Mike and Mabel Motley

Mike Motley and Mabel Motley are the main characters of the 1976-2000 American comic strip Motley's Crew; which was created by Ben Templeton and Tom Forman.
Mike and Mabel Motley were homeowners during the course of the entire comic strip. They lived in a two-storey suburban house somewhere within the lower 48 states of the United States of America. While Mabel did the housework and gardening, Mike did all the yard work (raking leaves, cutting the grass, etc.) Even though Mike and Mabel Motley decided that only Mike needed to earn income for the household, Mike and Mabel Motley attempted to keep up with the times and with the changing needs of Middle America to their best of their ability.
Mabel Motley
In the comic strip Motley's Crew, Mabel Motley (maiden name: unknown Mabel proudly maintains a "smoke free" house to the chagrin of her husband's friend Cronin. Some issues of the comic strip show Mabel with a bust line, particularly if she is wearing a nightgown. Her primary task in the family was to cook and clean while her husband was working and providing a paycheck for the family unit. Gardening to an extremely strict daily routine was also a part of her life; even to the point of doing it in a terrible rainstorm and worrying her adult son Truman.
Eventually, she became a grandmother later in the lifetime of the comic strip as her daughter-in-law Tacoma gave birth to two fraternal male twins. Mabel revealed some of the aspects of her personality during her time as a wife and a mother. She would frequently complained about her husband spending his weekend afternoons doing nothing but watching sports on the television. With all the masculine elements that the comic strip portrayed, having Mike Motley married to her provided a feminine balance to the comic strip.
Setting her husband straight was always one of Mabel's things that kept her occupied. After Mike tried to bend the rules for certain situations, she would get upset with him. Strong criticism is often a part of being around her husband Mike. For example, a situation occurred where Mike refused to wear a necktie to a wedding service. Mabel even forced her husband put on a formal outfit that wasn't exactly perfect in order to create an illusion of dignity for Mabel's side of the family. This one-time gag appeared on the August 28, 1997 episode of the comic strip.
are two beloved members of her family; with Abel being her brother and Buffy being her sister-in-law. Like his brother-in-law Mike, Abel has been known to enjoy a good drink of beer. However, Abel and Buffy both have a "friendly rivalry" against Mike; a stereotypical trait used throughout mainstream media when depicting in-laws.
Mike Motley
In the comic strip Motley's Crew, Michael "Mike" Motley was a middle aged unskilled factory worker (later being promoted to webmaster). Mike is of Scottish descent.
He worked for his employer Mister Drudge and was married to his equally middle aged wife Mabel; who occasionally got to see her husband watching the New York Yankees instead of monitoring the plant on "Take Your Spouse to Work Day." When not working, he was often caught spending most of his Sundays watching football on television. The occasional moments that he spent outside his factory workplace and his home was considered to be spent on creating masculine humor to the readers of the comic strip that he played the starring role in. During his working days, he often wore a hard hat because his blue collar job was considered to be dangerous work. While his character was in development during the early days of the comic strip, he and his wife took care of their son Truman. Eventually, the son grew up and got married because the comic strip had a story arc like a soap opera instead of a floating timeline like a Saturday morning cartoon.
Even with his busy schedule of work, family, and bar life, Mike still had time to travel the world; these trips involved meeting his Russian friend . His drinking habits eventually got him in trouble with his doctor; causing Mabel to hide his beer until he returned to a healthy weight. When his son Truman hit hard times at his workplace, Mike was there to lend him a hand and help him recuperate from his losses.

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