Boopsie

Boopsie (aka Barbara Ann Boopstein) is a character in the comic strip Doonesbury.

She was first introduced in the strip's early years as B.D.'s airheaded girlfriend. At this point of the strip she was supremely unintelligent, and almost incapable of finishing a sentence without giggling or exclaiming "Whee!". She was also almost completely subservient to B.D., which Nicole deplored. Nicole tried to teach Boopsie about feminism, and failed miserably.

After college, she and B.D, moved to Malibu, where she attempted to start a career as an actress. By this point her intelligence and self-reliance had increased, and she was far less of a bimbo. B.D. became her manager. To date she has yet to land a really decent part, and is best remembered for roles like "Third Girl in shower" in the fictional "Porky's IX". She has, however, developed something of a cult following among frat-boys who believe that of all the bit-part playing airheads in Hollywood, she is the best.

Despite having matured, Boopsie is still easily influenced, and has gotten heavily into new age practices, which B.D. considers absurd. She firmly believes in reincarnation, ESP and channeling. She herself has had a great deal of unintentional success in the latter, and became a vessel for "Hunk-Ra" (see Ramtha), a barbaric warrior from the Punic Wars who was unchallengeable in battle but who in the end was slain, like Siegfried, by a treacherous retainer.

When Boopsie is taken over by Hunk-Ra an actual physical transformation takes place. Her eyes become sunken, her teeth become pointed, her hair becomes wild and sometimes her clothing even changes into battle armor. This is extremely unnerving for the other characters to witness, particularly since Hunk-Ra's idea of polite discourse is to threaten to remove everyone's entrails and feast upon them. B.D. was so disturbed by Hunk's constant appearances at inappropriate moments that he walked out on his and Boopsie's wedding. Eventually they reconciled when Hunk-Ra agreed to leave, and he has appeared only sporadically since.

Boopsie and B.D. were finally married, and had a daughter, Samantha. Although both parents are devoted to Samantha, neither is particularly good at parenting, and both are often busy. This means that Sam is mostly being raised by Zonker Harris, who works for food as a live-in babysitter.

Boopsie took over for B.D. as coach of the Walden football team when he was called up for duty in Iraq, and led the team to a championship win. She also served as an alternate juror on the O.J. Simpson trial, and as Uncle Duke's photo-op arm candy during his bid for president.