Saturday shoutouts
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Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/16/23
Shoutout to Rex Morgan, which, when its armed kidnapping plot rapidly devolved into discussions about the easiest way to transfer money, decided to keep digging and get into a whole thing about ordering room service. “I’m armed, remember?” says Rene, in a desperate attempt to drag the excitement level back up, but nobody’s listening, nobody cares.
Gil Thorp, 9/16/23
Shoutout to Gil Thorp for just having Gil deliver pure unadulterated gnomic bullshit directly to the cameras. “We just need to refocus … I have a feeling this is going to be a long season,” he intones, transfixing readers at home with an eerie Kubrick stare. You don’t need to go so hard, Gil, it’s only week one of the season!
Pluggers, 9/16/23
Wait, is Pluggers implying that a thing that we had in the past and no longer have might’ve been less than perfect? UNACCEPTABLE, BURN THE HERETIC
173 replies to “Saturday shoutouts”
Crankshart: I thought Grandma was the one hitting on Ed, flashing her stuff at him yesterday. What’s going on here?
RMMD:
“I could use a bite myself.”
— Marv Albert
Oh. Wait a minute. It isn’t Sunday yet. And this isn’t Mary Worth.
MW: Is Saul so decrepit that he now communicates in sentence fragments, or is Saul so decrepit that it now takes him two days to complete a sentence?
RMMD: Fortunately, Rhonda suits up like Rambo to deliver take-out. Take heart!
RMMD: /Two months from now, backstage at the Little Fergus Movie premiere/ “Great job out there, guys. I think we were right to rush production to hit the holiday season launch date. By the way, I’m still armed, remember? No funny stuff.”
GT: “With that, the Mudlarks will win in a tight game. And just look at how excited their star player is, goose-stepping off the field in a way that is sure to lead to some uncomfortable questions in the locker room…”
Pluggers Sorry, is there a kind of dementia where you remember the taste of things without remembering what those things are? Cuz that seems like a weird thing to specify otherwise.
MW: “There’a a bit more…I can handle the rest—it’s in the courtyard in my flower bed under my old rear window. Just hand me that hat box over there. That’s the one. Do you happen to have a shovel?
On the one hand, it’s a shame that advancing technology, chronic underinvestment and private companies creaming off the easy wins while saddling the public sector with the most unprofitable but essential duties has hollowed out what was once a thriving public service, but on the other hand, at least you don’t have to lick stamps. Wait, what’s that? Stamps have been self-adhesive for decades now?
RMMD: “Also, being confined in the car-trunk has given me a bit of a sore neck, so maybe you could give me a massage?”
“Oh, alright, but remember: I’m the kidnapper and I have a gun…. Now is there anything else I can do for you, sir? Can I run you a nice bath? Do you need anything from the shops?”
I’m not sure this is how Stockholm syndrome is supposed to work.
9CL – Hahahhahaha!!!! Farts!!! Gotta love Brooke’s own special brand of intellectual humor!
RMMD: “It’s a good thing you’re armed. You’re going to need at least one to eat one of those room service hamburgers.”
GT: Again, I don’t follow this strip too closely, but it seems like Gil is feeling a bit intense about his current relationship status. This isn’t about football. But, in Gil Thorp, it’s obviously never about football.
Pluggers: Some Pluggers remember when “licking the stamp” was fun.
Pluggers Mashup: Definitely NSFSNN (Not Safe For Sex-Negative Nellie).
RMMD — I’m willing to suspend my disbelief for a lot of things in this strip, but I refuse to accept that any hotel below the White Lotus level has room service these days. . .
Frazz: Is “although-control problem” a play on words that’s shooting right over my head? Even Batiuk makes a minimal amount of effort when he barfs out his “clever” wordplay.
Luann: If you uncrossed your legs, Grunter, you might get those panties out of a wad.
CS: Good call, Cindy daughter of Amy Johnson. No one wants to think about Crankshaft and anyone else doing it in the back of the bus.
9CL: So, this is what happens when a creator gets tired of shipping his
onlymain two characters through the ages.Zits: No, no, stop, Jeremy! This is how you get Ed Kudlicks!
FC: <snark redacted>
MW: Eve-Simulatron 3000 shows her appreciation for the compliment by approximating a human smile.
Pluggers: Continued to lick the stamp after they became self-adhesive. Someone had to tell them.
RMMD: Truck: “There’s a museum up the road that is supposed to have some pretty cool stuff. Like Davey Crockett’s racoon skin hat, Billy The Kidd’s six shooter, The-”
Rene: “Whoa, whoa whoa! You had me at ‘racoon skin hat'”
@Baja Gaijin: Bleh, indeed!
MW: “Your help, love, and generosity in letting me and Greta into your life.” Saul reaches up to give Eve a soft hug. I’m a lucky SOB, he thinks. Not only is she generous, she’s fit enough to help me move my stuff to her luxurious condo. And boy was she a help with those high shelves in the closet.
I was afraid Greta and I would be out on the street when my money runs out, probably within a few weeks or so, but our future is secure now, with Eve’s assets to support us from now on. Ah, life is good! She even said something about setting up a joint bank account soon! Maybe I’ll go ahead and order that deluxe ergonomic computer desk I’ve had my eye on…
Ah, bliss! Today’s Vintage Mark Trail is teeing up a 1973 Ed Dodd Johnny Malotte story, featuring the legendary “Johnny talks on the phone” panel cribbed by Jack Elrod on March 6, 2008. The circle is complete.
Luann Gunther continues his campaign to supplant Les Moore as the biggest asshole in the comics.
RMMD: Can’t wait for next week’s edge-of-your-seat discussion about whether the in-room cable has Paramount+.
Pluggers: Yet another variation of “pluggers are old”, except that you don’t have to be that old to remember licking stamps. So have they watered down the concept of Pluggerdom even further now, to “Pluggers are middle-aged”?
I’m just waiting for gen Z to take over Pluggers, when everybody over the age of 25 is a Plugger.
Blondie: I’m getting somewhat Oedipal vibes out of this one. Not only has Alexander brought home a woman who shares certain physical attributes with his mother, she also look much too old to be a teenager. Did he pick up a 35-year-old MILF as a mother substitute?
6Cx: That’s a pretty long-lived squirrel, if his buried nuts have grown up into a forest. Oh, and he’s delusional, too. Those trees are firs, not any nut-bearing species!
RMMD: This is marvelous. I haven’t ever been kidnapped or kidnapped anyone but knowing how people really work- cranky, hungry etc, I find this scene plausible. Makes me think of my favorite dialogue in computer games where the guards are chatting about work conditions and the banality of evil
RMMD: All roads lead back to diner food. And don’t you worry, we’ll get to hear in detail about how modest-yet-very-tasty everyone’s meals are tomorrow. It’s unfortunate that Terry Beatty’s fetish is overriding Rene’s operational security and making him allow Mud to order food specifically from people likely to realize something is up, but what can you do?
Pluggers: In the grimdark post-postal future of the Pluggerverse, stamps are no longer in use, but it would seem the USPS did survive the anipocalypse long enough to commemorate the first dog president.
JP: Uh… Helena Bowen? Wouldn’t that make her Toni the reporter’s mother? April’s maiden name is Bowers. Not quite as funny as Luke Hernnadez, but still pretty amusing. It’s also pretty hilarious that Yelich apparently forgot or never knew what exactly he was supposed to do in the unlikely circumstance that Helena Bowerns did turn up, but frankly Sam’s plan is so baffling I can’t really blame him.
Luann: Another day, another punchline where Gunther bitterly suggests that Les should die violently. It wasn’t funny the first time, but it’s quickly becoming a lot less cute.
@Baja Gaijin: Excellent!
@Uncle Lumpy: Best film performance of the character of Johnny Malotte was by Laurence Olivier in “The 49th Parallel”—check it out!
Fun fact: they used to make the glue for postage stamps from the bones and hides of dead Pluggers.
SFx: What’s this? Is the giant gorilla licking that bird? What kind of perverted behaviour is this comic promoting? Give me some good old-fashioned sexual cops-and-robbers roleplay between Slylock and Cassandra any day over this!
REX MORGAN M.D.: Poor Rene. The criminal so incompetent, his attempted kidnapping/shakedown has become a slumber party
Mud: “And next we can braid each other’s hair and get mani/pedis….”
Rene: “Well..um…ok…but remember I’m still armed and dangerous!”
Buzzy: “Yeah sure, whatever. Oh my god, you guys, we have have got to sing ‘Muddy Boots’ into these hairbrushes….”
Pluggers-Pluggers wish it was a tab of acid.
FC-“You’re mother has to wear a blindfold when I drill.”
RMMD-Oh please. If you were in that trunk for days you would be dead by now.
MW-“Uh, Saul, what did I say about touching me.”
Blondie-And then she and Alexander go upstairs for more photography.
RMMD – I could eat….
GT – Snoopy, watch out! Here comes the Mudlark dance of joy….
Pluggers – Pluggers don’t remember what he awful taste of licking pussy. But not surprisingly, it tastes vaguely like chicken….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Postage stamps no longer exist?
I have no idea. My local post office no longer exists.
Wrecks Moregone:
And afterwards:
“We need to brush our teeth! Unless we brush our teeth we’ll get caries and gingivitis. I haven’t brushed mine in days!”
“There’s a toothbrush and toothpaste here. This toothpaste is good, it tastes minty and leaves your breath refreshed.”
“OK, but no false moves! I’m armed!”
(Mud: stabs Rene with the toothbrush.)
Liann:
Tell me why Les is the one we’re supposed to hate again?
Wary Morth:
For pity’s sake let Saul at least have a heart attack lugging in the last boxes, or get a hernia, or something.
Curtis:
Mrs Nelson got a makeover?
REX MORGAN M.D.: Incidentally, given that we haven’t seen a gun once during this arc, I suspect that Rene’s claim that he’s “armed” is a bit more literal than we think.
Phantom: “Welcome to camp, oh Ghost who Walks! I have prepared a special hut for you and Captain Savarna, and given strict orders that you are not to be disturbed. Oh, and your wife is here, too, but I’ve made sure she won’t wake up for another five hours or so, so she won’t walk in on you either.
Gil Thorp-“If we lose the season I will not be taking you out for ice cream. I will be taking you out.”
RMMD Of course, the very fact that Rene has to remind the others that he is armed means that he doesn’t have easy access to the weapon and that they can overpower him any time they want. Of course, they’re too busy deciding whether they want the meatloaf or the chicken fried steak to think of that.
@Charterstoned:
Zut alors ee eez pairfek!
@Ukranazi Stepan:
Because he doesn’t have Inner Beauty.
JP: Go for it, Sam. And if April’s Mom won’t go willingly, you can always overpower her (snicker).
PLUGGERS: Pluggers remembered when postage stamps tasted delicious….until the woke commies who hate freedom told them to stop eating stamps! (Uh-oh, I think I just wrote Newsmax’s chyron feed for the next week.)
PLUGGERS (2): A Pluggers cunnillingus. (the same facial expression would apply.)
RMMD – So it always comes back to ordering food. Deduction: Terry Beatty has been on a strict diet for the past year.
GT – It’s eerie when a comic strip character talks directly to his creator like this. “We just need to refocus. We need to stop jumping from one unresolved subplot to another in every panel like a crazed squirrel. It’s going to be a long season, Barajas! You don’t have to try to check every box in the first two weeks!”
SFx: I’ve heard about people licking toads to get high, but bird-licking? Is that a thing?
Don Abundio, translated:
“Pierre, it’s 10 o’clock in the morning! Why aren’t you making my breakfast?”
“Because you require me to wear my chef’s hat in bed, so I figure…”
“I’ve been on the clock for ten hours already!”
RMMD: “Miss Wanda, please send 3 hamburgers with extra lettuce and pickles. Yes, that’s correct: Hamburgers. Extra. Lettuce. Pickles.”
FC: Daddy knows that drilling holes reduces air resistance on a paddlin’ board.
Zits: Jeremy should question why the hair Pierce handed him is so curly.
BCN: Even Karen Moy would think this moles-in-the-yard saga has been going on too long.
Pluggers: Pluggers who licked stamps in the 60s can’t remember a damn thing.
@Uncle Lumpy: I like how Mark Trail doesn’t have time for Johnny Malotte’s rambling French-accented bullshit. “Yeah, yeah, best canoe men, whatever. Just meet us at the river!”
So, Pluggers remember a thing that still exists. Cool.
Surely, a true plugger would also be unable to extricate themselves from receiving the USA Philatelic—a fully color glossy print catalogue of new and upcoming stamps. When I received mine this week in the year of our Lord 2023 I felt both annoyed that they keep sending it to me and also slightly gleeful. It’s really a very nice catalogue.
GT: “What? Sorry, I was thinking of my ex-wife and her new girlfriend. Her shapely, muscular, just ever-so-slightly exotic girlfriend…excuse me, I need to be somewhere very urgently for the next 3-5 minutes.”
Pluggers assume stamps are no longer a thing even though the checkout clerk at the grocery store asks if they need some every week.
RMMD: The Glenwood Motel (As Featured in the Hit Song “Glenwood Motel” by Truck Tyler) has room service? I call no way. This is the type of place where you get a beat-up binder with takeout menus for Wanda’s Diner and the one pizza place in town, maybe a yellowed typewritten list of restaurants last updated during the Clinton administration.
RMMD-“I could use a bite myself.” And that’s when Mud bit Rene.
For that matter, shout-out to Les in “Luann” for calling Cuntyboi out as the moron he is,slapping Cuntyboi upside his head, and then ruthlessly deleting the ex-GF Cunty’s social media. Sure, Cunty’s crying like the dickless wonder he is, but once again—and despite the intentions of the writers—Les is one of the only normal-acting characters in this strip.
The last panel is particularly amusing, after Cunty bemoans the fact that he has to (oh god say it ain’t so) move on in life—tall order for an adult who lives in his mommy’s back yard. He tells Les to shoot himself—when really, it Cuntyboi himself who should have the rifle in his mouth.
JUDGE PARKER: Sam: “No, because April’s surname is Bowers, you dipshit, so it’s not who we’re looking for. But Toni was fine, and her mother might be as well, so I’ll “escort” her…for $100 a night.
@10 Baja Gaijin:
Blow job with no lips? Peck the pecker? And would a plugger even know what a blow job is?
Pluggers: PUT YOUR TEETH INTO IT, HENRIETTA
9CL: Sounds like a very humorous impression of a farting clergyman indeed. Too bad Brooke didn’t have space to draw this hilarious Catholic butt-sneezing after filling every panel with pseudo-intellectual bloviating to explain the gag. It’s all right, a tedious and stilted descriptive overview of the joke is just as funny.
SF- “How the heck are you supposed to shove letters into a ‘3’?”
I dunno, by using a lot of lube?
Gil Thorp: The shadows in the background make me think all those jokes about the Milford bonfire being Wicker Man weren’t wrong…
9CL: I mean that doesn’t surprise me, anyone can look at Amos and see he’s an embarrassing fart.
Luann: Shut the eff up, Gunther. You’re the one watching your roommate play video games and complaining that you don’t have anything to do with yourself. If you can’t find the door to the wide world outside, I’m sure Les will be very happy to show it to you.
JP: “Wait, there was a plan? I wish you’d told me that before I started stalking the crazy ex-assassin!”
Rex Morgan – I’ve never had decent room service, even at nice hotels. So I best I can guess, Niki is going to bring something from Jordan’s restaurant via Platter Portal and somehow foil this caper.
Hi and Lois- Then Thirsty hopped the fence and treated Hi and Ditto to a savage drunken beat down
Beetle Bailey-“But I have a pickle in my purse.” Is that what they are calling it nowadays?
Hi and Lois-Hi was aiming for Thirsty’s head.
@Liam: Glad I held off on my BB comment. Great ‘Mudges think alike.
@Charterstoned: @Uncle Lumpy: Larry’s performance was amazing in the kind of way that afterwards when you find out that was Laurence Olivier you say “Holy shit! That was Laurence Olivier?”
49th Parallel has so much great stuff in it. See Anton Walbrook’s anti-Hitler speech as the German-Canadian hippie farmer. It’s one of my favorite Powell/Pressburger movies, a tough choice because they were also behind I Know Where I’m Going!, A Matter of Life and Death, Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus, and The Red Shoes.
@TheDiva: Re RMMD: You’d better believe there’s diner room service at the Glenwood Motel. There is nowhere in Glenwood that doesn’t serve 24/7 diner food. Getting a check-up at the Morgan Clinic? Enjoy coffee and scrambled eggs with bacon in the waiting room. Going to the DMV? Try their Denver omelettes with fresh orange juice. Eating a fine dinner at Jordan’s restaurant? Head upstairs afterwards to enjoy drinks, live jazz performances, and a buffet of country-fried delights so vast it makes Golden Corral look like a hotel’s complimentary coffee and bagels table.
Blondie: Sorry if I sound cynical, but from today’s strip together with those from yesterday and Wednesday, I can only conclude that the team behind Blondie have decided that jutting sells. And apparently Blondie herself isn’t well-endowed enough – why else introduce Alexander’s friend here?
Rex Morgan: This whole thing is gonna keep dragging on and degrading in threat level until Mud, Buzzy, and Rene are just, like, living together as some kind of throuple. They’ll be doing normal life stuff and going on dates but Rene will periodically say shit like “just remember guys, I am armed and dangerous”.
Gil Thorp: I see Gil is advertising for Apple now.
Pluggers: A little known fact about Pluggers is that they eat postage stamps.
@Ukulele Ike: Ralph Vaughan Williams’ musical score is one of my favorites.
@Ukulele Ike:
I had the same reaction when I saw Othello.
@Baja Gaijin: Definitely NSFSNN (Not Safe For Sex-Negative Nellie).
I suppose you think that will make me look.
I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction.
Luann-“Well I’m off to find and kill a prostitute that looks like Bets,” Gunther declares.
Ziggy-The bears must have heard about what a good lover Ziggy is.
RMMD – Tomorrow’s strip will feature Mud using his knowledge of Morse Code to blink out S-T-U-P-I-D-C-R-I-M-I-N-A-L-W-I-T-H-A-G-U-N-D-E-M-A-N-D-I-N-G-S-O-N-G-R-O-Y-A-L-T-I-E-S to the room service guy.
@Ukulele Ike: That is such a powerful scene!
Luann-Oh no! Without Bets in his life people will start questioning why Gunther is living with a man at his age.
@Ukulele Ike: Larry’s performance was amazing
My first and maybe only exposure to Larry Oliver had been in The Boys From Brazil, and all I could think then was “this is a great actor? Maybe if he’s on a stage with other hammy Shakespeareans he will shine, but he’s just ridiculous in a normal, modern production.”
Just now I looked up a clip from 49th Parallel and all I can think of is Jon Lovitz as MASter THESpian: “NO! I was ACTing!”
Terrible and outdated style.
FC – Hurry! Call poison control! Dolly got into Jeffy’s moron pills!
Rex Morgan – I’ll save everyone the trouble of reading this for the next few weeks. Here’s what’s going on:
9/17 – The guys debate whether to order from the hotel cafe or get delivery from the mom and pop diner.
9/18 through 9/22 – No one thinks to look up a menu online, so they discuss what they remember the diner serves.
9/23 through 9/24 – Fergus calls in the order. The Sunday strip includes flirting with Wanda.
9/25 through 9/28 – Rene complains that he’s hungry and the order is taking too long. Fergus tells him that he should be thankful that he’s getting food, because there are plenty of hungry people in the world.
9/29 through 9/30 – The order is delivered. Fergus pays for it.
10/1 (Sunday strip) – They take the food out of the bag it came in and exclaim over every item that it looks really good.
10/2 through 10/16 – They eat, exclaiming numerous times that the food really IS good. Fergus tells them that Wanda is really a good cook.
10/17 through 10/21 – They go over the bill to see who ordered what, to try to figure out how much Rene and Buzzy owe Fergus. Rene points out that he doesn’t have any money.
10/22 (Sunday strip) – They debate whether to just split the bill three ways.
10/23 through 10/25 – Fergus uses the calculator on his phone to divide the bill by three.
10/26 through 10/30 – They discuss whether they should have ordered dessert.
10/31 – Buzzy turns on the TV. Discussion begins about what they should watch.
@Sex-Negative Nellie: A wise decision. It’s sheer filth. But you know the kind of deviant sex perverts who frequent this blog.
@Sex-Negative Nellie:
Words to live by.
I genuinely can’t tell if Rex Morgan is going for absurd laughs or if it really is just that boring.
@Baja Gaijin (#YY152) – Re the late night cheese ball – I retract what I said about probably liking that. I would if it were made with a different combination of cheeses.
@Flipper: Re BCN – You’re right. I’ve been skimming over this for the past week or so.
Phantom: “Next: Still more filler.”
@Ukulele Ike: I Know Where I’m Going is my favorite film of all time.
@Liam: Blondie-And then she and Alexander go upstairs for more photography.
If they’re already having trouble fitting the sandwich into the frame, they’re going to have to photograph her breasts one at a time.
@Weaselboy: Standards have slipped in recent years; they don’t require hotel staff to know Morse code anymore. Not even the bellhops! I blame those darn millennials.
Mutt & Jeff: I agree with the customer here. He shouldn’t be charged more for having the raisins removed, especially since Jeff probably ate them.
Gil Thorp was a lot more fun when he headed up the Mod Squad.
Poor Mud. It’s a classic tragedy. He’s trying so hard to get to the straight and narrow, but he keeps getting sucked back in. To escape this deadly scenario from the shadows of his past, is he going to be forced to return to his old ways (tactically pooping his pants)?
@I speak Jive:
@Baja Gaijin (#YY152) – Re the late night cheese ball – I retract what I said about probably liking that.
__________________
Too late,it’s already made the news…..
“Young man likes his balls, I’m Kent Brokman”
@Peanut Gallery: Good thing Mud keeps a set of semaphore flags handy.
// It’s easy. Think of your right hand as the minute hand and your left as the hour hand. So “A” is, obviously, 6:40. “B” is 6:45, and so on, until you reach “H” when you go to eight o’clock, or rather, 8:45. I don’t know why everybody doesn’t communicate with semaphore, it’s so convenient.
@stepped pyramids:
To escape this deadly scenario from the shadows of his past, is he going to be forced to return to his old ways (tactically pooping his pants)?
___________
The Sex Organ V.D./ Marvin crossover you never knew you wanted to see.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: “Crankshart: I thought Grandma was the one hitting on Ed, flashing her stuff at him yesterday. What’s going on here?”
I think the kid has understood the situation completely: Grandma made a sexual gesture towards Crankshaft, but only to grab his attention and make him stop. It was not meant as an invitation to take advantage of her, because nobody, and I mean nobody, wants to get intimate with Ed. (Yes, he has a daughter, but how that happened is a mystery on the level of how Wilbur Weston can have a daughter. Presumably, the mother was drunk at the time.)
Rhymes With Orange: Can’t or won’t!
Crank: Look, I’ve got nothing against seniors having a romantic life. I’m specifically against Ed Crankshaft, living embodiment of assholery, having one. The only thing that could make this worse would be if it’s setting up a Cranky/Mrs J/Mary love triangle.
HtH: Wait, is she wearing a scale-mail skirt or is she actually the mermaid, somehow balanced on her tail?
Phantom: “Next: The Journey Home.” That doesn’t exactly look like a “New Adventure!” caption, does it? Is it possible that this storyline, which I think has somehow been going since before Walker the First decided he hated pirates but liked skulls, is still not over even now we’ve got past the prophecy??
@Just John: I sympathize with your POV, I just enjoy a good scenery-chewing. I prefer Charles Laughton and Sir Ralph Richardson to Olivier — when THEY appear on screen, you know they’re on screen, by god. Also Kathleen Byron during the last 20 minutes of Black Narcissus.
(I find Kenneth Branaugh’s 1989 St. Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V better than 1944 Olivier’s, but mainly because Branaugh moved the damn camera around. They’re both easy to find on YouTube)
Mutt and Jeff-“Raisins? Oh those are raisins? I thought the mice got into the rice pudding again.”
“Bleh! Brian Beagleface, why did they give HIM a stamp?!?”
GT: Oh to have computer skills.
Please replace the second part of Gil’s answer on dealing with dissent on his coaching staff with:
“I’m armed. Remember?”
@Scudder the Sailorman: 20th Century Vole presents: “Wuthering Heights. In semaphore!!!!!”
@Ukulele Ike:
[Link]
@Sequitur:
Hey,I made them edible, what more do you want?”
@Scudder the Sailorman: A favorite joke from “The Life of the Party” by Bennett Cerf:
From downtown San Francisco, today’s businessman looks up to the rugged eminence of Telegraph Hill, now topped by a tower given by Lilly Hitchcock Coit. In pioneer days there was a semaphore there to let merchants know that a ship from the East was in sight, and due to drop anchor in an hour’s time.
A ham actor in the eighteen-fifties once spread his arms dramatically on stage and rashly spoke the line, “What does this mean?” The entire audience, well versed in the semaphore signals, bellowed as one, “Side-wheel steamer coming in!”
@Uncle Lumpy: Words to live by.
Sometimes seems like people here will make a joke out of anything that comes out of my mouth. It gets extremely hard to say anything that you bros won’t put right back to me. Just remember, what goes around comes around, like one big circle, you jerks.
@103 Garrison Skunk:
Damn you with your long URL link again.
Last time I sent a letter was earlier this year. But I didn’t lick the envelope or the stamp, because I’m an adult I used a damp sponge. Sorry Pluggers, you’re out of touch.
RMMD: “I’ll vape and make out at a showing of Beetlejuice if I want to. I’m armed, remember?”
Frazz: Caldwell is right to complain that he only gets 8 1/2 weeks of summer vacation. Especially since he’s flunking algebra, as appears to be the case here.
@Amelie Wikström: But I didn’t lick the envelope or the stamp, because I’m an adult I used a damp sponge.
Same here.
@Uncle Lumpy:
Wow – That 2008 Mary Worth strip at the same link is just loaded with Mary congratulating herself on her wonderfulness while simultaneously basking in it. The smugness is off the charts.
RMMD: Fuzzy is strangely chill considering he’s a hostage. Frankly I’d be out of sorts.
RMMD: you have to admire Rene for maintaining his appearance despite being on the run and short of cash.
RMMD: I know Mud is committed to being nice but why doesn’t he let the inner asshole out sucker punch Rene?
PIBGORN – Yesterday, she had two arrows sticking out of her back. Today, she is lying on her back sleeping in a field.
Most humans develop a sense of object permanence between four and seven months after birth. I guess Brooke is suffering from arrested development.
@I speak Jive: Re RMMD, bwahaha!
Pluggers: Federal law says that one has to be dead at least 10 years to be on a US postage stamp (Though exemptions can be made by special act of Congress). That indicates that the beastman regime has been in power for some time.
@Just John: #79: I can forgive Boys from Brazil but IMHO Olivier’s worst and most embarrassing role had to be as General MacArthur in Inchon. By that late stage in his life Olivier was just unashamedly selling his name to collect big, fat paychecks. Lord Larry realized that he could make more with a walk on part in a crappy Hollywood movie than in a year of strutting the boards.
RMMD: Thank you to the Mudge, sorry I cannot remember which Mudge, who provided a RMMD link showing us that Buzz used to be younger and brown-haired. Now Buzz seems to have always been the way he is, as if he were voted, in high school, “Most Likely To Be Bound and Gagged And Left In A Car Trunk For Hours And Then Just Be Vaguely Bummed Out By It A Little.”
RMMD: Assuming that Mud brought only one set of jammies I can’t wait to to see the game of rock-paper-scissors the boys will use to determine who gets to wear them tonight.
Phantom: Welcome back, oh Ghost. Hate to break it to you but Guran ate all the s’mores again, but that’s no surprise.
Rex Morgan, MD – They’ll know Mud is in trouble when he orders the gluten-free toast and egg white omelette instead of his usual double-order of the lumberjack platter.
Gil Thorp – Gil at least is showing us that the old storylines are over and we’re in for a new arc, unlike Mary Worth which is dragging out Saul’s wedding into a whole marriage.
Pluggers – Postage supplier and podcast patron Stamps.com would have loved to have sponsored this comic, but actual Pluggers who read the strip can’t use digital postage and rely on their visits to the Post Office as one of their key social interactions during the week.
Apropos of nothing, Scratchy needs to be aware of this important manifesto or manifestation or mani-pedi: Project 369.
“If you only knew the magnificence of the 3, 6, and 9, then you would have a key to the universe.” — Nikola Tesla
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: PIBGORN – Yesterday, she had two arrows sticking out of her back. Today, she is lying on her back sleeping in a field.
“It was only when Padraig gently dismounted with Luda….”
So he fucked her? Necrophilia style, for all he knows? He fucked a dead person’s corpse that is no longer living?
Way to go, Brooke!
Pluggers: Henrietta Beak may be expressing her disgust while remembering the administration of President H. Dog.
MW: will Eve find it off-putting when Saul wears his tacky jacket and bow tie to ne
@Horace Broon:
Phantom: “Is it possible that this storyline, which I think has somehow been going since before Walker the First decided he hated pirates but liked skulls, is still not over even now we’ve got past the prophecy??”
Well, if Destiny is worth its salt and Old Mozz is a real prophet, then there shouldn’t really be any escape from the prophesy, should there? Savarna will learn that Jampa is with Kit Jr., the Ghost will be too stupid to warn Kit Jr. to get away, Savarna will kill Jampa and bring down the wrath of the Chine… sorry, the Invader from the North who must not be named, and a traumatized Kit Jr. will become a cynical guerilla fighter.
But that, of course, requires that the writer can write a coherent story, which he’s already demonstrated that he can’t. So your guess is really as good as mine.
@74 Sex-Negative Nellie: No, the warning is real. Forgive me for being considerate: I heard your fainting couch was being reupholstered so I prevented you from knocking your nogging on the floor when you got the vapors looking at the linked content. Bitch.
@108 Amelie Wikström: Are Pluggers out of touch or too stupid to know how to use a sponge? I can see it going either way or both.
Pluggers at one time willingly submitted their DNA to the same government they’ve always been paranoid about.
@Sex-Negative Nellie:
My apologies; I thought you were setting up that joke.
RMMD-Rene will have to pull his gun out of the same place this story is being pulled from.
@Uncle Lumpy: My apologies
Finally! Someone gets me.
@gardenornament:
This is by now the most heavily footnoted “prophesy” in history: “The sun was in my eyes! Bitch set me up! She said she was 18! My dog ate it! Greedo shot first! I took a wide stance! It’s not you, it’s me! She’s just a friend! I was drunk! The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat! How could I have known it was loaded? I swear nothing like this ever happened to me before! The heart wants what it wants! I didn’t see the sign! I was just holding it for somebody!” *
* excerpted from Lumpy, U. CC, 2/18/13.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Re postage stamps – I thought the rule was ten years, too, with Presidents eligible a year after their death. I just looked this up, because there have been stamps issued for people who have been deceased for less than ten years. The rule was changed to three years in 2021.
In 2018 I bought enough John Lennon stamps to use through all of 2019. There’s a stamp being issued on October 2 that I plan to use through 2024.
I wonder if the Rex Morgan creative team is having a pay dispute with the comics syndicate.
@I speak Jive: Your Rex summary cracked me up. This whole storyline lately is something like what would happen if a 10 year old boy tried writing a story that he hopes will rival his hero, Quentin Tarantino.
RMMD: Truck comes by to talk with Mud. Rene takes him hostage. Then Lou comes by tell he actually would like a free show. The Harwoods come by to demand Muddy Boots. Rene takes them hostage. The Street Sweeper comes by because he doesn’t like nefarious doings in his town. Rene takes him hostage. Rex and June come by for no reason. Rene takes them hostage.
Mud and Truck collaborate on a song “Hostage at the Glenwood Motel”.
The room is getting too crowded and noisy for Rene so he orders everyone out of the room. So ends the hostage taking. The police come in and shoot Rene.
Mud and Truck announce they will be forming a musical duo Truckin’ Mud.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: AND he squeezed “eldritch” in as an nearly completely inappropriate adjective! BING BING BING and the duck comes down and awards Mister McEldowney one hundred dollars!
@Baja Gaijin: I was thinking put of touch since they think snail mail has stopped being a thing, and also because they never figured out the modern way of using it without eating glue.
RMMD: AFTERWARD: a crack surgical team gathers a Glenwood hospital to save Rene’s life. Rex comes in later to dig a bullet out of his ass. “There’s a Bullet in My Ass: becomes an enormous hit for Truckin’ Mud. They become super wealthy when Cardi B does an X-rated version
RMMD-“The cafe here at the motel provides room service. It ain’t half bad.” It ain’t half good either.
Pluggers-Pluggers trying a fifty something year old tab of acid.
@Professor Well Actually:
And the the Glennwood Motel Diner brings up the two hard boiled ages
@Liam: “You know, Professor, just order the simple stuff. A broiled Chateaubriand medium rare, oven-roasted sea bass, a pesto chicken with fresh mozzarella and local artisan tomatoes. I can’t answer for the kitchen’s lobster Thermidor or their pike quenelles en broche au sauce Nantua.”
@Ukulele Ike: “And skip the onion rings. They make ‘em from a bag of frozen.”
@141 Ukulele Ike: They’ll end up with this culinary delight.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
Olivier’s best performance in the movies was arguably in The Entertainer. He plays a washed-up song-and-dance man who will do absolutely anything to stay in show biz. He has a speech to his daughter about how he’s dead behind his eyes. It’s genius at work.
RMMD: Look guys. MeTV is running a My Three Sons marathon. We’ve got three pairs of feet here. Let’s do the opening credits schtick. Mud can hum the tune and I’ll do the foot tap.
Before the night ends Rene and Buzzy get into a heated argument over the Bub episodes with William Frawley versus the Uncle Charley episodes with William Demarest.
@Garrison Skunk: Gil Thorp was a lot more fun when he headed up the Mod Squad.
He was Linc?
“I’m armed,remember?” “Too bad you’re not brained.” “WHAT WAS THAT?” “Nothing,nothing, tra la la.”
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
He was Linc?
_____________
I just thought his character design looked like the actor who played Capt. Greer.
@Ukulele Ike:
@Ukulele Ike: “And skip the onion rings. They make ‘em from a bag of frozen.”
________________
Is that like a Bag of Holding a magician uses to produce onion ring after onion ring followed by a rabbit pinching its nose closed?
@Baja Gaijin:
@141 Ukulele Ike: They’ll end up with this culinary delight.
__________________
Swordfishwithpineapplechunks is my password! Is that the Hacker’s Cookbook you’re perusing?
@150 Garrison Skunk: Shuuzshh! That’s supposed to be a secret!
Late Thread Cuisine: The name implies celery. I don’t see celery.
@Weaselboy:
RMMD – Tomorrow’s strip will feature Mud using his knowledge of Morse Code to blink out S-T-U-P-I-D-C-R-I-M-I-N-A-L-W-I-T-H-A-G-U-N-D-E-M-A-N-D-I-N-G-S-O-N-G-R-O-Y-A-L-T-I-E-S to the room service guy.
_____________________________
Stupid Criminal with a gun demanding song royalties / even though the sound of them is really quite atrocious/ he’s putting us to sleep and robbing with hypnosis/ stupid criminal with a gun demanding song royalties.*
*In the Mary Poppins tongue
@Professor Well Actually:
RMMD: AFTERWARD: a crack surgical team gathers a Glenwood hospital to save Rene’s life.
___________________________
Unfortunately,being on crack, the team failed to put Rene back together again but they cleaned out all the Funions™ from the hospital vendos.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
RMMD: Look guys. MeTV is running a My Three Sons marathon.
____________
I’ll see your My Three Sons marathon and raise you an Our Miss Brooks marathon and three episodes of Columbo.
RMMD: Rene’s royalties must be a dollar or two at most, right? Just pay the two dollars, Mud.
@Baja Gaijin:
Cream of celery?
GT: Dialog options playing out digitally in Gil’s eyes:
A. We just needed to refocus. I have a feeling this is going to be a long season.
B. It’s going to be a challenge but this team came to play.
C. Fuck you, asshole.
RMMD: I’m not sure I can stand the suspense here. Does the café still make their world famous bruschetta pizza this late? Does it?!?
@Baja Gaijin: @Liam: I think that’s hearts of celery (coeur = heart). I don’t see anything that looks like celery, either, although there is some green substance. I also can’t figure out if that’s sauce across the green stuff or wide Scotch tape.
C-Shaft: Well this family looks out for each other, I have to give them that.
DT: Sprocket has already gotten bored and wandered away from this plot, and Dick looks ready to do the same on his end.
JP: Pavel wants Sam to personally capture the woman who raised Assassinatin’ April in front of April herself. It’s just possible that he put this whole thing in motion just because he has a cruel sense of humor.
WofI: Ah, maybe the cargo in the wheelbarrow could use less realistic detail.
@Peanut Gallery: It was a good year for Cerfitudes.
Ummm… Did postage stamps have an awful taste? I remember that the taste was fairly neutral when I licked them.
@I speak Jive:
I asked a weird lady I know from the 1970s, and she says the celery part is actually the yellow part. She claims that the “internal organs” of a celery are yellow.
… Wait, where do celery keep “organs” in those skinny stalks? … Is “heart of celery” actually the part of the plants the stalks grow out of? That’s edible?….
@Artist formerly known as Ben: re: DT: Yeah, they picked the most boring detail from the last six mixed plots and decided to run with it.
@Garrison Skunk: No. It means they use frozen onion rings. Slow down, Champ.
@Garrison Skunk: #155: I caught a few of those Our Miss Brooks episodes. That was one of those shows I never saw as a kid but heard grownups refer to a lot.
Never realized that Eve Arden was so tall. My only exposure to her was that 60s sitcom with Kaye Ballard and the high school principal in Grease. Also, was there a show in the 50s that Gale Gordon wasn’t in?
@159 I speak Jive: Theoretically that’s celery hearts with green glop. I think the confounding factor is the crusty stuff covering the celery hearts. The recipe doesn’t seem to match the photo:
@165 Guillermo el chiclero: Mr. Gordon wasn’t on “I Love Lucy.” He was one of Lucy’s costars on the radio program “I Love Lucy” was based on, “My Favorite Husband.” She wanted him to follow her to TV as the Fred Mertz character; he couldn’t get out of his commitment to “Our Miss Brooks” on the radio.
I have Richard Diamond, Private Detective on permanent loop just to watch Mary Tyler Moore’s legs.
@Liam: Oh! So he meant “it ain’t half bad” in the British sense.
@Uncle Lumpy: #167: She was just Mary Moore then and all you saw were her legs. That show must’ve been an early influence for Brooke McEldowney.
@Baja Gaijin: #166: Lucille Ball also wanted Bea Benaderet, who played Gordon’s wife on the show to play Ethyl Mertz, but she couldn’t get out of her contract either. Benaderet went on to play Gracie Allen’s bestie Blanche on the Burns and Allen show, Kate Bradley on Petticoat Junction, and the original voice of Betty Rubble.
Ironically, My Favorite Husband became a TV show starring Joan Caulfield after I Love Lucy hit the airwaves and most people assumed it was a ripoff of the latter though in truth it was the other way around.
I am genuinely confused by today’s “Pluggers”… Do stamps not exist anymore? Or is this just some “my grandkids never write me” malarkey?
@170 Mathmannix: “Pluggers are pathetic imbeciles.” Does that clear up your confusion?
Pigborn:
Let’s see:
1. Brother Ut has a house now?
2. Pigborn’s back arrows disappeared as mysteriously as they appeared?
I was probably bout 15 or so when I had the mind-blowing revelation that saliva does not, in fact, possess some magical quality that makes it the only substance capable of adhering a stamp to an envelope. You can just use water.
Pluggers apparently never had that revelation.