Dilbert

Dilbert is a satirical comic strip about a micro-managed office environment featuring the eponymous software engineer. The strip, created by Scott Adams, has run in newspapers since 1989, spawning several books, an animated television series, and numerous tie-in products ranging from stuffed dolls to ice cream.

Dilbert's success can be traced to its all-too-accurate portrayal of corporate culture as a Kafkaesqueesque world of bureaucracy for its own sake: the boss has power, but no skill; the workers have skills, but no power - and as they learn that their skills are not rewarded, they become mere placeholders who see innovation as dangerous and count anonymity as success.

The humor emerges as we see the characters making obviously ridiculous decisions, and we realize that the artificial roles assigned to each member of the corporate culture often require us to do exactly the same thing.

Terms invented by Adams in relation to the strip, and sometimes used by fans in describing their own office environments, include "Induhvidual." The strip has also popularized the usage "cow-orker".

In 2001 Adams collaborated with IDEO, a design company, to come up with the "perfect cubicle". This was fitting since many of the Dilbert strips make fun of the standard Cubicle desk and the environment it creates. The result was both whimsical and practical.

The noun "induhvidual", meaning a stupid person or a person who does or says something stupid, was popularized in the Dilbert comic strip. It is based on an American English expression "duh!". The conscious misspelling of individual as induhvidual is a pejorative term for people who are not in the DNRC (Dogbert's New Ruling Class). Its coining is explained in Dilbert Newsletter #6.

Table of contents

1 Characters 2 Dilbert Animated Series Episode Guide 3 External Links

Characters

• Dilbert, an often powerless engineer, MIT graduate
• Dogbert, Dilbert's dog, who doubles as an amoral businessman with fingers in every pie, and has aspirations of one day ruling the world and enslaving all humans
• Catbert, the evil director of human resources
• The Pointy-Haired Boss, clueless and occasionally cruel, abbreviated by readers to PHB. The term PHB has become a generic for this type of manager. The PHB is notably smarter in the TV series. (See also the U.S. Army Acronym REMF.)
• Wally, a lazy coworker always trying to work the system
• Alice, a constantly on-edge coworker, having trouble controlling her "fist of death"
• Asok, a brilliant but naïve intern from India, IIT graduate
• Ratbert, a simple rat
• the World's Smartest Garbageman, philosopher and scientist, provider of solutions
• Dilbert's Mom, homely but intelligent
• Dilbert's Dad, an unseen character. He lives at the all-you-can-eat restaurant, because he hasn't eaten all he can eat yet, (technically not an unseen character, appears in the animated series)
• Bob, Dawn, and Rex the Dinosaurs (not extinct, just (usually) hiding)
• the Elbonians, the idiotic citizens of a mud-covered fourth-world nation
• Carol, the PHB's misanthropical secretary
• Tina, the brittle tech writer, feminist
• Stan, the all-too-slick marketer
• Mordac, Preventer of Information Technology
• Ted, the Generic Guy,
• Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light and ruler of Heck (a minor devil), and brother of the Boss. Rather than carrying a pitchfork, he carries an oversized "spork".
• Loud Howard, another coworker who, despite appearing in only one comic strip, became a regular character in the TV series.

Dilbert Animated Series Episode Guide

Production numbers are in bold.

Season 1	Season 2
The Name - 101 The Competition - 103 The Prototype - 102 The Takeover - 106 Testing - 104 Elbonian Trip - 105 Tower of Babel - 108 Little People - 107 The Knack - 110 Y2K - 109 Charity - 111 Holiday - 112 The Infomercial - 113	The Gift - 201 The Shroud of Wally - 202 Art - 203 The Trial - 204 The Dupey - 205 The Security Guard - 206 The Merger - 207 Hunger - 208 The Off-Site Meeting - 209 The Assistant - 210 The Return - 211 The Virtual Employee - 212 Pregnancy - part 1 - 213 The Delivery - part 2 of Pregnancy - 214 Company Picnic - 215 The Fact - 216 Ethics - 217

External Links

• Official Dilbert website
• Comedy Central's Dilbert site
• Complete list of Dilbert characters
• A detailed treatment of the word Induhvidual
• Characters
• Searchable archive of text from Dilbert strips