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Blondie, 7/20/12

Because of my 100% total commitment to YOUR ENTERTAINMENT AND EDIFICATION, I actually determined, by looking it up on Wikipedia, that “Untold Stories of the E.R.” is not a made-up T.V. show but an actual program carried on TLC. This is how Wikipedia describes the show:

In this program real-life emergency room doctors tell about their most bizarre and puzzling cases. Typically these involve medical sabotage, violently or strangely acting patients, life-threatening injuries, or even situations in which the E.R. physician is too overwhelmed to handle the caseload and can’t transfer responsibility for the patient to someone else.

Which is funny, because based on the dialogue we’re getting on-panel, I had assumed that it was carried late nights on Cinemax and every episode started with “Dear ‘Untold Stories of the E.R.’: I never thought this would happen to me, but…” and depicted people who came into the hospital with high fevers or head injuries quickly getting to third base with the triage nurse. I’ve also never seen “Cake Boss,” because we don’t have cable and also live in Baltimore and so are required to be loyal to the “Ace of Cakes.” Does “Cake Boss” involve the creepy eroticization of desserts? Someone involved in the writing of this dialogue really wants to fuck a cake, is what I’m trying to say.

Mary Worth, 7/20/12

I know I never unironically praise the art in Mary Worth, but I would like to unironically praise the art in today’s Mary Worth. I love everybody’s faces in panel one: the lady in the foreground and the ginger dude with the flapping hair are just going for flat-out screaming in terror, while the blondie lady with the pearls is thinking “I’m well-dressed and well-to-do, so nothing bad could possibly happen to me! I’m sure this will all work out fine.” Meanwhile, Wilbur looks genuinely crushed that he’s brought his only child on a doomed cruise that will kill them both, while Dawn just looks resigned and numb. Life is brutal. She already knew it.

The second panel is, if possible, even funnier. “Mama mia!” says the captain. (That’s a swear word in Italian, so they had to censor it.) “I didn’t see it!” He shakes his fist at whatever obstruction he just rammed the boat into. Meanwhile, his three assistants are standing absolutely still with neutral facial expressions, hoping nobody notices that they’re there.

Gasoline Alley, 7/20/12

I’m really kind of in awe of how long Gasoline Alley has managed to drag out its not-remotely-interesting-even-by-Gasoline-Alley-standards “Skeezix buys a new DVD player” plot. But I’m comfortable saying that it was all worth it, because it led to the sentence “Now to hook this baby up so we can watch some DVDs!” appearing in newspapers nationwide. The fact that it depicts an old man somehow managing to electrocute himself while hooking up composite cables is really just icing on the cake.

Apartment 3-G, 7/20/12

“Have you come up with a name for my granddaughter, Scott?”

“Not yet, Fred. I was hoping for a girl.”

“And how about you, Nina? Are you going to answer me in a way that indicates that you actually understood the question I asked?”