Earl Bird was the African-American next-door neighbor of Mike and Mabel Motley and a fellow worker at "Drudge Industries" and they were seen working side by side. Earl usually had a cigar in his mouth and was the most incompetent person in the comic strip; once confusing a microwave for a television set. When he was captured and forced to steer a ship, he took command of the ship until it collided with land in the middle of Kansas. The humor behind that scenario was that ships cannot land in "Kansas"; Earl was clearly an incompetent sailor and no clear explanation was given about the reason of giving him command of an entire ship.