Mr. Butts is a character in

Garry Trudeau Garretson Beekman Trudeau (born July 21, 1948) is an American cartoonist, best known for creating the ''Doonesbury'' comic strip. Trudeau is also the creator and executive producer of the Amazon Studios political comedy series ''Alpha House''. ...

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

Doonesbury ''Doonesbury'' is a comic strip by American cartoonist Garry Trudeau that chronicles the adventures and lives of an array of characters of various ages, professions, and backgrounds, from the President of the United States The president ...

''. When

Mike Doonesbury Michael James "Mike" Doonesbury is the main character in Garry Trudeau's comic strip ''Doonesbury''. He started out as a nerdish freshman from Tulsa at the fictional Walden College, and shared a dorm room with B.D. Currently he is married to ...

was asked to create an

ad campaign An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). An IMC is a platform in which a group of people can group their ideas, beliefs, and conce ...

aimed at teenage smokers, he suffered a morality crisis, and the hallucinatory Mr. Butts was the result. An eight-foot-tall (2.5 meter)

cigarette A cigarette is a narrow cylinder containing a combustible material, typically tobacco, that is rolled into thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end, causing it to smolder; the resulting smoke is orally inhaled via the opp ...

with a goofy smile, Mr. Butts is the

anthropomorphic personification Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics t ...

of the

tobacco industry The tobacco industry comprises those persons and companies who are engaged in the growth, preparation for sale, shipment, advertisement, and distribution of tobacco and tobacco-related products. It is a global industry; tobacco can grow in any ...

. Stylistically he is reminiscent of

Zap Comix ''Zap Comix'' is an underground comix series which was originally part of the youth counterculture of the late 1960s. While a few small-circulation self-published satirical comic books had been printed prior to this, ''Zap'' became the model for ...

, as pointed out by J. J. when first described to her by Mike. At first "Buttsy" only appeared in Mike's dreams, and he took them as a sign of his morality rebelling. But ''Doonesbury'' often bends the line between fantasy and reality, and it was not long before Mr. Butts was being treated as a real person, interacting with other characters and even testifying before Congress for the

Tobacco Institute The Tobacco Institute, Inc. was a United States tobacco industry trade group, founded in 1958 by the American tobacco industry. It was dissolved in 1998 as part of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.The Tobacco Institute's headquarters were ke ...

. Butts seems to have a very naïve personality when it comes to the product he represents. He honestly cannot see that there is any connection between cigarettes and cancer, downplays the effect of

nicotine addiction Nicotine is a natural product, naturally produced alkaloid in the nightshade family of plants (most predominantly in tobacco and ''Duboisia hopwoodii'') and is widely used recreational drug use, recreationally as a stimulant and anxiolytic. As ...

, and he is fully convinced that smoking will help make kids cool. He usually treats his appearances as

public service announcements A public service announcement (PSA) is a message in the public interest disseminated by the media without charge to raise public awareness and change behavior. In the UK, they are generally called a public information film (PIF); in Hong Kong, ...

, addressing the audience directly to tell them "good news" about the tobacco industry. In the real world, Mr. Butts has appeared in an animated anti-smoking commercial (voiced by

Billy West William Richard Werstine (born April 16, 1952), known professionally as Billy West, is an American voice actor. His voice roles include Bugs Bunny in the 1996 film ''Space Jam'' and several subsequent projects, the title characters of '' Doug'' ...

), the third television appearance of a ''Doonesbury'' character after the animated special aired in 1977 and the ''

Larry King Live ''Larry King Live'' was an American television talk show hosted by Larry King on CNN from 1985 to 2010. It was the channel's most watched and longest-running program, with over one million viewers nightly. Mainly aired from CNN's Los Angeles s ...

'' appearance of

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ran ...

on 2000-03-13. He also appeared on hundreds of trashcans on Santa Monica, California's beaches as part of that city's awareness promotion of their new anti-smoking ordinance in August 2005. Mr. Butts is sometimes accompanied by Mr. Jay, a large

marijuana joint A joint (), also commonly referred to as a "doobie" or "doob", is a rolled cannabis cigarette. Unlike commercial tobacco cigarettes, the user ordinarily hand-rolls joints with rolling papers, though in some cases they are machine-rolle ...

, along with Mr. Dum Dum (a large

bullet A bullet is a kinetic projectile, a component of firearm ammunition that is shot from a gun barrel. Bullets are made of a variety of materials, such as copper, lead, steel, polymer, rubber and even wax. Bullets are made in various shapes and co ...

personifying the

NRA The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is a gun rights advocacy group based in the United States. Founded in 1871 to advance rifle marksmanship, the modern NRA has become a prominent gun rights lobbying organization while conti ...

), and Mr. Brewski (a large beer can personifying the

liquor Liquor (or a spirit) is an alcoholic drink produced by distillation of grains, fruits, vegetables, or sugar, that have already gone through alcoholic fermentation. Other terms for liquor include: spirit drink, distilled beverage or hard ...

industry). Trudeau often uses the appearances of these sidekicks to illustrate his own viewpoints on the

legalization of marijuana The legality of cannabis for medical and recreational use varies by country, in terms of its possession, distribution, and cultivation, and (in regards to medical) how it can be consumed and what medical conditions it can be used for. These ...

. In addition, with the rising of

vaping An electronic cigarette is an electronic device that simulates tobacco smoking. It consists of an atomizer, a power source such as a battery, and a container such as a cartridge or tank. Instead of smoke, the user inhales vapor. As such ...

, there is also

Juul Juul Labs, Inc. (, stylized as JUUL Labs) is an American electronic cigarette company that spun off from Pax Labs in 2017. Juul Labs makes the Juul electronic cigarette, which atomizes nicotine salts derived from tobacco supplied by one-t ...

y, a giant

electronic cigarette An electronic cigarette is an electronic device that simulates tobacco smoking. It consists of an atomizer, a power source such as a battery, and a container such as a cartridge or tank. Instead of smoke, the user inhales vapor. As such ...

, who cheerfully models herself on Mr. Butts. Mr. Butts was also a

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

(inspired by the ''Doonesbury'' character) of a then- anonymous

informant An informant (also called an informer or, as a slang term, a “snitch”) is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law-enforcement world, where informan ...

who in 1995 sent 4,000 pages of incriminating

Brown & Williamson Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation was a U.S. tobacco company and a subsidiary of multinational British American Tobacco that produced several popular cigarette brands. It became infamous as the focus of investigations for chemically enhancing ...

tobacco company documents to researcher Stanton Glantz. The documents were used extensively in litigation against the tobacco industry and were the basis of the book '' The Cigarette Papers''.

References

{{Doonesbury Doonesbury characters Tobacco advertising