Bill the Cat

Bill the Cat
Bloom County, Outland and Opus character
First appearance	June 13, 1982
Created by	Berkeley Breathed
Portrayed by	John Byner (A Wish For Wings That Work)
Information
Species	Cat
Gender	Male
Occupation	Politician, Meadow Party
Nationality	American

Bill the Cat, or Bill D. Cat, is a fictional cat appearing in the works of cartoonist Berkeley Breathed, beginning with the comic strip Bloom County in the 1980s and continuing in Outland and Opus in the following decades. Bill also appeared in some of Breathed's illustrated children's books, including A Wish for Wings That Work, which was also made into an animated Christmas television special, and also on greeting cards and other sundry merchandise. The cat's most frequent spoken sentiments are "Ack!" and "Thppt!", unlike most other animals (and children) in Breathed's work, who not only can speak English, but have advanced vocabularies. The former is a result of his regularly choking on hairballs, the latter sound an approximation of the "raspberry".

Bill the Cat is commonly seen as a parody of Jim Davis' Garfield (Milo Bloom appears to fear a visit from United Feature Syndicate's copyright lawyers surrounding Bill's similarities to Garfield). In the December 22, 2015 Facebook version of the comic, it was revealed that Bill the Cat is actually Garfield's son. Breathed has also described Bill as his attempt to create a character so repulsive that it would have absolutely no merchandising potential. But surprisingly, Bill the Cat trinkets and figurines have sold in great quantity, and often appear in the strips.

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Wikipedia