The strip generally uses a single captioned panel with a round border, hence the original name of the series, which was changed following objections from the magazine Family Circle.

The Los Angeles Times ran a feature article on the Thelma character when Keane updated her hairstyle in 1996.

The strips purportedly drawn by Billy are crudely rendered and reflect his understanding of the world and his sense of humor.

The first use of this gag by Keane was in This Week magazine in 1962 in a cartoon titled "Life in Our House" that attributed the childish drawings to his six-year-old son Chris.

(Peter John) was introduced through a series of cartoons about the mother's pregnancy that culminated in the baby's birth on August 1, 1962.

Bil's mother (Florence, but usually called Grandma) appears regularly in the strip and apparently lives near the family.

Bil's father (as a spirit) plays a prominent role in the TV special A Family Circus Christmas.

One distinguishing characteristic of the Family Circus is the frequent use of Christian imagery and themes, ranging from generic references to God to Jeffy daydreaming about Jesus at the grocery store.

[11] Some of his comics with scenes in Billy's bedroom depict a pennant reading "NC" on the wall, a tribute to his alma mater and his Catholic education.

Some of "Billy's" drawings would be explaining vocabulary, only he does not understand the right word, such as confusing "hysterical" with "historical" or defining "acquire" as "a group of singers in church."

The story arc ended with a drawing showing the father back at home and the kids asking about such preposterous happenings to his befuddlement.

One of the best-known features of Keane's work is the dotted-line comics, showing the characters' paths through the neighborhood or house with a thick dotted line.

This concept has been parodied by other comic strips, including Pearls Before Swine, For Better or For Worse, FoxTrot, Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield, Liō, Marvin and xkcd.

In April 1975, Keane introduced an invisible gremlin named "Not Me" who watches while the children try to shift blame for a misdeed by saying, "Not me."

Other adult ideas included the parents telling Jeffy not to be shy when they invited friends to the house, and then he is pictured 25 years later as an outgoing late-night talk-show host akin to Jay Leno.

not wishing to be introduced to the toddler daughter of family friends, only to show 30 years later that both are now grown and are celebrating their wedding day.

[13] In 1985, a year after the introduction of the Plymouth Voyager and the Dodge Caravan, the family appears in a series of cartoons trading the station wagon for a new minivan (when the salesman assures Mom and Dad that "Lee Iacocca stands behind every vehicle we sell," the children look behind the van to see if Mr. Iacocca is back there).

Early strips also showed the family in a small convertible, a caricature based on Keane's Sunbeam Rapier.

"[22] For the 1997 April Fools' Day comic strip switcheroo, Dilbert creator Scott Adams swapped cartoons with Keane;[23] and Stephan Pastis drew a series in which Family Circus "invaded" Pearls Before Swine in 2007.

Pastis, who had a close relationship with Bil and Jeff Keane, created numerous parodies of Family Circus "because it was an icon.

[citation needed] However, disapproving feedback from his readership, coupled with the website's use of double entendre and vulgarity, prompted Keane to request that the site be discontinued.

In the week of June 27, 2005, Stephan Pastis portrayed the cartoon Keane family inviting Osama bin Laden into their house.

Bin Laden is captured by the police while following Billy's dotted lines, and the whole family is imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for harboring a terrorist.