Horror show face-off
Popeye, 6/27/07
So it’s been seven months and two plotlines since I’ve deigned to comment on Popeye’s spinach- and/or mescaline-fueled antics. If you’re not following along at home, I’m not going to give you any context for this, because it’s just all the more delightful as a surreal and horrifying standalone vignette. Olive Oyl laughing so hard that her jaw nearly unhinges as she presses the barrel of the gun to her temple, her breast-sporting doppelgänger laughingly urging her to blow her brains out as she slams her bracelets together with a hearty CLANK!, Wimpy ignoring the horrifying drama to demand more food — WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT IN A COMIC? In three panels, Popeye has managed to be more unsettling that the last 18 months of Zippy the Pinhead.
Six Chix, 6/27/07
On a day that didn’t feature a beloved Popeye character cheerfully threatening suicide, this would surely be the funny pages’ most disturbing comic. “Oops, terrible mixup, we meant to order tanning beds but we bought cremators instead! Wondered why they were so big! Ha ha! So, yeah, we burned your wife to death.”
Mark Trail, 6/27/07
Wow, Crooked County Commissioner #1 sure is looking … distinguished, isn’t he? There’s just something about him that says, “Gosh, this handsome and paternal figure would never do anything illicit; rather, he would be an excellent person with whom to negotiate a delicate land deal involving public funds. And he just might be the right person to be the highly paid head of the county’s new airport authority! I wonder why I feel so simultaneously drawn to and respectful towards him now?”
And, in the first panel … he also seems to be super cool as well! I know, mature and distinguished and super cool in one package? I don’t pretend to understand how he does it. All I know is that the new airport’s gonna be the best airport ever!
Marvin, 6/27/07
Perhaps you’re right, Marvin. But we can pass legislation that forces freaks like your mother — with their grotesquely oversized heads tottering atop their reedy, stick-like bodies in a most stomach-turning fashion — to live out their days in closed institutions where normal people can’t see them. And we will, if the letter I’m about to write to my Congressman has anything to say about it.
Slylock Fox, 6/27/07
The heroine seems a little young to play the part, but everything in this cartoon — the meal of canned tuna and toast eaten right out of the can and toaster, respectively; the filthy house, crawling with rodents; and, of course, the dozens of hungry, hungry felines — screams “crazy cat lady.” But you know what? Once you realize the role you’re born to play in this life, I say, why wait?
Mary Worth, 6/27/07
Wait, what? “Yawnfest?” “Beyond boring?” I think somebody needs to turn around. CANNONBALL! CANNONBAAAAAAALLLLL! It’s never a boring party when people are doing the cannonball. CANNONBAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!
June 27th, 2007 at 10:07 am
A3G: Nothing says “I’m an HVAC expert” like an ascot.
Archie: Today’s strip might have some humor value – if there were such a thing as a store that rented skateboards.
That detail distracts from the real issue addressed in the strip: stalking. In panel one, it looks like Moose is with the dark-haired girl. In panel three, however, we see her shock when she sees Moose fly by her on his makeshift rollerblades. She clearly didn’t realize that Moose has been trailing her all the way from the rollerblade rental store.
Luckily for her, long-term steroid use has rendered Moose too inflexible to stop in time to remain hidden safely behind his victim. Now she’ll know not to skate through that deserted park until her would-be attacker is behind bars.
DtM: Willfully ignoring a “No Trespassing” sign? When will Dennis’ reign of terror end?
Foob: Today: A lame speech makes a bunch of high schoolers cheer the special ed kids, instead of throwing things at the speaker. Tomorrow: Michael’s second novel is so well written, it doubles as a cure for cancer.
FW: Darin is exploiting cancer for profit? I just might become a cynic if anyone did that in real life.
GA: Moving next door to a giant basketball court means that we might have to hear people playing basketball on occasion? Who could have possibly foreseen this!?!
GT: In panel two, Marty Moon is a little feminine, but otherwise pretty well-drawn. Has Mr. McLaughlin’s third-grade art class been taking professional drawing lessons?
MW: I thought Charterstone was off-limits to children. Where did those kids in the background of panel two come from? Did condo management decide that there wasn’t enough pee in the pool?
June 27th, 2007 at 10:08 am
No comments yet! You gotta be kiddin’ me.
Just checked out Alison B.’s website, where she posted one of the wonderful pics of herself and Josh.
Rock on, dudes and dudesses! : D
Without laughing I really don’t know where, or who, I would be…so, thanks.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Alright we know he’s destined for Vera. Get on with it already.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Sure looks like some cannonball, with the partying poolster bringing his knees halfway up, and probably poised to land on the edge of the pool. Where’d that guy come from, Milford?
June 27th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Okay, that Popeye cartoon is fake, I mean, most o’ the time i don’t know shit from Shinola, but SHEESH! POPEYE!, Maybe that story would play in Funky Winkerbean.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:12 am
I think Drew exists to stand in for the reader. “God this place is full of boring old meddling biddies. I should be out in my sports car picking up attractive professional women instead of listening to them prattle and pass judgement!”
June 27th, 2007 at 10:12 am
MT – how did Slick-Comissioner-Dude-smoking-guy go gray in just ten days or so?
I think Elrod must be smoking something too, and you can’t buy it OTC.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Fantastic. Now there’s little kids all around the country who think that their cat is in pain when it purrs. Let the emotional scarring begin. Or, rather, continue.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:19 am
MW-I’m waiting for him to start hittin’ on Toby.
“Hey there, I see your dad dragged you to this party too. How do these geezers keep living? What say you and me go grab a couple of Mojitos downtown? I’m already tired of this morgue.”
That would generate some conversation at tomorrow’s power walk!
June 27th, 2007 at 10:21 am
FOOB – Tomorrow, Shan-non will be strapping on the water skis and attempting to jump over a shark. No, wait a minute – that happened in the Foobiverse long, long ago.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Popeye, the fourth panel. Obvious and predictable, yes; but sometimes you’ve just gotta see it.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Yikes, Mary’s looking a little mannish there in panel one.
It’s like they stuck Mary Worth’s head on Mary Worth’s body.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:22 am
That first panel in Popeye is almost more disturbing to me than the rest of the strip. I mean, come on, what’s with the nose to nose action? One of them is going to slip and put an eye out.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:25 am
MW: “Yawnfest?†Not so. I believe it looks like the dude on the left is about to break out in “The Gambler”.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:26 am
Does anyone else imagine Mark Trail to be a completely insane, one man play? Aside from the women, every character is just Mark in some kind of crappy disguise. Today, we have Mark disguised as an elderly Gregory Peck and as Matt Damon as he appeared in Ocean’s 13.
Truly, Mark Trail is the Eddie Murphy of comic strips. I would’ve said Peter Sellers, but that would be implying that the strip was actually good.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Wait a minute. Young people at a Charterstone pool party? Cannonballing?
(I was going to try and work in a Hal Needham “Cannonbal Run” joke, but I gotta get back to work.)
June 27th, 2007 at 10:31 am
You bastards. Even when I’m on the damn website I can’t get any closer than 12th post.
Damn you all!
June 27th, 2007 at 10:32 am
The weekend of stress-free snarking was lots of fun but I sure did miss Josh. You are the master of ROFL, LOL and BWAHAHA times infinity as far as I’m concerned .
Olive Oyl, shouldn’t that be “I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam”?
Marvin….you fool. Since you’re still in diapers just tell mom ‘One good stool deserves another’ and let it rip.
And, Bong Hits 4 Jesus!
June 27th, 2007 at 10:32 am
The weekend of stress-free snarking was lots of fun but I sure did miss Josh. You are the master of ROFL, LOL and BWAHAHA times infinity as far as I’m concerned .
Olive Oyl, shouldn’t that be “I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam”?
Marvin….you fool. Since you’re still in diapers just tell mom ‘One good stool deserves another’ and let it rip.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:35 am
FOOB: Oh come on now, is this an extra special after school special? The mentally challenged girl stands on a table, gives a rousing speech and suddenly the school is enlightened and cheers for her? I don’t think so. She would be jeered, guffawed at and pelted with crinkle cuts in any real high school.
Granted, the Foobiverse is a nice place, wouldn’t mind living there, but c’mon!
So much for gritty realism.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:35 am
There is only one explanation for the Olive Oyl-Doppleganger nose touching in panel one: some kind of freakish tantric nasal sex. This would also explain all we need to know about the suicide and love triangle that seem to be at the heart of the “plot”.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:36 am
MT – “WHAT do you have in mind?” Do you suppose the writer walked around the basement trying out different inflections? “What DO you have in mind?” “What do you HAVE in mind?” “WHAT do YOU have IN mind?” And then, of course, he settles on the wrong one. Or maybe they just leave it to the letterer?
6C – Do you think the tanning salon just happened to have an urn on hand? I’m guessing this happens to them with distressing regularity. The sign “TANNING SALON” is clearly a cover-up for the real name of the establishment, which is probably something like “CLINKERS” or “FAHRENHEIT 451.”
Marvin – Potty trained or not, the kid’s a genius, like the two-year-old member of MENSA. He knows all the big words, has deep philosophical positions, and is even more up on current events than the cavemen in A.D.!
#12 (Anon) – It’s like they stuck Mary Worth’s head on Mary Worth’s body. Ooh, man! Sometimes you just have to be cruel to be right.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:37 am
Egads Dean! Y’all done did it again! I yam what I BLAM!
June 27th, 2007 at 10:40 am
#15: Are you kidding? Mark Trail is a brilliant, thoughtfully scripted, well-executed study of man’s inhumanity to his world vis a vis the constant struggle of nature to triumph over mankind’s machinations.
….
Bwahahaha! Naw, I’m just shittin’ ya.
We only follow it to watch Sam’s Hills and Mark’s clumsy attempts to unfasten her eyehooks.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:40 am
I love the jaunty bedroom farce coming together in Luann! I can only imagine Brad shoving TJ — sauce pan in hand — into the closet to hide when Toni arrives, only to find a crouching Dirk, peering out the keyhole to make sure nothing naughty happens.
Oh, the hilarious innuendo and misunderstandings that will follow! It’ll be like “Noises Off” meets an episode of “Frasier,” only much much gayer.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:42 am
So, you all think that they are cheering Shan…non in triumph?
I think they are still mocking her.
Just wait for the pigs blood to fall onto her.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:42 am
#25 Lettuce: But is it gay or Kevin Spacey gay?
June 27th, 2007 at 10:43 am
FOOB – The applause lasts until the students realize that Shannon is a real special needs kid, and not just somebody making fun of special needs kids.
For the next week, everybody in school will talk like Shannon. About half of them will demand respect every time they talk like her.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:43 am
It wasn’t my fault! I swear.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:43 am
FOOB: If you just take panel 2, it looks like a suicide note! I wish!
What’s up with this? Is it National Winky Week* in Canada?
…nope, I checked. It’s still National Lynn-Johnston-is-better-morally-than-you Week.
*Winky Week is 2 weeks long
June 27th, 2007 at 10:45 am
MW — Between Sunday’s flower/bee metaphor and today’s Mary coyly bending over her flowerbed to show off her “handiwork,” the transition from meddling biddy to granny pron star is almost complete. And no amount of shock therapy can ever burn that horrible fact from my mind.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:45 am
It is, however, a boring party if people are sitting around talking about their favorite moments of Cannonball Run II, and the conversation doesn’t include the statement, “The end, when I could re-enter a world where beauty and love might exist.”
June 27th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Red Greenback: Your observation that Clambake is the Negro Leagues version of Mr. Miyagi in yesterthread: LOL! Wax on, Wax off!
I’m buying this round.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:46 am
6 Chix (w/dix): Honestly, this made me laugh because it looks like the lady is shoving the phone up her nose.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Yawnfest? Try sausage fest. Take away Mary and her beanpole blonde basket case, and all Mr. Starched Orange Shirt’s got left are C. Everett Koop, Napolian Dynomite’s brother, and a bunch of hairless guys in 1950s-era swim trunks who are looking better by the minute.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:50 am
#27: Oh, it’s not just Kevin Spacey gay. It’s Off-Off-Off-Off broadway retelling of “Measure for Measure” with an all male cast and a budget of $30 dollars gay.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:51 am
I was late to both the “Aldo = Captain Kangaroo” and “Butler = Clark Kent” parties, so hopefully this one hasn’t been done to death. Doesn’t the newly-grey-haired commissioner look just like Dennis Farina?
June 27th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Lynn, a bit of advice.
Quit now.
Just stop the strip.
Put it in stasis.
Lock it down.
Put everyone out of their misery.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:52 am
Argh, thread-jumped. Reposting:
A3G – Next: the thrilling Alan/Blaze fist-fight! Also, if the whole thing was Luann hallucinating that Albert Pinkham Ryder was making her paint flowers and trying to get her to jump out a window, what was with all the “haunted studio†crap way back when?
Archie – The ALGJU3K has discovered MacGyver.
Crankshaft – Nice way to avoid researching television producer salaries there, Batiuk.
Crock – Wow, this kind of makes sense. It’s not terribly funny, but it kind of makes sense.
DT – Okay, they both have impossibly craggy faces and tiny, squinty eyes, but are they really going to try and disguise Tracy as the Baron?
FC – I’m reasonably sure this strip has already been done about a dozen times prior in the history of The Family Circus.
FOOB – Tonight, on Things That Would Never Happen In A Million Years…
GF – Satchel nails it.
GT – You’ve got to give Frank McLaughlin credit. This strip stands head and shoulders above even Apartment 3-G’s “Luann hits her head on the windowsill†scene for completely static action panels. Just check out that first panel for a prime example of “still life.â€
JP – What’s with the perspective in panel one? Are they driving Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang?
MT – The bird pusher has hooked them. They have to pay whatever he asks to get their fix.
MW – What are Beavis and Butthead doing in the pool?
OBH – Most awesomely overextended metaphor ever.
PBS – Quite possibly the first reference to lucha libre in an American newspaper comic, although Zippy The Pinhead might very well have made one already.
SFx – More fun facts about cats:
Edison Lee – makes a political reference only seven years out of date.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:52 am
There are many, many horrifying things in today’s post that for the most part defy comment. The only thing about which I can compose complete sentences is the second panel of “Mary Worth”, in which the swimmer in the background is so poorly drawn he appears to be leaping into the pool, hopping around the edge of the pool, sitting in an invisible chair, and growing disgustingly long hairs on his back and buttocks all at once. Thousands of years of human artistic endeavor have seriously led to that?
June 27th, 2007 at 10:52 am
WTF? That Popeye cartoon is so terrifyingly baffling that I can’t stop reading it over and over. I don’t get it. What’s with the TEE HEE? Is Olive Oyl kidding? Is she on drugs or something? What’s with her lunatic friend enthusiastically squealing, “DO IT! PULL THE TRIGGER!”
Please tell me this is fake:
http://www.math.pitt.edu/~bard/bardware/popeye/popeye10c.gif
June 27th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Happy birthday, Captain Kangaroo!
June 27th, 2007 at 10:53 am
FOOB: The saddest thing about Shan…non’s stilted Winkie-power speech? Thanks to her “special needs,” this two week story arc has been happening in real time.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:54 am
Foob: If this were an After-School Special, you would have heard that most-loved of phenomenon: The Slow Clap.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:55 am
I guess the cannonball guy in MW just didn’t register in the wee hours this morning because I didn’t even know he was there. Honestly, I thought Josh was running one of Dean Booth’s spoofs and I thought, “Man, I wish Mary Worth could be as funny as Dean.”
Dean IS funny.
But I’m SURE it wasn’t intentional of Moy and Giella. It’s like, a panel is supposed to be funny in Family Circus but it’s not, it’s just trite and worn out like
a 70 year old French whoreMary Worth.June 27th, 2007 at 10:55 am
This is the first time there’s been an acknowledgment from within the strip about the crushing dullness of a Charterstone pool party. Maybe next he’ll be calling Mary a silly old meddling hag, and the Professor a pompous legend in his own mind.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:00 am
#46 Chet McCord: Oh, if only.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:03 am
Popeye – Fourth panel obviously is her summoning Captain Marvel from the nega zone!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar-Vell
“After slamming the bands together, Mar-Vell and Jones trade places: Mar-Vell arrives on Earth while Jones, surrounded by a protective aura, is transported to the Negative Zone”
June 27th, 2007 at 11:05 am
#44 Blake: I wish I knew the originator of The Slow Clap in movies, because I would leave a steaming pile of cow poo in their shoes. I have always hated movies with The Slow Clap in them, as much as I hate comic strips written unrealistically with plastic characters portrayed as perfect examples of noble Canadian white bread types.
So you know I REALLY hate The Slow Clap.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Mary Worth-
Count your blessings, Drew. At lest Mary decided to sport a sassy pantsuit to the pool party, instead of a bikini. Or does this mean she’s actually intending to go skinny dipping later on? Oh no!!!!!!!
June 27th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Yikes, that Popeye is… well…
One more shot at Shannon before bed. This one goes out to the mighty Red Greenback: “Am I alone here, or did any of you Mudges check out Sha…non’s fine caboose?” (#242 last thread)
Here ya go, big fella:
Shannon on the mic
June 27th, 2007 at 11:09 am
MW: Who says that Charterstone party is a snoozefest? Drew is copping a feel on both Mary and himself in panel one. That’s good times, people, and they haven’t even broken open the boxed wine yet!
June 27th, 2007 at 11:13 am
(Transmogrified from the other thread)
Tracer Bullet FOOB: Shan-non has finally finished her speech after three days. So Johnston portrayed this in real time.
Now THAT deserves a slow clap into full-blown cheering.
And put me down fully with the camp that says Shan…non’s speech would have gotten about three words deep before she fell under a hail of rolls and tater tots.
I’m sure the end of this arc will include Saint Apwil will do a song that is so “inspiring†it will lead to — at the telethon itself:
– the special ed kids suddenly being cured
– Gerald to profess his sex-free love
– The “bad girl†singer (can’t remember her name) killer herself in shame
– Liz and Granthony simultaneously asking each other to marry
– St. Mike offered a 40 million dollar book contract
– John’s trains instantly filled with pie
– Farley returns from beyond the grave, pisses on the “HOO†guy
June 27th, 2007 at 11:15 am
SFx: Cats don’t just purr when they’re happy, but also frightened or in pain? I haven’t had my pet dreams shattered this badly since Chuck Jones and Father Guido Sarducci debunked dogs!*
Yeah, great! Well, at least when a dog whines, we know something’s wrong, you feline decievers!!!
And cats have the largest eyes in proportion to their bodies of any other living being with eyes? Obviously Weber’s never seen anime/manga or a Keane painting!
*CJ: “Big sad soulful eyes routine”: to get their way rather cynically.
FGS: Dogs affectionate licking is for the salt!
June 27th, 2007 at 11:16 am
“You can’t legislate morality?” Wasn’t that one of the arguments against the Civil Rights Act? As if I didn’t have enough reason to hate Marvin before, now I find out he’s a racist.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:19 am
9CL : If anyone ever wondered where Edda got being an arrogant bitch from, your curiosity will be satisfied today.
FOOB : Today’s forecast: Smug and whiny with a ninety five percent chance of anvils.
Curtis : We GET it, man! Your tentpole character is an unreliable idiot! Quit rubbing our noses in it.
FW : Didn’t Lisa say she was filing that request to find her child before she died Sunday or so? Whaddaya wanna bet she left a copy of the form lying around for Darin to see?
Crankshaft : He may not make as much money as Mindy but at least Max doesn’t have to listen to this all day: ‘Cancercancercancercancercancer’!!
June 27th, 2007 at 11:20 am
#51 Old Bean – Dead on, every single strip.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:21 am
(THTI)FOOB — Some have queried: Why are the kids still in school when it’s almost July? and Where are all the adults? Well, all the adults left because they can read a calendar and understand it’s summer break. The kids haven’t figured that out, nor do they realize it’s really a special needs school. Evidence? Tourette’s-like outbursts such as “Winkie†and “koo-koo.†Gap-tooth starey HOOO guy in “regular†classes? C’mon. And we all know about April’s “special needs.â€
June 27th, 2007 at 11:23 am
DT – I actually thought the first panel was pretty well done. Even if they do look frozen, they’re at least drawn in perspective. Guess the artist used all his time with that panel, since he photocopied the mouse-eared announcer from the previous day, and simply changed the girl on the right to Screech from Saved By the Bell.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:23 am
(DT)GT: I wonder what else tipped off Cynical Ken that Clambake’s Negro Leagues tales were a fabulous fibber’s fantastic fabrications other than the Double Duty Radcliffe canard. Perhaps it was when Clambake claimed that the starting infield of the 1949 Kansas City Monarchs comprised him, Ralph Bunche, Lena Horne and Stymie. Or maybe when he insisted the team change sports drinks from Gatorade to Clamato, since the latter beverage was named after him.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:24 am
NOT DT, but GT dammit.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Wax on: It’s Oprah Stedmanâ„¢ gay! :wax off.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:28 am
[Oops, posted on the wrong thread]
MW: Boring? Join in the fun, Drew!
…now, must do some real work to avoid poverty!
June 27th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Ok, here is a proposition for you betting types:
what order will things happen in the funkyverse?
–Darrin will find out that Lisa is his Mommy
–Lisa will die
I am betting that Lisa will die the day Darrin finds out that she is mummy and
***sniff****
….it…
…will..
…be…
…so…
…tragic….
Ohhhhhhhh, the irony,
Batiuk you are the greatest at that since Dickens…..
June 27th, 2007 at 11:32 am
I should say it’s surprising to see the Popeye characters reenacting a scene from Naked Lunch, but I’ve been reading the strip for a while, and I’m not, in fact, a bit surprised.
Massage Oyl – or whatever her name is – is clearly a Mugwump.
Let’s hope the strip does not now head for Bukowski territory. Or – no, let’s hope for it with all our hearts.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Tomorrow’s FOOB: Cheers and applause continue. Amidst this, Shan…non, way into her newfound crowd mind control, springs up, juts her arm out stiffly, and exclaims, “SIG….. HEIL!!”
The cheering suddenly stops cold. April hangs her head. Everyone there, especially Shannon’s fellow special needs kids, are getting alittle scared. The speechifier herself has a deer-in-the-headlights look on her face.
One step too far there, Shannon.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:40 am
Old Bean @ 51: You are an evil, evil man. And I bow to you.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:40 am
Foob: I can’t believe I’m asking this, but why does Shan..on get to wear pants, and all the other girls are stuck with the pleated skirts? Not having attended a uniform school, these details are lost on me.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:43 am
First, that “Popeye” was more disturbing than the last 18 YEARS of Zippy, including the period when he had zits and seemed to attract lots of flies. Second, I find it impossible to even snark on today’s foob-doin’s -since it made me physically ill. There’s a line between lame, bogus, self-aggrandizing, clichéd ‘nobility’ and the actually offensive and Lynn Johnston has crossed it. It isn’t the content, it’s that you just know she allowed herself a little congratulatory tear of holy goodness while drawing the panel in which all the students look at each other with what is supposed to be [I guess] dawning comprehension of their insensitivity [yeah, sure, whatever] and then break into cheers. Even the next panel which contains the unintentional humor of Sh-an-a-n-o-n-n looking like she doesn’t know why they are cheering and appearing mildly firghtened doesn’t excuse this strip. This is a stench in the nose of humanity, it is a boil on the butt of civilization. I refer Lynn to Ambrose Bierce, “The daily drubbing you’d had got, had God a fist.”
June 27th, 2007 at 11:45 am
TDIET: BWAhahahaha! It funny because sometimes people use sick time when they aren’t really that sick! Oh, man, this Scaduto guy is KILLING me!
June 27th, 2007 at 11:46 am
#51: Most excellent, Old Bean.
Popeye: Isn’t this a re-enactment of the last scene from Fight Club? The psychological trauma caused by cheating on Popeye with Wimpy has resulted in Olive forming multiple personalities.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Wow. Is Marvin making a thinly veiled neo-con reference to Abu Ghraib?
June 27th, 2007 at 11:49 am
Popeye: OK. Today’s Popeye is creepy enough without the gratuitous mention of breasts in the accompanying snark. However, since you did I was forced to scroll back up and then confront the notion that the flappy stuff around Olive Oyl’s waist may indeed be her breasts rather than a loose blouse.
MT: Depending on the order in which the strip and the spare panel are viewed County Commisioner #1 is either aging at a tremendous rate or he’s been hitting the Grecian Formula pretty hard.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:50 am
Mark Trail – Henchman Buzzard loudly states his need for more money to deliver birds to the local airport and the two local political hacks better ante up. It takes significant funds to capture and transport the entire Mississippi Migratory Flyway.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:50 am
Pardon the error – that should be “mildly frightened” or perhaps, fershlungir. I used to could spell and grammar real good until I started grading student papers.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Dean Booth & Old Bean — All I can say is don’t stop the madness!
(THTI)FOOB redux– People make fun of the way Shannon dresses, but you have to realize she’s 50 years old. It’s true! And she used to play for the Canadian Negro Leagues. Based on today’s first panel, I’d say it was for the Mtigwacki Mudflaps.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:55 am
A3G: Oh Sweet Lord, when will this funeral march they call a story line get to its final destination?
June 27th, 2007 at 11:56 am
#39: Re: Crankshaft, he’s pretty much on target. Starting salaries at the entry-level-size market stations are somewhere south of what a part-time waitress makes (particularly at a big-tippin’ place like Montoni’s). My stepson took a pay cut when he graduated from college and his part-time wait gig to get into TV producing.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Zits this week reminds me of the George C. Scott flick The Savage is Loose. Don’t know whether to be amused or disturbed that propane grilling is the standard by which manly prowess is assessed these days.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
MT panel 1: I thought the dark-haired-and-mustached commissioner was doing an A3G head bobble, which would have been awesome. Then I realized it was just the curtains.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
MW Someone may be doing a cannonball, but at the odd angle he’s doing it, he’ll probably do something nasty to his leg. Plus, it’s always a good idea to get a drink! I’m gonna get me an old-lady drink! A G&T, or possibly a mint julep… you only have punch? Oh.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
FOOB: When I went to middle school not called that many many years ago, school didn’t end until the last week in June, which is this week. That was in The Bronx. So maybe in Canada they still do the same.
I think Lynn J.takes herself too seriously, her success has just slightly or more than slightly separated her from this part of the universe. Look at that website. Is this a creation of somebody who still maintains some sort of normal humility?
On the other hand, as I have said about 9 times in the past few moths since I discovered this blog, WE ARE DSICUSSING COMIC STRIPS HERE, ARE WE TAKING THESE THINGS TOO SERIOUSLY OURSELVES? It’s fun, all right, but Jesus (no disrespect intended). COMIC STRIPS.
I guess, figurately, I have just stood up on a lunchroom table, myself. I hope I can duck, if anybody throws something at me.
Listen, I think the strip stinks, now, too, but think about what I have just said. I won’t say it again for a while, I promise, I’ll talk about Sluggo instead. Actually, I prefer the way that strip was drawn in the 1940’s. I think after that Ernie Bushmiller must have had assistants drawing it. Appropos of nothing in particular.
Also, if you notice, that guy in MW who is doing the cannonball is going to land on the concrete and bust his tuchiss.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Hey, a G&T keeps you safe from malaria.
Young or old.
I can’t wait for Drew and Vera to meet.
eye to eye
love at first sight
if not, Mary is going to pound the crap out of them.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
FOOB: The only thing that could possibly save this mother of all train wrecks would be if Shan…non segues into a series of Rodney Dangerfield “I don’t get no respect!” one-liners while standing on the table: “Last… week … I saw … my psy…chi…a…trist. I … told … him, ‘Doc, I … keep … think…ing … I’m a … dog.’ He … told … me to … get off … his … couch. Thank … you. Wait…ress. Veal.”
I could ALMOST forgive Lynn for the last 2 weeks if that actually happened.
POPEYE: Many years ago, I learned from an evening of drunken Trivial Pursuit that Olive Oyl’s measurements are 19-19-19. Just in case you needed to know that.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
#71 – Oh my God, Dean. I think you hit the nail on the head. Olive Oyl’s cousin is really Tyler Durden.
…
We’re through the looking glass, gentlemen…
June 27th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Did anyone else’s mind go to Mrs. Field’s Cookies when reading today’s Six Chix?
June 27th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
#68:
GodWithFire, Shannon wears pants because Shannon is a boy. Has there been any proof otherwise? Why did we all assume he was a girl? I knew a boy named Shannon in school. He never climbed onto tables and he didn’t speak… like… this… and he wasn’t in special needs, but he was a boy.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
#73 RentedMule:
“Popeye: OK. Today’s Popeye is creepy enough without the gratuitous mention of breasts in the accompanying snark. However, since you did I was forced to scroll back up and then confront the notion that the flappy stuff around Olive Oyl’s waist may indeed be her breasts rather than a loose blouse.”
The breasts Josh referred to are on Sweet Oyl. Doppleganger is the German word for “body double.” For the love of all that’s holy, I hope those flaps above Olive’s skirt are just her blouse.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
68: Do you, for instance, really want to see Shannon’s legs? In this case I applaud the School Administration’s wise and far-seeing decision.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Shame on all of you for missing yesterday’s Lio, because what we should have all seen coming has finally occured:
http://www.gocomics.com/lio/2007/06/26/
June 27th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
At this point I really wish Shannon was gone. I wish, in fact, that she’d drifted off to sea.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
MW — Something about Drew’s appearance today just screams “Televangelist caught with both hands in the cookie jar and sent to federal prison where he becomes really really popular, if you know what I mean.” And I think you do.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
Read Tomorrow’s FOOB today.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
A few days too late, but several of the snarks on Monday’s FOOB, particularly Dean Booth’s version provoked me into my very first CC song parody:
The slow-talking chip in Shannon’s head
Gets switched to overload.
And nobody’s gonna leave the lunchroom today
They’ll have to hear her piss and moan.
And the readers all understand it,
We always knew she was Johnston’s pawn.
But we can see no reason
‘Cause there are no reasons:
A cleft palate shouldn’t make you speak slow (oh-ohhhh-oh-oh)
Tell me why?
I don’t like FOOBers.
Tell me why?
I don’t like FOOBers.
Tell me why?
I don’t like FOOBers.
I want to shoot
The whole crew down.
On the Curmudgeon site so late at night
We snark to a waiting world.
“In a real high school
someone would slap that fool!â€
“That damn speech just made me hurl!â€
Shannon’s just a Noble Mouthpiece
She has no character of her own.
And we can see no reasons
Lynnie has no reasons
What reason do we need to groan? (own-ohhhh-own)
Tell me why?
I don’t like FOOBers.
Tell me why?
I don’t like FOOBers.
Tell me why?
I don’t like FOOBers.
I want to shoot
Those Winkies down.
All the teasing’s stopped in the lunchroom now
She wants to bend our ears some more.
She may be disabled but she’s up on a table
And the lesson today is “ENOUGH’S ENOUGH!
Won’t you please just listen?â€
(see her big eyes glisten)
All the applause just doesn’t make no sense
And we can see no reasons
‘Cause there are no reasons
What’s the reason this strip is so dense? (ense-ennnn-ennse!)
Tell me why?
I don’t like FOOBers
Tell me why?
I don’t like FOOBers
Tell me why?
I don’t like FOOBers
I want to shoot
This whole strip down.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Boomtown Foobs!
June 27th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
I’m pretty certain that “Let’s head over to the flowerbeds so I can show off my handiwork” would make a great T shirt.
What’s she going to do, point out where the bodies are buried? Johnny Depp eating his corn, Mary picking her flowers – you gotta love the brazen pride some people take in their work.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
MF – In any other strip, this would be a chuckle. In Mallard Fillmore, it’s a solid goal. He shoots, he scores! Humor is at last achieved! Time to retire now, before Mark Trail dissects you.
Pluggers wish Shannon didn’t talk so fast.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
When I first read panel 1 of MW, I thought Dr. Drew said, “Why don’t you go ahead. I’m going to get drunk.” Course, that’s what he means. Man, I bet he’s looking forward to the lively conversation down at the hospital burn ward.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
That Popeye is positively Kafkaesque. A Common Confusion indeed.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
#51 – Funniest thing I’ve seen in a long while. I bow to you, sir.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
#11 Dean = teh funny genius
June 27th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
A3G: I just have to repeat that I predicted Lu Ann’s rescue from carbon monoxide poisoning by her boneheaded boyfriend, weeks, I say weeks ago, are you listenin’ to me, boy?
June 27th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Vera’s totally lurking around this “yawnfest” somewhere to meet Drew, flirt in monotone as a voyeuristic Mary looks on, and then make creepy bedroom eyes at her brother. I would bet an arm and a corresponding breast on it.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Oh also #51 Old bean = teh genius.
And put me down fully with the camp that says Shan…non’s speech would have gotten about three words deep before she fell under a hail of rolls and tater tots.
I’ve worked with special needs kids and I can tell you that in reality, the speech wouldn’t have happened at all. Lynn had it right the first few strips when she had the kids keeping quiet about being teased. No kid, especially a LD kid, is going to stand on a table to make an impassioned speech about “right,” for God’s sake. Maybe to dance or fart or something, but speech? No.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Re: Popeye
Bracelets? I thought those were handcuffs, only adding to the creepiness of the strip.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
91 – That’s really gross.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
MT: Wow – Mr. Drysdale from “Beverly Hillbillies” sure has gone downhill since the Clampetts left Beverlee. From Bank President to corrupt commissioner. Oh wait – that’s really not that far a slide. Sorry!
June 27th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
SF: “In relation to their body size, cats have the largest eyes of any mammal. True”
Excuse me? I take it Mr Fox has never seen a tarsier. Or a bushbaby. Or even a mouse lemur.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
MW: I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that Giella and Moy are doing something incredibly clever here. They’ve set us up for a sputtering, wheezing, life-choking eight-month courtship between Vera and Drew that ends with a bunch of platitudes and no sex. But at the last second–Surprise! It’s just going to be a two-week lecture on how you shouldn’t splash the son of a doctor at a party, because he knows how to make whatever he does to you look like botulism.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
# 91 – I’m glad somebody said it. Thank you, Cog.
Cats also purr when they are distressed or in pain? Since when? I’ve been around cats all my life. I’ve heard them make a lot of noises when distressed or in pain, but purring has never been one of those noises. I don’t know, maybe it just really hurts when I scritch them behind the ears, and that’s why they purr. I’m gonna have to have a talk with my kittie friends when I get home. I’m sure they’ll get a kick out of it. Weber, dude, seriously, just give us back Cassandra and leave the “cat facts” to those of us who know cats. Mostly, just give us (and by “us,” I mean “me”) back Cassandra! Think you can do that? Good.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
106: Gotta wonder what he’s doing today. Heck, maybe he’s teaching special ed kids to sing treacly one-hit-wonders in a piercing falsetto.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
108 Ginger Yellow
Excuse me? I take it Mr Fox has never seen a tarsier. Or a bushbaby. Or even a mouse lemur.
Well, he never saw one that wasn’t deeeeelicious!
June 27th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Crazy old cat-ladies are made, not born. For example, consider Mrs. Maybrick. She was convicted for killing her husband with arsenic in late 19th century England. Many people familiar with the case believe she was innocent. From what I’ve read about it, it seems this was the case. In any case, in later life, she became a crazy old cat lady in Connecticut. She died peacefully among many cats in the 1940s. One of these cats in particular would give birth to many female cats, who would themselves bear many more female cats throughout the years. Eventually one of these female descendants became the prototype for Cassandra Cat of Slylock Fox fame. Bob Weber, Slylock’s creator, took the time today to pen a loving tribute to Mrs. Maybrick. Not to nitpick, but I do not believe Mrs. Maybrick was a blonde. However, I appreciate Mr. Weber’s thoughtful tribute.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
113: Lord Peter Wimsey was a firm believer in Maybrick’s guilt. This settles it for me.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Haven’t had much time to read up or comment lately, but thought you all might appreciate the following:
Believe it…or don’t!
Rare Dick Tracy vintage wallpaper can be purchased at Secondhand Rose—for several hundred dollars a roll! If the price for putting “Sparkle Plenty†on your bathroom wall is out of reach, consider Ziggy as a substitute.
And, mildly NSFW…
A Google Images search for “puppies†yields a variety of squeezable examples—including two sans sweater! (This search was conducted on behalf of my 3-year-old son, who likes dogs. Not sure what he thought of this pair.)
June 27th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Hot comics-related controversial stuff over at Salon, where they’ve pushed “Tom The Dancing Bug” out in order to air the moribund comic stylings of Opus. Call me a sourpuss, but I wrote them a letter:
On the plus side, at least I have a bookmark for “Tom The Dancing Bug.”
June 27th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
MT – Why can’t Buzzard come back with a witty rejoinder?
“Do you think you could get another bunch of birds togther?”
“Depends. Can you get another bunch of Benjamins together?
“Does Molly [Saturn] in the woods?”
“Can Mark Trail punch off facial hair?”
“Can you squeal like a pig?”
“Will chickens do?”
“Hell, what else do I have to do til Summer Stock Theater rehearsals start? More birds it is!”
June 27th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
#64 and such an appropriate choice of melodies as well as terrific lyrics! Bob Geldof should be at the FOOB-athon singing his hit “Do They Know It’s Wink-A-Thon?”
It’s Wink-a-Thon
There’s no need to be subtle
At Wink-A-Thon, we let in cliches and banish logic
And in our world of comics we can spread a smile of joy
Shoot down all the FOOBS at Wink-A-Thon
But take careful aim
Aim for the other ones
At Wink-A-Thon it’s hard, but when you’re having fun
There’s Winkerbean outside your window
And that’s a world of dread and fear
Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears
And the sobs that ring the halls are the clanging
of doom
Well tonight thank God it’s Lisa instead of you
And there won’t be music in Canada this Wink-A-Thon
The greatest gift they’ll get this year is Ap-ril
(Oooh) Where no-thing ever grows
No rain nor ri-vers flow
Do they know it’s Wink-A-Thon at all?
(Here’s to you) aim straight for everyone
(Here’s to us) suffering that tasteless strip
Do they care it’s Wink-A-Thon at all?
Shoot them down
Shoot them down
Shoot them down
Let them know it’s Wink-A-Thon again
Shoot them down
Let them know it’s Wink-A-Thon again
June 27th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
I know you didn’t show this one here, but I just saw Dennis the Menance and it leads me to ask two questions: Is Joey some rogue decendent of Hitler and wants to sport the moustache? OR Don’t you think it is time for Joey’s dad to teach him about proper hygience and the trimming of nose hairs?
June 27th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
93 — Montag. Outstanding.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Aldo would have really enjoyed that pool party. Snif.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Shan-on spoke foooor sooooooo long th-that the sh-sh-sh-short bus lefffft wiffffffout hher.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Today’s MW–unseen third panel: “How did I let Mary talk me into coming here? It was like she brainwashed me or something!”
Oh, Drew, the brainwashing is only the beginning. Next, the tuna casserole and then you’ll be hers! Run away!
June 27th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Slow start today…
Yesterthread Dean Booth: “Josh Reeds” is hysterical! And so am I after reading it!
Yesterthread Who Am I Today?–good to hear from you! Glad junior is settling down.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
#122 Ian Cameron, Ph.D. –
Look who’s giving brevity lessons!
June 27th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Just found a link on BoingBoing that would have made the last three weeks of 9CL a LOT more interesting: http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/oddball/enlarge.cgi?date=2004-03-04
June 27th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
94 — Non Compost Mentos. Love your parody. I’m glad you didn’t let a little “lateness” stop you from sharing.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
John C. Fremont @ 110: Just last week, when my younger kitty Santa Fe went into the vet for an abscessed animal bite on her tail, I held her as the vet palpated the wound. She purred then, and I can tell you pleasure was the farthest thing from her mind. And when my beloved, late cat Pennsy was near his end, he purred whenever I touched him. I would like to believe it was because he was happy I was trying to comfort him, but it’s likely that at that stage of his illness, even my gentle strokes were painful. So, yeah, it does happen.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Ginger Yellow @ 108: I’d like to see a lemur as Slylock’s next villain. A sexy, sexy female lemur.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
HBGlord, I saw someone yesterthread (I think) wishing you happy birthday, which is what the HB stands for. Are you…are you baby Jesus? I mean, maybe if the G stands for Good?
I would consider turining in my atheist membership card. Well, not really but it would still be cool
June 27th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
I always figured that if Olive Oyl took here own life, she’d use sleeping pills or a bridge or maybe dropping a toaster in the tub. Never figured her to be packing the revolver.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
This is the first time, possibly in the history of Mary Worth, that anyone has actually be in the pool at a Charterstone pool party. I didn’t know that was even allowed. Not that anybody wants to see either Mary or the Professor in bathing suits, so I can understand the prohibition.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Re: Cats and purring. My impression (and admittedly it’s always dangerous to try to psychoanalyze animals) is that they sometimes purr when they’re scared or injured and trying to comfort themselves. It’s almost like the technique some people use to try to cheer themselves up by acting happy even if they don’t feel it. Cats also purr in anticipation of something good happening, like if you’re opening a can of tuna or something and they’re hoping to get some.
I read somewhere that purring in origin is a way for newborn kittens and mother cats to signal to one another that they’re nearby. As adults, this usually means that in comes out when they’re content (as they were as a little kitten nursing) but also when they’re scared and want protection or when they’re hungry and want you to feed them. Just a thought.
Josh
June 27th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
now that the thunderstorms have finally blown over, my snark is much-delayed. :-(
PBS: I love the crocs. Mucha Lucha!
Zits. Real Men use charcoal.
ok, F- was funny today. I’ll read it again in about two weeks.
Frazz was meta-fantastic today.
Cleats: Abby has more hair than any comic-strip girl since Boondock’s Jasmine. That pony-tail is longer than she is tall!
June 27th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
#108 – Dang it. No matter what time of day I come here, the latest thread has over a hundred comments on it. Anyway, I too will call Detective Fox on his #4 there. The tarsier, simultaneously the scariest- and cutest-looking critter on Earth, has to beat out the cat in the buggly-eyes department:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarsier
June 27th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Man, it’s in the 90s here with 200% humidity and I feel Sally 4ths pain. So, a little ditty.
(THTI)FOOB — The way it would go in the real world.
[You can play the Eddie Cochran version in your head, but I’m going with the one from Live at Leeds.]
I’m gonna raise a fuss, gonna stand up on a table
I’m gonna make a speech just as fast as I am able
Every time I wear my pants suit, and try to get respect
The kids say, “Hey, winkie! Why don’t you grow a neck!”
Sometimes I wonder what I’m a gonna do
But there ain’t no cure for the summertime foobs
Well Saintly April told me, “Girl, you gotta make ‘em listen,
If you want to make them stop all the laughin’ and dissin’”
Well I took a deep breath, told the kids they were sick
“Well your rant left us bored ’cause you didn’t say it quick”
Sometimes I wonder what I’m a gonna do
But there ain’t no cure for the summertime foobs
I’m gonna take two weeks, gonna make a recitation
I’m gonna tell them all that we’re not vegetation
Well I called to my classmates and they said Quote:
“What’s the matter, ‘tard? Something caught in your throat?”
Sometimes I wonder what I’m a gonna do
But there ain’t no cure for the summertime foobs
June 27th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
oops, forgot to add a comment re: today’s Preteena:
I am reminded of a classic C&H, where Hobbes decides that it isn’t worth being cool, if he can’t be cool while wearing Mickey Mouse pants.
(my favorite C&H strips were always the ones where you could glimpse what the kid was doing “IRL”)
June 27th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
I guess I really do have to talk with the cats when I get home. I’ll ask, “WTF?” and they’ll get out the charts and graphs (I HATE it when they get out the charts and graphs!) and show me how the whole purring thing works. But can I really trust the word of a cat named after a Joe Don Baker character?
June 27th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
#133 Josh
Thanks for the insight.
Why does my dog bark all the time? Is he bored or scared?
You seem to be the animal whisperer. The man with all the answers.
Please advise me.
June 27th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
My cat, Bandit, never purrs at all. Of course, this may be due to the fact that he died last April.
June 27th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Anon -
Your dog barks because he hates you and wants to be the pack leader.
June 27th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Well, it looks like the Baby Boom kids caught whatever communicable dwarfism disease the Family Circus kids were spreading around. They’ve shrunken approximately to the size of a doll and a thimble. INNOCULATE!
I’m really loving Drew in Mary Worth. (Ick! Not like that!) And I love that Moy has the guts to admit the strip sucks!
June 27th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
I haven’t had time to read all the comments yet, so I apologize (but only a little) if I’m repeating here:
A3G If Blaze and Alan get into a fist fight in the hospital ER, I for one will forgive the writers of this lame ass storyline. If Tommie somehow “accidentally” catches a right hook in the process I vow to not snark on A3G for at least, well, a month. That’s about the best I can offer.
FW There’s A lemonade in the fridge? One?? Don’t they make 6-packs in Cancer Land?
JP
“Oh, okay, then! We’re in!!”
Well, that’s about the same amount of information Abbey had when she bought a $2.5 million flat in Paris, right? I guess that’s how they do business.
RMMD The Nanny has just broken the first rule in lying/corporate espionage/etc. You never EVER admit what you did!!!
June 27th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Josh,
My dog developed severe medical conditions after rescuing my daughter from a stream.
What should I do?
June 27th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
##5t9, 61: I can see where someone named TybeeDawg would have a hard time writing GT. ;-)
June 27th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Hey, Someone needs to do an audio based on Elizabeth’s friends speech that was run the past few days. I know it seems cruel but I think it would be quite amusing.
June 27th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Josh,
I am a dog and my wife is a chicken, do we have any chance at procreating?
Thanks.
June 27th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
RMMD And today, the part of Heather’s ear will be played by a bolt. (Or a nut. Whatever those things are.)
June 27th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
133 Josh: You’re absolutely right about cats purring to comfort themselves. At least according to all my sources.
136 gh: Great Summertime Blues parody!
And True Fable, I forgot, but excellent rant yesterthread.
June 27th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
You know you’re a plugger when you get your medical advice from the comics curmudgen
June 27th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Re: cats purring when in pain, and especially #128. Cats purr whenever they desire contact. When injured, a cat will purr to get people or other cats to help her with her injury. When being petted, a cat will purr to prolong petting. If she doesn’t want to be petted any longer, she’ll do what her personality dictates — bite, scratch, yowl, or just walk away. So your cat did want to be petted, Spider-Brick.
Cats are brilliant about death. I saw a show about cats which featured a nursing home filled with them. There was one particular cat who always went to sleep with whomever was going to die next, and often knew who that person was before the nurses did. All the cats I’ve had have known when their times were coming, and have become more affectionate to everyone in the house.
A new cat recently acquired us — she has to share with the first cat, though. She doesn’t mind, as she loves everything, and First Cat more than anything else. Anyway, the new cat purred constantly for at least a week. We had to lock her up at night because her purr is so loud I couldn’t sleep through it. When my mother heard it on the phone, she said “that’s not a cat, that’s a motorboat.” Now Second Cat isn’t as needy, and only purrs when someone actually touches her, feeds her, or looks at her.
June 27th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
FOOB, redux: Let me add some perspective.
Growing Pains had a Very Special Episode on Drugs, and the original ending was for One Beloved Character to make a Shannon Speech and for everyone to give up drugs on the spot.
And then it was realized how ridiculous that ending would be, so the main characters just left the party and Kirk Cameron tacked on a PSA at the end.
This is Kirk Cameron, we’re talking about.
Kirk “The Nanny Showed Her Ta-Tas in the Bad Magazine and I Want Her Fired” Cameron.
Kirk “I’m Holier Than The Pope AND Billy Graham” Cameron.
Kirk “The ‘Left Behind’ Series is Really Speculative Fact!” Cameron.
THAT should tell you something about FOOB.
June 27th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
#139 Anon
Your dog barks all the time because he wants out. No, he wants in. No, out. No, in. No, wait. That’s my dog.
June 27th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Josh is indeed the pussy whisperer.
June 27th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Olive Oyl has nothing on Mickey Mouse:
http://www.barnaclepress.com/cmcvlt/MickeyMouse/mm301018.jpg
June 27th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Dear Josh -
There’s this cat that’s always picking on me. My owner is too dumb to do anything about it, and the cat picks on him, too. What can I do?
June 27th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
I’m no geologist, but I do recall reading that, as Josh, D.V.M., says, mother cats and kittens purr to identify themselves to one another. Since a hard working mama cat might understandably mistake small helpless furry animals for food, the kitten’s purr also means “I’m your kitten! Don’t eat me!”
That’s why cats sometimes purr if they’ve been hurt. Mine do it, especially when the vet (a person whose intentions they are unsure of) is stitching up a wound or such. (”I’m your customer! Don’t eat me!”)
June 27th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
136. Love the “Summertime Foobs,” gh! And your suggested Live at Leeds version is particularly apropos because you can imagine John Entwistle doing his scary basso profundo bit for the “kids say” lines.
Anyway, you’ve inspired me to do the following, which I don’t think turned out to be particularly funny unless you imagine that at the end of it, Shannon sets off an explosive that not only wrecks a drum set but also briefly sets her guitarist’s hair on fire while allegedly starting him on the road to deafness all in one fell swoop. Even then, it might not be all that funny. Oh, well. Apologies to The Who and to everybody everywhere:
People try to lay me . . . low
(Talkin’ ’bout my retardation)
Just ’cause I talk kind of . . . slow
(Talkin’ ’bout my retardation)
Foobs, they can be awful . . . cruel
(Talkin’ ’bout my retardation)
Point at us, and shout out . . . “Hoooo!”
(Talkin’ ’bout my retardation)
This is my retardation . . . This is my retardation, baby!
I will make a plea for . . . peace
(Talkin’ ’bout my retardation)
On the table, give a . . . speech
(Talkin’ ’bout my retardation)
Ask why we can’t get a . . . long
(Talkin’ ’bout my retardation)
Maybe plug our tele . . . thon
(Talkin’ ’bout my retardation)
This is my retardation . . . This is my retardation, baby!
Why don’t you all . . . cut your crap
(Talkin’ ’bout my retardation)
Praise my speech with a slow . . . clap
(Talkin’ ’bout my retardation)
I’m not trying to cause a big sen . . . sation
(Talkin’ ’bout my retardation)
Just talkin’ ’bout my . . . retardation
(Talkin’ ’bout my retardation)
This is my retardation . . . This is my retardation, ba . . . by!
June 27th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
#114: Bah! Lord Peter Wimsey, that Eton-educated pantywaist? What would he know?
#147: No. No chance. No chance at all. You should have married a kangaroo. Or another dog.
#119: Ever see The Boys from Brazil?
June 27th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
TDIET joke:
Q: Why do all the men in TDIET wear sweater vests?
A: Because it’s always in the 50’s!
*slow clap that never speeds up*
Tip Red on the way out.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
143: Kronika, re: RMMD — June is actually doing something even more devious and beautiful — she’s admitting what she did openly and implying that it was Hugh’s fault and that he has no right to be upset about it. The Nanny may be a bit of a weak link, but June’s got it covered.
Besides, they just roofied the poor bunbury — he only has a few minutes of consciousness left; it hardly matters what The Nanny admits to at this point. He’ll wake up and instead of this conversation his brain will be filled with page after page of white space stamped [redacted]. And his ass won’t hurt, precisely, he’ll just be more aware of it than usual.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
If I recall my Ted Nugent, your theories on cat purring are incorrect.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
#159 D.E.I. –
Back at Eton, we had a word for posters like yourself — and it wasn’t a very pretty one!
June 27th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Anon
Your dog barks all the time because he or she is bored to death and wants some attention.
Or, the stalker’s out in the backyard again.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Not one, but TWO, song parodies based on Who tunes. Is this a great blog or what?
June 27th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
MW: So Drew is being set up to hook up with Vera, which means Vera, the boringest character in the personality parade that is Mary Worth, is going to be a permanent fixture? THEY KILLED ALDO BUT VERA IS OUR CONSOLATION PRIZE? IS THERE NO JUSTICE IN THE UNIVERSE?????
June 27th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Er, unless Drew AND Vera are being set up for a bus plunge on their honeymoon. I could work with that.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Josh, you are so good with pet conditions, maybe you would like to try to diagnose some human ones:
my wife doesn’t every want to do her wifely duty and my willy is shrinking.
Will it ever shrink to the point of no return?
Thanks.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Cats and purring: cats will purr when they are under great stress. We had a cat who was hit by a car with terrible internal injuries, who purred all the way to the vet. Luckily, he was able to be saved after some seriously heroic surgeries.
But as a former vet tech, it was always bad news when the client came in with their very sick cat and said, “Oh he’s feeling better today, he’s purring…”
June 27th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
#158 Paperback Rifler
Me like! Especially apropos the stuttering. Best live album ever. Among others. I did a Live at Leeds version of this awhile back when chauffer RMMD was getting no respect from Hugh called Talkin’ ‘Bout My Indignation.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Cats do indeed “purr” when they are ill or injured or uncomfortable. It is often a different kind of purr, in often subtle yet meaningful ways.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Damn, are we still talking about cat purring?
June 27th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
I have always found purring pussies to be pleasurable.
Alas, I have to buy them from the back of a magazine.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
#161 SecretMargo
That’s awesome. Really, really awesome!!
June 27th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
I don’t know why we’re all still debating whether cats purr when they’re hurt or not. It’s right there in Slylock Fox, so it must be true! Slylock is a good guy, so he would never lie. Papa always told me, “If you see it in the funnies, it’s so.”
– Signed, Virginia O’Hanlon (age 10)
June 27th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
You know, in my day, I have found some Ginormous Pussies.
Some purred.
Some did not purr.
I solved the problem with a strong right cross.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
I was talking to Clambake the other day, and he said some clams purr when they are hurt.
And some don’t.
Weird.
Plus, he said clams got legs.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
#172 Gabe
Word. I’m not getting the happy when every time I hit F5 it’s all about the injured cats. Rule #1, people!
This message brought to you courtesy of Mooch.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
170 – How about something from our own Josh – Talkin’ ’bout my registration.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Josh, I just wanna thank you for Popeye’s spinach- and/or mescaline-fueled antics. You always turn my frown upside-down! You are the cat’s pajamas!
June 27th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
The first rule about pussy purring is that no one talks about pussy purring.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
I’ve pretty much given up on snarkin’, because everyone else does it earlier and better. But I can at least comment on the comics:
9 CL: Praise Rolly Church of Crete, Brooke has returned to drawing!
JP: This has probably been mentioned several hundred times, but at the rate he is regressing, Sam will be underage by the time Abbey returns home from Paris.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
I can only assume that in today’s FBOFW (which has spanned several excruciating days), that the clapping by the students for Shannon’s speech was the kind in an 80s movie. One dude starts a slow clap that builds to the entire cafeteria clapping.
Seriously though, I think I’d rather gouge my eyes out watching Liz’s inevitable romance with The Stache than suffer through another day of Shannon’s self righteousness. I didn’t think she was particularly slow before, but it’s taken here an entire week to give that speech.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
I’ve been really sick the past few days, fever sore throat, can’t move kind of sick. So the comics today are speaking to that otherworldly side of my brain that emerges with fever:
FBOFW – Hahaha! Funniest joke ever!
MW – Hahaha! Funniest joke ever!
MT – Hahaha! Funniest joke ever!
9CL – Hahaha! Funniest joke ever!
CATHY – Too much type for me to read!
June 27th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Well, I might as well join the chorus of people chiming in on the Horror That Is FOOB.
First of all, April is supposed to be 16, and so presumably her classmates are 16 too. I think 16 is very different from 12 or 13 when it comes to how kids treat other kids who have disabilities. I think the vast majority of 16-year-olds have, at the very least, outgrown the stage of gratuitously insulting disabled people to their faces.
But in the Johnstonverse, there only exist two possible ways that the “regular” kids treat the “special” kids, both of which are unrealistic extremes. They can either be heartlessly cruel like Jeremy and, out of nowhere, interrupt people’s conversations to call them cruel names, or else they can be saintly and perfect like Lynn’s fictional daughter April, the self-appointed instructor of How To Treat Disabled Folks, the one and only possessor of the knowledge that They Deserve Respect Too.
Look, I’m certainly not any kind of expert on how to maintain mutually respectful relationships with people who have various sorts of disabilities. But the thing is, neither are most teenagers. In fact, teenagers are busy enough just trying to figure out social interaction to begin with. When my friends and I were 16, there’s no way we would have shouted insulting names at disabled people out of the blue. But on the other hand, I also don’t think we went out of our way to be best friends with the disabled kids and instruct everyone else on how to interact with them. Were we guilty of being a little too cold to the special needs kids? Probably. I’m not saying I’m proud of that. But that’s what teenage life is like. We only had so much room in our lives, and we were preoccupied with our own lives and our own problems in the typical teenage self-focused way.
Instead, what we get in the Johnstonverse is that there are only two types of teenagers, who we can distinguish by how they treat disabled folks. They are either pure good, or pure evil, and nothing in between, because subtlety does not exist.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
My Retardation is really great Paperback Rifler. I was trying to come up with something appropriate for Rex Morgan back when the pedestrian wine fight got started to the tune of Scenes From an Italian Restaurant but it never took off. So bravo for all the songs you do.
RE: Purring. My cat purred the whole time she was having kittens. The cat book from the library said that they indeed do this to relieve stress. Sort of an equivalent to a scared human mantra: “Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.”
June 27th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
#136-gh-Best…Song…Parody…Ever! And that’s saying alot ’cause I own a copy of every Alan Sherman record ever made! MyMan!
June 27th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
AppleG-sorry to about hear that. I hope the makeshift plywood latrine on the “Proud Mary” wasn’t the cause.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
#175
Virginia, your Papa is right: unaffected by the skepticism of a skeptical age, he has retained the capacity to believe what he cannot see.
Yes, Virginia, the funnies tell the absolute truth. They tell it as certainly as big dogs and cancer and Foobs exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if comics could somehow lie! It would be as dreary as if there were no no Veras, no Spider-Men, no Virginias.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Dear Ask Josh,
Every time I sit down to a nice dinner of tuna and toast, all the cats in the neighborhood show up. And they’re all purring! Are they hurt or scared? Plus there’s these mice staring at me.
Signed,
Shy In Shylock
June 27th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
JP: I know this is like baking a dead clam, but where the hell is Judge Parker? I mean, is he like Bigfoot or Waldo? I don’t have time in my busy schedule for this crappola! Hrummph & Egadzooks!
June 27th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
158 Paperback Rifler
136 gh
118 Crooked Soricidae
94 Non Compost Mentos
All brilliant. Damn I wish I could come up with that kind of stuff so fast. I’m such a cleft palated ‘tard, really. But quit pickin’ on me. Enough is enough.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
#93 Montag, that was awesome. I suspect you’re not getting more shout-outs because it seems just too real, because in the real world, that’s how it all would have gone down.
Recently, for the none of you who care, I stopped reading Luann because that TJ guy squicks the living hell out of me. That triangle mouth and no eyes are bad enough, but I think he’s wearing a Shatner Turbo 2000 toupee. Brr.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
MW: I have no doubt that Drew is going to run into Vera and fall madly in love with her, vowing to leave behind his manwhoring ways. I also have no doubt that Vera will reject him because he is not biologically related to her.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
My cat purrs right after she’s committed the purr-fect crime. One day I’ll catch the little felon. One day she’ll slip up and I’ll discover her earings are still cold…proving she was recently outside…blowing her alibi..catching her with the Beaver’s wallet…so to speak.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Wouldn’t that be Lucky.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
#184 AppleGirl —
If you can process the fact that Cathy has too much type to read, you are clearly on the road to recovery.
#187 Red Greenback –
Speaking of recovery — best song parody ever? And here I was worried about your lucidity! Red’s back, rested and ready to rumble. ♪♪ Hello, faddah! Greetings from Camp . . . Veal Piccata! ♪♪
June 27th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Enough about the cat boners, Weber.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
198 maybe i misread. sorry mr. weber. go team sf!
June 27th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Re: Cat purr fever, cats purr whenever the heck they want to. As an owner of several dogs throughout the years, every man jack of them did that “Dragbutt” thing on the carpet. I firmly believe that’s how a dog purrs.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
111, mere cog, “thanks” for planting that earworm. Now please make it stop.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
184 Apple Girl: Feel better soon!
And re my previous post that no one read re JP, I think the reason Sam is regressing in age is so that he can make it with Sophie. I never thought she was that attractive compared to Abbey and Neddy, but since he has no interest in Abbey it may be that he’s looking for a sweet little junior-high age girl, and wants to be the same age to please her.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
FOOB: the only thing that would redeem this strip is if we saw, in the back, a figure in profile with the speech bubble cheering, “HOOOO!”
Tomorrow, either Shannon will wake up from her dream (sad), or be challenged to a ski race by one of the cool kids.
MW: this party would only wish for a Cannonball Run (1 or 2) tie-in. Nothing is funnier than Jamie Farr and Ricardo Montalban as Arab sheiks, and Shirley McLaine and Marilu Henner as fake nuns. Lots of meddling potential.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
201 bluebery
Maybe I can help.
“We had Joy
we had fun
we had season in the sun.
All the stars we could reach
Are just starfish on the beach.”
June 27th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Your comments on Slylock Fox are very timely – in yesterday’s New York Times, there was an article on parasites that posited that Toxoplasma infection can cause Cat Lady Syndrome. So the filthiness of the house was important! See http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/science/26angi.html?ex=1340596800&en=f833f1b21bf34a54&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink for the article.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Thanks, Pete. Now the dead Irish setter doesn’t seem so bad.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Re FOOB again — Shannon standing on the table is supposed to be the same Shannon who expressed such reluctance about getting onstage in front of a crowd in December 2004?
June 27th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
#136 — gh, unlike the cardboard Foobistanis, i am speechless!
June 27th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
I hate every bone in Cassandra Cat’s body except mine.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Josh, way to go! I see parts of NYC are currently experiencing a black out. This will teach them to mess with your Gretchen!
June 27th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Next week’s Popeye will feature Olive Oyl drowning Swee’Pea in the bathtub and then shoving her head into a gas oven, Plath-style, while cooking Wimpy’s hamburgers.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
How in the Margoing Clambake my Ex-wife did my fake blogger name turn BLUE? When I click my mouse on it, it sez: Safari can’t find the server.
Safari can’t open the page “http://~!/†because it can’t find the server “~!â€. I blame the grey aliens. Veal! Tinfoil!….etc.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Red, you wouldn’t happen to have entered anything in the URL field?
June 27th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
212 Red,
that’s the link I saved to favorites. Sometimes I don’t want to find the server. Your fake name looks good in blue. Makes you look taller.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Red Greenback blue? Ow, ow, ow!
June 27th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
~ rocks.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Oops.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
#213-Adjuster-Doh! I feel like a Baby Ruth in the Charterstone pool!
#209-Anonymous-That’s some deep-dish veal cassarole stuff! May I call you Shecky?
June 27th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
The more I look at that Popeye strip, the more it freaks the shit out of me.
Was this guest-written by Quentin Tarentino or something?
June 27th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
MT: Even with the obligatory motion lines, the cannon-baller seems strangely static and inert, floating in mid-air.
Like someone threw a bannon-baller blow up doll into the pool.
June 27th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
woops, that should be MW and “bannon-baller” should be cannon-baller
June 27th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
I’m sorry but I’m only trying to help cleanse our palettes of that Popeye distatefulness, so I give this: These have a sweet, Shan..nonsque sensibilty: http://www.jimmyr.com/blog/Funny_Student_Exam_Answers_91_2007.php
June 27th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Sure, Olive Oyl’s a bit of a psycho-girlfriend. But she’s sooo hot. That’s why she can get away with it.
June 27th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Dam you, Curmudgeon..the “cannonbaaaaaall!” caption made me LOL far longer than I should have.
My next wish is to see a post-Telethon! pool party on Foob where the repeater says “Canonbaaaaal!” in every panel…on a sunday.
June 27th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Shelley Duvall was born to play Olive Oyl.
The movie Popeye, however, was an unfit vehicle for her charms.
June 27th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
#225-Uncle-”Brewster McCloud” all the way! Man, when Shelley Duvall was pumping that mustard machine while Bud Cort was doing pull-ups? Priceless!
June 27th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
I didn’t think any villain could be as twisted as new airport guy from Mark Trail. But Drew Cory trying to leave the Charterstone pool party? Good God, he better watch his sorry ass.
June 27th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
But I liked the Popeye movie. Sure, Brewster McCloud was better, but Popeye had Harry Nillson songs and stuff. “It’s Not Easy Being Me” and “He’s Large” are among my favoritest songs ever.
Shelley Duvall. (sigh)
June 27th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Old Buzzard, like Snake, has the kind of name that pretty much typecasts him for life. “Saint Snake” or “Prince Buzzard” are not likely career paths for them. In Lost Forest such a name is a birth defect that is more evil than even facial hair and worse than a cleft palette.
It’s all about the “O”, Shannon. Shan…non’s stand…up…routine…was…a…rousing…success…and…will…
undoubtedly….turn…the…school…bullies…and…jerks…into…
caring…understanding…students,…judging…by…the…standing
…o.
June 27th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Let’s all raise our Margo! Boxcar! Saturn! mugs to Shelley and Harry!
June 27th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
168–Howard, your peenie will get even more eenie teenie when your wife reads this.
June 27th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
I need to go do some stuff, so am signing off early. Please stay out of trouble, kids. No parking in NYC. And Red–really, take a nice long nap.
June 27th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Uh… Red, on re-reading I see that might be taken in the wrong way. I mean it only in a good way.
June 27th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Red Greenback – Nope, not the Proud Mary latrine. More than likely, it was the madness of Summer Solstice in Santa Barbara over the weekend:
http://flickr.com/photos/galechicago/sets/72157600458514498/
June 27th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
The Devine O’F-( Love yer new handle BTW)-No harm, no foul. I’m on vaycay from my crappy job so I been sleeping a lot. I just happen to be batshit insane!
June 27th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
In today’s comic on the main Foob site, I think that the cheers and joy in the fourth panel should be replaced with screams of pain. Why, you ask? It appears that a bomb went off in the back of the cafeteria, that’s why.
June 27th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
If only Liz (Foob) reads today’s Popeye strip, maybe she will emulate Olive and blow her brains out over Anthony, who is about as Wimpy a bastard as there ever was.
June 27th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
#236: Yes, I too noticed that the kids in the back of the caf have apparently been engulfed in a fiery explosion. But so great is the power of Sh…an…non’s moving speech that the kids in front of her haven’t even noticed.
June 27th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
#234 AppleGirl-I’m so relieved (excuse the pun)-that you didn’t catch any heinous disease from the Proud Mary toi-toi! I thought I was suffering from what the Police and Priests refer to as “Batshit Insanity”…but those Santa Barbara Summer Solstice weirdos take Batshit Insanity up to a whole new level. Get well soon, Red.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
#219: Or Michael Cimino.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Popeye:I was gonna do a Dick Tracy’s Crimestopper’s Textbook on How To Blow Your Brains Out Properly, but…given recent current events, decided to give it a miss.
Instead i’ll point out…When Segar used to draw the strip, Popeye used to curse and swear and drink and act like a regular sailor until Hearst’s girlfriend got a look at the strip, then, he was all about “not doin’ things that would badly influence my chil’ren friends” …like gambling , mostly. I gotta wonder what Hearst would think about Olive Oyl playing Russian Roulette.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
#211 – Eleusis
Wait a second, Sweet Pea’s a girl? Not that I’m doubting you or anything, but I just always assumed it was a boy for some reason. I haven’t been reading this strip long enough for this to be earth shattering (evidenced by the fact that I have a few strings of sanity left), but that strikes me as odd. Then again, in the few months I’ve been following it I’ve never actually seen Sweet Pea in the strip.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Let’s add up some running points in Popeye.
– Sweet Oyl, antagonist du jour, is Olive’s “city cousin.” She is vicious, kleptomaniacal, and lustful. The word “city cousin” is used repeatedly, which can’t help but strike a chord. After all, we all know and fear the ways of those folk who visit our good honest farms and start acting like they’re better than us. No, wait.
– Apparently buying dozens of hamburgers can near-bankrupt a person. Hey, fast food isn’t cheap.
– The already demonstrated near-complete unfamiliarity with modern technology.
– Finally, in the same comic in the above link, a deep lack of understanding of the social changes of the last 70 years. The writer knows about online personals, but assumes people use them to find spouses rather than dates.
Look at this objectively. Popeye is apparently being written by someone used to a country with a large rural population… no modern gadgetry… no fertilizers or antibiotics or modern breeding to make beef an everyday food… no gender-relations revolution… I know what you’re thinking. It’s been suggested before. A time-traveler from 1922. Bugger.
But actually no. On closer inspection, the language use doesn’t hold up. It’s full of the oddities people associate with Popeye, yes, but that’s a put-on. The writer is native in modern-day English, more or less. And that leads us to something even more sinister.
ALTERNATE TIMELINES. Stay with me, because this is where it all comes together. An upper-class coup dislodges Roosevelt after his reelection in 1936. The New Deal is eliminated, we never enter WWII, and as a result the Depression never really ends. Instead, a new Homestead Act empties out the cities, and America begins a long, sleepy era of rural stagnation and social conservatism.
Now, the writer could be a refugee, washed up in this unfamiliar land for reasons unknown to himself, able to eke out a living reenacting the Popeye plays put on in the town square long after the newspapers stopped coming. But we should at least consider the possibility that the writer came deliberately, with help, making this a case of… infiltration.
I don’t know what sinister plans the Good Old Days junta in Washington could have in store for us. The very fact that they have learned to travel between worlds is puzzling and ominous. But we can’t afford to take any chances.
If you absolutely must read Popeye, make sure to close alternate eyes and wave your hands in front of the strip to keep out any subliminal messages. It can’t make any less sense than the current storyline.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
#211 Eleusis; #242 Tweeks –
Swee’Pea — a masculine child.
June 27th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
DT: Dick Tracy is going disguised as the Baron? Honestly? Sure, he can do the face, but can he do the “hunch”? Or the all-important ‘I want my Gretchen’? I imagine ‘IWMG’ as being said in the oldest, softest, saddest German voice ever. Try it, it’s really touching.
MW: ‘Let’s walk over to the flowerbeds so I can show off my handiwork!’ Does this line sound dirty to anyone else? What I really love is how Drew keeps this intensely frightening and shallow smile on his face even as he longs desperately to leave. It’s the kind of absent smiling look which could be found on the faces of both Norman Bates and Lu Ann Powers
June 27th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
243. Why does this “Good Old Days” movement want us to see Olive Oyl playing Russian Roulette with her cousin Sweet? And how did they get to Earth Prime from Earth Good Ol’ Days in the first place? Some kind of demon magic used by Joss Whedon during Buffy The Vampire Slayer?
June 27th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Well, I just read the last three weeks of Popeye and I still don’t have a clue what’s going on.
So, Olive Oyl’s cousin wants her boyfriends and for her to kill herself? And Popeye’s grandfather is named Poopdeck? What the Margo?
June 27th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Totally agree with you Avocado #193 — I don’t read Luann when TJ is in it cuz that one huge tooth and his perma-closed eyes freak me out
June 27th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
I hope you’ll grant me some license for the stretched rhymes here:
Among the geriatrics a spiteful bash drags on
And no one can endure it, strangely except for one
He’s far too young to live here, and he’s having fun as well
So who the hell is this guy, the Charleston Cannonball?
June 27th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
9CL: Trust me professor, the amount of things people call me pales in comparison to the assload of ‘terms’ people use when referring to you!
I can’t mention all of them (time won’t permit), but ‘brittle old bitch’, ‘old ironsides’, ‘the battleaxe Potemkin’, ‘the whorehound’, and ‘Satan’s mom’ come to mind.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
You can talk all you want about Grampa Poopdeck, Swee’pea, Pipeye, Poopeye, Peepeye and Pupeye – even the Jeep but if anybody starts with Alice the Goon……..I’m outta here.
BTW – Is Dingo lurking out there somewhere?
June 27th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Hey, speaking of Shannon’s unrealistic speech, and the phenomenon of the “slow clap” and all that, some of you may enjoy this link
80’s movie ending (you have to sit through an ad first)
June 27th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
I’d probably turn to suicide, too, if my doppelganger’s buxom bust only served to emphasize my deformed elf-shoe-shaped tittie flaps. But Olive shows her real class with the cheery farewell in the last panel. Bravo.
Mmm… shoe-boobs.
This is off topic, but I wondered if you’d seen this FC tribute:
http://xkcd.com/c100.html
June 27th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
MF: Mallard’s always an asshole, but right now we need to show him a little compassion. After all, his favorite transvestite prostitute was recently involved in a ‘plane accident’, and the autopsy (performed by the eminent Dr. Trail) revealed only the contents of the last meal.
A3G: Whoa, slow down, I’m losing track of bland, effeminate-looking guys!
June 27th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Much too late to get a laugh w/ this, but if Olive was gonna kill herself, I always thought it’d be be from tainted spinach. Or anorexia.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
242 Tweek – My ‘her’ was in reference to Olive Oyl herself, natch.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
FOOB: When Kellogg first put out its ‘Apple Jacks’ cereal, its ads pretty much promised that eating the stuff could give you the power to vanquish bullies…I have to think some poor impressionable kids believed the spiel, and worry the same way about some kids today reading this strip.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
#1,
In fairness, that basketball court was a vacant lot an hour or two earlier. In the space of [apparently] Slim’s trying to take a single nap, the vacant lot next door was bulldozed and turned into a basketball court, complete with players.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Sorry if I’m repeating what anybody said… I just got home today and read Popeye and spent a good minute or two laughing. Isn’t this supposed to be a kid’s cartoon? HAHA, Suicide is funny! HAHA, kill yourself, Olive! HAHA, suicide makes me hungry!
If there isn’t some kind of protest or outrage against the syndicate, I will be shocked. Because, simply put, this is just disturbing. (Funny, but because it’s so terribly, terribly wrong!)
The only way this plotline would work would be if, say, this was the last day of the comic strip, PERIOD. We could then say that it left off in a dramatic cliffhanger that was daring, dramatic and still creepy. Instead, no doubt we’ll have two weeks of Popeye scolding Olive for playing with guns, and how you aren’t supposed to play with guns, or create complex love squares for the heck of it. In other words, avoid high school at all cost.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
#259 Charles — There will be no protest about the Popeye strip because in fact nobody, apart from us at the CC, actually reads the daily Popeye comic strip.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
# 128: SSB, what bit Fe, and is she OK? And # 110: I’ve definitely also known cats to stress-purr. It beats stress-pee, which they also do.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
Also, I never want to contemplate the phrase ‘Grampa Poopdeck’ ever ever again.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
#256 – Eleusis
Oh, right. I guess if I would’ve been more observant than I would’ve noticed the obvious reference to “her” cooking more hamburgers. Though now it’s going to be impossible for me to erase the image of Olive shoving the kid into an oven.
…Does that make me a bad person? Because I feel like it does.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:04 pm
MW: You know, nothing says “homoerotic subtext” like a guy with 50’s hair, a waxed chest and pointed toes cannonballing into the pool next to an adoring blonde dude. You know Mary is going to spontaneously combust when she sees them engaged in the “love that dare not speak its name” in the pool house. We should all roast marshmallows over her smouldering ashes when that happens.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
BB: Neither Popeye nor Six Chix are nearly as disturbing as the sight of General Halftrack without his shirt on.
Stone Soup: Does this mean it’s ok to do Steve Irwin impersonations again?
FW: Darin, there’s lemonade in the fridge and cancer in your future. Have fun!
DT: Just out of curiosity, if you kidnap a senile old spy’s granddaughter and need to call the CIA to negotiate terms, is the CIA’s phone number in the directory?
FBOFW: They’re just cheering because Shannon peed in her pants during her speech.
GT: Wow, that’s one hell of a crowd behind Marty there.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Talk about setting a low bar in Thursday’s FW: Les Moore is a great guy, because he doesn’t abandon his dying wife.
Way to go, Les. We’re proud of you, son.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
9CL We used to have a nursing home resident who called everybody “Pussy.” Partly it was a function of her dementia – a sort of automatic speech – and partly she did it because people were always telling her not to. You could hear her all over the building yelling, “Pussy! Put me to bed!” “Pussy! I’m hungry!” One evening I heard her yell, “Pussy! Get me a box of milk!” I heard the CNA respond, “Sarah, I will not be called that! I will not help you if you use that word!” Sarah was quiet for 3 seconds, then yelled, “Asshole! Get me a box of milk!” Ha! Man, I miss her. Anyway, “Goodbye, asshole’ would have been a much better response today than “Goodbye Dr. Burber.”
June 27th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
#267 Squid Countess -
Yeah — odd, too, how “asshole” usually connotes “male” yet fits this tiresome bully perfectly.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
Someday, grownup Swee’Pea is going to describe that whole scene to a prison shrink. “Yeah, I crawled into the room, not knowing what to expect. My mom, or whoever she was to me, was playing Russian Roulette with some creepy evil twin of hers. All the while that vagrant wimpy just demanded more burgers. I’m sorry Doctor, do I sound cold?”
June 27th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
MW: Is it too much to ask for Vera to show up and Drew to become infatuated with her, only to be spurned because she’s “off of men right now,” and then Drew stalks her only to end up up a charred corpse at the bottom of a ravine, and then Mary would have to console Dr. Jeff with her tuna casserole? That’s too much to ask, isn’t it?
June 28th, 2007 at 12:12 am
Popeye: Nice death paraphilia going on here. With Sweet Oyl getting so turned on, Wimpy is in for some great sex if only Olive can just pull the trigger.
“I’d be glad to pay you Tuesday if I can have a furburger today… “
June 28th, 2007 at 12:30 am
Look at the Chron.com page…
There’s no link for today’s FBOFW.
What does this mean? Is our long, national nightmare over, or is it merely the calm before the storm?
June 28th, 2007 at 12:49 am
Re “Long National Nightmare”:
Watergate : USA :: FBorFW : Canada
June 28th, 2007 at 12:52 am
#272 TB Tabby,
It’s vomit-inducing, believe me. You might be able to see it on Yahoo comics
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/forbetterorforworse;_ylt=Aj8SQWuria58Dft4Fzw7k.kDwLAF
That is, if the time-zone thing doesn’t mess you up.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:05 am
Yanno, the lady who claimed to be Anastasia all those years ended up a crazy old cat lady.
Just sayin’.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:07 am
#73, #88 – The flappy bits hanging over Olive’s skirt are almost certainly just loose blouse material rather than breasts, since Sweet also has them, along with a visibly evident pair of actual breasts.
Yet another sentence that I never could have forseen myself writing.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:16 am
Mommy, was there ever a time FOOB was funny?
June 28th, 2007 at 1:49 am
Apartment 3-G: Check out the Margoesque glare Blaze is serving Alan with. A little late in the day to start being sexually possessive about your cousin, isn’t it, Blaze? I mean, what with you being gay and all.
Curtis: Awww, poor Chutney. No snark for you.
Family Circus: That’s right, Billy! Keep on practicing, and you can be just like your heroes — Harry Von Zell, Harlow Wilcox, and Don Wilson — dead, forgotten, and obsolete!
Funky Cancerbean: Yeah, Lisa. That’s the appropriate reaction to eavesdropping on a woman’s life fall apart: smugly rejoice in your own relationship’s stability.
Judge Parker: Barretto’s photo-referenced Frisco is cool and all, but we’re here for sweaterpuppies, dammit. And Sam? It never made sense.
Luann: Okay, if Evans isn’t going for the “TJ is actually trying to ruin Brad’s date with Toni so that he can have him all to himself” plot line, I don’t know what he’s doing. And if he is … I hate TJ as much as everyone else, but c’mon. He can obviously do better than Brad.
Mary Worth: Vera being playfully flirtatious is almost as soul-suckingly horrific as Mary being horny. Drew’s glassy smile suggests that he’s stared into the abyss too long and now walks the earth a hollow shell of a man, doomed to enter the toils of Mary’s newest apprentice.
Rex Morgan: No Magnificent June shots? Nothing but blonde people yammering about who betrayed whom? Yawn. (Oh, and Hugh is so totally drugged right now. He’s going to pass out any second.)
June 28th, 2007 at 1:50 am
#168: Only if your willy shrivels up inside your body to make a manjyna.
June 28th, 2007 at 2:15 am
I’ve been off work for the last two days, therefore away from the computer (don’t have one of my own, waaah) and I usually read the dead-tree comics at work, too. So it takes me a while to catch up, and I’ve had to skim or skip literally hundreds of comments, because they do actually expect me to, you know, work. They’re so unreasonable that way.
Which is my way of saying that I know I won’t be putting anything very original here, I just need to VENT.
FOOOOOOB!!! AAAAAAGHHH! DIE, JOHNSTON, YOU BITCH, DIE DIE DIE!!
Dear God, I thought I was gonna need an insulin shot, and I’m not even diabetic. Nauseating, treacly, insulting (to readers and SN people alike) condescending, unrealistic, self-congratulatory (in that her characters are so self-referential) load of steaming fly-blown year-old diarrheic BULLSHIT. GAAHH.
On an unrelated note, to Galactic Emperor CHENNUX: I want to thank you for frying those duck-beating asshats, Sire, and I’ll be happy to cook you some potatos, any variety, any style, whenever you give the word. As Galactic Emperors go, you’re the best! Love ya!
June 28th, 2007 at 2:18 am
6/27:
PC: What, jumping in mid-air… riding a dinosaur… crossing a.. snake?…. flying an old fashioned airplane??? Huh?? This is what happens when a lesser artist tries to combine Calvin & Hobbes with Gil Thorp.
FOOB: “Stuff That Never Happens in Reality Ever, Seriously – Are You Kidding Me?!” continues. More of STNHiRE-AYKM?! on Friday. Check your local newspaper.
MT: Yeah, you birds flying around that building will get in trouble, alright, if you keep attacking those planes. And white-haired villian? You don’t eat money, you idiot! I thought you were experienced at this rip-off business!
June 28th, 2007 at 2:30 am
9CL: Margo… June… give it up. When it comes to cold, cruel, genital-shrinking (male or female!), looks-could-kill, hard-asses, Dr. B has you beat! You, too, Crankshaft!
No, I’m not calling you Magee and Morgan! Don’t even try competing at her own game, it’s over.
June 28th, 2007 at 2:39 am
Mommy, was there ever a time when FBOFW had realistic characters and was a slice of life?
All that this weeks Foobwreck needed was a montage. An 80’s movie style montage.
June 28th, 2007 at 3:13 am
When is the CC parody songbook being published?
June 28th, 2007 at 3:28 am
as someone who works with the MRDD community (disabled people) let me just mention how inutterably foul I find this current foob story line. Its fake, its contrived, the characters read as totally false, and whats more its (imo) disrespectful.
If Johnston actually knew anything about the disabled, she’d be damned ashamed of herself.
June 28th, 2007 at 3:41 am
So, I’m back from Niagara Falls. The interview went quite well. I was surprised at the response to my PowerPoint entitled “Who is Leopold Pfefferberg?” It just would have been nice to know that an 11AM interview would end at 3PM. I didn’t arrive home until 2:45 in the morning (thank you Michigan-based customs agents). It took 15 seconds to enter Canada and 52 minutes to re-enter the US. I did not, alas, throw shit-filled water balloons (shit balloons?) at Lynn Johnston’s studio. Too far north. I’ll have to arrange another drive through Ontario for that. However, I did eat at a Tim Horton’s.
I notice that the Washington Post website has omitted the link to FOOB. Could the gods have finally shown the Post enlightenment and they banish Johnston to hell?
June 28th, 2007 at 4:17 am
Welcome home, Dingo. Sending you positive vibes for the job, if it’s one that you want.
51 Old Bean, Shannon On the Mic was the best laugh I’ve had in days. Thanks!
June 28th, 2007 at 4:19 am
In today’s RMMD, we have everyone driving up from San Francisco to the vineyard – I’m guessing Napa County.
So what dungeon do the coloring robots live in that they don’t know the color of the Golden Gate Bridge?
June 28th, 2007 at 4:35 am
No matter how bad your life is, the comics are here to make you feel better…
Curtis
Doonesbury
What? you thought CANCER was the worst thing you have to face??? HA HA HA HA
June 28th, 2007 at 4:48 am
oops…almost forgot…
The foobaclypse has been pre-empted…surely no universe can survive this collision of infinite levels of blandness (where’s Margo when we need her…I mean…none of them even have a goatee!)
Huh?
June 28th, 2007 at 5:06 am
Can today’s FOOB be worse than yesterday’s? Surprisingly, yes. Look, Lynn, as long as you keep demeaning the human race with this storyline, I’m going to have to keep churning these out:
Happily ever after
June 28th, 2007 at 5:24 am
ATTENTION EARTHERS! REJOICE! CHENNUX SPEAKS!
HAVING HEARD EARTHER SCREAMS OF PAIN, CHENNUX IN HIS MAGMANOCITY HAS DISABLED THE FOOB LINK ON THE CHRON PAGE! YOUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE IS OVER!
AND THE ONE CALLED #280 SKULKING! YOU ARE IMPERIALLY WELCOME! WHAT GOOD IS A MAGMACANNON IF YOU DON’T USE IT OCCASIONALLY? HAHA!
END TRANSMISSION!
June 28th, 2007 at 5:34 am
291: Old Bean
Thank you, thank you, thank you, OMG!!!!!!…thank you.
I’m a collector of rare “Humps-abilia” and I feel like I’ve just molested the Queen Mother.
June 28th, 2007 at 5:39 am
291- Bean, That was the funniest thing I have seen in weeks. That is why I come to this site. Honestly, my abs hurt. Cheers.
Josh, you have COTW, you need to have LOTW (Link of the Week). You need to give that some special props.
June 28th, 2007 at 5:39 am
9CL : Now, I’m of two minds here. It’s a good thing on a general principle to keep it professional in a classroom environment. That being said, it seems somewhat cold to insist on this because of her horrified reaction to a student’s attempt to get friendly. I hope for her sake she’s been there long enough to be immune to student evaluation day.
FW : Now this is how to handle a life-altering event: realisitic people reacting normally to an inevitable catastrophe. Take notes, Lynn Johnston. Right now, Batiuk is better than you are.
Crankshaft : He’s still better than you are ’cause this is how parents are supposed to react to their adult children who wanna freeload off’em.
Curtis: Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!!! Maybe he should kick some puppies and set some kittens on fire on his way to his date.
Foob : You can see where this leads, can’t you? April will realize that she doesn’t have it so bad and apologize to her parents for being upset about the Housening.
June 28th, 2007 at 5:42 am
Zippy unsettling? Zippy is calming in its predictability. Zippy will talk to crap by the side of the road, Griffy will act as a mouthpiece for the writer’s frustration at being unable to get Hollywood to give him a movie deal, and most recently, there will be pale, watery political content. None of that is at all unsettling; it’s dull.
June 28th, 2007 at 6:03 am
Old Bean, love the newest addition too. What font are you using?
June 28th, 2007 at 6:06 am
MW: I think the young Dr. Cory is mistaking the so-called “playful flirtation” coming from the moody rich girl. She probably has a gun in her purse, ready to plug him at a moment’s notice.
Also of note: her vacant doll eyes in the last panel, and the fact that she looks exactly like a younger Mary in panel one. Like father, like son?
A3-G: It’s like one guy ran into different versions of himself from alternate timelines. Now he’s a cowboy! Now he’s a doctor! All they need is a cop and an Indian and they’re set for a Village People tribute band.
JP: Judge Parker has spent years building up to the ominous and largely random attack of ravenous seagulls that kills all the main characters. This is the beginning of the end.
Baldo: When Baldo’s tubby friend has a heart attack, the only bicycle Baldo will be riding is to his funeral. Eat safe, kids.
FBoFW: …Sigh. If only Shannon could adopt Olive Oyl’s attitude from the Popeye strip…
June 28th, 2007 at 6:08 am
Also, in Popeye, Olive Oyl is actually pulling a double fake-out on the gang. The gun is full of poison, and Olive will expire shortly.
June 28th, 2007 at 6:26 am
#298 Tats, re MW: I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed Vera’s overwrought eyes in the final panel. Were they trying to make her look “glamorous”? “Workin’ for the last 48 hours straight” comes closer to the mark.
And speaking of Mark (Trail, that is…), has anyone, anywhere, ever said “I can almost taste the money”?!!? I’m so ready for Mark to find the damned eyehook so he can come on down and de-sideburns that smarmy commissioner with a deftly-placed punch. The other dude’d better stop shaving if he wants his share of the action.
June 28th, 2007 at 6:36 am
FOOB: So, Ms Johnston… regular, or menthol?
June 28th, 2007 at 6:39 am
I run a machine with dual 1.8 GHz processors. It is fast enough to digest 120 meg layered PhotoShop files without a burp. If this machine were a person, it would be Marion Jones on meth. Yet even it was not fast enough to avoid the Mr. Creosote-styled unparceled ejectae that escaped my mouth as I gazed on this morning’s (THTI)FOOB!
June 28th, 2007 at 6:45 am
Aw, GEEZ, and then I read Mary Worth! HHHRRRRRGGGHH!
June 28th, 2007 at 6:45 am
FOOB: I think I speak for everyone else here when I say, “RRAARRRRRGH. The pain! The pain!”
June 28th, 2007 at 6:45 am
WOW!!! I didn’t expect this from A3G. Not even Gene Roddenberry dared to put 3 Kirks in the same scene (though some say he planned to…(more information about Star Trek can be found on the internet))
Bland*3
Alan’s “Huh?” of course, will only be the beginning.
Blaze responds “Pardner, what d’ya mean by ‘Huh?’”
The bland doctor (do we even know his name?) replies “It’s not good”
“Wha?”
“No, it might be a long recovery”
“Dang!”
“That’s a nice ascot, Blaze”
“I was just thinking that too…brings out your eyes.”
“You know, you’ve got beautiful eyes, doctor….if you’d just take off them damn fool glasses!”
June 28th, 2007 at 6:50 am
Funky ‘Bean: Ah, he’s chosen the “things could always be worse” method of dealing with a shitty life. “Yeah, I have cancer, but at least my asshole husband is still around.” Figures it would take an abusive man to make Les seem like a catch.
Also, Little Known Fact: All women become Lisa when you shave their heads. That’s why Lisa looked so familiar. I remembered her from the “Nothing Compares 2 U” video.
June 28th, 2007 at 6:52 am
FOOB: patronizing the handicapped since 1998.
June 28th, 2007 at 6:58 am
9CL: Passive-aggressive, aren’t we, Julii?
June 28th, 2007 at 6:59 am
MW, Drew, no seriously, she will kill you…
June 28th, 2007 at 7:01 am
In today’s Mary Worth, read Dr. Cory’s lines in the voice of Phil Hartman doing Troy McClure from the Simpsons:
“The name’s Drew Cory! Dr. Drew Cory! And what might yours be?”
June 28th, 2007 at 7:11 am
MW: If I have to read any more of this painful dialogue I’m going to force Vera to tell me her name and hand her a knife.
June 28th, 2007 at 7:12 am
Good Lord! just saw the horror that is today’s FOOB.
I think I shall have to respond by repeatedly intoning the completely natural words of the bob-haired girl in panel 4…
“Yeah. We really needed to hear that.”
In fact, I think I will repeat that phrase incessantly, in response to any question or statement. That couldn’t be annoying, could it?
Ow, it hurts, it hurts.
June 28th, 2007 at 7:20 am
#257 Vince M. -
I remember those commercials. “A bowl a day keeps the bullies away!”
June 28th, 2007 at 7:29 am
Simply calling FOOB a train wreck doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s a runaway train hurtling down a mountain grade, carrying 10,000 tons of nuclear waste, and is about to derail and crash into an orphanage.
When I think about how good FBOFW used to be, and what it has become today, I am saddened and disgusted.
June 28th, 2007 at 7:38 am
# 302 & 303 – That made my morning. Thanks, man!
A3G – “I just wasn’t sure you actually existed.” I’ll bet Alan hears that a lot.
Foob – (See Willethompson at # 302.)
MT – Elrod tried to save a few bucks by scrimping on ink again today, only to spend even more on another talking goose. When will he ever learn?
Taste the money?! Eew.
MW – Vera? I swear I thought that was Mary in the first panel. Eew. Again.
RMMD – Heather’s going over to the Dark Side! Hooray! (Or else she’s turning into Freddie Mercury. Oh well, same thing.)
FW – Oh, crap. This one made me feel kinda warm inside. To clarify, I was referring to the burning that accompanied the vomit slowly creeping up my into my throat. So, yeah. Warm inside.
Popeye – What a let-down.
JP – Ubiquigulls and talking bridges. Everyone’s getting in on Elrod’s act these days.
Retail – Cooper’s gonna work in the shoe department! He’s turning into me!
June 28th, 2007 at 7:43 am
It is a wonderful part of my day when I get to read Josh making fun of lame comics, and so I am sad that I have to always skip the mark trail material. It is because josh is SO BITTERLY UNFAIR TO THE BEST COMIC ON EARTH. No actually it is because I can’t read the goddamn scan of the strip. The lettering is just ARGH MY EYES. Part is the smallness, and part is because the block lettering looks like it is from the request form for LET ME OUT OF THE ASYLUM. I mean: crazy person’s careful lettering. Trying to make out what it says hurts me in my head on two different parts of my head. I don’t like that.
June 28th, 2007 at 7:52 am
“I could tell you my name, but then I would have to kill you.”
Ok, Vera, you could tell DR Drew your back story and he will go kill himself.
No manslaughter charges that way.
June 28th, 2007 at 7:57 am
Here is what Lisa is thinking today, “HA HA I may have terminal cancer too, but my man is sticking by me. HA HA!”
June 28th, 2007 at 8:11 am
I notice that the Foobsite has an Elly’s Coffee Talk or some such thing, for commentary.
It’s time for some True Fableisms over there, but I need to compose my comments carefully. Don’t want to be an asshat but I don’t want to give her the impression that she’s All That either. Unless “All That” means living in a peculiar world of her own that stinks to high heaven.
Hmm….. later, gators.
June 28th, 2007 at 8:13 am
Yes Shan . . . non thank you we really needed to hear that. Thank you for that one hour speech that would take a normal person two minutes to give.
Since you are so great at telling everyone what they need to hear, The Cannuck Gazette will be replacing their “Ask Therese.” column with “Ask Shannon.”
The ROI will be incredible for the paper since they’d only have to pay you her in fruit pies and string.
June 28th, 2007 at 8:18 am
#316: I feel the same way about Gil Thorp; I regularly avoid reading it because I can’t mentally process the lettering. I also avoid read it because Gil Thorp sucks.
Don’tcha just wanna smack that benevolent condescending look off April’s face at the end of FOOB? I bet Lynn looked down at the finished strip with that same smug sense of self-satisfaction, right before she put out her cigarette on a mentally-challenged person’s forehead.
June 28th, 2007 at 8:22 am
A3G – Someone needs a head-bobble lesson.
FBoFW – Thank you Lynn – I really needed to hear (well, read) that, too.
MT – And remember Buzzard, the last thing you should do is use a Canada Goose to broadcast our plan to the Foshay Building in downtown Minneapolis.
MW – Dr. Drew Cory as in, “I’m a doctor and I’m rich so I expect women to gush over me, and especially to PUT OUT – even though I never fall for it and would never become entrapped by some pea brained bimbo like you – but you’ll PUT OUT, just the same my pretty – you’ll PUT OUT for DOCTOR Drew Cory.”
RMMD – The table turned! I know your game – and your Miss Clairol number.
JP – No it doesn’t.
FC – Dream big, Billy – Dream big. You’ve already got the insufferably annoying part down cold.
June 28th, 2007 at 8:31 am
mawk·ish(môksh)
adj.
1. Excessively and objectionably sentimental.
2. Sickening or insipid in taste.
3. For Better or Worse comic strip
June 28th, 2007 at 8:34 am
I showed my daughter how to set up her own Build-It chron.com page over the weekend because she’s head over heels for Bucky Katt and we don’t get it in the paper. So I let her add whatever she wanted and she included FBoFW. Last night as she was scrolling down she got to “you know what” and paused and said, “This one isn’t funny. I mean, it hasn’t been funny for awhile.” I’m bursting with pride. It’s like the first time you let go of the handlebars and they go peddling off on their own. *sniff*
June 28th, 2007 at 8:43 am
Was there a raid last night, because usually everthing has been picked clean by now. Oh, look, a couple shreds left!
Blondie — I hate to think what that kiss tastes like.
DT — I hope the woman gets it, because no one else does.
MW — Drew, she will have your guts for garters.
June 28th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Wait, was there a panel missing in today’s Mary Worth? You know, the one in the middle where Vera actually says something funny?
June 28th, 2007 at 8:59 am
Snopes.com defines glurge as follows:
From now on, I’m referring to FOOB as “FBOFG“.
June 28th, 2007 at 8:59 am
MW: “I’d tell you but I’d have to kill you.” That is what constitutes humor at Charterstone. That line is so old that Dilbert did a gag mocking people who use threadbare hackneyed cliche responses on that line, and that was a few years ago. I do like the fact that Vera was instantly rude to Dr. Drew Cory and his smooth-as-a-truckload-of-gravel-chunks come-on line.
But hope is on the way! With any luck, Drew will pester Vera to the point of stalking, get ambushed by an intervention gang and die horribly. For that is the Charterstone way.
June 28th, 2007 at 9:01 am
#319 – I too noticed the “Elly’s Coffee Talk” feature on the FOOB site. Nothing happened when I clicked on it, because no one in their right mind would actually sit down to swill on the brackish-with-superiority brew a Pattersaint would serve.
I’d sit down with any one of them for a nice hemlock tea, though.
“No, I insist, Elly, you first!”
June 28th, 2007 at 9:02 am
Popeye: Yikes – what sane comic editor would run this strip? When I saw it on the blog, I was thinking that someone did a very clever parody. This is way beyond Curtis and his murder/suicide balloon friends.
On closer inspection, did anyone else notice that Olive is about to pull the trigger with her thumb?
June 28th, 2007 at 9:04 am
Sorry to those who have bad associations [related note: a grandpa for Spongebob, called Squarebob Spongepants], but I have to mention Poopdeck Pappy. It was he who said the immortal lines, “I hates relatives!” I also remember an old animated Popeye where Olive and Popeye were picknicking and Popeye mutters “Here Olive, you take the cake and I get the bird.” In this same feature, it is clear that Swee’Pea is male; referred to as ‘him’ by everyone. And, lastly -real solid ick here – a look at fashions from the 1910-1920 period shows that the very low, mono-bosom look was indeed popular. Even sprightly young things wore clothes that made it look like their accouterments were down around their hips in large lumps. So, given the virtual antiquity of Olive Oyl, those bulges could indeed be her breasts. Sorry.
June 28th, 2007 at 9:06 am
#325, gh, Loved your comment about your daughter. Someday, something similar may happen to me. I live in Japan (sorry to say it again if you already know it, or remember my saying it before), and my two daughters are 22 and 18. They’re more fans of Japanese comics than American ones, but I read U.S. comics to them the whole time they were growing up—Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbs, Zits, Baby Blues, and my used-to-be-favorite—-For Better or For Worse. We have lots of book collections of all of the above, which I bought whenever we went back to Michigan to visit my folks. My younger daughter (the one who is still at home) reads them frequently.
I soured on FBOFW a year or two ago, but have kept quiet about about my now-loathing for the strip with my daughters because I don’t like to ruin things for other people. I have a fantasy though, that someday, something like what happened to you will happen to me, and I will be able to dump on the strip WITH them.
That’s a weird thing to say, but it’s true.
June 28th, 2007 at 9:07 am
FBoFW: Ew ew ew ew ew. For what it’s worth, I worked for two years at the Library for the Blind in Philadelphia. Few things make the disabled madder than the idea that their “struggle” is an “inspiration” to the temporarily able-bodied.
FW: Not ew, etc, just yuck. Why didn’t Other Cancerlady take her cellphone into the hall? Oh, right. So that Lisa could eavesdrop and be all smug over how terrific Les is.
Candorville: Okay, I’m liking this strip better than I did when the Philadelphia Daily News started carrying it, but can we drop the Adolf Hitler arc? Thank you.
PBS: Nacho! Nacho! Nacho!
RMMD: Let poor Hugh Avery just pass out already. Could it be that he has a medical condition, and Rex will actually have to practice medicine?
Cathy: two days in a row, and I’ve just gone past this strip without reading it. I’m cured!
Sally Forth: yeah, I get it, people lose focus in the summer. Could we have an actual joke sometime soon?
FC: That crappy joke required dividing the circle in half? Insert “Let the circle be unbroken” joke here.
Curtis: Poor Chutney.
Pickles. Okay, I kind of like today’s.
June 28th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Didn’t King Features fire the then-cartoonist of Popeye (Bobby London) a few years ago for doing a story that alluded to abortion? I’m surprised that they would let the current cartoonist (whoever he is, I can’t read the signature) have one of the main characters threaten to commit suicide and point a gun at her own head while treating the situation as a big joke.
June 28th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Amendment to my own #332:
Well, it was #324, not that it makes a lot of difference, since both comments were yours.
June 28th, 2007 at 9:11 am
6/28/07
9CL: And so, his egregiously overlong insecure dancer/unicorn storyline concluded, the 6′8 cartoonist turned to ex-nun dom fantasies.
DT: Every time we see Gretchen, she seems to be five years older than the last time. Clearly these kidnappers are able to suck out human life force, and are not to be trifled with.
(DT)GT: “Sorry son. I did my best, but you still suck. Maybe you could take up an instrument.”
Blondie: “Mmmm, you taste like reconstituted meat.”
Momma: Frances thinks that Iraq is just a Boy Scout jamboree gone wrong? Wonder why he can’t hold a job.
JP: Brought to you in MartTrailVision!
HtH: Didn’t need to know Hagar was taking a dump, thanks.
MW: “No, seriously, it’s not a metaphor. If you keep trying to talk to me, I’ll kill you.”
TDIET: On top of everything, Scaduto gave the wife a name that comes close to reading as “Castrate.” If there’s not trouble in the Purduk home, there will be.
June 28th, 2007 at 9:12 am
Foob: I kind of hate the way that the young characters end sentences with “man”. The Canadian thing to say is “eh?” To dress it up for international syndication, you can merely leave it off. But “man” fell out of style about the time that the hippies stopped putting flowers in their hair. Baby boomer Johnston may not know that, since the last time she talked to a teen ager was during the Prime Ministership of the right honorable Lester B. Pearson. (that was from 1963 to 1968, man)
June 28th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Forgot to mention Zits. I like the idea that Walt is troubled by losing his grill king status to Jeremy. And that Jeremy has apparently been secretly watching Food Network, Top Chef, and Hell’s Kitchen. Sounds like he’s making a kickass meal.
June 28th, 2007 at 9:22 am
my own #332. By the way, I do realize that FBOFW is a Canadian comic, not an American one. (Just in case anyone is feeling picky about it.) I remembered that little fact only AFTER I had typed that comment.
June 28th, 2007 at 9:23 am
#297 Dub Not Dubya – I did a quick google for ‘fbofw font’ and came across this fairly decent foobfont.
Which allows you to vent your frustration like this…
The continuing adventures of Shannon – part 7
June 28th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Great movies as retold by Lynn Johnston:
“Norma Rae” — Oppressed factory work Norma Rae, tired of it all at last, leaps atop her workbench holding up a hand-scrawled sign. “Union! Union! Union!” she cries. Across the factory floor, her boss’ face flushes. With armed guards by his side, he marches up to her. The workers’ shouts die down. The boss speaks.
“When y’all put it that way, it makes a lot o’ sense,” the boss says, his wrinkled face cracking into a smile. “Let’s HAVE us a union!”
“Braveheart” — Faces painted, lungs bursting, the Scots scream their battle cries across the windswept field, toward their hated English enemy. William Wallace addresses his men, calling on them to fight for the honor of their country, their families, their honor. The war cries burst forth anew … only to be smothered into silence as the men take note of a single rider, a white flag clutched in his mailed fist, riding toward them from the opposing forces. The knight pulls his steed to a halt directly in front of Wallace.
“Cheerio,” he says. “That speech of yours — carried quite across the field.”
Wallace stubs a toe in the dirt. “Gosh,” he says. “Did I interrupt your preparations?”
“No, no,” the knight answers. “Quite the contrary. We found it inspiring. Didn’t know you chaps felt so strongly about all this. We’ll just be packing up and heading home now, leave you fellows to get back to running your own country, what?”
“All the President’s Men” — Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein, tense and jagged from long days of overtime and bad coffee, are called into Ben Bradlee’s office. They look concerned, and why not? Their stories have brought a minor break-in at the Watergate to the door of the Oval Office, but they’ve been building on a string of inferences and anonymous sources. Bradlee, white-haired, rises like a Biblical prophet as they enter. “The White House called,” he drawls.
“Nixon read your last story and resigned this morning. Haldeman, Erlichman, the whole bunch of them. Liddy’s accepted a plea bargain. They all said your story made them realize the error of their ways. Good job, guys. Now, there’s this dog show in Silver Springs — we’ll need a good 10-inch feature.”
Looking like stunned haddock, Woodward and Bernstein turn toward the door. Bradlee lets them get one step into the newsroom before his bark pulls their faces back to his smiling visage.
“And, Woodstein,” the editor says, “if you quote a dog, use his damn name.”
June 28th, 2007 at 9:28 am
FOOB – thank god I hadn’t eaten anything before I read that strip. Still vomiting up blood can’t be a good thing can it?
FW: While it’s nice that Lisa’s husband is hanging around, the foreknowledge that Lisa is worm bait does undercut the scene a bit. (did i mention I hate this strip?)
June 28th, 2007 at 9:35 am
#341 fuzzmaster. BRILLIANT!
June 28th, 2007 at 9:44 am
MW: Yes! Kill, Vera! Kill, kill, kill!
June 28th, 2007 at 9:52 am
I’d love to make snary comments, but I don’t have time to read all 300+ to see if they’re already there, so I’ll just seethe quietly.
*Seething*
June 28th, 2007 at 9:53 am
#337, Hogen, also the way she uses “whoa” as the only exclamation Johnston knows.
And who says of herself that something took guts? Way to t..o..o..t your own horn, Shannon!
June 28th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Crap, #346 was me.
Fuzzmaster, excellent!
June 28th, 2007 at 9:56 am
#341 fuzzmaster-BWAHAHA!…Marvelous snark!
June 28th, 2007 at 9:57 am
Bean, that was awesome!
MW: So, for this so-called ladies’ man Drew, saying “I could tell you but I’d have to kill you” after someone introduces themselves is both funny and intriguing (a challenge)? He has the same perception of lame-ass women as his stupid old man!! And Vera’s wearing pink today. I wonder if that signifies she’s ready for love? And since Drew is a doctor, and Vera hates working, she just may be ON THAT!
June 28th, 2007 at 10:00 am
MW – Now we know why Mary always refers to her erstwhile love interested as Dr. Jeff Cory, instead of just Jeff. It’s a FAMILY trait. Aha!
FW – For a minute, I thought Lisa was cloned right there in the waiting room. What idiot walks out on his significant other during battle with cancer – other than Newt Gingrich, of course…
June 28th, 2007 at 10:03 am
#332 CrabbyGenes –
I’m like Ted Forth in that my daughter has no idea what I do all day (this). Doesn’t even know CC exists, yet somehow through osmosis she’s put away her Garfield and picked up Pearls Before Swine and Get Fuzzy. She’s a big manga/anime fan and actually mentioned in passing a few months ago she was considering doing a SailorMoon/Bucky Katt parody. “Hmmm, that sounds interesting†was my barely controlled response. Like you say, don’t PRESSURE them. You can only hope they grow up with the right values and an acerbic wit.
#340 Old Bean –
Just keep ‘em coming! I can’t get up off the floor, but I can still reach the keyboard.
#341 fuzzmaster
Bravo! Encore!
FC –
Here’s what happens. I read it, then come here and someone comments on it and I can’t remember anything and have to go back and read it again. Then someone [in this case #333 Gulielma] mentions it again, and again can’t remember it. I’m not going back this time. It’s been like that for years.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:08 am
I called 555-428-1617
You should call it to.
Two things,
have your credit card ready.
and
be prepared to get your world rocked…..and rolled….no matter what your desire is, they cover it……
June 28th, 2007 at 10:09 am
FOOB: All you literary-minded curmudgeons will recall I am sure that famous scene from Alice in Wonderland at the Mad Tea party! The dormouse says, TREACLE.
FOOB has become a treacle well.
Gaaach.
Also, look at today’s last panel. If we assume that April is of normal height, say five feet four? Then Shannon is about four feet four. Nothing wrong with that, of course, except that she is also about four feet four wide. That table should have collapsed under her.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:10 am
Looks like this week’s mini-theme is for characters to emphasize their credentials: “That’s Doctor Rex Morgasm to you;” “The name’s Bond.Dr. Drew Bond;” and “You will call me Dr. Burber or I will flash-freeze you with a single glare.”
Could someone in the comics please say, “I have a Master’s degree…in Science!”
Non Compost Mentos, PhD
June 28th, 2007 at 10:17 am
A3G – My head would be bobbling too. Is carbon monoxide poisoning infectious, or is the doctor just an idiot?
Curtis – Preteen love triangles. I thought that was Japan’s turf.
FC – Somebody call this number.
FOOB – First off, it irritates me to no end that the Chron has apparently dropped FOOB. At least GoComics still carries it, or I’d have to *shudder* go to the Foobsite to mock it. Anyway, if there’s one outcome that absolutely would never happen in this situation, this is it. It’s hard enough to get people to admit they’re wrong when they’re not arrogant, bullying junior-high bastards. Things to watch for: “Telethon!” guy’s new catchphrase, “Guts!,” Shannon’s sha-King! (read it not as “shaking” drawn out, but as a sound effect,) the Canadian Marge Simpson, and April’s increasingly ridiculous hairdo.
FW – Because there wasn’t enough misery in the strip already.
HTH – Um…call me crazy, but I don’t think the Vikings had kings.
JP – Uh-oh, the county comissioner wants to build a new bridge instead of improving the existing one.
MT – Addressing a character named “Buzzard” is doubly funny when it appears to be a goose doing the talking. He can “taste the money;” I guess being corrupt and powerful leads to unusual dietary habits.
MW – I’m really liking Vera right about now, just for that response. However, Drew seems to be thinking along Aldo lines; look for a cliff in his near future.
OBH – The new “I know where Mom hides the good scissors.”
RMMD – Was that what was going on? I lost track.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Blondie: Easy there Dagwood! My otherwise very healthy father is at this very moment laying on an operating room table at the Lahey Clinic undergoing heart bypass surgery. He runs five miles every day, eats relatively well, his only indulgence (a very common one here in New England): ice cream. Someone needs to tell them: one does not “go on a diet” one changes their diet.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:24 am
April: “Wow Shanon, after that speach I can already taste the telethon!
Drew: “Wow Vera, when you stare at me like that I can aleady taste you killing me!”
Blondie: “Wow honey, when you kiss me like that I can taste what you had for lunch!”
June 28th, 2007 at 10:25 am
MW: I love, love, love Vera’s homicidally-tinged response to Dr. Drew’s inquiry. But wouldn’t her response better suited to an intensly personal question, like “Hi Vera, how’d that Pap smear work out for ya?”
June 28th, 2007 at 10:26 am
#338 – Gordon Ramsay is certifiably crazy…I love Hell’s Kitchen!
You’ve gotta be a special breed to be a cook or chef. I’ve worked in restaurants and oh, the fun!
(It can be exhilirating when everything is going smoothly and you’re on a roll-the alignment of the stars has to be just right, though.)
MW – even though Vera is throwing verbal barbs at someone she doesn’t even know, it is clear from her expression that she didn’t take her antidepressants, or actually did take a biggggg hit from that communal pool party bong.
Welcome to the Nightmare, Ver.
RM – little bubbles above Hugh’s head – nice touch! He should be looking like Nick Nolte in about five strips, or maybe less.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:29 am
How about – Don’t you think by some meaningless sex with me, you might get some closure on your incestuous feelings for Von?
June 28th, 2007 at 10:31 am
And, I don’t who is more disgusting – Dagwood or Jughead. Ugh.
FW – incredible. If my partner was ill I would NEVER ever leave her. Jesu Xavier Christo.
As you know I just gave my heart and soul to caring for a sick cat with the Big C – I don’t know how someone could leave a terminally ill human being in need.
I’m not mad at Batuik – just a little shell-shocked by reading Funker, as is almost usual.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Maybe (Doctor) Drew will fit in in at Charterstone after all, given his pompous arrogance. I don’t really understand Vera’s joke. Why would she need to kill him if she gave Drew her name and why is that funny? She probably shouldn’t quit her clerk typist job just yet to pursue a career in stand up comedy. Can you imagine her at her first (and last) gig at the Improv – “Hi, audience. I’d tell you who I am but then I’d have to kill you”….silence and blank stares followed by loud bronx cheers.
I’m not sure Shan..non is necessarily a great public speaker either, despite the standing ovation at Foob High. Outside Foobian LaLaLand, she would have been booed, jeered, ridiculed and hopefully shoved off the table forcibly. Why does her Diane Rehm-like speech impediment qualify her to attend Special Ed? I thought she was Downs Syndrome or something until her lunch table explanation of her cleft palette “condition”.
Old Buzzard is quite the mercenary and has quite the taste for money but is not often confused with a criminal genius. mmm…sauteed dollar bills…nummy! I can taste them now!
June 28th, 2007 at 10:33 am
#356 – my best wishes and prayers for your Dad.
My thoughts are with you too.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:35 am
For the sake of my blood pressure, I am reclassifying FOOB from “bile-inducing” to “deliciously bizarre”. Since this strip has lost all contact with any sort of known reality, it’s all I can do.
I still want to smack Dr. Burber very hard.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:36 am
# 340 – By all means, keep them coming, Old Bean!
June 28th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Oh, and as I celebrate my son’s first birthday today, I give a shout-out to Over the Hedge. Now *this* is parenting reality. (I especially like the “Babies: Some Assembly Required” book).
June 28th, 2007 at 10:40 am
A&J: still gettin’ busy after all these years. ;-)
PBS: the Flying Burrito-croc!
FOOB: epic fail. Even the Chron can’t take it any more.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:40 am
After having dealt with a child with a cleft palate, I am highly offended by FBOFW.
My child never had to enter a special education program just had to attend speech therapy classes once a week.
When she hit high school, if no one told you she had a problem, you would never would have guessed.
Honor roll.
Honors Classes.
Friends.
LJ needs to go to at least Wikipedia before she does an arc. Or send a member of her crack staff to do research. Oops, they are too busy getting the blink-o-matic working and writing bogus back story “letters of the month.”
June 28th, 2007 at 10:41 am
356 – Best to your dad.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:42 am
I have an e-mail in my Inbox from Aldo and the subject line is “extending home loans for americans.†I’m pretty sure it’s spam but I’m . . . I’m afraid to open it or delete it. Does anyone remember if he worked in the financial sector?
June 28th, 2007 at 10:42 am
#352 –
867-5309…
867-5309…
June 28th, 2007 at 10:47 am
#366 – and Happy first Birthday to AAckTTpth Jr!
: D
June 28th, 2007 at 10:51 am
9CL: Is Brooke trying break me? (Those who don’t want to wade through a self-righteous rant about pedogical practice, skip to the * at the bottom) So we sum up the damn unicorn-centric entitlement-for-dummies how-to lesson in the most obvious, see-it-ten-stops-back fashion possible, and then we finally get back to the format we all know and love only to see articulated there precisely the same bourgeouis, elitist, defensive, small-minded, petty, visually static, maddening, priggish, condescending, unjustified, insecure bullsaturn we thought we escaped!
–Professors should be addressed as “professor” unless s/he instructs you otherwise. It is their job, it is their relational function in a classroom. Insisting on “doctor” just reinforces the poisonous idea that education creates qualitative differences between teachers and students, which sabotages the whole idea of education (that you can transfer knowledge through communication/can create an environment in which students can discover their own intellectual worth; that professors are mentors, not gods/unicorns)
–No one who is secure in their standing as an intellectual would ever insist on “doctor” (unless it is medical/psychiatric). The point of academia is that you live and die by your ideas, which live only in the present. The titles you earned with them in the past enable your career, but that’s all they do: if you aren’t conveying the ideas that helped you earn them into a present setting, you aren’t using you education and are not being a professor. Indeed, all you are then is a “doctor,” a state of being, not a useful social actor. So I guess it might be appropriate in this case, as all I can recall about this character is pettiness, defensiveness, and politicking — is her idea of pedagogy just a constant process reaffirming static hierarchies in order to shore up what little status she thinks she’s entitled to? Methinks so, which makes me wanna puke.
*AAAAAARGHHHH.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:52 am
372 – AAckTTpth Jr! Love it, didn’t think of that. Could he also be “Opus”?
June 28th, 2007 at 10:53 am
MW 6/28 LAMEST. HOOK-UP. EVER!!!!
Not that we didn’t all see it coming. But still, that was sooooooooo lame.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:54 am
Regarding what 362 said, I too thought she had downs. Perhaps she does, but she was “told” that she only had a clef palette. Perhaps she doesn’t know how bad off she really is, and her parents gave her the delusion that that was the only thing wrong with her. Who knows, there is a whole sub-plot we haven’t considered in FBOFW.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:00 am
Call 867-5309?
Why would I want a plumber?
June 28th, 2007 at 11:04 am
You know what’s worse than having your computer die, keeping you from your daily fix of snarking dumb comics? Taking the time to pick out a big long post explaining that using your phone’s web browser, then HITTING THE WRONG LINK AND LOSING THE WHOLE MARGOING THING. Anyway, no further posts from me until the computer’s fixed.
And to whoever asked, my kitty Fe is fine after a week on antibiotics.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:05 am
MW: Vera, Master of Comedy (mildly NSFW).
June 28th, 2007 at 11:12 am
#373 SecretMargo-
JulietteDr. Burber is a vet and professor of veternary medicine, so the “Dr.” is somewhat more appropriate than it would be for, say, a chemistry or history professor.She’s still obviously a control-freaky self-important ass, though.
Josh
June 28th, 2007 at 11:14 am
FOOB: …And that’s all that it took to make the world a nice place, where people are never ever mean to each other, ever again. Whew!
(And this just in:)
The Bush Administration today flew Shannon Lake to the Afghan-Pakistan border region where, armed with a loudspeaker, she delivered the following message:
“Attention, Al…Qaeda!…Dick Cheney…and Hal…li…burton…have a lot to offer!…Get to…know us…Please!…E — nough…is…e — nough!”
Bin Ladin, emerging from hiding and throwing down his weapons: “WOO HOO! Yesss!! That was the best speech ever!!“
June 28th, 2007 at 11:15 am
CC uncovers yet another genius: Old Bean! How did you decode and reproduce the Foob Font? (Try saying that 3 x fast – “foob font, food pont, du pont.”
June 28th, 2007 at 11:19 am
#373 – Well, I had to look at the train wreck that is 9CL. While I had a few professors who insisted on “Doctor” when being addressed, none of them were good professors. They were invariably the insecure types who cultivated a small group of suck-up students to make themselves feel better. One even showed up to the first day of classes in his official gown and department colors, and gave a long speech about how he spent a lot of time and money to prove he was better than we were so we’d better not question him. So, yeah, professors sometimes act that way, but they shouldn’t, as everyone who is sane knows.
And a professor insulting a student with bitchy, gossipy rumors about how no one likes them and that they’re called names behind their back? That’s beyond unprofessional. I assume exaggeration is for humorous effect, but I don’t know who would find that kind of thing funny. Ha ha, a girl who is ostensibly spending tens of thousands of dollars on an education has just been harassed by a professor who got butthurt for no reason! That’s comedy!
#368 Anon – Yesterday someone said that Shannon is supposed to have multiple health and mental concerns. I think (hope) they’re right because someone with a cleft palate isn’t the same as someone with mental retardation. I hope LJ knows that.
#362 Calico – You’d be surprised how some people react to terminal illness. Abandonment happens with more frequency than you’d imagine. That said, this strip comes off as a “I’m so glad my husband isn’t running away from me” gloat more than anything, and I can’t imagine how people who have dealt with this issue are going to react.
Let’s just say that I don’t think Batiuk is doing any cancer survivors or victims any favors with this stupid strip. He’s not raising awareness as much as he’s venting about how life isn’t fair. To him I say get a freakin’ helmet and stop trying to make everyone else cry along with you.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:27 am
340 Bean, even with explanation on the foob font, its still impressive work. bravo to you sir/madam/undecided.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:30 am
When I went to college, we called all the professors “Doctor” by default, which made things a little embarassing for those professors who didn’t have Ph.D.s. The exeptions were the Jesuits – they were all “Father so-and-so”, even the one who had seven different doctoral degrees. And the one nun,- who taught a course called “Introduction to Computers” back in 1985 when such a thing could still exist outside of grade school, was “Sister so-and-so”.
Okay, these Popeye images are profoundly disturbing. But, hey, Popeye’s never shied away from controversy. Remember the “some evesdropping busybody thinks Olive Oyl wants to get an abortion” storyline from 15 or 20 years ago? (It made the news.) And just two storylines ago we saw Olive Oyl lead an ethnic cleansing pogrom against the Jeeps.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Arrrgh. All those typos make me wonder how I made it through college.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:33 am
#379 – Holy Crap!!! That site is incredible. I’m not going to be able to work any more the rest of the day. I’m spending the rest of the afternoon playing the GT Nightmare Game
June 28th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Re Today’s Funk–
I may be the only one who read it this way (clearly the only one here, anyway), but I thought Lisa was just feeling grateful that she has a good, in sickness and in health, kind of guy. It should be a given, but it isn’t.
However, Batuik loses any appreciation ever to be awarded by choosing to employ the Cancer Birth Mother Cancer Searching Adopted Child Cancer Death Cancer arc. Absolute bad soap opera crap, except that in the soap opera Lisa would get to live and be part of the following Heart Disease Birth Father Heart Disease Searching Adopted Child Heart Disease arc.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:42 am
380: Well, that does change things a bit, though I stand by it in principle, if not in letter (and what’s so wrong with professor, even in this context? Why is the choice between “doctor” or “first name”? But I concede that “doctor” is probably the norm, not “professor”). If a professor/doctor actually commands respect, though, it matters little the form of address. In my experience, it is actually students who wig out when I say that it is fine to call me by my first name; they seem to want the formal separation to assure them that their education is coming from an expert. The professors of my past/present that I respect are usually the ones who encourage first-name address. This just seems like more spleen from Mssr. McEldowney re: r-e-s-p-e-c-t, with a “dollop” of feminist straw-manning (they don’t respect her because she’s a woman, yadda). I’m so tired of the ressentiment, 9CL; can’t we get back to the whimsy? I promise to respect you in the morning.
I also agree with A.A. @#383, yesterday’s strip was really appalling, and if it was reported, would have probably resulted in a conduct review, at least where I teach. Bleccch.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Funky Winkerbean should only be printed along with a Surgeon General’s admonition.
Warning: Reading this comic has been known to cause depression and suicide in laboratory mice and critical thinkers.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:47 am
So have the papers finally given up on FOOB as well? I heartily hope so. I really hope this “look at the retards, lets exploit ‘em!” storyline earns Johnston some serious backlash. I don’t know what she’s trying to do with this story but she’s butchering it, just like every other story line. Okay, enough of her and her crap.
MT – “I can already taste the money…” Gross. Dude, do you have any idea how germy money can be? I wasn’t totally put off by these guys before, but that crossed the line. Also, love the comment from the goose today. I seriously thing Elrod does it on purpose.
MW – Oh the white hot tepidity. And look, they share a love for thought balloons! These two will be bitterly and unhappily married before Liz and Anthony. Vegas bookies are already placing odds.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:51 am
Thanks to PBS, I have the urge to put on a Luchidor mask and rub myself up on living room windows and recite Taco Bell menu items.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Here we sit, not really wanting to snark too hard and have it lost at the end of a 400+ thread.
We sit here and wait while Josh
diagnoses cat problems so we don’t have toreads the comics so we don’t have to.June 28th, 2007 at 11:58 am
FOOB: I think tomorrow’s strip is going to show Shannon lying on the ground with a milk-carton-shaped dent in her forehead as St. Apwil says “I think she’s coming to.”
Shannon sits up and says “what…hap…pen…ed?”
Apwil says “You started to get up on the table, but the ‘HOO’ guy threw his milk carton at you, you slipped on a piece of back bacon and hit the floor and passed out. What were you DOING?”
Shannon replies “It…was…all…a…DREAM?” and flops back on the floor.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
394 mmmmm. back bacon.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
No time today. I just hit the high spots. I apologize if I have neglected anyone’s excellent rant. Just want to give credit:
280 Skulking: Excellent rant! I concur wholeheartedly!
Dingo: congrats on the interview going well, and I hope you get the job!
291 Old Bean: Excellent, excellent, excellent…. ALMOST an antidote!
325 gh: lovely story!
373 Secret Margo: Excellent rant. My dad was a PhD, Professor of geology and paleontology, and he HATED it when people called him Dr. He said he was always afraid someone would ask him to set a bone.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Looking at today’s A3G, I think the writers should consider a spin-off where these three fellas share an apartment together…maybe in the same building with margo, tommie, and lu ann. “Apartment 3L” might be an appropriate title. Or maybe “Apartment L7.” Throw in a whacky building super and…gold, I tell ya.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
AAckTTpth #364
I want to smack Dr. Burber very hard too. But I think you mean something different by that than I do.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
FOOB: I guess in tomorrow’s strip the boys will carry Shannon around the lunchroom on their shoulders while everybody cheers, and then some of the tougher guys will turn on Jeremy and beat him to a pulp and stuff him in the dumpster out back and then dump some leftover macaroni and cheese on his head.
Michael will interview Shannon for the local paper and the story will appear in the Christmas issue (she does speak slowly, so it’ll take a little time to record her answers to his questions). Such as, “How did your cleft palate interfere with your ability to learn how to boil an egg?” And, “Why is your school wasting tax money teaching normal 15-year old students how to boil eggs?” And, “When Jeremy Jones was bothering you, why didn’t you stab him with your fork?”
Right.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
#356 Forthillrox – best to your dad and to you. my dad went through that a few years back, and i think he’s probably healthier now than he has been for years. though at one stage he could’ve given dagwood a run in the dodgy and excessive eating stakes – gracing him for a while with a figure not unlike that of a giant chook with a beard – by the time he joined the zipper club, he was being reasonably health conscious. his doctors reckon it was 25-odd years of passive smoking while he worked in pubs that did most of the damage.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Please forgive my oversnarking, but I just don’t have time to read everything. Props to whoever got there first.
JP: I’m impressed with the ginormous seagulls that have evidently escaped from MT, especially the one that looks like a pterodactyl as it lands on the bridge. Overall, this strip is getting more and more surrealistic, what with Sam growing younger every day. I also wonder if “being in the wine business” is Sam and Abbey’s shorthand for “cleaning our garage.”
MW: I hoped against hope that all the predictions were wrong, and that young Dr. Cory would meet someone else at the pool party, someone new, someone interesting, someone good looking and desirable, someone not Vera. Please don’t tell me that limp-haired, limp-wristed, limp-minded Vera is going to be the focus of the story for the next six months.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
350. Allie Cat, you asked what asshole walks out on a cancer patient? It honest-to-god happened to a former neighbor of ours. She was diagnosed with breast cancer, and her husband immediately started planning for her funeral…well, he just divorced her and took up with someone else.
(She’s still hanging in there, years afterward.)
Seeing this replayed in FW was not particularly funny to me.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
A couple of the lesser lights are burning brightly today.
Ripley’s Believe It Or Not has an image mashup worthy of MT http://www.comics.com/comics/ripleys/index.html, and Spot the Frog takes a jab at Foobery http://www.comics.com/comics/spotthefrog/index.html
June 28th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
#340: Just back from the haberdasher’s — and now i can properly give you the doffed-hat tribute you so richly deserve, Old Bean.
#341 — Will i never get the opportunity to wear my new hat? Well-played, fuzzmaster.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
So…what exactly is the deal with the Chron page? Do we know whether they’ve dropped it, or what? If they actually dropped it I’d expect they’d remove the FOOB text as well as the link, so are they just not running today’s in protest for its idiocy?
June 28th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Gil Thorp baseball games last only seven innings. Do they also have 3 fingers on their hands?
June 28th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
#401 Divine O’F – sorry, it’s going to be twelve months, ’cause it has to be interspersed with the story of the craaaazily coincidental pairing off of Von the other young Dr Cory, whatever her name is … Drewette, Dawn, probably somehting like that (not willing to risk my health by delving deep into the MW archives just for her name)
June 28th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
(Thought of this before reading #381 -rich- but I’m posting it anyway)
Lynn Johnston writes reality:
Shannon speaks to the UN and a session of the US Congress. These are the responses:
Osama bin-Laden: “Praise Allah, I’ve finally seen the error of my ways! We of Al Quaida are the real infidels. I will promise a new world in which we can all live in peace and love. Myself and my collegues will now kill ourselves, and ourselves alone, for our quasi-genocidal acts. Come, al-Zwahiri, our pistols await.” (Thankfully, someone stopped Olive Oyl from joining that pistol party in time!)
Dubya: “I see now that we are an administration of bungling idiots. Sorry for screwing up like that. And I proclaim same-sex marriage as oki merloki with me! (What? No, I wasn’t trying to be clever, isn’t that the say— …’okie-dokie’? Oh, okay) …And one more thing: NOO-CLEE-UR!”
Jimmy Carter: …”NOO-CLEE-UR!”
Michael Moore: “Speaking on behalf of the progressive left, let me say that I now see that the Bushies, while I disagree with their views on things, were just trying to do right by the country, albeit incompetantly, and not some evil conspiracy that I spun them into being.”
Ann Coulter: “I can now finally admit: I’m an extremist lunatic who says things that ammount to yelling ‘FIRE’ in a crowded theater. I’ll submit myself to some much-needed councelling, and then I’ll just shut the Margo up!”
Rosie O’Donnell: “9/11 an inside job? What was I thinking?!? I will join Ms. Coulter in therapy.”
Donald Trump: “I’m a self-obsessed, meglomaniac ass! I’ll seek a life of humility from now on.”
Ken Starr: “Thanks to those excellent, perfect speeches, I now see the folly of my anti-Clinton witch hunt. I was, indeed, a conservative with an agenda. I see now that Mr. Clinton’s perjury would’ve been better handled in a court of law after his term of office expired. Even then, being about his personal sex life, I don’t see a very heavy verdict in such a court case, either.”
Rush Limbaugh: “I concur with Mr. Starr, and speaking for the right wing, we shall get over our Clinton phobia in a similar way to Mr. Moore. And megaditto on the ego thing, Donald.”
Bill Clinton: “Well, I am so moved by Rush and Ken’s statements that I will finally renounce cheating on my wife.”
Meanwhile, the entire middle east declared a lasting peace, Iraq vowed stability and democracy, and TV networks admit their shabby treatment of Arrested Development, Andy Richter, Joan of Arcadia, Veronica Mars, and other shows, plus the elimination of most “reality” shows will now be imminent.
Batiuk, Johnston, and McEldowney all admit their self-important twaddle, with the former two vowing to end their strips in one week.
Shannon: “Thank…you… everyone….. I only… wish…. I could….’ve… prevented the light… ning bolts… aimed at …. Josh and… his…. curminions…! After all…. this….is….. Lynn’s….. perfect world… and….a….l….l………”
June 28th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
FW: Isn’t it obvious? Anonymous cancer-woman is clearly Mrs. Newt Gingrich!
(Disclaimer: Real cancer isn’t funny. Comics characters existing solely to demonstrate the nobility of FW’s Les or Lisa aren’t funny either, but are fully deserving of snarkage)
June 28th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
398 – Having been a college instructor, the son of a prof (geology, ironically enough – I’m no geologist, but my father was…), best friends with a newly-minted PhD, etc., etc., etc., only the worst profs wanted to be addressed in formal terms. The entire faculty wanted to smack them for this, as it tended to taint the department atmosphere. *DR.* Juliette Burber seems to represent the worst that post-secondary instruction has to offer (insulting students, insistence on formality, education through intimidation), and needs to be smacked for this.
Proteus, I’m not sure how else she could be smacked (I guess I’m just not “down” with the “lingo” that the “kids” are using “today”), but I am curious. Please elucidate.
396 – (wow – I get to address the Divine O’F. Gosh.) Same with my dad the geologist. Oxford D.Phil, very highly respected professor and scientist, and he was “Roger” to most (except a geologist piano student of my wife’s who called him “*The* Dr. Walker” and I saw my dad blush for the first time in my lifetime – his reaction – “Oh, puh-leese”). His favourite title was “Dr. Prof.” bestowed upon him by a 7-year-old who couldn’t understand the difference between an MD and a PhD.
Dr. Burber – get over yourself.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
380. Josh, I hate to quibble with the Big C (as in Curmudgeon) himself, but Juliet (heh, I said it!), is a biology professor, not a veterinarian. Her former student (the one with the hunky assistant Swen) is a vet, who was inspired by Juliet’s (heh, I said it again!) sadistic teaching methods.
As a pre-vet student, I was taught by a lot of vets and PhD’s, nearly all who were great (both in their fields of expertise and their personalities). They were always “Dr.”, even the ones I found out only had a masters degree (or even a bachelors) — good quality teaching seemed to be the reason for the title, not a piece o’ paper on the wall. I’m pretty sure if I’d had one like Juliet, I would’ve learned something but blown her off as self-important ass.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Old Bean, got to echo everyone else – bang on! smashing show. bonza. keep it coming.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
FOOB: I just threw up in my mouth a little.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
#373 SecretMargo, #385 Harold, #380 Josh et seq., inter alios –
I think a “doctor” is a practitioner and “professor” someone who holds that college or university rank. Some practitioners insist on using their professional title socially, and that’s fine, except when you get into that “Mrs. Dr. Smith” nonsense.
Where I got my degree, the tradition was to call everybody “Mr.” and “Ms.” — Nobel prizewinners included. When the university launched its med school in the mid-’70’s, rafts of courtesy “joint-appointment” M.D.s from the local hospitals started signing up for the Faculty Club. Of course, they always made their reservations as “Dr.” — and of course, the waiters made sure they sat in the back where they wouldn’t embarrass anybody.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
380 Josh: I’m no geologist, but I’m pretty sure that Juliette Burber professes Biology–she’s a PhD, not a DVM. She did call a vet last year when Marcel the bull got barbed wire stuck in his mouth (and sweet Margo on a popsicle stick, am I ever a huge nerd for remembering the damn critter’s name…). The vet was a former student in Burber’s Bio 101 class, and Juliette hesitated to let her treat the bull since, in Bio class, she had considered the girl “a mouth breathing dullard” or something like that. The vet proved more than competent, Juliette seemed almost sorry for misjudging her, and sadly, we haven’t seen the veterinarian since. She was a lot more interesting than unicorns.
I tell my students I prefer to be called by my first name, but if they really can’t handle informality (and some can’t), they can call me Dr. Mentos.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
I didn’t think anything could be quite as downright bizarre as yesterday’s Popeye. But today’s comes pretty damn close. ‘Arf, arf’?!
BC: ‘SMOOF?’
June 28th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
in #406 nsr said
It is the mercy rule. Subjecting the readers to 9 innings would cause permanent damage. Leaving it at 7 means the damage is only temporary.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Blondie: I just threw up in someone else’s mouth a little.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
410 AACK etc.: I always found that my dad’s friends–geologists and paleontologists in general–were among the friendliest, most casual academics around. And the puns… OMG. I think that may have been an occupational hazard.
417 Jim Thorp(e): In softball, the mercy rule ends the game early if the losing team is down by eight or more points at the end of the fifth inning. They recently changed the name to “run-rule,” but I believe everyone still calls it “Mercy.” And speaking of softball…
BALLOT BOX STUFFING ALERT: The U of A softball team and Taryne Mowatt (our pitcher) in particular are up for some nifty ESPN awards that need to be voted on. I’d post a link, but ESPN makes it very difficult to even figure things out, let alone vote. Still, anyone who is motivated will earn my gratitude by going to ESPN online and making the attempt.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
#411 bats :[ Never fails–I jump in with a post correcting another comment, and by the time I’ve finished my correction, somebody else has said the same thing, only better.
(Wonder if TDIET couls handle something as arcane as teh blogging? OH, NOOOOOOO)
June 28th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
#377 – nice!
There was a lawsuit lately, wasn’t there?
Watta waste of $.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Re the ‘Prof’ thing: I’m attending college right now myself (albeit community college), and students usually call the professors the usual formal terms (Professor so-and-so, Ms. So-and-so, Dr. So-and-so) unless they tell us to call them by their first names. With the best teachers, it became our way to show respect. However, for a professor to act like Dr. Burbur (also known as ‘Das Bitch’) and insist upon it in that snobby, let-it-be-written-let-it-be-done way is just assish. This would make students endeavor to call her anything but ‘Dr. Burbur’, even to the point of not referring to her by any name whatsoever (I still vote for ‘whorehound’).
June 28th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Lockhorns: These two are so deadened by their drudgery of a marriage that they can’t even physically feel lava-hot food in their entire digestive system, including their downturned mouths.
FC: “555….. Aw, that’s one of those fake phone numbers!” — Jimmy James on “NewsRadio” (Best meta ever!)
Zits: Jeremy’s usurpting both parents’ gender-stereotyped cooking roles.
S-M: I hope JJJJJ’s guest host is Bob Newhart, just so we can see him soon find out what he’s gotten himself into, and react deer-in-headlights style saying, “Wh-What…?” I miss that.
(DT)GT: Last panel, looks like Clammy’s been reduced to being a giant door-knocker. That’s a shame.
A3G: “Hey… maybe none of us exist!”
“Huh?”
“No, Bland Man #2 is right, Bland Man #3… or am I Bland Man #3?”
“Who cares? We don’t exist anyway!”
“It’s like we’re just… lines on paper…”
“Hey! I… I’m fading away!!”
“Me toooo………….”
(All three fade away. Other characters are seen doing likewise. Cut back to room, now empty. A head sticks into doorway, then whole body. Guess Who?)
Margo (rubbing her hands together and grinning like an evil Chuck Jones character): NOW!… This whole furshlugginer strip belongs to ME… mwah-hahahahahahahahaaaaw!! Only room for the two of us now! The REAL ones!…. Come, Albert….”
June 28th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Good lord, you’re all right. I was thinking that
JulietteHer Ph.D.-bearing Majesty In All That Is Excellent And Biological was a professor of veternary medicine because the farm vet she called out to treat her cow was an ex-student. But of course, if she were a vet, she could have just worked on the cow herself. This just makes it all the worse.You’d think that an experience in which Dr. Ego Pants encountered a student formerly held beneath contempt who turned out to be a competent vet would have compelled her to treat her students with a little more respect. Apparently not.
Josh
June 28th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
350: Of course anyone in that situation would like to do the right thing, but the sad truth is that people with serious, debilitating illnesses can become extremely self-absorbed. “I’m in pain”, “I need the pan again”, “Do you think you could fix me some ice cream? I think I could keep down some ice cream” – Jesus Wept, before you know it you’ve got a full-fledged martyr on your hands. And people with cancer never think about you. Oh no. They don’t care that you’re trying to watch a freaking DIVISIONAL PLAYOFF GAME! They don’t care that you’ve busted your ass loading freight all frigging day and you just want to relax with a couple of beers and maybe a dilaudid or two in front of the television. “What happened to all my meds?” Selfish bastards.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
My cat read Foob this morning and started to stress-purr.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
#425 mere cog –
They get real possessive about their Dilaudid, too — what’s up with that?
June 28th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
# 425 Mere Cog: Which, like pretty much everything, puts me in mind of a headline from The Onion: There’s No “My Kid Has Cancer” in Team
June 28th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Soooo – FOOB, MW, FW, Popeye, 9CL…
To recall a quote from SecretMargo the other day (or was it SSB? sorry if I’m mis-attributing): My eyes! My eyes! The goggles, they do nothing!
June 28th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
They’ll take away my dilaudid when they can pry it from my cold, dead hand!!!
June 28th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Were’s my pan-fried squid, woman?
June 28th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
In the not-so-enormous State University I currently attend, students call professors by their first names. I admit I was shocked, since during my first stint as a student at a truly enormous State University we called them Dr. or Professor. I thought the times they had a-changed, but from today’s comments I guess it’s more of a geography thing.
I like Juliette; I appreciate her attitude. But this week she’s coming off mightly lame.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Dr. Stickupperbutt: “Call me ‘Dr. Burber’.”
Student: “Why”
Dr. Stickupperbutt: “If you know what’s good for you!”
Student body: “JULIETTE! JULIETTE! JULIETTE! JULIETTE! JULIETTE! JULIETTE! JULIETTE! JULIETTE! JULIETTE! JULIETTE! JULIETTE! JULIETTE! JULIETTE! JULIETTE!
BOXCAR!!!”
June 28th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
428: That was S to the S to the B with that one (via The Simpsons, if I remember correctly). An honour to be confused with so illustrious a brick, I gotta say.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
#399 – Something like Spartacus, FOOB-style?
I am Shannon!
I am Shannon!
etc. etc.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
#432: What would Julii do if confronted with a lunchroom of table-standing cleft-palate Special Needs kids calling her Juliette?
June 28th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
436 — She’d say “That’s ‘Mom’ to you, Edda! Show some respect!”
June 28th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
I found the following about Sha-a-nn-on at “R-Date”, you know, like “J-Date”
I l-likke loong talks in the caf-a-a-teria;
Sce-ni-c drives on the sh-short bus;
Mak-ing people feel g-guilty about my dif-diferent ab-ility; and
Help-ing Lynnnn Johnsonnnnnnnnn wriiiite un-un-un-realis-tic dialou-ge
June 28th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
#434 — Calico:
Shouldn’t that be:
“I… am… Spar… ta… cus!”
“No! I …am ….Spart… a….cus!”
Roman Legionaire: Screw it. Crucify them all.
June 28th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Yesterday cats, today college professors. Tomorrow, what? Lawn Bowling?
My friend who teaches at a community college has had a hard time with students wanting to call him, not by his first name, but by his last name. As in “Hey Jones, will this be on the test?” and “”Scuse me Jones, but WTF?” He made it clear to him that you can obly call him by his last name if you are his mother or his PE teacher. Their reply: “Can we call you Jones-Dog?”
As far as smacking, AAckptt, I guess it’s.. well, nsfw.
Sigh. I know everyone (even Josh) can’t stand her, but I find all the female characters in 9CL… attractive. Even, and expecially, when they know what they want and take it. In a comics world of Blondies and Cathies and Lizes I find 9CL females are like solid land in a sea of tedium. Even though they are obviously the product of a self-important male masturbatory fantasy. ‘Cause I’m all about that.
June 28th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
9CL: At my school most students initially opt for Dr. so and so or Professor so and so until invited to do otherwise. 2 of my history professors prefer to be called Dr, and the rest prefer their first names.
None of them, however, have ever insisted on their preferred form of address, and none have threatened students about it.
And, under the heading of YMMV, the two “Dr’s” are among the best teachers in the school. Their preference for formality does not intrude on classroom discussion or pedagogy.
June 28th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
#434 – SecretMargo – Yes, via the Simpsons, which would have made my already tortured syntax even more brutal. McBain! But I do get all you funny guys mixed up and am too lazy to go back and look up who said what – especially if it wasn’t really needed to make my point. But thanks for helping out and ‘fessing up that it wasn’t you!
June 28th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Hey, thanks everyone for the well wishes.. I hope it didn’t sound like I was wearing my heart on my sleeve on this one, I honestly was making the connection between Dagwood and the situation. I kind of forgot that Dagwood is a drawing though :-).
I just got word that he’s out and doing well, still under but well. He’s lucky to live in the same town as and have his primary care doctor at one of the top cardiac care centers in the country.
June 28th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
286 – Niagara Falls!? Slooowly I turned…
June 28th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
I’m back online. Yay! I will snark in the next thread, if there are any scraps not yet picked over. But anyway, some things to respond to in this thread…
mere cog @ 425: COTW nominee!
NotThatGuy @ 426: Also hilarious!
fizzy logic @ 429, SecretMargo @ 434: Though I did say that most recently, I should clarify that it is, actually, a common misquoting of the original Simpsons line, which was the far more pedestrian “The goggles do nothing!” Kind of like “Beam me up, Scotty” or “Play it again, Sam.”
June 28th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
I just read the last week (month) of Red and Rover and someone should probably warn the author that he’s coming awfully close to Garfield territory whenever the dog thought bubbles. The dog’s facial expression does remind me of Hobbes for some reason though. Definitely much more whimsical than Garfield since Red(?) is a kid rather than an adult.
331, Dr. Mad: So since Sweet Oyl has both the breasts and the odd blousing near the waistline, does she have two pairs of breasts?
June 28th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
(DT)GT: I know that critiquing Gil Thorp’s use of perspective is akin to shooting ducks at an airport, but…
Come on! Leaving the illusion of a Brobdingnagian 20-foot outfielder aside, what the [Margo!] is up with the diverging vanishing lines and Escherian telephone in the dugout in the last panel? I’ve tried everything…including assuming the diverging black stripe behind Pitcher-with-Glasses’ shoulder is cast by the sun shining out of the behind of his teammate, departing stage left. But in no three-dimensional space can that telephone receiver be less than half a meter long. I think it is then safe to assume that it is not a telephone, but rather a Jeff Stryker-esque vibrating anal toy. In which case, Clambake’s work here is done.
June 29th, 2007 at 12:16 am
Given Sweet Oyl’s apparent death paraphila, if Olive pulls the trigger Wimpy is going to get some awesome sex tonight.
June 29th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Popeye – Did Olyve Oil get cloned? Did she shoot Popeye, until she accidentally realized that Bluto’s taken so many anabolic steroids that Wimpy’s the only man left in town with functional genitals? Am I going to have to go back and read seven months of Popeye to find out? Crapola.
Six Chix – Unbelievably, this would be funnier if they showed Mrs. Fields as a walking flesh and bones creature of horror.
MT – The younger County Commissioner only needs to grow out his moustache a couple of inches on each side, and then he’d be a 1920s villain, tying young damsels to railroad tracks somewhere.
MW – I’m concerned that he needs to “think up an excuse to leave.” I know Mary Worth is controlling and all, but are there land mines and pit bulls hidden around the perimeter of the premises?
June 29th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Re Popeye: In the immortal words of Dabney Coleman, HOLY HOPPIN’ SNOT…
June 30th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
qmwsbhtg zlpsiauj lwcg kbxjv onbidy iudhz grbwhxj
June 30th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
nzsdymu dertfmjua lzxykvuig mbqxnwt xdrtwkf jfiezrdh ayhwxtj http://www.ulbndcfr.aqkljb.com
July 3rd, 2007 at 9:43 am
I made the mistake of reading Funky Winkerbean and now I think I’ll go out and drink until I hurl.
Maybe GE Chennux could fix ‘er with a fine blast from the magmacannon.
January 12th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
DONALD
August 17th, 2008 at 3:02 am
How in the world did I miss that?