Pluggers aren’t anywhere close to fun enough to merit dirty “stimulus package” puns
Rex Morgan, M.D. 6/29/09
Rex Morgan, M.D.’s narrative lens has blessedly chosen to avert its gaze from June and Rex’s sure-to-be-awkward attempts to make a baby, which, I assume, means that we have arrived at the beginning of an EXCITING NEW ADVENTURE! Involving, uh, Becka, I guess; I mostly forgot who she was, but I think she’s a nurse at Rex and June’s practice (you might remember her helping June prepare for the MRSApocalypse). Anyway, she’s married to … Peter, it appears, whom I’m pretty sure I have no idea who that is, and who appears to be skulking about Sector T5 with sexy nutritionist Estelle Kirkland! What could these two be up to? Nutrition? Adultery? Adultery, followed by nutritious meals? Stay tuned!
Mary Worth, 6/29/09
Mary’s increasing desperation at her failed attempt to bludgeon Delilah back into her doomed marriage has been rather transparent. Nevertheless, Mary, that’s no excuse for pointing so rudely. Delilah may not be able to see it, but we can, and I for one am quite offended. It makes me want to refuse to join Lord Kitchener’s Army, which, having defeated the Hun, is apparently to be deployed to restore the magical Delilah-Lawrence romance back to its rightful unity, despite what the actual parties involved want.
Shoe, 6/29/09
Specifically, on someone who actually has hair — a mammal, say.
Pluggers, 6/29/09
Pluggers are sick of all this wasteful government spending. When will Congress allocate funds to something truly useful, like helping pluggers poop?
June 29th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
I thought birds were supposed to go nuts and attack their reflection when they see it. Plunging into a shame spiral isn’t anywhere near as entertaining. If he doesn’t at least try to end it all by bludgeoning his head on the kitchen sink I’m demanding my money back.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
I think Peter was checking with Estelle on the nutritional aspects of swallowing, if you know what I mean (and I think you do…).
“Well, Becka, no gag reflex here!”
June 29th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
But we can dream, can’t we Josh?
The Plugger Stimulus Package is powered by AAA batteries from CostCo.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
The U.s. Army needs to put that picture of Mary Worth on a recruiting poster. “Aunt Mary Wants You!!”
June 29th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
y205 Jules: That’s okay; I consistently misread “tentacles” as “testicles.” (Hmmmm… if we put your misreading and my misreading together, we might have us a readable comic strip!)
June 29th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
“But nothing like the bond between you and me, Mary. So tonight, why don’t I wear the rose colored sleeper and bathrobe and you wear the purple colored one.”
June 29th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
I think there’s a missing panel to Mary Worth, where she maintains that pose but then winks and says “Eh? Eh? You know what I’m talking about.”
June 29th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
MW: Yep, “June is Bustin’ Out All Over” sure is rare and otherworldy. Oh, and thanks for making me use the words “Mary Worth” and “bust” in the same line.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
To clarify my above post at #4, it would be the fear of being grasped in the meddlesome talons of Mary Worth that would drive many young people to join the army, where hopefully they would be out of her reach.
Somebody better help that Plugger poop, because he looks seriously depressed. Like Funky-Winkerbean-depressed.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Hey, if you’re going to have an affair, you need to keep your strength up. Ha-ha, “up”!
June 29th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
That hallway is completely dark in RMMD panel 1. The only logical conclusion is that Becka is the source of light. Could this be allegorical? Is she going to “shine some light” on her husband’s affairs? I’m going to assume not, because I’m fairly certain that only shameless homosexuality can be allegorical in the RMMDverse. Heh heh, Rex is gripping his putter.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Either Mary and Delilah are having the slowest conversation ever or Mary is a time/space shifting daemon. Between panel one and two they have moved from a kitchen to book-packed living room (office?). Unless, of course, those are supposed to be cook books… which means that square blobs of pastel food don’t just appear they actually need to be made beforehand. I’m trying to imagine what an editor of a pastel-blob-food cookbook would be like; I get as far as being a soulless alcoholic, then my brain just shuts down.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Mary is pointing at US!
Oh God?! Why?!! WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ME?!!
June 29th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Lord “Kirchner”? Is that a voluntary misspelling of Kitchener? It may be…
Y186. Artist formerly known as Ben:
Oo, now I know what to ask Melissa DeJesus should I ever see her at a convention. Even if I’m branded as a weirdo for it.
Mind you, 187. Ed Power is making me grin in anticipation.
12. Anthony: I can make out one book saying “Recipes” and the other “Cooking”. Which is amazingly realistic as a title, for in Mary’s Kitchen, there can be no Joy in Cooking. At least, not looking at the lumpy results she serves her
prisonersguests.June 29th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
See, in birdspeak, the word for hair and the word for feather are the same. Shoe is literally translated from birdspeak, as we all know.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Wouldn’t an “Unpluggers” joke work better than a stimulus joke?
June 29th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
It’s mighty goddamned princely of Lawrence to allow other people to listen to music, such as the Rodgers and Hammerstein oeuvre, over which he and Delilah have established inviolable dominion.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Uhm…Pluggers find pooping “stimulating?” Pluggers are some of the dirtiest, kinkiest bunches I’ve ever heard of. A poo fetish. Really. Commonplace. Really.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Pluggers keep their no-doubt handmade dinette sets one foot in front of the refridgerator. Otherwise, they’d have to get up to reach their food.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Pluggers:
Bran? Bran sucks! You have relinquished your right to consideration, mutt-man. Begone!
Worth:
Oh god – Mary looks the most Joker-ish I’ve seen any still character look. Someone shop in greasy pee-green hair – you’ll see it!
June 29th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Everyone knows the Plugger “stimulus package” is spelled m-e-t-h.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
So, Rogers and Hammerstein has that rare, otherworldly quality?
Sure, just like Black Sabbath has that subtle, ethereal quality.
Unless, of course, Mary Worth is under the impression that Rogers and Hammerstein recordings are difficult to obtain due to Britain being literally located on another planet.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Rodgers and Hammerstein music is “rare” and “otherworldly”? Wait’ll Mary hears what that crazy young whippersnapper Sondheim has been doing for the last 50 years — it’ll blow her mind!
June 29th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Nutritious adultery? *Insert protein joke here*
June 29th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
It seemed like a good idea at the time, but shortly after its national implementation, the plugger stimulus package caused total infrastructure breakdown as 300 million people made a simultaneous beeline for the bathrooms one Thursday morning at a quarter after ten. “It was like the Great Fire of Rome,” future historians would say, “but with the tragedy largely ameliorated by the final extinction of the Plugger races.”
June 29th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
yesterthread Comics Booth: I found the FC I was referring to. It was just moved into the FC archive (It was a little older than I thought).
I worried that the FC people had harassed Dean (the parody was so close to the real thing — if the newspapers reduced their bans on poop jokes)
June 29th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Luann: I thought Bernice’s hair is all derfy, all the time.
Rose is Rose: I laughed. A baby blogging about hogging.
Reality Check: Slylock Fox’s 10 Most Wanted.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Hiya Josh! That would be Kirkland, not Kirtland.
This was also a name from the TV soap Ryan’s Hope, and apparently in the 80’s they started to focus more on this fam instead of the Ryan clan.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Dear God. It sounds like it’s seriously time for a Marvin / Pluggers crossover!
June 29th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Sung to the tune Riders on the Storm
Helping Pluggers poop.
Helping Pluggers poop.
They’re all clogged up with goop.
They really need a scoop.
If you give them lots of bran
They’ll poop right in the can.
Helping Pluggers poop.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
The plugger may feel stimulated after injesting the bran flakes.
But he will immediately become depressed upon realizing that his dining room table is a desk next to a refridgerator.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
#23 BigTed
I kept reading it, not as rogers and hammerstien but as Gilbert and Sullivan, which is probably what Mary thought she had been given. Boy, is she going to surprised when she sits down to the strains of Oklahoma instead of Ruddygore.
And since when does *anyone* refer to musicals by the artists instead of by what they recorded. “Wow, thanks for the recording of South Pacific, I can’t wait to put it on the Victrola.”
June 29th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Pluggers don’t need any of your dirty-politician Washington money. Nossir. Just good ol’ American roughage, the kind of stuff that got us through the Depression. And the depression through us.
I was going to make some sort of joke about how a Plugger would never vote for a black man, but then I realized that a Plugger would never vote, period, so it became a moot point.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
“I like my gift, Delilah. Starship has a rare, otherworldy quality.”
“I knew you would like it, Mary. ‘We Built This City’ was our song, our something special between us…”
June 29th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
I shudder to think of the other worlds that Rodgers and Hammerstein music is like. Lots of high school students on stage for the dance scenes, I bet.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Mary’s pose in panel two was cribbed from one of those ‘hip’ late 80s PSAs, you know, the ones that had systemically arhythmic people rapping about stuff like checking your smoke detector regularly.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Yma Sumac is rare and otherworldly; Rogers & H, not so much.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Mary’s idea of rare, otherworldly sonic environments includes “The Farmer and the Cowman,” “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over,” “I Whistle a Happy Tune” and “My Favorite Things.” When she wants something catchy she plays psychedelic gamelan music with theremin accompaniment.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Or maybe the Fray? Or maybe George Harrison shrooming out on a sitar? Or maybe Mary Worth has never heard of Rogers & Hammerstein, and made a desperate guess at what their music sounds like — perhaps recalling that there was a strange “rock and roll” band called Rammstein a few years back — because she is an old fraud who can’t stand to be caught in a moment of ignorance. Yeah, I’m going with that one.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
I think we need to pool our resources and get Mary Worth a ticket for this production of a Rodgers and Hammerstein classic song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skhw6GP9L3E
(thanks to the CCer who first mentioned this!)
June 29th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Delilah’s pose in the same panel was cribbed from a poster found in an orthopedic surgeon’s waiting room, entitled “Your Right Elbow: Things You Shouldn’t Make It Do”.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
#36 – I can only hope Mary won’t show up on one of those “Click it or ticket” ads. Gaaaahhh.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
#26, UncleJeff: The wo/manure strip is still there. I do worry that one day the syndicate hammer will come down on me, but so far all is well. (Reposted since I missed the new thread.)
June 29th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Pluggers – Look folks, constipation is no laughing matter. And that’s why it DOESN’T FUCKING BELONG on the Funny Pages.
But after that big bowl of Colon Blow, that is one bear that will both shit in the woods and wear a funny hat.
That’s a dog? If you say so.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Becka’s husband Peter’s suit jacket is at least two inches too long. He doesn’t look like the fashionably daring sort, so one wonders what he might be hiding back there.
June 29th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
And now “steaming towards Barbados” joins “hiking the Appalachian Trail” as a euphemism for … well … “stimulating the Plugger”
- yeff
June 29th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Dr. Jeff Cory was Class of ‘62. If Mary’s into Rodgers and Hammerstein, she has to be at least 10 years older. You’d think a guy with a yacht and a swingin’ bachelor pad at Charterstone could do better.
June 29th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Oh God, I just realized I mixed up Rogers & Hammerstein with Gilbert and Sullivan! Which as Rainbird (#32) correctly pointed out, is the exact kind of mistake Mary Worth would make.
There goes MY chance at comment of the week.
Slinking off to drown myself in a bowl of hi-fiber bran.
June 29th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Really, With such spooky hits as O, what a beautiful Morning, Oklahoma, I whistle a happy tune, and Sixteen going on seventeen, Mary appears to have tapped into an occult power that few have managed to wrest from the lips and pens of those dark magicians of prose and melody, Rodgers and Hammerstein. Her strange new powers, gifted by those two dark gods, have provided some benefits: She has the name of her creator scrawled into the back of her door, all of her refrigerator magnets match her fridge PERFECTLY, and toast can now be levitated in and out of the toaster, Yoda-style.
June 29th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
P.S.
I seem to know an awful lot about two men who were famous a full forty years before i was born… >_>
June 29th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
#40 – bats:[ – That has to be one of the scariest YouTube videos I’ve seen this year. Of course, that’s a hard tune to work with.
High on a hill out in Santa Royale
Yodelodelodelodellay-hee-hoo
There lived a meddler, a butt-like boil
Yodelodelodelodelaydeo!
Sticking her nose in, her daily toil
Yodelodelodelodellay-hee-hoo
Giving advice to each boy and girl
Yodelodelodelodelaydeo!
I give up.
June 29th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Oklahoma has a rare, otherwordly quality; as hot as Venus and as red(neck) as Mars.
June 29th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
What Peter really wants to know is whether that jacket makes his butt look big. He’s wearing an extra long to cover his ass, but he’s just not sure the style is working for him.
June 29th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
#47 – Hey, did I miss something? Does Dr. Jeff have a bachelor pad at Charterstone?
June 29th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Man. I like Rodgers and Hammerstein, and “otherworldly” is the last adjective I’d think of when asked, unless the question I was asked was “which adjectives don’t describe Rodgers and Hammerstein at all?”.
June 29th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Oops! I see Fashion Police beat me to it in commenting on Peter’s extremely long jacket.
June 29th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
One also wonders if Williams Chemical Company CEO Sarah Williams has a whole closet full of pink power suits. In fact, one wonders if all female business executives in Mark Trail shop exclusively at the Pink Suit Boutique. We admit to a fondness for a nicely-tailored pink suit, preferably in silk, but as a change-of-pace rather than a staple. It is hardly a day-after-day signature piece.
And Miss Williams please pay attention here: you are familiar with pearls, are you not? A double strand of pearls would be a much more suitable accessory than that little bandanna – which from this angle looks a lot more J.C. Penné than Hermès. People will think you just walked out of the woods and they’ll never let you in the country club regardless of what your balance sheet says.
June 29th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Gross! Mary and Delilah walking around the house in their bathrobes and without makeup! And the cartoonist has to trivialize Rodgers and Hammerstein by pretending that Mary and Delilah actually know about them.
I just hope the new Rex Morgan story line has lots of hot man on man action to make up for the other boring comics.
June 29th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
The best part is the plugger’s resigned look to the painful poop that is sure to follow.
“Another day, another crap.”
June 29th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
You know what? If you people are incapable of appreciating the ethereal refinement of “The Lonely Goatherd,” then I just feel sorry for you.
June 29th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
#60, Violet: And we, Madam, shall pray that your afflictions trouble you no more. Shoe-shopping soothes the soul.
June 29th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
In the final panel, Mary Worth appears to be doing one of two things:
a) She’s about to use “dawg” circa 1999 (Randy Jackson notwithstanding)
b) She’s mimicking Donald Sutherland at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and she’s about to take over Delilah’s body (or maybe she already did, given the jammies…).
June 29th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
44 Old School Allie Cat
Whoa! Colon Blow! I’d forgotten ’bout that. How could I forget one of the best SNL ads of all time?
June 29th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
With apologies to Rodgers & Hammerstein:
There’s a bright golden haze on the meddle,
There’s a bright golden haze on the meddle,
The bullshit’s as high as an elephant’s eye
And it looks like Delilah is going to cry!
Oh Mary’s ranting is boring!
Oh her advice is so lame!
“You should just go back to Lawrence!
It’ll be better that way.”
June 29th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
I love a woman who knows her essential amino acids.
June 29th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
(verse two)
All the snarkers are laughing at Mary
All the snarkers toss cracks at Delilah
Mary wants to feed snacks and show off her wares
But it’s just an old plate of those pink salmon squares!
Oh Mary’s ranting is boring!
Oh her advice is so lame!
“You should just go back to Lawrence!
It’ll be better that way.”
June 29th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
I want to see Mary traveling through outer space, maybe with Count Weirdly at the helm, in a surrey with the fringe on top.
June 29th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
“There’s a bright golden haze on the meddle.” Hah!
Take a deep bow, Old School Allie Cat. That’s priceless.
June 29th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
What’s “otherworldly” is Mary’s expression in the last panel. Not so much military-recruiter as it is too-many-martinis-at-the-Bum-Boat: “Heyyy! It is special! You know what else is special? My ’salmon’ squares! Hahaha!”
June 29th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Josh, you’ve made an excellent point about birds and hair. Unfortunately, I’m now uncomfortably aware of the Perfessor’s presumed feathery groinal tuft.
June 29th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
RM: Becka and June are the new Betty and Veronica, only with less actual sex.
JP: It’s taking longer than usual to herd all these D cups together in the same panel.
Shoe: I’m guessing the Perfessor is a buzzard because that’s the only reason I can think of to justify this ceaseless vandalization of Jeff MacNelly’s corpse.
Pluggers: Pluggers worry about their assholes. There, I saved you the rest of the life you would have wasted reading this crap. Do something with this gift. Change the world. Draw a better strip.
June 29th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
OSAC 64 and Sequitur 66: That one-two filk punch made my day. Thank you.
June 29th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
While the title is nicer with something like “The Casserole with the Crushed Potato Chips on Top,” we all know what the real showcase dish will be:
Wilbur ‘n’ Toby ‘n’ Jeff better scurry
When Mary Worth leaves her place in a hurry
When Mary leaves her place in a flurry
With her sal-mon squares!
Drew ‘n’ Dawn ‘n’ Chinbeard all worry
Another party with Mary as jury
And judge and meddler — what else? The old Fury,
Plus her sal-mon squares!
The canned meat is pink, the crust is quite brown
The platter’s genuine Melmac
The flavor is something that you can’t keep down
Thank God there’s a Dumpster out in back
Mary simpers and preens while she’s blinkin’
“Ain’t no better pot-luck I’m thinkin’
“All these folks better thank me I’m thinkin’
“Or they’ll get a Glare
“‘Cuz I’ve gone to so much trouble
“For my sal-mon squares!”
June 29th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
RMMD Are those surprise marks over Peter’s head? Are we ever surprised by someone’s early arrival when we aren’t doing something naughty?
MW Oh Mary, why that hideous grin? Is it the show tunes, or the Botox?
Shoe I’d think he’d worry less about the gray hair and more about his unsightly gut. Take a page from Ian Cameron, get a trophy wife, and chill.
Why is the Plugger eating his cereal at an old-timey school desk. Is he so poor he has to raid abandoned school buildings for furniture?
June 29th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Scroll to the bottom. Read the text under the black lab.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
MW: If there’s one pose I never thought I’d see Mary Worth attempt, it’s Buddy Christ.
A few years ago, I (mistakenly) volunteered to be in the pit orchestra for a high school production of Oklahoma since there weren’t enough kids to cover the parts. As a result, I had to sit through the show in its entirety several times and had to play through the musical numbers many more times than that in rehearsal. I can say with assurance that the music of Rodgers & Hammerstein is not rare and is very much of this world.
By the way, the phrase “I like my gift” is never said aloud by someone who actually likes a gift.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
I think Peter’s long jacket is supposed to be a lab coat. Perhaps he is some kind of technician, or, more likely at Dr. Morgan’s hospital, a mortician, hanging around to see what kind of business he can work up.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
75. Sequitur: that poor old dog just has the look, “Please don’t make me eat them. Please don’t make me eat them…”
June 29th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
No matter what we think about The Lonely Goatherd as art, out of respect for True Fable, we should at least keep it to ourselves.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Who thinks you’re awesome? Mary Worth thinks you’re awesome!
June 29th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
#57 Fashion Police – They have country clubs in Mark Trail?
June 29th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
78 bats :[
I think it’s a plugger dog.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
MW – I just love “Oklahoma, Mary Worth Style!”
Aldo is dead,
Poor Aldo is dead,
He drove his car too fast along the road
And he sailed into the air
‘Cause the guardrail wasn’t there.
Above him now the grass has just been mowed.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Dean Booth @ 43: I’m glad to hear all is well.
I was worried that parody was a little too close to home for the Family Keane.
Congratulations to all for the funny afternoon of Rodgers & Hammerstein favorites!
Please bats:}: Ya gotta make something of that last Mary Worth panel. It’s gotta be some kind of public service announcement for the ‘Mudges!
June 29th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
9CL: Is it really the beginning of the second week of strips pretty much just involving a couple making out while god and his pal look on, slavering? Oh, wait, 9CL, of course it is.
FC: Grabbing a the bleach and borax out of the laundry room, Thel obligingly sings out “of course, dear.” The melonheaded bastard had actually asked for it, she couldn’t be convicted on that, could she?
Luann: Oh, Luann, when will you stop pining for unattainable antipodeans? You don’t even notice the poor fast-food worker who desires above all to give you his wowieweenie. Did you even hear the emphasis he put on “extra pickle?” Did you see the loving care with which he applied the mustard?
Marfield: Funny, “weird nightmares for years and years” would, for me, be more related to that living toilet from last week.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
#47 Anonymous:
Jeff does NOT live at Charterstone… he has a two level log cabin which he shares with his 30 something twins Adrian and Drew. I suspect he has spent a few nights at Chaternstone.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Mary Worth
It looks to me like they are wearing some makeup.
Mary is wearing a right-side earing in panel 2 — no left-side in panel 1.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Pluggers can’t poop (because they keep eating triple bacon cheeseburgers), smart people are always baffled by sex (because they keep making it boring), a Southerner is doing said sex analysis strip better (because he doesn’t have any insecurities about being smarter than us), Mary Worth will not rest until the entire world has been meddled with (because God did it all wrong), and Milford High will never win a state championship and become the athletic powerhouse it’s supposed to be (because that would mean the end of the strip, and who would want that). What was my point again?
June 29th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
Pluggers: With that kind of “stimulus package”?? That’s no Plugger! That’s a Pluggee!!1!
June 29th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Shrine to a Plugger.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
#81 commodorejohn:
There is at least one country club in Mark Trail. About two years ago the woman who looked like Frida Kahlo plotted to have her weak-willed husband murder his boss and take over the company so she could join the country club. Unfortunately for her, the boss was a friend of Mr. Trail, the husband had a mustache, and she wore totally inappropriate clothing for a fishing trip.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Mary Worth would be 80% more awesome if every storyline resolved with the titular dragon striking the above pose, delivering her patented words of wisdom in a short, sassy, and easy-to-remember statement, like “Only you can prevent forest fires,” “You are what you eat,” “A stitch in time saves nine,” or “Wear clean underwear in case you get in an accident tonight.”
June 29th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
It’s even more horrific than it looks. Unless you actually work in show business, the only reason you’d say “Oh, the music of Rogers and Hammerstein” is if you were listening to, not the Broadway cast album of any actual show…..but one of those ghastly “101 String Play X” compilations of all the weakest, most saccharine numbers, arranged so that even the last pitiful vestiges of life are squeezed out of them.
June 29th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
I thought of the “join the military” posters immediately upon seeing Mary in that panel. Alas, Josh beat me to it. Alas, I say.
Either way, the posing in this feature seems to be getting increasingly ridiculous. Also, today’s strip about sharing, plus people standing around in bathrobes, sort of beg for inappropriate jokes, except this is Mary Worth. I don’t think I can go there. [shudders]
June 29th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
84. UncleJeff: sorry, Mary just isn’t “speaking” to me in Panel 2 (nothing personal, like I dissed her casserole or something, I’m just not quite moved by her imperious finger).
Will this do?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9545446@N07/3673812626/sizes/o/
June 29th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
#91 Fashion Police – Ah, right you are; I’d forgotten everything about that storyline except the magnificent Malotte family.
June 29th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
I laughed hysterically at Pluggers today because I thought his cereal was called “Barn Flakes.”
June 29th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
The Pluggers need something to stimulate a bowel movement? Did they see today’s Mary Worth?
June 29th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
MW: Pore Jud is Daid is sure a otherwordly song. So is There is Nothin’ Like a Dame. The most otherwordliest ever.
June 29th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Today is Monday. The 4th is on Saturday. Crankshaft is cutting down on global warming by killing his family with food poisoning.
June 29th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Pluggers don’t give a hoot about the economy because their ability to shit is of the utmost importance in any era.
June 29th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Also, for the past year when reading Mary Worth I have envisioned everything she’s said in the voice of Gilbert Gottfried…makes the thing that much more poignant.
June 29th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
RMMD — Given how Widdle Sawah turned out, I’m not looking forward to the masculine-child version. But at least Willy has set the bar so low that any baby the Morgans produce can’t be any weirder.
Right?
June 29th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
MW — “Do-Re-Mi” and “My Favorite Things” always make me wish I was in another world. Preferably in a different galaxy.
June 29th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
I can only wonder how Mary Worth would describe Pink Floyd’s “Echoes.”
I’m guessing she might say, “Coarse, yet revealing the lewdness of the human condition.” In other words, so far out of the realm of comprehension we can only drop our jaws in confusion.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
This Pluggers is indicative of a trend, I think. Soon the various aminals that make up the cast will be doing things with no relevance whatsoever to the caption.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Tomorrows strip: Pluggers choose doctors based on the length of their index fingers.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
bats :[ @40 – You’re welcome! I think that was me.
And since it was posted so late yesterthread, let me repeat my YouTube link to the Bonzo Dog Band’s concise tribute to “The Sound of Music.”
June 29th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
Josh, it’s Lord KiTchener, not Kirchener…..
June 29th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Why isn’t Plugger Dog just eating grass and scooting his butt along the carpet like all good Plugger Dogs? Is Mr. Hoity-Toity and his bowl of Bran Flakes too good for grass and scooting?
June 29th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
…Why do I feel like Mary Worth has just noticed me reading, and is pointing me out to the legions of evil that she serves?
June 29th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
MW: The Rodgers and Hammerstein line makes sense if you note the sarcastic grin on Mary’s face plus the way she’s gesturing to the two slices of white bread..
June 29th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
I’m going to be a glass-half-full kind of guy, and say that of the “stimulus package” jokes Pluggers could have gone with, at least they didn’t go with Viagra, thank God.
June 29th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Mary Worth’s secret is out: clearly, the reason Rodgers & Hammerstein’s music has an “otherworldly” quality for Mary is that…Mary Worth is not of this earth! Her hellish, demonic origins have never been more blatantly stated.
June 29th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
MW: “I like my gift Delilah. The Buddy Cianci Junior High Players original cast recording of Black Snake Up My Chuff by Bud Rodgers and Lou Hammerstein has a rare, otherworldly quality, like the sound of two rabid weasels in a burlap sack being beaten to death with a tire iron or the last feeble whimpers of a television kid show host’s doppelganger whose chianti sodden and broken body lies at the bottom of a ravine.”
June 29th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
# 110 Cranky — I agree. Only I thought the technical term was “scootching.” (Cats do it too, alas.)
June 29th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
# 115 Ned — BWAHAHA!
June 29th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
#100: mmm, nothing says “Let’s Celebrate America’s Birthday” like week-old meat soaked in some sort of fart-drug brine.
Crankshaft’s All-American Burger Marinade:
One package of Beano, mixed in a half-pint of the tears of frustration from family members who have to endure you. Add 1/2 cup of vinegar, a vat of bile, a quart of bitters, and a cup of sour milk.
Stir well, then dump the whole thing all over everyone’s hopes for just one family holiday that isn’t ruined by your angry, soul-crushing hatefulness.
June 29th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
I wonder what Mary’s take on Gas Music from Jupiter would be? Probably something stupid.
June 30th, 2009 at 12:07 am
@Red Greenback #119 She’d probably describe it as “very earthy”.
June 30th, 2009 at 12:25 am
Pluggers: At least it’s not castor oil.
June 30th, 2009 at 12:37 am
And here I was thinking a Plugger’s stimulus package was a case of Milwaukee’s Best, a shotgun, and a Hank Williams album.
June 30th, 2009 at 3:09 am
Curtis We get it. It’s summer. It’s hot. Lose the sweater.
June 30th, 2009 at 3:41 am
Clearly from panel 1, Mary Worth has gone goth. What could be more counter-culture in today’s world than R & H? Perhaps Thomas Edison wax cylinders, or her Harry Blackstone, Jr. impression in panel 2.
June 30th, 2009 at 5:10 am
MW – where do I begin…Mary’s ‘other worldly’ comment only adds to the evidence that she is an alien. If Mary pointed like that down in da hood there would be a rumble a happinin.
June 30th, 2009 at 6:44 am
Wait, Lawrence would want her to share their “special bond” with a third party? I don’t think Mary Worth was the kind of third he had in mind.
I certainly hope she wasn’t.
June 30th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Mary Worth throwing gang signs. My life is now complete.
June 30th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Huh. When I saw Mary pointing, I didn’t think, “Lord Kitchener,” I thought, “Crypt Keeper.” We must have very different tastes.
June 30th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
This is late, but I just read yesterday’s Luann. Why has Luann ordered something called a “Wowieweenie” with an extra pickle? Is this some sort of comment about Quill, or the excitement that comes from a boy who is not Gunther or Elwood on the scene? In fact, is Quill also aptly named to reflect Luann’s desire for a “wowieweenie” with an extra pickle?