History Characters / Doonesbury

* SpeaksInShoutouts: When she was a baby, she learned to speak by imitating advertising jingles, {{catchphrase}}s and soundbites. The Rosenthals were attentive stepparents, though, and she grew out of it.

* BumblingDad: Before Jeff was even born. [[ParentalNeglect He became]] even worse from there.

* BumblingDad: Before Jeff was even born. He became even worse from there.

* WhatTheHellHero: Tells Jeff to stop his constant gloating about his achievements to his dad and chews him out for selling Roland Hedley an advanced copy of "The Rouge". She is actually quite cordial with him ninety-nine percent of the time, and is absolutely his best female friend.

* ButtMonkey: For all of his Freudian Excuses, Jeff never seems to catch a break. Even the psychological effects of his capture by the Taliban are glossed over as comedic, or at any rate serve to simply irritate many readers.

* WhatTheHellHero: Tells Jeff to stop his constant gloating about his achievements to his poor dad and chews him out for selling Roland Hedley an advanced copy of The Rouge.

A housewife who ran away from her husband and daughter and was picked up by Mike and Mark while the duo were on a road trip. A feminist, she brought feminism to the local day care center before moving on to Berkeley and getting a law degree. During this time she met her second husband, Rick, and had another child with him. She currently worked with Congresswoman Lacey Davenport until Lacey contracted Alzheimer's. Joanie has recently come out of retirement to guide RealLife Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren's campaign.

* AuthorAvatar: As Trudeau himself put it: "Yes, dammit I'm the model for Michael."
* BumblingDad: To Alex.

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: He started out as a CasanovaWannabe in Truedeau's college strip ''Bull Tales'' before becoming the strip's OnlySaneMan. Growing up can do that to you.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: Had to go though many years of unhappy marriage with J.J., a horrible job, going through unemployment and J.J. running out on him. Then he got a job with his college lab partner Bernie in Seattle and met Kim and even then he still had to fire most of Kim's friends as part of layoffs, deal with Kim moving to Paris and then breaking up with him and Alex deleting the E-Mail's saying so, and finally reconciliation with Kim, just to get to somewhere resembling a happy ending.

* MayDecemberRomance: He is considerably older than Kim, his wife.

* OutOfFocus: Most of his screen-time's gone to his daughter Alex. Lampshaded when he officially passes the strip over to her.

* {{Irony}}: After abandoning her daughter, J.J., and leaving her with issues, Joanie decided to atone for it by trying to be there for her son, Jeff, who would later grow up to become a massive {{Jerkass}}.

* Cloudcuckoolander: Lives in his head to cope, and gets along well with Zipper.

* {{Jerkass}}: Constantly gloated about his successes to his unemployed, patronizing journalist father. He is also rather blunt, and his social skills are not too great, which leads him to make {{Innocently Insensitive}} remarks at best.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Is truly a decent guy at heart, and can be friendly and polite to others. He just lives in a world of his own, and is often bitter towards his parents, especially Rick.

* Cloudcuckoolander: The guy has no idea.

* HumiliationConga: [[AndThereWasMuchRejoicing Finally]]. After making millions of dollars off his Red Rascal stories, he loses his mega mansion, to his father's barely-contained glee. Furthermore, Joanie told him that he'd have to start paying rent, helping around the house and acting like a real writer if he wanted to move back home.

* TookALevelInJerkass: Try several levels.

* CharacterDevelopment: Was a bit of a prick before the mortar blast hit him.

* NiceGuy: Became this after going through CharacterDevelopment in the form of Iraq and a physically disabling mortar blast.
* ShellShockedVeteran: Is prone to traumatic episodes of PTSD. One memorable strip had him experience a panic attack when a student in one of his classes mentioned he was an Iraqi refugee.

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: And how.

* {{Jerkass}}: Constantly gloated about his successes to his unemployed journalist father. He is also rather blunt, and his social skills are not too great, which leads him to make Innocently Insensitive remarks at best.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Is truly a decent guy at heart, and can be friendly and polite to others.
%%* TheSlacker: Likely from being understimulated at school.

%%zce* OnlySaneWoman: Functions as this for her family.

* WomenAreWiser: Often the voice of reason for her husband, B.D.

Duke's translator during his tenure as ambassador, Honey fell in love with Duke and followed him to America and through the rest of his schemes. Eventually left him in 2005 and stayed behind to help with the clean-up of Hurricane Katrina. Worked for the Beijing Olympics Committee; most recently seen as a spokeswoman for the Chinese government.