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Garry Trudeau was a prep school kid from New England, but he identified with the Jewish outsider in 'Doonesbury'

JL;DR SUMMARY Garry Trudeau, creator of the Doonesbury comic strip, was a New England prep school alum who, despite his insider status, deeply identified with the Jewish outsider archetype through his character Mark Slackmeyer. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Jewish IdentityCultural IdentityAssimilationYale UniversityComicsIntergenerational Conflict1970s AmericaGarry TrudeauDoonesburyMegaphone Mark

Places mentioned

New Haven, Connecticut, United States
"Trudeau hardly knew Zanger and had much less in common with him than he had with Kingman Brewster, whose ancestors sailed to America on the Mayflower."
Washington, Washington DC, United States
"Doonesbury made its debut in Oct. 1970, appearing in 28 newspapers across the nation, including The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune and The Boston Globe."
Chicago, Illinois, United States
"Doonesbury made its debut in Oct. 1970, appearing in 28 newspapers across the nation, including The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune and The Boston Globe."
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
"Doonesbury made its debut in Oct. 1970, appearing in 28 newspapers across the nation, including The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune and The Boston Globe."
New Jersey, United States
"Trudeau increasingly used Marks clashes with his father Phil, a New Jersey stockbroker desperate for his son to succeed, to dramatize tensions within postwar Jewish life."
New Hampshire, United States
"Like his father, the hardworking family doctor Frank Trudeau, the cartoonist attended St. Pauls one of the most blueblood of all New England prep schools."
New York, United States
"A graduate of a public high school in Queens, biographer Ron Chernow, like Trudeau, started Yale in the fall of 1966."

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Cairo Item ID 83413
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Retrieved 2026-05-27 05:30:51 UTC
Curated 2026-05-27 08:31:33 UTC