The Perishers his bathtime struggles with Wellington usually turn into epic battles. Boot's favourite food appears to be links of sausages, and his attempts to consume these in advance of Wellington provide the basis of many episodes. Boot was originally drawn with a short tail (on one occasion he met a bob-tailed sheepdog, and on hearing the name decided to call his own tail Fred), but Maurice Dodd later discovered that real Old English Sheepdogs' tails are docked, and so over the course of several years Collins drew his tail shorter and shorter until it vanished altogether – Boot still appears completely
The Cartoon writer, Bruce Eric Kaplan, had himself contributed many cartoons to "The New Yorker", and he drew upon some of his own experiences for this part of the plot. Kaplan said of the cartoon subplot, "To me, the most interesting part of that story was the idea of not understanding a cartoon." Elaine tries to contribute to the magazine with a simpler and understandable cartoon, but ends up subconsciously lifting a "Ziggy" joke. This part of the storyline was later remembered by the media when in 2008 Jessica Seinfeld was falsely accused of plagiarizing a cookbook. On July 18, 2012, "The