User:JohnDBuell/Doonesbury Character Chronology

List of Doonesbury Characters and their milestone appearances:

Note: This applies to appearances in the comic strip Doonesbury only, with appearances since the strip's debut on 26 October 1970 and does not apply to the strip's forerunner.

Characters

Michael Doonesbury

Full name given as Michael James Doonesbury in Doonesbury: A Musical Comedy

First appearance: 26 October 1970

B.D.

Full name revealed to be Brian John Dowling (that of his real life namesake), in Doonesbury: A Musical Comedy

First appearance, wearing a white helmet with a star (the star is later revealed to be green): 26 October 1970
Becomes a third-string quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams, now wears that team's helmet: 12 December 1984
Returns to wearing his Walden College helmet: 3 August 1987
Retires from professional sports: 16 August 1987
Called up for the first Persian Gulf War: 5 September 1990
Changes helmet to desert camouflage: 10 September 1990
Field promoted to Sergeant:
Returns home from first Gulf War: 6 May 1991
Marries Boopsie: 20 April 1992
Called up again to protect Los Angeles after the start of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots: 12 May 1992
Joins the California Highway Patrol, changes helmet: 9 September 1992
Moves back to Walden to coach the football team:
Promoted to Army Lieutenant:
Called up for the second Gulf War:
Loses leg, and helmet: 21 April 2004

Mark Slackmeyer

First appearance: 19 November 1970
First mentioned by name: 30 November 1970

Calvin

(Walden College campus Black Panther):

Nichole/Nicole

Boopsie

Barbara Ann (originally nicknamed "Boopsy", later spelled "Boopsie") Boopstein. Her full name was first revealed in Doonesbury: A Musical Comedy.

First appearance: 15 September 1971
First mention of full name (in the strip): 14 February 1987
Announces her pregnancy to B. D.: 16 January 1992
Marries B. D.: 20 April 1992
Gives birth to Samantha: 23 April 1992

Zonker Harris

First appearance: 21 September 1971
Becomes a medical student at Baby Doc College, Haiti:
Wins $27 million in a lottery:
Spends $17 million to buy back Uncle Duke from zombie slavery:
Buys a title in England:
Moves in with parents in California:
Arrives in Malibu to be a nanny for B. D. and Boopsie's daughter Samantha: 14 November 1992

Phred (Doonesbury)

First appearance: 16 February 1972
First mentioned by name: 18 February 1972

Joanie Caucus

First appearance: 10 September 1972
First mentioned by name: 11 September 1972

Clinton Caucus

First appearance (voice only): 10 September 1972

J.J. Caucus

First appearance (voice only): 26 September 1972
First appearance (full illustration): 22 April 1973

Alice P. Schwartzman

First appearance: 24 August 1973
Reappears in Washington, D.C., homeless:
Marries Elmont:

Dick Davenport

First appearance: 15 May 1974
Dies of a "massive coronary" while bird watching: 7 November 1986

Lacey Davenport

First appearance: 15 May 1974
Runs for Congress:
Resigns from Congress:
Re-elected in write-in campaign:
Diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease:
Dies: 15 August 1998

Virginia Slade

First appearance:

Clyde

First appearance:
Runs against Lacey for Congress:

Roland Burton Hedley, Jr.

Alternatively listed as Roland Burton Hedley, III (see Notes, below)

First appearance (voice): 4 March 1974
Conducts interviews at Walden College for Time: 5 March - 14 March 1974
Reappears at Walden College for Newsweek: 11 April 1976
Interviews Zonker Harris at Walden College for ABC: 31 October - 12 November 1977
Sent to cover a trip with President Carter: 26 December 1977 - 7 January 1978
Covers Camp David summit: 9 October - 21 October 1978
Leads first trip inside Ronald Reagan's Brain: 27 October - 1 November 1980
Hits on Joanie Caucus at a laundromat: 6 July - 10 July 1982
Leads second trip inside Ronald Reagan's Brain: 23 March - 4 April 1987

Uncle Duke

First appearance: 8 July 1974
Becomes Governor of American Samoa:
Becomes Ambassador to China:
Suffers acute appendicitis in China: 25 August - 4 September 1976
Becomes coach of the Washington Redskins:
Recruited by the National Rifle Association to give congressional testimony:
Sent on a secret mission by Universal Petroleum into Iran:
Declared legally dead:
Re-appears as an ex-Iranian Embassy Hostage:
Captains ill-fated cruise to observe Falkland Islands conflict: 19 April - 30 April 1982
Stranded on an island, claimed by Honey for China: 8 May - 6 June 1982
Discovered by Dick Davenport: 22 June - 24 June 1982
Attempts to make movie about John DeLorean's life: 11 November 1982
Starts Baby Doc College in Haiti: 11 November 1984
Believed dead, due to voodoo: 22 January 1986
Turns up alive as a zombie slave to ex-Haitian President Duvalier: 17 March 1986
Returned to Haiti after being bought from zombie slavery: 21 April 1986
Jailed for drug use in Haiti: 17 October 1986
Escapes from jail with help from Honey Huan: 29 November 1986
Reveals himself as founder of Dr. Whoopee: 12 May 1987
Meets with ex-CIA head William Casey in Haiti: 24 August 1987
Gives control of Dr. Whoopee to John Gotti: 30 October 1987
Sent to Bellevue Hospital: 21 November 1987
Goes to work for Donald Trump: 25 July 1988
Becomes Panama's Maximum Pro-Consul: 8 January 1990
Opens Club Scud: 12 March 1991
Burns down Club Scud: 17 December 1991
Joins the campaign for "cousin" David Duke: 26 December 1991
Buries his Aspen, Colorado home under sixty feet of snow and ice: 3 April 1993
Joins Lt. Col. Oliver North's Senate campaign as a bodyguard: 10 February 1994
Starts "Nothin' But Orphans" orphanage: 8 January 1995
Given results of DNA test by Honey, proving that Earl is his son:
Flees Aspen, takes Earl to Las Vegas:
Presidential candidate:
Becomes Mayor of Al Amok, Iraq:
Flees Iraq to return to United States:

Rev. Scot Sloan

Rufus

(later renamed himself "Thor")

MacArthur

(administrative aide to Duke on American Samoa, sometimes called "Mac")

First appearance: 16 January 1975
Last appearance: 3 October 1976
Cameo appearance in Washington, visiting Duke and native Samoan Washington Redskins football player "Lava Lava" Lenny: 29 October 1978
Reappearance for civil union between Mark Slackmeyer and Chase:

Kim Rosenthal

First appearance (as an anonymous orphan war baby): 5 May 1975
Named: 7 May 1975
First spoken words: 25 August 1975

Jimmy Thudpucker

First appearance (voice): 24 September 1975
First appearance (fully illustrated): 25 September 1975

Honey Huan

First appearance: 22 January 1976
First mentioned by first name: 16 February 1976
Began attending Georgetown University:
Became roommates with J.J. and actual first name revealed to be Ching:

Andy Lippincott

First appearance: 27 January 1976
First mentioned by name: 30 January 1976
Informs Joanie that he's gay (causing a controversy for being the first homosexual character in newspaper comics): 10 February 1976
Volunteers for Virginia Slade's campaign for Congress, writing position papers: 19 March 1976
Reappears as a Bay Area Gay Alliance organizer: 7 September 1982
Diagnosis of AIDS revealed: 3 April 1989
Dies of AIDS: 24 May 1990
Funeral service: 28 May - 2 June 1990
Returns in a dream of Joanie's: 17 June 1990
Returns in a second dream sequence of Joanie's: 28 June - 3 July 1993
Appears in Mark Slackmeyer's dream, convinces Mark he's gay: 31 August - 3 September 1993

Rick Redfern

First appearance: 1 July 1976

Zeke Brenner

First appearance (voice only): 24 July 1977
First appearance (full illustration): 25 June 1979

Sid Kibbitz

First appearance: 15 November 1982

Elmont

First appearance: 21 December 1984

Ray Hightower

First appearance: 24 September 1990
First mentioned by name: 25 September 1990
Wounded during liberation of Kuwait: 7 February 1991
Reappears in Kuwait: 22 April 1991
Volunteers to work in an Iraqi refugee camp for Kurds: 29 April 1991
Returns home after first Gulf War: 22 July 1991
Announces he has started dating May: 7 October 1992
Evacuates a wounded B.D., who has lost a leg during the second Iraq war:

Notes

During the week of 23 December - 28 December 1974 Duke appeared at Zonker's parents home, recovering from a "drug episode", without his trademark sunglasses.
Dick and Lacey Davenport first appeared, unmarried, taking part in a Walden College class of 1919 reunion. They announce to Mark that they got married sometime in 1974/1975, in an appearance at another reunion on 2 May 1975. Lacey's maiden name is never mentioned in the strip.
Songs "sung" by Jimmy Thudpucker ("Stop in the Middle", "I Do Believe") were included as part of A Doonesbury Special, the half-hour animated TV show.
During his appearances in the 1970s, Roland's full name was given as Roland Burton Hedley, Jr. However, in one strip in 1982, while the character was covering the war in Lebanon, the name was changed to Roland Burton Hedley, III, and changed back again within a couple of months. The official doonesbury.com site uses Roland Burton Hedley, III.
B.D.'s name in the strip has only ever been given as B.D. While the character was named after Brian John Dowling, the football captain at Yale in 1968, and the comic strip character's full name was revealed to be that of his namesake in Doonesbury: A Musical Comedy, this marked the only time that that name was used.

Reference

Trudeau, Garry, Doonesbury Flashbacks CD-ROM for Microsoft Windows. Published by Mindscape, 1995.