The Comics Curmudgeon

407 responses to “I am not a menace! I am a free man!”

1. Dick, the Doorbell
   June 13th, 2007 at 11:33 am [Reply]

   AGGGH! Zippy hasa hot bod!

   My brain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. Dick, the Doorbell
   June 13th, 2007 at 11:36 am [Reply]

   And on the sujbect, does Brenda Starr know Ernest works nude?

3. fizzy logic
   June 13th, 2007 at 11:36 am [Reply]

   Josh, those balls that Dennis and Joey are on are actually called “Hippity Hops”. They were popular when I was a kid – back in the early 70’s. Before hippity hop was something else.

4. maurice
   June 13th, 2007 at 11:36 am [Reply]

   dennis and joey are on “hippity hops” i had one when i was a kid …..in late 1970’s “sigh’ mine was a big rubber ball that had the head of a horse. they were really fun

5. Ovalicious
   June 13th, 2007 at 11:37 am [Reply]

   Oh come on — I remember riding those bouncy ball things in gym class in 2nd grade or so… I actually figured they were outdated, and was wondering if the comment would be something to the effect of “they haven’t had those since the 80s!” Anyone else remember these?

   Love, Val

6. Dingo
   June 13th, 2007 at 11:37 am [Reply]

   Josh, thank you for making me laugh so hard the boyfriend stared at me like the RCA Victor dog.

   Oh, and I’m all for TEAM JULIA. If Liz Patterson so much as walks down the street where Anthony lives, Julia will run her over with a car. A Yugo, perhaps.

7. Brigid Keely
   June 13th, 2007 at 11:40 am [Reply]

   Luann and whats-her-face are suddenly wearing clownish drag queen makeup because they are sitting around on Luann’s couch playing with makeup. Remember when they sabotaged each others’ cookies and Mrs Luann’s Mom compared them to 6 year olds? That’s basically what they are, down to how they play with makeup.

8. Dean Booth
   June 13th, 2007 at 11:40 am [Reply]

   I’m looking forward the the next Charterstone pool party. The last one was a blast! (SFW)

9. Josh
   June 13th, 2007 at 11:42 am [Reply]

   Where did you hippity hoppers grow up? These terrifying ball-things had no place on the mean streets of Buffalo in the 1980s. We had to make do with skateboards and BMX bikes and walking. Walking, I say!

   Josh

10. Lapsed Librarian
    June 13th, 2007 at 11:43 am [Reply]

    I loved those “hippity hop” balls when I was a kid (’70s). I thought they were long gone, but last fall I went to an “indoor playground” (basically a big playroom at a community center) with my toddler nephew and they had some there, so they are still around…

11. Red Greenback
    June 13th, 2007 at 11:44 am [Reply]

    It appears Dennis the Mild and Joey are both suffering the effects of eunuchoid gigantism. More info can be found….zzzzzzz

12. fizzy logic
    June 13th, 2007 at 11:47 am [Reply]

    Here, Josh, you can buy one for yourself. Never too late to hippity hop!

13. Nina
    June 13th, 2007 at 11:47 am [Reply]

    The “Hippity Hop” toy is still around. My daughter drove me crazy back in the 70’s with that thing. She jumped around all over the neighborhood with hers. Needless to say my grandchildren will NOT be getting one from me.

14. Modo
    June 13th, 2007 at 11:49 am [Reply]

    Is it just me, or bad artwork, but has Granthony lost the ’stache???

15. Hogen Mogen
    June 13th, 2007 at 11:49 am [Reply]

    Sometimes, I jokingly say “That’s about as funny as dental work.” Today’s Foob is not about as funny as dental work, it’s exactly as funny as dental work. Who knew there was such hilarity between the molars?

16. maurice
    June 13th, 2007 at 11:50 am [Reply]

    josh, i grew up in the south . mean place in 1978, we had roving “hippity hop” gangs. all dressed up in tube socks and terry cloth head bands.we were so cool …no really we were the cool kids, i swear.

17. Modo
    June 13th, 2007 at 11:51 am [Reply]

    …oh wait, he lost it yesterday. Damn, that’s disturbing.

18. Jim C.
    June 13th, 2007 at 11:52 am [Reply]

    Josh,

    That was the 80s, man. Totally different, you kids those days with your neon parachute pants and your transformers, and that Thriller it’s just noise!!

    (I also had a hippity hop in the early 70s. It was red. I occasionally used it as transportation. We preferred to use it as a club (Sock It To Me style) or as a bat in hippity-hop-baseball.)

    For what it’s worth, hippity hops either stayed around, or made a comeback. In the late 90s my niece had a yellow one.

19. Motorposus
    June 13th, 2007 at 11:53 am [Reply]

    You’re on team Julia, I’m on team Julia, we’re all* on team Julia!
    GO TEAM!!

    *Except Lynn Johnston

20. Joey
    June 13th, 2007 at 11:54 am [Reply]

    link

    Why you could even catch the Rhino on one.

21. Little A.
    June 13th, 2007 at 11:54 am [Reply]

    This was my lst post from previous, but I feel like saying it again. Forgive me for repeating myself.

    Has it occurred to anybody that Lynn Johston is a very successful and effective (and affective) cartoonist? Observe the reactions she is able to cause in so many people! I am sure she would prefer not to make so many people gag and retch, so to speak, but again, to paraphrase Holden Caulfied, her recent strips are so putrid we can’t take our eyes off of them.

    And we must keep in mind: her characters belong to her, she can change them, morph them as she sees fit (and I suppose that she thinks that after a couple of weeks nobody will remember that, for instance, April did not look like a 42nd Street Streetwalker until she turned sixteen, or that Liz’s lips didn’t grow and her nose didn’t shrink until she got her teaching licence, or that Anthony’s nose didn’t once resemble Clarabell Clown’s honker).

    On another subject that has been mentioned more than once: true, Mell Lazarus can’t draw, but imagine what the strip would be like if it were drawn half-way realistically?

    In some strips, the humor (if there is any) transcends the style. In some, it is the style. Mad magazine many years ago (many many years ago) did a feature, the subject of which was something like, If Comic Strips Were Drawn by Different Artists. And they gave as examples, if Peanuts were drawn like Mary Worth. And so on. The results were strange, to say the least. Imagine FBOFW drawn like Momma. Try to picture FBOFW drawn like Popeye. In some cases, the results might be an improvement.

22. Red Greenback
    June 13th, 2007 at 11:54 am [Reply]

    DtM: I couldn’t find the link about Large Balls I was looking for, but in the meantime (SFW—Not SFW) I just don’t know anymore. http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com/tola.htm

23. Perky Bird
    June 13th, 2007 at 11:55 am [Reply]

    I, too, remember those “hippity-hops”, although I never had one. I wanted the one with the horse’s head on it. I did, however, have something called–I kid you not–a “Sit and Spin”. Very stupid toy. It was a disk that you sat on, and it had this steering-wheel-like thing ticking up in the middle. You turned the steering wheel, and the disk you sat on turned. Of course, being an only child, I had no one to push me on the playground merry-go-round, so I guess this was supposed to be a poor substitute.

24. Lapsed Librarian
    June 13th, 2007 at 11:55 am [Reply]

    Well, I grew up in Minnesota. My husband grew up in southern California and remembers them too. The playroom where I saw them just last year is in Oregon.

    The question you may need to ask is, why was everyone conspiring to hide these things from you?

25. Pozzo
    June 13th, 2007 at 11:56 am [Reply]

    Okay, this may have been the first time Joey’s spoken in “DtM” in about fifteen years. Guess the jostling on the rodeo ball (for lack of a better term) knocked his larynx back into place.

    It seems to me that I have seen such a children’s toy/ride/torture device, but it hasn’t been in this century. Watch for tomorrow’s Dennis, where Dennis and Joey are shown rolling hoops with little t-shaped sticks.

26. Uncle Lumpy
    June 13th, 2007 at 11:58 am [Reply]

    A Wedding

    Ah, Granthony! I spy thee newly shorn –
    With shining philtrum crowning lips of lust,
    As ancient cloistered passions are reborn
    In vague attempts to make these loins combust.
    My taste for former lovers turned to dust:
    No pilot, cop, or goalie enters here.
    But You, First Love, Custodian of my trust
    Alone may strive to cross my last frontier.
    So Granthony, with naked lips draw near:
    Secure your daughter in her basement cell,
    My clammy flesh attempt to commandeer –
    Consign yourself to this new ring of Hell.
    How could I find the strength to disagree
    When Mother says that you’re the one for me?

27. aquagirl2
    June 13th, 2007 at 11:59 am [Reply]

    Did Mark Trail punch Anthony’s mustache off?

    yes, I’m repeating it. The thought of it amuses me.

28. Hogen Mogen
    June 13th, 2007 at 11:59 am [Reply]

    Rex Moron:
    I had some respect for Heather dissing little Lord Pomeroy to his face. That respect lasted exacly 24 hours. She caved like a paper castle in a hurricane, then quickly changed the subject. Maybe this passive-aggressive (or, chronologically, she’s aggressive-passive) technique will get Hugh to turn on his murderous inside man (or inside woman). Maybe Hugh can use it to his advantage, too.

    Hugh: The beef is really tasty, Heather.
    Heather: Yes, Milton said you had a fine taste for food.
    Hugh: Oh, by the way, there’s a mole on the board who wants to whack you while you sleep.
    Heather: Oh no! What are we going to do?
    Hugh: Confuse them. You’ll have to sleep with me. For protection. Yeah, for protection.

29. mere cog in the machine
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:01 pm [Reply]

    The comics are rife with incest today. Bernice is obviously infatuated with her own brother, while the knowing, predatory gaze Anthony is giving his daughter as she demonstrates technique in panel four of Foob is just plain creepy. Give me more!

30. Howard Erk
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:01 pm [Reply]

    People People People

    Quit pointing out the fact that Josh has never had balls.

    : )

    We kid because we love. Or hate.

    Your choice.

31. Michael
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:01 pm [Reply]

    [reposted from previous thread]

    21 Little A–Lynn may be a successful cartoonist, but it strikes me that most of the complaints here are about her utter lack of storytelling ability. (I actually know something about that, being a writer.)

    Case in point: which would have caused more angst and interest to last the summer than Anthony’s date being a stunner? Julia has been drawn and depicted as a mono-synaptic dwarf who likely works in accounting because she’s too stupid to see evidence of Anthony’s embezzlement. She is instantly dismissable as an alternative to Liz. A perfectly good story gambit was tossed away AND the most telling bit is that for months now, ever since Anthony said he had a date, it’s clear Lynn expected us to be stresssing the possible competition. That’s the sole explanation for why Julia is such a mess–Lynn felt she was paying off reader angst by making them laugh at themselves for having feared the worst. Our reaction is supposed to be, “Oh, Lynn, we knew you would never torture us so. We should have trusted you.”

    It seems to be a profound disrespect for or contempt for her audience which Lynn is bringing to the strip. It overshadows everything; and even her ability as a cartoonist can’t cover it up.

32. mere cog in the machine
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:04 pm [Reply]

    26: I’ve always wanted to see the word “philtrum” used in poem. You have fulfilled me, sir, more than I can express. Sniff.

33. sally
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:06 pm [Reply]

    This will show that I’m way out of your demographic, Josh, but I had a hippity hop in the mid-60’s, in Southern California. I know Patrick McGoohan claims he based Rover on a weather balloon floating over the coast of Wales, but I’ll bet his daughters had hippity hops, too. The truth emerges!

34. willethompson
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:06 pm [Reply]

    Josh: Superior übersnark today. Of course, I say that because every single ONE of those observations about Julia passed through my mind at 5:45 this morning.

    As it happens, all of breakfast passed up my gullet at the same time. Coincidence? I think NOT!

35. AhClem
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:06 pm [Reply]

    I confess that I haven’t read ZtP in many years, but if his penis is really saying “That’s when I know I’ve had enough fun!” I think I need to add it to my daily read list.

36. June Morgan's Larger Breast
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:08 pm [Reply]

    OK , check this out hippity hoppers http://www.passionshop.com/E-Z-Rider-Ball-with-Plug.html

    and to channel Dingo I came across this:
    http://www.homemade-sex-toys.com/beach-ball.html

37. Rocky Jones
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:09 pm [Reply]

    I thought this was Granthony’s daughter? I was wrong? Just a childish date?

38. juggernaut
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:09 pm [Reply]

    Josh, i grew up about 3 hours east of you (mid 70s to early 80s), near Binghamton, and the hippety hops were around in my neighborhood. I have many a fond memory of children losing control while hopping down hills and bashing their little heads off of car bumpers and mailboxes or rolling into freeway traffic, their little arms and legs flailing in terror, or……….. well, you get the picture.

    Good times, good times…………

    And let’s face it – Julia is uncouth and plain, so her feelings won’t matter when The Dickless Wonder eventually dumps her for the far more prim, reserved wanker that is Elizabeth. Remember – in Lynn’s world, being endearingly human (and even “common”) is a lot like being a leper. Or poor. Or something even worse. “Our kind” might laught AT them, but never WITH them.

39. sally
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:10 pm [Reply]

    #29 Mere cog — I’m pretty sure that’s Anthony’s date, the little number from accounting who’s “a very nice girl, Elizabeth!”, and not his daughter who couldn’t be more than four years old. Remember, Granthony only looks 45, he’s really in his 20’s.

40. gh
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:12 pm [Reply]

    Josh,

    BWAHAHA! beating the servants with a gold brick really IS pure comic gold.

41. I Pity The Foob
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:12 pm [Reply]

    I’m all for Team Julia, but unfortunately by panel four she has already hooked up with Gary Busey.

    Is it okay to wear a bolo tie to a wedding?

42. Steve S
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:15 pm [Reply]

    If Hugh’s next line is anything but “Bow chicka wow wow,” I will be most disappointed.

43. BigTed
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:16 pm [Reply]

    Dennis: We used to have rideable bouncy-balls like those when I was a kid. I’m surprised they haven’t been taken off the market for safety reasons. (You can expect Joey to fall over backwards and sustain yet another severe head injury any minute now.)

    FOOB: Julia is a spitfire, but you can tell she’s just the booby-prize. All that mouth, but no luscious, full Patterson-girl lips. (Plus you know she’s going to call Anthony 18 times tomorrow.)

    Funky: You know, “Earnestness Goes to Prom” was one of my favorite movies.

    Luann: How come in comic strips (and on TV shows), whenever you get an e-mail it’s from exactly the right person… instead of one of the 250 spam messages you receive every day?

    Rex Morgan:
    “You don’t know me well enough to insult me.”
    “So when I get to know you better, I WILL want to insult you? Way to defend yourself, dude.”

    Zippy: When did the Zipster turn into Charles Atlas? You don’t get a body like that from eating a dozen corn dogs.

44. mere cog in the machine
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:17 pm [Reply]

    39 Sally: Gee whiz, I must be even sicker than my analyst claims!

45. Cedar
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:19 pm [Reply]

    I know a lot of folks are bitching about Luann this past week, but I like seeing Luann as the non-brat in her own strip for once. Usually, she’s the one acting like a moron and hurting the people she cares about and then learning an important lesson. I like that she has already has learned her lesson, and Bernice is the obnoxious one for once.

46. Wayward
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:19 pm [Reply]

    FOOB – I think the ‘inconveniant tooth’ thing is supposed to be a play on ‘inconveniant truth’ … but that makes even less sense.

47. Mack
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:20 pm [Reply]

    31 – Really well-said.

    But in any case, Julia is A-OK with me. So what if she’s short? At least she isn’t sporting the roughly two miles of neck that Liz has in the final panel.

48. Mibbitmaker
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:20 pm [Reply]

    JP: Since when is Abbey an astute business woman? Since she bought a sight-unseen house on a whim? And in the last panel, we have the answer to “Where are the next Paris Hiltons coming from?” Hey, maybe the ill-bought house in France can be dubbed the “Paris Hilton”!

    FOOB: Now that we see the ’stache-less Blanthony’s naked upper lip, I have to ask: Where the hell was there any room for a mustache in the first place?? Meanwhile, Julia Uncouth only needs a shaggy beard to become Saddam Hussein post-capture. I’m affraid that once the Foobocalyps completes its mission, they’ll hang her.

    DtM: How ’bout the strip be called “Dennis the Mysogynist”? Does have a nice ring to it…

    MW: Another pool party?? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Gee, maybe the Sopranos should’ve ended that way, instead of every MW storyline ever!

    A3G: Margo reacts with a mild unhappy expression and a half-bobble. To misanthrope Margo, that’s the equivilent of writhing on the floor drowning in tears while emitting a wail of torment from deep within her soul. Poor kid.

49. Poteet
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:20 pm [Reply]

    # 22 — Red, I don’t think I’ve expressed my full appreciation for conveying me to this unblessed event, so thank you very much. Yes, I’m suffering, as are many of us who chose to attend, but I wanted to see this part of the Foobocalypse in person, and thanks to you, I’m right here with my doorknobs.

    # 26 — Uncle Lumpy, WOW!!! That is amazing!!! You are the Sonnetmeister!! I bow so deeply that my headdress just fell off.

50. Lady Harvatine
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:21 pm [Reply]

    Josh, your blog kicks a lot of ass. I was so excited today when I saw the Robot Chicken Star Wars ads on the site! My husband and I are both animators on Robot Chicken. I feel honored that the show is being advertised on your site!

51. Jack Drake
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:21 pm [Reply]

    DtM: Without focusing entirely on Dennis’ and Joey’s balls, can anyone tell why is Margaret levitating? In the second panel we see Dennis and Joey on top of a hill… that means in thefirst panel Margaret is ten feet off the ground or more and continuing upwards. Also, Joey’s response reminds me a lot of the little dog in the old cartoons that used to jump around the bigger dog going “we’z friends, right Spike.”

    Luann: a few days ago they were working the make-up thing when when Luann mentioned Ben’s broken leg. Appreantly that caused Bernice to smear the lipstick all over her face in shock and awe. Since only minutes have passed since then, I guess she hasn’t had time to clean up… or maybe she thinks that’s how lipstick is supposed to go on as Brigid suggeted (6-years-olds in mommy’s make up drawer, indeed).

    –JD

52. Other Josh
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:23 pm [Reply]

    Why are we overlooking the possibility that Julia will serve as Liz’s new love interest? It seems pretty reasonable to assume that after her years of disappointment at the hands of men, she’d try playing for the other team.

53. Proteus
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:29 pm [Reply]

    WOW! GO TEAM CURMUDGEON!

    Slam that wedding, me hearties! In panel three I see the silhouettes of the wedding-goers in the background. In panel four they are suddenly engulfed in a tide of mashed potatoes. And it’s coming closer in panel five. Liz has only moments left to pout.

    What a way to kill off all of Foobland! And how richly symbolic for them to drown in white, starchy fluff. This is way better than the magmacannon treatment.

    ALL HAIL CHENNUX!

54. AirForbes
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:30 pm [Reply]

    Aaaaaahhhh! Put the ’stache back on! Granthony looks like a woman!

55. alamo
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:30 pm [Reply]

    foobville — granthony is a much underrated character. observe the transformation from a mustacchioed basement child caging pervert to a cleanshaven basement child caging pervert.

    at first i thought julia was his daughter. score one for the older child chasing perps with this strip sequence.

56. Gabe
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:33 pm [Reply]

    I never saw a hippity hop in GA, so I’m with Josh. You people are crazy.

    We did however have pogoballs.

57. Hogen Mogen
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:35 pm [Reply]

    I was just thinking, wasn’t Tommie a hospice nurse or something? What’s she doing in the ER, except being a plot device?

58. McManx
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:38 pm [Reply]

    Hell yeah, I’m for Team Julia because she’s the mistress of subtle insult (panel 4): “Look Liz, I’ve had your Dad — IN MY MOUTH!”

59. JEdens
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:38 pm [Reply]

    #4, #9,

    I had one of those when I was a kid, too, 1973 or thereabouts. It was red and had a horse head. Loads of fun bouncing around the patio in Dallas.

60. Tex LeBeauf
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:41 pm [Reply]

    Julia will never get her man-boy because she drops the ds from her “ands”. This is Johnston’s way of suggesting that, offstage, Julia has no compunctions about eatin’ roadkill an’ wipin’ with her bare hands, among other habits not usually seen on the funny pages.

    JP: For the last six years or so they’ve been using euros, not francs.

61. AndreaD and the Grandstanding Oddballs
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:41 pm [Reply]

    OK, so I like Julia, but I’m pretty sure that Johnston is going to do something horrible to her. Like have her pick her nose in the middle of dinner or something.

    I KNEW it. I fucking KNEW that Anthony would turn pretty. I called it. Somewhere. On a thread a while back.

    Goddamnit, Lynn. We get it. WE GET IT. Please, just get it over with.

62. AllieCat
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:41 pm [Reply]

    Is there any chance here that Anthony has brought Droolia in as a ringer? That she’s in on the fact that Naked Lip has a thing for Liz and she’s trying to help by posing as his chummy, friendly but somewhat inappropriate date? Driving Liz into a frenzy wherein she MUST HAVE Anthony! NOW.

    Frankly, I like Julia. But I think she’s far too interesting and pleasant to end up with Anthony.

    Also, notice in the last panel Anthony’s reaction to the tooth joke. It just screams, “Ahh, my nutty father-in-law and his wacky puns!”

63. djmagaro
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:42 pm [Reply]

    I don’t know if anyone’s mentioned this, but as I understand it, Zippy’s shoes are made out of Styrofoam (TM). I don’t know what his nipples are made from. Are we having fun yet?

64. Hogen Mogen
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:42 pm [Reply]

    I used to get a catalog of porn products that had those bouncy balls with dildoes attached. My girlfriend at the time thought it looked intriguing. I didn’t want her breaking up with me for a sphere of rubber, so that was one catalog that didn’t live long before the recycler came around.

65. Skullturf Q. Beavispants
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:43 pm [Reply]

    I’m with Josh — I don’t remember those hippity hop things growing up, and like Josh, when I saw the strip I assumed it was some newfangled thing.

    (I was born in 1974 and grew up in Victoria, BC, Canada. I suppose it’s possible that hippity hops didn’t make it up there, but what’s more likely is that I just missed out, time-wise, on being the right demographic.)

    I do remember “Pogo Ball”, though. Anyone else? (See here and scroll down a little bit.)

66. Hogen Mogen
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:44 pm [Reply]

    Josh, how do you have such knowledge about The Prisoner, but yet are so unaware of Hippity Hops? Are you some kind of plugger or something?

67. Ghost Riders in the Foob
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:47 pm [Reply]

    #257 yesterthead, COTW

68. John C Fremont
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:47 pm [Reply]

    A3G – Until today, I’d never figured Margo to be the “pull my finger” type. I thought she was too – what’s that word? Not “classy.” Maybe more like “self-centered, cold-hearted, insensitive bitch.” Okay, that’s more than one word…

    And yet I love her so.

69. Goaty
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:47 pm [Reply]

    #23 — sounds like you had a “Sit ‘n’ Spin”

70. Rocky Jones
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:49 pm [Reply]

    #66: Pluggers watch The Prisoner? Pshaw. The Plugger version of The Prisoner features Larry the Cable Guy as Number 69, trapped on a peninsula by a Hippity Hop, tormented by a secret organization attempting to crack him and get him to tell them who makes the best tacos.

71. Red Greenback
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:49 pm [Reply]

    Poteet- Ain’t no thang! The “Proud Mary” has served us well. And so did the waitress at the Red Lobster in Muncie! (rimshot)

72. T. Chicana
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:51 pm [Reply]

    Foob: I really really thought that Julia is profoundly retarded! Really. But those observations were so right on, Josh, about what she really may have meant by her raised-by-wolves chit chat, that now I think she just LOOKS retarded, but is a force to be reckoned with (or should be, dammit!) I’m converted to Team Julia just like that!
    Hippity Hops: We never called them that, but in northeast Ohio, mid-80s, I had one WITHOUT a handle! Someone kicked it right out from under me as I flew high into the air, shattering my tailbone (well, not really, but it felt like that). So now I see, with a handle, that shit never woulda happened!

73. juggernaut
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:52 pm [Reply]

    #s 56 & 65 – don’t worry about your pogoballs. some antibiotic should fix them right up.

74. Plugmein
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:53 pm [Reply]

    You know if you are a Plugger if you chafe at the idea that kids are riding big balloons down the street.

75. AppleGirl
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:55 pm [Reply]

    Okay, it’s all my fault. I ran into Julia in the ladies’ room before the wedding, and I got her into doing tequila shots.

76. AllieCat
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:55 pm [Reply]

    In Re: Hippity Hops and Pogo Balls.

    I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta late 70’s – the only kids who had hippity hops had moved them from up North when IBM transferred their parents to GA. I remember seeing ads for them on TV, but they weren’t common. I recall one kid in my ‘hood who had one.

    Sit n Spins and Big Wheels were the plastic of choice out in the ‘burbs.

    Pogo Balls came out, as I recall in the mid-80’s, and being a slightly chunky, extremely uncoordinated kid, I stayed the hell away from them.

    Now, does anyone remember the backyard toy that was a clown that attached to the waterhose, and spit water out of his mouth and moved the hat off the head? It was the poor cousin of something like a Willy the Waterbug.

77. gh
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:55 pm [Reply]

    #26 Uncle Lumpy

    I bow. Deeply.

78. man behind the curtain
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:56 pm [Reply]

    FBOW — By the end of the wedding Lizardbreath will be with Granthony and Julia will be with the best man. And who got the better of that deal? Game, set, match. Score one for TEAM JULIA.

79. mattt
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:57 pm [Reply]

    MT Oh, come on. I can’t be the only person to notice Mark’s talking penis today. Please don’t let me be the only person to notice. Please?

80. Prehumous
    June 13th, 2007 at 12:59 pm [Reply]

    How did the Raju storyline end, anyway? I can’t recall despite having read the strips as they came out on this site.

81. AppleGirl
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:03 pm [Reply]

    80 – Raju and Dreamy Boat-Wrestling Guy got in the car, headed for State U. Journey song played. Sudden cut to black.

82. gh
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:06 pm [Reply]

    #76 AllieCat

    Now, does anyone remember the backyard toy that was a clown that attached to the waterhose, and spit water out of his mouth and moved the hat off the head?

    Why are you tormenting me like this? No, I don’t remember, but I had one. Along with a Slip N Slide.

83. Applemask
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:07 pm [Reply]

    TEAM JULIA 4-LYFE

84. magic8ball
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:08 pm [Reply]

    Dear Uncle Lumpy, you rock. I know how hard it is to write a good sonnet, and that one was a thing of beauty.

85. maurice
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:09 pm [Reply]

    #76 yes i know the clown thing was by Wham-O it was recalled in the early 80’s . apparently it could put out an eye!

86. TB Tabby
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:09 pm [Reply]

    Zippy has a better physique than me. Dear God. And I thought Funky was depressing.

87. O’Fogeyette
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:10 pm [Reply]

    Good god, Mudges, how can I possibly keep up? Before tackling this thread, I must hit a few high points from the yester:

    Poteet–thanks! I knew I could count on you (re the doorknobs). And I can’t wait to start hurling them. If only Jackelrod and Karen Moy were at the wedding.

    Secret Margo (wedding journal) BWAHAHAHA! Also, thanks for the link to Hello Kitty Darth Vader, which is certainly one of the most.. unique images I have ever gazed upon. Now, please lie down with a cold washcloth on your forehead and don’t read any more Raymond Chandler ripoffs for a couple of weeks.

    Spiderbrick: simply brilliant. You can rest on your laurels for a week or so while you’re dodging Homeland Security.

    And Red… uh… maybe you need to lie down too. For a couple of months. I fear the trip has been too much for you….

88. Squawk
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:11 pm [Reply]

    DtM: Hippity-hops! They were around long before “hip hop” became a viable music form. There was even a Hippity-horse with a rubber horse head instead of a ring at the top.

    What really intrigues me about this cartoon, though, is the revelation of Margaret’s ability to levitate. If I could walk on air, I’d be pretty damn snooty too.

89. squiggle
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:12 pm [Reply]

    I too had a freakish pastel-colored fitness ball with a handle when I was young, but mine was a spacehopper. Han Solo would have used a spacehopper.

90. AllieCat
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:12 pm [Reply]

    #82- gh – Sorry to torment. They have it on eBay, if you want to relive childhood.

    Also, loved your Burma Shave in yesterthread – tried to come up with one but couldn’t think of with anything good to rhyme with Cinnamon Bun.

91. bobbaloo
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:13 pm [Reply]

    man, i loved my Hoppity Hop when i was a kid, though I have to admit I never menaced anyone on it. http://www.hearthsong.com/assets/images/hearthsong/images/shop/catalog/704648.jpg

92. gkl
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:14 pm [Reply]

    JP: Heh, heh, heh. She said “Ass-toot.”

93. Doola!
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:14 pm [Reply]

    Never mind the bouncy balls, that’s got to be the most inept gag I’ve ever seen in DtM – which is, of course, saying something.

    I mean, “…it would be a talk show!” is a pretty weak punchline, but at least it is a punchline. Joey’s dialog could just as well be, “Get it? Get it? A talk show, because she talks a lot? She talks a lot so she’d have a talk show, get it? Funny, right?”

    Also, Granthony’s missing ’stache is disturbing, but even more disturbing is his missing neck. Has he always been a neckless freak and I’m only noticing now, or is this a new development?

94. AppleGirl
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:14 pm [Reply]

    Zippy’s physique is awesome. And he is confident enough about his masculinity to carry a beautiful Coach man-bag to the beach. I’ve got nothing negative to say about Zippy. I don’t even mind his styrofoam feet.

95. gh
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:15 pm [Reply]

    #76 AllieCat

    Actually, I don’t think I had the clown.

    This sounds more like it.

    Good times, good times . . .

96. Anon
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:16 pm [Reply]

    Poor Josh.

    Denied the pleasure of a Hippty-Hop.

    We also had a toy, which was two discs, connected with an axle, and had a string that went around the axle. The string was about 3 feetish long and if you put the loose end around your finger and flicked the discs they would go to the end of the string and then magically come back up to your hand.

    We called it a boomerang or something like that.

97. King Folderol
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:18 pm [Reply]

    FOOB –
    

    “Yeah, I can open my mouth this wide — and you wonder while Anthony’s smiling? Oh, I guess you don’t know what I’m talking about

    The way Liz is craning her neck, I think she knows what Julia’s talking about. My guess is that Liz is peering down her throat, searching for telltale traces of semen.

    MW – “Marketing researcher” sounds like some sort of B.S. entry-level position. What the hell was Vera promoted from: coffee pot gunk remover?

98. Evan
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:18 pm [Reply]

    Wait, you’re AVOIDING Luann’s current storyline? Bernice wants to nail her brother! If that’s not interesting by funny-page standards, I don’t know what is!

99. banana
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:19 pm [Reply]

    Hippity hops: I had one growing up in chicago in the seventies…and my son has a sit n’ spin, so those are still around fyi (and the music it plays is annoying as hell, believe me).

    also, uncle lumpy? You RULE!

100. Amy
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:20 pm [Reply]

     Okay, Josh, you’ve convinced me. Another one for TEAM JULIA, Bringer of Spunk!

     So what we need to do now is bitch about how UNMANLY The Lip looks now. The Lynnions will report, Lynn will try and backpedal, have Liz declare that she LIKED the ’stache, and Anthony claims that Julia made him shave it off.

101. Tom of Finland
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:21 pm [Reply]

     Zippy is no Tom of Finland!

102. Gal Friday
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:24 pm [Reply]

     A3G Margo has her “power bun” in place to shake things up at the hospital!

103. Uncle Lumpy
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:26 pm [Reply]

     Hee, hee – Here’s the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recall notice for the totally awesome Wham-O “Fun Fountain.”

104. Red Greenback
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:27 pm [Reply]

     Water Wiggle!â„¢

105. Pozzo
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:27 pm [Reply]

     #23 (Perky Bird): I remember Sit & Spin. They didn’t come out until I was past the age to have one, but I remember the commercial. “Sit & Spin/Sit & Spin/It’s so much fun to Sit & Spin.” For some reason, they used a singer who sounded like Leon Redbone, so it sounded like he was singing “Shit & Spin.” Whole ‘nother ball game there.

106. commodorejohn
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:28 pm [Reply]

     Yeah, add me to Team Julia.

107. Uncle Lumpy
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:30 pm [Reply]

     #95 gh –

     And how hilarious is it that the CSPC recall of the “Water Wiggle” is based on a child’s attempt to EAT one?

     Poor, oppressed, Wham-O! Bring back Lawn Darts, dammit!

108. Uncle Lumpy
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:30 pm [Reply]

     #107 –

     CPSC. Crap.

109. Joey
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:35 pm [Reply]

     Amen Uncle Lumpy. Bring Lawn Darts and make sure that DtM gets a set.

     It could put menace back into his name.

     Plus, it would be a hoot to see all the neighbors lining up outside the Mitchel’s door with Lawn Darts sticking out from various places….

110. gh
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:36 pm [Reply]

     #90 AllieCat

     Cinnamon Bun
     They used to call me
     Now that I’ve shaved
     Liz wants to . . .
     BURMA SHAVE!

111. Foobaphobe
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:36 pm [Reply]

     Julia just has to be Shannon’s older sister. The height, the look, the everything. She’ll come out with something simple but profound tomorrow, just as her special needs little sister always does with April. Liz and the newly clean-shaven Anthony will be formally engaged before the newlyweds are off for their honeymoon in Saskatoon. L and A will never be able to have children of their own, but the skanky French-Canadian mother of Anthony’s little girl will die in a maple syrup accident, leaving Liz as the mother she never had.

112. gh
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:39 pm [Reply]

     #107 Uncle Lumpy

     Our slogan: With a name like Wham-O, it’s got to be recalled.

113. michael
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:43 pm [Reply]

     Those bouncy ball things those miserable children are riding on were way popular when I was a kid in the 70s. That is to say they were popular with girls. Boys wouldn’t be caught dead on them.

     As an adult I surmise those things are popular with girls for the same reason that riding horses are. Not to say that boys don’t ride horses but…is everyone following me here?

     Anyway, Dennis and Joey are apparently both femmy.

114. kingklash
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:44 pm [Reply]

     I forget the clown’s name, but I remember the Water Wiggle! The water jet-propelled weapon of random smacks upside the head! Is there a website dedicated to nostalgia for dangerous toys?

     Meanwhile, I find the goings-on in Luann kinda creepy. I feel like one of them wants to get laid by Ben, and it might not be Luann. Does Stellar Overlord and Aldeberaan Samba Champ Chennux have something to scrub my heebie-BeeGees off?

115. reader-who-posts
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:50 pm [Reply]

     JP: It’s a shame that we’ll never get to see Sophie turn into the Paris Hilton wannabe we all know she’s capable of – at the rate Judge Parker is moving forward she’s due to turn 21 sometime around 3159.

     MW: Every time Mary mentions a pool party I can’t help but picture her in a bikini. Then I throw up in my mouth a little.

     FBOFW: Shithead’s (hey I can’t call him Moustache anymore) choice of new girlfriend just makes him even more pathetic than usual. That and the fact that he left his daughter tied up in the basement in order to go to the wedding.

     BC: I wonder how old today’s BC is…I actually liked it.

     FW/Crankshaft: Since it has long been established that Crankshaft is a bus driver at the school in Funky Winkerbean (Westview? Westfield? whatever), how is it that the prom and the graduation are occurring at the same time? I demand consistency!

     Blondie: Is it just me or is this the first time we’ve ever seen any indication that Dagwood can drive? He used to run to the bus, now to a carpool that he never drives in. This is very disconcerting to me – it would be like Mary Worth having sex.

116. Uncle Lumpy
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:53 pm [Reply]

     #114 kingklash –

     Is there a website dedicated to nostalgia for dangerous toys?

     Oh, kingklash, kingklash, ye of little faith!

     [warning: stupid and obvious "spam-blocker" pitch]

117. AAckTTpth
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:55 pm [Reply]

     Sorry, Josh. We had them in Hamilton, Ontario (about 40 miles from Buffalo) when we were growing up. Since I was born in the late 60s as opposed to the early-to-mid 70s, they may have come and gone for those of you under about 36.

118. Russ
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:57 pm [Reply]

     Add me to the list of old folks who bounced around on hippity hops as a kid. Way back in 77 or so.

119. gh
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:58 pm [Reply]

     #107 Uncle Lumpy

     And just to follow up — all that mayhem for only $3.50! Why, today it would cost at least $15 for a child to drown himself with a backyard water toy.

     Excuse me, I have to check out the dangerous toy link now .

120. Herro!
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:58 pm [Reply]

     #23 Perky Bird–you mean to tell me you didn’t LOVE the Sit ‘n’ Spin? A few years ago, when my martial arts team raided the child development closet that just happened to be in the same room as our gear, we discovered a dusty old Sit ‘n’ Spin. I wasn’t an only child, but I was a poor one, and never used this contraption. So, I was 26 years old, a martial artist, just skinny enough to fit on one of those suckers…I gave it a spin, had a blast. SO FUN. Of course, this is a girl who participated in a scooter jousting tournament–we attached a bunch of those rolly scooter things from grade school, sat in teams of three or four on those contraptions, and jousted each other with foam sticks to knock the other team off their scooters.

     Man, I miss martial arts. And grade school

121. Busted Flush
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:58 pm [Reply]

     DT: In all the times I drove past Langley, I don’t recall ever seeing a giant “CIA Headquarters” sign on top of the building. I moved from DC a while back, so it may have been added recently as, oh, I don’t know, a homing beacon for the terrorists. Geeze.

122. Meanwhile
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:59 pm [Reply]

     DtM: When did Joey learn to talk? I don’t like it. Next thing you know, Dagwood Bumstead will go on a diet, General Halftrack will be enjoying sex with his wife, and Prof. Chinbeard will be giving people the benefit of the doubt.

     It’s just wrong, that’s all.

123. O’Fogeyette
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:59 pm [Reply]

     Josh: I’m with you on Team Julia. She has balls, which is rather unusual in this amazingly passive-aggressive group.

     64 Hogen Mogen: your comment is awesome, but I pretty much don’t understand it. Am I retarded?

     And now to sursnark on the leavings:

     DT: I’m beginning to love this strip. It’s kind of like a combination of all the really awful strips. It has the surrealistic, alien-inspired art of GT; the treacly pacing of MW; and the stilted, English-as-a-third-or-fourth-language dialogue of MT. What’s not to like? And find my Gretchen!

     MT: Case in point. “Sam. Are you all right?” “It’s my eyes, Dad. Hopefully they will be okay.” “It’s my heart, dad. I just had a massive infarction. Hopefully it will be okay.” “It’s my chest, dad. I was just shot by a terrorist wielding a Uzi. Hopefully it will be okay.” “It’s my former body, Dad. The plane exploded and I’m in little pieces all over the site of the new airport. Hopefully, they will all be okay.”

124. All Margo-ed Up
     June 13th, 2007 at 1:59 pm [Reply]

     96 – I think you’re talking about Ker-bangers.
     Those darn things had almost my entire neighborhood walking around looking like we had been in some odd accident, bruised from the wrist to the near shoulder… and the second one parent took them away, another kid would get a set…

     Ahhh.. the joy of childhood and being incredibly stupid for amusement’s sake…

125. Islamorada Girl
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:01 pm [Reply]

     I am so on Team Julia.

     In fact, I am so on Team Julia, I stuck a spike of morphine into Liz’ arm while she was adjusting her pantyhose in the Ladies. Watch the fun!

     Way to go, Unca Lump!

126. vbg
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:03 pm [Reply]

     I am frankly astonished you’ve never heard of a Hippity-Hop before, Josh.

127. AllieCat
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:03 pm [Reply]

     #115 – Funky/Crankshaft – They’re actually 2 different schools. You’ll notice that the kids at Graduation are “ethnic” whereas the kids at Prom are “chalkasian” – the Ethnic kids live on the other side of the tracks, and are mostly impoverished and parentally unsupervised – there was a crossover story line last year where both schools had a “Skip Day” – and met up at the mall – Pete did something dumb and almost got his ass kicked by either Cobey or Marcus – can’t remember which – anyway, Darrin stepped in to save the day, Jessica noticed him and gave him her class photo with phone number on the back, which was the start of their dull, sexless courtship.

     Still, though – I’m with you that even in comic strip land, they’re in the same school district, so they should be graduating within the same weekend.

128. Mack
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:04 pm [Reply]

     Also, I too had a hoppity hop as a young kid, only we called them sit n’ bounces. This was in the early ’90s. It wasn’t exactly a staple childhood toy, but one common enough to recognize.

129. reader-who-posts
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:08 pm [Reply]

     127 – Hmm, I never noticed that he was at a different school. I’m old enough to remember when Crankshaft was a character in FW and was the bus driver for the kids, who of course are now teachers, alcoholics, and cancer patients.

130. Calico
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:10 pm [Reply]

     Zippy the Niphead!

     Ohhhhh Yeaaahhh!

131. Dennis Jimenez
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:12 pm [Reply]

     Really fun, but dangerous toy:

     http://www.teamdandy.com/projects/cc73/

132. MossMoses
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:14 pm [Reply]

     “by the time she’s 21″

     1 day JP time = 4 months real world time

     Sophie is approximately 10 years old. To reach 21, it will be approximately 4,000 days.

     4,000 JP time days x 4 months = 16,000 months

     So, in approximately 1,333 years Sophie will be 21. Maybe the internet will have evolved beyond “wireless dsl” by the year 3340…

133. Porkypine
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:17 pm [Reply]

     With regard to Dennis and Joey’s balls, they are called hippity-hops, or at least that’s what we called them. They were big in my childhood, circa 1972. Loads of fun; the only problem was that one’s braids would tend to strike one painfully across the face with each bounce.

134. Lynngineering
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:20 pm [Reply]

     Josh
     yesterpost was Tom of Finland referenced to Moose, today’s got Dennis and Joey bouncing balls, open orifices, drag queens, snorting coke off of a Mondrian, a three-way including a step-mom, and Zippy nipples.
     …Great!

     Foobwise, I remain with the “DreamTeam” though, with Michael to win the whole sordid domain by way of final, inoperable coma fantasy. Would anyone be surprised if Anthony’s new shaven face morphs slowly into… Michaels?

     Droolia is just a pawn, an orifice substitute Dad is unethically exploiting to finance Michael’s latest screw-up, the new house, and at the same time, to construct a bridge (geddit!? Dad’s a dentist!) between Anthony and Liz.

135. TB Tabby
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:23 pm [Reply]

     120: I’ve seen the Sit ‘n’ Spin on I Love the ’70s. I was mildly amusing watching the C-grade celebrities try to use a toy that was clearly not designed to support the weight of an adult.

136. Jejune
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:27 pm [Reply]

     This is the first date for Julia AboutToBeDumped and Stashless Anthony, right? Is this just me, or is inviting someone to a wedding for a first date an unbelievably loaded and stupid thing to do? And then to shave off the ’stash for this self same wedding…well, if I was Julia, I’d try to act enormously self absorbed and immature and do everything in my power to convince this terrifying, needy, single father that no, I don’t want to raise that child you spawned with the Lady of Darkness, and no, a wedding isn’t a romantic time and place to think of the future, and oh pleasepleaseplease for the love of God, let one of us be struck by lightning so I can leave – hey! Maybe I’ll show his friend my grody teeth. Maybe that’ll disgust him.

137. T. Chicana
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:28 pm [Reply]

     #76 AllieCat,
     Oh my Holy Jesus do I remember that clown!! We had him, and it was like he was possessed by the devil (like all clowns are anyway). CA-RAZY!!! When I have kids I want to find that freakin’ clown for them just for kicks!

138. Flywheel
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:32 pm [Reply]

     The graduation was supposed to be two weeks ago, but Crankshaft was driving the kid there.

     nark nark nark

     Then he ran over Kesterman’s mail box.

     narkitty narkitty nark

     Then some moms chased after the bus with lunches in their hands.

     Hardy har har nark.

     There, that is the story arc for every Crankshaft ever done.

     You are welcome.

     Oh, except for the great comic book fortune arc. I assume granny is getting double teamed about now. Not much else that the guys can do…..

139. LoFoFan
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:36 pm [Reply]

     121– Maybe no flashing sign a-la Holiday Inn, but there *IS* a great road sign pointing the way to the “George Bush Center for Intelligence…”

140. True Fable
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:37 pm [Reply]

     The mean little girl who lived next to us in the ’80’s had a hippity hop ball and she tried to show off in front of her nemesis, my daughter, who did not have one. The kid was bouncing along yelling, “See what I can do, and you can’t?” when she got off-balance and went flying headlong into the boxwood hedge.
     My daughter said, “Yeah, can you do that again?” She came inside to laugh.

141. Chat Noir
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:37 pm [Reply]

     FOOB: Julia transforms from a short gal with back fat (a refreshing change from LJ’s usual preoccupation with huge cabooses) to that weird ghost meowing kid from “The Grudge” by the final panel. Eek.

     Also, I mentioned this on the last thread, but I’d like to point out again Shawna-Marie’s background personal moment in panel 2 with the very-much-not-her-husband guy. Hoo!

142. Josh
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:39 pm [Reply]

     #136 JeJune-

     While I guess it wasn’t made totally explicit, the sense I got from the Anthony lets Liz down easy strip was that he and Julia had been seeing each other for a while. What “seeing each other” means in the prudish FBOFW context is of course up for debate. I suppose upon rereading it that it could just be taken to mean that he liked her and asked her to the wedding as a first date.

     By the way, I just want to make it totally, 100 percent clear that I am not being ironic when I say that I am on Team Julia. The only reason I might root against her would be the same reason I rooted against Paul — because she deserves better than TV,D,FEOUL.

     Josh

143. Chat Noir
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:40 pm [Reply]

     What Zippy’s sporting on his chest area should be termed “Zipples,” I believe. Also, if he’d eaten a dozen corndogs and played a lot of skeeball, it might be more of a stroke coming on than an overabundance of fun. Skeeball can have quite an effect on the blood pressure.

144. bats :[
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:42 pm [Reply]

     Ah, all those fine old toy slogans:

     “It’s Kenner — it’s fun!”

     “It’s Mattel — it’s swell!”

     “It’s Wham-O — it’s dangerous as hell!”

145. AhClem
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:43 pm [Reply]

     #79 mattt -
     I noticed, back on comment #35.

     What that says about me is a bit frightening, though. How many other people, when asked what they did during the day, can say “I looked at talking penises on a comics-based web site?”

146. mere cog in the machine
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:44 pm [Reply]

     I hate to be a downer, but I just don’t see “TV,D,FEOUL” catching on. “Shithead”, though, definately works for me.

147. MossMoses
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:46 pm [Reply]

     I know Lizardbreath’s hair is supposed to look like a Helen of Troy or something but it really comes off looking more like Medusa or a plate of worms. Granthony’s date is definitely not worthy. Her height, use of the contraction an’ and open display of dental work disqualify her for consideration and she is not to be taken seriously as a candidate for his affection.

     “Granthony’s told me so much about you. He’s even shown me your shrine in his basement cage”.

148. Bootsy
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:50 pm [Reply]

     I’m ashamed I know this but: there was a “Friends” episode where Phoebe was bouncing for a mile on a hippity hop because it was something she had on her agenda to do before a certain age. When she finished she told the other two chicks that there was an added pleasure benefit to the exercise and so they both wanted it then.

149. AtomicDog
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:50 pm [Reply]

     More information on “Sit & Spin” can be found in porn movies.

150. Tim Cavanaugh
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:50 pm [Reply]

     That’s “Hoppity Hop,” not “Hippity Hop.” Here’s a quick history, with an animated gif of hoppity-hopping women in bikinis, describing these fine products of Ohio’s now defunct Sun Rubber Company (which also, IIRC, produced a “Hoppity Horse” line).

151. ElSanto
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:52 pm [Reply]

     #146 – I actually vote for “Freckles.” Those things bug the crap out of me. And mainly because they don’t look like freckles. Some have mentioned zits, but I prefer to think they’re the unfortunate result of a hydraulic fluid accident that sprayed directly onto Anthony’s face.

152. Mumbles
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:54 pm [Reply]

     Count me in on Team Julia. I’d propose that Josh create t-shirts but this storyline has a shelf-life of a day or two (after we discover Julia roadside with the cater-waiter) because the Saintly Pattersons never cause trouble.

     Granthony probably picked Julia because she fit the little house in the cellar (like how Greg Brady became Johnny Bravo because he fit the suit.)

153. Uncle Lumpy
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:56 pm [Reply]

     #142 Josh -

     Things in favor of Julia –

     1. Spontaneous – no six months of thought bubbles before and after every action. Contrast with endlessly reflective Liz.
     2. Uncowed by convention – “Hey, lookit my teef!” Contrast with throroughly-cowed Liz.
     3. Physical – Gestures, points, yawns, moves. Contrast with stately Liz, forklifted from frame to frame.

     In just her short time with Anthony, she’s broken him out of his gonna-be-a-grampa drain circle, and back into life. She’s exactly what he needs to feel like a man again, after getting cruelly dumped by one woman and jerked around by another.

     Go, Julia! Go, Anthony!

154. Len
     June 13th, 2007 at 2:59 pm [Reply]

     Abbey better get back from Paree soon. Her Sam is looking pretty hot these days, and I may be asking him if he knows where his genes came from. Woof!

155. Jen
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:03 pm [Reply]

     DtM: To be fair to Dennis and Joey, I was a kid in the early nineties, and those balls were around then. I never had one (always wanted one, though), but a lot of my friends did.

156. BigTed
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:04 pm [Reply]

     “That’s an inconvenient tooth! Get it? What I’m saying is, those globes of yours could use some warming! I mean, those are some glaciers, and it’s time someone melted them! Here, have some more gas — it’s natural!”

     “Ohhh, Dr. Patterson!”

157. Justafoob
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:04 pm [Reply]

     Granthony had lose the ’stache.

     He knew that to totally win Liz over, he has to transform into John…..

158. t.a.m.s.y.
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:05 pm [Reply]

     I don’t follow the soap strips outside of the CC, but that still means I read RM & JP probably three to four times per week, right? So why is it that I rarely have any idea what the hell is going on, or who any of the characters are, or fricking anything about fricking anything? The best I can put together is that everyone is very rich, and someone in one of the strips is presumed dead.

     You can say a lot of things about Mary Worth, and you probably do, but at least with MW I have some sense of what the boring inaction is meant to be about.

159. Magnolia
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:06 pm [Reply]

     I like Julia too. Part of it is that I immediately like any character that Lynn tries to get us not to like.

     Hence my affection for the Kelpfroths and Deanna’s mom.

160. Robert Whitaker Sirignano
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:08 pm [Reply]

     Just for noting: Philadelphia Daily news dropped WIZARD OF ID this week, replacing it with CANDORVILLE. Hart’s BC dropped from Philadelphia Inky a few weeks back.

     Are other papers doing this? WIZARD hasn’t made me laugh since 1970 thereabouts, so it is no loss. When I saw CANDORVILLE, I had to find a paper two weeks old to find out what was dropped, so beyond my radar it was I had to research it

161. fizzy logic
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:10 pm [Reply]

     Ah, well, Hippity Hop, Hoppity Hop, I’m lucky that brain cell is even close to functional…who knows what other vital information could have been stored there instead?

162. Bootsy
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:12 pm [Reply]

     #26, Uncle Lumpy. What can I say? I love you. I swoon. I know there’s an Aunt Lumpy, hell, there’s a Mr. Books, but still.. In college I fell madly in love with a guy who wrote poetry and quoted Donne (nothing gets you more ass in college than that). Alas, he was gay, so the ass he was getting was not mine.

163. TGrum
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:13 pm [Reply]

     Re Zippy: AppleGirl got it right, those are stryofoam shoes that Zippy wears, not socks. I know this for a fact because somewhere at home I have a postcard from an old Zippy calendar from before he went “mainstream.” It pointed out the pinhead’s various features, such as the topknot with bow and the polkadotted mumu. The postcard distinctly said “stryofoam shoes.”

     IIRC, Griffith started out illustrating “true love” comics and that’s probably where the inspiration for Zippy’s body came from. I think some of the best strips are when Griffith reverts to the love comic styling. I love those cheesey drawings.

     As for dangerous toys, does anyone remember “clackers?” They were two glass balls connected with a string that had a ring tied to the middle. You would hold the ring and move your hand up and down, banging the balls together both above and below the hand. I never really got the hang of it nd would usually bang my wrist. They were banned after too many of the glass balls shattered from banging togther. (Who would have thunk that would happen?)

164. AndreaD and the Grandstanding Oddballs
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:14 pm [Reply]

     They recalled the Clown Water Head of Death? Man, I loved that thing.

     People are such wusses. It’s a goddamn stream of water that pushes plastic up. If kids are dumb enough to stick their eyeballs over it, that’s their problem.

165. brucker
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:16 pm [Reply]

     Dangit! Everyone here is far too knowlegeable. I figured I would be far from the first person to note that “hippity hops” are, in fact, an outdated reference rather than a random image (although I know a four-year-old who has one, so apparently they do still exist somewhere) but to find so many people that scooped me on the issue of Zippy’s shoes?! I guess its just left to me to admit with great surprise but no shame that I laughed heartily at today’s “Cathy”. Oddly enough, at lunch as I was reading it in the break room, it turned out that the two of us men in the room got it at once, but the two women had to have it explained to them. Did I wake up in bizarro world today?

166. brucker
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:18 pm [Reply]

     Also, Dennis needs to tell Joey that the joke isn’t funny if you have to explain it.

167. E of the North
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:24 pm [Reply]

     Those bouncing balls did exist in the 80’s, and now adays something similiar (no handles) are given to hyperactive/add kids to sit on instead of normal chairs. It helps them work off some energy and stay focused.

     It may be his parents attempts to reign in the menace through environment modification instead of trying to hide his medicine in a variety of cookies, only to have him spit it out and menace even harder to prove his point.

168. Dr. Mad
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:24 pm [Reply]

     No time today to hunt the snark – but as for the hippity-hop balls – they come in at least two sizes and are very available -as is the “sit and spin” [or toddler bee grinder]- look at Hearthsong [they have other neat stuff, too]. I’d like to be on Team Julia, but really, not only is she short and dumpy but who shows someone their fillings/extraction within mere seconds of being introduced? That little bit is to make us realize what a ‘tard Julia is. Further thoughts, now that his Schnauzbart is gone, we can focus on the road-killed possum that is Uhn-tony’s hair.

169. brendancalling
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:27 pm [Reply]

     FOOB: I like how LJ deliberately draws Granthony’s new g/f to be kind of homely. And the use of “an’” instead of “and”, along with the gaping “look at my teeth” emphasizes that she’s kind of stupid and low-class compared to the great white goose.

     Luann: “Why is Bernice wearing very dark and clownishly applied lipstick? Why is Luann suddenly sporting very long, probably fake eyelashes?” Because they’ve been discussing Bernice’s brother for three days or so and getting angrier and angrier all the time, while putting on makeup. They just went overboard. Now what’s really gross about Luann is that bernice is WAY to possessive about her newly discovered brother. It’s as if she’s competing with luann for his attention, and that’s just not natural.
     Dennis: That’s a Hippity Hop. You’re my age, Josh, don’t you remember those?

170. Red Greenback
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:28 pm [Reply]

     Sheesh! I’m gonna sound like such a Clambake here, but when me and my friends was lads, our parents lavished us with lawn darts and water wiggles and gateless swimming pools nine ways to Sunday. And if that wasn’t enough, we made up our own toys! Example: take a (nonpunctured)dry cleaners bag; make a base in a hexagram shape with three intersecting spokes made from drinking straws or used pixie stix; tape that shit to the bottom of the bag carefully!; now, again,CAREFULLY! melt the bottoms of 10-12 birthday cake candles and affix candles onto the straw or pixie stix base; light candles and don’t step away; ya gotta keep yer eye on the bag,son;wait until that shit fills up with enough hot air to retain boyancy and heads Heavenward; voyla!…UFO scare!!!

171. Bootsy
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:28 pm [Reply]

     Hey, Brucker, there should be shame in laughing heartily at Cathy. Surprise, sure, but shame too.

172. Sylphi
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:33 pm [Reply]

     The toy store I worked for still sells hippity hop balls. It’s a bit old fashioned as stores go, (they also sell horse shoe toss games,) but it does well for itself.

173. Uncle Lumpy
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:34 pm [Reply]

     Yeah, you don’t want to be on the wrong side of the Cathy shame line.

174. The Spectacular Spider-Brick
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:37 pm [Reply]

     Uncle Lumpy @ 26: Amazing sonnetry. I bow to you.

     Amy @ 100: You mean “Julia, Swallower of Spunk,” don’tcha?

175. Mountain Mama
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:39 pm [Reply]

     I’m a girl and I got “Cathy” today.

     Seeing Zippy drawn so attractively from the neck down to the ankles just freaks me the heck out. But the polka-dotted trunks are a nice touch. I can grudgingly admit that the art in the strip is good.

     But my main gripe today is in MW, of course. Everything is in color in the first panel except for the picture frames on the dresser or whatever that is.

     They are white, one is directly behind the other and do not look like any frames I’ve ever seen anywhere. I have decided they are the portal that Mary uses to sustain her brainwashing, soul-sucking, meddling powers.

     Why do I read this stuff?

176. queek
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:39 pm [Reply]

     143: skeeball causes comas, and The End of Creation.

     further details can be found by watching Kevin Sloth movies. ;-)

177. Lemmy Caution
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:40 pm [Reply]

     Charming though brassy young Julia might be, she’s toast. Anthony’s newly-shaven look proves this: I suspect Lynn may have read all those critiques and comments describing him as a mopey, passive-aggressive doormat with a stupid moustache, but is so in love with the character that only the “stupid moustache” bit registered, and thus concluded that it was only the pornstache that stood between Anthony and the universal love of her readers.

     I imagine that this is a smaller-scale version of the sort of hubris that took hold of Kevin Costner, who, after seeing one overblown, ponderously stupid, dystopian fantasy (WATERWORLD) flop, with many critics dismissing it with some variation on “waterlogged”, “all wet” or the like, decided to follow it up with an even more overblown, ponderous and stupider dystopian fantasty (THE POSTMAN), presumably on the theory that the first film flopped not because it was overblown, stupid, etc., but just because there was too much water.

     So alas, I fear we shall soon be bidding adieu to fair Julia: sometime during the next couple of strips, she’ll get drunk or say something stupid or make a pass at Liz’s father and be unceremoniously disappeared from the script’s continuity.

178. queek
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:40 pm [Reply]

     doh!

     forgot to mention it this morning, but new, never before seen Pibgorn is up!

     “she doesn’t get cut in half at this time”

179. Len
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:46 pm [Reply]

     I recall there was a chapter in T.H. White’s “Once and Future King” that showed Man as the only animal with no real natural defensive weaponry at his disposal.

     Here in “My Cage,” Norm and Jeff compare their physical artillery: platypuses got poison spurs (but only the males), sharks of course have many, many very sharp teeth. If they were humans, the’d be sitting in the lunchroom comparing karate techniques, or showing off pictures of their gun collections.

     We platypuses? We BAD!

     Huh! We sharks be BADDER!

     And we eat like piggies, too. Belch.

     http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20070613&name=My_Cage

180. Windier E. Megatons
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:50 pm [Reply]

     I’m about 95% certain that Dennis the Menace has used that exact panel one joke before. The scary thought is that so many people wrote in to complain that they didn’t get it that Team Post-Ketcham felt the need to rerun it with the second panel clarification. “Oh, because she’ll talk a lot. She talks too much. I gotcha now, Dennis. I thought you were just saying that she would have good poise in front of a studio audience and conduct meaningful celebrity interviews.”

181. zeeba
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:51 pm [Reply]

     BC: This is the first week of the newly drawn BC, and it does show a lot of promise. The new byline just says “by Hart,” and the signature on the strip says “Mason,” so I’m assuming it’s a relative of the late Johnny? Anyway, vast improvement over the lame puns from the past 5 years.

     JP: So, Sophie’s so glad she’s rich?? This has got to be some kind of foreshadowing–the bottom’s gonna fall out soon. IIRC, Neddy and Sophie are the ones that are mega-rich, and Abbey’s just rich. I wonder if Dear Abbey has been siphoning off the trust funds??

     FOOB: Count me in on Team Julia. Hey, any NEW BLOOD in this strip is cause for celebration, no matter if Lynn intends her to be unlikable. I like her because it’s obvious Lynn DOESN’T.

182. Windier E. Megatons
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:52 pm [Reply]

     Also, does Anthony look like a butch lesbian now or is it just me?

183. mattt
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:54 pm [Reply]

     #145 Now how did I miss that? I actually try to read these things before posting. Well, take comfort knowing you’re not alone, both in seeing it and worrying about seeing it.

184. gh
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:55 pm [Reply]

     #123 O’Fogeyette

     BWAHAHA! I’ve been trying all day to come up with a good MT snark. Now I can sleep easy.

185. Alina
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:55 pm [Reply]

     I see that Shawna-Marie has wasted no time pulling a Therese. In panel two, she can be seen happily making out with another man while her newly-wedded husband glad-hands the guests.

186. Mumbles
     June 13th, 2007 at 3:56 pm [Reply]

     Here’s what still puzzles me about FBoFW. I agree that we’re being set up to find Julia “rough around the edges.” But Granthony seems to like her fine. He appears to be chuckling in the last panel – no mortification or embarassment (like when Sidney Pollock’s horoscope-spouting girlfriend embarassed him all up and down the Upper West Side in Husbands and Wives), not even a Winkerbeanian half-smirk.

     Maybe this is a “lid for every pot” moral and we’ll learn that Granthony is no prize (when Lizardbreath catches him picking his nose and wiping his finger under the table during the Best Man’s toast.). That would free up Liz for Mason.

     But they’ve invested so much in the “Anthony is so funny, smart, and saved you from a rape” theme that something has to be afoot.

187. Iris
     June 13th, 2007 at 4:01 pm [Reply]

     Reason #459 why Foob marriages are a sham: Shawna-Marie, in some sort of crazed panic state fueled by desperation and regret, locks lips with the first guest of the male persuasion who comes her way, a record-setting 10 seconds after taking her vows. Probably because she has just realized that she’d only married this man because he’s the only black male in the known Foobiverse.

188. Chat Noir
     June 13th, 2007 at 4:02 pm [Reply]

     #182 – Actually, Windier, I had a thought that Julia could be of the lesbionic persuasion and accompanied Granthony to make Liz jealous — much as Lizardbreath did with her dancing fella when Granthony loped up to the hitching post with Prune Face. If Julia’s not now, a shorn Granthony will surely turn her. Actually, any Granthony should.

     #176 – queek, I stand ready to pull Zippy’s plug.

189. Kurdt
     June 13th, 2007 at 4:08 pm [Reply]

     I grew up in the nineties and I do remember hippity-hops but I never knew thats what they were called. We also had this thing that was a skateboard with a ball in the middle that you balanced on and does anyone remember skip-it? You put it on your ankle and swung it around and it counted how many times you skipped it? No? Okay, its just me then…

190. Other Josh
     June 13th, 2007 at 4:08 pm [Reply]

     Chat Noir – I prefer my take in 52 to the jealousy angle, but suit yourself.

191. Islamorada Girl
     June 13th, 2007 at 4:09 pm [Reply]

     146, 151: FOOB. Sorry, those aren’t freckles or zits on freshly madeover Anthony. They’re power burns from his first tragic attempt at playing Russian roulette with a semi-automatic.

192. Lynngineering
     June 13th, 2007 at 4:12 pm [Reply]

     FBOFW: Droolia’s oraltastic bridges being engineered by Father Patterson are a surreal fantasy sidenote. But we can all assume that Mason, the connotation of bricks, mortar, and secret orders is no Patterson family pushover. And surely April will adore him.

193. Cannis
     June 13th, 2007 at 4:19 pm [Reply]

     Guys, Guys, Guys,

     I’ve got you all beat; I had a hippity hop in the late ’60’s, and man, I loved it. Dennis and Joey don’t deserve such fun.

     I also went to school with a girl who wore her hair like Margaret’s. This was in the ’70’s.

     Sigh. I’m old.

194. Ferd Berfel
     June 13th, 2007 at 4:22 pm [Reply]

     Margo-Boxcar-Saturn Johnston! You are a complete and utter tool.

     Could you have telegraphed the ‘fact’ that Julia is wrong for Granthony in a less subtle manner? How about having her show off the scar from her gallbladder operation? Or maybe just lift her dress, squat, strain, and take a dump on the dance floor?

     I can’t wait for this strip to die. Hell, I can’t wait for Johnston to die either.

195. Desdemona
     June 13th, 2007 at 4:22 pm [Reply]

     Dude, I had a hippity-hop when I grew up in the 90s. They’re still around.

     Also, I’m afraid I find Julia of For Better or Worse annoying and brash, more than anything else. If anyone did that at a wedding in real life, I would consider it a bit rude.

196. the angry black woman
     June 13th, 2007 at 4:32 pm [Reply]

     Yes, it is truly me :) (to answer everyone from the last thread)

     I haven’t been lurking, I’ve been away. Right now I’m catching up on the site. I’m at the beginning of January now. And, let me tell you, i am kicking myself for not keeping up. There is so, so much funny to comment on. But it would be silly to comment on 6 month old posts.

     I am really enjoying the current A3G storyline, though. By enjoying, I mean screaming WTF people!!! at my computer. It’s as if the person who writes this strip has never, ever, ever read or seen any haunting/ghost fiction/TV/movies EVER. I mean, how exceptionally lame was that? “You opened the window! It was he only thing keeping me from the light. Come to the liiiiiiiight.” No. Just… gah. And now LuAnn is convulsing because… why? My theory is that she’s like on of those 18th century ladies. The ones who would experience some kind of fright and then fall ill because it was just too much! A frail constitution, our LuAnn.

     Oh, and I completely love that Margo is all “Can’t all this wait? I’m trying to text my latest helmet-head spray!”

197. StrangeRover
     June 13th, 2007 at 4:46 pm [Reply]

     DtM: Here is another example of Dennis being non-menacing. My brother and I had Hippity-Hops when we were kids and we discovered that their highest, best use was not for transportation – it was to use them to beat each other senseless. DM is not only non-menacing, but also completely lacking in imagination!

198. Wellsey
     June 13th, 2007 at 4:47 pm [Reply]

     Thank you Lynn Johnston for giving me a couple I can give such a great name to, “Dip’n Dots.” They’ll be great together. Don’t go screwing it up by having them not be together tomorrow, you hear me?

199. Jejune
     June 13th, 2007 at 4:52 pm [Reply]

     #142 Josh –

     Julia certainly does seem much cooler than Liz, and he looks tickled pink at her visceral and terrifying tooth display in the last panel. I took this to mean, though, that he’s so hopelessly inept at reading people that all Julia’s attempts to drive him away only make him think she’s a swell kinda gal. I mean, as much as I’d like to see Anthony end up with someone other than Liz (or alone – totally alone), I just can’t see Johnston letting us off the hook here. In fact, I picture her using the eraser of her pencil to shave Anthony, and then sitting back, looking at him, with his brand new nose and his brand new effeminate face, and thinking, “They all said they hated him because of his mustache, but now that he’s clean shaven, everyone will be rooting for Stashless Anthony! Right? Hoo!” Julia can try all she wants, either to escape from or to win the Former Stash, but she’s going to become another platonic friend, and when Anthony marries Liz, he’ll save Julia from a rapist and weep about how his marriage is a sham and he HAS NO HOME, because Liz is such a pure and virginal martinet that she won’t even touch him. And on it goes.

200. Dr. Mad
     June 13th, 2007 at 4:54 pm [Reply]

     #170, Red, I’ve made a ton of UFO’s in my time – recently I tried to tell some 20-somethings about zilches [cleaner bag with knots set on fire -better have a bucket of water under it - you can see one in the Furry Freak Bro's (and you think you're old?)] -they only looked at me in horror and disbelief. I’m beginning not to care what happens to Puffylips Lizardo or to Lynn Big Bootay [watched Buckaroo Bansai last night] as long as it’s bad and soon.

201. Uncle Lumpy
     June 13th, 2007 at 4:58 pm [Reply]

     #200 Doc –

     No matter where you go . . .

202. Angry Beaver
     June 13th, 2007 at 5:03 pm [Reply]

     #103: Hee, hee – Here’s the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recall notice for the totally awesome Wham-O “Fun Fountain.”

     I had one of those!! And the Fischer Price little people, and a hippity hopper and…..hey! were my parents trying to kill me? I wonder….

203. Grinderman
     June 13th, 2007 at 5:06 pm [Reply]

     She wouldn’t have to open her mouth that wide for Anthony…

204. Motorposus
     June 13th, 2007 at 5:09 pm [Reply]

     #110 gh – Hee hee! Amazing product, that Burma Shave: it can also be used for do-it-youself rhinoplasty.

205. Simple J. Malarkey
     June 13th, 2007 at 5:11 pm [Reply]

     I note with interest that Liz exhibits a healthy head-bobble in panel 3. We can only hope that the appearance of a rival for the Ex-Stache has unleashed Liz’s inner Margo. That would make the Foob finale months much more interesting.

206. Smokescreen
     June 13th, 2007 at 5:26 pm [Reply]

     re. FOOB: I don’t know, it looks like Anthony’s expression in the last panel could be a wince of embarrassment. My guess is this is just the beginning of Julia’s wildly inappropriate chardonnay-fuelled misbehaviour at the wedding, and that before the night is over she will get sent to the hospital to get her stomach pumped. Anthony will be to disgusted to go and see whether she pulls through, and end up banging Liz in the coatroom.

207. Islamorada Girl
     June 13th, 2007 at 5:32 pm [Reply]

     Zilches! I haven’t thought about a zilch in years! They were fun, back in my hippie days, especially when a real smartass accidentally set his hair on fire with one and we were all too stoned to do anything except giggle helplessly as he did his Dr. John imitation.

     Sort of like watching FOOB unfold.

208. Wellsey
     June 13th, 2007 at 5:34 pm [Reply]

     Foul! Illegal use of a copy machine called on Mark Trail. Clearly the same drawing of Mark and Sam in the first and last panels only reduced by roughly one-third. Because of it being flagrant, that’s a 15 yard penalty and a loss of down.

209. odinthor
     June 13th, 2007 at 5:43 pm [Reply]

     MT — Setting aside Mark’s naughty bits’ understandable interest in “birds” and where they come from, let us note the odd Mutts-like emphasis put into the ejacu…, um, exclamation: “WHERE did those birds come from?”.

210. The Spectacular Spider-Brick
     June 13th, 2007 at 5:48 pm [Reply]

     RMMD: Hugh should bear in mind that Heather is now technically both his mother and his nanny, and she would be entirely within her rights to take him over her knee. Then again, maybe that is exactly what he has in mind.

211. Al
     June 13th, 2007 at 5:48 pm [Reply]

     Momma — kind of a stupid rant on just how clueless the young (and Americans in general) are about basic civics. OTOH, the girl in the panel does look like she’s had her brain removed via ice cream scoop.

212. Jamus The Bartender
     June 13th, 2007 at 5:52 pm [Reply]

     Dick Tracy’s Crimestopper’s Textbook
     Today’s Lesson: Notes From The Wedding, Part Two
     Okay, the kids say their “I do’s”, and, yeah, Tess makes me recite our wedding vows in the middle of the Mets hitting one out of the park, we’re in the recieving line, congratulating the happy couple, and you know what? Shawna-Marie didn’t look the LEAST bit preggers. She’s a good kid.
     And things would have ended there, were it not for the fact that Tony Pornstache ( I found out later this was the perp with the cage in his basement) ’s short fat girlfriend….not Liz, the other one, the one with the dark hair….was showing people her dentist scars. I’m not sure why she did this, but naturally the ol’ detective is not one to let this sort of thing go unchallenged. So…I says…”Big fuckin’ deal. You kids wanna see wounds? I’ll show ya wounds…” so I took off my shirt, showed ‘em where I took two 38 slugs in the ribs from Prunface, a knife wound in the hip from Flattop back in 43, I honestly don’t know how many shots to the head from various bad boys, also a couple of 45s in the shoulder from Mumbles, and , last but not least, a cleaver in the ol’ inner thigh from Breathless Mahoney which would have prevented the ol’ detective from having grandkids had that blade gone a couple of inches eastward, and if I hadn’tve already adopted Junior in the thirties.
     Things got pretty quiet right around then…the bride got all weepy, it is her special day, after all…so did all the bridesmaids….this one girl named April seemed a little too interested in my injuries, so it was time to head for the bar, but Tess insisted on heading back to the hotel because of a migraine. Damndest thing…I didn’t wanna go to the wedding in the first place, now Tess wants to head back to the hotel…didn’t even have a chance to hit the bar yet. Ah well, there was a nice tavern around the corner from the hotel where I could catch some hockey.
     Oh, I almost forgot…the mounties. When I went in to file a report about not being able to find Tony Pornstache and Jimmy Chinballs, all I got were a lot of blank stares and “we didn’t know you were coming, Mister Tracy” . I’d say that the incompetence of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was a disgrace if they hadn’t found a horse for me to ride. It actually wasn’t so much a horse as it was a pony from the local pony rides, but..hell, any port in a storm, huh? I rode around the block once. Got a little tipsy at the bar to do any more than that….and just as soon as the old guy with the fat wife called to register a false complaint against the ol’ detective, I figured it was time to leave, Canadian and American relations never having been stronger. I promised every member of the mouties a wrist radio, headed back to the hotel…and that was our Canadian visit.
     Of course i’d wish Shawna-Marie and her mister the same happiness Tess and I have had…but I like those kids….haw, haw, haw….no…seriously…we had a nice time…at least I did. Next time, it’s a little bit about my mission with the CIA. Thank GOD they put that big sign up in front of the building so it’s easier for the ol’ detective to find…
     Till next time..
     Dick Tracy

213. Al
     June 13th, 2007 at 5:53 pm [Reply]

     foob: I just noticed these conversations in the receiving line in panel 2:

     To the bride (shawna-marie): “Congratulations!”
     To the groom: “Lovely wedding, dear.”
     To Dawn, the maid of honor: “You look beautiful.”
     To Liz, the bridesmaid: “Good luck.”

     ??? Sounds like a ‘mudge wrote that bit of text for LJ.

214. alamo
     June 13th, 2007 at 5:54 pm [Reply]

     foobville – speaking of some oral work here jules or liz can see granthony with a mustache anytime they want when they look down at him munching some canadian beaver.

215. alamo
     June 13th, 2007 at 5:58 pm [Reply]

     79 mattt — not only that but mt’s butt is crying for jack elrod in panel three. either that or it’s an air biscuit.

216. julia
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:05 pm [Reply]

     Yay! I came home from school and I have a team named after me! Me, a lurker! Well, fine, it’s not me, personally, but we Julias have to stick together. Although my first impressions of the other Julia were not too positive, I’m on the team. Do we get hats?

217. The Avocado Avenger
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:09 pm [Reply]

     FOOB: For what it’s worth, I think everyone’s being turned pretty in preparation for the upcoming time freeze. We’ve had two make-overs so far and I suspect we’ll get more. All that PT Grampa Foob’s been getting will make him able to get around well enough and speak, but he’ll still be prone to Boxcar Outbursts, sort of like Sophia on “Golden Girls” (whose original backstory was that a stroke loosened her tongue.) It’ll be hilarious.

     Like dozens of others here, I wonder where the heck Red Herring is.

218. Poteet
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:10 pm [Reply]

     Foob — Sign me up for Team Julia. She’s the only wedding attendee who gives me hope for the reception.

219. Red Greenback
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:18 pm [Reply]

     Nah, “zilches” was somma that The Crazy World of Arthur Brown shit. If I had one of those fancy blue “Red Greenback says:” dealies, I would give you all an illustrated instruction on how to create one (or a whole flotilla) of those bad boys.

220. Red Greenback
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:26 pm [Reply]

     Aw crap! I did have to follow Jamus the Bartender’s Crimestoppers Notebook! I’ll be in my room.(upper bunk in the Proud Mary awash in womens shoes and ketel 1)

221. Kip W
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:26 pm [Reply]

     God, it’s not a good thing that I remember “Hoppity Hop.” In the 70s, the TV ad went pretty much like this (unbolded words are spoken by saccharine-voiced announcer, bolded words are shouted by a hideous chorus of kids):

     “Get the ball HOPPITY HOP! It’s hops of fun! HOPPITY HOP! You’ll hop for hours. HOPPITY HOP! Sweet Jesus, I can’t take it any HOPPITY HOP! Stop it, you little HOPPITY HOP! AAAAGHHH! HOPPITY HOP!”

     If I were more highly evolved, I could forget this ad, along with “Super Elastic Bubble Plastic,” “Shrinky Dinks,” and “I Am An Acne Pimple.” Maybe if I take up drinking.

222. PeteMoss
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:27 pm [Reply]

     # 76 Water wiggle? It could easily take out 3 to 4 teeth on impact.

223. queek
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:28 pm [Reply]

     201: “there you are”

     just remember, the drummer has an Uzi.

     (one of the greatest stoner movies of all time!)

224. Hysterical Woman
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:29 pm [Reply]

     Granthony’s smirk is creepy. Perhaps he’s hoping the two girls have a kissing contest to prove their love for him?

225. O’Fogeyette
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:31 pm [Reply]

     Welcome home, Angry Black Woman! And don’t worry about catching up! Eventually everything on this site gets repeated!

     gh: Thanks for your props on my MT snark.

     Everyone else: Adieu for now. My new Palm TX just arrived and I have to transfer all my old stuff from the semi-working Palm Tungsten and then figure out how to use it. Till the AM and more of the horrendous wedding, then….

226. Aredvark
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:32 pm [Reply]

     Luann, Groucho Marx called. He wants his eyes back.

227. MonkeyHawk
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:34 pm [Reply]

     I don’t recall them called “Hippity-Hops” but I enountered those big bouncy balls back when I was employed by an AM-FM-TV station in Topeka, Kansas. I was in college and pulled 18 hours of record shows (some rock, some morbidly MOR) as well as served as the substitute-substitue weather man on the Saturday mid-day and afternoon newscasts.

     Saturday noons were the worst. “Miss Fran,” or whatever he name was, taped a couple of weeks of “Romper Room” on Saturday mornings. (Alternate weekends were taping “Whizzo the Clown.”) All in all, Whizzo was a much more reputable human being.

     “Miss Fran” had the local mail-order franchise for the bouncy balls and plugged it all through her shows which, as it turned out, was a major breach of the “Romper Room” franchise. She was sued big time and “Romper Room” was cancelled but her lawyers parlayed it into a franchise-wide promotion and “Miss Fran” has turned into a “Family Values” spokesperson who keeps her (very butch) roommate-for-30-years far in the background.

     Every comic has its universe. Personally, I’d prefer if Dennis Mitchell and Gina grew up and bumbped uglies all the time while Joey makes Margaret burn her “I Gave My Word to Stop at Third!” t-shirt after a prom night of anal sex.

     I’d like Mr. Dithers to die at his desk and Dagwood plunge the company into Chapter 11. I want Sgt. Snorkle to be brought up on charges for abusing Beetle and the next 20-to-life strips based at Leavenworth Prison.

     I want John Patterson to be indicted for filling Julia’s “cavity.”

     I want Charlie Brown to grow up and die in a $10-an-hour motel room as he gropes Casandra Cat’s multi-breasts.

     I want a grown-up Lucy Van Pelt to be the new roommate in Apartment 3-G, now that LuAnn as died.

     I want LuAnne to die.

     (Sorry, I’ve never been able to keep up with the Lu Anns, the LuAnnes, the Lu Anns, the Abbys, the Abbies, the rest of ‘em.)

     So maybe it Lu Ann I want to die.

     Screw it.

     Make ‘em all die.

     Let Lynn Johnston figure it out.

     She is, after all, her perception of “God.”

228. The Denstress
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:39 pm [Reply]

     Hippity Hops are very much alive. You can get them with everything from sponge bob to disney princesses. Of course, growing up in the 70’s mine was yellow and considered fancy because it had a horse’s head. I covered many a mile in my backyard on that thing.

229. The Denstress
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:40 pm [Reply]

     Hey – marketing idea for Josh — Red Hippity Hop with quotin’ Margo. I would buy it for my 2 year old!

230. Red Greenback
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:42 pm [Reply]

     BTW, if anyone needs to pick me out in the perp lineup at ShawnaMaries welding reception, I am the rather surly looking gentleman wearing an “Ebola Monkey Man” tee shirt…Holy flarkin’ snarts! I feel like Milhouse when he had a conniption(SP?) and he stated “Waa, when’re they gonna get to the fireworks factory”

231. Gal Friday
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:48 pm [Reply]

     #163 Clackers! Yes, another awesomely stupid toy–just one step up from that toy Dan Ackroyd was trying to sell on the old SNL: Bag O’ Glass.

232. Poteet
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:49 pm [Reply]

     Who is Julia? what is she,
     That all our posts commend her?
     Brassy, loud, and short is she;
     The heaven such verve did lend her,
     That she might admired be.

     Is she bold as she is fun?
     For good times follow boldness .
     We regard her like a sun,
     To hell with Lizard coldness.
     Liz we now intend to shun.

     Then to Julia let us sing,
     That Julia is excelling;
     She excels each Foobville thing
     Upon the dull earth dwelling:
     To her let us garlands bring.

233. Tracer Bullet
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:52 pm [Reply]

     “beating the servants with a gold brick”

     I know this is a joke, but there’s a woman in Philadelphia who probably thinks that’s perfectly reasonable.

     http://tinyurl.com/37d6e7

234. F. Cecious Lee
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:53 pm [Reply]

     I’ll back up what T. Chicana said (#72) about Hippity Hoppity Hops. They could wreck your tailbone if you missed on the down hop. Mine had a handle too.

235. Skullturf Q. Beavispants
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:54 pm [Reply]

     Today’s the second time that I remember My Cage having an interesting way around the old dilemma that arises in comics about anthropomorphic animals. You all know the dilemma I speak of — it can be variously expressed through questions like “What’s the deal with Goofy and Pluto anyway — aren’t they both dogs?” or “How come the restaurant in Shoe serves fried chicken?” or “How can pluggers have pet dogs and eat eggs?”

     The platypus’s poison spurs, and the shark’s teeth, are holdovers from their wilder ancestors, but these animals today are more socialized and domesticated. That’s why the shark can hold down a job without just devouring all his coworkers.

     Around the time the strip debuted, I was also amused to learn on the about page that the platypus has a pet amoeba. It makes a lot of sense: if your protagonists are platypuses (platypi?) and foxes and salmons, then if you’re going to have pets, they kind of have to be a lower life-form.

     Of course, you could also be like Pearls Before Swine and have the lions wanting to eat the zebras. This is also amusing to me. Hmm, I guess I’m easy to please. “They’re animals, but they act like people! Haw!”

236. SecretMargo
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:55 pm [Reply]

     Crashed, Smashed and Trashed: Portrait of a Canadian Wedding, Installment 2: It Gazes Also Into SecretMargo

     I had to admit to her that I couldn’t see what she was pointing at. I saw a panoply of other delights, mind you: a darkly glittering coastline of teeth coated with the inky mash that decorated the buffet table in mealy hummocks labeled cryptically “Canadian Caviar”; a slick of poutine smeared on the underside her tongue, its surface oily and iridescent in the afternoon sunlight; a bruised tinting that spread outward from the hinge of her lips from the Curaçao-and-Canada-Club “Blue Torontos” I’d wisely avoided; the startling red of a gash in her gums torn by a wayward toothpick during the tongue twirling tourney she’d tried to goad me into joining before her gamboling brain had been seized by the desire to show me the apparently spectacular aftermath of her recent tonsillectomy. “I’m sure it’s quite something back there, but it’s just too dark. Why don’t you show me later,” I said, pulling my head back as if from the maw of a misshapen Muppet, praying silently that she wasn’t going to produce post-op Polaroids from the Bedazzled fannypack that encircled her waist like the ring of a planet formed from superheated gas and crinkling crinoline. The swift exit of my gastric contents during the ceremony had left me alarmingly clearheaded, so it was with a kind of giddy desperation that I’d guzzled the apricot brandy from a flask offered by a considerate woman I bumped into whose oddly two-dimensional yet unmistakably royal carriage was offset by the large sack of crystalline doorknobs slung across her back that transformed her into a kind of grandly dignified, if single-minded, Kris Kringle. I accepted a bauble with my booze, promising to put both to good use when the time came “for better or for Ragnarok.” After bidding my Queen an adoring adieu, I continued pawing through the crowd in search of Canuck-flavoured canoodling with my manscaped maple leaf Lawrence, but was instead brought up short by a food-blurred exclamation of, “OH MY GAWD I RUUUB YOUR DRESSSH!” and a ganache-gummy hand batting desperately at my shoulder. Turning, I found myself teetering at the food-lined event horizon of a black hole that yawned menacingly at roughly waist level, crowned by a snubbed, porcine nose and two eyes that glittered flatly with aluminum enthusiasm and blank, unsettling glee. Beside her, the formerly-moustached Mephistopheles I’d glimpsed earlier stood smugly like a pillar of suet wrapped in rented menswear. With a condescending air of relief, he backed away, the words, “Well, I guess I’ll leave you ladies to your ‘girl talk!’” escaping from between the paired pinworms of his lips in a pungent exhale of sub-Tim Horton’s coffee breath, leaving me to gaze into the abyss unaccompanied. “HEY YOU GOTTA TRY THISH CAAAKE,” it said, and so it began, my side trip through hell, a reception rendered ridiculous by the inconvenient uncouth. “I think you already showed me how many Maraschino cherries can fit in your mouth,” I sighed now, scanning the scene for saviours, or at least snogpartners. “I CAN DO BETTER THOUGH THIS TIME LAST TIME I JUS’ FIT IN A HUNNERT-AN’-TWO I BET I CAN FIT IN A HUNNERT-AN’-TWENNY EASY C’MON WAAATCH.”

237. Cafangdra
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:56 pm [Reply]

     Team Julia all the way; I think she’s adorable.

     And I bet “Inconvenient Tooth” came to John in the middle of the night. He scribbled it on a nearby scrap of paper then spent the next workday giddily anticipating just the right circumstances for birthin’ his bon mot.
     I hate him so.

238. Uncle Lumpy
     June 13th, 2007 at 6:56 pm [Reply]

     Let us see, at the reception,
     If she puts the hammer down –
     Is she true, or mere deception,
     Here to foil that Anth’ny clown
     And to dash our preconception.

239. alamo
     June 13th, 2007 at 7:06 pm [Reply]

     foobville — look at the f’n winkerbeanish smirk on granthony in the last panel. could it be that julia has throat cancer and will die a horrible early death? probably too much x-ray power from daddy foob’s death ray. maybe he wants her silenced so she doesn’t reveal their little tryst.

     happy birthday w b yeats.

240. maurice
     June 13th, 2007 at 7:07 pm [Reply]

     #221 kip w ..hey don’t forget “Thanks for the gumball Popeye” the popeye gumball toy. but my friends and i were kinda sick and we would say “thanks for the gumball jesus” and giggle till we had real tears.

241. Anonymous
     June 13th, 2007 at 7:11 pm [Reply]

     #65 I too was born in ‘74 and had a hippity hop, a red one with a horse head. San Diego, CA. They’re not dangerous!! I never fell off of it the way I fell off my skates and broke my arm. I also bought one YESTERDAY for my kidlet. Thomas the Tank Engine is emblazoned on the front. Here is a link in case anyone wants to buy it: http://www.thomasstation.com/cat/product_info.php?products_id=499 and oh, drat– this is cheaper here than it was at Big Lots.
     Luann and whatsherface are playing makeup, like they’re 5. I don’t recall being 16 and playing around to look like a ho with my friends. If I wanted to look like a ho, I put the makeup on and went out. And what the heck kind of Army guy is hitting on a 16 year old? Isn’t he like 26? Bernice will take revenge by reporting him to his CO.

242. maryn
     June 13th, 2007 at 7:12 pm [Reply]

     #65 I too was born in ‘74 and had a hippity hop, a red one with a horse head. San Diego, CA. They’re not dangerous!! I never fell off of it the way I fell off my skates and broke my arm. I also bought one YESTERDAY for my kidlet. Thomas the Tank Engine is emblazoned on the front. Here is a link in case anyone wants to buy it: http://www.thomasstation.com/cat/product_info.php?products_id=499 and oh, drat– this is cheaper here than it was at Big Lots.
     Luann and whatsherface are playing makeup, like they’re 5. I don’t recall being 16 and playing around to look like a ho with my friends. If I wanted to look like a ho, I put the makeup on and went out. And what the heck kind of Army guy is hitting on a 16 year old? Isn’t he like 26? Bernice will take revenge by reporting him to his CO.

243. VALIS
     June 13th, 2007 at 7:17 pm [Reply]

     Good God! I knew Judge Parker is slow paced, but I never thought that they hadn’t have reached euro time yet. Somebody really should send them 1.21 GigaWatts and a DeLorean or we’ll lose them for good in the folds of space time where even butlers can’t save them

244. Trotzenbonnie
     June 13th, 2007 at 7:33 pm [Reply]

     Dennis and Joey are bouncing their way to the forest. Somebody better warn them about the Pincushion Man.

245. Sweet Pea
     June 13th, 2007 at 7:38 pm [Reply]

     I couldn’t let y’all get distracted from the horror that it is For Better of For Worse’s wedding plotline, the filth that is Luann’s friend’s lust for her brother (acted out by drag queens), or even Josh’s amazing lack of knowledge of Hippity-Hops (proving once again he’s an alien), to notice: ZIPPY IS GETTING OFF IN PUBLIC!!!! In the COMICS no less, the last paradigm of virtue and innocence!!!! Comics are for kids, right?! The censors are obviously so busy erasing Dilbert butt-cracks that they don’t notice Zippy releasing all that “pressure” that has been building up in his “top knot!!!” No wonder Zippy is so revived and refreshed, if he hasn’t gotten off for a year. I’m assuming he REALLY looks forward to that annual vacation.

246. Zamboni_Rodeo
     June 13th, 2007 at 7:42 pm [Reply]

     Shoe:

     “What is a watermelon patch?”

     I’ll tell you what a watermelon patch is. It’s a horribly contrived setup for an unfunny punchline in a lame, tired comic. That’s what a watermelon patch is.

247. Zamboni_Rodeo
     June 13th, 2007 at 7:45 pm [Reply]

     #244, Trotz:

     Wasn’t the Pincushion Man the “Terror of Balloonie Land?” Or am I thinking of something else?

248. YoHo
     June 13th, 2007 at 7:50 pm [Reply]

     So, I had one of those Hippity hop things in the late 70’s early 80s. I think the 80s actually. I remember getting it but not the circumstances. Mine was a Spiderman Hippity hop. So, instead of the handle, it had a Spiderman head and handles where his ears would be.
     I’m sure there’s a joke in there related to the comment, but I don’t want to put in the effort to find it.
     I’m pretty sure my parents still have it.

249. off-model
     June 13th, 2007 at 7:53 pm [Reply]

     (sorry, forgot the comment#) Zeeba, BC: This is the first week of the newly drawn BC…The new byline just says “by Hart,” and the signature on the strip says “Mason,”

     That’s strange, BC is taken over by this mysterious Mason character around the same time that Lynn introduces a character named Mason in her strip.
     Could this be some kind of in-club comic strip writer shout-out or perhaps acknowledgement of the shadowy organization that makes sure that certain strips stay on the funny pages?

250. Trotzenbonnie
     June 13th, 2007 at 8:00 pm [Reply]

     #247 – Zamboni Rodeo
     Yes. HE was a menace, most notably because of his long protruding pin-is.

     And all you yungins with your hoppity hops and flippity flops and clicky clackers and weenie whackers…..always playing with some pre-formed prefab plasticky crippity crap. Why can’t you amuse yourselves like we used to in the good old days with a nice strong tree branch, some rubber bands and a few sticks of dynamite…..

251. KT
     June 13th, 2007 at 8:10 pm [Reply]

     FW: Goth girl gets points for putting the umlaut over the U in “über-”!

252. bats :[
     June 13th, 2007 at 8:24 pm [Reply]

     How much longer is the Foobiverse until it implodes and freezes into an eternal black hole? A few months? Figure that at least one of those weeks is the agonizing story of the destiny of Asshathony’s moustache…

253. Gareth
     June 13th, 2007 at 8:26 pm [Reply]

     Geek from FW = Me. I enjoy.

254. grindhouse reject
     June 13th, 2007 at 8:26 pm [Reply]

     Rarely see Zippy anymore; for some reason the local “alternative” paper stopped carrying it back in the late ’70s (when it was still good), and it does not run in either of the local dailies. The comments about his bod are correct; I never would have guessed he was so ripped, after his lifelong addiction to junk food and aversion to physical exercise. LIfe is just full of surprises.

     FOOB: This is the most depressing wedding since the one in The Graduate, just before Ben (Dustin Hoffman) rescues Elaine (Katharine Ross) from a life of loveless bourgeois creepiness, beating back the congregants with a purloined crucifix. Too bad Shauna Marie has no such rescuer. Lynn Ex Machina only saves her outlandish plot devices for the benefit of the Patterson clan. If Julia has any sense, she’ll take a hint from that movie and split on the next bus out of town.

255. Chat Noir
     June 13th, 2007 at 8:28 pm [Reply]

     #190 – Other Josh, I did indeed miss your notion, which is definitely superior. Liz may indeed join Team Julia.

     #236 – “like a pillar of suet wrapped in rented menswear”

     SecretMargo, how absolutely wonderful.

256. Frank Parsnip
     June 13th, 2007 at 8:46 pm [Reply]

     DTM: The ones me and my brother had as kids were “hoppity hops”. That said, it was weird but kinda fun. Kids today probably just don’t use them so much. http://www.jowett.com.tw/node/119

     Foob: When Julia opens her mouth in panel 4 it is oh-so-tempting to change the speech balloon to any one of hundreds of fun madlibbish bits.

     “Oh yeah! An’ guess what! _______________________”

     a) I can fit an entire mortadella sausage right in here!

     b) Your dad filed my teeth to sharp, knife-like points!

     … and so on. She’s likeable enough that I think Elizabeth will end up marrying a burn-ward victim with mild brain damage or else spend life as an old maid.

     RM M.D. — the look on Hugh’s face in panel one is priceless; it’s like a thinner Jame Gumb calculating how he’s going to substantially increase the number of panels for his womansuit.

     MW: Never sure what’s going on with Vera’s chin. Panel one, she’s got the massive plant-crushing jaw of an Paranthropus robustus with probably a sagital crest hidden under that mop of hair. In panel two, she’s got the delicate features of a Homo sapiens sapiens. How is it that she switches back and forth between Bride of Jay Leno and porcelain doll?

257. spackles
     June 13th, 2007 at 8:46 pm [Reply]

     Sorry, I just can’t join Team Julia. I can’t take her at face (gaping maw?) value — I think Lynn is setting us up for something. We are being manipulated, and not in the obvious way!

     Maybe I’m giving Lynn too much credit. Maybe the caffine and pseudoephedrine have left only the paranoid synapses firing. Maybe I’m thinking waaay too much about this comic. Just kill me now.

258. Blondie
     June 13th, 2007 at 8:51 pm [Reply]

     After revealing her dental work and her height to us, Julia has proved that she is no match for the Lip, but yet another Sharon, for all other characters to pity.

259. reader-who-posts
     June 13th, 2007 at 8:52 pm [Reply]

     A3G: I’m glad to see that margo spent time on her hair, makeup and jewelry before rushing to the hospital to see if her rent went up, errr, friend had died.

     MT: I don’t know what bothers me more – that Mark’s penis is asking about the birds, or that Mark named his penis Sam.

     DT: I like the way that the sign goes around the “Q” in “Headquarters”, which is a nice touch.

     Pluggers: Pluggers thank God for every solitary second they get to spend away from their wives. In other words, Rex Morgan is a plugger.

     TDIET: Damn, you’re complaining about dogs being hypocritical? Shame on you, Dan Smith!

     H&J: Herb, those tissues aren’t because the book is mushy and romantic…Joanie’s selling porn!

260. reader-who-posts
     June 13th, 2007 at 8:54 pm [Reply]

     oops, meant to make some comment about how fake the whole CIA HQ was…oh well.

261. True Fable
     June 13th, 2007 at 9:03 pm [Reply]

     #177 Lenny: I may be the only person on earth to have enjoyed Kevin Costner’s “The Postman”, but I did and have no qualms about it.

     I also got brained in the noggin by the nefarious Clackers, so there you go. They were banned in our school and I don’t think it was because they were dangerous; it was because the noise drove the teachers up the wall and they weren’t going to put up with it at work. Home was bad enough with those clack-clack-clack-clack-OW things.

     Prognostications:

     At least one more day of Julia, and then Lynn will reveal how understanding and kind Liz is to put up with Shan….non’s soulmate, and Angstony will be all the more wild about the Ice Queen. Yeah, I read the telegraph.

     RMMD: I already predicted Hugh will fall for Heather and her “working-man practicality”, just before his father is found alive, thus setting the stage for several weeks’ worth of strips where Heather is threatened by Hugh’s silent partner. Everyone will be concerned for Heather’s welfare but Rex, who will be at home eating round globs of ice cream and not giving a damn.

     FC: Jeffy is exact his revenge on the family. We have front row seats. Let the carnage begin.

     JP: Sam and Sophie FINALLY go out to the winery, and three weeks later he suddenly realizes that he left Randy’s campaign without so much as a by-your-leave. He rushes back to Parkerville, forgetting to bring Sophie back with him, so she embarks on a hilarious hitchhiking tour back. Somewhere along the way she takes a wrong turn, winds up in Canada, where she runs into a pasty-looking prick who whines and says “eh” a lot, and barely escapes his basement gulag. Sam comes in to save the day and sues the pasty prick for all he’s worth and is disappointed to learn Sam will have to pay himself four cents.

262. alamo
     June 13th, 2007 at 9:03 pm [Reply]

     249 bc — an old tired joke but it the funniest bc has been since………bc!

263. AhClem
     June 13th, 2007 at 9:06 pm [Reply]

     #170 Red Greenback -

     Those things work a lot better if instead of melted candles, you use the cut-off bottom of a beer can, with a cube of Sterno for fuel. Small-gage copper wire is used for the frame, and is more heat-resistant than straws. If you launch a bunch of them at night from an unused railroad yard somewhere in, say, upper Michigan, the police switchboards get flooded with UFO reports.

     Um … I mean, at least that’s what I’ve heard.

264. SecretMargo
     June 13th, 2007 at 9:07 pm [Reply]

     Have I lost my mind, or does today’s TDIET actually display almost human syntax, at least for the most part? And no one looks homicidal! I guess it’s true what experts say, pets do soothe the elderly and homicidal.

265. grindhouse reject
     June 13th, 2007 at 9:08 pm [Reply]

     Re: Zippy: if I remember correctly, back in the ’70s, when he was a countercultural icon, Zippy’s diet consisted almost exclusively of Ding Dongs with taco sauce (yes, Ding Dongs with taco sauce. Got a problem with that? Zippy was an early avatar of fusion cuisine). If he got that marvelous bod with that fare, I’m switching diets.

266. spackles
     June 13th, 2007 at 9:11 pm [Reply]

     Ok, I took another one of those little red “allergy” pills and had another litre (Canadian spelling) of sugar-enriched caffine….

     Julia is a deus ex machina, who in her loud and uninhibited way, will let Liz know the true depth of Anthony’s feeling for her (since thought-ballooning her hasn’t exactly gotten the message across). They will then have a heart-to-heart and truly stupid conversation where they obliquely think undying love at each other.

     AND DON’T TELL ME THAT CANADIANS DON’T SPELL LITER LITRE! I DON’T FRIGGIN’ WANT TO KNOW!

     Whoa. Little red allergy pill just kicked in.

267. SecretMargo
     June 13th, 2007 at 9:17 pm [Reply]

     The ‘Shaft: Next Week: Things grow even more unsettling when he receives the exact same phone call after getting out of the shower.

268. Red Greenback
     June 13th, 2007 at 9:19 pm [Reply]

     I dunno AhClem- If you’re like me, (and I know I am), the lo tech approach offers a more efficient lift/weight ratio. Plus it’s scary as hell when that shit catches fire at around 200 ft. off the ground.

269. Quäsenbo Pan
     June 13th, 2007 at 9:19 pm [Reply]

     I don’t have the strength tonight to read 265 comments where this may have (should have) been said, but:
     #26 Uncle Lumpy: I already knew you were a poetic genius. But writing a perfect sonnet like that…
     Will you be my favorite uncle?

270. Red Greenback
     June 13th, 2007 at 9:22 pm [Reply]

     Er, um…oh gosh! Thats what the potato believed happened!

271. Boozoo
     June 13th, 2007 at 9:43 pm [Reply]

     Josh, I notice that you use large b&w versions of FOOB, but did noy know that yahoo comics offers it daily in (slightly smaller) color?

     Look:

     http://news.yahoo.com/comics/forbetterorforworse

272. LTBF
     June 13th, 2007 at 9:49 pm [Reply]

     #142-Josh, what does TV,D,FEOUL mean?

273. Ricia
     June 13th, 2007 at 9:51 pm [Reply]

     I don’t know if anybody has mentioned this yet but my God Mopey Pete looks like the Second Doctor It’s kinda creepy.

274. Vince M.
     June 13th, 2007 at 9:52 pm [Reply]

     I’m pretty lukewarm on ‘Curtis’, but I do like that his favorite superhero does battle with Mister Horse from ‘Ren & Stimpy’.

275. SecretMargo
     June 13th, 2007 at 9:57 pm [Reply]

     272: The answer can be found on the internet (one post back, to be precise).

276. Brianne
     June 13th, 2007 at 9:58 pm [Reply]

     I love Anthony’s smug, smug bastard of a smile in the last panel.

277. AhClem
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:03 pm [Reply]

     Red Greenback,

     From what I my friends recall, the extra weight of the wire frame is more than made up for by the higher heat content of the Sterno. They took off like rocket-powered jellyfish, and stayed aloft for a long time.

278. Elly
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:03 pm [Reply]

     Luann and Bernice are doing makeovers. :)

279. Trotzenbonnie
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:07 pm [Reply]

     Oh my stars! I mean, Ack! I just read Cathy and now I’m having a serious gender identity crisis. When women get upset do they really want to hear “Oh you poor thing”? When I get upset, that response would go right below “Is it that time of the month?” on the list of things I absolutely do not want to hear.
     Excuse me whilst I go check my gonads….

     #170 – Red
     Shit! I hope you’re around to help me explain to Mr. T all of the melted plastic and burnt pixie stix on my front lawn when he gets home from Tulsa (not)OK on Friday….

280. TommieBlueEyes
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:10 pm [Reply]

     MW: It puzzles me that Vera seems frightened by the thought of a pool party. Then I realized that she knows “pool party” is synonymous with “grinding gears of the Charterstone plot shifting”. She has outlived her usefulness now that her sole problem has been neatly and peacefully resolved. Thus she will be written out of the strip for the next weeks/months/years as per Toby and Ian’s recent absence. Then again, this means that Mary’s platitudinous advice will now be foisted on some other godforsaken soul, so maybe she should be thankful after all.

281. Josh
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:11 pm [Reply]

     #271 Boozoo –

     I feel the same way about those colorized strips that I do about colorized black-and-white movies — that is, I feel bad about them. For weekday strips, the artists do not create the colored versions; the coloring is done by someone further down the food chain, from a limited palatte of colors, and often its quite bad. Sometimes it’s just aesthetically displeasing, sometimes its actively problematic to the story — see for instance the earlier strip I linked to where Shawna-Marie, who is obviously supposed to be dark-skinned, was given a pink-ish Caucasian flesh tone. I’ve also seen strips where a character remarks on the color of another character’s clothes — and the clothes are not colored to properly match the text.

     The reason I use colorized versions of the King Features strips on this site is that they are the only kind you kind find online. I try to stick with B&W for the rest, and generally use the largest images I can find.

     Hope this didn’t come across as me biting your head off; it’s just one of my few real persnickety grumpy-old-man things I feel about the comics.

     Josh

282. Matt Ramone
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:15 pm [Reply]

     Team Julia 4 Lyfe!

283. commodorejohn
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:18 pm [Reply]

     *ahem*

     Most of what Lynn writes is meaningless
     But she managed just to write you
     Julia

     Julia, Julia, open mouth, shows teeth,
     So I sing a song of love, Julia
     Julia, short and stout, breezy style, shows teeth,
     So I sing a song of love, Julia

     Her hair is matron-style and shimmering
     Simpering, ’stache-less one

     Julia, Julia, crazy loon, touch me,
     So I sing a song of love, Julia

     When I cannot write this part
     I can only love your kind, Julia

     Julia, bleeping grand, truly loud, touch me,
     So I sing a song of love, Julia
     *muted hose-o-phonium humming* …shows teeth,
     So I sing a song of love, Julia

284. Forthillrox
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:19 pm [Reply]

     I Hippity-Hopped the mean streets (actually a very long gravel driveway) of Burlington, Massachusetts in the late 1970s and early 1980s. My nephews who live in the same neighborhood did the same in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I was lucky to have seven siblings, so some of us made our own gang. The gang was slightly less tough by the time the nephews joined.

285. LSDmadeamesso'me
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:20 pm [Reply]

     #266: certain persons who are one another’s “close personal friends” have long referred to the author of the FOOB strip as Lynn Ex Machina, Her Holiness Johnston, etc. to describe the capricious, self-indulgent, and juvenile way this pathetic cartoonist injects her childish wish-fulfillment fantasies about her own miserable life into the strip…recent screen-names of such persons have been grindhouse reject, hashsmokeburnsacrossyourtrachea, and the current one (LSDmadeamesso’me), but the related terms (known collectively as Lynn Ex Machina Johnston) were originated on this website by person whose screen-name has been retired. Please show appropriate respect…

286. commodorejohn
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:22 pm [Reply]

     #284 – Did you ever fight Alex and Ryan? More importantly, did you have catchy phrases for when you were defeated, like “Barf!” or “Bogus!”?

287. Mad Dog Rackham
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:24 pm [Reply]

     Chien and Eyebag-guy are having way too much fun on their prom date for a Funky Winkerbean storyline.

     I sense an imminent murder-suicide pact.

288. Q. Lunq
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:26 pm [Reply]

     Hippity Hop history
     http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blspacehopper.htm

289. angry black woman
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:27 pm [Reply]

     okay, someone help me here. When did Berniece get a brother? Why is she in love with her brother? What the high hell is going on in LuAnn??

290. SecretMargo
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:28 pm [Reply]

     #26, Uncle Lumpy, #212 Jamus, #Last thread, and forever beforehand, Lynngineering:

     I feel a weird kind of kinship with the long-form literary commentors, whom I adore and whom I can only pretend toward the glory of in my overwritten diatribes. The pithy and the rantastic, the song-mad and the faux-naively querying, all has its rightful place and I enjoy it all, but I wanted to take time out to give “props” to the ambitious kids whose work is filled with subtle and abiding formal rigor (Dude. A sonnet.) and rewardingly erudite charm. It truly transcends both the expectations one usually brings to a “comments” section, as well as those brought to bear upon most “fan-fic.” Y’all are amazing. Thanks.

     [/goopiness]

291. Christian
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:29 pm [Reply]

     “permanently slouched due to the crushing weight of his ennui.”

     Thanks, Josh. I wish i’d thought of that phrase to explain my bad posture years and years and years ago.

     I honestly don’t think I could read that storyline. Stuff like that either makes me really sad for the geek (when he dosen’t get the girl) or jealous (when he does)

292. etho
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:39 pm [Reply]

     I used to have one of those bouncy ball thingies. As I recall, it popped within a day of purchase.

     And Luann and Curly Haired Friend are, I think, applying makeup to each other, and doing an intentionally bad job of it for the same reason that they runed each others cookies: Because they are deeply horrible and immature excuses for human beings. Goddammit, I despise that comic strip. It’s about 4th on my list of most hated comic strip.

293. LTBF
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:40 pm [Reply]

     Bernice’s parents had a baby while in college and gave him up for adoption. He recently tracked down his birth parents and came to visit them and Bernice.

     LuAnn developed a big crush on him and they e-mail all the time, much more than he and Bernice do. It isn’t clear if he also has a thing for LuAnn or if he just sees her as a friend to talk to.

294. Sunny Mel Blatherscythe
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:43 pm [Reply]

     For Better or Worser still-

     Oh, Julia you vicious, brilliant little shrew you!! She has come out swinging like Luis Firpo in this psychological brawl for exclusive rights to Granthony’s loins. She may have well just said: “Here is where you daddy worked on my teeth, the same place where Anthony is going to thrust his swollen manhood later”. Liz better have a good cutman, cuz it’s gonna be a long night.

     Mary Worth-

     Pool party my ass!! You don’t get up one day and decide leave the ‘Stone.. Expect Vera to be at the losing end of a de-initiation ritual..something like a crips style beat down on her way out.

295. Uncle Lumpy
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:47 pm [Reply]

     #289 ABW -

     Hiya ABW! Ben showed up a while back in one of those birth-mother search plotlines, with a kind of sanitized-Iraq subtext. Bernice isn’t in love, just protective and tedious.

     Real-life backstory is that Greg Evans and his now-wife apparently gave up a baby girl for adoption many years ago. Someone claiming to be said daughter surfaced a couple years ago, flogging the relationship to get publicity for her book. All since failed and sealed over. But interesting if true.

296. The Avocado Avenger
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:48 pm [Reply]

     #285 LSDwhatever – I don’t get your complaint about the use of “deus ex machina”, or why spackles using the word means disrespect to whoever it is you’re talking about.

     #289 ABW – I’m kind of new to the strip, but apparently Bernice’s mom gave up a child for adoption and he’s just resurfaced. LuAnn has a crush on him and obviously talks to him more, and Bernice is upset/jealous because of it.

     Yes, it looks like Bernice is wishing for some hot brother-on-sister action, and it gives me both heebees and jeebees just thinking about it.

297. SecretMargo
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:48 pm [Reply]

     289: Angry Black Woman: I feel a bit humbled, as I was but a lurker when these hallowed halls were graced with your presence, but, working from memory, LuAnn has approached the current brink of madness thusly:

     1) Bernice finds out she has a long-lost brother, who gets back in touch, first through email, via adoption agencies (I think …)

     2) Ben is a soldier in Iraq. He uses his leave to visit Bernice and her family, whom he is meeting for the first time. He and LuAnn lock eyes, but not lips, much to LuAnn’s chagrin.

     3) Ben goes back to Iraq, emails both LuAnn and Bernice. He seems to email LuAnn more. Bernice starts to get freaked out by this, which starts out understandably but then veers into weird.

     4)There’s a supposedly symmetrical subplot involving Slut-I-Can’t-Remember-The-Name-Of first gossiping to her friends about how outré LuAnn’s actions are (why are they? I don’t know), then deciding to turn the tables by hitting on LuAnn’s firefighter bro via the least subtle/least sexy “double entendre” conversation in comix history. Nothing happens beyond a somewhat forced kiss, but Slut pretends something has. LuAnn is freaked (again…why exactly?) but decides to play it cool to get even with Slut.

     4) Bernice and LuAnn have interminable conversations about how it’s fine that LuAnn and Ben have email chats, but both LuAnn’s protestations that her motives are pure and Bernice’s protestations that the relationship is fine with her are disingenuous. They decide to make cookies, and quickly descends into Incest-mad Iron Chef.

     5) Meanwhile, Ben breaks his leg in Iraq. No one seems to give a crap.

     6) Bernice, possessed with forbidden desire and possibly suffering a psychotic break, smears lipstick round and round her mouth, murmuring “Pretty…pretty” into the mirror while LuAnn keeps trying to hide a relationship that is perfectly legitimate from her clearly disturbed and increasingly dangerous friend.

     Does that help?

298. queek
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:50 pm [Reply]

     289:

     recently. Bernices mom gave up a high-school “oops” for adoption, and it was recently revealed. Keep trudging through the yesterthreads, its covered there.

     :-)

299. SecretMargo
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:53 pm [Reply]

     ABW, Man am I behind the hippity-hop on this one! That’s what I get for my needless verbosity.

     (also, “and” should be “which” in #4)

300. LTBF
     June 13th, 2007 at 10:54 pm [Reply]

     Who is going to buy a book like that. If it was Charles Schultz’s long ago adopted out daughter, that would be one thing. But nobody knows or cares who Greg Evans is and not that many people care about his lame comic strip.

301. Uncle Lumpy
     June 13th, 2007 at 11:08 pm [Reply]

     #299 SM –

     No one’s verbosity need suffer the sting of needlessness — not while Brooke McEldowney lives!

302. SecretMargo
     June 13th, 2007 at 11:09 pm [Reply]

     261: True Fable — Oh my God! I was an extra in The Postman!! My entire hometown makes up the background folk (including the albino kid). And the scenery (either Eastern Washington or right over the border in Northern Idaho, I can’t recall at the moment) reminds me of home, except for the parts filmed in the Southwest.

     That said …. I could only watch it once, in a theatre filled with my cheering fellow extras. But props to you for being able to see beyond the Costnerian preening.

303. SecretMargo
     June 13th, 2007 at 11:14 pm [Reply]

     300: Aww, man, not Big B! He’s who I’m always afraid I’ve unwittingly become! It was one thing when O’F-ette called me a hacky Raymond Chandler, but I brook no Brooke comparisons lightly.

     Shoot. Does this mean I have to start calling you Uncle Shakespeare?

304. Sunny Mel Blatherscythe
     June 13th, 2007 at 11:15 pm [Reply]

     Funky Winktastrophe-

     For nearly half a year I’ve been bothered as to where I’ve seen ol “Slouchy Pete” before. He’s just TOO GOOD at this nerdy teenager thing. There was just something entirely unwholesome about his demeanor that I just can’t take .. So like my role model Mcgruff the Crimedog I’ve spent countless hours sifting through evidence, and shaking down potential witnesses. And then I hit my big break , that’s right O Pete is in with these guys:
     http://youtube.com/watch?v=aIo-hIYPklU&mode=related&search=

     God help us all….

305. angry black woman
     June 13th, 2007 at 11:18 pm [Reply]

     secretmargo, I love you….

306. BTS
     June 13th, 2007 at 11:18 pm [Reply]

     Oh hell yes, Prisoner references for the win. Also, I used to have one of those hippity-hop things…it had a big “66″ printed on it. Screw the reviews of the other comics, though, I’ll take Dennis’ newfound home in The Village over Zippy’s nipply bits any day.

307. andreavis
     June 13th, 2007 at 11:19 pm [Reply]

     Count me in for Team Julia… And I insist that our t-shirts be “cream” coloured with rainbow letters. Because that’s how Team Julia rolls!

     My brother and I also had hoppety-hops circa 1974, here in Ohio. He had the red horsey-head one, and I had a blue one with a Donald Duck head.

     They were less than useless because: a.) we had a gravel driveway, so you had to use it in the yard (where it didn’t bounce well) or take it down the street (with a real sidewalk); and b.) unlike the horsey, the Donald Duck head was hard molded plastic, so when you bounced you got a wicked crotch thrashing (and not in a good way– bounce OW bounce OW).

308. R. Thompson
     June 13th, 2007 at 11:19 pm [Reply]

     When Richard Nixon resigned in 1974, I watched it on tv while sitting on a hippity-hop in a friend’s basement. (I was in high school then.) It just made a historic moment that much more memorable and fun.

309. Uncle Lumpy
     June 13th, 2007 at 11:22 pm [Reply]

     #302 SM -

     No, no – let me translate: “Don’t tag your own work ‘needless verbosity’ — Brooke McEldowney alone holds that title.”

     And his 6/13 strip is a fine example.

310. Sunny Mel Blatherscythe
     June 13th, 2007 at 11:27 pm [Reply]

     I grew up in the mid- late 70’s and while I can remember commercials for hippity hops, the major modes of kid transport in the “not so mean streets” of my neighborhood was huffy bike or Big Wheel..

311. Poteet
     June 13th, 2007 at 11:31 pm [Reply]

     # 236 — SecretMargo, I’d be highly impressed by the latest installment of your sweeping saga even if I weren’t in it. Thank you, thank you. You are welcome to my apricot brandy anytime.

     In case anyone else at the wedding wants to partake, my four hip flasks contain apricot brandy, Bowmore, Laphroaig, and Templeton Rye.

     # 238 — Uncle Lumpy, I bow. Thank you for the new verse, which I bet you tossed off in two minutes instead of having to labor as I did:-).

312. SecretMargo
     June 13th, 2007 at 11:40 pm [Reply]

     308: Oof, I’d started to skip that strip because I was becoming a one-note Brooke-basher and I didn’t like what it was doing to my skin. But now I look, and that “No I don’t know” bullshizzz is just the kind of needlessly prickish hey-look-at-me-and-my-education-and-viola-and-precious-eccentricity-and-translucent-whiteness crap one cannot help but suspect the man himself pulls every day in real life. Plus, he’s never met a comma he could say no to. Can’t you just see him peering at you through every pause, gauging your reaction to his wonderous wordplay like he [margo]ing Pinter or something?

     Oh, and I took no real umbrage to you (or O’F, for that matter), I just wanted to write “brook no Brooke comparisons.” Can you blame me? And man, your “eunuch among the sylphs” comment still cracks me up.

     304: Well now I can go to sleep, or even die, happy and at ease.

     ‘Night, you sweet cherubs of the ‘net.

313. Red Greenback
     June 13th, 2007 at 11:42 pm [Reply]

     #170 my own damn self: Wax Lips, Zagnuts, BB Bats and Wax Bottles! I meant to say “nine ways to Yellow Sunday”.

314. Anonymous
     June 13th, 2007 at 11:50 pm [Reply]

     Anthony “enhanced” his lip whiskers with his unshorn nose hairs.

315. Red Greenback
     June 14th, 2007 at 12:01 am [Reply]

     #277 AhClem: Your ideas are intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. Did that Sterno jellyfish work in warm weather, because I my hoodlum freinds could only launch those puppies to full effect on a cool, windless night.

316. Red Greenback
     June 14th, 2007 at 12:04 am [Reply]

     #277 AhClem: Your ideas are intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. Did that Sterno jellyfish work in warm weather, because I my hoodlum freinds could only launch the Pixie stix/ birthday cake candle puppies to full effect on a cool, windless night.

317. Poteet
     June 14th, 2007 at 12:28 am [Reply]

     Find my Gretchen. G’night, all.

318. King Folderol
     June 14th, 2007 at 12:28 am [Reply]

     tap, tap, tap…is this thing on?

319. Wolf25
     June 14th, 2007 at 12:31 am [Reply]

     I bet Julia is going to be a relative, or a friend, not a love interest. One reason is that Anthony told her all about Elizabeth. No idiot would tell a woman he is dating about another woman. Secondly, when she did the teeth thing, he seemed to be laughing not rolling his eyes or being embaressed. This may be just me, but Anthony seems to me the type of person that would be embaressed easily if his date did something like that, but he might be ok if it was a relative.. Just an observation and I could be completly wrong.

320. dreadedcandiru2
     June 14th, 2007 at 12:33 am [Reply]

     FW : Annoying Science Prick teacher is really behind the curve, isn’t he? It’s like he’s still stuck in the seventies and thinks computers talk, think and obsess over Star Trek.

     9CL : I am REALLY starting to hate Edda today. Network Lady is staring at her, a representation of all her dahed hopes and the nitwit thinks faking interest in what she might become if bad luck does the same thing to her makes her a Magic!Dancing!Fairy.

     Luann: Anvils, I say! Anvils falling from the sky!

     DtM : Oh, FREAKing marvy!! The Menace Index is actually in the negative today! Forget Joey and the cast of FC being edgier than this guy; Ziggy is more menacing.

321. The Spectacular Spider-Brick
     June 14th, 2007 at 12:55 am [Reply]

     am texting this w/phone guards dont know about

     surprised im even getn cell recp here in gitmo

     long story, tel u l8r if i can

     but first… abbrev. thurs snark:

     A3G: Look! Panel 1! It’s Rummy!

     B.C.: How’s it possible for this to be less funny than before?

     BB: Gunmetal gray icing and black ball bearings. Cake or IED?

     Cathy: Dogs didn’t help strip. Neither did marrying Irving. A baby won’t either. Please don’t.

     CtH: Ew. Ewwww.

     DT: Panel 3: Pornstache in 50 years. Ew. Ewwww.

     DS: How did whoever wrote the “To Do” list know that one woman would sit with her head there, and write around it?

     FBOFW: Would you like another? To the groin maybe?

     FW: You have to get tech to successfully make fun of those who don’t get tech.

     JP: Sophie clearly isn’t used to being the object of exposition.

     MW: Give up, Vera. Mary can bludgeon the strongest will into submission.

     MC: How to improve this strip: Maureen’s appearances must all include a close-up. Not too close tho. Chest-up would do it.

     PC: Okay, slamming GOPs is fun, but this gag was tired on Monday.

     RMMD: Greasy, fat-laden fish ‘n’ chips is what they call a light dinner? What’s a heavy dinner for her, suckling pig in a blanket? Chicken-fried whole goat? Dolphin-stuffed whale? Cow fingers with lard sauce?

     SF: Meta! Love it ^10!!!

     wups gotta go guard comin l8rz

322. Alabaster
     June 14th, 2007 at 12:59 am [Reply]

     I know the hippity-hop thing is getting old, but just to add a couple more pins to the global hippity-hop map: Nijmegen, early 1970s, in the Netherlands (which some people still insist on calling Holland). Three siblings and I all hippity-hopped about. Today my children do the same, in San Diego.

323. Uncle Lumpy
     June 14th, 2007 at 1:07 am [Reply]

     #320 SSB –

     Sign me up for some a them there cow fingers!

324. Gojira
     June 14th, 2007 at 1:14 am [Reply]

     “Yeah, I can open my mouth this wide — and you wonder while Anthony’s smiling?”

     Is that supposed to be “wonder why Anthony’s smiling?”

325. Kronkina
     June 14th, 2007 at 1:23 am [Reply]

     A3G Completely useless today (more so than usual). AGAIN we see how comically immigrant Margo’s mother is. AGAIN, the door was locked. AGAIN we hear about that angel with the key.

     AGAIN, I realize I spend too much time thinking about this comic.

326. Trilobite
     June 14th, 2007 at 1:26 am [Reply]

     At the end of a long thread, what could be better than previewing Thursday’s comics? Well, probably a lot of things are better, but this is what you’re getting:

     Rex Morgan: Oh, come on, Hugh: you seriously thought your old man’s only interest was making money? With a hot blonde trophy wife like that throwing her melons around like it’s harvest season? Do you think he married her for the tax break? Sheesh!

     Judge Parker: Sophie’s got this horrified look on her face when Sam drops the “But make no mistake…Trudi calls the shots!” line that makes me think that there’s some history of Sam sharing disturbing details about other people’s sex lives with her. Or maybe she’s just scared because the way Sam’s holding that plate makes it look like he’s about to whip it like a frisbee right at her nose.

     Mark Trail: A duck, you say? Well, that should help…pity you couldn’t get the license number off of its tail, but we’ll call around to the local body shops and see if anyone’s brought a duck in that might have been in a head-on collision. I’m glad you remembered that detail — imagine if we wasted our time looking for a goose! I’d suggest that the doctor might want to check Sam for a concussion, but I think this is proof enough that there was no brain in there to bruise.

     Mary Worth: On the one hand, it’s nice to see a good old-fashioned work ethic being portrayed somewhere. On the other hand, Vera’s such a drip that I’m not sure she makes for much of a role model. And on the other other hand, any excuse to ditch a Charterstone pool party is a good one. Hell, I’d inject myself with rabies to get out of one of those.

     Sally Forth: This made me laugh for every single time that I asked that exact same question myself. Well played, Ces!

     The Endless Horror That Is FBoFW: Nice to see that losing the mustache didn’t change Anthony’s basic nature: here he is, “moved on” with his life, new girlfriend standing right next to him, and the very first thing he does is start mooning over Liz all over again. I swear, he’s such an odious little twerp. Forget stopping at just a punch: I suspect that if this strip took place in the real-life Canada, someone would’ve already beaten him to death with a hockey stick or a moose or something.

327. Kronkina
     June 14th, 2007 at 1:28 am [Reply]

     Hey, I’ve got news for everyone! I know what Dennis & Joey (is it Joey?) are riding! They’re….(drumroll, please)…HOPPITY HOPS!!!

     Okay, okay, I’m a little late. But I had one, in the 70s in a very small town in Texas (on the Gulf coast, south of Houston). Basically, what one might call a podunk town. Yet, even we had hoppity hops…

328. Amy
     June 14th, 2007 at 1:34 am [Reply]

     FOOB: I finally know what Julia looks like. She looks like a Monty Python pepperpot woman.
     Except, as we well know, she can do amazing things with her massive orifices.

329. Kronkina
     June 14th, 2007 at 1:35 am [Reply]

     #325 Trilobite: What I liked best about the 6/14 Mark Trail (other than your most excellent comment, imagine if we’d wasted out time looking for a goose!), is Sam’s new, state-of-the-art eye bandage. Looks like Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman has been on the case.

330. the disembodied voice
     June 14th, 2007 at 1:37 am [Reply]

     Great, we dispatch the inconvenient “date” by making her progressively fatter with chin that disappears more every day. And Mason’s hair just turned color, from Pattersonesque beige to black, so we KNOW he won’t last.

331. Red Greenback
     June 14th, 2007 at 2:18 am [Reply]

     Bwahahaha! I just got it! “an inconvenient TOOTH!…Like the Al Gore movie, right? Bwa…Hey, maybe Batuik can do a “Suicide Me!” riff. Comedy freakin’ GOLD, Baby!

332. LouieLouie
     June 14th, 2007 at 2:19 am [Reply]

     #115: FW/Crankshaft: Since it has long been established that Crankshaft is a bus driver at the school in Funky Winkerbean (Westview? Westfield? whatever), how is it that the prom and the graduation are occurring at the same time? I demand consistency!

     HOWEVER, at the graduation, on both the 6/11 and the 6/13 the letters “CHS” are visible on the programs and diplomas.

333. spackles
     June 14th, 2007 at 2:22 am [Reply]

     # 325 — Trilobite *giggle snort* Thank you for such wonderful nuggets of snarkage. It has been a long and over-medicated day, but now I can end it with smile.

334. Dingo
     June 14th, 2007 at 2:25 am [Reply]

     So, for those of you who weren’t invited, lemme fill you in:

     Red Greenback had to park the car four blocks away from the church. So many people! It truly seems that half of Canada was invited to Shawna-Marie’s wedding; the other half were invited to Shawna-Marie’s weeding through typographic error and I hear that those there to witness that bikini waxing got quite an eyeful.

     So we parked the car four blocks down and headed for the church, hoping that the last of O’Fogeyette’s beer farts would dissipate from the enclosed car. The ride hadn’t been bad except for AppleGirl looking up at the rearview mirror every five minutes to state, “It’s 82 degrees and we’re heading east.” We had plentiful aerosol cans of bacon-flavored cheese product and YooHoo chocolate drink and no one minded that the 8-track tape player was stuck on “Green-Eyed Lady” for seven hundred miles.
     The wedding was predominately uneventful. The bride looked radiant as she walked down the aisle and the church organist but a funky spin on Car Wash that started everything just right. One glitch came halfway through the ceremony when Miss April Patterson, seated directly in front of John and me, kept turning around and making googly eyes at my boyfriend until I leaned forward and whispered, “If you stare at my bodacious piece of uncut Mexican cock again, I’ll gouge out your eyes with a hymnal.” With this, she turned to her mother and excused herself. When her mother asked where she was going, she said, “Home. To feed my pussy in the basement. Gerald’s waiting.” I swear, for the next five minutes, all that bulbous-nosed Elly Patterson could do was turn to her husband – who’s much better looking in person – and say, “I thought that was a rabbit.”

     The ceremony ended and we all headed off to Tim Horton’s for the reception. Red Greenback got us a table and we all clinked glasses for the newlyweds to kiss. That husband of Shawna-Marie’s is quite the prize. He spent nearly half an hour consoling SM’s mother in the woman’s room. He even held her walker for her during the chicken dance.

     Oh, and Anthony Caine – y’know the one with the ex-wife who’s now making Quebecois porn under the name Ceiling Demonde and filed that nasty slander suit when someone said he works “under Gordon” – was there with this girl named Julia and, I have to say, we all took to her like a Republican to an interracial whore. She was wearing this early 1970s Cher outfit perfect for a size 2 but looking on her size 18 frame like she grabbed it out of the tree after the twister took her trailer away. She was uncouth, classless, smelled of gin and maxipads, and a sheer delight. Someone should make a comic strip about her. Oh, her and her teeth. And her cousin, Shannon, who looks exactly like her but five years younger.

     Now if we can just get AppleGirl away from the best man, all is good.

335. LouieLouie
     June 14th, 2007 at 2:26 am [Reply]

     I just checked out that recalled toys page. I had all of them! and more! its a miracle I’m alive and not blind. I also had a Hippity Hop. Red, ring handle, no cool horse head. (#72 – Wouldn’t a Hippity Hop without a handle just be “a ball”?)

336. Lynngineering
     June 14th, 2007 at 2:29 am [Reply]

     #290 Secret Margo – Sheesh, happens every time, I retire early from the CC, and THEN the nicest thoughts appear… Anyway, you are one I gladly follow in the threads, your yesterthread #76 posting was one of my favs.

     Sometimes I think a really good, tight CC page is essentially 150 comments, but that gets multiplied now by a factor of 2, taking more time to reveal the flavors, like a slow cooking process.

     Speaking of slow:

     FBOFW: Thursday – - There we go: the last act is being set up. MASON is all about getting things done! First step, symbolically punch Anthony, knocking the wind out of his puffed-up, shaveless self. Second, rescue Liz from staring any longer at the Julia-trap Anthony has set up. Third, arm around Liz, go get that obligatory hell that is the group wedding picture over, and let it documents 4evah that it was Mason and Liz, who were at the wedding!

     Years later, they will be gazing at that photo which will be showing Mason’s arm wrapped around Liz has slipped down, hidden but implying he was grabbing her ample Patterson 40acre spread.

337. The Avocado Avenger
     June 14th, 2007 at 2:34 am [Reply]

     FOOB: Oh, lord, Julia’s fat. Great. Lynn’s trying to create an obviously loathsome person and of *course* jumps right on the fat-women-are-annoying bandwagon.

     If that’s true, then why do I find Julia about 1000 times more interesting than any of the freakin’ regulars in the strip?

338. Spotted HØrse
     June 14th, 2007 at 3:04 am [Reply]

     #336 Avocado Avenger: Yeah, Julia packed on 20 lbs and 10 years in mere seconds, which is annoying. But for me, there’s something satisfying about Anthony’s whiney and punny thought bubble.

339. taotu
     June 14th, 2007 at 3:30 am [Reply]

     Today, Anthony finally spreads some light on why he is no longer ‘the Mustache’. Clearly, this punch he has suffered was delivered by none other than Mark Trail, who all well-versed comic-readers know has the ability to drive facial hair from its host with nothing more than a rage-packed punch to the jaw.

     There are an assortment of reasons why Mark Trail could have punched Anthony, but I can only assume it’s because he mistook his daughter for an abused badger or somesuch. Only natural, considering she spends her day locked in a pen.

340. Red Greenback
     June 14th, 2007 at 3:36 am [Reply]

     #333-Dingo: Of all the people. I can’t beleive you didn’t comment on Peggy’s AbFab onsomb…Sorry Buddy,my bad, she was doing her “Predator” thang…Chennux made her watch that magnum opus like fifteen times and she “camos” because basically, she’s a shy li’l thing.

341. Red Greenback
     June 14th, 2007 at 3:50 am [Reply]

     Hey since no one’s gonna read this anyway: “Anonymous” was me.

342. AppleGirl
     June 14th, 2007 at 4:09 am [Reply]

     I am so, so sorry. I’m the one that encouraged Julia to do 7 shots of tequila before the wedding. I am also the one who told her it’d be tres chic to attend the wedding barefoot, wearing a muu-muu. She’s a nice girl, just a bit too… trusting.

     333 – Dingo: me and the best man, we were just talking. I swear! Just talking. You know, about operating systems and shoes and laughing about how enormous Lizardbreath’s butt looks in that dress.

     Oh, also: I dared Mason to put the moves on Liz, just to shake things up with ol’ ShavedLip.

     Emperor Chennux – Are you ready to do the chicken dance with me? Pleeeeeeze? Aw, come on…

343. AppleGirl
     June 14th, 2007 at 4:15 am [Reply]

     It’s 82 degrees and we’re heading east.

344. AppleGirl
     June 14th, 2007 at 4:21 am [Reply]

     …It’s 82 degrees and we’re heading east.

345. AppleGirl
     June 14th, 2007 at 4:25 am [Reply]

     ……It’s 82 degrees and we’re heading east.

346. Frank Parsnip
     June 14th, 2007 at 4:38 am [Reply]

     I, like many of you, am simply hoping that Funky Winkerbean can get back to a storyline that involves polonium, bald heads and multiple organ failure.

347. CrabbyGenes
     June 14th, 2007 at 4:39 am [Reply]

     To CC’ers and Josh–

     Since your day is my night (thanks to where I live and where most of you live), and since I have to get through a day of work before reading CC, I never seem to get to a thread before there are over 1 or 2 hundred comments on it. So I’m usually w–a–y–y down at the end of the thread somewhere. Ah, well. Maybe it’s better this way; I can get slightly off the subject and it’s not so glaring.

     Anyway Josh, don’t let all these long-time hippity-hoppers make you feel un-cool. I’m ashamed to tell you some of the stuff I DIDN’T know before I started reading this website. Adult stuff, kid stuff, common knowledge, and uncommon knowledge. In fact, I seem to have been ignorant of an awful lot of things in my life.

     Apropos of nothing (or not much, anyway), do you know what I discovered rather late in life? Puzzle Books. All my life I had avoided word puzzles because I couldn’t seem to do crossword puzzles, and I was the family wash-out at Scrabble, Anagrams, Boggle, and other word games.

     Then it happened that, faced with a 12-hour flight back to Japan and no family member to travel with for a change, I picked up a Penny Press Puzzle Book in the airport bookstore. I’ve been hooked on those books ever since, to the point of bribing relatives to send them to me, and bring them when they visit.

     I’d be interested to know what interests or hobbies other Curmudgeons took up rather later in their lives. Or if anyone else continues to learn new and amazing facts from commenters and things linked to on this website, like I do.

348. CrabbyGenes
     June 14th, 2007 at 4:44 am [Reply]

     My own #346—

     Although I don’t suppose I’ll get many replies way down here at the end of the thread…(she laments, pathetically.)

349. True Fable
     June 14th, 2007 at 4:48 am [Reply]

     FC I have never seen an oval mouth in real life like Bil’s, except for when it was about to take something in and out of it repeatedly.
     Seriously though – how does a mouth shaped like that manage to form the words he speaks? It’s as bad as a Foobian Muppet Maw.

     A3G Get ‘em, Margo! Sicc ‘em! Make them pay for waking you up!

     FBoFW Julia, that’s a hideous dress in panel one. Anthony, the last panel is exactly how Grampa wears his pants, with the waistband hugging the lowest ribs. You two make a lovely couple, simply lovely – oh geez, Angstony is in full thought balloon mode. SHE CAN’T HEAR YOU.

     Mason RedHerring, is there a particular reason you want this comparative stranger to stand as close as possible to you during the photo session? Because it needs to be because they want to get everyone in the picture, and not because you are swept off your feet and ready to become cannon fodder in Liz’s failed relationship armament.
     Get on with this travesty, Lynnie. I gotcher snark, right here.

     BB Sarge doesn’t need girls jumping out of cakes as long as he’s got Beetle around.

     Luann Finally, Bernice gets it! We can tally this little mini-drama under the rarely tapped category, “For once Luann isn’t acting like a complete moron” AND “Bernice behaved like a shrew.” Be careful not to step on her! It’s hard out there for a shrew!

350. True Fable
     June 14th, 2007 at 4:53 am [Reply]

     #346 Crabby genes: I discovered anime and sudoku and Go and shogo in my forties! I’m so glad to see a fellow nite owl at this time of night.

351. True Fable
     June 14th, 2007 at 4:57 am [Reply]

     And since this is just about the end of this thread, I am going to add in my forum take on Mark Trail;

     Am I evil for wanting Mark to fool around with the guest star? I had a whole secondary plot all planned out, starting with the Cessbus crashing deep in the woods where Mark had to use all his nature articles and summon the power of his 50% wits to keep him and Sam alive in the wilds.

     They could be 200 yards from the city limits, and Mark would still consider them lost. Lost Forest is just an undeveloped section of Cobb County, GA, according to my playbook, so this place could be much the same. but I digress.

     So all of Sam’s cunnning comes to fruition as Mark really goes by all his instincts. More information on cheating can be found on the Internet. All over it, actually. After a couple of weeks of Find-The-Meerkat, Mark and Sam stumble across the highway only a quarter mile from their plane. Saved! Yes, I was really hoping for some fun along the Trail.

     But no, The Fist of Justice will have to be used in the usual fashion. In this case, beating the margo out of the crooked commissioners.

     *sigh* Maybe I am evil.

352. Lynngineering
     June 14th, 2007 at 5:01 am [Reply]

     #346 C Genes / #349 True Fab – - I am one of those CCers who live for most of the year about half-a-day out of synch with the timestamps of Josh and others — I suppose though there must be many as the CC spreads virally. Anyway, the upload-timing of a Josh post has its own internal clock it seems – there is never a right time!

353. CrabbyGenes
     June 14th, 2007 at 5:08 am [Reply]

     #349 True Fable says: “I discovered anime and sudoku and Go and shogo in my forties! I’m so glad to see a fellow nite owl at this time of night.”

     Me too! (Glad to see a fellow nite owl, I mean.)

     And that’s an impressive list of discoveries! (Of course I am not prejudiced in the least that they are all Japanese :-) !

354. Trilobite
     June 14th, 2007 at 5:13 am [Reply]

     #346 CrabbyGenes — Another CC night-shift member reporting in!

     I used to fret a little about commenting overnight at the end of a ridiculously long thread, but then I just gave in and went with it. You use the free time you get, and if that puts you at the end of a thread instead of at the beginning, so be it. Hey, if nothin’ else, I’m reading you, right?

     To answer your other question, my late-blooming interests include a newfound appetite for nonfiction books of all stripes: most notably, I tore through shelves of history books despite really not liking history much when I was a callow youth.

355. CrabbyGenes
     June 14th, 2007 at 5:20 am [Reply]

     #351 Lynngineering—-How right you are.

     And actually, I do sometimes manage to post toward the beginning of a thread rather than far into it.

     What amazes me is how often and how quickly some CC’ers turn up when they are needed. For example, our beloved Uncle Lumpy is always there fairly soon with an answer to someone’s question, or a link to something previously referred to. (For example he has referred puzzled people to the origin of “Grinding Bees” many times–not to mention other phrases.)

     Uncle Lumpy and others who post often, do you have some pop-up window on your computer which alerts you to questions which need answering? Or tells you when your name is called? Or is it just that your work involves constant computer stuff, and you have the chance to check CC frequently? I’ve often wondered, but if this is an indelicate question, feel free to ignore it!

356. Randy S
     June 14th, 2007 at 5:21 am [Reply]

     I’m surprised nobody noticed that Dennis and Joey are clearly copping a peek up Margaret’s skirt as she levitates past them.
     And the whole bouncing on balls reaction is such an obvious Freudian metaphor.

     The captions below are just a red herring to keep the strip from being pulled for gross indecency.

357. CrabbyGenes
     June 14th, 2007 at 5:27 am [Reply]

     #353 Trilobite—-Interesting answer. Thanks!

     Somehow, I don’t feel so alone anymore! Let’s hear it for ENDS-OF-THREADERS!

     Unfortunately, I must quit until tomorrow. Thank you in advance to any other commenters who reply to anything I’ve said. See you tomorrow! (Japan tomorrow, Friday, that is.)

358. aquagirl2
     June 14th, 2007 at 6:09 am [Reply]

     Why does Slylock Fox have to be so hard? I’m such an idiot. I finally gave up today. I missed the cup handle!

     PS. Ew, Julia is quite unattractive. Do you think perhaps that’s the idea?

359. Sheilagh
     June 14th, 2007 at 6:25 am [Reply]

     Frozen spam pops????

360. AAckTTpth
     June 14th, 2007 at 6:32 am [Reply]

     What are the four horsemen of the FOOBocalypse? So far I gave Self-Absorption and Bad Writing. Any help?

361. Matt
     June 14th, 2007 at 6:38 am [Reply]

     OH DEAR GOD! IS MARY WORTH FONDLING HER OWN BREAST IN PANEL 1?? IS SHE MILKING HERSELF IN FRONT OF VERA?

     That’s just sick. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go stab myself in the eye with a fork…

362. Klipper
     June 14th, 2007 at 6:55 am [Reply]

     (DT)GT: According to panel 2, baseball in Milford is played as such: The batter menacingly assures that the catcher doesn’t move while the umpire repeatedly punches the catcher in the head.

363. True Fable
     June 14th, 2007 at 7:02 am [Reply]

     #354 Crabby Genes: I just happen to have computer access as long as I’m awake at home and the kids aren’t on it, plus I work by myself at night and nobody cares that I have a laptop and use my wireless card on their access for a couple of hours.

     I just have to wait until I get home – like now – to link NSFW’s. I do work alone but in case the Head Cheese have a way to check where I’ve been – who knows, we have a whole department full of geeks in the back of the building – I sure don’t want to do something that will get my laptop banned from the building.

     so…yeah. Trouble is, I don’t know as much as Uncle Lumpy, he is admirable in his ability to define stuff. I just add stuff like “grinding bees” into the fray. :-)

364. man behind the curtain
     June 14th, 2007 at 7:12 am [Reply]

     FBOW — I apologize for any repetition but regarding today’s strip I must vent:

     Obviously poor Julia is no where as pretty as the pack of wedding girls, especially the ever-radiant Lizardbreath. But Julia has beauty of the soul. She actually has personality. Here she is, a wedding-date, where she knows nobody but her pathetic loser of a date, but she doean’t let this bother her one bit. Meanwhile, Granthony is such a pathetic schmuck. He brings someone as his date who he knows is not as attractive as the girl he pines for. He leads Julia on as she apparently is genuinely fond of him. He and Liz deserve each other and Julia deserves better. He needs a punch alright, and Julia should provide it right across his jaw.

365. Lynngineering
     June 14th, 2007 at 7:30 am [Reply]

     #364 – Well, if we’re going into that – That shaving Anthony gave himself apparently made it even easier for him to stick his head up his ass, and forget to even NOTICE the fact his date STILL HAS NOTHING TO DRINK, rather than she asking it genuinly to him, while he smiles and fawns over MASON, oh I mean to say Liz, of course.

366. smacky
     June 14th, 2007 at 7:35 am [Reply]

     9CL: F you, Edda. “Throw the woman a bone.” You mean like the rest of the world does when you want to discuss your ballet career? Bitch did a 180, huh? “Poor, pitiful meeeeeeeee” becomes “I have to feign interest in this boring woman.”

     This is why the government cuts funding for the arts. All it does is breed asshats!

     If I ever meet this cartoonist, I’m going to ask him if he ever played basketball, and when he says “No. Voila,” as he’ll wittily retort, I’ll answer him with a wordless kick to the groin.

367. Motorposus
     June 14th, 2007 at 7:35 am [Reply]

     Foob – This is the stuff of fairy tales: Elizabeth’s nascent affection for Anthony has turned him into a prince, and his spunky date into a frog…and the date’s dress into a muumuu with an asymmetrical hemline.

368. dimestore lipstick
     June 14th, 2007 at 7:36 am [Reply]

     #227 Monkeyhawk–
     I’m sure the Romper Room people were quite pissed, as she should have have been pushing the offically sanctioned Rmper Room merchandise, like Romper Stompers&tm; and Punch Balls&tm; or that inflatable “Happy Jack” clown punching bag. How about the Scoop-A-Loop catch game? Or the worst thing they had–the cardboard box printed to look like a a car.

     With all that to flog, how dare she waste time on Hippity Hops?!

369. Justafoob
     June 14th, 2007 at 7:37 am [Reply]

     At one point, I thought that Granthony would bring Lovey Saltzman to the wedding as his mystery date, but I thought better of it.

     I mean, even Granthony wouldn’t stoop so low as to take a tubby, middle-aged, harpy…..

     nevermind….

370. AhClem
     June 14th, 2007 at 7:38 am [Reply]

     #334 Dingo -
     Very nice summary. The only problem is that “Green-Eyed Lady” s going to be stuck in my head the rest of the day.

371. Josh
     June 14th, 2007 at 7:53 am [Reply]

     #324 Gojira — Yikes! Thanks. I fixed.

     (370 comments in one day? Yikes, you guys are off the hook!)

     Josh

372. Allie Cat
     June 14th, 2007 at 7:55 am [Reply]

     Foob – Being a “woman of size” myself, it kind of pisses me off that Lynn is pulling this with Julia.

     Some men actually prefer a nice balcony and a big backyard.

     In fact, I’m now even more pro-Julia than I was yesterday.

     Here’s hoping that Anthony grows a pair, tells Julia his true feelings for Liz and she says, “No problem, kiddo – this was just a pity date. But I was planning to give you a mercy BJ, and you know how wide I can open my mouth, so your loss!”

     Julia deserves better. And maybe I am projecting, but so what?

     Also, in re: her dress – have you ever tried shopping for something in a size 18? For some reason, everything is sleeveless, thus showcasing your ham arms (see several yesterthreads back), or it’s matronly, or, in a recent development, it’s a stretchy knit leopard print material that shows every bump and flaw. Julia probably did the best she could. It doesn’t help that she’s short. She should have had the hemline shortened, but Lynn has probably blessed her with legs like tree trunks and scabby knees.

373. Lynngineering
     June 14th, 2007 at 8:04 am [Reply]

     (trying to get to 400 comments for Josh)
     #372 – “but Lynn has probably blessed her with legs like tree trunks and scabby knees.” I assume that is in relation to a history of mercy bjs she will have to endure giving out? Anyway, at least she isn’t the cliche jolly laugh-at-myself heavy person- – oh, wait…

374. dreadedcandiru2
     June 14th, 2007 at 8:05 am [Reply]

     #349 : I gotta agree with you on the ‘For once she’s not a TOTAL ditz’ thing, there, TF. Luann might even realize all she is to Ben is a cheap source of laughter.

     #366 – Need any help, smacky? I got me a hate-on for arts majors who think knowing how to add turns you into a Borg drone and need to properly express my outrage.

375. Allie Cat
     June 14th, 2007 at 8:09 am [Reply]

     #373 – I’m just saying, there may be a correlation to women with low-self esteem because of self-image issues and their tendency to put out.

     I’m also saying, Lynn is cruel. She has made big=unattractive, and sure – thin is great, most people would rather look like Liz than Julia, but she’s set up Julia to be a dumping ground because she ISN’T Liz.

     In short – big girls need love, too!

     Helping you get to 400!

376. mere cog in the machine
     June 14th, 2007 at 8:17 am [Reply]

     Poor Anthony – he’s been punched. The upside is that he’ll have alot of free time to work his stash-less magic with Elizabeth while his pie wagon of a date is in the buffet line.

377. Lynngineering
     June 14th, 2007 at 8:17 am [Reply]

     #375 – Oh I am with you on this, for sure. Julia is set up to be a dumping ground with neon signs lit all around to make sure we see it. It’s not just that she’s surely not a dress size less than Liz, but that is the first button to push. Also notice the subtle classist-slant, the sort of ‘I only know the caterer as I was the bookeeper’ kind of thing. Gosh! This here isn’t my world, this upper-class thing here…
     Liz, of course, is a certified teacher! And Anthony is… well, uhm… I don’t really know still, a Gordo-worker.

378. Dennis Jimenez
     June 14th, 2007 at 8:19 am [Reply]

     A3G – What angel? What keys?! What bull shit!?!

     DtM – A real menace might say something like, “If it will make you feel better mom, I’ll take a shit in the corner.”

     MW – All the more reason to get shitfaced.

     Archie – I could absolutely see Jug working at Burger Queer.

     Luann – Shithead.

     Pluggers – Shit on a stick – 10% off.

     JP – Got that Sophie – make no mistake – or else.

     FC – Doody, doody, doody.

     That is all.

379. JudeMorrigan
     June 14th, 2007 at 8:23 am [Reply]

     You know, I’m a nice guy. I’m really not prone to violence at all. But could someone please smack Edda? Thanks.

380. Allie Cat
     June 14th, 2007 at 8:25 am [Reply]

     FOOB – Also – punch? No freaking booze to be had at this shindig?!!?!? Mighty cheap of you, Shawna Marie. Or possibly she’s a faith that forbids tying one on.

     That said, I kind of like seeing punch at a wedding – when I was a kid, I went to a wedding where they had a punch FOUNTAIN, and I thought that was the coolest, classiest thing in the world, and I swore when I got married, I’d have one.

     We opted for an open bar, instead.

     I’m still going to have a punch fountain someday.

381. Trotzenbonnie
     June 14th, 2007 at 8:28 am [Reply]

     BB – Are these guys in the US Army or the Greek Navy for crying out loud?! If there’s a girl in the cake it’s still 100% edible. Duh.

382. Justafoob
     June 14th, 2007 at 8:30 am [Reply]

     Julia is going to pull the noble McGuffin, you know.

     “Oh, Granthony, I see that you really love Liz, I can see it in your eyes. Don’t stand here with dumpy old me, go after her.”

     “She is your destiny. Together, you and she will rule the Fooberverse together, once you defeat the evil emperor Elly.”

     She looks like Yoda for a reason.

383. Gulielma
     June 14th, 2007 at 8:32 am [Reply]

     FBoFW: Okay, Granthony. What kind of nimrod takes a woman to a wedding where the only person she knows is you and the caterer she did the books for? What’s she supposed to do when you mingle–chat up the caterer about double-entry bookkeeping? You haven’t gotten your date a drink, in fact she’s asking you if you want one. And apparently when you’ve been “seeing each other”, you’ve been bringing up Lizardbreath at every opportunity. “Are you having the chicken? Elizabeth used to order chicken…” “That’s a…a nice dress. Elizabeth always looked nice in a dress…” “Are you trying to strangle me? Elizabeth used to try to strangle me…”

     And, if that’s not bad enough, poor Julia has lame pun making John Patterson as her dentist. “Oh, God, he actually said ‘An inconvenient tooth’. Must fake laughter. Can’t antagonize him while he’s still working. God, I wish we had a different dental plan.” Poor girl deserves better.

384. Lynngineering
     June 14th, 2007 at 8:35 am [Reply]

     (Damn, I have to leave before the 400 arrives here! unfair.)

     #382 – justafoob — Julia could just as easily say, “Isn’t that Mason, you know, the guy that went out with _________ and used to be known for, you know – ____________”

     Now that would be much more fun.

385. angry black woman
     June 14th, 2007 at 8:39 am [Reply]

     omg I want to hit FOOBLynn so hard right now.

     First, she finally gives us a body shot of Julia. Julia is not only short, but also “plus size”, which dooms her forever. next to Liz, she’s Grimmace from the McDonald’s commercials. Damnit, I hate Lynn so much.

     SO MUCH.

     Smacky @ #366 “This is why the government cuts funding for the arts. All it does is breed asshats!” omg you made me laugh so hard my cat peed.

386. Calico
     June 14th, 2007 at 8:39 am [Reply]

     #375 – Allie,
     For all the snarks I make here on Elly’s butt, blah blah blah, I think a woman looks a lot nicer and healthier with a few extra lbs. than not enough. Super-thin looks really kind of sad and I wish these gals would go order a pizza!
     It’s all relative, really. But funny how Lynn makes Julia into a mini-martyr using the following: Short (that would be me, at 5′1″) , Plump, Vivacious/talkative/mind of her own/actual true-to-life woman.
     Julia….Julia…Julia! Rock out!

387. Teenage Bamm-Bamm
     June 14th, 2007 at 8:41 am [Reply]

     Sigh. Having recently been made gay by the sight of Mary Jane Parker in her Marvella outfit, Zippy in a bathing suit might send me running right back to straight-dom. Maybe I should just give up and lock myself in the bathroom with Slylock Fox?

388. Allie Cat
     June 14th, 2007 at 8:46 am [Reply]

     #384 – Wouldn’t it be great if Mason had a cousin to visit while he was in town?

     “Yeah, his name is Howard. He’s in jail. He tried to ask some girl out on a date, and she overreacted an’ they went to court over it and now…hey, Liz, where are you going?!”

389. The Spectacular Spider-Brick
     June 14th, 2007 at 8:48 am [Reply]

     There’s a FOOB slam in today’s Something Positive. Either Randy lurks here, or we’re not the only people boxcarred off by this storyline.

390. Perky Bird
     June 14th, 2007 at 8:59 am [Reply]

     Don’t know if anyone will read this, so far down the thread, but check out today’s (6/14) Rhymes With Orange. “Sigma! Pi! Delta! Square Root!” isn’t exactly “Margo! Boxcar! Saturn!”, but it does have a certain ring to it.

391. Iris
     June 14th, 2007 at 9:00 am [Reply]

     I see that the plague of talking body parts has migrated from Mark Trail to Zippy. Better watch out, the nipples may be next!

392. O’Fogeyette
     June 14th, 2007 at 9:03 am [Reply]

     232 Poteet: Oh, a sonnet! Excellent! I bow! You and Uncle Lumpy can be our co-Poets Laureate.

     Secret Margo: Humble apologies. I did NOT call you a hacky Raymond Chandler (though any kind of Raymond Chandler, IMHO, would be a compliment); I merely suggested backing off from reading RC ripoffs… Actually, I enjoy all your posts to the nth degree.

     34 Dingo: I’m so embarrassed about the beer farts! I think it was because I’m not used to the Canadian brew; down in Arizona we drink Dos Equis. And thanks for not mentioning my (actually chaste) dalliance with… you know who. Mr. O’F would not be pleased.

     Crabby Genes: I’m an end-of-thread poster too, largely because my posts often end threads. I always read the last posts; they are often the most fun. And I’m trying to learn to do Word Arithmetic puzzles to stave off Alzheimers.

     Otherwise, I’m so frustrated I could scream. Not only am I stuck at this horror show of a wedding, I can’t get my new Palm TX to work. Things were going just fine last night… I installed everything and was just working on moving over my games when it crashed into an endless loop. Apparently I’m going to have to wipe it and start over. Margo! Boxcar! Saturn! I don’t even know if I’ll have time to read the comics today.

393. Greg
     June 14th, 2007 at 9:07 am [Reply]

     Man, you must be really young not to remember those bouncing hop balls. Both Dennis and I are very old. However, Dennis never ages, which is just disturbing.

394. Gabe
     June 14th, 2007 at 9:08 am [Reply]

     I know most of you don’t care, but I’m extremely happy with Get Fuzzy this week. I’m a huge mixed martial arts fan, and I so look forward to GF doing MMA jokes over the next week and a half.

     It is the brightest spot on the comics page.

395. Forthillrox
     June 14th, 2007 at 9:31 am [Reply]

     380 – Allie Cat: I used to deliver wedding cakes for my brother’s bakery and the fountain cakes (-cakes put on top of a stand under which a small plastic fountain is placed, mostly ones with side cakes connected by stairways with wedding figurines) usually went to the tackiest white trash weddings. The worst part was that we usually dyed the water the color of the bridesmaids’ dresses and sometmes turned on the blinking lights under the bowl.

396. gh
     June 14th, 2007 at 9:37 am [Reply]

     Yes, there’s a new thread up – probably with 1500 comments, but I just finished this one and DON’T YOU PEOPLE EVER SLEEP? Thanks, O’F for ending it, at least. Anyway, first

     sublimity

     #232 Poteet — That was sublime. You need to offer up those gems more often.

     #236 SecretMargo – You already got props for it, but “pillar of suet” is richly rewarding.

     #234 Dingo – I just . . . words fail. Here’s some laurels, put them in a vase and change the water daily.

     #347 CrabbyGenes – er, Puzzle Books? If you’ll explain what they are, that will be one thing I’ve learned here. That I can repeat in polite company. New hobby (?): sudoku [like everyone in North America]. Actually, these days I only rip a few off when the thread goes into standby mode, which is NEVER. Who has time for anything else? And if you think 347 is tough, this one will probably come in around 400. And, did I mention there’s a new thread to climb? Hey, wait for me!

397. angry black woman
     June 14th, 2007 at 9:38 am [Reply]

     oh, let’s get to 400 just for the hell of it.

398. gh
     June 14th, 2007 at 9:50 am [Reply]

     ABW! I’ll do my part by welcoming you back. You haven’t lost your edge, I see (saw, on the next thread). For the record, I always wanted to see your YouTube Aldo thing, but like Poteet and a couple others, we can’t get YouTube . If you ever reformat, give me a holler.

399. Red Greenback
     June 14th, 2007 at 9:50 am [Reply]

     400?!

400. The Avocado Avenger
     June 14th, 2007 at 9:52 am [Reply]

     #372 – Being a woman of size myself, someone who hasn’t seen size 18 for a good decade, even *I* know you can get much more fabulous clothes than what Julia is wearing. I know, the clingy and/or sleeveless stuff is discouraging and silly for the 99.44% of us big women who can’t pull it off, but Julia didn’t need to be in a muu-muu. I don’t generally see muu-muus (or house dresses) for women her size anyway, it’s usually size 5X or so before it’s muu-muus or nothing.

     Thus endeth a rant that no one wanted to hear.

401. Atomic Otter
     June 14th, 2007 at 10:03 am [Reply]

     After seeing the last two panels of FBOFW, I think we can all be thankful that Dr. Patterson isn’t a gynecologist.

402. Scot
     June 14th, 2007 at 10:26 am [Reply]

     Josh,
     you must have just missed the “hippity hop” era..
     I just asked my wife, she grew up in Tonawanda..they had them..

     and I grew up near Elmira..we had them too.
     they were probably everywhere in the USA.

     early 1970’s..by the late 70’s there were gone.

     I doubt a kid has used one since 1975..so yeah, Dennis the “menace” is only 30 years out of touch with reality.

     Scot

403. Sunny Mel Blatherscythe
     June 14th, 2007 at 1:16 pm [Reply]

     #401- AtomicOtter, I’m only glad that I wasn’t sipping hot coffee when I read your post,the spit take would have been catastrophic . Hilarious ,Thank You!

404. T. Chicana
     June 14th, 2007 at 2:15 pm [Reply]

     The mumu definitely took it too far. TOO FAR, I SAY!

405. JAllen
     June 15th, 2007 at 2:58 pm [Reply]

     After I read in the newspaper that Johnston’s strip was/is based on her family, it all became clear. Mom’s presenting her sacred children as the Mary Sues of the comic strip world and that’s the reason all the characters in that strip are so painfully insufferable. I was especially amused by “Michael”’s ability to sell a novel right off the bat, easy as pie. Oh please. But then he is Mr. Perfect, isn’t he? Perfect daddy, perfect husband, perfect son, perfect writer–please god, let him be run over by a bus and soon.

     Since I cancelled my subscription to the daily tabloid that the Houston Chronicle has become, I have been mercifully free of reading any more about Johnston’s God-like spawn. Thank god for small favors.

406. lgqhkmjc nvtdjs
     June 23rd, 2007 at 3:09 pm [Reply]

     vpjdqif nisxapvd qces gmbh abteponx vbpzx biknsrfmt

407. Elizabeth J. Anderson
     June 27th, 2007 at 9:48 am [Reply]

     Two quick observations:

     1. Gee, Sophie, if you’re so smart, why don’t you know that France doesn’t use francs anymore?

     2. Pinheads do not look like that. At least… I don’t think they do. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen one without his muumuu/furry jumpsuit.

All the cool kids…

…buy Comics Curmudgeon merchandise!

Randomly Selected Post O’ Mystery

• Look! Up in the sky! It's ... Ethnic Stereotype Lass to the rescue!