Carl: An 11-year old boy who attends the local Middle School. Ben: A brown black bear who is about the size of Carl and who is very entrepreneurial. (Translation: He likes to find ways to make money.) Beeky: A very smart, inventive bird. Some days Carl is glad to have Beeky and some days he wishes Beeky would fly to the South Pole.  Carl is an 11-year-old 6th grader who likes nothing more than doodling in class, trying to get something for nothing, and getting Ben the bear to do his homework. He lives on Onion Hill with his parents, older sister Laura, Ben, and Beeky. While Carl usually acts like a typical 11-year-old, he sometimes tries to be sophisticated and proper, usually with disastrous results. Like the time at a Mexican restaurant, Carl ordered in Spanish and ended up ordering three rolls of toilet paper. By the way, Carl loves Gord-Eatos, the “exciting chips for exciting times.” Carl runs out to the store and buys them all up whenever new flavors come out, so good luck finding some. Ben the bear is Carl’s best friend. Ben thinks bad things always happen to him, and he is right in some ways. He has had his mouth erased for insulting the cartoonist, dealt with an economic crisis (known as Carl blowing Ben’s money playing poker), and suffered insomnia during hibernation. Although Ben is a bear, his favorite food is cheeseburgers. He is also fond of coffee, which prompted him to open his own coffee shop, Benbucks. In addition to owning a coffee shop, Ben is a farmer, has worked as Santa Claus at the mall, and has developed his own line of trading cards. He’s a busy dude. Beeky is a smart (aleck) bird. Although he can fly, his favorite method of transportation is his Jetnest, a flying nest that he built. In addition to the jetnest, Beeky has invented many other things, including a device used to edit the Carl and Ben...and Beeky strip and the “Adult Answerer,” a conversation device that allows kids to pretend to hold conversations with adults, when they are actually doing something else, like playing video games. Beeky is a very proper bird and especially hates it when people misspell words and say things like “ain’t.” He will pound you over the head with the grammar hammer if he catches you doing that. While Beeky is very intelligent, sometimes his solutions are not very successful. For example, when the cartoonist erased Ben’s mouth, Beeky gave Ben wax lips. Uh, no. Bears don’t have lips. Duh.