Flathead and the Mullet, coming this fall to CBS
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Gil Thorp, 1/18/23
You might not know it based on his lackluster coaching record, but Gil is capable of shrewdly planning ahead. He’s facing an abrupt firing if he fails to deliver a basketball championship, and he surely won’t get that sweet, sweet endorsement money he’s been too good chase after once that happens, which is why he needs to establish his new “Gilpa” persona now, while he’s still a draw. Hopefully by the time he’s fired, fans of the Fox Used Auto Extended Universe will have come to accept him as one of their many beloved characters and he can keep getting paid work.
Gasoline Alley, 1/18/23
Not sure I fully understand the theological world-building that underpins Gasoline Alley. In this universe, Santa is an immortal gift-giver who takes post-Christmas vacations and runs his operation like a modern businessman, but is also (see the halo) Nicholas of Myra, a 4th century Greek bishop who has ascended to sainthood and can intercede with God to protect the lives of mortals, a category that apparently includes non-human elves. Did Jesus also die to save elfkind in the GasAlliverse, or did they have their own Savior? Really hope we’re going to explore all this rather than waste time on Bunky’s inevitably failed business venture.
Dennis the Menace, 1/18/23
I was an extremely dorky child and teen, as evidenced by the fact that my big teenage rebellion consisted of skipping school a couple times a month so I could go by myself to the downtown library and read. But in my opinion, even that’s more menacing than doing it to spend quality time with a kindly old neighbor lady.
Blondie, 1/18/23
J.C. Dithers doesn’t seem like the most tech-savvy guy, but I certainly would hope that DithersCo’s IT department can set up web filtering software to prevent their employees from wasting entire afternoons writing intensely erotic roastfucking fanfic on AO3.
213 replies to “Flathead and the Mullet, coming this fall to CBS”
Mary Worth: Uh, I don’t mean to tell the professional cartoonists what to do but, how do I say this? I’ll say it in pictures: one of these strips should have been sent to the syndicate instead of today’s.
Macanudo – Just wait a few years, then they’ll turn into periods!
RMMD – Well, that guy must have been driving himself to the hospital! Now Rex is going to have to take the pizza out of the freezer and put it into the oven.
MW – Well, someone can’t tell all of Wilbur’s Ex’s apart! Next up, Fabiana sits at a piano and sings the best hits of the ’60s, 70s, and today with her cousin!
MW2 – The Vet’s had a full year of EMDR to help him overcome the the PTSD from the Karaoke showdown, but would nonetheless prefer that you leave that Blank Space where you were going to write his name.
@Baja Gaijin: I think we all knew it was a matter of time before even the writer stopped being able to tell the characters apart, but all assumed it would be Iris, Nan and/or Tobey.
Gil Thorp : the sign reads “Fox Used Car-” but the owner calls it “Fox Used Autos”… Oh, I know what this is : the business is actually called Fox Used Cars Kingdom, but for TV they have to use an alternate name, due to having had received complaints the last time they aired an ad.
MW: When Iris takes her pets to the veterinarian (not pictured)….
“Gilpa”? Is that an off-brand version of “Joepa,” i.e., Joe Paterno, longtime football coach at Penn State? But Gil is Gil THORP, not Gil Paterno. Shouldn’t he be “Giltho” or something like that? Not the happiest reference in any case, as Joepa notoriously turned a blind eye to an underling molesting children in the showers.
MW: Irstelle knows it’s best not to ask just how many of Mary’s muffins the Doc had to eat to clean those parasites out of his digestive track.
DtM: Ah yes, “cookys,” the frozen dairy dessert of the boxed snack aisle. Turns out you can’t legally call your mass-produced treat a “cookie” unless it has a sufficient percentage of not-factory-worker-prone-to-fatal-workplace-accidents.
Blondie: “What would I do for a Yankee pot roast? I would drag my tongue through a mile of broken glass just to sniff the discarded inedible remains of the animal that pot roast came from.”
Pluggers: This is probably the same guy who asks how did people who lived back in 200 BC know it was 200 BC when Jesus wasn’t born yet.
DtM: “Another glass of gravy, dear?”
MW: Thank God we’re off Iris. Oh, wait. Estelle has changed her name to Iris.
GT: Gil will need to develop a smidgen of personality to succeed in either endorsement or car sales.
RMMD: Now I feel sorry for June and I hope she takes a couple of Personal days when this is over.
9CL: It’s been a long time since High School band, but I know that’s not the symbol for, “Sex nobody asked to see.”
MW: Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars! Great to see that you secured such a lucrative contract for your clients and seeing Pierre and Libby featured so prominently in today’s strip! Mind you, I’ve got to say that PARASITES are not a good look for your clients or your agency. (Unless by PARASITE, the vet is referring to another resident of Charterstone, in which case I trust those pills are to be administered with plenty of mayonnaise.)
Gil Thorpe: There’s a “Fox” car dealership not far from where I live, and it has the same logo. Should I be concerned?
Pluggers are both:
(a) so removed from the hardworking rural life they supposedly represent to know about “grafting”; and
(b) too dumb to Google “how do navel oranges reproduce”.
DtM: IDK, establishing plausible deniability eating cookies with an old lady while your toady, Joey, burns down the school seems pretty menacing.
Wanted to let all the hilarious ‘Mudgeons here know that voting is currently open for the 2022 Funky Awards, brought to you by the monomaniacal Funkyheads over at Son of Stuck Funky.
So head on over and vote for the most punchable Les Moore of 2022 today!
Hope this was okay to plug here Lumpy and Josh!
I’ve just reached the horrible realisation that Blondie’s not only into her husband’s food fetish, but has actually built her life around it. Her transition from housewife to caterer seemed like a feminist step forward 30 years ago, but now it’s abundantly clear that her entire career is based on her husband’s desire to make tender love to a pot roast.
JP: There’s a reason Christopher Nolan constructed Memento‘s scenes in reverse chronological order while instructing the audience on the problems of anterograde amnesia. Otherwise, when your characters suddenly cannot remember recent events and goals they were previously very concerned about, they just look insufferably stupid.
MW: The Iris story continues on, and it looks like marriage has already stripped the mentally-fragile newlywed of her scant remaining sanity as the former Ms. Beedie has stolen her neighbor Estelle’s pets and hair.
Luann: What a wholesome and positive-minded woman! Just the kind of person Luann needed to meet to learn how to make bored housewives cum from reading!
Luann: “OK, Let’s launch this rocket!” Said Jenny as she unfastened the top button on Lars’ jeans. —line from Luann’s first romance novel.
@Twinkles the Elf: That last bit did not stop his worship throughout Pennsylvania. Talk about theological!
The elves in Gasoline Alley are actually humans. Short, inbred, terribly, terribly broken humans. So, you know, like everybody else in this strip. (Except for the “short” part, that’s on them.)
Gil Thorp: You can tell this is all a fever dream on Gil’s part by the way “Foxy” doesn’t add fourteen auto brands to the end of his dealership name.
@Twinkles the Elf, GT: Good catch, but I’d swear I came across GilPa, either here, or This Week in Milford, or Mopped Up Thorp.
Gil knows about the reluctance fetish. If you tell your client that you would have never thought you’d debase yourself with such a man, he will pay you more!
B: We are very thankful that the artist drew Dagwood with BOTH his hands on the keyboard
CS: Divot-head becomes aroused for the first time in months.
RMMD: The moment June decides to switch careers to telemarketing. No off-duty crap to put up with.
JP: “Mrs. Shannon, your husband refuses to pay his bill. Hospital management takes this very seriously.”
GT: Gil decides to cash in on the name-image-likeness gold mine.
Screw the halo, I’m more interested in Hipster Santa’s panel 1 man-bun.
Looks like we can expect tiny bottles of artisanal gin, blocky spectacles and hand-made Javan bicycle clips in 2023’s stockings.
That’s Estelle’s former nanny Iris. They look a little bit alike, don’t they?
DtM – Dennis steals a wisecrack from Office Space. Next he’ll be stealing pennies from the tray for the crippled children. Menace level is Miltonesque.
GA: According to some historians, praying with your hands clasped is actually a medieval invention. Ancient art depicted people praying with open hands. Offering your clasped hands was the gesture of submission a knight made to his feudal lord, so it was considered appropriate for submission to God, the biggest feudal lord of the world. Since Nicholas of Myra was neither medieval nor Western European, who is this impostor?!
There’s being neighbourly and then there’s the elderly couple in their empty nest setting up a child-size table complete with tablecloth and place mat for the young delinquent from next door.
GT: I feel like I’ve missed several days’ worth of exposition leading up to this situation. Or, I suppose since this is nuThorpe, one panel.
DtM: The real menace here is Mrs. Wilson, who is using Dennis as an alibi for Mr. Wilson’s murder.
Blondie: I hope whatever Yankee Pot Roast company benefits from this survey didn’t spend a lot on SEO.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Pluggers: This is probably the same guy who asks how did people who lived back in 200 BC know it was 200 BC when Jesus wasn’t born yet.
***
The same way General T. J. Jackson knew he was being dubbed Stonewall at the First Battle of Manassas.
Wary Morth:
Iris?
I’m about 99.9999999% sure Eshtelle isn’t Iris.
Gil – I am lovin’ Hammerin’ Hank Barajas.
@Baja Gaijin: It’s not Moy’s fault the editors hit the links earlier than the cartoonists.
I only see Gil Thorp when Josh features it here, but it seems to me that in the past few months I have seen, oh, I dunno, maybe 278 plots introduced. Have any of them been resolved?
GT: As if used car dealers don’t already have a dicey enough reputation, this clown grooms like a wrestling villain and dresses like he’s on his way to ’70s Disco Nite.
9CL – Wow, not only do we get more of the always popular “Edda is sexually aroused by the presence of a piano” gags, but we can expand our vocabulary at the same time! There is no humor or amusement or storytelling involved in the act, but at least it’s not “you put your left hand in you take your left hand out! … and then you shake it all about!!”
What will the next plot be? Edda’s next pregnancy? Or do we go to retcon mode again and tell the story of her first pregnancy, when she was 11, the one nobody talks about anymore but that explains why Amos is a pariah with no friends or family.
Frazz: I adore it when writers use their precocious child characters to spout obscure knowledge the writers just picked up on Wikipedia.
Luann: Tara is sure to learn a Very Important Lesson {TM} about The Olds.
FWCS: Lillian’s initial line of dialog read, “the smell in your store is fascinating once you get used to it,” but the extra line covered up that sweet Batmantoyaction figure.FWCS: I’m dying to know what made up comic wankery is involved with Black Raven #1. Maybe we’ll discover the writer is still alive! (or has returned from the dead!)Blondie-Dagwood’s typing up his manifesto.
FC-Follow the money, Jeffy.
RMMD-“There’s no way I’m going to be hanging around here to be a witness or to help,” June thinks to herself.
MW-“After that advice Mary Worth gave you.”
JP-Join us tomorrow as Gloria is told they need to talk.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: “ Next he’ll be stealing pennies from the tray for the crippled children. Menace level is Miltonesque.”
Not the one for the crippled kids, just the take a penny leave a penny jar. Except you take them thousands of times. Just hope I don’t screw up some minor detail, like I always do.
Gil Thorp – Gil is not only late to the game getting into the endorsement money, but also three years too late on Tiger King‘s Joe Exotic making a cameo.
Gasoline Alley – Speaking of late, by the time this Christmas themed plot ends the Christmas decorations will already be up at the mall
Dennis the Menace – Now I am imaging Josh as a leather jacket wearing library hooligan, which mostly consists of sneaking in to check out previously banned literature books like Lady Chatterly’s Lover and reading them in the back corner of the library, and occasional laughing too loud at the dirty joke books.
Blondie – Imagine if Dagwood accidentally copy-pasted and emails his Yankee Pot Roast fantasy to the company’s biggest client
Dustin: Dustin, you’re flaming out worse than a Messerschmidt pilot with Polish Edda flying behind you.
FC: Great, Jeffy has created the glyphs that summon one of the Great Old Ones. Again.
MW: It looks like we’ve got a new character in front of whom Wilbur can embarrass himself, before Mary can gaslight
IrisEstelle into resuming her relationship with Wilbur.GT – “I would never have done a commercial a commercial in a million years, and yet here I am doing a commercial without any explanation whatsoever. People eavesdropping on this conversation will try fill in the blanks, inventing scenarios involving blackmail, a sudden desperate need for validation, etc. Anything but the truth: I wanted ‘Gilpa’ to start trending on Twitter.”
The real menace today is Martha, who’s enabling Dennis’s playing hooky without contacting his parents. They live next door, Martha, and his mother stays at home–all you have to do is pick up the phone! Or if Alice has already left for the morning for her wine-tasting circle or whatever, you could even give Dennis a ride to school. It’s probably on the way to the grocery store, so you could do your errands at the same time. I think after all these years, we’ve finally isolated the source of dysfunction in the DtM universe, and it’s not the five-year-old kid who missed the bus!
@Charterstoned: What th–? Finally the triumphant return of Libby and Pierre … and we have the DISTRACTION of Estelle being mis-identified? Geeze! At least they didn’t call them Greta and Mr. Solo….
Anyhow – we’re gonna see the full range of Pierre’s acting talents… as he battles a deadly parasitic infection!! We may even get the backstory about how he came to be in this predicament. Maybe something from his time with Wilbur? Who knows? Will Libby be endangered too? And how about the vet’s own condition? That’s gotta be an occupational hazard…
I’m glad Estelle may be gettin’ another chance with Dr…. Hey Intern, what was his name? He has been “vetted” heh heh heh by Libby and Pierre and they approve!
Blondie: I can understand that Dagwood gets overexcited and just starts typing away, but that’s really wasting his time if he’s just answering the survey question as written: “What would you do for a free Yankee potroast”. Because the answer to that question is just one word: “Anything”.
Curtis, Retrofied: “I love hearing Gene Chandler sing about ‘Duke of Earl’.” “Didn’t marry that American and give up the throne?” “Okay, this conversation is over.”
MW: Poor Iris. Not only did she have to endure a month of self-doubt and anxiety because her resemblance to Nan made her doubt her very identity and whether she was just a Nan replacement, but now even the all-knowing narrator is confusing her with another woman. And to add insult to injury, they are not confusing her with Nan or even Toby (who also looks a lot like her), but with Estelle who isn’t even a blonde.
RMMD: Oh no! Now June will have to administer first aid to the victims of that car crash! What a nuisance! For the umpteenth time, she regrets her choice of profession. Even if she was set on a medical profession, she could for example have become a pathologist instead. Then she’d only have to deal with patients who were nice and quiet, didn’t talk back, stayed where you put them even when you went for lunch, and didn’t require immediate attention at all kinds of inconvenient time.
RMMD: “CRASHHHHHH!” With a hissing noise, the speeding car hits and punctures a car-shaped ad balloon, deflating it completely. June will be relieved when she finds out that its horribly mangled occupant is just an inflatable rubber doll, which requires no medical attention.
MW/GT/FW: “Iris, this particular parasite infestation is known as Tombatiuck comicbookitis. It’s been rampant in Westview, Ohio, for years. There is no known cure. Pierre won’t die but he will become an insufferable bore, I’m afraid.”
“And the effect on humans?”
“Cancer and death. Unless this is the Karenmoyish strain. Then it’s multiple personalities, I fear. And a simultaneous loathing and lust for mayonnaise. Still the insufferable boredom part.”
“Can you tell me who I am today? And why is Gil Thorp on TV pretending to be disgraced Coach Joe Paterno?”
“Oh no, it’s worse than thought! The new Barajasian hybrid! Your multiple personalities will change abruptly from day to day with no rhyme or reason! Iris!”
“I’m Estelle! No I’m Nan!”
“911! Stat!”
Phantom: If the Phantom is so smart, why didn’t he think of the Bandars’ stealth skills and deadly poisoned arrows before he broke into the prison? Wouldn’t it have been much more efficient to sneak in with a squad of Bandar commando chicks and kill all the guards silently than run in alone with guns blazing and setting off every alarm there is?
Tina’s Groove: Who on earth would even consider walking down a dark alley with a couple of tea cozies proudly on display, gang colours or not? Don’t you usually keep them together with your teapots? Unless she suddenly got cold and decided to wear them as a hat she shouldn’t need that mace cozy.
Zits: Sure, it’s a running gag in this comic that Jeremy is going through a teenage growth spurt and is very long-legged and gangly, so him not fitting in the driver’s seat of that absolutely tiny car is not unreasonable. But it used to be his dad’s car, and while he’s not as tall as Jeremy, Walt is not exactly a small man. How did he fit his bulk behind the wheel in that minuscule car-ette?
MW: “I eradicated the parasites and his energy should return shortly. Nothing I can do about the shmooshed muzzle and constricted airways, though. He’ll be dead in three months.”
What’s menacing is Martha serving Dennis store-bought cookies!
9CL: A little public service announcement: The symbol in their thought bubbles is called a fermata and means “hold the note for an extended time” (how extended is up to the performer to decide). Which it seems is what Edda is doing, though how she can play the piano while lying on its lid is a mystery to me.
And even if you understand the joke, it’s still not very funny.
Gil: I cannot believe circumstances have led me to debase myself in this revolting fashion. I was hoping to die with dignity.
Fox: Ha, ha, ha—stop it, Gil! My sides are gonna be aching tomorrow!
Thirty-eight hours later, hair askew, drunk on coffee and inspiration, Dagwood pounds out the final lines: I was an Eater of the pot roast yes when I put the gravy on my potatoes like the Bavarian girls used or shall I wear a red bow tie and how it tasted upon the marble counter and I thought very well as very well as another pot roast and then I ate it with my eyes to eat it again yes and then it asked me would I eat and say yes my Yankee pot roast and first I put my teeth into it yes and drew it in to me so it could feel my stomach all acidic yes and my gut was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
Luann: Mrs. Horner says what everybody is thinking: teaching a class with Luann and her friend in it is better than being dead. Just barely.
@Voshkod: Finnegan’s meal?
Gil Thorp-Not the sort of prostitution Gil imagined he would be doing.
MW; will Estelle be given a starring role or will Wilbur be given another opportunity to make an ass of himself.
Gilpa – Man, I’ve got plot whiplash. But if I bought one of Foxy’s used deathtraps, I’d have real whiplash. Hard to say which is more painful.
Frazz: Why is this kid so obsessed with a band from the early 1960s who were inducted in the Hall of Fame four years ago (when he should have been too young to care)? Could it possibly be that the writer was a fan in his youth? Nah, that’s too far-fetched.
I googled “intensely erotic roastfucking fanfic”, and all I found was “Hermione Granger and the Eroticus Curse Book One”.
Gil Thorp: Gil couldn’t even get the real Hulk Hogan for this, it’s just a discount version.
Gasoline Alley: You know that’s the real Saint Nick because he’s too nice to tell this elf how his business is almost assuredly going to fail and he has no prospects because he’s an elf that’s spent his entire life in the North Pole. Just let him have the dream for a day.
Dennis The Menace: This is officially the point where this strip should just be renamed “Dennis”.
Blondie: I can only presume this is the beginning of a lengthy storyline where Dagwood gets the company computers infested with a massive heap of viruses by answering every obvious scam email he gets about food.
GT: How far can Gil sink? While his wife is out flirting with lesbian golf coaches, he is forced to sacrifice his principles and in effect prostitute himself for money. Next, we’ll see a desperate Gil pushing drugs at the street corner.
Arlo & Janis: Is Janis really saying that she’ll need to put a bra on, or is that just my dirty mind speaking? The way she’s holding her arms under her boobs seems to indicate that she really means that, anyway.
J.C. Dithers doesn’t seem like the most tech-savvy guy, but I certainly would hope that DithersCo’s IT department can set up web filtering software to prevent their employees from wasting entire afternoons writing intensely erotic roastfucking fanfic on AO3.
Out of curiosity, what would be the link so
I could readDagwood could peruse this filth?Blondie: I can only imagine the increasingly depraved and/or violent things issuing from Dagwood’s keyboard right now. Hopefully it’s enough to alert Dithers’ IT staff or the FBI before it’s too late.
GA: Yes, he’s a saint, Bucky, but unless you’re a child, a sailor, a penitent thief or a prostitute he can’t do anything for you. Unfortunately the Vatican hasn’t appointed a patron saint of elves yet; maybe you could talk to Francis of Assisi? He’s pretty cool with non-human creatures…
GT: The used car guys in my area are all Boomer types who look like GOP state representatives, so it’s kind of refreshing to see a Gen X creep getting in on the market.
@gardenornament: Oh, she’s totally saying that. (Or possibly, I suppose, that she needs a bra with more wire.)
Anyway, Arlo has been enjoying the show to this point.
JP: ”My large friend, Officer Helsner here, just buttfucked your husband, and now he wants to buttfuck you. The married couple angle is kind of a ‘bucket list’ thing for him. All the other cops are here because they want to watch.”
@gardenornament: 9CL -“The symbol in their thought bubbles is called a fermata and means “hold the note for an extended time”
How do you hold a note on the piano for an extended time? This should be Amos playing an extended note on the cello, except of course that would take the focus off of Edda for a panel or two and is thus unacceptable.
The survey was asking what Dagwood would do “for” a free yankee pot roast, not “to” said roast. All that typing means Dagwood is describing all violence he can imagine from John Wick to genocide, and he means every word.
Gilpa, Revisited I grew up in Atlanta in the 70s/80s, and there was an ongoing ad campaign for Unclaimed Furniture Mart, featuring a hirsute fellow who called himself “The Wolfman” – when DJ Wolfman Jack tried to sue for copyright infringement, Ted Turner, who aired his ads on what was then just “channel 17” (what would later become Superstation WTBS, and finally TBS), loaned The Wolfman some lawyers, and the case got dropped.
If you have some time, and want to hear an icon do a cheesy ad, for some really ugly furniture, google it.
And, hey! Ask for the Wolfman!
GT: In case anyone is wondering whatever happened to 80s wrestling star Terry (Magnum TA) Allen it looks like he owns a used car dealership in Milford.
[Gloria] “Wh- why are there so many police here tonight?”
[Receptionist] “The doctor will be with you shortly.”
[Gloria] “Why are there so many police.”
[Doctor] “This is Officer Helsner. He is a police.”
[Gloria] “What’s with all the police?”
[Duty Nurse] “Room 318, on the left.”
[Gloria] “Why are there so many police here?”
[Guard] “Go right in, Ma’am.”
[Gloria] “Any idea what all these police are doing?”
[Steve] “Gasp urk ack ack ack.”
[Gloria] “Hey, why so many police?”
[Coroner] “You can ride along if you like.”
[Gloria] “Police – why?”
[Funeral Director] “Just when did the late deceased pass away?”
[Gloria] “So many police—why?”
[Minister] Dearly beloved ….
@gardenornament: Jef Mallett should be too young to care about the Surfaris, much less Caulfield. Mallett was born in 1962, and “Wipe Out” was a big hit in 1963; it also hit the top 20 again in 1966. So the Surfaris’ only hit came when Mallett was 1 year old, and then again when he was 4 years old.
9CL: In the absense of a note or even a rest for the fermatta to modify, I have to assume that our protagonists’ brains have locked up in a kind of musical Blue Screen of Death and need to be rebooted.
C’shaft: Having both a Batman figurine and Skunkhead John wearing a Burton-era Batman logo shirt while discussing a Batman-knockoff comic is giving me a headache. Or maybe that’s just a reminder of how much I hate Skunkhead John.
Dustin: “Creeps like you are why we voted to unionize.”
HotC: Because auditions NEVER tell you the performance schedule ahead of time and confirm you’re able to do at least a significant portion of it when you sign up.
Luann: I would hold off on that statement until after you’ve had Luann in your class, Mrs. Horner.
MT: What’s with this Spider-Man “planted a tracker on him” nonsense? Don’t they have apps for that these days?
MW: No, no, Iris is the woman who escaped from Wilbur to marry a hot tech bro. Estelle is the woman who escaped from Wilbur hopefully to marry a sensitive veterinarian.
Phantom: Unfortunately, Bandar people of the deep woods are unable to masturbate.
Pluggers could easily look this kind of thing up if they cared to, but they prefer their lives of quaint ignorance.
RMMD: How much longer does June have before her kids go full Donner Party and cannibalize Rex out of extreme hunger? I’m guessing ten minutes.
@gardenornament: Ulicksses.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: “How do you hold a note on the piano for an extended time? ”
That’s of course a problem – the note will decay on its own and you can’t extend it beyond that. But, typically, a fermata won’t be held that long. Today’s strip is of course an exaggerated case. A more typical case would be that you hold it for perhaps a few seconds.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: Fermatas are not unusual in piano music. You just hold the key down longer. Granted, the note will eventually fade away, and it will fade away even faster if it’s a note on one of the rarely used highest-pitched keys of the piano as Edda is playing.
@Joshua K.: I dunno, if Mallett (or his parents) listened to any “classic hits” stations in the 80s and 90s, “Wipe Out” would have had a reasonable amount of rotation on the radio. Never underestimate the ability of the young mind to latch onto pop music before its time–Divaling One is obsessed with “Never Gonna Give You Up” despite being too young to have been in on either its 80s success or the Rickrolling fad.
@Rube: “Oh, she’s totally saying that.”
I’m glad to hear that. It means I’m not depraved beyond hope yet.
“(Or possibly, I suppose, that she needs a bra with more wire.)”
Yes, that’s certainly a possibility, though I’ve got the impression from other strips that Janis doesn’t wear one very often.
“Anyway, Arlo has been enjoying the show to this point.”
I’m sure he has! It’s a good thing, by the way, that the artist didn’t make the comic too detailed, so we didn’t end up with something like the infamous zumba strip from Zits.
The Book of Dagwood… within its pages the reader would find the grotesquery, the horror, the profane acts and rituals so described in painstakingly intricately details expressing the pain, suffering, and viscera of the victims he would sacrifice for food to fill the void within… the Great Old One Cthulhu would lay his many eyes upon this work of insanity and oblivion and say, “Whoa there, Buddy… this is too much for me.”
Neither Dennis Mitchell, engrossed in his cookies, nor Martha Wilson, confused as to why the boy was in her kitchen and not at school, noticed the slowly descending form of the menacing Bolivian Golden-Fanged Spider.
9CL: It is, by the way, indicative of Brooke’s unbearable pretentiousness that he could even consider drawing a newspaper comic which requires the reader to be able to read sheet music to understand the joke.
Of course, I guess most of his readers are just there to look at legs.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box:
Depress either of the right two pedals, neither of which Edda can reach.
GT — If this is the intro to The Year That Milford Won the Playdowns, I have to say that Mephistopheles has really let himself go. . .
GA — Santa may be the Supreme Leader of a fascist Panopticon, but at least he handles his own firings and doesn’t shove it off to some unctuous, faux-caring HR elf. . .
DtM — Somewhere, Mike Judge reaches for his phone to text his attorney and then realizes it doesn’t matter.
@gardenornament:
Most of the music notation in 9CL is legitimate, e.g., the bass-clef “chord” when Edda sat on the piano in Sunday’s strip. Although given that it’s Edda, I would’ve gone for A-flat diminished.
MW-I’m pretty sure that at this point the writers and editors don’t really care anymore.
1 and Done: Aliens who are used to working at home.
It’s Cal Worthington and his dog, Thorpe!
Luann-“She’s done amazing things.” “And I’ve had amazing things done to me.”
Blondie- Dagwood likes his pot roast with ‘gravy’. Lots and lots of hot, creamy gravy.
love is... Check out the date on today’s cartoon. (Above the cartoon.)
@Joshua K.: I listen to Russ Colombo, and he’d been in the grave 26 years before I was born.
I listen to Mozart, too.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Don Abundio is willing to discuss his amazing new headache remedy”
“Do you consent to the conditions?”
“Sure!”
“He insists on a demonstration first!”
@Sequitur: January does seem to go on forever, doesn’t it?
MW:
The black sedan screeched to a halt in front of of Santa Royale’s PathoLogik Laboratory as the passenger door swung open and a middle-aged, bespectacled man jumped out. He was carrying a metal box with the ominous bright-orange words “ACTIVE PARASITE” clearly visible on the side. Without waiting for the driver to join him, the man rushed into the building, holding the box protectively.
He took a quick sweep of his surroundings before proceeding further, unwilling to sacrifice caution for the urgency his errand demanded. The antiseptic interior was not unlike some others the man had seen in his work, but this particular lab seemed oddly out of date. A broad expanse of white walls and tiled floors was relieved only by the gray metal reception desk. The matching swivel chair was vacant. The man recognized this furniture as relics from the 1950s, heady days of the Cold War when nuclear attacks had awakened dangerous pathogens that sparked mutations in men and beasts alike.
There was one interior door emblazoned with the warning “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY!” which opened even before he could reach the desk, and a white-coated woman hurriedly entered the reception area. The man was immediately alert, for even the woman seemed to be a throw-back to an earlier decade. Harsh light from the ceiling cast an eerie illumination on her pale face, making her appear almost ghostly. In the glare of those lights, her red appeared as black as the thick cat-eye glasses she wore. Her hair was pulled back from her face, the blond tresses confined into a severe knot at the nape of her neck. He couldn’t tell if she was attractive or not, but he suspected that under the shapeless lab coat, and without the glasses, and with the hair taken down–but he didn’t have time to think about that. The box he held was of extreme importance.
“I need to have this analyzed immediately,” he began, as the woman looked at him expectantly. She had not asked him, “Can I help you?” He saw the ID pinned to her chest and leaned in. “Miss Carter. This is of the utmost urgency.”
“I’m afraid we have only one lab technician here today,” she replied indifferently. “You can leave the box if you like, but we won’t be able to process your sample today. Perhaps not even this week.” She sat in the chair and swiveled to face him. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t understand. This is a sample from the Santa Royale vet’s office. It contains LIVE PARASITES that must be identified immediately. Your lab is the only one within 2,000 miles that has the Nuclear Microscope! I must see your technician NOW!”
At the mention of Santa Royale, the receptionist had instinctively pushed back from the desk. “You–you don’t mean ANIMAL HOSPITAL?! Does it have a picture of a dog and a cat in the window?”
“They’re two silhouettes on the shade,” the man corrected. “But yes, that’s the one. NOW do you understand?”
He was addressing her back as she fumbled with the key to the door. In an instant, she had disappeared into the back and the door once again was locked behind her. The man held the box, increasingly agitated by the delay. The phone on the desk began to ring, but no one picked up, and the woman did not come back to answer it. Only after several moments, when the ringing stopped, did she return. This time she held the door open. “You’d better come in. Come quickly! The lab tech is prepared to take the specimen for examination.”
The man carried the box protectively as he followed the woman, past cages containing monkeys, iguanas, rabbits, and bats, down a long corridor that was flanked by doors with small barred windows. He wondered what creatures were held within, but couldn’t stop to satisfy his curiosity. Once or twice he thought he heard human voices, anguished whispers and low, pleading moans, but he had no time to investigate. The box–or more precisely, what was IN the box–was too important.
A tall man with graying temples turned to face him as he was led into the main lab. In this enormous room, the Nuclear Microscope occupied fully half of the space, all of its many parts focused on a single point beneath a lens that seemed innocuous enough. But the man knew he was looking at the world’s most advanced nuclear instrument. It would take that, and more, to determine what it was he held in his arms.
The man with the graying temples gingerly accepted the box, and placing it on a metal lab table unlocked it and removed the lid. It was almost as if he expected what was inside to explode in his face, he worked so delicately. But he was no stranger to dangerous parasites, and although he worked quickly, he made no careless moved as he extracted the sample and placed it on the glass slide. Then, after working several knobs, he activated the nuclear reactor with a flip of a switch behind a protective cover, and when the alarms and buzzers had quieted, he leaned into the eyepiece to look at the sample. He saw at once that the man’s concerns had been justified.
He straightened, and fixed the man with a penetrating stare. “Where did you say these parasites were found?”
The man replied at once. “They were located on a dog. The dog lives in a condo building filled with people and even some other pets….what can you tell me?”
“I don’t need to tell you anything. You only need to look at what has been unleashed on Santa Royale.” The gray-haired lab technician invited the man to look through the eyepiece.
The man leaned in. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, and he moved the focusing knob fractionally until the sample came into view. “My god,” he whispered. “My god, there are millions of them! What are they?”
“There’s no scientific name for them yet, because their existence has only recently been acknowledged by the scientific community. What we do know is that they are voracious, mindless, and deadly. They spread like wildfire and infect anything and everything they touch. No interaction with these things is safe. They will destroy everything in their path: conversations, karaoke performances, entire relationships. For lack of a better term, I’ve been calling them Nano-Wilburs.”
“My god. What can we do? Should we call in the FBI? The army? What can stop them?”
The gray-haired man turned off the nuclear microscope and the room shuddered as the instrument powered down. “I’m afraid there’s nothing we CAN do. But pray.”
As I refuse to actually read Gasoline Alley on a regular basis, I can only extrapolate the story from the strips Josh chooses to feature. Therefore, based on today’s strip, I assume the lachrymose and sniffling elf named Bunky was fired after Santa discovered his massive cocaine habit through a random drug test. Santa allowed him to leave without calling the police, a fact for which the elf is pathetically grateful. Also, Santa really doesn’t understand how to use a ring light properly.
MW: Please note that in today’s performance of Mary Worth, the role of Iris will be played by Estelle, and the roles of pets Wilbur and Zak will be played by Pierre and Libby.
Blondie: For today’s gag to work, the reader would need to know that writing social media posts promoting McCormick’s brand Slow Cooker Savory Pot Roast seasoning mix isn’t Dagwood’s job. He doesn’t stop typing when Dithers shows up, so maybe it is.
DtM: @Tmdess: What’s menacing is Martha serving Dennis store-bought cookies!
And in an apron, no less! It appears Mrs. Wilson may be quietly quitting this strip.
MW – The narration box is wrong. That’s Irene.
FC – If the school psychologist sees that second one, he’ll know that Jeffy’s been hanging out with the Van Hoesen twins. Their version is much more anatomically correct.
Crankshaft – It was in the mailbox, so I hid it. Or maybe I tore it up. No, wait, that wasn’t a comic book, that was the letter to my sister.
Plugger – Ask him why people drive on a parkway and park on a driveway. That’ll keep him puzzled for weeks.
@Uncle Lumpy: McEldowney does have that Juilliard degree. And since no one ever notices whether viola players practice or not, he had loads of time to read up on music theory.
@TheDiva: Re: MW: “Sex with sexy veterinarian” is giving off a strong Schitt’s Creek vibe.
@101 Peanut Gallery:
Okay. Now you did it. You make me want to translate the Spanish Rex Morgan M.D.
Narrator – “June goes to the supermarket and boy, is she ticked!”
“Damn, it’s fuckin’ cold out here.”
“I don’t see why Rex couldn’t get off his ass and go shopping. Sexist pig!”
“HAROLD!”
“OH SHIT!”
@Peanut Gallery: Sure seems like it.
@Tmdess:
I am literally heading off to make homemade cookies right now, out of principle.
@gardenornament: When it comes to Arlo and Janis, always assume horny.
So no, Janis isn’t wearing a bra. Why would she?
9CL – so I see in the responses there are at least three good explanations of how to hold a note on the piano, each of which came accompanied by a reason that Edda can’t actually be doing that while she lies on top of the piano that way. Mr. Sophisticated Musician who loves to show off his erudition for the plebes has apparently not checked his own credentials recently. Or, more likely, is too busy to care and just wanted to toss off a joke without putting any effort into it.
So… after being laid off by Santa, where does an elf even go?
As humans aren’t supposed to actually know of their existence.
Did he catch a magical train to Middle-Earth? Tamriel? Krynn?
Or retire, inside a giant tree making cookies?
“Most of the music notation in 9CL is legitimate, e.g., the bass-clef “chord” when Edda sat on the piano in Sunday’s strip. ”
Yes, that one was actually rather good (and it reminds me of an interesting discussion on YouTube whether such a “chord” is indeed a chord or rather a cluster). And I’ve also noticed that Brooke usually gets his musical notation right. As he damn well should – didn’t he go to Juilliard? Too bad his idea of humour is to exaggerate his depictions of musicians (as opposed to the score) so far that they bear no recognizable relation to reality.
@brendancalling: .Definitely. Top comment on GoComics:
Cross my heart, lift & separate…. the next tune on the play list “Squeeze Box” by The Who.
@Old School Allie Cat: Holy flashback, Batman! I spent the bulk of the 80s in Athens and Atlanta and remember The Wolfman and his legal woes clearly. If Tom Shane shows up in Milford, I’ll know where Barajas is drawing his inspo for sure.
Rex Morgan – June heroically pulls the driver from the crashed car, opens his airway using a penknife and inserts a trach tube improvised from a piece of spaghetti, and administers CPR until the EMTs arrive. She finally makes it home.
“You won’t believe what just happened! I -”
“We’re starving!” Rex grabs the grocery bag from her hands, pushes her out of the way, and immediately starts devouring the lettuce from the salad bar with his bare hands. Sarah whispers to the boys that maybe he won’t notice the pack of cookies, and maybe there will be some left for them.
@gardenornament: 9CL- Like everything else involved in this strip, the focus on portraying professional musicians and their quirks has vanished and been replaced by obsessive attention to Edda, and how hot she is, and how much Amos worships her, and how graciously she allows him to.
And maybe it is selective attention, but it seems that even when he used to depict his characters actually on stage performing at an actual concert, with spectators and curtains and seats and everything instead of just blank space, it was always just in support of a “playing/listening to music makes Edda horny” gag that ends with her giving Amos a lap dance in the middle of the show.
Gas Pass: Pretty sure your little financial empire puts you in violation of several Church canons there, ????????????. We gonna have to get the Synod together and have an old-fashioned deposing?
Gil Thorp: Well no wonder his marriage is on the rocks. Gil’s about to leave Mimi for Joe Exotic! Can’t say I was expecting this, but his new crime and animal adventures should be… really boring because he’s still Gil?
Dangit, I flew too close to the sun, trying to type Greek characters :p
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box:
9CL: I think that if you asked Brooke about this, he’d have a justification: his idea of humour is obviously comical exaggeration, in this case of Edda’s piano playing antics. And the more you exaggerate, the funnier it gets.
I, and I guess most readers, have a problem with that: Start with one of the more melodramatic pianists who tends to have strange antics on stage. Exaggerate them a little and they look ridiculous and funny. That’s parody.
Exaggerate some more and they become grotesque rather than funny. Exaggerate even more and it’s not related at all to the thing you’re parodying – it just becomes bizarre and incomprehensible. Edda’s way of playing the piano is like that – she’s not a funny exaggeration of real pianists, she’s just strange and you get the impression that Brooke has never seen a pianist perform in his life.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: “And maybe it is selective attention, but it seems that even when he used to depict his characters actually on stage performing at an actual concert, with spectators and curtains and seats and everything instead of just blank space, it was always just in support of a “playing/listening to music makes Edda horny” gag that ends with her giving Amos a lap dance in the middle of the show.”
I don’t think it’s selective attention on your part. It seems Brooke is only playing out his own sexual fantasies (which obviously involve boinking sexy, leggy pianists in the middle of a performance) nowadays.
MARY WORTH: I suspect there is going to be one fatter, balder parasite that’s going to be particularly hard to kill, Doc.
@gardenornament: 9CL – A perfect example of this is the emphasis on the idea that Edda plays the piano as if she was leaping off of a playground swing and then SLAMMING DOWN so hard on the keyboard with her fingers that she smashes it and her hands go right through. I can envision there being pianists who are overly dramatic and seem to be hammering the keys in their passion. Parodying this by having her leap through the air and end up smashing the keyboard on the piano, however, is unrecognizable as a parody of actual pianists.
@Dunkelcopter: I will accept a synod, but only a Cadaver Synod.
@Voshkod: The sequel to “The Nightmare Before Christmas” that we’ve all been waiting for!
MW: At the moment, Dr. Vet looks like one of the many generic-looking males in this strip. Perhaps if he and Iris start dating again, June will draw him more like George Clooney or Alan Alda. Or does Dr. Vet look so bland because he won’t be in this strip that long because Wilbur will ruin Estelle’s date again? And will Wilbur worm his way back with Estelle angering everyone? Stay tuned. Or not.
MARY WORTH: I guess the women who plays all the blond chicks is still in contract negotiations (she wants a raise now that they gave her an extra character to do) so poor “Estelle” has to be the “fake Jan” of this universe.
MW: G A S P!!!!!!!!! No, no no, KarJune…that’s *ESTELLE*!!!! ESTELLE!!! Hasn’t the poor lady suffered enough indignities in this strip??? No? Well, here we go then…
OTOH, I am really happy to see Libby and Pierre, and perhaps a hopeful foreshadowing of Estelle resuming her nascent, promising friendship with the vet. After the Toby/Cal/Helen/Ian and Iris/Zak debacles, *something* truly good has to happen to Estelle.
MW: Estelle hopes the vet has gotten rid of all his parasites too…
MW: I hope Estelle’s re-awakened interest for the vet means that she’s definitely put Wilbur out of her mind. Estelle is one of the most sympathetic characters, and Libby is even more so, and I’d hate to see either of them humiliated by Mr. Weston again.
@Wool Worth: #127
” And will Wilbur worm his way back with Estelle angering everyone? ”
“Worm” – A completely apropos choice of words to apply to Wilbur in the context of a strip describing intestinal parasites…
@Garrison Skunk: There was a commercial on a Santa Maria CA station many years ago which featured a used car dealer introducing us to a cow as his dog TriTip.
@Sequitur: “AUGHHHH” is Spanish for “OH SHIT”? I’ll read Peanuts very differently from now on!
@Ukulele Ike: “Cold, Gray, and Wet”: The official motto of January (northern hemisphere temperate zone edition).
Bold of you to assume Dagwood’s roastfic centers around eroticism with the roast itself, and not brutal violence against innocent third parties.
Tom the Dancing Bug: Hey, check out Josh’s guest appearance in “Comics for the Elderly”!
@Daisy:
In any context, actually…
Some other character-appropiate verbs. Can you think of any more?
Wilbur worms his way back
Luann stumbles through life
Sophie Spencer-Driver bounces around
Helen Kudlick hangs around
Ed Crankshaft jerks back
@Navigator: “Bold of you to assume Dagwood’s roastfic centers around eroticism with the roast itself, and not brutal violence against innocent third parties.”
There will certainly be brutal violence if they stand between Dagwood and his food!
Luann: Oh look, a Manic Pixie Dream Senior. What other life affirming wisdom does she have?
@Daisy:
“’Worm’ – A completely apropos choice of words to apply to Wilbur in the context of a strip describing intestinal parasites…”
LOL. Wriggle or slither could also work, but you’re right, worm is the right word when talking about Wilbur and parasites.
I decided to write up a quick a review of this site and the comments section accordingly.
Generally hilarious, (Josh and commentators alike) and VERY friendly people.:) the site is a nice place to feel at home.
But in the end I rate it 7.8/10 (too many comments regarding 9 Chickweed Lane)
@made of wince: “Sweety, you’re in the prime of life. Write about your experiences: You know, staggering out of a bar, full of vodka sodas, right into a mess of aggressive panhandlers. Smoking a huge blunt that you didn’t know your friends had laced. Banging a dude and him asking if you mind if his buddy joins in.”
“Uh…one time I was in and art course with a nude model. I didn’t look, though.”
@gardenornament: #138
Dagwood…chews the scenery (literally)
Amos (of 9CL)…oozes like the primordial soup
Edda (of 9CL)…circles like a shark when she isn’t preening like a peacock
The Keane kids…careen through life carefree and clueless
@ComicBookHarriet:
Thanks for the heads-up, Harriet!
Going in, I assumed I would vote for the smirking Les and smirking Batton as the most punchable and insufferable, respectively, but then I found their sad hangdog looks to be even moreso.
@teenchy:
Holy flashback, Batman! I spent the bulk of the 80s in Athens and Atlanta and remember The Wolfman and his legal woes clearly. If Tom Shane shows up in Milford, I’ll know where Barajas is drawing his inspo for sure.
I was born at Piedmont (Northside didn’t exist yet), grew up in Roswell, went to college in Athens, then moved back to Atlanta. I lived there until 2005. I was disappointed to learn that Tom Shane ads followed me – I assumed he was local. Tom Shane vincit omnia!
@pastordan: #22
“Gil Thorp: You can tell this is all a fever dream on Gil’s part by the way “Foxy” doesn’t add fourteen auto brands to the end of his dealership name.”
“Come to Foxy’s Used Autos, where you’ll find your choice of fine pre-owned Yugos, Edsels, Gremlins, Corvairs, Pintos, and Chevettes”
@Daisy:
”Amos oozes”
That’s very appropriate! Especially for his creepy pre-teen version.
@Daisy: Wait! When did he stop selling ZiLs and Ladas? Foxy’s was my go-to place for defunct Iron Curtain car parts!
@Old School Allie Cat: But weren’t you relieved to know you still had a friend in the diamond business? And I’m legally required to add: Antwerp.
Marvin-“I thought you already had a beard.”
Beetle Bailey-“Unflattering pictures?” I wouldn’t call those pictures of you, Ms. Buxley, unflattering.
Curtis: Okay who wants to do the deep dive of backstrips to see where Greg disses the talents of Prince over his Doo-Wop idols?
9CL: Looks like Brooke is trying to muscle in on John Cage’s territory. But then, he already took the idea from the organ piece where they change chords every couple of years and used it for his Pigborn schedule.
Wilbur’s ex-dog is a parasite magnet.
Wash Tubbs: Ninety years ago today, the Greatest Generation faced perils you cannot imagine: Rotten nazi cigarettes.
@N. Scud. und so weiter: Years ago, I read a book about D-Day from the German POV. There was a brief bit about a German who was promptly captured on one of the American beaches. The GIs gave him a Chesterfield. The real tobacco cigarette knocked him on his butt.
@The Rambling Otter: To tell you the truth, all the rest of us are laughing at you behind your back (sticks wooden matches between your toes and gives you a Tom-and-Jerry style hotfoot).
PS: That Edda sure is a bitch, right? Sexy legs, though.
@Merry Mirth: They say pets resemble their owners.
@N. Scud. und so weiter: Zero hour is 19 o’clock!
@N. Scud. und so weiter: “Wouldn’t my girl be surprised!”
Next day, porn.
@Voshkod: #149
That market dried up during the Brezhnev era, but I hear they are still for sale in Cuba…
@Rube: Wehrmacht cigarettes were laced with methamphetamine, for that “get up and go!” attitude that was so much a part of the Nazi soldiering experience. See Norman Ohler; Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich (2017).
You have to hand it to Wash Tubbs, though…those Hugo Boss Gestapo uniforms would make even the dourest Yankee doughboy prance and strut.
@Borborygmy: By my calculations, that makes Five Hour 24 o’clock.
Hence the saying, “It’s always 24 o’clock somewhere.”
Curtis: I feel like Greg gave up on this being a bonding moment way to quickly, but I guess I’m impressed he at least made the attempt, and his response to Curtis’s opening gambit wasn’t “How can you call rap ‘tunes’? They don’t have tunes!”
Crank: No, Lillian, you didn’t shortchange him, because he paid you for the comics you gave him, which were the comics you gave him. He obviously didn’t pay for some super-rare Batman ripoff he’s only learning about now.
Heath I … guess the joke is Heathcliff has given the robot a scarf? And the owner kid is saying this is because Heathcliff is cold, and therefore realises the robot is cold? Joke’s on you, owner kid — Heathcliff knows robots can’t feel the cold. He gave the robot the scarf to mock its unliving status.
JP: Goodness, I’m sure this would be deeply suspenseful if a) I believed for a second that Ces was going to kill Steve, and b) I particularly cared if he did.
MT: Is this the first time it’s been established that Cherry’s tracking app is based on a bug planted in Rusty’s backpack? Because I kind of assumed that she was tracking his phone, like a normal person. I was going to suggest maybe Rusty doesn’t have a phone for “appreciating nature instead of surfing social media” reasons, but then I remembered he definitely does, because he puts videos on (deep sigh) “BikBok”.
Having said that, if Rusty — or indeed Mark — had a phone with them, they could call for help, so maybe they leave them behind for precisely that reason. “It’s not a proper nature hike if there’s no risk of death!”
MW: Okay, I’ve been complaining for a while that we never get any new meddlees any more, but apparently Moy can’t keep track of the existing ones, so…
Phantom: Today in wobbly morality: Stripey would like Sarvana to stop killing people, but knows that it’s pointless to even ask her to promise such a thing, so will settle for strongly discouraging every potential murder as it comes up. However, the Bandar, who are generally portrayed as more inclined to follow the lead of the Ghost Who Has Unfortunate Colonial Implications, can kill anyone they like! If he didn’t ask them to be here, it’s not his responsibility!
@N. Scud. und so weiter: Oopsies. That was only eighty years ago today. Must be getting old.
That was all from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune’s excellent comic page, at https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=A7-hzOuI2KQC&dat=19430118&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
(Sorry about the long url)
// Check out the Red Ryder: Blinded by bees!
@Alter Ego: My wife saw it, and wondered where the guy got the cell phone.
@Ukulele Ike: The Wehrmacht was not the only army that was fueled by methamphetamines. American and British soldiers also were fed a steady diet, to keep them awake and to dull any sense of remorse at what they were expected to do.
You can wage war on drugs, but you can’t wage one without them!
Phantom: Looks like Stripeybutt’s no kill policy has been tossed out the window, or in this case, out of the guard tower.
@Rube: #156: Hey, Chesterfields are the brand that killed Jack Webb, so they must be strong.
@Daisy: Don’t forget the East German Trabant, the only car whose owners manual had instructions for evacuating the vehicle in case it blew up. As an added bonus the body was made out of a plastic that was highly toxic. After unification the German government had to create special landfills to dispose of the Trabant bodies.
Marvin leaks . . .
@170
Plumbing InspectorScratchy Scrotum LXIX:Hagar reeks . . .
@Guillermo el chiclero: #169
No kidding! I just looked it up in Wikipedia – among other attributes, “The Trabant’s build quality was poor, reliability was terrible, and it was loud, slow, and poorly designed.” It was also a terrible source of pollutants. It was kind of cute looking, though.
@Daisy: The “Trabi”, as it’s nicknamed in Germany, was a pretty horrible car, but it’s become a cult classic and there’s quite a demand for them among collectors. I don’t think they spend much time driving them, though, now that Mercedes and BMW are available to all Germans.
@Guillermo el chiclero: “Phantom: Looks like Stripeybutt’s no kill policy has been tossed out the window, or in this case, out of the guard tower.”
I guess it’s OK as long as it’s other people doing the killing for him.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I can only assume this refers to the scatological sequel to WikiLeaks.
Snuffy – “I was being chased by a lingerie thief!”
“So what’d you do?”
“I gave him the slip”
@Daisy: But the Trabant came with a rear window defroster as standard equipment, which was greatly appreciated by the owners when they had to push the car home during the winter.
@gardenornament:
There’s a Trabi movie, “Go Trabi Go!” See it along with the truly excellent “Goodbye, Lenin!” for the full reunification-movie-with-an-exclamation-point-in-the-title experience.
Blondie: The list Dagwood provides of self-abasing sexual practices is so disturbing that the account posting the poll blocks him.
DtM: Dennis works his hot new material out with Mrs. Wilson before trying it out on the truant officer.
GT: Okay, Foxy, apparently no one has taken you aside and told you this before, but it needs to be said. The full list of men who can pull off the Hulk Hogan look runs as follows:
1) Hulk Hogan
@Ukulele Ike:
1- My “review” was a joke on the “7.8/10: Too much water” meme.
2– Ouch…. that really hurts. I always saw you guys as my friends. I guess I don’t fit in here as much as I thought.
C-Shaft: Skunkhead John sees a comic book with “Black Raven” plastered at the top and “#1” tucked in the corner so he deduces that this just might be Black Raven #1. No flies on this guy.
JP: Next time they should hang up a “Thank you for walking into our trap” banner so they don’t keep hearing the same question.
Luann: I’m going to assume that Mrs. Horner is Gunther having a full psychotic break until I get compelling proof otherwise.
Marvin: Sometimes the old men making this decision can’t stop with the facial hair and that’s how Pluggers come to be.
MW: A quiet beginning to what will no doubt be an epic story, as the vet advises Iris to have Wilbur killed.
@Ukulele Ike:
@The Rambling Otter:
Also, while I have no reason at all to believe that you speak for every snarker here, or that you aren’t just kidding around.
That still is a deep wound.
@The Rambling Otter: I’m pretty sure they were joking.
@Voshkod:
Maybe they were.
I can’t deny that.
But seeing as the joke was lliterally “We make fun of you while you’re back is turned”
How am I supposed to react to that?
I don’t really know.
I took it badly. And I sincerely apologize for that.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: Re MW: Yeah, yeah, I mistook Estelle for Iris. I’m not paid to write the thing though, am I?
Phantom: When the Bandar come a callin’, the guards they be a fallin’.
@Ukulele Ike: @Voshkod:
I’ll tell you a little history of myself.
And don’t worry, I’m no longer sad about all of this :)
But, I honestly do have a lack of social skills and deal with mental illness. As a child I was mercilessly bullied due to both. Which in turn, gave me massive “trust issues” with people, not just strangers, or acquaintances but also people who even genuniely care about me.
So, me being massively sensitive and distrustful towards people, is all on me. My fault really.
I apologize. I shouldn’t act so sensitive others it’s not becoming.
@Daisy: #172: It must have been those pastel candied Easter egg colors. They also ran two stroke engines, more common to motorscooters, dirt bikes, and chain saws. Not that the East Germans couldn’t build good two strokes. Their MZ (Motorad Zchopau) bikes were dominant in motorcycle racing until the 1960s, when their chief engineer defected to the Japanese and started designing engines for Suzuki.
There’s a story that when the last Trabi came off the assembly line, one worker commented that they should give it two tailpipes and sell it as a wheelbarrow.
GT – So…don’t follow the strip, but can’t make heads or tails out of today. Gil became a spelunkers?
GA – Bunky, huh – many saints historically did have fuck buddies….
DtM – l doubt your lack of education will interfere with your future online gaming while living in your parents basement….
Blondie – Could I fuck your wife for a Klondike bar….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@The Rambling Otter: Hey, tone is hard to read on-line. Sarcasm is hard to detect. Don’t be too hard on yourself, or others, on-line. I tend to assume good-nature until proven otherwise.
@made of wince: Two Words: Inner Beauty. She originated the phrase as applied to Luann. And I thought she had gone to a better place, but apparently, that was a condo up the the street.
@Voshkod:
True, you’re right :)
@The Rambling Otter: It’s easy enough to misunderstand things in the absence of in-person cues, presence, etc.
@The Rambling Otter: Hey, Ott – don’t be so hard on yourself! Remember we’re all just Mammals here…well, except for Lil’ Emmet Pismire, who seems to be MIA. Hope they are OK. Anyhoo, like Vosh says, we should always assume that anything said here is meant to be in fun and in a spirit of comaraderie.
And I am *pretty* sure that if you get ragged by Ukulele Ike, it means you are part of the “in crowd”! Isn’t that right, Ike?… Ike? Guess he must have stepped outside….
Thanks for the music history lesson, Caulfield, but I’m far more interested in who composed the incidental music for episode 12, season 3 of The Big Valley.
Those have to be Star Wars Pop-Tarts, right, Ted? With niacin, thiamine, 1 essential vitamin, buns on the side, and a prize under every layer of green frosting.
@gardenornament: 9CL: It is, by the way, indicative of Brooke’s unbearable pretentiousness that he could even consider drawing a newspaper comic which requires the reader to be able to read sheet music to understand the joke.
I’m remembering that time when the words in the speech bubble were so small I had to zoom in the screen 300% just to read them, so they were obviously completely illegible for someone actually reading it off a paper. Not that they missed much, but it still shows Brooke’s contempt for his readers.
Gil Thorp: Barajas is practical joker. He brought a boxful of his Gil Thorp comic strips to his syndicate and said “Hey, remember that old trick where you ask someone to play 52 card pickup then throw the cards wither and yon and say ‘OK, pick em up and put them in order’, hah, hah!” Then he throws the strips hither and yon and says “Pick em up and put them in order, hah, hah!” And walks out the door. The syndicate person looks at the strips and yells to his office boy, “What the fuck, he’s ruined this comic anyway, sweep these up, don’t even attempt to put them in order, just see that they’re published in whatever order they turn up in your dustpan.”
@Guillermo el chiclero: #188
Ha – I love that even the factory workers could laugh at the lovably ugly little cars. I’m starting to become a little fond of them, actually!
Here’s a good write up about the Trabi:
https://tinyurl.com/The-Trabant
@Anonymous: #177
I love it! That was probably an advanced feature at the time, especially for a car made from recycled cotton that didn’t have basic dashboard amenities like turn signal indicators and tachometers.
@Peanut Gallery: #176
D’oh!!!!!
Phantom: “@#$%&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&!!!!!”
RMMD: [June hastily removes hospital parking tag from rear view mirror]
@gardenornament: #148
How “boy Amos” ever made it to “adulthood” is a mystery…he apparently had no family or friends or any kind of nurturing at all.
@richardf8: Oh no, Horner was the Inner Beauty one, huh? I look forward to more of her sickly-sweet life lessons (for the girl without a life).
@Voshkod: #125
Ye gods! Of all the things I *don’t* know about the history of the Catholic Church, this is truly macabre….even more so than the story of philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s centuries-old preserved body on display in a cabinet at University College London.
@The Rambling Otter: #187
I was a timid, shy kid who was bullied, too. I know how that feels. As Voshkod said, it’s hard to discern intent and tone from written text, which leads to frequent misunderstandings and fallings out on forums like Facebook (boy, does that show my age…but not as much as if I’d said MySpace), Twitter, Reddit, etc. I love satire and snark, but I’ve seen very little that is actually hurtful here; on the contrary I’ve seen a lot of kind, friendly and caring responses. What I love about this site is the creativity and craziness. There have been so many laugh-out-loud moments for me – not to mention the serendipitous educational moments. :-)
@Daisy: Please tell me that the cabinet is glass on all sides and at the center of a room.
@Daisy:
What I love about this site is the creativity and craziness.
Trust me when I say that this site is where I have made the best friends I never met.
@Luann:: Panel one (colour, website) momentarily reveals the depths of Luann’s hepatitis by the severe jaundice in her eye.
@The Rambling Otter: I was an odd child who was bullied, so I do sympathize. I sometimes comment on two other online forums where there is a certain put-up-your-dukes-and-keep-your-eyes-peeled-for-trouble ambiance. But CC is like a crazy-good-fun playground. I get teased here occasionally, but it’s funny stuff, and I feel very safe and confident
in assuming goodwill. (If I had gotten that kind of goodwill teasing in junior high instead of what I did get, life would have been so much easier.) Formerly Wounded Elk is right, we’re all just Mammals here. I come for the funny and appreciate the crazy-good.
@Hibbleton: maybe Estelle is one of Iris’s pets?
GilThorp: Welp at least Gillo isn’t selling cryptocurrency like any other number of washed up celebs.
DtM: “So you’re missing school today?” “Not a bit! Today’s Saturday, Mrs. Wilson. Your dementia is getting worse!”