name is a tribute to the hero of ''Literature/ThePhantomTollbooth''. |
| 341 | ** By random chance, the day ''Bloom County'' debuted in newspapers (Dec. 8, 1980) also happened to be the day Music/JohnLennon was murdered. Six weeks later, Breathed published a ShoutOut to Lennon in which Milo [[http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1981/01/19 wishes for Lennon in dangerous times.]] |
| 342 | ** In a May 1981 strip the Major uses the tactics of ''Film/{{Patton}}'' to motivate Milo's [[http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1981/05/11 pee-wee football team.]] |
| 343 | ** In the September 27, 1985 strip, Opus goes to [[ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}} Lucy van Pelt]] for psychiatric help, but she isn't in. |
| 344 | ** The September 1, 2015 strip has Cozy calling Cutter John [[ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes Spaceman Spiff]]. (Breathed and Watterson entertain a FriendlyRivalry.) |
| 345 | --->'''Reader:''' Nice tip of the hat to Bill Watterson there. Well played.\ |
| 346 | '''Berkeley Breathed:''' [[ObfuscatingStupidity Who?]] |
| 347 | ** Then, [[http://www.gocomics.com/bloom-county/2015/09/27 on September 27, 2015]], Cozy and her mother discuss [[ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes the latter's Hobbes tattoo]]. |
| 348 | ** How many people know that Sam the Lion, the LittlestCancerPatient in the revival, is a ShoutOut to ''Film/TheLastPictureShow''? |
| 349 | ** Milo's editor at the ''Beacon'' approves stories by shouting, "Run that baby!", the phrase Ben Bradlee used in ''Film/AllThePresidentsMen''. |
| 350 | * SignificantAnagram: Played with in one strip, where it's pointed out that "Opus" rearranges into "soup". |
| 351 | * SleepingSingle: According to Bobbi Harlow's parents, they stopped sleeping in the same bed in 1959. |
| 352 | --->'''Mrs. Harlow:''' Well evidently I snore like a "congested heifer," dear.\ |
| 353 | '''Mr. Harlow:''' "Snort! Snort!" |
| 354 | * SlidingScaleOfFourthWallHardness: Perhaps one of the only comics to slide all the way down the scale (from solid FourthWall to NoFourthWall). |
| 355 | ** It was first broken on August 9, 1981, when Major said, "Stop the cartoon!", his hand resting on the panel border, and announced that he and Milo were going on strike. In the next-to-last panel, a realistically-drawn hand reaches down and redraws them, putting them both in [[WholesomeCrossdresser dresses]], to which Milo asks, "You ''had'' to provoke him, didn't you?" |
| 356 | ** It wasn't broken again until November 12, when Bobbi Harlow told Cutter John that he wouldn't be receiving a kiss because "[[MediumAwareness this is the comics page]]." |
| 357 | ** For the rest of 1981–1982, the strip usually kept its fourth wall intact, save for the occasional AsideGlance or MediumAwareness. By the end of ''Bloom County'', those tropes were increasing in number, along with instances of FourthWallMailSlot (which didn't use actual reader mail), script-reading, talking to the audience, interaction with the cartoonist and WhoWritesThisCrap comments, etc. By the end in 1989, it was very much at the NoFourthWall end of the scale. At the end, the characters were even moving on to work at other strips. |
| 358 | * SnapBack: |
| 359 | ** There was a storyline about runaway consumerism, where Opus buys a pair of sneakers made only for walking around malls, a salad shooter, a salad scooper, and even silicone-injected lips. Throughout, Milo chastises Opus for such impulsive behavior of buying needless things. At the end of the storyline, he discovers that Milo bought the same kind of mall-walker sneakers and shouts "I'm a-keepin' my new lips!" His old lips are back the next Monday. |
| 360 | ** Subverted in a similar plotline. Opus got plastic surgery for a new nose, and in this case actually kept it for a little while, until the rest of the cast forced him to get the surgery for his old nose back. We even got to see him recover from it. |
| 361 | * SphereEyes: Opus and Bill. |
| 362 | * SpinOff: Berkeley wrote several books based on the ''Bloom County'' characters, most notably ''A Wish for Wings That Work.'' |
| 363 | * SpinTheBottle: Yaz Pistachio goes to a Spin the Bottle party in her second (and final) arc. [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=090813&comic=blm It doesn't end well.]] |
| 364 | * SpitTake: |
| 365 | -->'''Milo:''' IS THE GUY WHO OWNS THE RED CORVETTE PARKED OUTSIDE IN THE HANDICAPPED SPACE IN HERE? HELLO? ...Actually, it's remarkably similar to the kind of car you own, Steve. The guy had backed it in and locked the transmission, making it totally impossible to get out...\ |
| 366 | ''[BeatPanel]''\ |
| 367 | '''Milo:''' ''[holds up a mangled transmission]'' ...not to say we didn't try.\ |
| 368 | '''Steve:''' ''[[WrittenSoundEffect Ptewph!]]'' |
| 369 | ** Binkley's father does it when his anti-smoking therapy begins with breakfast and an x-ray of a diseased lung. |
| 370 | * SplashOfColor: Even in the black-and-white online strips, [[ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes Hobbes]] is always in full color. |
| 371 | * {{Spoiler}}: {{Discussed}} in the penultimate strip -- Opus starts to describe ''ComicStrip/{{Outland}}'' after booting Ronald Ann through the doorway to it, but then stops himself -- "[[LampshadeHanging I'm giving it away.]]" |
| 372 | * SpringtimeForHitler: Meta example -- Bill the Cat. He was intended to be so disgusting that no merchandisers in their right minds would want to license him. Thousands of dolls and t-shirts later, it became apparent that this didn't work. |
| 373 | * StalkerShrine: Milo has one dedicated to Betty Crocker [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=810930&comic=blm here]]. |
| 374 | * StatusQuoIsGod: Usually subverted, such as in the case of Steve's personality flip-flop and Bill getting his brain replaced with UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump's, but seems to be the motive in annulling Lola Granola and Opus' marriage a few strips after they did the deed, even though Lola was Opus' fiancee for quite some time. |
| 375 | * StealthPun: The famous [[http://crow202.org/2010/bloom_county_coughupsomedough.jpg "Pear Pimples for Hairy Fishnuts"]] strip, which cemented Opus as the main character due to its popularity, is about [[spoiler:an [[Music/TheBeatles elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna]].]] |
| 376 | * StockDesertInterstate: Opus the Penguin finds himself on one after losing his script, wandering along the highway and across the desert before eventually reaching a 7-11, an outpost of American civilization. |
| 377 | * StrangeMindsThinkAlike: In one arc where Opus goes to prison, both he and Steve initially assume his cellmate's claim to have "strangled Oakland" to be a "colorful sports colloquialism" of some kind. [[spoiler:[[http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1985/02/09 "No. I strangled every single per--"]]]] |
| 378 | * StrawFeminist: With the exception of Bobbi Harlow, any character who identified as a feminist would be a hairy-legged man-hater. A 1988 arc has "The Radical Feminist and Lesbian Alliance" lay siege to the Picayune's building after a lingerie spread ran in the paper. |
| 379 | * StrawmanNewsMedia: The ''Bloom County Tribune/Bloom Beacon/Bloom Picayune'' is staffed almost entirely by muckrakers who are perfectly willing to lie and make stuff up in order to sell papers. A RunningGag in the early years involved Milo calling up the local senator in order to get dirt, TwistingTheWords to literally turn nothing into something. |
| 380 | -->'''Milo:''' ''[on phone]'' Senator? This is Milo Bloom at the ''Beacon''. Will you confirm that you sank Jimmy Hoffa in your backyard pond?\ |
| 381 | '''Sen. Bedfellow:''' ''[over phone]'' WHAT? OF COURSE NOT!\ |
| 382 | '''Milo:''' ''[writing]'' Fine. I'll go with "Sen. Bedfellow denies that pond is where he sank Hoffa."\ |
| 383 | '''Sen. Bedfellow:''' THAT'S NOT TRUE!\ |
| 384 | '''Milo:''' Okay. ''[writing]'' "Bedfellow '''did''' sink Hoffa in pond."\ |
| 385 | '''Sen. Bedfellow:''' I DON'T '''''KNOW''''' WHERE HOFFA IS!!\ |
| 386 | '''Milo:''' ''[writing]'' "'I lost the body,' says Bedfellow." |
| 387 | * StrawCharacter: Any opposing force (political, societal, economic, etc.) is generally represented by a harried-looking crazed figure running into the strip and spazzing out. In early years this was best exemplified by the corrupt, alcoholic Senator Bedfellow who perpetually wins re-election because nobody else runs. Milo's grandfather was also used as a strawman conservative in the early years. |
| 388 | ** Hodge-Podge once described himself as the "sole representative" of conservatives in the Meadow Party, but Portnoy often joined him in stereotypically more conservative behaviors. |
| 389 | ** Notably averted with the Jones family, whose Republican affiliation was used for occasional jokes (as in the Sunday strip where Mr. Jones thinks Oliver brainwashed Mrs. Jones into being a Dan Quayle supporter), but otherwise didn't really come up. |
| 390 | * StrikeEpisode: A fall 1987 storyline had some of the characters go on strike for two weeks, demanding bigger, more legible panels. This resulted in rifts between the union and non-union characters, management trying to fill in with their own attempts at comedy, and scab actors, before the strikers caved and returned to work. |
| 391 | * SubliminalSeduction: |
| 392 | ** Played with when a MediaWatchdog has Milo find messages in records. "Devil bunnies! I snort the nose, Lucifer! Banana, banana!" |
| 393 | ** In one arc, Milo discovers that if you play Deathtongue (the cast's heavy metal band) records backwards, you hear "Go to church, say your prayers." Which led to something that readers never thought they would see Milo say: "I don't think I have a story." |
| 394 | *** TITHE!!! TITHE!!! |
| 395 | ** "No matter how thin you slice it, it's still baloney." |
| 396 | * SymbolSwearing: Used frequently, mostly from Steve Dallas. |
| 397 | ** Parodied in one week of strips where they purport to have a letter substitution code that censors any swear-words in the strip. In reality, they're just gibberish when decoded. |
| 398 | ** Also parodied with Steve Dallas doing Emoji Swearing at Opus in the bathroom. |
| 399 | * TakeThat: Lots of them: |
| 400 | ** Opus read a parody of the Garfield books called ''Garfield Gets Old''. |
| 401 | ** Not to mention Bill started out as a spoof on Garfield and comic merchandising (see quote under Ensemble Darkhorse entry above)...ironic considering Bill's later blitz merchandising. |
| 402 | ** Spuds [=McKenzie=] has a paternity suit filed against him by Benji, is later revealed to be female, and is replaced as Budweiser spokesman by the ''Franchise/CareBears''.[[note]]Benji was later revealed to be a non-pregnant Hare Krishna. Yeah, it was a weird arc.[[/note]] |
| 403 | ** A particularly ridiculous storyline was ended with Milo telling Opus that he was acting [[ThisIsReality like a character in a bad comic strip]]. Opus, brought to his senses but shaken and vulnerable, asks Milo if he thinks ''Terry and the Pirates'' was a bad comic strip. |
| 404 | ** An unusually prescient TakeThat: at the end of a ''Franchise/StarWars'' parody, Luke Binkley decapitates George Lucas with a lightsaber, saying, "Jedi Knights don't wait 15 years for a sequel." [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=090820&comic=blm In 1983.]][[note]]Lampshaded in the collected editions, where Breathed's footnote says "I was off by one year. The funny thing is, George did seem to lose his head."[[/note]] |
| 405 | ** ''Bloom County'''s final StoryArc is rife with {{Take That}}s, as all the characters try to get jobs at other comic strips. Steve Dallas shows up to take ''Cathy'' on a date; Milo Bloom's top half is swallowed by a snake in ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide''; a busing order sends Oliver Wendell Jones to integrate ''ComicStrip/TheFamilyCircus''; Portnoy and Hodge-Podge get jobs cleaning up after ''ComicStrip/{{Marmaduke}}'' with giant pooper scoopers.[[note]]As mentioned above, all this was brought on by UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump (in Bill's body) buying Bloom County to turn it into another testament to his massive ego.[[/note]] |
| 406 | ** For strips that parodied cartoon cats that featured characters such as Garfield and Hobbes, [[ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes Bill Watterson]] hilariously retaliated with [[http://ignatz.brinkster.net/cimages/cbreathedsketch.jpg this comic]]. In response Berke Breathed said this: |
| 407 | ---> "I have committed other thefts with a clean and unfettered conscience. Garfield was too calculated and too successful not to freely raid for illicit character cameos. Calvin and Hobbes was too good not to. Calvin creator Bill Watterson took these thefts in stride and retaliated in private with devastatingly effective illustrated salvos, hitting me in my most vulnerable places. Bill's sketch is an editorial comment on my addiction to the expensive sport of power boating and the moral compromises needed to fund it. That's me doing the kicking. The chap on the dock represents my cartoon syndicate boss, which says it all, methinks." |
| 408 | *** The "chap on the dock" in question is pointedly drawn to resemble [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Mr. Thornhump]]. |
| 409 | ** When political cartoonist Pat Oliphant protested Berke's 1987 Pulitzer win, Berke began using a character named "Ollie Funt" to satirize Oliphant. And Berke's ire for Oliphant had not ended by the time ''Opus'' rolled around; one strip depicted the phrase "Oliphant wears a thong" inscribed in a bathroom stall.[[note]]This was all very much a case of BrokenPedestal, since Breathed had been a big fan of Oliphant.[[/note]] |
| 410 | ** When it was still thought of as a compound to make underarm deodorant (see NeverTrustAHairTonic above), Milo manages to get Bill to produce sweat by yelling at him, "PRESIDENT QUAYLE!". |
| 411 | --->'''Milo:''' He's sweating.\ |
| 412 | '''Oliver:''' ''I'm'' sweating. |
| 413 | ** When Bill the Cat [[TheBusCameBack came back]] after [[DeathIsCheap one of his temporary deaths]], his life was recounted in excerpts from a tell-all biography entitled ''Frazzled: The Ugly, Sordid Life, Death, and Rebirth of Bill The Cat''. It was a clear parody of Bob Woodward's 1984 book ''Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of Creator/JohnBelushi'' (which received criticism from many of Belushi's friends, admirers, and relatives as a poorly researched, exploitative hit piece). |
| 414 | ** In 2015, Cutter John's "ship" is now a ''Franchise/StarWars'' reference. Bill the Cat is now "[[Film/ThePhantomMenace Bill Bill Binks]]", "Jar Jar's stupider, uglier brother -- now with no testicles". |
| 415 | * TakeOurWordForIt: During the brief "coded forbidden word" arc[[note]]which revloves around a ridiculous cryptogram involving Music/BonJovi's shorts size[[/note]], Hodge Podge and Portnoy come across] a prostitute uttering the forbidden word "utzaake". They promptly decode it, get shocked by the result, and Hodge comments, "If this gets printed, the republic is doomed." As we've noted earlier, the decoded words are just a jumbled mess of letters. |
| 416 | * TechnologyMarchesOn: Invoked, as Opus has no idea what the internet is when he wakes up from his 25 year nap in ''Bloom County 2015''. |
| 417 | * TeleporterAccident: In a shoutout to ''Film/TheFly1986'', Oliver's experimental research in teleportation results in Oliver getting crossed with Bill the Cat. Oliver starts growing mangy hair, while Bill starts wearing glasses and reading ''Ebony'' magazine. |
| 418 | * ThatCloudLooksLike: |
| 419 | ** The May 5, 1984 strip has Binkley ask Oliver this, only for Oliver the computer nerd to describe it as "a large cumulus cloud". Binkley goes on a rant about how soulless science like that produced thngs like the atom bomb, and challenges Oliver to do better, only for Oliver to say the cloud looks like "an atom bomb." |
| 420 | ** They play this again in the October 17. 1987 strip. Oliver asks Binkley, Binkley gives a long flowery description, Binkley asks Oliver what the cloud looks like, and Oliver says "Rain." Binkley is soaked. |
| 421 | * ThreeChordsAndTheTruth: The "meadow rock" band that Milo forms with Binkley in 1982, which is "back to basics"...because they only know two chords. |
| 422 | * ThoseTwoGuys: Portnoy and Hodge Podge. |
| 423 | * ToBeContinued: [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=880322&comic=blm "Or maybe it won't! Ya never know, do ya?"]] |
| 424 | * TooManyBabies: In one of the last storylines from the original run (June 1989), Rosebud delivers a litter of 64 pups. Hodgepodge, the father, then goes into a blind panic. |
| 425 | * TWordEuphemism: In one story arc, the Bloom Picayune decides to do a frank, honest article about AIDS. The first draft, submitted by the obviously nervous editor, is ''full'' of T-words. |
| 426 | -->'''Writer:''' Am I waffling?\ |
| 427 | '''Milo:''' You're waffling. |
| 428 | * UglySlavicWomen: |
| 429 | ** One strip showed the effects of democracy coming to Russia as the Cold War ended, with the same potato-faced woman first in dumpy clothes and headscarf, then in American attire. |
| 430 | ** Another briefly showed a dumpy Russian man and woman reading a Pravda headline that Oliver had hacked with a peace message (but mistranslated as "Gorbachev Sings Tractors: Turnip! Buttocks!"). [[http://www.thecomicstrips.com/store/add.php?iid=83350]] |
| 431 | ** Rosebud the Basselope also dresses as one for espionage. [[http://www.thecomicstrips.com/store/add.php?iid=85978]] |
| 432 | * {{Uncanceled}}: And Opus is suffering CultureShock. |
| 433 | * UnfortunateItemSwap: There's a repeated gag of characters brushing their teeth with things that come in toothpaste-like squeeze tubes. |
| 434 | ** An early strip has the Major irritated to discover that another boarding house resident's denture adhesive looked like a tube of Pepsodent. |
| 435 | ** In a 1984 strip Opus wakes up too early and accidentally brushes his teeth with Preparation H instead of toothpaste while he's still sleepy. |
| 436 | ** Similarly, another strip has Steve mistake his girlfriend's contraceptive jelly for toothpaste. |
| 437 | * TheUnintelligible: Bill the Cat usually said nothing but "ACK." |
| 438 | * UnsatisfiableCustomer: The [[http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1980/12/08 first strip ever]] (Dec. 8, 1980) features Milo's grandpa going to a burger joint and ordering a burger-without-bun and a milkshake without a cup. Breathed re-did the gag a few years later with Milo in full troll-mode as the customer. |
| 439 | * UnsoundEffect: [[AC:unprovoked KICK!]] |
| 440 | * VanityLicensePlate: |
| 441 | ** At least two shown in ''Opus'': a sports car with "NTITLED", and a Hummer with "HUM HER." |
| 442 | ** One was mentioned but not seen in an early ''Bloom County'' strip, with Bobbi Harlow commenting on Steve Dallas' car: "Charming. A gold jeep with a license plate that spells out HORNY." In other editions, this was bowdlerized to "HEY BABY." |
| 443 | * VicePresidentWho: See [[http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1983/04/29 this strip]], in which Meadow Party Vice Presidential nominee Opus proves he is "a natural for the job" by dozing off. |
| 444 | ** In a 1985 strip Opus, who has gotten amnesia, is further rattled by Oliver's prediction that Halley's Comet will hit Earth and wipe out all life. He says "No past...no future...and nothin' much to be don' right at this moment. I feel like George Bush!!" |
| 445 | ** Opus's second run for VP in 1988 was fodder for more Vice President jokes. In an April 1988 strip Milo urges a depressed Opus to call "the man who finally made the office of V.P. meaningful." Opus does so, only to be shocked by news that Nelson Rockefeller is dead. |
| 446 | * WackyCravings: Diana, Princess of Wales, wants pickles. |
| 447 | * WeirdTradeUnion: |
| 448 | ** Santa's elves went on a strike, and were fired by UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan, in a 1982 series of strips that referenced the air traffic controllers' strike. Later on, the "comic strip characters' union" went out for larger panels. |
| 449 | ** [[invoked]] W.A. Thornhump was created precisely as a strikebreaker character, the strip's personification of ExecutiveMeddling. |
| 450 | * WhamLine: |
| 451 | -->'''[[ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes Hobbes]]:''' [[https://www.reddit.com/r/calvinandhobbes/comments/ojrx0v/hobbes_finds_calvin/ Got him.]][[note]]The Banana 9000 was looking for an adult Calvin, and 1,467,007th photo, Hobbes ID'ed him.[[/note]] |
| 452 | * WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Averted in [[http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1988/07/24 a Sunday strip]] that detailed the fates of Bobbi Harlow, Alf Mushpie, and Lola Granola. |
| 453 | * WhatAreRecords: Binkley asks his dad what the phrase "to wind one's watch" means. |
| 454 | * [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield Where The Hell Is Bloom County?]]: Never explicitly identified, but a few clues in the strip place it in either Iowa or Colorado (Breathed lived in both states at various times). |
| 455 | ** The Bloom boarding house, where the characters live and which is occasionally seen from the exterior, is a depiction of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linsay_House Linsay House]] in Iowa City, IA. |
| 456 | * TheWhitestBlackGuy: Oliver Wendell Jones is BlackAndNerdy. In one strip his mother tries to get him to act a little more 'black' by wallpapering his room with a huge picture of Michael Jackson's face. Oliver responds by hanging a picture of Albert Einstein over it. |
| 457 | * WhoWouldWantToWatchUs: Bloom County characters make many self-deprecating remarks about the quality of the strip they appear in. In one storyline, Opus is an aspiring cartoonist struggling to come up with a comic strip. He pitches an idea for a comic strip exactly like Bloom County, to which Milo replies "Needs work." |
| 458 | * WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent: Binkley's dad's attitude toward his son in the early years. When he reappeared after a hiatus of several years, he had basically become a grown-up version of Binkley. |
| 459 | * WrittenRoar: "AIIGH!" |
| 460 | * WrittenSoundEffect: "Ptewph!" was common for {{Spit Take}}s. |
| 461 | * WrongSideOfTheTracks: Literally. This is where Ronald-Ann lives, and where the doorway to Outland is located. |
| 462 | * {{Zeerust}}: The 1987 arc dealing with Opus and Lola's wedding had him get knocked out trying to kiss her and dreaming about their life in twenty years. [[http://www.platypuscomix.net/otherpeople2/opusin2007.html Apparently in 2007,]] Lee Iacocca will be President, we'll need ozone shields, and test-tube babies will be grown by Oscar Mayer. |
| 463 | |
| 464 | ---- |
| 465 | !!Tropes found in ''Outland'' and/or ''Opus'': |
| 466 | * BedtimeBrainwashing: The Command version was a recurring gag in ''Outland'', with Milquetoast the Cockroach whispering in people's ears as they slept. Opus was usually the recipient, but one strip was all about celebrities' crazy decisions being influenced by behind-the-scenes whispering cockroaches. |
| 467 | * TheBusCameBack: |
| 468 | ** Opus, Bill, Binkley, Oliver, and Steve all returned as major characters in ''Outland'', and Cutter John and Milo both had one-off cameos. |
| 469 | ** Bill, Steve, Lola Granola, Binkley, and even ''Senator Bedfellow'' all returned in ''Opus''. |
| 470 | * ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: This happened in ''Outland''. Ronald-Ann, originally intended as the star of the strip, went OutOfFocus and eventually disappeared completely as the characters from ''Bloom County'' leached back in. An otter character named Tim W. Forty disappeared early in the strip's run, without explanation. Again, this was probably a case of Berke not knowing what to do with the FlatCharacter he'd created. |
| 471 | * ContinuityCameo: Milo appears as a passenger on a bus in the second-to-last ''Outland'' strip. |
| 472 | * DisguisedInDrag: |
| 473 | ** In ''Outland'', Ronald-Ann plays hookey from school several times. Either Opus or Bill will cover for her by wearing pigtails and wearing her Catholic school uniform. HilarityEnsues. |
| 474 | ** In another ''Outland'' strip, Opus and Bill sneak into Seaworld by disguising themselves as an orca and a buxom animal trainer, respectively. |
| 475 | * NunsAreSpooky: In ''Outland'', Ronald-Ann's teacher, Sister Pecadillo, is strict, wrathful, and tightly-wound. |
| 476 | * ParkingPayback: In ''Opus'', Pickles was once interrupted while attempting to trim down a Hummer with a chainsaw to make it fit in the compact space it had been parked in. |
| 477 | * PlayfulOtter: |
| 478 | ** Tim W. Forty, an early ''Outland'' character. He was not well-received by the fanbase and chucked within the first few months. |
| 479 | ** Parodied in a one-shot Sunday strip, where an oil-coated otter cheerfully tells the readers that oil spills aren't nearly as big a deal as people say. Opus bursts in, shames the otter, and quickly discovers that the otter was paid in oysters by Exxon. |
| 480 | * {{Retcon}}: |
| 481 | ** Outland itself was depicted as a kind of alternate dimension at the end of ''Bloom County'' and at the beginning of its own eponymous strip, but this concept was eventually phased out. The final ''Outland'' comic revealed Bill the Cat's address as "Bloom County, Outland." |
| 482 | ** During the run of ''Opus'', the beginning featured a lot of mystery as to what became of the cast of ''Bloom County''. Despite one comic claiming Binkley grew up and became a hideously mutilated social pariah, in the strips final months he inexplicably started showing up as a child again, despite Steve Dallas being visibly aged 30 years. ''Opus'' also retconned the sudden reveal in the end of ''Outland'' that Steve was gay by mentioning offhand that Steve was converted back to straight in some kind of therapy -- and even before that, an ''Outland'' strip suggested that after leaving Bloom County, Binkley became [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Bart Simpson]]. |
| 483 | ** The [[http://www.gocomics.com/bloom-county/2015/07/20 first installment]] of ''Bloom County 2015'' shows Opus waking from a 25-year nap, suggesting that the entirety of ''Outland'' and ''Opus'' were AllJustADream. |
| 484 | * SeekingTheIntangible: Milo goes to a Lost and Found and tries to recover his youthful idealism and his sense of optimism. When the clerk can't help him, he loses his patience and temper and asks the clerk if he has them. Again, the clerk can't help him, so Milo leaves. When the clerk pitifully asks if anyone has lost something tangible, Opus says that that he's lost his marbles. You can read the strip [[https://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2014/02/hasnt-anyone-lost-anything-tangible-bloom-county-as-realism/ here]]. |
| 485 | -->'''Milo:''' Excuse me. I've lost my youthful idealism.\ |
| 486 | '''Clerk:''' I beg your pardon?\ |
| 487 | '''Milo:''' My "youthful idealism". I had it once... but recently I've lost sight of it. Now I fear it's been lost completely. I thought '''you''' might have it.\ |
| 488 | '''Clerk:''' Oh...well, actually...\ |
| 489 | '''Milo:''' And what about my sense of optimism? Lately I've lost that too.\ |
| 490 | '''Clerk:''' Well, I'm afraid I've got neither of those things--\ |
| 491 | '''Milo:''' Oh boy...Now I've lost my patience. I don't suppose you've found '''that''' either.\ |
| 492 | '''Clerk:''' Well...no...\ |
| 493 | '''Milo:''' That's just great! Now I've lost my temper! So unless you've found '''that''', I'll be off now, you inept oaf! Good day!!\ |
| 494 | '''Clerk:''' P-please? Hasn't anybody lost anything tangible?\ |
| 495 | '''Opus:''' Excuse me. I've lost my marbles. |
| 496 | * SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Pickles and Auggie in ''Opus'', replacing Binkley (who later returned), Oliver, Milo, and Ronald-Ann. |
| 497 | * TakeThat: |
| 498 | ** A Sunday strip of ''Opus'' "outed" ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}''. |
| 499 | ** Perhaps Berke's riskiest Take That came when the Disney corporation threatened to sue him if he didn't get rid of Mortimer Mouse (no, not that Mortimer Mouse), a character who looked like a washed-up, chain-smoking Mickey. Breathed removed Mortimer...but not before doing a three-week storyline in which he is kidnapped by then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner. The gang storms the Magic Kingdom to rescue him, and many trademarked Disney characters make unauthorized cameos. Eisner himself is portrayed as a petty, creatively-bankrupt bully, who in the finale is attacked with a chainsaw by Bill the Cat dressed as [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Jason Voorhees]]. |
| 500 | * WhatAreRecords: One Sunday ''Opus'' strip actually dealt with this, in regards to ''newspapers'' of all things. Opus actually had to explain to the guy at least three times what a newspaper was, with each explanation being different.[[labelnote:Caveat]]The joke got recycled in ''Bloom County 2015'' on September 21, 2015 with Cozy telling her daughter about newspapers. It's less funny in the days of the internet.[[/labelnote]] |
| 501 | |
| 502 | ---- |
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