FoxTrot
FoxTrot
' is a daily
American comic strip by
cartoonist Bill Amend centering on the daily lives of the Fox family; Andy, Roger, Paige, Peter, and Jason.
Main characters
Roger
Roger Fox is the
father of Paige, Jason, and Peter and the
husband of Andy. Head of the household on 1254 North Elm Street
, he is forty-five years old and works as a B level manager (corporate slave in general) at the fictional Pembrook
Corporation. He was born in
Chicago and majored in
English at Willot College
(a parody of
Williams College, the
rival school of Bill Amend's alma mater,
Amherst College).
|
An early version of Roger Fox |
Roger's incompetence and bad looks are running gags. Roger is an avid fan of
golf and
chess but is bad at both of them. He frequently gets caught in sand-traps and loses balls in water hazards; the one time he made a good shot it turned out to be in the opposite direction from the hole. In early strips Roger was a good chess player and frequently beat Andy, but his skills have gone downhill since. He owns an
anthropomorphic chess-playing machine which goads him into playing and then beats and mocks him (in recent strips the machine has been replaced by the family computer).
Roger, described by Bill Amend as "still trying to catch up with the technology of the 1970s", is bad at using computers in general. He has spent hours trying to put a floppy into a computer that didn't have a disk drive
, must often be told where the on button is, and once caused his entire office to crash their computers while leading a computer training seminar. Roger's boss, Mr. Pembrook, had chosen him to lead the seminar because of Roger's excellent computer based reports, not realizing they had actually been completed by Jason.
In later strips Pembrook seems to have caught on and frequently piles assignments on Roger just before the weekend, so that Jason will edit Roger's apparently mediocre work. Roger is no more successful in his frequent independent ventures than in his regular work. He has tried and failed to make money at day-trading
, online poker-playing, and wine-making and has only succeeded in leading himself further into debt. Envious of his more successful classmates after attending a high school reunion, Roger attempted to write a novel. The resulting spy thriller, which
starred himself as a flawless
James Bond figure, was so bad that Andy openly wept when the main character
didn't die.Roger is a bad cook (He keeps having his grill go off like a
rocket engine
, inducing a lot of smoke, incinerating burgers and burning off his eye-brows or skin with his attempts to barbecue) but an enthusiastic food lover
. Consequently, he is mildly overweight and is frequently nagged by Andy to eat healthily and exercise. Roger is very concerned about his lack of hair and has tried wearing toupees
and giving his hair pep-talks
in an effort to make it grow back. Otherwise, Roger is largely oblivious to his flaws. He enters each new golf game and each new business venture as confidently as the last and mistakenly believes that his children look up to and admire him. He once used a computer program to make a photo of Andy look more attractive and, when Andy retaliated by changing a photo of him into
Viggo Mortensen, couldn't see the difference between it and himself. Aside from this, however, Roger is absymal at the computer. Andy spent hours telling him to point and click. When he clicked, he deleted all of her files. He also causes floppy disks to be destroyed, and claims that computer stuff is intuitive with him.
Roger tries unsuccessfully to involve his family in his interests. He drags Andy to the golf course at five in the morning and forces Peter to caddy for him, sometimes paying him something like a dime a hole or a dollar a game. He is frequently shown begging Andy, Paige, and Jason to play chess with him (the latter two sometimes demand that he pay them first)
. Like the father in
Calvin and Hobbes, he has poor taste in vacations and insists that his unwilling family accompany him on camping trips to their Uncle Ralph's cabin. He has also taken them camping in the desert (in August, during a record heat wave), to a fake caribbean resort about 1,000 miles away from a real ocean, and to the mosquito infested "Skeeter Falls" (without bothering to pack any bug spray.) The only time Roger ever took his family to a good vacation was Hawaii but only once.
At one time, he went on a business trip to Boonhurst, some kind of a dirt-cheap town in a un-named state which were hinted by Roger asking his corporate boss if they have paved the runway yet, and telling his wife that he has to stay at a "fleabag motel".
For all his faults, Roger is a loving and supportive father and much more tolerant of his children's aggravating behavior than Andy is. He is the only member of the family who believes Peter is any good at sports and, when he found out Peter was actually a bench-warmer, still spent the entire game cheering for him, much to Peter and Paige's surprise (although this could be because of his own cluelessness). His cheer of choice was "Rah! Rah! Peter!"
Taxes are his ultimate bane. He often slaves away night and day on these, ending up with lots of beard stubble, complete with Jason always telling Roger about the math errors he often makes. Recently he attempted to do the taxes on his computer, and he computed a refund of several hundred thousand dollars.
Andy
Andrea "Andy" Fox is the mother of Peter, Paige, and Jason and the wife of Roger. She is forty-two-years-old and was an English major in college. Earlier strips portrayed her as a
freelance writer or
columnist for a newspaper.
Although references to her job crop up occasionally, they became more and more rare over the years until the point where she nearly appears to be a stay-at-home mother. Her children still turn to her (but rarely) for help on their papers and English homework.
|
A harried Andrea "Andy" Fox |
Andy is most often the
straight man to her family's antics but her efforts to control them are a source of humor in and of themselves. She makes them eat "seemingly-inedible" health-food (including
lima bean cobbler,
tofu curry, and beetloaf) which she either doesn't know or doesn't care that they can't stand. She often nags Peter and Paige's bad habits of procrastination on their homework and their lack of respect for Shakespeare. A proud member of M.A.G.G. (Mothers Against Gory Games), she confiscates Jason and Peter's violent video games and has once been offended that
Donkey Kong does not wear pants. She refuses to "waste" money on heating and keeps the thermostat so low that it freezes
soft drinks,
milk,
hot chocolate, electronic devices, steam rising from a cup of coffee, and
oxygen. She is extremely competitive with her own mother, who is less strict, great at gift-giving, and one of the world's greatest cooks, so is therefore much better liked by Andy's family.
Ironically, Andy has little restraint when it comes to herself. She scarfs down Halloween candy and Christmas cookies and has become obsessed with Bitty (
Beanie) Babies
, the film
Titanic , the game
Nintendogs, and many other things. She procrastinates almost as badly as her children, playing
Myst and
Tetris and watching
soap operas when she should be writing her newspaper column.
Peter
Peter Fox is Andy and Roger's oldest child, a 16-year-old
high school junior. He almost always wears a blue and white (wearing a different for school baseball)
baseball cap with the letter
A on it (a possible reference to Amend's alma mater,
Amherst College; the baseball team the Atlanta Braves; or simply the author's last name) a grey
sweatshirt, and
blue jeans. During the summer, he often works at a
movie theatre, where he cleans the bathrooms, collects tickets, wears movie supporting costumes, and has spent his entire paycheck on food from the
concession stand.
|
Peter Fox, with his famous hat |
Peter fantasizes about being a
football/
baseball/
basketball star and about being the lead
guitarist in a
rock band like his idol,
Bruce Springsteen. However, he is bad at both sports
and music
, getting cut from the team or made a bench warmer and tormenting his family with his horrible guitar-playing. Like his father, he is oblivious to his incompetence, believing that his coach's insults are only jokes and brushing off his family's attempts to stop him from playing his guitar. Peter has a entirely insatible appetite and a extremely high metabolism like
Jughead in the
Archie comics. He eats constantly and drinks special milkshakes in a failed effort to gain weight(usually in an effort to look more attractive at pools and water parks)
. He once succeeded to gain weight when the pizza parlor had an all-you-can-eat campaign which he spent the entire night scarfing down 1,000 pizzas until dawn and left being very obese, celebrating his victory in gaining weight. However, he lost all the weight he gained in only a few days and moped about it for a time. His father and mother, who are always trying to lose weight, are envious of him, and Andy is frustrated that he eats food she spent hours cooking in only seconds. Other recurring gags include Peter's frighteningly bad driving and his ongoing dandruff problem.
Peter can be callous. He once tricked Paige into thinking she had a secret admirer and could not understand why she was so hurt when she found out it was a joke.
However, he can also take things deeply to heart, as evidenced by his emotion upon seeing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in
Washington, DC. In very early strips, he was unpopular with girls but late in the strip's first year he met and began dating
Denise, who happens to be blind. He is a loving and attentive boyfriend, writing her mushy Valentine's Day poems and once sacrificing his own grade on a test to help her study. He briefly broke up with her because he thought it was unhealthy for them to date only one person during high-school, but was talked out of it by Andy and, after much groveling, Denise accepted him back.
Paige
Paige Fox is Andy and Roger's middle child, a 14-year-old who recently became a high-school freshman. She is always portrayed with her hair in a pony-tail, although other characters sometimes suggest she change her hair-style or claim she has changed it.
|
Paige Fox, doing something she doesn't normally do |
Paige is a poor student and prefers shopping and chasing after boys with her friend Nicole to studying. She once borrowed a copy of "Great Expectations" from her mother to smash a spider with, rather than use and potentially damage the copy of
Cosmo Girl she was reading. When she found out during a trip to Washington D.C. that the
National Mall was not a shopping center, she sobbed. During her frequent naps, she normally dreams about a dashing
Frenchman named Pierre but in real life has only succeeded in attracting the class geek, Morton Goldthwait, whom she spends much of her time avoiding. She has tried learning to cook to attract boys but the food she makes is inedible(with often illogical substitutions) and the process of cooking it fills the house with smoke.
During
Thanksgiving, Roger found his mouth glued shut after sampling some of Paige's pumpkin pie.
Another time, when she couldn't find baking soda, she substituted Diet Pepsi instead.
Because Paige naps in class and procrastinates almost as much as Peter does, she sometimes hires Jason to tutor her and help her with her homework (especially in
geometry). However, Jason often gives her incorrect, "joke" answers, such as telling her that
Shakespeare's first name was "Chet". Paige is often scared of Jason's pet iguana, Quincy.
Yet, on one occasion, she appears to only fear Quincy when Jason is around to be blamed. She yells at and usually hits Jason for bringing Quincy near her, but seems not to mind Quincy when Jason is gone.
Jason
Jason Fox is Andy and Roger's youngest child, a 10-year old fifth grader.
He is the smartest person in the family, and is often required to help Roger with his taxes and work assignments and Paige with her homework. He is particularly gifted with computers, having created his own operating system, repeatedly hacked into government computers, made a video game dubbed "0.000005 Life" to only operate on his iFruit computer, and once brought down the entire internet with his "Darth Jason" computer virus
. He has an A++++ average in school but aggravates the teacher with his overly complicated answers
and is frequently in trouble for disrupting class.
|
Jason Fox, using the iFruit |
Despite his intelligence, Jason is often unrealistic. He thinks that the
X-Files is a documentary and entertains many outrageous and unsuccessful money-making schemes
. He has developed plans for a dinosaur-themed
hotel in
Las Vegas, a skyscraper
comic book shop, and a
Star Wars-themed amusement park complete with life-sized
Death Star ride and tried to sell his mother a photocopied sketch of his own comicbook super-hero, Slugman, for over a hundred dollars. He seems to believe that his parents can afford to give him thousands of dollars if he only begs them enough. Appropriately for a child his age, he believes that
Santa is real.
Jason spends much of his time tormenting his family. He frightens Paige with his iguana
, and plays numerous tricks on her of every sort, tampers with Roger's food, and tricks Peter into taking unpleasant food related bets. Jason's other hobbies include playing
video and
computer games such as
Doomathon and
World of Warquest, and making websites about and dressing up to attend
The Lord of the Rings,
The X-Files,
Star Wars,
Star Trek, and super-hero movies. In one strip, he says that he likes
Wikipedia, posting a picture of Paige under the
warthog and
rabies articles, a feat which fans of the strip imitated. Unlike his father and brother, Jason has no interest in sports and, despite their efforts, misunderstands basic sports concepts
(although he does play football with Peter from time to time).
Jason is best friends with Marcus Jones. Although Jason claims to hate girls (and apparently still believes in cooties), he has a crush on
Eileen Jacobson.
Jason has competed with both Marcus and Eileen for good grades but lost both times because of his overconfidence (although he usually gets better grades than either of them, which is perhaps where his overconfidence comes from). He acts queasy when he sees Eileen Jacobson and hacks into government computers to delete records of his calls to her to keep it a secret he likes her. In Warquest, Eileen tricked him into playing with her by disguising herself as a high-level male knight. Jason nearly had a heart attack when he found out about this ploy. He has gone on dates with her, however, without really realizing what they were. He has gone to an ice cream parlor with her once, held hands at the ice rink, and once admitted he liked her, leaving himself for two weeks of trying to cover it up, hurting her feelings,and then trying to get her to like him again.
Quincy
|
Quincy, in a rare moment of rest |
Quincy is Jason's pet
iguana. Unlike most comic strip animals, Quincy is not usually
anthropomorphic. He enjoys chewing up Paige's things (her clothes, her Backsync Boys photo, and even her ponytail) and vomiting on the carpets and furniture. He is afraid of cats, even small kittens. He owns an Iguana Ball which he got for a present but often ends up either falling down the stairs
, or getting kicked by Paige, who knows how to play soccer. He once choked on Paige's shoelace, saved by Paige.
Supporting characters
Other recurring characters
Steve Riley is Peter's best friend from high school. He owns several electric guitars and an amp set that Peter sometimes borrows, much to Roger and Andy's dismay. In addition to sharing Peter's passion for
microwave burritos (especially in the wee hours of the morning), Steve also has a job at Luigi's, the local pizza parlor.
Denise Russo is Peter's
girlfriend. Denise's parents have been heard to speak, but have never been shown on Peter's visits to Denise's house. Denise is clearly the one in control of the relationship, and knows exactly how to get what she wants from Peter, whether it's just for him to put his arm around her or to take her out to dinner at
La Maison Rouge, the most expensive restaurant in town.
Despite her sometimes manipulative nature, she seems to genuinely like Peter. Peter attempted to break up with her once in late 1989 so he could see other girls and "gain experience in the field of dating," but his attempt ended in failure when he discovered he missed her. Denise is blind, which is an occasional source of humour or more serious storylines in the strip. Peter once punched one of his classmates for joking that all his dates with Denise were "blind dates."
On Denise's first date with Peter, she asked to "read" his face with her hands, explaining that it was "like reading Braille, in a way." When Peter asked what it said, she replied, "
R...O...B...E...R...T...R...E...D...F...O...R...D.".
Jason has occasionally claimed to be Peter while speaking to her on the phone or in person, but has never managed to fool her.
Nicole is Paige's best friend, also fashion-obsessed but somewhat more level-headed than Paige. She seems to have better luck with boys than Paige (which doesn't say much), which has caused problems in their relationship a few times (such as when Nicole was the only one of the two to find a prom date).
is a perfect
French lover who only appears in Paige's
daydreams.
Usually his appearance occurs at the same time Jason does something she would freak out at. For example, if Paige is dreaming of
kissing Pierre, in actuality it might be Jason holding Quincy up to her lips. Usually, all Paige says to Pierre's antics is "Ooo, Pierre!" Pierre fans should look to pages 187-192 of
Enormously FoxTrot; there is a special collection of Paige and Pierre art panels. However, Pierre has not made a new appearance since the strip of July 5, 1998.
Marcus Jones is Jason's best friend, with whom often he emulates
science fiction, usually
Star Trek, and bothers Paige (though he does not bother her as much as Jason does)
. He is the non-family character that appears the most in the strip, and the only African-American character. He also enjoys video games, and he plays
Dungeons and Dragons (and Houses and Humans) with Jason on occasion. Like Jason, Marcus enjoys school and TV, dislikes being outside and doesn't seem to like girls, but his dislike of girls isn't as strong as Jason's. Marcus has four sisters (Doreen, Lisa, Lana, Cybil). His mother is a
nurse, and his father is a scientist of some sort but except for Marcus himself, they are all
unseen characters.
Eileen Jacobson is sometimes Jason's
nemesis, sometimes semi-friend, whom he doesn't want to admit he secretly likes. A
Harry Potter fan (a character Jason is loath to admit he's also a fan of), Eileen did not appear in the comic until 1995, when she got a higher grade than Jason on a math test (they got a 104 and a 102, respectively), and ended up going out for
ice cream with him. Eileen also showed up when Jason and Marcus went to
summer camp. She has made quite a few appearances since and Jason eventually admitted he liked her. However, Jason's constant insistence on hiding their relationship began to annoy Eileen, and as a result, she became angry at Jason and they decided to stop being a couple. It seems she still has feelings for Jason, though, since she has tricked Jason into spending time with her in exchange for something Jason wants (for example, the time Eileen made Jason be her partner on a field trip to the science museum in exchange for a holo-foil
Charizard Pokémon card; or when she had him go ice skating with her). After Marcus gave her his
World of Warquest screenname, she helped Jason out in the game and finally let out that she was a girl, and later admitted the whole story, all through the game. Jason acts "queasy" when he sees her and hacks government computers to delete the record of his calls to her to keep it secret that he likes her.
Morton Goldthwait is the "biggest
geek in school", according to Paige. Apparently, the entire science department calls him "Sir".
He has a
crush on Paige and hasn't given up, despite what she thinks of him, even inviting her to a
Halloween party at his house one year. He took the
SATs as a freshman and was mad that he got a 1590 (one raw score below perfect at the time the strip ran)
. He was also a
counselor at Camp Bohrmore over the summer, and ruled his cabin with an iron fist. Jason and Marcus both had the misfortune of being assigned to Goldthwait's cabin when they went to Camp Bohrmore. Until he learned of Morton's crush on Paige, Jason had planned to set Morton up on a date with Paige as revenge.
Miss O'Malley has been the
teacher of Jason's and Marcus' class since 1991. She was the replacement for Jason and Marcus' former teacher, Ms. Grinchley. Considerably younger and more "on the ball" than Ms. Grinchley, she appears to have a marginally better handle on Jason as well, much to his dismay. Of course, this seems to encourage Jason to try even harder to get under her skin.
Sometimes Jason succeeds (as when, since he wasn't sure which math chapter Miss O'Malley had assigned for homework, he proceeded to do a problem set from every math and science textbook he could find), and sometimes he fails (as when he brought Quincy in for show-and-tell, thinking Quincy would frighten Miss O'Malley, and she instead thought he was cute).
Katherine "Katie" O'Dell: Katie is the toddler daughter of the eccentric Mrs. O'Dell, for whom Paige often babysits. She is portrayed as being a typical hyperactive toddler who makes a fuss and spits her food out (all over Paige's face) when she is fed, and who is obsessed with "
Blue's Clues."
The little girl has turned out to be too much for Paige to handle on many occasions. Once, Katie overheard an expletive uttered on the "Jerzy Spaniel" (a takeoff on "
Jerry Springer", the only time it was nicknamed) talk show while Paige was watching, and proceeded to say the offending word over and over, causing Paige to swear in front of Katie. Katie begins to repeat both words and Paige manages to get into major trouble with Mrs. O'Dell (she was only paid a penny for that babysitting session)
. On another occasion, Katie chopped up her pretty new dress with a pair of scissors while Paige was napping, and Paige ended up having to buy Katie a new dress with her own babysitting pay.
She is one of the few characters that has actually aged in the strip.
J. P. Pembrook is the
CEO of Roger's company. – He relies on Roger to do his million-dollar deals because of his past successes. Unbeknownst to him – they are done by a ten-year-old (Jason). We
never see his face, only his hands; given his ruthless personality, that may be a good thing. He has won the Iron Fist Award and the Golden Gallows Award, according to trophies seldom seen on his desk. His first two initials seem to be a nod towards
financier J. P. Morgan. He has a son, J.P. Junior, whom Roger once entertained by dressing up as a
clown.
is a coworker of Roger's. Fred often plays
golf with him (and always wins), and Roger apparently considers Fred to be well informed about all things popular.
Other infrequent recurring characters
Grandma: Andy's mother, whom everybody loves and calls perfect, especially in comparison to Andy herself. Needless to say, this doesn't make Andy herself feel very good, and their feud has been going on since Andy was in seventh grade (when Andy would be scolded by her mother in front of her friends, and her friends took her mother's side). Grandma's real name is not known (since she is Andy's mother, her last name wouldn't be Fox, but rather Andy's maiden name). The two appeared to have made peace on their first meeting, but affairs have relapsed since then.
Phoebe Wu: A friend of Eileen. They met at Camp Bohrmore in 1997. She kept a
journal for her time at camp, even saving samples of the
food there. Although initially bitter rivals with Jason and Marcus, the four eventually formed an "Ultra-Secret Friendship Club" while at camp, something the two boys have had varying cause to regret since then.
Eugene Wu: Phoebe's arrogant and egotistical brother. His friends call him
The Brain - or at least, they
would, if he had any friends. He once arrived in Jason and Marcus's neighborhood along with his sister Phoebe and succeeded in breaking Jason, Marcus, Eileen, and Phoebe's friendship club by stealing Phoebe's camp journal and planting clues incriminating various members of the club. It is implied that an IQ test showed that Phoebe is technically smarter than Eugene, and as a result Eugene struggles to prove that he is not inferior to his sister (according to him, this is because of the
margin of error on the test).
Miss Rockbottom: Paige's gym teacher. Paige once called her a "power-hungry
neo-Nazi fascist tub of
lard," but believes she took it as a compliment.
: Paige's biology teacher, who has come to rely on her lab reports as a source of weekend entertainment. It was suggested that he and the other teachers make less than minimum wage.
Hawkins: A camper at
Camp Bohrmore when Jason attended one summer. He is apparently a genius
hacker and has a 50-digit-long encryption code. Jason once got one of his (apparently wide-spread) viruses. One of his many aliases on the internet is the "Night Ninja"
Mr. Martini/Mr. Rawthroat: The
principal of Jason and Marcus' school. He is seen very infrequently, typically when Jason is in trouble. Jason did see Mr. Martini voluntarily one time to ask what happened to his comic strip that was going to appear in the school
newspaper.
Fauntleroy: A
bull terrier Peter had to baby sit a few occasions. Although Fauntleroy is tiny, Peter always gets numerous bites & scratches. Peter always refers to the dog as a 'canine
piranha'. However, Peter never figured that the dog was merely reacting to the smell of soap he had been using earlier (
all-natural beef tallow) and therefore continued to think Fauntleroy only thought of him as a human
pin cushion.
Slug Man and Leech Boy are
comic book characters created by Jason in a
Batman parody. Slug Man and Leech Boy are almost always fighting their arch-enemy,
Paige-O-Tron, the most evil robot in the universe (although they once were said to have had an "epic battle with Gargantutron [a monstrous cookie] last summer"). Jason has tried to sell Slug Man and Leech Boy merchandise several times. He has also made Slug Man
wall calendars and once
wallpapered his room with Slug Man comics. There is an entire Slug Man comic (The Adventures of Slug Man: "The Final Confrontation III") at the end of the
FoxTrot en masse anthology, which also features a fake
advertisement for Slug Man products, all made by Jason. Bill Amend has a Slug Man computer game, based on
Joust, available on his Web site (see External Links, below).
Characters who no longer appear in the strip
Linda Downer: Peter's unrequited
crush before he met Denise, has not appeared since 1988. Apparently a friend of Paige.
: A small winged demon who once showed up to torment Paige during her geometry homework. Paige quickly took care of him by smashing him between the pages of her book.
: Jason and Marcus' teacher before Miss O'Malley.
Despite her name, she does not seem reminiscent of
the Grinch. It is implied that she used to "go bonkers" in response to Jason's antics in class (which, of course, encouraged Jason to misbehave even more). Miss O'Malley replaced Miss Grinchley after she retired in 1991.
Chris Morrissey: A senior student who took Paige to the
prom in 1989, despite Peter's objections. Chris is a male chauvinist, as shown by his sexual harassment towards Paige at the dance and when he's driving her home. Chris ended his behaivour after Paige used a threat of spraying
mace.
: A partying senior. Mitch had a party at his house in 1989 that Paige and Nicole attended. He tried to get Paige to get stoned with a
bong, do lines (of
cocaine), and go to bed with him, but Paige turned him down ("Mitch, I'd rather sleep with a dead sewer
rat than you."), eventually having to punch him in the nose.
: The janitor at Jason's school. He had to help Jason clean up his desk after drawing a Slug-Man cartoon on it, but before they cleaned it, Jason had Larry help him photocopy the cartoon.
Skip Riley: Roger's summer intern in 1990, the ultimate
sycophant, who even called Roger his "light and inspiration", before jumping ship to become an intern for Charles Diggs, the head of Roger's department. The amount of time Roger and Skip spent together made Peter intensely jealous, but Roger didn't realize until after Skip had left him how much he'd hurt Peter's feelings.
Mr. Krimpshaw: The vice principal of the high school that Peter and Paige attend. He showed up one time when Peter punched Mike Barnes' nose to bleeding (in response to Mike teasing Peter about Denise's blindness). He scared the tar out of Peter by telling him that part of the punishment for his violent action would entail Krimpshaw calling Peter's parents.
: The titular characters of a comic strip that Jason did for his school newspaper in 1992, with the intent of making merchandising profit off of it. They were never actually seen, but Jason has revealed that they were secretly
vampires. Unfortunately for Jason,
censorship prevented the strip from running.
Mindy: A girl in Peter's English class who wanted to go to the school's holiday formal in December
1993, seeing how Denise was going to visit her grandmother. Peter, having already paid for his tux, limo, and dinner reservations, was torn between taking Mindy out and not hurting Denise's feelings. In the end, Mindy ended up falling in love with Steve.
: Miss O'Malley's unseen boa constrictor, whom Jason wrote a Valentine for in
1994. Andy stumbled upon Jason's Valentine for her and thought Gretchen was a girl in Jason's school. Upon finding out that Gretchen was a snake, Andy told Jason that she thought Gretchen was a human girl, to which Jason replied, "EEW! GROSS! ICK! What kind of a weirdo do you think I am?!"
: A boy in Paige's biology class who took her to the school dance in 1994. It took him a long while to ask her because he is too shy. Nevertheless, he is perhaps Paige's only successful date.
: Paige received a Tamagrouchy from her father in August 1997. It is similar to a
Tamagotchi which requires feeding and care, except that it is has a grouchy personality. It frequently insults Paige and actually has conversations with people, which is much more advanced than a normal Tamagotchi. It has extremely complicated instructions (to give it a glass of water, you must press buttons A and C together, then hold button B for three seconds, then tap button C twice, then press button A, then button C, then press button B, then do the whole process backward). When Paige threatened to neglect it and let it die, it claimed that unlike Tamagotchis, Tamagrouchys become
immortal if neglected. Paige eventually was so annoyed by the toy that she gave the Tamagrouchy to Jason to reprogram, with somewhat disastrous results for Paige.
Mrs. DeFalco: Mrs. DeFalco only appears in one 1999 strip where Jason and Marcus are looking at the candy that everybody is buying for halloween so they know where to trick or treat. Jason says to Marcus, "Looks like Mrs. DeFalco is loading up on mini snickers and smarties."
The Fox Family home is located at 1254 North Elm Street, with the specific city a mystery, as characters always refer to their home as "
Suburbia." Older comics suggest the family lives in
Kansas City,
Missouri, as Peter and Roger are big
Chiefs fans (now any desired team). However, newer comics suggest the family lives nearby
Chicago, as Roger uses that airport for business trips, and Andy was given
Chicago Bulls tickets as a gift once. Andy also went to
Lollapalooza with Paige during her mid-life crisis in the early 90's. Some fans have suggested that the Foxes live in Hillsdale, Illinois (a suburb of the
Quad Cities) or Hillsdale,
New Jersey, as an early strip shows Paige and Andy shopping at a certain Hillsdale Shopping Center (the Hillsdale theory is supported by the fact that the high school sports teams have an "H" somewhere on their uniforms). However, when Bill Amend was asked about it, he said:
"I've never established a town name for where they live. The mall sign was meant as an homage to the Hillsdale Mall in
San Mateo,
CA, where I used to shop as a teenager."
Uncle Ralph's Cabin is a typical camping spot for the Fox family.
The location of the cabin is never explicitly stated in the comics, even relative to where the Foxes live. However, one could assume it is fairly isolated, because the family seems to have a long drive and one time when Roger locked his keys in the car, Paige worried they would be stuck forever since they couldn't contact anyone.
Fun-Fun Mountain is an
amusement park.
It almost seems to be a parody of
Disneyland (obviously, "mountain" is to "universe" as "land" is to "world", so this is probably a parody of the smaller of the two American Disney resorts, and Fun Fun Universe is of the bigger). There is a Hall of Vice Presidents exhibit (similar to the Hall of Presidents), and a sign in the park labels a mosquito the "Mickey
Mosquito". There are roller coasters, including the Drop-O-Death, a log ride, whirling coffee cups, and a fun house. The food is extremely expensive. For example, Andy bought a snow cone for $20.00.
Fun-Fun Universe is another amusement park that seems to be a parody of a real one, and in this case it is the
Walt Disney World Resort. There is a hotel that is connected to the actual amusement park by
unirail, a glass-bottomed boat, and a "sky-tube." The rides mentioned include a log ride and several
roller coasters.
It has also at one time have thought to have been a parody of name
Worlds of Fun, an amusement park located in Missouri. However, this was denied by Bill Amend, who said he had no idea there was a place with such a name.
A very important roller coaster in Fun-Fun Universe is the
Voodoo Mountain Bobsled Ride. The ride is supposedly closed down every morning, but only for show. That way, riders will be "scared to death not only by the ride, but by the dread that the thing wasn't built very well." Peter believes this theory, assuming that what looks to be a worker welding the track is animatronic. Like
Fun-Fun Mountain, the food for sale at the park is very expensive. Roger's Chili Fun-Fun Burger and fries cost him $41.00.
The Fox family once went on a two-week camping trip to
Cactus Flats, a desert community in
Arizona. According to a pamphlet, Cactus Flats was the home of the Muckatoo
Indian tribe until the whole tribe died of
heat stroke. The desert is also home to various
snakes (including
rattlesnakes),
lizards,
scorpions,
spiders such as
tarantulas and
black widows, and
mountain lions as well as
mosquitos.
On another one of the family's camping trips, the Fox's camped at
Skeeter Falls. According to Roger, Skeeter Falls is an eight-hour drive from their house. It is 100 miles (160 km) away from the nearest city and the grounds are 400,000 acres (1600 km²) large. The falls gets their name from the
mosquitoes that live there. Skeeter Falls has the most mosquitoes per unit area of any place in the world during August. There is also a
geyser that erupts every 24 hours, at 3:38 am, as well as rivers, mountains, and "200-foot" (60 m) trees.
Camp Bohrmore is an eight week co-ed summer science camp. The camp contains waterfalls, hiking trails, a
redwood grove, a
T-1 line in every cabin, computers,
lasers, and a
paleontology lab. This is also where Jason and Marcus met
Phoebe and
Eugene Wu.
Morton Goldthwait served as camp counselor to Epsilon cabin which included Jason, Marcus, Hawkins, and Eugene. At camp, Eileen and Phoebe would often play tricks on Marcus and Jason, such as luring them into poison-ivy infested fields, putting snails in their bedsheets, and putting pepper in their pudding cups. However, at the end of camp, they made a
truce with Eileen and Phoebe, and eventually joined their friendship club.
Boonhurst is a small town, location unknown. Roger once went there to finish a business deal on orders from Pembrook. It is evidently a less-developed city, as Roger asked Pembrook if they had finished paving the runway yet. When Roger missed his flight to Boonhurst, he was forced to go through several connections; from Chicago to
Dallas to Los Angeles to Atlanta to Portland to Denver to
Charlotte to Boonhurst.
Boonhurst is likely a reference to the town of
Bentonville,
Arkansas, headquarters of
Wal-Mart.
The Isles of Fun-Fun Caribbeanny Resort is an artificial
Caribbean resort, probably a parody of the real-life Caribbean Beach Resort in Walt Disney World, utilizing reproduced island life with "state-of the-art
water park technology." The resort has special Caribbean-themed rooms, such as the
Limbo Suite, which features a low ceiling, and
Calypso music in the elevators. There are many Caribbean-esque activities as well, such as
snorkeling, body boarding,
voodoo doll
puppetry, and
steel drum lessons. In fact, the resort even schedules fake
hurricanes from time to time.
However, many aspects of the resort are fake (hence the word "Caribbean
ny"). The ocean is just a big pool (complete with
chlorine) with walls painted to resemble the ocean, and the steel drum music at the beach consists of a staff person playing the synthesizer.
Popular culture
In addition to typical "family" humor, the strip has many stories built around
fandom, nerdiness and popular culture. The characters (especially Andy and Jason) frequently have new obsessions or interests which reflect the time period at which the strip was published. Andy, for example, has had obsessions with collecting "Bitty Babies" (
Beanie Babies, later), the movie
Titanic, the
Nintendo DS game
Nintendogs, and her Mango-Kiwi-colored
iFruit computer
in the past.
Similarly, Jason, as a stereotypical nerd, loves and frequently quotes
Star Wars,
Star Trek,
Spider-Man, the
X-Files,
The Lord of the Rings and has tried to make 'remakes' of four popular movies,
The Blair Witch Project,
Jurassic Park,
Finding Nemo and
King Kong. He has also attempted to make an improved version of the popular computer games
Half-Life and
Myst, a competitor to Microsoft Operating System
Windows 98, and sent in suggestions to Lucasfilm to digitally insert him into the Star Wars
Special Edition Trilogy. He has also created a "Darth Jason" computer virus, as a product for his "Jasonzonbayhoodotcom" internet stock binge. The news network
CNN is also mentioned in the strip, only rarely.
Scientific references
Amend majored in
physics at
Amherst College, and this is reflected in
FoxTrot's frequent inclusion of complex
mathematical or
physics formulae, usually written by Jason Fox. The formulae are correct, though oddly flavored; Jason often uses them to describe bizarre situations, or, more rarely, they are school assignments for Peter Fox. Amend also uses Jason to express his knowledge of computer languages in much the same way that he uses physics formulae (once Roger asked for a cup of
java to start his day and Jason gave him several pages of
code). Both these elements add a layer of superfluous complexity to the strip, and juxtaposed with the odd circumstances in which they appear, give
FoxTrot a uniquely surreal air.
Passage of time
Similarly to most comic strips, the characters do not age. For example, an early 1990 storyline involves Paige making an effort to go from being a "child of the 80's" to a "woman of the 90's". As she is still 14, she now would have been born by 1991 or 1992.
There was an in-joke on this subject in a strip published shortly after the
September 11, 2001 attacks, in which Andy told Jason that Roger had donated blood even though he was scared of needles because "We all have to grow up, kiddo." Jason replied, "Whoa, did I stumble into '
For Better or For Worse'?", referring to a comic where the characters actually do grow up.
The comic strips change along with the seasons; the kids go back to school in September, the family celebrates important holidays on their respective dates, and one will find the characters tanning themselves or throwing water balloons during the summer.
In the earlier strips, the family would only live in the present-tense: that is, the family would only refer to the present " or, as in the case of a storyline, the very near future " but never past events (save for once when Jason remarked "you're still mad about the car, aren't you?," which referred to an earlier time when he inadvertently wrecked the car playing "
Mad Max"). However, more recent storylines have broken this "rule", most notably when referring to Jason's summer at Camp Bohrmore. In cases where the past must be referenced it's always "last year", even if the referenced storyline happened more than a year ago.
Parodies and subtleties
Cartoonists and Comics
If one observes closely, one will notice that in any scene where a character is reading a
newspaper, there are headlines that say things such as "Cartoonist Delivers Triplets in
Elevator" or "Cartoonist to join
NASCAR," or "Cartoonist to direct
Jurassic Park II." This is usually accompanied by a caricature of
Bill Amend himself. There are also times where one can see a Calvin and Hobbes comic on the back of the newspaper.
In scenes with large crowds, Calvin from
Calvin and Hobbes can often be seen in the background.
In some scenes, characters from various comics can be seen in the background. On one occasion, pictures of
Cathy,
Dilbert, and
Calvin and Hobbes were seen as pictures above a staircase, or on a picture frame; sometimes, they are even shown for what they really are, as comics in the newspaper. In one comic, Jason and Marcus are shown in a store called "Calvin's Hobbies", an obvious reference to
Calvin and Hobbes.
On another occasion, Peter is shown wearing a
Calvin and Hobbes T-Shirt, at a time when
Bill Watterson was having licensing conflicts with his publisher.
Jason sometimes attempts to send other cartoonists his ideas for their
comic strips, often pitching his ideas to Peter. When
Aaron McGruder went on sabbatical from
The Boondocks, Jason wanted to fill in for him. Peter pointed out that Jason knew nothing about black culture, and could not write political commentary without offending some readers. He also became frustrated at other cartoonists taking vacations without using his submissions, specifically
Cathy,
The Family Circus,
Pearls Before Swine,
Zits,
For Better or For Worse, and
Garfield. However, almost all of his strips are simply some way of insulting Paige, with the exception of his
Garfield submission, which he edited to insult Peter when he criticized him for insulting Paige. Often, one panel of each strip would show Jason's depiction of the strip in question.
In addition, in many older strips, the characters of Foxtrot can be seen reading "Luther and Locke" comic strips, a reference to the naming scheme used by Bill Waterson for
Calvin and Hobbes (Luther and Calvin were both religious figures, and Hobbes and Locke were both philosophers.)
Another occasion, Jason had built a
snowman with a
cannonball shot through him. (In Calvin & Hobbes, Calvin often builds snowmen going through painful moments like being eaten or buried.) There are two other snowmen, depicting Calvin & Hobbes, building more snowmen. Jason says, "This way it's an homage, not a ripoff."Also, in a few strips, Andy gets obsessed with Dilbert, saying his success is because it's a 3-panel.
The comic also features references to
The Far Side, such as that the family drinks "
Larson Farms" milk, whose logo is one of Larson's famous
cows.
Theaters
In the
cinema where Peter works you can also often see names such as
Trek Wars.
Other signs on walls have been seen to change message between panels. For example, in the first panel of a
cafeteria scene, a paper sign in the background reads, "No food fights!" In the next panel, it reads, "Really!" In the last panel, it reads "We mean it!" The week
Garfield: The Movie came out, Peter dressed up as
Garfield to promote the movie. Often signs in the theater are edited to have a humorous effect (such as "
Mission Impossible 2: The Comic Strip Deadline").
Foods
Many products seen in the strip have altered names, such as "Chips McCoy" (
Chips Ahoy!)
, "Brucy Juice" (
Juicy Juice), "Roughels" (
Ruffles)
, "Toridos" (
Doritos,
Tostitos)
, "Tofu Helper" (
Hamburger Helper), "Cap'n
Sucrose" (
Cap'n Crunch)
, "Fax Mactor" (
Max Factor)
, The "Humbler" (
Hummer), "Coffeebucks" (
Starbucks)
, and "Arper Shimage" (
Sharper Image). The Foxes often get their pizza from "Dominics'" (
Domino's Pizza, in which a few comics call it its real name) or "Luigi's" (
Mario's Pizza)
. In one strip, Peter is eating from a bag of "
Bugles," but in the next panel, the bag changes to "
Trumpets," and in the last panel, the bag reads "
Flugelhorns."
The
fast-food restaurant that the Foxes occasionally patronize has two
M's back-to-back,
parodying the
McDonald's logo. Roger is not allowed to go to "Costclub" (
Costco,
Price Club,
Sam's Club) by himself, because he always buys way too much there.
Magazines
Most of the magazines shown in the comic strip are parodies of real magazines or magazine genres. For example "Fourteen" magazine (
Seventeen)
, "Thyme" (
Time)
, "Guy's Life" (
Boys' Life), "
Chick" (except with a baby bird on the cover), and (at least for a while) "Illustrated Sports" (
Sports Illustrated)
, or, most recently "Vōg" ("
Vogue"). Paige is often seen reading copies of
Self with a photograph of Paige on the cover.
Games
Many video games in the comic strip are combinations of two different names. Examples include
Doomathon (a combination of
first-person shooter games
Marathon and
Doom),
Duke Quakem (a combination of
Quake and
Duke Nukem),
Grand Zombie Auto 3 (
Grand Theft Auto and Zombie Rally 3),
Iron Mysticus (
Iron Helix,
Myst, and
Lunicus), "Blizzardbund" (
Blizzard Entertainment,
Broderbund), "World of Warquest" (
World of Warcraft and
EverQuest) (in fact one weapon Jason found in the comic was made into a real item on World of Warcraft, the Doomulus Prime), and "Zeldakong" (
The Legend of Zelda and
Donkey Kong). The same occurs with Jason's video game systems, his Jupiter-64 Gamestation (a combination of the
Sega Saturn, the
Nintendo 64, and the
Sony PlayStation) and GameStation 2 (a combination of
PlayStation 2 and
GameCube). Note: The controller of the Gamestation 2 still resembles that of a
Nintendo 64. (Ironically, earlier strips had Jason playing the actual
Nintendo Entertainment System and
Super NES systems, with some games having altered names such as
Mortal Karnage,
Primal Instinct, and
Super Earthworm Mario Country 3, while other games had their real names featured in the strip, such as the
Super Mario Bros. series and
Myst. Other examples of real names used in the strip are the
Nintendo DS, its game
Nintendogs, the
Diablo series, and
Star Wars Battlefront).
Andy has also joined the organization MAGG (Mothers Against Gory Games), not so much out of concern for the level of violence in the games Jason and Peter played but to make sure they stopped altogether. The list of video games approved by MAGG included such titles as "Nice City," "Pacifist-Man," "Ms. Pacifist-Man," "Eternal Lightness," and "Resident Good" (takeoffs of, respectively, "
Vice City," "
Pac-Man," "
Ms. Pac-Man," "
Eternal Darkness," and "
Resident Evil").
Bands
Occasionally Paige talks about a band she adores called "The BackSync Boys," which is a combination of the boy bands
Backstreet Boys and
N'Sync. Paige once got an autographed picture of The BackSync Boys. Andy said that she would take care of the picture; however, Quincy slipped out of his cage and ate the photo. Paige made her mother do her bidding until she got 20 copies from the mail, the BackSync Boys not keeping track of whom they sent autographed photos to (Paige sent an abundance of letters to them). The strip also usually mentioned both bands as a whole. Another strip shows a poster in her room of a band named "Henson" (
Hanson and
the Muppets--via
Jim Henson), portraying three long-haired teen-age Muppet style boys. Peter also occasionally listens to Bruce Springsteen, Metallica, and Guns 'n' Roses.
Other subtleties
The first one of these 'subtleties' to appear was a
clothes dryer which had the
brand name "Dry Queen 1000" on it. There is also a partial view of a bottle of
bleach, and readers can see "OX" on the label, suggesting the product is
Clorox. The first subtlety to be shown in a color Sunday strip appeared
April 12,
1988 in the "
throwaway panel" identifying the strip. It shows Jason eating "Honey Skulls" (
Honeycomb) cereal.
Peter's posters in his room also are often edited to read things like "Baywitch", taken from the television show
Bewitched and
Baywatch (almost all of Peter's posters are a parody of
Baywatch).
Also, in one early Sunday strip, the strip appears to break through the
fourth wall, because on the back of the newspaper Roger is reading, the first 2 panels of that same strip can clearly be made out.
The first computer to appear in the FoxTrot strip was an old Apple II used mostly by Jason to play "Star Trek" video games. By 1991, Andy bought a new computer which although not specifically named, was probably a
Mac Classic II from the design and the time. The next computer "upgrade" is silent; there are no strips referring to the family buying a new computer. It is probably a
Power Mac of some sort, modular, with a CPU and a monitor, and is "three years old" by the time the family opts for a new one. Again, this computer is not named, but many strips refer to it as an Apple computer. (Bill Amend is a vocal fan of Apple computers.)
The iFruitThe Fox family's current computer is an iFruit (based on the original
Apple iMac), a computer Andy purchased in a 1999 storyline after Roger's disastrous attempt at earning a living through online trading ended with him selling the family's old computer.
Jason originally wanted a computer with a fancy new 3D chip, dual processors, and 'gobs' of
RAM, but Andy didn't listen to him so they ended up with the iFruit. The iFruit can talk, criticize
font selection and even change the wallpaper (of the room). Though initially mortal enemies with the geeky Jason due to its emphasis on ease of use, Jason grows attached to it, especially after matching color schemes (or "flavors", with the Fox family's iFruit being mango-kiwi) persuades his mother to buy all manners of peripherals, such as
scanners and CD-ROM burners.
The iFruit has also been upgraded and taken apart by Jason many times. However, the iFruit cannot handle most of the games Jason wants to play (Macintosh computers are not able to play
Windows video games, such as Half-Life 2, or Doom 3), and Jason wanted to get a Windows computer. The iFruit once beat Roger in
chess 250,000 times in a row; the one time Roger beat it, Andy was convinced to call the repair center. Evidently, it is made of bullet-proof plastic (just like the original G3 iMac on which it is based), and is durable enough that even Roger cannot damage it, although in one strip he pushed it off the desk when Andy told him that it needed "
backing up."
|
The newest FoxTrot collection, How Come I'm Always Luigi? |
For the complete list of FoxTrot books, please see List of FoxTrot books.
There have been 33 FoxTrot books published so far, all by
Andrews McMeel Publishing. Of the 33 books, 23 are collections and 10 are anthologies. The anthologies are comprised of the two or three previous collections, and include Sunday strips in color.
FoxTrot is translated into many other
languages, including
Spanish,
Portuguese and
Swedish.
FoxTrot books may be found on
Amazon.com here, and assorted items such as clocks, cards, mugs, and other items may be purchased at
Cafepress.com here.
During the late 1990s, the character of Jason Fox was licensed to
Wolfram Research as a product spokesman for its
Mathematica software package.
''Links last verified on January 24, 2006
*
Foxtrot.com*
Universal Press Syndicate FoxTrot Page*
Bill Amend's Homepage*
FoxTrot Comic Page*
Biography of Bill Amend
