You're Smokin' Now, Mr Butts!

Rating:
Summary: Reasons why the Bush Administration hated Doonesbury
Review: "You're Smokin' Now, Mr. Butts!" is yet another classic example about how irony is lost on some people. Mr. Butts says it is cool for kids to smoke telling them "Don't worry about cancer, kids! You're teenagers, you're immortal!" Now, you and I would call that a caustic comment and an attack on the tobacco industry. But White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater declared that the "Doonesbury" comic strip was glorifying drugs and a Tobacco Institute Spokesperson declared, "It is very unfortunate that Garry Trudeau encouraged a lot of young people to think that it is perfectly all right for them to be smokers." If Mr. Butts causally dismissed the 395,000 deaths a year the Surgeon General blames on tobacco, then that would not be a good thing. But then one of the fun things about going back and re-reading these old Doonesbury collections is to see who was ticked off at Trudeau each time about whatever.

Mr. Butts and his friend Mr. Jay are the cover boys for this collection of 1990 daily and Sunday "Doonesbury" strips, but there is more. At the American Embassy in Beijing there is the Trump-engineered wedding of Honey and Duke, Sal attends the annual Dr. Whoopee sales conference show, and Big Jim Andrews dumps the mother of his children for a bimbette (she has not met his parole officer yet). Mike has to put up with eight friends camped out in the Doonesbury living room until the whole comic strip gets raided, while the Bush Administration proposes a constitutional amendment on flag desecration which results in a memorable Sunday "Doonesbury" with a copy of the American flag and the conundrum of how to dispose of our nation's symbol without desecrating it. This was the one Fitzwater should have been complaining about.

No other cartoonist, editorial or otherwise, is as committed to ticking off as many people in power as G. B. Trudeau. But no other daily strip has been as committed to being topical: remember when George Bush went to Colombia and we were worried that the drug lords were going to try something stupid? You will if you read "You're Smokin' Now, Mr. Butts!"

Rating:
Summary: Reasons why the Bush Administration hated Doonesbury
Review: "You're Smokin' Now, Mr. Butts!" is yet another classic example about how irony is lost on some people. Mr. Butts says it is cool for kids to smoke telling them "Don't worry about cancer, kids! You're teenagers, you're immortal!" Now, you and I would call that a caustic comment and an attack on the tobacco industry. But White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater declared that the "Doonesbury" comic strip was glorifying drugs and a Tobacco Institute Spokesperson declared, "It is very unfortunate that Garry Trudeau encouraged a lot of young people to think that it is perfectly all right for them to be smokers." If Mr. Butts causally dismissed the 395,000 deaths a year the Surgeon General blames on tobacco, then that would not be a good thing. But then one of the fun things about going back and re-reading these old Doonesbury collections is to see who was ticked off at Trudeau each time about whatever.

Mr. Butts and his friend Mr. Jay are the cover boys for this collection of 1990 daily and Sunday "Doonesbury" strips, but there is more. At the American Embassy in Beijing there is the Trump-engineered wedding of Honey and Duke, Sal attends the annual Dr. Whoopee sales conference show, and Big Jim Andrews dumps the mother of his children for a bimbette (she has not met his parole officer yet). Mike has to put up with eight friends camped out in the Doonesbury living room until the whole comic strip gets raided, while the Bush Administration proposes a constitutional amendment on flag desecration which results in a memorable Sunday "Doonesbury" with a copy of the American flag and the conundrum of how to dispose of our nation's symbol without desecrating it. This was the one Fitzwater should have been complaining about.

No other cartoonist, editorial or otherwise, is as committed to ticking off as many people in power as G. B. Trudeau. But no other daily strip has been as committed to being topical: remember when George Bush went to Colombia and we were worried that the drug lords were going to try something stupid? You will if you read "You're Smokin' Now, Mr. Butts!"