Dogbert

Dogbert
Dilbert character
File:Dogbert icon.png
Created by	Scott Adams
Portrayed by	Chris Elliott (TV series)
In-universe information
Species	Dog
Gender	Male

Dogbert is Dilbert's anthropomorphic pet dog from the Dilbert comic strip, and has been said by creator Scott Adams as being based on, if not a member of, the beagle breed.

Dogbert is a megalomaniac; one of his dreams is to conquer the world and enslave all humans, and he has achieved this status several times through methods such as hypnosis and masquerading as a space alien or a prophet. However, he often quickly relinquishes his post due to boredom, someone foiling his chance, his conviction that people do not deserve to have him as leader due to the ongoing peace that results, or his desire to go nap on a soft pillow. In both the strip and TV show he ended up the ruler of Elbonia, although he quickly relinquished the title. He has also run for President of the United States on at least two occasions as a third-party candidate, apparently losing. (At one point, a Virtual Vote poll sponsored by the fast-food chain Jack In The Box featured him, the two real candidates, as well as the mascot for the chain, Jack. Jack beat all of them, with no recounts.)

Despite this dislike for humans, he is known to protect and help Dilbert when he falls victim to sinister motives. Indeed Dogbert has no problem playing jokes on Dilbert or even being mean to Dilbert, however Dogbert, like any faithful dog, will not tolerate anyone else being mean to Dilbert but him. Dogbert often rescues Dilbert from others. For example, he has saved him from Mr. Tidy, the robber-disguised-as-a-cleaning-man, by having Bob and Dawn the Dinosaurs flush Mr. Tidy down the toilet, prevented Dilbert from being executed by Catbert, and rescued Dilbert from the trolls in accounting several times. In one strip, a jealous Dogbert sues Dilbert for petting the neighbor's cat, and in another he defends Dilbert to the Pointy-Haired Boss by citing Dilbert's many engineering achievements (although he later goes on to ridicule Dilbert in private). In the cartoon show, Dogbert (voiced by actor Chris Elliott) tells Dilbert that he fills a special place in his life: Dilbert blocks the light from the lamp when he sits on the couch, eliminating glare from the TV that Dogbert watches. He often sits on Dilbert's lap or walks in the park with Dilbert; though he generally attracts the girls that Dilbert is trying to attract—being a dog and all. Dogbert often gives Dilbert advice on how to solve his problems and is generally shown to have at least some level of respect for him. Adams writes in Seven Years of Highly Defective People that "There's no explanation of why Dogbert chooses to live with Dilbert, except that he finds him amusing. Once in a great while we'll see some glimpses of affection. And if Dilbert gets in deep trouble we can count on Dogbert to bail him out."

File:Dogbertplush.JPG

Dogbert plush toy

Dogbert has made many ventures into the business world, often as a consultant who hypes new trends to the Pointy-Haired Boss, which he enjoys because of the opportunities for conning and insulting people (Dogbert refers to this as consulting). In these positions, he typically takes advantage of stupidity and gullibility. For instance, when hired as a consultant to create a new company logo, Dogbert proposed using a piece of paper with a circular stain from his coffee cup as the Brown Ring of Quality, and then charged a large consultancy fee (The ring may have borne a certain sneaky similarity to the Lucent logo). He has also been a tech support employee, a supermodel, a substitute teacher, a lawyer, a cult leader, a billionaire, a talk radio host, a United States Supreme Court nominee, the leader of the FBI, and many other occupations. He wags his tail when someone falls for one of his schemes.

Between February 26 and December 2, 2009, Dogbert was the CEO of Dilbert's company.

Alter egos

• Saint Dogbert, the patron saint of technology, Dogbert's religious form. Dogbert created this form as a method to eliminate the "demons of stupidity", and he also (sometimes) uses it for tv ads, and for a group that includes "buzzword-spewers", "clueless morons" and "people who press an extra button to do the job" (Ctrl-Alt-F4-Del, instead of Ctrl-Alt-Del, the soft reboot, for example). Saint Dogbert wears a mitre and carries a scepter in his left paw. His right paw heals broken technology, and the scepter exorcises the "demons of stupidity."

• Nostridogbert or Nostrildogmas, a parody of Nostradamus. Here, he is a psychic, albeit an evil one. For example, he created a chain e-mail curse that, if read and sent to others, would turn both the reader and sender into a dog, but if that letter was not read, the person would die (most people chose the curse over death). In the late 1990s, Nostradogbert briefly became a doomsday prophet so he could "scare gullible people." His logic for saying the world would end in the year 2000 was that "It's biiiiiiiig and rouuuuunnnd." His nemesis is John Stossel.

• Deputy of Common Sense goes around arresting up people who have no common sense, such as a middle management figure who scheduled a four-hour meeting to find out why the company was behind schedule and a safety inspector who deliberately causes accidents, the plan being that the average number of accidents goes up after his inspection.

Trivia

Creator Scott Adams created several strips about Dogbert's origins, including his rivalry with another dog named Bingo. The strips were never syndicated because Adams felt that this would make Dilbert too much of a "cartoonist cartoon."

Before the strip was syndicated, Dogbert's name was "Dildog". Editors noted that any printing error obliterating the g in that name would wreak havoc, and the name was changed to Dogbert.

In Seven Years of Highly Defective People, Adams says that Dogbert was a combination of Lucy, a beagle owned by his family when he was a child, and the dark side of his own personality, which he describes as the part that "wants to take over the world and make all the people [his] personal servants".

Dogbert appears to have conservative politics, as implied during his brief tenure as a radio host. According to Seven Years, Adams was accused of making fun of Rush Limbaugh when this ran, though he denies it. During his 2008 Presidential run, Dogbert seemed to espouse Republican political views, including a hardline on terrorism and skepticism towards global warming. Of course, it's also possible that Dogbert is simply taking advantage of real conservatives for his own gain/amusement.

Dogbert has several similarities to Dilbert (eyeglasses that don't reveal pupils, lack of visible mouth). However, Dogbert's lack of visible mouth is revealed to not just be a lack of detail on the artist's part, but something that is also noticeable to people of the comic strip (Dogbert himself has said that he has no "visible mouth").

Dogbert hates opera, as revealed in Always Postpone Meetings with Time Wasting Morons. Once, he was successful in getting it banned.

In the episode of the animated series "Testing", Dogbert was a passenger on the Space Shuttle Columbia.

In "The Delivery", a publisher makes the reference that Dogbert was Deep Throat during the Watergate Scandal, working with the "Literary Agent" Dilbert goes to in order to publish his book (about his pregnancy).

External links

• Dilbert.com - The Characters
• Dogbert origin strips