Get Fuzzy

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Get Fuzzy is a newspaper comic written and drawn by Darby Conley, that ran from September 1999 to November 2013 with occasional Sunday strips appearing until February 2019. It chronicled the day to day (mis)adventures of a Siamese cat named Bucky, a Labrador-Shar Pei cross named Satchel and their owner/roommate, Rob Wilco.

The three live in an apartment in Boston, where Satchel has his own room, while Bucky takes a towel closet (he has not only complained about it, but seceded from the United States). Many of the jokes revolve around the mean-natured Bucky taking advantage of Satchel's naïveté, driving Rob crazy, and incredibly lame puns.

Tropes used in Get Fuzzy include:

• Aborted Arc: Two examples. Bucky was once blackmailed by the chimpmunkfia but by the next week the arc was completely forgotten. About a year later he got into debt with cat mafia who sent one of their Affably Evil goons to threaten him into paying. Bucky left with Satchel to buy them off with a blank check and Satchel's sprained arm (Bucky had offered to have Satchel win the money in a fight against two dogs, but Rob intervened) but we never found out what happened. The next week it was mentioned once and never spoken of again.
  • A fews comics had Satchel finally putting Bucky in his place. For a short time Bucky was terrified of saying or doing anything to upset Satchel. After about a week it's just dropped and never really brought up again.
• The Ace: Fungo.
  • Bucky thinks he's one.
• Affably Evil: Whitey. He may be a mafia hitcat, but he's also very polite and friendly
• Air Vent Passageway: Bucky tried to take this route once in an attempt to get to his ferret nemesis. He got lost.
• Alliterative Name: Mac Manc McManx, sometimes called M3
• April Fools' Day: Joined FoxTrot and Pearls Before Swine for a gag involving a Ouija board in 2005.
• Art Evolution: The main characters looked a lot more realistic in the early comics. Just compare this comic to any current one. Bucky doesn't even look like the same character.
• Artistic License Animal Care: Rob's mother tries to make her cat go vegetarian.
  • Portrayed fairly accurately aside from the fact that the cat's still alive, as she is in obvious distress over the situation, even begging Rob to kill her.
• Ascended Meme: The strip had been compared to Garfield since it started. At one point in the comic Bucky gets a Garfield book and immediately notes how their lives are so similar.
• As the Good Book Says...: In one strip, Rob tries to get Bucky to treat Satchel better by quoting him one of Jesus' sayings from the Gospel According to Matthew; Bucky thinks he's quoting some random guy named Matthew.
  • Bucky also assumes the chapter/verse were the time of day Matthew said it. (It was The Golden Rule, Matthew 7:12)
  • Rob once told Bucky that "he [Bucky] would have to swear on the good book" (or something to that effect). Bucky leaves, and then stands on Richard Scarry's Best Rainy Day Book and says every bad word he can think of.
• Aside Glance: Rob does this from time to time after some of Bucky's more nonsensical comments.
• Badass Pacifist: Chubby Huggs.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Every once in a while Satchel gets angry. One time he picked Bucky up and threw him out of the room, another time in a heated argument over Bucky wanting a 2-volume phone book when Satchel only got him a 1-volume phone book, Satchel obliges by tearing the phone book in half.
  • Could also overlap with "Beware the Dim Ones", because Satchel has been known to do things, with the best of intentions, that nonetheless culminate in seriously tweaking out and/or injuring Bucky. For example, see a recent arc when Bucky, who had already had problems with Satchel's red-green colorblindness, used a granny smith apple for his threat level system, prompting Satchel to throw him out the window for his own safety. The landing broke Bucky's arm.
  • Perhaps the best example of this is when Bucky casually makes a rude remark about one of Satchel's friends. Satchel flips out, grabs Bucky and loudly and angrily threatens him before storming off, leaving Bucky visibly terrified.
    • As awesome as it sounds.
  • Possible example: Bucky is waiting to have his fang re-attached and Satchel comments they're in the same animal hospital that bandaged his arm. Bucky asked if it hurt, and Satchel goes on to happily describe it as one of the most painful experiences of his life, leaving Bucky worried and shaking. While it could have Satchel not realizing he was scaring Bucky, remember that Satchel was heavily sedated while his arm was worked on, and even said he felt good when Rob first saw him.
• Bilingual Bonus: Within the same language. Bucky's cousin from Manchester, Mac Manc McManx, speaks in Mancusian dialect and is largely unintelligible to the rest of the cast.

"Cracking dinner medals."

• Black Best Friend: Rob's pal Joe Doman, although he's not seen much these days since relocating to France.
• Brand X
• Camp Straight: Satchel
  • Often doubles as Ambiguously Gay.
• Canada, Eh?: Satchel is Canadian.
• Cats Are Mean: Bucky could be the Trope Namer.
  • Averted with Chubby, see below.
  • In one strip, Rob is debating the appeal of cats with Bucky, and asks Bucky which of his friends people (who aren't cats) seem to like best. Bucky rattles off a list, which Rob points out consists entirely of personable, easygoing cats, and states that everyone's favorite cats are the ones that act like dogs.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Bucky spent the entire December 2010 run of strips expounding his theory that Muppets are Cold War-era Soviet experiments.
• Comically Missing the Point: During an early 2012 series of strips where Bucky tried presenting his greatest idea to Rob and Satchel, the "Buckcord" (which is actually a fork with an electric cord taped to it), Rob tries telling Bucky that forks and electricity do not mix. Naturally, Bucky then tells Rob that he came up with a safe way for kids to handle the Buckcord, by presenting a child-safe outlet to stick the Buckcord into, which actually turns out to be a toaster.
• Companion Cube: Smacky and Ms. Pretty, to Bucky.
• Cone of Shame: Used a few times. Even referred to as "the cone of shame".
• Continuity Nod: As the comic went on, fewer references to noodle incidents were made and instead the characters refer to past events.
• Crunchtastic/Perfectly Cromulent Word: Bucky comes up with these on a regular basis, with "groovitude" being a recurring favorite of his.
  • Don't forget "Dinnerfy" and "Eatification".
• Curse Cut Short: There have been several variations of "Son of a...", including being interrupted by another character.
• Deadpan Snarker: Rob most of the time. Satchel seems to be slowly becoming one of these, probably because of Rob's influence.
• Dogs Are Dumb: Poor Satchel.
  • He's so dumb he doesn't know what a loser is, so when Bucky makes the L sign he thinks he's being called a unicorn "losercorn".
• Drop-In Character: McManx keeps popping up. He seems to think he lives with Rob; even when he does get back to England, it's only for a visit.
• Dunk The Witch: Bucky uses this on Sachel half to bully him and half to give him a much-needed bath.
• Everything's Better with Monkeys: Monkeys are an obsession (and would-be Trademark Favorite Food) for Bucky.
• Evil Laugh: Bucky's is more of a "disturbing smirk" ("KEH!").
• Evil Tastes Good: Parodied
• Extreme Omnivore: Satchel admits he'll eat pretty much anything, and at one point is tricked into eating a pillow. Bucky would like to think of himself as an Extreme Carnivore, mostly to spite his vegetarian owner.
• Five-Man Band: Only temporarily in one story arc, but....
  • The Hero: Bucky Katt
  • The Lancer: Mac Manc Mcmanx
  • The Smart Guy: Shakespug
  • The Big Guy: Foodar
  • The Chick: Satchel Pooch
  • The Heart: Chubby Huggs
• Funny Animal: Almost every animal that appears is a mix between this and Talking Animal.
• Funny Foreigner: Bucky's cousin Mac Manc Mcmanx is one of these.
• Fun with Acronyms: Canines Against Traffic; Atlantic Research of Supernatural Entities; Intelligence Department, Institute Of The International Cathood.
  • Possibly lampshaded in one strip, when Joe wore a shirt with A.C.R.O.N.Y.M printed across it.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: Thanksgiving turkey, Easter bunny, Valentine's Day beaver...

Rob: ...Wait, Valentine's Day what??

• • There's one arc where Bucky tries to trick Satchel into sewing soccer balls for him. Rob angrily finds out, but Bucky tries to calm him down by giving him the soccer ball catalog. The name? Katt's Balls.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck: Taken to odd lengths at times. While "Holy cow!" is a fairly common expression, things like "What the cow?!" or "Oh my cow!" aren't. Bucky tends to use Garfield in these cases.
• Grievous Bottley Harm: Bucky tries this with a plastic bottle, with predictable results.
• Halfbreed: Satchel. His parents are a purebred Shar Pei and a Labrador, and he doesn't understand why he can't be a showdog.
• High on Catnip: Several examples.
  • The effects differ from strip to strip. Sometimes Bucky acts hyper and other times he acts like a stereotypical stoner.
• Hipster: Bucky sure sounds like one in this strip.
• Hollywood New England: Mostly averted, aside from occasional references to Rob's Red Sox fandom.
• Hypocritical Humor: At one point Bucky takes an old coonskin cap of Rob's and converts it into a vest.

Rob: I know you like that coonskin thing, but it just seems kind of morbid, you know...wearing the skin of another animal... Bucky: And that's different from your leather jacket how? Rob: Well, it... see... when I... um... Go to your closet.

• Insane Troll Logic: Bucky spouts this constantly. In fact, the strip is largely based around some hairbrained plan or idea of his.
• In the Blood: According to Bucky's cousin Mac, the entire family shares Bucky's feelings toward monkeys.
• I Taste Delicious
• Jerkass: Bucky
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Bucky again.
• Lighter and Softer: Parodied with Bucky's "Napworks" film studio concept.
• Limited Wardrobe: Surprisingly averted. Rob is shown in a variety of T-shirts, including one reading "6x9=42" and another from "Lowe Tech."
  • There's also the "Rugby > Football" shirt.
• Literal-Minded: Pets in general seem to have trouble with this.
• Literal Junk Food: A strip had Rob discovering Satchel taking a piece of trash out of the garbage can and spraying liquidized cheese spray on it, so that it "tastes better". Naturally, Rob is disgusted.
• Malaproper: Bucky and Satchel again.
• The Messiah: Chubby Huggs. He loves everyone. He even hugs his pillow every morning to thank it for being so soft. Bucky is terrified of him.
• Mundane Fantastic: It's a world where cats and dogs (and some other pets) can talk, but aren't quite as intelligent as humans. Sometimes this becomes a plot point, but most of the time it's just background noise.
• The Name Is Bond, James Bond: Everyone thinks the spy Bucky hired is invoking this, but his name really is Bob Jimbob.
• Nerd Glasses: When the strip began, Rob was always shown wearing these. They were phased out over time.
• Nice Guy: Satchel
• Noodle Incident: Occasional references to past Bucky misdeeds such as the "hockey stick incident" and the "baseball game incident".
• One Scene, Two Monologues: most commonly between Bucky and Satchel, typically leading to a series of non-sequiturs.
• Pet the Dog: Smacky, for Bucky.
• Phrase Catcher: Bucky tries to invent a catch phrase for himself, and tries to get Satchel to be his Phrase Catcher, because "when you're Übergroovy, people say [your catch phrase] for you".
• Punny Name: Rob's brother, Roger Wilco.
• Purple Eyes: Bucky.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Bucky owns a doll which he named "Miss Pretty"
• Reindeer Aren't Real:
  • Bucky tries to tell Satchel that Hawaii is a myth perpetrated by the Liberal Media.
  • He also claims that Harry Potter is fictional because it contains fictional elements, namely owls, trains, and England
• Retconning the Wiki: In one strip, Bucky edited Wikipedia to say that he won Wimbledon and that his "album" went "fourple platinum", as well as that he beat up Fungo.
• Self-Deprecation: Darby did this in the Pearls storyline. It depicted him as a lazy, rude slob. In contrast, Stephan Pastis was neat, professional, and polite
• Silence, You Fool: Bucky sometimes says this to Satchel.
• Shout-Out / Tear Jerker: The tribute to Douglas Adams' death (about two-thirds of the way down the page).
  • Rob's tastes in music, television, sports teams, etc. frequently involve Shout Outs to same.
  • There is a member of the Cat Mafia named Whitey. Whitey is the nickname of James Bulger, a former Irish mobster who operated out of the Boston area
• Sitcom Arch Nemesis: Bucky's is neighboring ferret Fungo Squiggly.
• The Slacker: Mac Manc Mcmanx is likely one of these.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Bucky
• Species Surname: Bucky Katt and Satchel Pooch.
  • Discussed regarding Mac Manc McManx and the fact that he has a long tail instead of the short ones the Manx are known for. Played straight when Mac explains that his father's last name is McManx, but his mother's maiden name is McTabby.
  • In one series of strips, Bucky meets a cat simply named "Cat Cat". He figured he was getting to old to be named "Kitty Kitty".
• Stout Strength: Chubby Huggs
• Strawman Political: Bucky is sometimes depicted as a particularly deranged form of Straw Conservative. YMMV, while Bucky mocks the liberal beliefs of Satchel and Rob, he's never really expressed any political opinions of his own.
  • He did try to vote for Pat Buchanan once, since he was the most "anti-people" choice there was.
• Symbol Swearing: Satchel learned how to swear from reading comic books; He actually says the names of symbols instead of actual swear words.
  • The comics themselves tend to rotate between this, Curse Cut Short, and Gosh Dang It to Heck.
• Take That: A few jabs at the French in early strips.
• Too Dumb to Live: Bucky is often the victim of this, due to his Pride and ignorance. Any idea that he comes up, turns out to be very dangerous and ridiculous.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Tuna for Bucky, Jerky Bits and later, Fig Newtons (preferably microwaved) for Satchel.
  • Monkeys would be one for Bucky, if he could ever succeed in eating one.
• Trapped by Gambling Debts: In one arc, Bucky was faced with the threat of getting killed by another cat, because he lost a bet on a baseball game and didn't have enough money to pay the debt.
• Tropaholics Anonymous: Rob joins one for Red Sox fans.
• True Art Is Incomprehensible: Bucky attempted to invoke this one by making "art" by destroying Rob's things, much to Rob's consternation.
• The Unintelligible: A running gag regarding the way Mac talks.

Rob: Mac, I'm sorry dude, but I can't understand a word you're saying. Mac: Cheers. I'll write it down and that. Rob: "Stuffing your kite..." OK, see, I understand each individual word... I don't quite understand the order you seem put them in... Mac: Cracking dinner medals.

• Wall of Text: During the Sunday Comics, the amount of words can get very unwieldy.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Satchel's Dad was a search and rescue dog and when the two meet again his dad thinks of his son being a house dog as nothing and browbeats the poor pooch until Satchel's mother comes in and gives the poor boy a hug.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Many of the animals in this universe clearly have human-level intelligence, but are kept as pets and livestock, denied the right to vote, given medical treatment involuntarily, and do not get paid for work
• You Look Like You've Seen a Ghost: An early strip has Rob and Satchel awoken in the middle of the night by a shriek and discovering a terrified Bucky clinging to the living room drapes.

Satchel: It...it...it looks...it looks like...like he's seen...seen a...a...seen a GHOST! Rob: Well, duh, I thought you'd never finish that sentence.