FoxTrot is a daily American comic strip by
cartoonist Bill Amend, which began syndication on
April 10, 1988. It centers around the daily life
(which isn't all that normal) of the Fox family.
In addition to typical "family" humor, the strip
has many stories built around fandom, nerdiness
and Internet culture. It is syndicated by
Universal Press Syndicate.

Similar to most comic strips, the characters do
not age. Peter Fox will always be 16; Paige will
always be 14; and Jason will always be ten years
old. This leads to amusing situations if a fan
reads earlier strips. For example, an early 1990
storyline involves Paige making an effort to go
from being a "child of the 80s" to a "woman of
the 90s". As she is still 14, she now would not
have been born by 1990.

In the earlier strips, the family would only live
in the present-tense: That is, the family would
only refer to the present—or as in the case of a
storyline, the very near future—but never past
events. However, more recent storylines have
broken this "rule", most notably when referring
to Jason's summer at Camp Bohrmore. In cases
where the past must be referenced it's always
"last year", even if the reference storyline
happened more than a year ago.


Characters

The Fox Family
The Fox family lives at 1254 North Elm Street, the
specific city being a mystery. Older comics
suggest the family lives in Kansas City, Missouri,
as Peter and Roger are big Chiefs fans. This would
also match the publisher of the FoxTrot books,
Andrews McMeel, which is based in Kansas City.
However, the newer comics (starting with "Think
iFruity") would suggest the family is in Chicago,
as that is the airport Roger uses for business
trips. Also, a previous strip, in which Andy
attended a Chicago Bulls game and met Michael
Jordan provides additional evidence. It has also
been suggested by fans that the Foxes live in
Hillsdale, Illinois (a suburb of the quad cities),
as in an early strip Paige and Andy were shopping
at Hillsdale Shopping Center (the Hillsdale theory
is supported by the fact that the high school
sports teams have an "H" somewhere on their
uniforms).

Roger Fox is the father and a not-too-bright
corporate slave. He is 45 years old and was born
in Chicago. He went to college at Willot as an
English major, a parody of Williams College, rival
school to Bill Amend's alma mater Amherst. Roger
is a fan of sports and chess, though any time he
attempts to play either of them, he finds himself
either losing (chess) or breaking bones (sports).
He often indulges in foods of all kinds (despite
the dubious cuisine Andy produces, he remains
perpetually overweight). Once described as "still
trying to catch up with the technology of the
1970s," Roger can practically destroy a computer
just by touching it and when he tries to barbecue,
all too often he ends up burning the food (and
himself). In the July 2, 2000 strip, the Fox
children actually watched Roger grill their Fourth
of July dinner as their fireworks show. His ideas
of a good family vacation are quite similar to
those of Calvin's father (from Calvin and
Hobbes). In addition, he is an infomercial addict,
often buying into the schemes of greedy
sellers.(He once bought a $200 pamphlet on how to
get rich from "Willy Millions", a supposed
parody of Matthew Lesko). Roger is the only member
of the family who insists on going out on camping
trips. Every couple years, he takes the family to
Uncle Ralph's cabin. All the other years they go
on some other wacky vacation. Though he's not an
idiot, Roger is probably the primary cast member
who is most oblivious to the world around him.
Nonetheless, he has managed to be the family's
primary breadwinner from day one.

Andrea "Andy" Fox is a stay-at-home mother;
earlier strips showed her employed as a freelance
writer or columnist for the newspaper, but
nowadays she mostly just monitors her unwieldy
brood. When she was an English major in college,
someone used to slip anonymous love notes under
her door. Her paramour, unfortunately, "turned
out to be a real nerd" —but she married him
anyway. She is now 42 years old and the center of
the household: without her, it would (and did)
"collapse in a day or two." More often than not,
Andy cooks absurd "health-food" meals, such as
lima bean cobbler or tofu curry. At the other end
of the food spectrum, she has a monster sweet
tooth and has absolutely no problem gobbling up
the snacks Roger and the kids try to hold on to. A
miser when it comes to heating, she insists on
keeping the thermostat extremely low during the
winter months, often low enough to freeze soft
drinks, milk, hot chocolate, oxygen and electronic
devices. For the most part, Andy keeps the family
grounded and acts as a straight man to their
antics, although she has been known to crack under
pressure, usually during the course of visits from
her mother. In one strip Andy competes with her
mother thinking that she is the world's largest
"Wannabe". Many of her storylines center around
new obsessions—collecting "Bitty Babies," the
movie Titanic, the Nintendo DS game Nintendogs,
and her Mango-Kiwi-colored iFruit computer. For a
week or so, Andy went on her mid-life crisis by
getting the feeling of turning 42. She went on a
shopping spree with Paige that ended up not going
too well.

Peter Fox, the oldest child at 16, is a junior in
high school. He habitually procrastinates on
schoolwork until the last minute ("I should start
on my book report. Ah, there's always tomorrow. I
suppose I'll need a book. How late is the library
open?" or working on a semester essay that was
due last year). He is a sports fan and likes to
pretend he is a football/baseball/basketball star,
although in truth he is generally relegated to
bench-warming, if he makes the team at all. Peter
also entertains fantasies of becoming the lead
guitarist in a rock band one day like his idol,
Bruce Springsteen. Whenever Peter plays his
guitar, the rest of the family is unhappy for two
reasons. Peter is very loud when he plays music,
often shattering dishes and windows. The volume of
his music is even worse when one considers that he
is not very good at playing the guitar, and his
singing isn't much better. He is capable of
ingesting massive amounts of food, but never gains
a pound. In fact, Peter will sometimes eat to try
to gain weight. Peter usually works a summer job
at the local movie theater as a janitor and ticket
collector, although he often blows his entire
paycheck on food from the concession stand. Peter
met his girlfriend Denise in the comic's first
year and has been dating her ever since. Early on,
his tendency to get the "wandering eye" and
still lust after other girls caused a good deal of
friction between him and the hotly jealous Denise,
but he appears to have settled down since. He
wears a blue and white baseball cap with the
letter A on it which appears to be for Amend's
alma mater, Amherst, a grey sweatshirt, and blue
jeans almost daily. Despite his typical
adolescent-macho fantasies and fixations, Peter
also shows (oft-suppressed) signs of sensitivity
(such as his devotion to Denise, his blind
girlfriend) and being a good student.

Paige Fox is the 14-year old, junk-food-craving
(though not to the extent of her mother),
style-obsessed sister and a freshman in high
school. She is always depicted with a ponytail. It
has been suggested in the strip many times that
Paige get a new hairstyle. Sometimes these
suggestions follow another character's antics,
such as when Peter blew bubble gum in Paige's
hair or when Quincy bit her ponytail. When Amend
was asked if it would happen, he said probably
not, because no one would recognize Paige
otherwise. Paige can't get herself a prom date,
unless one counts geeky Morton Goldthwait (which
Paige does not; yet when trying to avoid
Goldthwait's request to go to the prom, she
showed anger when he didn't ask). Most of her
jokes center around the idiosyncrasies of
high-school popular culture, as well as Jason's
attempts to annoy her (which mostly end with her
beating him up). Her frequent attempts to cook
only yield charcoal and smoke. Unlike Peter, Paige
does not have a single object of her affections,
though her naptime dreams often feature a dashing
French hunk named Pierre (though in one strip her
"debate" whether to take Spanish or French for
high school consisted of a dream that had a brawl
between Pierre and a Spanish equivalent named Juan
Carlos). However, Pierre has not appeared in the
strip for a while. Math - especially word problems
- is the bane of Paige's existence, and she is
frequently depicted in the strip struggling with
her geometry homework. Paige often has to ask
Jason for help with her math, but unless she
agrees to pay him a hefty sum for it, Jason will
often give her incorrect or "joke" answers on
purpose.

Jason Fox is a 10-year old, incredibly brilliant
little brother with a massive ego. He likes to
refer to himself as " Jason the great," " Jason
the wonderful and magnificent," or many other
variations. His life mission appears to be to
annoy Paige, which often results in her beating
him up and breaking his glasses. Ironically, Jason
is never seen without them on. Jason has
frequently tutored Paige in math, though he
prefers to be referred to as a "math
consultant". He is smart enough to know the
average temperature on Venus and to solve complex
equations that most adults would find staggering,
but at the same time believes that Santa Claus and
the X-Files are real. He is also a genius with all
things computerized, having once written his own
Internet browser and, another time, crashed the
entire Internet itself (by accident) with a
"Darth Jason" virus. He also wrote his own
operating system, "Jasondows", which is nearly
impossible to uninstall. In the 7 May 2005 strip,
he vandalizes Wikipedia by adding a picture of his
sister to the "warthog" article (an act quickly
imitated by FoxTrot readers: [1]). This was also
attempted on the article for rabies, albeit
unsuccessfully [2]. Jason can also be found
frequently entertaining outrageous schemes to
either earn or spend huge amounts of money: he
once attempted to set up a dinosaur-themed hotel
in Las Vegas and build a skyscraper comic book
shop—only to scrap that plan, as it would take up
space that was already reserved for his Star
Wars-themed amusement park, including a life-sized
Death Star ride. Once, he tried to give up
geekiness, due to learning girls found nerds sexy,
but soon found it too unnatural. Jason's favorite
activities besides bothering Paige (and sometimes
the others) are playing video and computer games,
such as Doomathon, in which he joins an Internet
league with names such as Jason_Postal_Worker,
drawing Slugman cartoons, obsessing over movies
such as Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, and
maintaining romantic tension between himself and
Eileen. Though Jason has no interest in sports
(and cannot tell the difference between a football
and a baseball), he enjoys competing with his
older brother in unusual challenges (such as TV
Channel Russian Roulette and eating a meal in the
fewest bites).

Quincy is Jason's pet iguana. Quincy specializes
in two fields: chewing on things (usually
something of Paige's, including her clothes, her
shoes, and her autographed "Backsync Boys"
photo) and scaring the wits out of Paige. Jason's
hypothesis that he could conjure a similar
reaction out of all girls was disproven when he
brought Quincy to school for show and tell, and
Miss O'Malley, his teacher, thought Quincy was
cute. Paige once saved him from choking on a
shoelace while Jason was out of the house. Quincy
is a frequent observer of the Fox household
antics, but he has only ever shown three facial
expressions: his standard, calm-eyed gaze; a
scrambling panic when Jason throws him in the air;
and dizziness after landing. He is by far the most
unflappable member of the household. As a rule,
Quincy does not think or in any way react in a
human fashion to the events around him, making him
very unusual among comic strip animals.

The iFruit is a computer Andy purchaced in a 1999
storyline, after Roger's disastrous attempt at
earning a living through online trading ended with
him selling the family's old computer. It is
based on the original Apple iMac. The iFruit can
talk, criticize font selection and even change the
wallpaper (of the room). Though initially mortal
enemies with the geeky Jason due to its emphasis
on ease of use, Jason grows attached to it,
especially after matching color schemes (or
"flavors", with the Fox family's iFruit being
mango-kiwi) persuades his mother to buy all
manners of peripherals, such as scanners and
CD-ROM burners. The iFruit once beat Roger in
chess 250,000 times in a row; the one time Roger
beat it, Andy was convinced to call the repair
center. Evidently, it is made of bullet-proof
plastic, and is durable enough that even Roger
cannot damage it.


Recurring characters who are not part of the Fox
family
J. P. Pembrook is the CEO of Roger's company, who
– unbeknownst to him – has his million-dollar
deals analyzed by a ten-year-old (i.e. Jason). We
never see his face, only his hands; given his
ruthless personality, that may be a good thing. He
has won the Iron Fist Award and the Golden Gallows
Award, according to trophies seldom seen on his
desk. His first two initials seem to be a nod
towards financier J. P. Morgan.

Fred is Roger's friend at work. Fred often plays
golf with him (and always wins). Roger apparently
considers Fred to be an authority on everything
(if Fred says something's popular then it is).

Steve Riley is Peter's best friend from high
school. He owns an electric guitar and amp set
that Peter sometimes borrows, much to his
parents' dismay. Steve also has a job at the
local pizza parlor.

Denise Russo is Peter's blind girlfriend.
Denise's parents have been heard to speak, but
have never been shown on Peter's visits to
Denise's house. Denise is clearly the one in
control of the relationship. Once Peter attempted
to break up with her, but that ended in failure.

Denise's blindness has never been exploited in
the strip, but has often been a source of tasteful
humor. On her first date with Peter, she asked to
"read" his face with her hands, explaining that
it was "like reading Braille, in a way." When
Peter asked what it said, she replied,
"R...O...B...E...R...T...R...E...D...F...O...R...
D." One strip had Peter driving fast and
recklessly while Denise cringed in the passenger
seat, finally saying, "Peter, if the intent of
your driving is to make me GLAD I can't see..."
Denise has not appeared in the strip for over a
year.

Nicole is Paige's best friend, also
fashion-obsessed but somewhat more level-headed
than Paige. She seems to have better luck with
boys than Paige (which doesn't say much), which
has caused problems in their relationship a few
times.

Literally the boy of Paige's dreams, Pierre is a
perfect French lover who appears in Paige's
daydreams. Usually when he appears, the last panel
shows Jason doing something she would freak out
at. For example, if Paige is dreaming of kissing
Pierre, in actuality it might be Jason holding
Quincy up to her lips. Usually, all Paige says to
Pierre's antics is "Ooo, Pierre!" Once Paige
dreamed about Pierre at school and mentioned his
name out loud just when the teacher asked for the
capital of South Dakota (Pierre). Pierre fans
should look to pages 187-192 of Enormously
FoxTrot, there is a special collection of Paige
and Pierre art panels.

Morton Goldthwait is the "biggest geek in
school" according to Paige. Apparently, the
entire science department calls him "Sir". He
has a crush on her and hasn't given up, despite
what she thinks of him. Morton even invited Paige
to a Halloween party he held one year. He took the
SATs as a freshman and was mad he got a 1590 (one
raw score below perfect). He is also a counselor
at Camp Bohrmore over the summer, and rules his
cabin with an iron fist. Jason and Marcus once had
the misfortune of being assigned to Goldthwait's
cabin. Until he learned of Morton's crush on
Paige, Jason had planned to set Morton up on a
date with Paige as revenge.

Marcus Jones is Jason's best friend, with whom
often he emulates Star Trek and bothers Paige
(though he does not hate her as much as Jason
does). He also enjoys video games, and he plays
Dungeons and Dragons and Houses and Humans with
Jason on occasion. Like Jason, Marcus enjoys
school, dislikes being outside and doesn't like
girls, but his dislike of girls doesn't seem as
strong as Jason's. Marcus has four sisters
(Doreen, Lisa, Lana, Cybil). His mother is a
nurse, and his father is a scientist of some sort.
All members of Marcus' family, save Marcus
himself, are unseen characters. He is
African-American.

Eileen Jacobson is Jason's sometimes nemesis,
sometimes semi-friend, whom he doesn't want to
admit he secretly likes. A Harry Potter fan,
Eileen didn't appear in the comic until 1995,
when she got a higher grade than Jason on a math
test, and ended up going out for ice cream with
him. Eileen also showed up when Jason and Marcus
went to summer camp. She has made quite a few
appearances since and Jason eventually admitted he
liked her. However, Jason's constant insistence
on hiding their relationship began to annoy
Eileen. As a result, she became angry at Jason and
they decided to stop being a couple. It seems she
still has feelings for Jason, though, since she
has tricked Jason into spending time with her in
exchange for something Jason wants (for example,
the time Eileen made Jason be her partner on a
field trip to the science museum in exchange for a
holo-foil Charizard Pokemon card). She has also
tricked him in World of Warcraft by picking a male
name on the same server as him then befriending
him there... and then making sure he found out it
was her!

Miss O'Malley has been Jason and Marcus' teacher
since 1991. She's the replacement for Jason and
Marcus' former teacher, Ms. Grinchley.
Considerably younger and more "on the ball" than
Ms. Grinchley, she appears to have a marginally
better handle on Jason as well, much to his
dismay. This seems to encourage Jason to try even
harder to get under her skin. Sometimes Jason
succeeds (as when, since he wasn't sure which
math chapter Miss O'Malley had assigned for
homework, he proceeded to do a problem set from
every math and science textbook he could find),
and sometimes he fails (as when he brought Quincy
in for show-and-tell, thinking Quincy would
frighten Miss O'Malley, and she instead thought
he was cute).

Slug Man and Leech Boy are comic book characters
created by Jason in a Batman parody. Slug Man and
Leech Boy are almost always fighting their
arch-enemy, Paige-O-Tron, the most evil robot in
the universe (although they once were said to have
had an "epic battle with Gargantutron last
summer", Gargantutron being a cookie monster that
Jason made; Jason has also drawn a comic story
titled "Slug-Man Battles Miss Grinchley"). Jason
has tried to sell Slug Man and Leech Boy
merchandise several times. He has also made Slug
Man wall calendars and once wallpapered his room
with Slug Man comics. There is an entire Slug Man
comic (The Adventures of Slug Man: "The Final
Confrontation III") at the end of the FoxTrot en
masse anthology, which also features a fake
advertisement for Slug Man products, all made by
Jason.

Katherine "Katie" O'Dell: Katie is the toddler
daughter of the eccentric Mrs. O'Dell, for whom
Paige often babysits. She is portrayed as being a
typical hyperactive toddler who makes a fuss and
spits her food out (all over Paige's face) when
she's fed and is obsessed with "Blue's Clues."
Almost every time Paige has baby-sat Katie, the
little girl has turned out to be too much for
Paige to handle. On one occasion, Katie overheard
an expletive uttered on the "Jerzy Spaniel" (a
takeoff on "Jerry Springer") talk show while
Paige was watching, and proceeded to say the
offending word over and over, causing Paige to get
into major trouble with Mrs. O'Dell (she was only
paid a penny for that babysitting session). On
another occasion, Katie chopped up her pretty new
dress with a pair of scissors while Paige was
napping, and Paige ended up having to buy Katie a
new dress with her own babysitting pay. Katie also
seems to be the only character in Foxtrot to grow
up.


Recurring characters who do not appear often
Grandma: Andy's mother, whom everybody loves and
calls perfect, especially in comparison to Andy
herself. Needless to say, this doesn't make Andy
herself feel very good, and their feud has been
going on since Andy was in seventh grade (when
Andy would be scolded by her mother in front of
her friends, and her friends took her mother's
side). Grandma's real name is not known (since
she is Andy's mother, her last name wouldn't be
Fox, but rather Andy's maiden name). The two
appeared to have made peace on their first
meeting, but affairs have relapsed since then
(probably because Grandma is simply too
interesting a character to be discarded after a
single use).

Phoebe Wu: A friend of Eileen. They met at Camp
Bohrmore Science Camp in 1997. She kept a journal
for her time at camp, even saving samples of the
food (which never was in very good shape;
especialy 3 years after camp). Although initially
bitter rivals with Jason and Marcus, the four
eventually formed a "Ultra-Secret Friendship
Club" while at camp, something the two boys have
had varying cause to regret since then. Phoebe is
Chinese-American.

Eugene Wu: Phoebe's arrogant brother. His friends
call him The Brain--or at least, they would, if he
had any friends. He once arrived in Jason and
Marcus's neighborhood along with his sister
Phoebe, and then succeeded in breaking the Jason,
Marcus, Eileen, and Phoebe's friendship club by
stealing Phoebe's camp journal and planting clues
pointing to members of the club. It is implied
that an IQ test showed that Phoebe is technically
smarter than Eugene, and as a result Eugene
struggles to prove that he is not inferior to his
sister.

Miss Rockbottom: Paige's gym teacher. Paige once
called her a "power-hungry neo-Nazi fascist tub
of lard," but believes she took it as a
compliment.

Dr. Ting: Paige's biology teacher, who has come
to rely on her lab reports as a source of weekend
entertainment.

Hawkins: A camper at Camp Bohrmore when Jason
attends. He rarely gets out and has a
50-digit-long encryption code. Jason caught one of
his viruses once, and Hawkins gave Jason his list
of internet aliases, which includes The Night
Ninja.

Mr. Martini: The principal of Jason and Marcus'
school. He is seen very infrequently, typically
when Jason is in trouble. Jason did see Mr.
Martini voluntarily one time to ask what happened
to his comic strip that was going to appear in the
school newspaper.

Fauntleroy: A dog Peter had to baby sit a few
occasions. Although his head is smaller than a
baseball, Peter always get numerous bites &
scratches, as this is a very vicious dog.


Characters who no longer appear in the strip
Linda Downer: Peter's unrequited crush before he
met Denise, has not appeared since 1988.
Apparently a friend of Paige.

Miss Grinchley: Jason and Marcus' teacher before
Miss O'Malley. Despite her name, she does not
seem reminiscent of the Grinch. It is implied that
she used to "go bonkers" in response to Jason's
antics in class (which, of course, encouraged
Jason to misbehave even more). Miss O'Malley
replaced Miss Grinchley after she retired in
1991.

Skip Riley: Roger's summer intern in 1990, the
ultimate sycophant, who even called Roger his
"light and inspiration", before jumping ship to
become an intern for Charles Diggs, the head of
Roger's department.

Squishy and Squashy, the Talking Roadkill
Brothers: The titular characters of a comic strip
that Jason did for his school newspaper in 1992,
with the intent of making merchandising profit off
of it. They were never actually seen, but Jason
has revealed that they were secretly vampires.
Unfortunately for Jason, censorship prevented the
strip from running.

The Tamagrouchy: Paige received a Tamagrouchy from
her father in August 1997. It is similar to a
Tamagotchi, requiring to be fed and played with,
except that it is grouchy. It often insults Paige,
and actually has conversations with people, which
goes beyond what a normal Tamagotchi could do. It
has extremely complicated instructions (to give it
a glass of water, you must press buttons A and C
together, then hold button B for three seconds,
then tap button C twice, them press button A, then
button C, then press button B, then do the whole
process backward). It will also annoy Paige. Once,
it pretended it was on Moscow time when Paige was
trying to go to sleep, and it whined that it
wanted breakfast. When Paige threatened to neglect
it and let it die, it claimed that unlike
Tamagotchis, Tamagrouchys become immortal if
neglected. Paige eventually was so annoyed by the
toy that she gave it to Jason to reprogram it,
with somewhat disastrous results.


Places in FoxTrot
Uncle Ralph's Cabin is a typical camping spot for
the Fox family. The location of the cabin is never
explicitly stated in the comics, even relative to
where the Fox's live. However, one could assume
it is fairly isolated, because the family seems to
have a long drive and one time when Roger locked
his keys in the car, Paige worried they would be
stuck forever since they couldn't contact anyone.
There is a lake where the family can swim and go
fishing. Jason often tries to trick Paige into
believing that there are frightening creatures in
the water.

Fun-Fun Mountain is an amusement park. It almost
seems to be a parody of Disneyland (obviously,
"mountain" is to "universe" as "land" is to
"world", so this is probably a parody of the
smaller of the two American Disney resorts, and
Fun Fun Universe is of the bigger). There is a
Hall of Vice Presidents exhibit (similar to the
Hall of Presidents), and a sign in the park labels
a mosquito "Mickey Mosquito," which sounds
similar to Mickey Mouse. There are roller
coasters, including the Drop-O-Death, a log ride,
whirling coffee cups, and a fun house. The food is
expensive. For example, Andy bought a snow cone
for $20.00.

The Fox family once went on a two-week camping
trip to Cactus Flats, a desert community in
Arizona. According to a pamphlet, Cactus Flats was
the home of the Muckatoo Indian tribe until the
whole tribe died of heat stroke. The desert is
also home to various snakes (including
rattlesnakes), lizards, scorpions, spiders such as
tarantulas and black widows, and mountain lions as
well as mosquitos.

Fun-Fun Universe is another amusement park that
seems to be a parody of the Walt Disney World
Resort. There is a hotel that is connected to the
actual amusement park by unirail, a glass-bottomed
boat, and a "sky-tube." The rides mentioned
include a log ride and several roller coasters. A
very important roller coaster is the Voodoo
Mountain Bobsled Ride. This ride is supposedly
closed down every morning, but only for show. That
way, riders will be "scared to death not only by
the ride, but by the dread that the thing wasn't
built very well." Like Fun-Fun Mountain, the food
for sale at the park is very expensive. Roger's
Chili Fun-Fun Burger and fries cost him $41.00.

On another one of the family's camping trips, the
Fox's camped at Skeeter Falls. According to
Roger, Skeeter Falls is an eight-hour drive from
their house. It is 100 miles (160 km) away from
the nearest city and the grounds are 400,000 acres
(1600 km²) large. The falls gets their name from
the mosquitoes that live there. Skeeter Falls has
the most mosquitoes per unit area of any place in
the world during August. There is also a geyser
that erupts every 24 hours, at 3:38 am, as well as
rivers, mountains, and "200-foot" (60 m) trees.
While the Fox family was camping there, a bear
came into their campsite and ate their food.

Camp Bohrmore is a eight week co-ed summer science
camp. The camp contains waterfalls, hiking trails,
a redwood grove, a T-1 line in every cabin,
computers, lasers, and a paleontology lab. This is
also where Jason and Marcus met Phoebe and Eugene
Wu. Morton Goldthwait served as camp counselor to
Epsilon cabin which included Jason, Marcus, and
Eugene. Eileen and Phoebe would often try to play
tricks on Marcus and Jason. Jason and Marcus were
also rivals with Eugene. They wanted to beat
Eugene in the Camp Bohrmore Science Contest. Jason
and Marcus also tried to sabotage Eileen and
Phoebe's project to get revenge, but their plan
backfired, as they destroyed their own project. At
the end of camp, they made a truce with Eileen and
Phoebe, and eventually joined their friendship
club.

Boonhurst is a small town. Roger went there to
finish a business deal (which began one of the
longest storylines in the strip, running for seven
weeks). It apparently isn't very developed, as
Roger asked Pembrook if they had finished paving
the runway yet. When Roger missed his flight, he
also had to go through several connections. His
entire trip was Chicago to Dallas to Los Angeles
to Atlanta to Portland to Denver to Charlotte to
Boonhurst. Boonhurst is likely a reference to the
town of Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters of
Wal-Mart.

The Isles of Fun-Fun Caribbeanny Resort is an
artificial Caribbean resort, probably a parody of
the real-life Caribbean Beach Resort in Walt
Disney World. They reproduced island life with
"state-of the-art water park technology." The
resort has special Caribbean-themed rooms, such as
the Limbo Suite, which features a low ceiling, and
the Muzak in the elevators is Calypso. There are
many Caribbean activities as well, such as
snorkeling, body boarding, voodoo doll puppetry,
and steel drum lessons. In fact, the resort even
schedules fake hurricanes, which is why all the
walls in the hotel are fastened with Velcro.
However, many aspects of the resort are fake. The
steel drum music at the beach consists of a staff
person playing the synthesizer. Unfortunately for
Andy and Roger, the staff person playing
accidentally hit bagpipes instead. Also, there is
a backdrop at the edge of the artificial ocean,
which has chlorine. In this place, Andy had the
worst time ever.


About the strip
Amend majored in physics at Amherst College, and
this is reflected in FoxTrot's frequent inclusion
of complex mathematical formulae, usually written
by Jason Fox. The formulae are correct, though
oddly flavored; Jason often uses them to describe
bizarre situations, or, more rarely, they are
school assignments for Peter Fox. Amend also uses
Jason to express his knowledge of computer
languages in much the same way that he uses
physics formulae (once Roger asked for a cup of
Java to start his day and Jason gave him about 20
pages of code). Both these elements add a layer of
superfluous complexity to the strip, and
juxtaposed with the odd circumstances in which
they appear, give FoxTrot a uniquely surreal air.

From June 16 to August 16, 1997, Bill Amend did a
series of comic strips where Jason attended Lake
Bohrmore Science Camp. Jason, Marcus, and Eileen
all attended this summer camp, and it was the
first appearance of Phoebe and Eugene. Morton
Goldthwait was Jason's counselor, although he
didn't find out until the end of Jason's stay at
camp that Jason was Paige's brother. For this
period of time, only the above mentioned
characters appeared in the strip (along with the
camp director, Dr. Archibald, as well as another
character, Hawkins, who seems to be even more of a
nerd than Jason is), and Peter, Paige, Roger, and
the others only appeared at the beginning and end.
After the end of this series, the strip returned
to normal. These comics can be found in Welcome to
Jasorassic Park and Camp FoxTrot. In 2000, Phoebe
and Eugene briefly appeared in the strip again
when they visited their uncle, who lives in the
neighborhood featured in FoxTrot. In that story,
Phoebe's prized camp journal turned up missing,
and Jason, Marcus, Eileen and Phoebe ended up
accusing each other of the crime and even
disbanding their top-secret friendship club. It
turned out that Eugene was the real thief, and
Eileen, Phoebe, Marcus and a reluctant Jason
created a new top-secret friendship club, one
without any type of disbandment clause. The Wu
siblings also appeared in the strip on October 31,
2004.


Subtleties
If one observes closely, one will notice that in
any scene where a character is reading a
newspaper, there are headlines that say things
such as "Cartoonist Delivers Triplets in
Elevator" or "Cartoonist to direct Jurassic Park
II." In scenes with large crowds, Calvin from
Calvin and Hobbes can often be seen in the
background. In some scenes, characters from
various comics can be seen in the background. On
one occasion, pictures of Cathy, Dilbert, and
Calvin and Hobbes were seen as pictures above a
staircase, or on a picture frame. On another
occasion, Peter is shown wearing a Calvin and
Hobbes T-Shirt, at a time when Bill Watterson was
having licensing conflicts with his publisher.
Often signs in the theater are edited to have a
humorous effect (such as "Mission Impossible 2:
The Comic Strip Deadline"). Peter's posters in
his room also are often edited to read things like
"Baywitch". Almost all of Peter's posters are a
parody of Baywatch.

Many products seen in the strip have altered
names, such as "Chips McCoy" (Chips Ahoy!),
"Toridos" (Doritos), "Cap'n Sucrose" (Cap'n
Crunch), "Fax Mactor" (Max Factor), and "Arper
Shimage" (Sharper Image). Most of the magazines
shown, at least starting from around 1994-95, are
parodies of real magazines or magazine genres. For
example, Paige often reads "Fourteen" magazine
(Seventeen), and other altered magazine titles
seen frequently are "Thyme" (Time) and (at least
for a while) "Illustrated Sports" (Sports
Illustrated). The fast-food restaurant that the
Foxes occasionally patronize has two M's
back-to-back, parodying the McDonald's logo. Many
pop culture products (especially video games) are
amalgamations of two different names. Examples
include Doomathon (a combination of first-person
shooter games Marathon and Doom), Duke Quakem (a
combination of Quake and Duke Nukem), "World of
Warquest" (World of Warcraft and EverQuest), and
Jason's video game systems, his Jupiter-64
Gamestation (a combination of the Sega Saturn, the
Nintendo 64, and the Sony PlayStation) and
GameStation 2 (a combination of PlayStation 2 and
GameCube). (Ironically, earlier strips had Jason
playing the actual Nintendo Entertainment System
and Super NES systems, with some games having
altered names such as Mortal Karnage, Primal
Instinct, and Super Earthworm Mario Country 3,
while other games had their real names, such as
the Super Mario Bros. series, Myst.) Andy has also
joined the organization MAGG (Mothers Against Gory
Games) out of concern for the level of violence in
the games Jason and Peter played. The list of
video games approved by MAGG included such titles
as "Nice City," "Pacifist-Man," "Ms.
Pacifist-Man," and "Resident Good" (takeoffs
of, respectively, "Vice City," "Pac-Man,"
"Ms. Pac-Man," and "Resident Evil").

The walls of the Fox home are adorned with
pictures or paintings, usually of fruit. A
specific pictures fruit will change from panel to
panel.


In the cinema where Peter works you can also often
see names such as Trek Wars. Other signs on walls
have been seen to change message between panels.
For example, in the first panel of a cafeteria
scene, a paper sign in the background reads, "No
food fights!" In the next panel, it reads,
"Really!" In the last panel, it reads "We mean
it!" The week Garfield: The Movie came out, Peter
dressed up as Garfield to promote the movie.

The first one of these 'subtleties' to appear
was a dryer which had the brand name "Dry Queen
1000" on it. Also, we see a partial view, the
"OX" on a bottle of bleach, presumably Clorox.
This was the third strip; it was shown April 13,
1988. The first subtlety to be shown in a color
Sunday strip appeared April 17, 1988 in the
"throwaway panel" identifying the strip. It
shows Jason eating "Honey Skulls" (Honeycomb)
cereal.


Merchandising of the Strip
On the FoxTrot website, there is a link to FoxTrot
products. These include the collections and
anthologies as well as shirts, mugs, posters, and
other items. Many of these include whole comic
strips or have FoxTrot pictures on them.


FoxTrot books

Collections
Beginning with Death By Field Trip, the size and
shape of the regular collections changed to
accommodate a new Sunday strip layout. The books
were also made smaller to give a larger gap
between anthologies (see below). They (as well as
the anthologies) are published by Andrews McMeel
Publishing.

FoxTrot (1989) 
Pass the Loot (1990) 
Black Bart Says Draw (1991) 
Eight Yards, Down and Out (1992) 
Bury My Heart at Fun-Fun Mountain (1993) 
Say Hello to Cactus Flats (1993) 
May the Force Be with Us, Please (1994) 
Take Us to Your Mall (1995) 
The Return of the Lone Iguana (1996) 
At Least This Place Sells T-Shirts (1996) 
Come Closer, Roger, There's a Mosquito on Your
Nose (1997) 
Welcome to Jasorassic Park (1998) 
I'm Flying, Jack ...I Mean, Roger (1999) 
Think iFruity (2000) 
Death By Field Trip (2001) 
Encyclopedias Brown and White (2001) 
His Code Name Was The Fox (2002) 
Your Momma Thinks Square Roots are Vegetables
(2003) 
Who's Up for Some Bonding? (2003) 
Am I a Mutant, or What! (2004) 
Orlando Bloom Has Ruined Everything (2005) 
My Hot Dog Went Out, Can I Have Another? 2005) 

Anthologies
Originally, the anthologies were made up of the
previous two smaller collections, with color
Sunday strips (as opposed to black and white in
the smaller books). Starting with Assembled with
Care, the anthologies are made up of the three
previous smaller books.

FoxTrot: The Works (1990) 
FoxTrot en masse (1992) 
Enormously FoxTrot (1994) 
Wildly FoxTrot (1995) 
FoxTrot Beyond a Doubt (1997) 
Camp FoxTrot (1998) 
Assorted FoxTrot (2000) 
FoxTrot: Assembled with Care (2002) 
Foxtrotius Maximus (2004) 

Other languages
FoxTrot is translated into many other languages,
including Spanish[3], Portuguese and Swedish.


Retrieved from
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FoxTrot"