For a visual glossary, see Meet The Actors at John Hart Studios.
Character inspiration Hart was inspired to draw cavemen (and many other creatures) through the chance suggestion of one of his coworkers at
General Electric, and took to the idea "because they are a combination of simplicity and the origin of ideas". The name for the strip "may have been suggested by my wife, Bobby," Johnny recalls. Hart describes the title character as similar to himself, playing the "patsy". The other major characters — Peter, Wiley, Clumsy Carp, Curls, and Thor — were patterned after friends and co-workers. The animal characters include
dinosaurs,
ants and an
anteater,
clams, a
snake, a
turtle and
bird duo, and an
apteryx (presented in the strip as being the sole surviving specimen, and hence self-aware of its being doomed to
extinction).
Human characters •
B.C.: An orange haired, humble, naïve slob and eternal patsy. B.C. occasionally makes nighttime rounds as his alter-ego, "The Midnight Skulker." •
Peter: A yellow haired, self-styled genius and the world's first philosophical failure, founder of the "Prehistoric Pessimists Society" and the "Truth Pedestal," and the discoverer of oil. Peter is patterned after Hart's friend, Peter Reuter; the two had been co-workers at General Electric. •
Thor: A brown-haired, smart, witty self-proclaimed ladies' man; inventor of the wheel and the comb. Thor was patterned after another of Hart's friends from GE, Thornton Kinney. •
Jane: a bossy cavewoman who enjoys clobbering snakes. Until August 29, 2019, Jane was referred to in the strip as the "Fat Broad". She is named after Johnny's mother-in-law, Janie Indiana Finch. •
Grace: a quiet but intellectual giant in a world of crude men. Until August 29, 2019, Grace was referred to in the strip as the "Cute Chick". •
Wiley: a peg-legged, superstitious, unshaven, woman-fearing, water-hating poet and coach of the local
baseball and
football teams, not to mention the first bartender. Wiley was patterned after Hart's brother-in-law, Wiley Baxter, who lost his leg in
World War II. •
Clumsy Carp: a nerdy, bespectacled
ichthyologist and perpetual klutz, clumsy enough to trip over a shadow, yet with some unusual skills, such as his ability to make and stack "water balls" (similar to snowballs). Clumsy Carp was patterned after Hart's childhood friend, Jack Caprio. •
Curls: a master of sarcastic wit. Curls was patterned after Hart's friend from high school, Richard (Curly) Boland. •
Grog: pure
Id, a caveman's caveman; a primitive, semi-evolved wild man with enough strength to knock the sun out of the sky using a golfball. His vocabulary was very limited until a January 1977 strip in which, to Peter's shock, he actually spoke full sentences. •
The Guru: an unnamed, bearded wise man living like a hermit atop a mountain, whence he dispenses wisdom and sarcasm.
Animals and other non-human characters •
John the Turtle and the Dookie Bird: this prehistoric odd couple are inseparable friends, especially when making their annual trek south for the winter. The Dookie Bird rides on John's back when they travel. •
The Snake: the put-upon, mortal enemy of Jane (and her club). •
The Anteater: eats ants with a sticky, elastic tongue and a
ZOT! sound. Hart actually drew something of a
hybrid—with the long ears of an
aardvark and the bushy tail of a
giant anteater. (This character was the inspiration for Peter the
Anteater, the
University of California, Irvine team mascot. Also served as the inspiration for the mascot of the now disestablished US Navy fighter squadron VF-114 the "Aardvarks".) •
Maude: an
ant, a nagging wife with a smart-alec son (
Johnny) and a quarrelsome, straying husband. •
Jake: ant husband of Maude, who is always threatening to run off with
Shirley. •
Queen Ida: the queen ant, an unfeeling and abusive dictator. Queen Ida was based on Hart's wife Bobby, whose given name was Ida. She was featured every year on her birthday, December 3, until Mrs. Hart's death in 2018. (The December 3, 2019 strip featured a parting message from the Queen to her subjects.) •
The Dinosaur: big but not too bright—a sort of
sauropod with spinal plates like a
stegosaurus. Sometimes called
Gronk, which is the only sound he makes (although he can talk fluently in recent strips). •
The Clams: talking
clams with legs, among other appendages. (Clams are also the preferred unit of currency in
B.C.) •
The Apteryx (
kiwi): a "wingless bird with hairy feathers", as he invariably introduces himself. •
The Turkey: makes his yearly appearance at
Thanksgiving time, eluding the mighty hunters. •
Oynque: the turkey's porcine partner in crime, rarely seen without his trademark mud puddle. •
Wolf: the newest
B.C. character August 24, 2009; a blissfully deviant domestication of
Precambrian fur. Man's first friend. •
Various incidental ants, including a schoolteacher and her students. •
Raptors:
velociraptors that try to eat the other characters. There are also several odd inanimate characters, including a talking
Daisy and its friend, a talking
Rock.
Seldom-used or one-shot human characters Although the strip seldom expands its human cast outside of the established group of characters, there are a few exceptions. •
Anno Domini, or A.D., introduced during a weeks-long journey by Peter to discover the new world, which he successfully accomplished. His name is arguably a riff on B.C.'s name. He dresses as a caveman very much like the rest of the characters, but has a thick mustache and a stereotypical Italian accent, assuming a bit of a take on
Christopher Columbus. He befriends Peter in the "new world". •
Conahonty, a Native American Indian, who also appears in the "new world" storyline, and befriends Peter. He is a friend of A.D.'s, and speaks rather stereotypical broken English. He dresses more like a somewhat stereotyped Indian than a caveman, and at one point even specifically states that he is an American Indian. He and A.D. were not frequently seen after Peter returned from his epic journey. The two are the most oft-appearing non-regular human characters in the history of the strip other than the Guru, due to the strip's tight focus on its core cast of humans. His name is a spoof of the name
Pocahontas. • '''Peter's Pen Pal''', An unseen person whom Peter corresponds with by tossing "floating stone tablet" letters into the ocean and receiving answers the next day. ==Setting==