The Family Circus

The Family Circus
An early strip featuring (L to R) Daddy (Bil), Dolly, Billy, Mommy (Thel), and Jeffy. A fourth child, P.J., was introduced in 1962.
Author(s)	Bil Keane Jeff Keane
Current status / schedule	Running
Launch date	February 29, 1960
Syndicate(s)	King Features Syndicate
Genre(s)	Humor, gag cartoon, Family values, Religious

The Family Circus (originally The Family Circle, also Family-Go-Round) is a syndicated comic strip created by cartoonist Bil Keane and currently written, inked, and colored by his son, Jeff Keane. The strip generally uses a single captioned panel with a round border, hence the original name of the series, which was changed following objections from the magazine Family Circle. The series debuted on February 29, 1960, and has been in continuous production ever since. According to publisher King Features Syndicate, it is the most widely syndicated cartoon panel in the world, appearing in 1,500 newspapers. Compilations of Family Circus comic strips have sold over 13 million copies worldwide.

The central characters of Family Circus are a family whose surname is rarely mentioned (although the cartoon of August 26, 2013, in which Billy refers to "Grandma Keane" and "Grandma Carne" indicates the same surnames as the author's family). The parents, Bil and Thelma (Thel), are modeled after the author and his wife, Thelma Carne Keane. Their four children, Billy, Dolly, Jeffy, and P.J., are fictionalized composites of the Keanes' five children. With the exception of P.J., no characters have aged appreciably during the run of the strip.

Bil (named Steve in the early years of the strip) works in an office, and he is believed to be a cartoonist, most likely based on the writer of the strip because he draws big circles on paper, presumably a cartoon version of the Family Circus. Some early panels referred to Bil as a veteran of World War II.

Thel is a college-educated homemaker. The Los Angeles Times ran a feature article on the Thelma character when Keane updated her hairstyle in 1996.

The oldest child is seven-year-old Billy. A recurring theme involves Billy as a substitute cartoonist, generally filling in for a Sunday strip. The strips purportedly drawn by Billy are crudely rendered and reflect his understanding of the world and sense of humor. The first use of this gag by Keane was in This Week magazine in 1962 in a cartoon titled "Life in Our House" which attributed the childish drawings to his six-year-old son, Chris. Keane also modeled Billy after his oldest son Glen, now a prominent Disney animator.