World of Animals VII
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“Well helloooooo, ladies! … and gents!” |
“Welcome back to World of Animals, an occasional feature—I’m your beloved host, Carl. My how the time does fly; let’s get straight to those fascinating Nature Facts from the wonderful World of Animals!”
One Big Happy (panel), 9/1/24
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“What? LIBEL! Wait, libel is when it’s printed. Okay, SLANDER! Hmm, what is it when a printed guy says something? All right James, I’m going to let you off the hook this one time—but watch your step, pal!” |
Mark Trail, 9/15/24
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“HA! ‘Cat colony in the wild’ is warmblood code for a gang of insatiable, fanged monsters who prowl by night murdering innocent turtles. WIPE THEM OUT! [ahem] Thank you for your kind attention.” |
Slylock Fox, (panel) 9/15/24
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“Well, of course! Did you think a reptile would ever be so rude? Do you think we’re amphibians or something?” |
Mutts, 9/15/24
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“Look, we turtles may have our faults, but we’re not delusional.“ |
Rex Morgan, M.D. (panel), 9/15/24
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“Well, you’re the expert! But why not find a nice rock to sun yourself on instead of hogging that bench all week?” |
That’s all for today—time to get up from the bench and explore the wonderful World of Animals!
— Turtle Carl
153 replies to “World of Animals VII”
FC-“Let’s go pester God.”
MW-“Do you know how embarrassing it is to be the only grey haired person in these places?”
RMMD-“Not your loving hand,” Wanda will exclaim.
Slylock Fox-Slylock let the real Max plummet and took one of the robot decoys. “Maybe one of these will be more loyal,” Slylock thinks to himself.
One Big Happy:
“I tried to rend the targets in a bowling alley because I wanted to terrapin!”
Mark Trail:
“It’s the most humane way. Tabby or not Tabby — that is the question!”
RMMD:
“You see, Parker, there’s bein’. And then there’s nothinness. And this is exactly what that Sartre feller was alludin’ to when he wrote ‘Bein’ and Nothinness‘ !”
Blondie: Typical Herb, always borrowing things irresponsibly – workshop tools, landscaping equipment, grill utensils, military rank and valor, you name it.
DT: “That’s right, Ms. Reporter. It was a Lunarian for sure.”
“Was it a sexy femme fatale Lunarian with enormous hair or an adolescent girl Lunarian with a bob?”
“Uh, actually it was more like a hulking bodybuilder Lunarian cosplaying as Third Reich Shazam.”
“That could be either of them, then. We’ll just tell the world it was a Lunarian with no further details. What could go wrong?”
FC: Oh man, when God’s dad gets home, He is going to be in so much trouble. This electricity bill is coming out of your allowance, young eternal entity!
JP: For those of you who suspect that I am secretly Francesco Marciuliano mocking myself as part of some kind of humiliation fetish, today’s strip will do little to dissuade you.
MW: Remember how Ed has a mental disorder that causes him to obsessively and inefficiently overwork himself to the point of suicidal ideations, and Estelle did what she could to mitigate that problem? Estelle’s arc this time is on a slightly different path.
CS: Would you believe this gets even dumber? Because it turns out that these books aren’t paperbacks after all; Les ordered the hardcover version of the of the novel. This raises the retail price up to about $18-25 a pop, and using the lower figure while assuming ten books per box and about another ten loose books in the trunk, these books here cost $1980 before any bog standard customer discounts (can’t use the school), shipping and tax costs, and whatever other pluses and minuses. And that sum doesn’t include the copies damaged by the fire or the copies handed out prior to the fire. Les has spent thousands on this dumbass stunt.
And because Tom Batiuk doesn’t know how in-store pickup orders work, the idiots are taking the books out of the boxes and arranging them on the store shelves where they can be covered in grape jelly and snot by children and brought to the register by customers who quickly become confused as to why they can’t buy the books in this bookstore. In fact, all this raises a new question: was Les expecting his students to risk negative consequences from the school and their parents (and now increasingly violent protestors) to not only find their way to a bookstore in town (and now not even the town they live), and on top of that they were perhaps supposed to pay for the book themselves so Les could recoup his expenses?
Most heroically of all, Les knows full well at this point that this situation has turned life-threateningly dangerous and he is still abusing his position as a teacher and local celebrity to push children and his friends into the middle of it, claiming all the glory and somehow none of the fallout. This truly is Les Moore’s finest achievement as the world’s smuggest and most unlikable asshat. I stand in line.
World of Animals:
He’s normally pretty shy, so I’m glad that Turtle Carl came out of his shell to narrate today’s installment.
MW: God, Estelle, what did you have for breakfast this morning, Carnation Instant Bitch? You only went to one venue and to one bakery before giving up and complaining that you “can’t do it alone.” Maybe you should have taken a friend with you and brought over some samples for Ed to try…oh, wait, you don’t have any friends. And judging by the way you talk to Ed, it’ll be a real ass pull for you to even have a fiancé by the end of this story.
RMMD: Wait, are we still yammering on with Pat and Fuck…I mean, Parker and Truck? No one could have a logical conversation with either of them individually.
SFx: Believe me, if a parrot could stick its tongue out, it would with the quality of newspaper comics today.
Mark Trail: Back up a second. How, exactly, are you supposed to get the kittens spayed and neutered without taking them away from the place where you found them? I’m pretty sure small-animal veterinarians don’t do field surgery.
Mind you, Rivera having muddled thinking isn’t exactly a shock, but having it show this obviously is a little surprising.
Also a rare sight in Santa Royale is a non-WASP couple judging by the way Estelle is gawking at them like a zoo exhibit while berating her overworked fiancé…just in case you need to mark that on your “Estelle is a Bitch” Bingo card.
@Tom: I call it the Bob Barker Effect.
RMMD: Great, Truck. Now go tell Batiuk and make him stop.
Welcome back, Carl. It’s good to see you again.
The Phantom: And if you leave me now, you’ll take away the very heart of me.
MW: Ed knows himself and his work habits. If he can’t commit to the basic obligations of being a couple, he shouldn’t ask someone to wed. I’m on team Estelle with this one.
Hey, that is some quality commentary up top, Carl. Well done!
Frazz: The Superior Twins sneer at the slack-jawed sloths who watch television.
MW: Their wedding day will be the happiest day of Ed’s life because he won’t have to deal with this crap any more.
Pluggers: I call b.s. People like that don’t live long enough to become Pluggers.
“Don’t take stray cats to a shelter… take them to either a crazy cat lady or take care of them yourself you lazy bum! Who do you think works at shelters? Professionals who are trained at taking care of animals? Pfffft…”
RMMD — Sometimes doin’ nothin’ is the best thing to do.”
Truck is a homespun philosopher, while Snuffy Smif’ is a shiftless hillbilly, Thirsty is a suburban shirker, and Dustin is lazy millenial. Got it.
MW: Finally, a truly Worth-worthy problem! But, whose side will Mary land on? Will she be able to resist giving Wilbur a plug?
RMMD: Wanda, who works 24/7 cannot WAIT to hear that Truck’s finger hurts and she has to set up a doctor’s appointment for him and drive him to it.
@The Rambling Otter: Well, actually… when we adopted our last dog from the shelter, we had an appointment to get him neutered by a Shelter Vet. And no-one had bothered to check that he was already neutered. Or bothered to tell us that he had a heart murmur and he tragically died from a heart attack just within a year.
But we loved him and gave him the best time of his life. As short as his time with us was…
DtM: Today’s strip furthers the narrative by explaining why none of the Wilson kids survived childhood.
@The Rambling Otter: He was such a sweetheart too. He had a squeaky bunny toy, if someone accidentally stepped on it, and it squeaked, he would run over and start licking it, as if he was thinking that was in pain.
Mutts: For “research” I looked through the last several weeks in the archive and I this is the only comic I have ever seen that has “Betty and Harper”
New characters I guess.
Welcome back, Turtle Carl! It must be nice to know you can move faster than a Rex Morgan M.D. plot.
@taig:
I put glaciers to shame!
CS: This story should already be over, with the protestors (who are obviously the parents of Les’ students) arrested for arson, and Les fired for thumbing his nose at the school board and his own principal.
Frazz: Caulfield is so superior, that he thinks he can survive, and even enjoy, the Dark Ages. Speaking of the Dark Ages, when did the notion of television being evil start?
Luann: Instead of being embarrassed by your mom, you could load those bags into the cart, Luann.
CS: Once again, Batiuk delivers the most unintentionally hilarious line: “If we don’t make a big deal of this…you should be fine.” Kind of like, if, maybe, the writer of this strip didn’t make a big deal of this story line, we maybe would be fine.
9CL: “Was that thunder?” “No, it was just my mom. She likes to sample the sauerkraut early.”
Yeah, The Far Side had a well-known comic where a female gorilla was picking bugs off of her mate and says “A blond hair, have you been spending private time with that Jane Goodall tramp?”
The workers at the Jane Goodall institute were furious at this, not only with the implication that Jane has sex with the gorillas but also the comic calling her a tramp. And sent a nasty reprimand to Gary Larson, saying that they were going to sue.
Gary Larson was devastated as he heavily respected Jane Goodall.
Turns out, Jane Goodall was on a trip at the time, and never even saw the comic yet, knowing nothing of what her workers were doing behind her back.
When she came back to the institute, an employee pretty much just shoved the comic in her face “Look at this smut!!”
Jane laughed, she found it hilarious, and not only personally dropped the charges but even did a foreword for one of his future Far Side books.
She is a very good sport, and I remember seeing her at a conference in person when I was a kid at a school trip.
RMMD – Yeah, yeah, we know. That’s the strip’s mission statement.
MW: Christ, Estelle! Ed had to euthanize a poodle, a cocker spaniel, a tabby, and a turtle today. Give him a break, “dear!”
FC: “Cloudy nights are when Jeffy wants to ask Him something.”
@The Rambling Otter: And they seem to be working on a vaudeville routine. “Absolutely, Canine Harper? Positively, Canine Betty!”
There are no jokes, but it’s still better than “Beanpole and Shorty.”
MW: Ed looks like there’s an angry mob of villagers with torches and pitchforks battering in his door as he speaks.
Slylock – Today, Slylock teaches the kiddos how to identify AI-generated deepfakes.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Hey! What’s going on here?”
“Don’t ask any questions, boss. There’s a body under there…”
“And it’s going to help fertilize the plants”
Mammal Carl here. Also Biology Teacher Carl.
So, Turtle Carl: chameleons are reptiles. They hunt with long sticky tongues that they stick out of their mouths, some of them up to twice their body length!
MW – Damn, I hope this leads to angry karoke.
Paul Simon had 50 ways to leave your lover. Moy needs only seven panels.
@taig: Also, ominous. If WE don’t make a big deal out of it, YOU should be fine.
@Hibbleton: The biggest mistake Ed is making here is not telling Estelle that her wedding ideas are terrible and it’s the height of narcissism for two people in their 60s to be putting on a large theme wedding.
@Banana Jr. 6000: True. If I thought Batiuk was capable of any kind of subtle foreshadowing, one of these idiots would be talking about it at Montoni’s tomorrow.
@The Rambling Otter: When Larson called the Goodall Institute to apologize they got confused and were all, “Wait, our Jane was offended by this silly little comic? That doesn’t sound like her at all.” It turns out her personal assistant got a little too big for her britches and decided to take the fight to Larson without consulting anyone else, least of all her boss. (She got fired and the Institute got to sell t-shirts with the strip as a fundraising method, so happy ending all around.)
MT: Forgive me, my Cuteness Proximity is kicking in….
KITTIES! LOOKIT THE LITTLE FUZZY BABIES! SO SMOL! AWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!
….*cough* Sorry about that. I am looking into medication options.
Mutts: Why is Jane Goodall being featured in today’s comic? It’s not her birthday, and she hasn’t yet shuffled off this mortal coil…did the dog that was supposed to appear in today’s Shelter Stories get euthanized?
RMMD: Man, if that isn’t stenciled in block letters on the Rex Morgan writing room wall…
MW: Hello Stell! Need help planning a wedding?”
“Wilbur!”
OK, I admit it; this Mutts got me to google Jane Goodall to see if she’s still alive. Good news, still going strong at 90!
@The Rambling Otter: Jane Goodall came to my high school once to do her thing. I was absent from her ape presentation or whatever due to some conflicting school engagement I can no longer recall, so I missed the whole thing. The only reason I even remember it was because I found out later one of my friends had been forced to leave the auditorium after a teacher overheard him whispering that Jane Goodall was older than communism.
To be fair, he was wrong; Jane Goodall is at least fifteen years younger than communism. Still, people getting irrationally angry on Jane Goodall’s behalf is apparently pretty common.
@TheDiva:
Yeah, Dr. Ed’s on a roll.
@The Rambling Otter: The Gary Larson cartoon’s literal caption was even funnier than that. It read: “Well, well — another blonde hair. … Conducting a little more ‘research’ with that Jane Goodall tramp?”
C’shaft: This is probably a bad time to ask this, but does Lilian have any kind of business insurance? Something that would cover things like arson and litigation from community members? Or is this one of those things we’re just not supposed to ask about, like how she runs a bookstore out of her own attic on a suburban street completely disconnected from any commerce areas in defiance of multiple zoning and compliance regulations as well as common sense?
DT: Wow, timely. If someone accuses Lunarians of eating people’s pets before this is over I will take back everything bad I ever said about this strip.
Dustin: Well done, Dustin, you’ve managed to be more irritating than your sister. That takes effort.
JP: “Kat, honey, I told you putting in for the title role in the Elmo in Grouchland remake was a long shot at best…”
Luann: Don’t look at her, Luann. How many grocery stores these days don’t take credit cards (but will take debt cards) and still take checks? It’s like the BuyCo is sitting in its own little pocket Bizarro World.
MW: “I’m sorry, Estelle, but my front desk lady just up and took the entire afternoon off without notice so she could interview wedding vendors! Maybe you should take this up with her instead!”
Phantom: Wait, so the Ghost Who Overcomplicates just spent all this time establishing the “Unknown Commander” and “John X” as two separate people only so he can fake “John X’s” death? Wouldn’t it be easier to fake the death first and then slip back into his Unknown Commander persona, thus convincing everyone that John X wasn’t the Commander after all?
Pluggers die in the stupidest of ways.
@jroggs: Not to mention that there is no currently available hardcover edition of Fahrenheit 451. Which leads us to wonder whether Les ordered a special edition from a vanity press for this very, very important high school English lesson.
Also too, it’s a rather short book — the 50th anniversary mass market paperback came in under 190 pages. So either the publisher inserted 250 pages of ads, or Les had them stick another couple of novels in there. The kids can read Lisa’s Story for extra credit!
DT: Ro-Zan went out clubbing? I guess when Mysta shot him down for niece-fucking, he needed to find himself an alternate piece of Earthling ass.
I’ve figured out where all the drama is coming from in Mary Worth. Estelle’s marriage is NOT sanctioned by Mary herself, so naturally Estelle can’t go through with it. When the whole thing collapses, Estelle will go weeping to Mary…who will suggest giving Wilbur a 258th chance. “He has endearing quirks!”
Turtle Carl! Long time no see! I’d heard rumors you might be let out of your dungeon this week. We always worry about you… since Uncle Lumpy keeps you under wraps and incommunicado most of the year. Or is it just me whose number is blocked?
Look, I realize you and Uncle L have a long-term exclusive relationship – not that there’s anything wrong with that – and I certainly wouldn’t do anything so unprofessional as trying to get you to sign up with my agency. Heavens no! I’m sure he’s maximizing your artistic potential, getting you the best gigs available, cranking out the publicity machine, and doing everything to make sure you’re comfortably set for the rest of your loooong life!
You’re what – about 200 now? It’s not too early to start thinking about your golden years… sure, you still look fit and nimble now, but in another fifty years or so… who knows? There may come a time when the Turtle Wax just doesn’t cut it anymore, and you lose some of your luster. If you like, I can send you some brochures on our retirement plans and annuity policies…
But I gotta say, that was a great job today… your new rug really rocks… and it’s always a pleasure to see you and hear your scholarly presentations! You’ve still got it!! For now, anyway..
@Ukulele Ike: Slamming Lisa’s Story into Fahrenheit 451 gives credence to Les ordering the book from a vanity publisher. It also means he spent even more money thumbing his nose at the establishment. Talk about a Pyrrhic victory (sorry, Booksmellers!).
MW – I guess the real story here is that Estelle has no friends at all.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!:
You got dental?
@48 TheDiva: on Luann: I really really hate to stick up for the Luann authors but there is a large grocery store chain in the West that doesn’t take credit cards: WINCO Foods. Unlike the strip, they have only grocery trolleys, no handbaskets. Also, no shoppers card.
@Turtle Carl: Dental AND vision!! Give us a call…
“Carl”, I’m kinda surprised you didn’t do an entry for Mary Worth, which knee-deep in animals (or at least animal-carcasses. Right, Ed? Is that why you look so cartoonishly stressed on the next-to-last panel?)
MARY WORTH: Actually I’m being silly. Coming down off of horse tranquilizers is a perfectly valid excuse not help with wedding planning. Give Dr Ed some time to get through “the shakes’, girl, damn!
@astroboy: This is what I’m saying. If Estelle had a friend who wasn’t part of the Charterstone Cult going with her, the situation would be a lot less volatile and she would likely just join up with Ed at the evening with some cake samples.
But Moy can’t resist the pettiest drama so Estelle comes across as a passive aggressive bitch who doesn’t realize that not only is her wedding theme the stupidest thing imaginable, she is also way too old and antisocial for it.
@taig: Oh, I think there will be idiots in Montoni’s tomorrow: Skip and Batton Thomas.
NOTE: I can’t see future Crankshaft strips; this is just a guess on my part. But it seems perfectly set up. The last such week ended with Skip saying he needs to interview “Batton Thomas” some more. And, continuing with the Burnings “story” would violate a writing principle Tom Batiuk claims to follow, that arcs should not be longer than three weeks. (Batiuk loves to rules-lawyer himself.)
MW: My gal and I think Eshtelle needs a slap. This idiot was dating WILBUR, for chrissake, she’s already damaged goods. And you can tell she’s been a real bitch to Ed for some time now—look at his posture in the one panel in which he appears. That’s a man who’s already stressed out from putting down the pets of Charterstone, and is panicking that his patients owners are eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people who live there.
Luann: what color is the sky in Luann-world? Last time I saw a grocery accept a check was in like 1992. And the last time I saw a grocery store refuse to accept a credit card was never—unless Mom DeGroot is a known scammer, which seems unlikely since she’s portrayed as a saint? Sorry, I call bullshit. This gag doesn’t work because the framework is forced. Not that it’s a good gag to begin with.
@2+2=7: I would rather be on horse tranquilizers than tell Estelle that not only is her idea for a theme incredibly stupid but she’s also way too antisocial for it. She would probably sing at me until I go deaf.
Rex Morgan – Ye gods, make the freaking appointment yourself. Why do you have to discuss whether you should see a doctor about your finger with anyone?
I hope he never has severe chest pains.
Speed Bump – Olive eyes!
@taig: , when did the notion of television being evil start?
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January 3,1976 when “The Gong Show” premiered.
@I speak Jive: If he gets severe chest pains, maybe it’ll make this story end faster since Pat there can only sigh and say “He shoulda called a doctor. Now what stupid vaudeville act can I make Beanpole do?”
@Banana Jr. 6000:
prediction : the upcoming week will be a Skip/Batton Thomas interview interlude that has nothing to do with the ongoing “The Burnings” storyline
Nah… Batiuk wouldn’t do the EXACT same thing he did with the “Bull’s suicide” storyline, where he tells a bunch of major newspapers to run a story about how he’s going to have a two-months long storyline, but then it turns out that, right in the middle of it, the story shifts to Batiuk’s avatar being dined in Montoni’s while being showered in praise for being “The Real Hero” for telling Lisa’s Story (it was Les accepting Mason Jarre’s movie proposal the last time)…
…I wonder what the “Three O’clock High” equivalent of Lisa’s Story is called… We’ll probably find out soon!@TheDiva: Luann: I’ve seen stores refuse to accept credit cards, or charge you a fee if you use one, because the credit card vendors charge a fee to the store accepting them. American Express has the highest fee, and some stores will accept other cards, but not American Express.
@I speak Jive: Why do you have to discuss whether you should see a doctor about your finger with anyone?
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Truck took the announcer’s warning to heart IF YOU EXPERIENCE A FINGER LOCK UP FOR A PERIOD OF OVER 24 HOURS, CONSULT A PHYSICIAN IMMEDIATELY.
@TheDiva: The Phantom: This story would be a lot more interesting if John X was John Wick instead.
@Needless Exposition: “He shoulda called a doctor. Now what stupid vaudeville act can I make Beanpole do?”
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“Doc,it hurts when I do this.” “Then don’t do that!” (Willy & Clark, The Sunshine Boys).
Don’t forget the Ahhh stick and the nurse with the big medical plans.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Can anybody see future Crankshaft strips?
@brendancalling: re Luann: I did see a (“mature”) woman write a check in the grocery store recently. It was truly a Plugger moment, in that she didn’t get out her checkbook until the order was totaled. No coupons, however. Check-writing was always more prevalent with women, even when it was a common thing. Men who didn’t use credit cards would just pull out a wad of cash.
@Lord Flatulence: This story would be a lot more interesting if John X was John Wick instead.
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Or John Darling, The Ghost shot by a houseplant.
@Arabella: Check-writing was always more prevalent with women,
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Jerry Seinfeld pointed out that checks are demasculating to men,like a note from Mommy “I have the money,honestly! Just show this note to the nice banker and he’ll tell you!”
REX MORGAN M.D.: The tagline for this comic, ladies and gentlemen.
@Lord Flatulence: @Banana Jr. 6000: Can anybody see future Crankshaft strips?
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Just masochistic mediums.
@jroggs: All great points. Also. when did Les’ high school literature class transmogrify into a college lecture-sized class? There are at least 90 copies of the book visible, 3x more than a single HS class should need. And Saint Ridiculous (aka Smirky Claus) also told his class to “pick up” their books at the store, not “buy” them, so presumably he is indeed eating the cost, cuz Batty wants us to believe Les is so selfless & holy he shits eclairs.
JP: Me, for the past few days: Wait, doesn’t Ronnie have a wife now? Doesn’t the structure of this narrative suggest she should be involved in some way?
Ces, today: Yes, Ronnie has a wife, and she’s awful! I’m doing you a favour by mentioning her as little as possible!
MW: I love how Dr Ed, the noble vet who dedicates his life to the welfare of animals, has become Dr Ed, the workaholic vet who selfishly prioritises work over his own wedding, without anything about how he’s actually portrayed changing at all. I genuinely have no idea if we’re meant to think Stell’s in the right here, or if it’s supposed to be that this is the very aspect of him she fell in love with and it only became a problem when Dr Shell got inside her head. More to the point, based on some past Mary Worth storylines where I wasn’t sure where they were going, I’m not sure if Moy has decided yet either!
Mutts: Ripped from the headlines! I mean, March’s headlines, but whatever.
Six Chex and A Cat Named Gearhead Guy: when you start doing jokes rejected by “Gearhead Gertie”, its time to hang up the designer hat, ladies.
@2+2=7: REX MORGAN M.D.: The tagline for this comic, ladies and gentlemen.
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You will believe a man can sit.
@brendancalling: Dr. Ed is still cheesed off he had to give up a simple poisoning of all the cats and dogs who come his way; he can’t be responsible for Charterstone residents who’re sickened by their fricassee of Rover or gigante beans a la Fluffy. And that damn sledgehammer is SO heavy.
@Banana Jr. 6000: @taig: Oh, I think there will be idiots in Montoni’s tomorrow: Skip and Batton Thomas.
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“The Idiots In Montoni’s” was an Oprah Winfrey TV movie.
Well done, Mutts, you made me Google Jane Goodall to make sure she’s still alive. She’s vegan though, so can you really call that living?
MT Pre-pandemic I spent a week in Naha, the largest city on Okinawa. While there, I just spent some time walking around, looking at shops, temples, and historical-looking stuff. I noticed that at some of the parks, people had put out little pet bowls in order to feed wild cats that populated those places. Most of the cats I encountered were twitchy and would run away or hide if you approached. I was never able to get a good explanation why there seemed to be so many feral cats, mostly along the lines of “Oh yes, there are cats there” said in that politely not-quite-answering-the-question mode the Japanese are so good at.
I have been told by people who have spent time in Japan that many apartment complexes don’t allow pets, hence the polarity of “cat cafes” (check ’em out on Youtube.) That may explain the wild cat feeding as well.
@Horace Broon: I’m more wondering why we’re expected to think that Dr. Ed is the one being selfish when Estelle is the one who not only wants to do a huge wedding but is bitching about having to do the planning herself…when she said that it was okay. Are we supposed to side with the antisocial hypocrite berating her overworked fiancé because how dare he have a job and not be like the other men who do nothing productive?
Fred Basset Spanish to English.
CS: There’s those green leaves falling again, just like yesterday! I swear that goofball Crankshaft is next door doing something wacky to make the leaves fall early so he won’t have to rake them up later. Maybe a nuclear-powered leaf blower, or an antique vibrating-belt exercise machine wiggling the tree trunks. Heh heh, that crazy ol’ coot!
RMMD: Truck dozes off, and a song begins to form in his head ~~~
Sittin’ in the mornin’ sun,
I’ll be sittin’ when the evenin’ comes
Watchin’ the kids bike by,
Maybe one will stop and say “Hi”
I’m sittin’ on a bench in the park
Guess I’ll still be sittin’ at dark
I’m just sittin’ on a bench in the park
Wastin’ time.
Lordy, lordy how my finger hurts
That’s why I had to smash that cup
What must Wanda think of me
Gotta face the music with her, with her…
But I’d rather be [pause]
Sittin’ on a bench in the park
Gonna sit right here until it gets dark
Sittin’ on a bench in the park
Wastin’ time..
MW: Ed has dodged the bullet, if he simply has wit enough to let this play out.
@mvg: The number of copies is actually realistic, though probably by accident; most high school teachers have multiple classes that they teach for part of the day. Les having four classes of between 20-25 students is pretty plausible.
Slylock Fox: Easy. The real Max is shouting “save me, Slylock!” while the decoys are all saying “who are you, strange fox?”
FC: No, Dolly. It’s your stupid dead grandpa again, running up the electric bill in Heaven just so you can spout one of your “kids say the darndest things” out of your pie hole.
MT: I once ran across an old high school health science textbook from the 1920s that agrees with Carl. Cats are an invasive species that are a threat to native wildlife and should be EXTERMINATED.
@Needless Exposition: What did you have for breakfast this morning, Carnation Instant Bitch? Hah, got the reference (I’m an Old) and I’m using that sometime this week.
Copy other artists week continues on “The Grizzwalds”, yesterday Rambling noticed it looked like ” Kevin and Kell”,today it features a thousandlegger who looks higher than anything the Webers ever drew outside of that Cassandra Cat “Don’t do ‘nip” PSA.
@Guillermo el chiclero: MT: I once ran across an old high school health science textbook from the 1920s that agrees with Carl. Cats are an invasive species that are a threat to native wildlife and should be EXTERMINATED.
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That would be Mr Dalek’s science class.
@GarrisonSkunk: Or John Darling, @GarrisonSkunk: Or John Darling, The Ghost shot by a houseplant
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Good one!
@Aleta’s Magic Raven: Yeah… I didn’t have the comic on me, so I was trying to recite from memory as best as I could.
Right, Slylock will have time to see all the little fingers on all the little mice tumbling through the air. More likely he’ll use his fox senses and home in on Max’s screaming as he falls.
And forget it Fox, I’m not comparing all the water drops and puddles to see which is not like the other. Y’all will just have to figure it out for yourselves.
Hey, BAJA! There are other uses for Photoshop.
MT: Rather than ranting again, I shall just say that a lot of wildlife researchers, conservationists, and advocates would disagree with some of what is said and implied in today’s strip. Done now, yay. *skips away*
@The Rambling Otter: #28
I remember that cartoon. Jane Goodall is one of my heroes!
And I’m very sorry about the loss of your sweet pet – that is so hard.
@Uncle Lumpy YY: Apparently several schools took it off their reading lists, citing foul language, depictions of drug use, and (in one case) burning of a Bible. This was in the 1950’s.
I just don’t see where the book is that, um, incendiary these days. Many of the contemporary titles draw a lot more ire than the Bradbury did.
@TheDiva: This is probably a bad time to ask this, but does Lilian have any kind of business insurance?
And it’ll be a lot worse if her bookstore were indeed torched and the fire spreads to Lilllian’s house — and perhaps Crankshaft’s, too. However, Batiuk isn’t likely to go that far; look at all the times Cranky has damaged the house but hasn’t suffered any consequences neither in property damage nor legal action.
@Poteet:
Hey, people come here for the turtle wisecracks, but they stay for the prairie maintenance rants!
JUDGE PARKER:
Saphho-NeddyKat: “How could they give the lead to that monster?!? I have the the thespian chops to pull off the lead for Locker Room Butt Sluts V, not that no-talent hack!”Macanudo: The cat looks familiar
MW: This has turned sitcom where, overnight, a normal-ish character turns into a moron, butt-monkey, or both. 2nd marriages are triumphs of hope over experience. Hop/gallop/slither over to City Hall and get on with it.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: #56
“Dental plan??”
But…but…Sid…I call shenanigans!!! Turtles and tortoises don’t have teeth!!! Are you running an insurance scam????
@Guy Nerdlinger: #93: It also reminds me of a novelty T-shirt I once saw. “Instant asshole: Just add beer”.
SFox: Count Weirdly (in James Mason voice): “The mouse is a problem best solved at a great height….over water.”
@Daisy: Well, did you ever wonder WHY they don’t have teeth? Lack of a comprehensive plan, that’s why!
@2+2=7: That’s going to be a tall order for the girls. I don’t think anyone could surpass Locker Room Butt Sluts IV.
What, is the modbot on vacation or something?
So Josh’s flight got delayed or something?
@Jeffmcm: Well, every time I’ve gone to Italy I’ve been sorely tempted to not come back. Maybe Josh succumbed to the siren call of la dolce vita. He does enjoy a good plate of noodles.
@Lord Flatulence: Not that I know of.
@Jeffmcm:
Josh will be back next Sunday, the 22nd.
@115 Uncle Lumpy:
So you have only one week to earn that Pulitzer.
@Sequitur:
Cancer is bad! (I’m shooting for the Nobel.)
@Daisy: Thank you :3
He was a total sweetie pie indeed :-)
@Uncle Lumpy: Another Lumpy Week! Excellent!
Where did Josh go in Italy, or is his location a top secret? (I want to live vicariously through him.)
I’m dying to make a trip to the Lake Garda region to visit Gabriele d’Annunzio’s crib. He may have been a proto-Fascist booger politically, but I love his novels, Pleasure and The Triumph of Death in particular. I would also relish a return trip to Cefalu.
This was weird… I was reading through the comments and there was a discussion about shadow CotW
And that it was posted on the metapost.
So I go back down a bit to the last Metapost to check it out, and when I come back here, all of those comments referring to it had vanished.
So, thinking things over, I realized I had clicked on the wrong comment section, as both dates had the daily riffs ending with Truck and Parker sitting on that da** bench xD
I don’t know how I even mixed that up to begin with really, as I always instinctively click on the comments for the latest.
@Ukulele Ike:
I don’t know all the details, but he and Amber were all up in the Venice Biennale on Wednesday.
Speaking of Fascist boogers, Aunt Lumpy and I visited Franco’s tomb (yes, he’s still dead) long ago. It was built by slave labor, and a leak from the ceiling dripped directly on his grave. I like to think it was piss.
@Uncle Lumpy: Is Franco still planted at the overwrought, grandiose, and lugubrious Valley of the Fallen, outside Madrid? I saw it years ago: talk about your autocratic far-right Follies (in the architectural sense). I also heard the current Spanish government dug him up and moved him someplace shittier.
Venice, eh? The only practical way to move about Venice these days is to walk on the heads of all the other tourists. Last time I was in Piazza San Marco there were so many people there I felt like I was in the front rows at a 1975 Grateful Dead show.
@Ukulele Ike:
Don’t know: we went to the Valley of the Fallen in 1993, and yeah, the architecture would have embarrassed Leni Riefenstahl. I hope Spain found an appropriate hog wallow for his remains.
I’ve avoided Venice for exactly that reason. Apparently, cruise ships are killing that place. Surprisingly, Florence is much more manageable, and the Uffizi is very careful to meter traffic. The David, less so.
@Uncle Lumpy: True, was at the Uffizi this spring, and it is one of the less mobbed tourist spots in Italy. Genoa is also pretty good, as it isn’t on as many bucket lists.
@Needless Exposition: Be sure to have your game show host spayed or neutered.
@Uncle Lumpy: #123: That’s because everyone wants to gawk at David’s junk.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
Reminds me of Dave.
@Needless Exposition:
#84 MW:. Charterstone has not been good to Estelle. When she came, I remember her as being sophisticated, a little standoffish, and interesting. But after years of daily being around Mary Worth, Wilbur, Toby she is now an impulsive toddler.
Get out! Get out!
@Ukulele Ike:
@Uncle Lumpy:
Franco’s remains were exhumed in 2019 and re- interred next to his widow in El Pardo, a suburb of Madrid. The legal pretext used by the Spanish government was that the Valley of the Fallen was only for those actually killed during the Spanish Civil War, and since Franco lived to a ripe old age, he didn’t belong there.
Mutts: I can believe that chimps aren’t Goodall’s favorite. After all, you can’t fully trust another animal with opposable thumbs, as all those Planets movies have shown us. It’s a little disorienting seeing her walk onto a variety show skit, though.
RMMD: Parker takes off in the very next panel. Either he’s bored or he’s committed to having Corey as the Vladimir to his Estragon.
SFx: This frog can do vintage Dylan songs but never had the same breaks as Kermit. It’s who you know.
BC: Caution ahead, caution behind
And you know that notion just crossed my mind
C-Shaft: The whole point is to make a big deal of this, so there are special challenges to reading any room with Les Moore in the middle of it.
Crock: So the misplaced saguaro cacti not only speak, but know the strip’s characters by name. With “Roxie” they’ve got one up on me. It’s almost like they could and should be something other than cacti.
Dustin: Terrible Jedi mind trick, but I give the strip credit today for a believable sibling interaction at any rate.
JP: Talk about trouble in paradise! This is the first time in months that Kat has even existed, and Ronnie can’t wait to get away from her!
MW: You might think that the I Do! Bakery serves a very specialized market, but it’s actually less so than when they opened as “Idol Bakery”, and all their cakes and pastries were made for American Idol watch parties.
Rex Morgan: Truck just needs his finger pulled and he’ll be just fine.
@Activist: Charterstone is like the “totally SoCal and not New England” equivalent of the Overlook but everyone devolves into obnoxious adult toddlers instead of being homicidal maniacs.
@Lord Flatulence: That definitely sounds like a job Rex will hand off to one of his nurses.
@99 Sequitur: That’s my medical insurance plan.
@132 Lord Flatulence: If anyone’d know about “pulling fingers,” it’d be you.
Crankshaft – That bookstore didn’t burn as hard as the stupidity of this story.
@Guillermo el chiclero: We saw the David in 2000. The most interesting part of the visit was going behind the statue and seeing its back, a view the photos never show. Forget his junk – I saw David’s butt!
Near David were other Michelangelo sculptures of captives or prisoners which appeared to be trying to emerge from the block of marble. I liked those sculptures better than David.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Yeah… Michelangelo’s David was an item you could obtain in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Being a kids’ game, many parents complained about it, because artistic nudity automatically equals porn apparently…
@Artist formerly known as Ben: It is really jarring when that happens, except when Saturday Night Live did a Judge Judy parody where at the end, the real Judge Judy shows up on the set and says to the actress parodying her “Get out of my chair!” which while still surprising was more awesome if anything.
I’m with Carl here. Cats are a friggin nuisance that destroy local ecosystems. They have decimated the bird population in my neighborhood.
@Baja Gaijin: Touche’
@Uncle Lumpy: After that museum, you can go look at some mid-century modern architecture and say “Life is Brutalist.”
@The Rambling Otter:
Actually the line was “Get your bony ass out of my chair” ?
@Batiuk’s Attic: You’re both full of shit.
@Uncle Lumpy: Franco’s stinking storm trooper Guardia murdered the poet Garcia Lorca on the road between Granada and Alfacar in 1936 for being a Socialist and a homosexual, and pretty much dumped the corpse in a hog wallow.
A hog wallow would be too good for Franco.
@Uncle Lumpy: Franco’s stinking storm trooper Guardia murdered the poet Garcia Lorca on the road between Granada and Alfacar in 1936 for being a Soci@list and a homosexual, and pretty much dumped the corpse in a hog wallow.
A hog wallow would be too good for Franco.
@Uncle Lumpy: And dogs are good!
Was the new Mark spayed or neutered? Or was it a lobotomy?
@The Rambling Otter: Oh yeah, the whole Judge Judy-mania in the late 90s. I think Cheri Oteri played her on SNL.
Late night Curmudgeons get to see this.
Turtle Carl, it’s always a pleasure to hear from you. Thank you for your latest observations! In case you don’t have a chance to drop by again soon, and just in case it applies to your location, best wishes to you for a great brumation! Or a great relaxing warm winter, whichever is relevant.
@Uncle Lumpy: You are so kind.
@Sequitur: 148. Well, who won the fight?
@Ukulele Ike: We emphatically agree.