The strip chronicled the life of the Berry family, composed of father Peter, mother Pat, daughter Jill, son Jackie and baby brother Jimmie. Although one source claims the mother's name as Hazel instead of Pat, copies of the strip confirm her name as Pat.
The Phrase Finder credits The Berrys for an early use during the 1950s of the term "no-brainer":
- No-brainer is American in origin and first began being used there in the 1950s. The first example that I've found of its use in the "requiring little mental effort" sense is this The Berrys cartoon, by Carl Grubert. It appeared in the Long Beach Independent, December 1959.[2]
Grubert died in 1979, five years after the conclusion of his strip. Emil Zlatos lived in Skokie, Illinois and ghosted the Berry's for many years. Mr. Zlatos drew many of the covers for the Chicago Sunday Times TV Prevue magazine and retired as the Sun-Times assistant editorial art director in 1978. Mr. Zlatos died in Arizona on October 9, 2002. Obituary, Chicago Sun Times October 12, 2002.
