Catbert

Catbert is a fictional cat, and the "evil director of human resources" in the Dilbert comic strip. He was supposed to be a one-time character but resonated with readers so well that Adams brought him back as the HR director.

Publication history

An unnamed cat appeared in two 1992 strips as the companion of Dilbert's "perfect romantic match"; he or she strongly resembled the later Catbert design. The real Catbert, unnamed, first appeared in a series of comic strips from September 12 to 16, 1994, when he attacked Ratbert and rebooted Dilbert's computer before Dogbert finally kicked him out of the house. Reader response asked for "more Catbert," despite the cat never having been named, and Adams decided to bring him back as the "evil director" of human resources. Catbert appeared again on March 20, 1995,^[1] when Dogbert hired Catbert to handle downsizing (a process that leads to Alice and Wally running for the new org chart and colliding so hard while that they ended up wearing each other's clothes, backwards).

Characteristics

With the help of his "random policy generator",^[2] he comes up with sadistic, illogical, and often evil policies to enforce on the employees, such as permanently branding employees,^[3] requiring employees to schedule sick time before they actually get sick,^[4] replacing the health plan with Google,^[5] and making time spent in the bathroom count as "vacation."^[6] He also has the help of his "Life Suck 3000" (to suck the life force out of employees faster than normal),^[7] and his library of HR binders that give strategies on downsizing and hiring of morons specifically.^[8] He often works in tandem with the Pointy-Haired Boss, though on occasion he even harasses him with his policies.^[9][10] Catbert typically celebrates the creation of a new evil policy by purring loudly,^[11] hugging himself,^[11] doing the "evil dance"^[12] or by occasionally laughing himself fuzzy.^[13]

He often abuses workers by doing things like sending Wally home for wearing shorts, even though Wally's pants reach his ankles. He also claws up employees, once batted Dilbert's head off, hid Asok the intern in his litter box, and pulled some strings to get Wally moved to a window cubicle (so as to use Wally's head as a bed to lie on while warming himself in the sun).

Catbert's more cat-like traits include use of the litter box, purring, and lying on warm or sun-heated surfaces.

Some of his own strategies have been known to backfire on him, like the August 2007 strips where he made the employees wear brain monitoring helmets when he suspected they were thinking about pleasant stuff rather than work. Wally, naturally, was the first whose helmet went off, and when Catbert went over what he was thinking about he went metaphorically "blind", possibly with the same reaction the Pointy-haired boss afterwards had: "I was happier not knowing."

Animated television series

Catbert appeared in nine episodes of the animated Dilbert series.

• Season One
  • Episode 8: "The Little People"
  • Episode 10: "Y2K"
• Season Two
  • Episode 2: "The Shroud of Wally"
  • Episode 7: "The Merger"
  • Episode 10: "The Assistant"
  • Episode 12: "The Virtual Employee"
  • Episode 13: "The Pregnancy"
  • Episode 14: "The Delivery"
  • Episode 16: "The Fact"

References

External links

• The first appearance of Catbert (as a one-time character)