History Characters / BloomCounty

The star of ''Bloom County'' from its earliest days, Milo was the group's OnlySaneMan, though he could be goofy as the rest of his friends when the situation called for it. Also a dedicated journalist with a habit for [[strike:completely making up stories]] stretching the truth.

* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Despite being fairly major characters in ''Bloom County'', they did not carry on to ''Outland'' or ''Opus''; thus far have not appeared in ''Bloom County 2015''.

Opus is very nervous and often forced into situations he'd rather not be in. However, he is also extremely flawed and as often as not brings hardship on himself –- he's a sucker for late-night infomercials (which led to a shopping addiction), is extremely susceptible to the side-effects of dandelions, and tends to develop crushes on powerful women in the media. From the end-period of ''Bloom County'' through all of ''Outland'', he was on a quest to find his mother. They finally meet at the end of the latter… but then he promptly fled at the beginning of ''Opus'' when he found her insufferable.

** CharacterizationMarchesOn: He also becomes less of a penguin and more like some kind of vaguely penguinish humanoid –- his nose is much more like a mammalian/human nose (he even gets rhinoplasty at one point, and it's fleshy enough to liposuction) and he ends up with [[ToothyBird teeth]] and [[FeatherFingers hands]].

Introduced partway through the first strip's run, Bill is an ugly, mangy, flea-bitten, smelly, all-around-nasty creature who "speaks" almost entirely in rude sounds… and has run for president twice, been both a HairMetal musician and a fundamentalist preacher, and has bedded innumerable women. Also, he tends to die a lot –- one time resulted in his body becoming a vessel for UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump's brain. He is the second most popular character in the series, and the only one besides Opus and Steve to play a major role in every post-''Bloom County'' comic.

* OnlySaneMan: Can often be this, unless his anxiety closet and lack of sleep break him –- which happens from time to time.

A disabled war veteran (of [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnam]] in ''Bloom County''; of [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror Iraq]] in ''Bloom County 2015''). He relies on a wheelchair to get around. Well-liked by everyone… except a jealous Steve. Often lucky in love –- he dated Bobbi Harlow until she disappeared from the original strip; in the reboot, he gets together with Cozy Fillerup.

* AscendedExtra: In ''Bloom County 2015'', getting an entire story arc focused on him and showing up in the comic before Steve of all people. This is likely due to Berke finding a workaround for the previous issue of Cutter's wheelchair –- a sleeker modern model that fits in the page better and crutches for when that's too much.

Yes, ''that'' UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump. A source of occasional jokes during ''Bloom County'''s original run. After an accident during the comic's last year, his brain was installed in Bill The Cat's body –- Bill himself had died (again) and wasn't using it. The decision by the real thing to run for president was what convinced Berkeley Breathed to resurrect the strip. Naturally, Trump is again a frequent source of mockery in the 2015 version.

* SnapBack: Is back to normal, as is Bill –- well, as normal as either of them can be –- in ''Bloom County 2015''.

Mickey's unsuccessful brother who was cast out of Creator/{{Disney}} after returning to find what Michael Eisner[[labelnote:•]] (C.E.O. of Disney from 1986 until he was forced out in 2006)[[/labelnote]] had done to the place and picking a fight with him. Dropped from the strip because Disney threatened to sue –- turns out they already have a copyrighted & trademarked character named Mortimer Mouse.

* SweetTooth: After her mom gives in to Cutter John (elsewhere), she takes Opus and company up on their last wooing attempt –- chocolates.

* OpaqueNerdGlasses

* WholesomeCrossDresser: He occasionally wears drag. In the cartoon "A Wish for Wings That Work", he's decked out in a wig and dress (stuffed with [[GagBoobs Milk Duds]]) while looking for the Cockroach Cross Dressers in Crisis meeting.

* BareYourMidriff: Quite a bit.

* EverythingsBetterWithPenguins: In a meta sense. His introduction is where ''Bloom County'' hit its stride.

* NamesTheSame:[[invoked]] With Disney's own character of the same name… though the Disney original has no blood relation to Mickey.

* NamesTheSame: Shares the same name as the similar-looking Steve Dallas from ''Film/SweetSmellOfSuccess''. Personality-wise, however, they're opposites. [[invoked]]

* MisaimedFandom: Berkely Breathed originally created Steve to be a TakeThat towards entitled, elitist, chauvinistic fraternity brothers that he encountered during his time at UT. Ironically, that same demographic loved the character and sought to emulate him.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Tom is wracked with anxiety about money, race, and his own mortality. His son frequently has to talk him down from crushing anxiety attacks that are {{played for laughs}}.

Opus is very nervous and often forced into situations he'd rather not be in. However, he is also extremely flawed and as often as not brings hardship on himself – he's a sucker for late-night infomercials (which led to a shopping addiction), is extremely susceptible to the side-effects of dandelions, and tends to develop crushes on powerful women in the media. From the end-period of ''Bloom County'' through all of ''Outland'', he was on a quest to find his mother. They finally meet at the end of the latter… but then he promptly fled at the beginning of ''Opus'' when he found her insufferable.

** CharacterizationMarchesOn: He also becomes less of a penguin and more like some kind of vaguely penguinish humanoid – his nose is much more like a mammalian/human nose (he even gets rhinoplasty at one point, and it's fleshy enough to liposuction) and he ends up with [[ToothyBird teeth]] and [[FeatherFingers hands]].

Introduced partway through the first strip's run, Bill is an ugly, mangy, flea-bitten, smelly, all-around-nasty creature who "speaks" almost entirely in rude sounds… and has run for president twice, been both a HairMetal musician and a fundamentalist preacher, and has bedded innumerable women. Also, he tends to die a lot – one time resulted in his body becoming a vessel for UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump's brain. He is the second most popular character in the series, and the only one besides Opus and Steve to play a major role in every post-''Bloom County'' comic.

* OnlySaneMan: Can often be this, unless his anxiety closet and lack of sleep break him – which happens from time to time.

* ValuesDissonance: Steve's sexual escapades are designed to justify the slapstick retribution he gets from the women involved, but even by that standard, some just aren't funny by today's standards, the one where he's plotting to get the woman too drunk to resist being Exhibit A. And one has to wonder just what he did on that lover's lane that gave the woman involved a flashback more than ten years later...

A disabled war veteran (of [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnam]] in ''Bloom County''; of [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror Iraq]] in ''Bloom County 2015''). He relies on a wheelchair to get around. Well-liked by everyone… except a jealous Steve. Often lucky in love – he dated Bobbi Harlow until she disappeared from the original strip; in the reboot, he gets together with Cozy Fillerup.

* AscendedExtra: In ''Bloom County 2015'', getting an entire story arc focused on him and showing up in the comic before Steve of all people. This is likely due to Berke finding a workaround for the previous issue of Cutter's wheelchair – a sleeker modern model that fits in the page better and crutches for when that's too much.

Yes, ''that'' UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump. A source of occasional jokes during ''Bloom County'''s original run. After an accident during the comic's last year, his brain was installed in Bill The Cat's body – Bill himself had died (again) and wasn't using it. The decision by the real thing to run for president was what convinced Berkeley Breathed to resurrect the strip. Naturally, Trump is again a frequent source of mockery in the 2015 version.

** His actions lead, in-universe, directly to the end of the original ''Bloom County'' - he buys the comic, fires all the characters, and paves over the meadow to build a massive skyscraper.

* SnapBack: Is back to normal, as is Bill – well, as normal as either of them can be – in ''Bloom County 2015''.

** She has now also appeared in ''Bloom County 2015'', depicted as being a girl from Steve's past, rather than having any connection to Opus, as well as being [[spoiler: a hospitalized mental patient.]]

Mickey's unsuccessful brother who was cast out of Creator/{{Disney}} after returning to find what Michael Eisner[[labelnote:•]] (C.E.O. of Disney from 1986 until he was forced out in 2006)[[/labelnote]] had done to the place and picking a fight with him. Dropped from the strip because Disney threatened to sue – turns out they already have a copyrighted & trademarked character named Mortimer Mouse.

* SweetTooth: After her mom gives in to Cutter John (elsewhere), she takes Opus and company up on their last wooing attempt – chocolates.

* NiceHat: In most of her appearances, she's wearing a flat cap.

* NiceHat: His Bowler

* PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad: While registering to vote, he proudly proclaims himself an "Arthropod-American".

* PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad: Spent an entire strip harassing Opus over every term the penguin used due to it apparently being offensive to pigs.

Characters appearing in ''ComicStrip/BloomCounty''.

Note that this list also applies to the strip's spin-offs, ''Outland'' and ''Opus''.

* SocietyMarchesOn: In the 1991 cartoon "A Wish for Wings That Work", Milquetoast's dress and Milk Duds were {{played for laughs}}. In the modern era, in which society is more accepting of transgender and genderfluid people, the joke isn't nearly as funny.

* OutOfFocus: Has only shown up for a few scattered strips so far in BC15.

Yes, ''that'' UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump. A source of occasional jokes during ''Bloom County''. After an accident during the comic's last year, his brain was installed in Bill The Cat's body – Bill himself had died (again) and wasn't using it. The decision by the real thing to run for president was what convinced Berkeley Breathed to resurrect the strip. Naturally, Trump is again a frequent source of mockery in the 2015 version.

* AnthropomorphicShift: Became taller and longer-limbed over time. The trope was inverted as well, as Bill also gradually stopped speaking in anything but grunts and "ack"s and suffered a major drop in intelligence.
* BackFromTheDead: Thanks to Oliver cloning him from his only remains (His tongue).

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Bill is drawn to outlandish and/or dangerous situations. He declared himself a Communist in rabidly anti-communist 1980s America and was deported to the Soviet Union. In another story arc, he became a right-wing televangelist, raged against "penguin lust", and persuaded his followers to send him money. In another arc, he joined the Rajneesh cult and had to be forcibly extracted from the cult's compound by Opus.

* TheTrickster: He particularly likes playing pranks on sleeping people, like engaging in BedtimeBrainwashing or pouring Cheez Whiz in Opus' underwear.

* NamesTheSame: Shares the same name as the similar-looking Steve Dallas from ''Film/SweetSmellOfSuccess''. Personality-wise, however, they're opposites.

* CharacterOverlap: Was created for the Academia Waltz, and as a result is the only character to show up in all 5 of Brethed's Strips.

* EvilCannotComprehendGood: He's convinced that Frank the Custodian has a hidden agenda behind his good deeds toward the LittlestCancerPatients.

* PetTheDog: After spending the months of November and December in 2015 raving about his bad lot and comptemplating suicide, he finds a kid in the hosptial with cancer. He then procedes to, after spending the night with the kids mother off panel, take all of his toys and posters and put them up in his room at the hosptial.

* DrillSergeantNasty: When coaching Milo's football team

%%* DemotedToExtra

%%* [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Woman]]

* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Binkley and Opus

* SweetTooth: After her mom gives in to Cutter John (elsewhere), she takes Opus and company up on their last wooing attempt – Chocolates.

* {{Expy}}: of Bobbi Harlow, given her looks and how her relationship with Cutter John plays out.

* SuddenlySexuality: At the very end of ''Outland'', Steve casually reveals he's gay, and runs away to get married to [[ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}} Mark Slackmeyer]]. Though with his return in ''Opus'', he is back to his typical woman-hunting ways.

* BlackBestFriend: With both Binkley and Milo.

** During Bill the Cat's stint as a televangelist, Portnoy and Hodge Podge fell under Oral Bill's sway and taunted Opus for his "penguin lust."