He has a younger brother, Benjamin (who during some time as a punk rocker was known as "Sal Putrid"), and a widowed mother who died in late 2010.
Mike is a fairly normal, well-adjusted individual to whom most readers can relate, in contrast to the often surreal, crazy and extreme characters that populate the strip.
Mike's name was taken from the word "doone", meaning a person who is not afraid to appear foolish, and Charles Pillsbury, Trudeau's roommate at Yale.
In the early strips (from 1970), his primary traits were his inability to hit it off with any girl, and his refusal to admit his lack of success with women.
After a couple of years on campus, he moved to Walden Commune, along with B.D., Zonker, Mark, Nicole, Boopsie, Didi, Bernie and Joanie.
These assignments included selling Ronald Reagan to black voters and the creation of a new mascot for the tobacco industry.
After his stint as an ad-man, Mike found himself unemployed for an extended period of time, and became increasingly desperate.
Eventually he landed a dream job working for Bernie's software company, moved from New York to Seattle, and met Kim Rosenthal, a brilliant and beautiful computer programmer who, despite being many years his junior, fell for him.