Religion One distinguishing characteristic of the
Family Circus is the frequent use of Christian imagery and themes, ranging from generic references to God to Jeffy daydreaming about Jesus at the grocery store. Keane states that the religious content reflects his own upbringing and family traditions. Keane was
Roman Catholic, and in past cartoons the children have been shown attending Catholic schools with sisters as teachers and attending Catholic church services, much as Keane did in his childhood years at
St. William Parish in Philadelphia. Keane was a frequent contributor to his high school newspaper
The Good News at
Northeast Catholic High School for Boys in Philadelphia, where he graduated in 1940. Some of his comics with scenes in Billy's bedroom depict a pennant reading "NC" on the wall, a tribute to his alma mater and his Catholic education.
Billy the Substitute Cartoonist Sometimes Keane's strips would have crude drawings purportedly done by "Billy, Age 7". Some of "Billy's" drawings would be explaining vocabulary, only he does not understand the right word, such as confusing "hysterical" with "historical" or defining "acquire" as "a
group of singers in church". The "Billy" drawings would often show a more detailed drawing of Keane's, such as Billy crying over losing a game to his father, and then the next strip saying "This is what really happened, by Billy", showing the crude drawing of Billy winning and an annoyed Bil Keane retorting, "No more games, I gotta draw Sunday's cartoon!" One series of strip for the dailies in 1990 had the father away on a business trip while "Billy" explains a multitude of childish reasons for his father's absence, such as alien abduction or having been baked into a witch's pie. The story arc ended with a drawing showing the father back at home and the kids asking about such preposterous happenings to his befuddlement.
Dotted lines One of the best-known features of Keane's work is the dotted-line comics, showing the characters' paths through the neighborhood or house with a thick dotted line. The earliest appearance of the dotted line was on April 8, 1962 (an undotted path had first appeared on February 25). This concept has been
parodied by other comic strips, including
Pearls Before Swine,
For Better or For Worse,
FoxTrot,
Calvin and Hobbes,
Garfield,
Liō,
Marvin and
xkcd. In an interview, Jeff Keane, who now produces the strip, described how he creates the line by drawing one continuous black line and then breaking it into segments with white. The dotted line has taken different formats, such as when the family took a vacation to San Francisco and were shown in a dotted line down famous
Lombard Street ("the crookedest street in the world"), or Jeffy and his grandfather taking a walk in the park, with Jeffy running around wildly, indicated by an uneven dotted line, with his grandfather's path as a straight dotted line. Other strips would show the dotted line with captions.
Gremlins In April 1975, Keane introduced an invisible gremlin named "Not Me" who watches while the children try to shift blame for a misdeed by saying, "Not me." Additional gremlins named "Ida Know" (in September 1975), "Nobody", "O. Yeah!" and "Just B. Cause" were introduced in later years. Although it is clear that the parents do not accept the existence of the gremlins, they did include them as members of the family, perhaps
tongue-in-cheek, when being interviewed by a member of the
U.S. Census Bureau. Another time when Thel was sick of hearing about the gremlins from the kids ("Who's been rummaging in Gramma's purse?" "Not me!"), she asked her mother-in-law if she had ever dealt with such absurdity, causing Florence to remark, "Well, I'm sure that he has been around at least since I was a little girl", in which there is a
flashback to Florence's childhood with her father demanding to know, "Who scratched my new
Glenn Miller record?", with little Florence firmly stating, "Not me!" and the "Not Me" entity smugly standing by.
Grown children One theme that Keane tried occasionally was to picture the children as adults, or what might come of it. One time when Billy had been asked by Thelma not to leave the house until he finished his homework, she told him, "One day when you are grown up you will thank me for this!", causing Billy to imagine the absurdity of himself as a fully grown man visiting his elderly mother just to thank her for telling him that as a child. Other adult ideas included the parents telling Jeffy not to be shy when they invited friends to the house, and then he is pictured 25 years later as an outgoing late-night
talk-show host akin to
Jay Leno. Another example showed P.J. not wishing to be introduced to the toddler daughter of family friends, only to show 30 years later that both are now grown and are celebrating their wedding day. Yet another had Thel telling Billy that she cannot clean his messes for his whole life, then imagining a fully grown Billy as a businessman running a chain of "High Hat Hotels" and an aged, weary Thel working as one of the maids.
Family car For the first 25 years, the family car was a
station wagon, first based on Keane's own 1961
Buick. In 1985, a year after the introduction of the
Plymouth Voyager and the
Dodge Caravan, the family appears in a series of cartoons trading the station wagon for a new minivan (when the salesman assures Mom and Dad that "
Lee Iacocca stands behind every vehicle we sell", the children look behind the van to see if Mr. Iacocca is back there). The family's minivan resembles the Dodge/Plymouth twins and includes the
Chrysler corporate pentastar logo on its hood. The children enjoy showing the new van to their friends: "And it has a sliding door, like an elevator." Early strips also showed the family in a small convertible, a caricature based on Keane's
Sunbeam Rapier. ==Format==