Unpleasant Friday
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Gasoline Alley, 11/22/24
Oh, sorry kids, looks like you’re going to slowly suffocate to death as your spaceship goes dark and circles Mars in an erratic orbit that will take centuries to decay. You know, you could’ve avoided all this if you had taken Ida Knoe the evil talking doll up on her offer to show you the solar system. Your voyage with her would’ve been made possible by demonic power from the depths of Hell itself, which unlike “electricity” or whatever isn’t subject to various physical laws and limitations that could leave you in a situation like this. Hindsight, though, am I right?
Pluggers, 11/22/24
As a coastal elitist, I guess I’m not really conversant on plugger standards of masculinity, but before today I would’ve assumed that “you’re so feeble you need household tools to open a simple carton of milk” would be the sort of thing they’d use to make fun of me, not something they’d proudly declare, in the newspaper in front of God and everyone, to be something that defined their pluggerdom.
Dick Tracy, 11/22/24
“Kid, you don’t get it. Tracy’s already gotten rid of the regular crime! Now he’s going after building code violations! And he’s going after them with his gun!”
Mary Worth, 11/22/24
Happy Friday, everyone! Hope you were looking for a panel of Mary and Jeff passionately closed-mouthed kissing to start your weekend off right! Wait, what’s that? You weren’t? You actually find it extremely off-putting? Well, tough shit. I have to look at this stuff and now so do you.
158 replies to “Unpleasant Friday”
JP: Deepest, truest, purest love, courtesy of guest writer Karen Moy. Why are we supposed to care about this disgusting sociopathic relationship, again?
MW: Deepest, truest, purest love, courtesy of regular writer Karen Moy. What is with the soaps today? I swear to God, if I open up Rex Morgan and Rex is seducing Old Man Chemtrail, I’m done.
RMMD: …Yep, I’m done.
Mary Worth Mashups: Which Missing Final Panel is least likely to happen?
Christ, if I gotta read “I’m a coastal elitist” one more time…
We get it, Josh. Find another “joke.”
Dick Tracy:
“Since your jaw is more important to your persona than your head is, Tracy, maybe you should put that construction helmet underneath your chin instead!”
Gasoline Alley:
“Now we can play with all the Soviet space dogs that have been stuck up here for decades!”
GA: Really serving its core readership there as the term “charge card”—not regularly uttered by anyone under 70—is confidently used by a child. GA is definitely totes hep with the kids these days, yo!
MW-“Wife won’t let me chase after the skirts.”
I need to ask Gasoline Alley: “Where did electric vehicles and AI hurt you?” If only they’d flown into space in a gas-powered spaceship. They’d still have run out of fuel, but at least carbon monoxide poisoning would have given them a more painless death.
MW: I think our understanding of Mary and Jeff’s relationship is all wrong. She is one of those button up on the outside vixen on the inside types. Why, look, today Jeff is trying to leave for the night as he has a busy day tomorrow, but she in true dom fashion demands that he meet her needs. “My pleasure! . . .dear.” He promptly responds. It’s a short leash.
MW: Jeff blows his one chance at passion when sucks in his top lip so it doesn’t touch Mary’s coldsore.
DT: Last time I checked, “Junior” was Tracy’s adopted son and married to — I think — Moon Maid. Who’s this Junior wannabe? There’s only room for one Junior in this strip, Buster! (Actually, why don’t you change your name to “Buster?” I don’t think that’s taken.)
Pluggers: As a non-elitist from one of the Rectangular States of America, I can assure you that I’ve never needed the kitchen junk-drawer pliers to open a carton of milk. That’s just silly. I have, however, been driven to the gates of madness by a seemingly welded-on screw-top on a bottle of BAI flavored water. I guess I’m a semi-Plugger.
GA: Is this really happening or is it some gas leak-induced hallucination? Either way, haven’t their parents wondered where they are?
MW…and with a kiss as tepid as Mary’s taquitos, our hero takes his leave.
RMMD: ” Walk around the block every day, eat more vegetables and oh, I’ll need ‘Miss Galaxia’s’ contact information. “
I’d give Andy Bear a pass on being unable to open a mere milk carton because he lacks opposable thumbs, but the pliers won’t help with that. Tear that flimsy thing to pieces with your powerful teeth and claws!
Plugger opens the milk container without tools brags to his wife. “Old King Arthur ain’t got nothing on me.”
MW – All this talk of taquitos and Priceco signature trays has turned Dr. Jeff on so much, he moves in for his once-a-year sexy time.
Comsidering Dr. Jeff is hung like a Ken doll, this qualifies as sexy time.
MW: When you think about it, going from Robbie the Robot to these two animatronic beings performing a (almost) realistic kiss in just 70 years is pretty amazing.
There seems to be a slightly religious leaning slant to this blog recently. Just an observation.
GA “Get it? Charge card? But seriously, robot: is there any amount if money that will get us out of this ? I can get it I swear! Please!!!!”
Pluggers Nice try, Bear Man: you don’t keep pliers in the drawer, you keep them right next to the thing you last used them on, which happens to be in proximity to you know. If you were organized enough to put them away, you’d find another, more useful tool for your situation in there. I can’t claim to be a Plugger through and through, but I know how ‘tool roulette’ works.
DT Who is this guy? He looks like if they cast John Waters as J Jonah Jamieson.
MW Jesus, all the hot passion of mashing barbie dolls against each other. They’ve done depictions of Wilbur eating a sandwich that were more romantic than this.
MW:
Jeff and Mary, spitting, in a spree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
GA – (Ida Knoe) But we still have mass, right? (Robot) Do I look Catholic?
Pluggers – A Plugger…out witted by a door knob…like the Bee Gee’s said – It’s tragedy….
DT – So…this Adam Smith’s moving hand of the economy in action?
MW – What they say and what they mean: (Jeff) I’m going home to wank over cyber porn. My balls are bluer than Gainsborough. (Mary) Get after it pal – no soup for you….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Rex Morgan, MILF Diver:
Green Shirt Guy: “Oh, there was lots of physical activity when I found that Miss Galexia site.”
Closed-mouth kissed in both Mary Worth and Fudge Packer. What is it about the latter that seems more passionate?
Whatever happened to “Josh reads the comics so you don’t have to“?
Gasoline Alley: “Can characters from a comic strip of the undead ever die?” is a question for the ages right up there with “Do androids dream of electric sheep?”, but maybe for H.P. Lovecraft, rather than Philip K. Dick.
The last time a Plugger was this angry at a carton of milk was when it had a picture of his kid whom he had kidnapped from his ex-wife.
@Anonymous: Let us review the implied contract of josh reads dot com: Josh makes jokes, some of them unfunny. In exchange, we get the free opportunity to make our own jokes, most of them unfunny. If you find this an unsatisfactory bargain, perhaps consider how much of an investment you actually hold.
Dick Tracy: Christ, that middle panel is creepy. There’s just something about the phrase “building inspector” that is profoundly unsettling…
MW: I’m not going to criticize the kissing art, because have you seen how idiotic most of our kisses look when we’re being photographed? We almost always look weird.
Jeff leaving after dinner when it doesn’t look pitch black though…under the guise of “I have an early meeting tomorrow”…just had to escape without the indignities of being rebuffed once again…
RMMD:
“Why don’t you absorb yourself in the works of the great Greek tragedians like Sophocles, Mr. Lewton? — it might take your mind off your aches and pains.”
“That tiny print just serves to vex —
I can’t even read it with specs!
Plus, I have been had
When endings are bad —
I’m talkin’ ’bout Oedipus, Rex!”
The joke is that before moving to El-lay, Josh gew up in Buffalo, which is neither coastal nor elite.
Plugger gets pliers and then forgets why. Fixes loose shower head. Wife wonders who left the milk out.
Mary Worth: They’re in love! You can tell, because they’re purple with passion! Wait, I’m being handed a note. It’s not Dr. Jeff’s shirt that’s purple with passion? Avoid the word “tumescent” at all costs? Seek medical attention if it lasts for longer than four hours? Oh, no. Oh, NO. No no no no…
Pluggers: The Wikipedia page for Shalimar, Florida reports that:
Is this actually Andy Bern we’re seeing? I’m just asking questions!
But are those really pliers the Plugger is holding? They look more like Ear Clamp Installation Tools, used to put tight bands around hose connections. In any event, he’s a bear. Bears do not need tools to open things. They just rip right in. Because they’re bears.
I would assume pluggers believe coastal elitists neither own pliers nor understand how to use them.
@Baja Gaijin:
No 3, of course. Imagine Mary parting her thighs to anyone.
You’re a plugger if you consider opening a milk carton “difficult”
“I have to look at this stuff and now so do you.”
Wait, wasn’t that the original name of this blog?
Pluggers: The difference between Pluggers and Coastal Elitists (like myself) isn’t strength, Josh, it’s rage. He doesn’t keep those pliers in the kitchen because he can’t open a milk carton with his fingers. They’re there because he hates milk.
Come on Josh, “pluggers are manly” has never been part of the plugger mission statement. It’s always been more “pluggers work with their hands” at best. So in this situation, the operative clause is “pluggers are old”.
@Baja Gaijin:
Baja, I don’t know the relative likelihood of #1 vis-à-vis #2, be we all know #3 ain’t never ever happnin’.
Maybe it’s still used regionally, like the difference between “pop” and “soda”, but it’s weird hearing a child say “charge card” like she’s an 80-year-old retiree.
***
Sure, the Hayes Code may have only applied to movies and is long since defunct, but damn it, Karen Moy is going to use it when writing Mary Worth and that’s the bottom line, you lousy degenerates.
@Anonymous:
I like the “coastal elitist” bit. It’s funny. What are you, some prairie populist?
JP (panel one): No passionate Glenful future for you, Sophie. Just the agony and heartbreak of nose cancer.
@13 MKay: on Gasoline Alley: If those were your kids, would you care where they are? As long as they’re not within earshot, that is.
@19 pugfuggly: on Pluggers: Pluggers need to buy their milk where they get their cheap prescription drugs from: Canada. Milk is sold in plastic bags.
Dagwood has a co-worker named “Thurnbuckle?” Well, it’s not exactly “Glambaster,” but it’s a step in the right direction.
@Cleveland Mocks: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.
@Maltmash3r: Arthritis is a B1tch though.
I dislike the innovation going on in carton and bottle caps because they seem focused on making sure you can’t remove the cap, as if the loss of plastic sent to recycling (and ending up shipped to the Philippines to be be burned in open air because that’s cheaper than recycling it), by people who would recycle their plastic except they keep losing these 5-10 gram lids somewhere was a big problem, worth designing caps that can’t be closed and get in the way of pouring and every imaginable inconvenience, but the caps are certainly not hard to “open.” And we know Pluggers are defined by opposition to innovation just on principle because they’re old and don’t want to devote energy to changing their accustomed habits anyway. Swing and a miss, Pluggers.
MW: As Jeff becomes more passionate, Mary asks him, “Is that a taquito in your pocket or are you just manifesting your disgusting base urges?”
CS: “This newspaper is rejoicing because a completely legitimate business is failing, and hundreds of employees are going to be without jobs just before the holidays. Ha haaa, it’s no wonder that so many people hate the liberal media.”
FC: Jeez, they had to pick Nov. 22 to run that particular comic? Low blow.
@Cleveland Mocks:
Non-prairie Colorado, so more of a mountain mensch :)
@Tabby Lavalamp: it’s weird hearing a child say “charge card” like she’s an 80-year-old retiree.
Considering how aging works in Gasoline Alley, it’s possible this child is an 80-year-old retiree.
I hope it turns out that this robot in GA doesn’t run on batteries, unlike the spaceship, so it’s perfectly content to watch these children suffocate and then afterwards presumably jettison itself out on an endless pilgrimage to the Borg planet, or something. Then we can go back to seeing how Walt is doing.
Gasoline Alley – First Gasoline Alley goes hard against being renamed Electric Acres, and now they are trying to make the case for gasoline powered spaceflight? I wouldn’t exactly be surprised some oil corporation owns and controls a legacy newspaper comic, but the average readership is only still alive because the federal government mandated taking lead out of the gasoline when that demo was in middle-age.
Pluggers – A generation of Pluggers back, when this strip first started, the joke would at least be about opening childproof caps on their medicine, which are designed to be harder to open and non-intuitive. Now in addition to their grandchildren having to teach them how to use their iPhones, they’ll need them to open their food packaging that’s engineered for ease and enhanced freshness.
Dick Tracy – Lord help the manager of the Neo-Chicago Costco when a very bored Dick Tracy brings the hammer down for their dairy supplier forgetting to declare there is milk in butter
Mary Worth – I wonder when Dr. Jeff will realize that he’s a doctor, a handsome silver fox, with a yacht who lives in an idyllic beachside town. He doesn’t have to stick to his chaste, fruitless courtship with Mary Worth, he could get a problematically young woman with a mess of Daddy or self-esteem issues, or if he wants to avoid drama, a perfectly acceptable divorcee or middle-aged widow like his veterinarian friend Dr. Ed.
RMMD:
In today’s second panel, Mr. Lewton’s face hardens as he operates under the mistaken assumption that today is National Talk Like a Pirate Day, when it actually fell on September 19 this year.
Okay, I’ve accepted that they’re not going to be in an alley, but they’re not even using gasoline?!
@Cleveland Mocks: I am a Flyover Figure Filbert.
GT: Evidently the new artist thinks that all Valley Conference ball carriers must perform some awkward dive into the end zone in order for the points to count, like it’s rugby or Australian rules football or something.
RMMD: At this rate, the guy is gonna die of old age before Rex figures out what’s wrong with him.
@astroboy:
Non-prairie Colorado, so more of a mountain mensch :)
“Mountain mama, take me home . . .”
Don Abundio, translated:
“What’s for dinner, Pierre?”
“My specialty”
“I call it ‘Les Ordures’!”
“Sounds very fancy!”
“The one good thing about working for an ignorant ‘swine’ is that I can feed him garbage!”
What’s wrong with Nov. 22 as the 74th anniversary of Fort Wayne beating Minneapolis 19-18? (I’m even going to be on KVRR of Fargo to discuss this today. Almost as good as being interviewed by Skip Rawlings.)
Oh, you’re referring to that incident 13 years later. I always cringe when I’m asked where I was when I heard the news. I didn’t know I would need an alibi. I was my third-grade class at Aquila School in St. Louis Park. Mrs. Kreiger can vouch for me.
@Cleveland Mocks:
CS: Yeah, I don’t think the ‘eeeeevilll’ hedge fund is actually going bankrupt. I think Beardy McBeardface is engaging in that time-honored tradition of yellow journalism: making shit up. (Remember the Maine, folks!)
This is a senile old man whose nursing home is inexplicably indulging his dream of being a hardboiled newspaper man (whose experience consisted of watching ‘His Girl Friday’ once). The real question is how did Beardy con the school into sending him a comely young blonde to his ‘newspaper’?
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
I am a Flyover Figure Filbert.
Rust Belt Ranger.
P.S. Speaking of which, how about that football game in the snow last night? Man, that was fun to watch. Browns’ upset win over the hated Steelers was a bonus!
MW: is there some significance, sexual or otherwise, to Jeff kissing Mary’s upper lip?
Gasoline Alley‘s rewrite of Godwin’s The Cold Equations is daring, I’ll give it that.
If you say things like “you’ve met your match!”, you’re a Plugger.
@Professor Well Actually: Muskrat Live, except for mustaches
MW: @astroboy: “Comsidering Dr. Jeff is hung like a Ken doll, this qualifies as sexy time.”
Does “comsidering” mean thinking about someone’s genitals?
@I’m not Cthulhu, but I play him on television: Love, damnit
MW: “No tongue.”
@Ukranazi Stepan: That’s it. I’ll never sleep again. *shuddering
Older couples tend to have more fulfilling sex lives. They’re typically more confident and secure in their relationships, and they have more experience in giving and receiving pleasure. One wouldn’t know that from Mary Worth. She and Jeff might as well be a teenage couple from a 1950s sitcom – chaste to the point of self-parody. Back then, the producers were clearly afraid that showing anything more would lead adolescents into temptation, as if the thought of sex wouldn’t otherwise cross their innocent minds. Karen Moy writes like anything more physical than a close-mouthed kiss will so arouse her readers that they’ll engage in wild orgiastic bacchanalias. The flip side of 9 Chickweed Lane portraying its men as having perpetual boners.
@Baja Gaijin: on Pluggers: Pluggers need to buy their milk where they get their cheap prescription drugs from: Canada. Milk is sold in plastic bags.
Hey, don’t knock it. It’s an efficient way to deliver dairy, eh?
Gasoline Alley has discovered that Interstellar Travel as a Service is the industry’s newest way to milk more “engagement” out of legacy customers.
MW:
“I’m inspired by one of your cooking herbs to do an adaptation of a Dooley Wilson classic, Mary!”
“And that would be…?”
“You must remember this
This kiss is but a kiss
A cry is but a cry
The detrimental things apply
As thyme goes by
“And when two lovers coo
They still say, ‘I love who?’
On that, you can decry
No matter what my sutures bring
As thyme goes by
“Toon blight and flubbed fawns
We are on a date
Hearts full of bashin’ —
Swelled-up, wheezin’ fate
Woman bleeds man
And man must have his prate
That, no one can deny
“It’s still a lame old story —
A fight for grubbin’ Cory
A case of spew or sigh
The world will always welcome schlubbers
As thyme
Goes
By.”
Pluggers: I can’t even make a joke about this one; it’s so completely and utterly pathetic that it loops around to just being sad and depressing, like watching a dog choke to death on an empty plastic bag. If Pluggers are gonna brag about stupid things, can they at least pretend that they’re not the most physically incapable people on the planet?
Dick Tracy: Why do the two bad guys here look like Chad and Virgin soyjacks? The Virgin “worried about getting shot by a batshit crazy cop” Guy versus the Chad “blithely unconcerned until a bullet rips through his thick skull” Guy.
Mary Worth: The act of kissing depicted through what looks like two pieces of clip-art being awkwardly slid together in an editing software to avoid even the slightest hint of sexuality or passion. I expect nothing less from Mary Worth.
@Philip:
That’s a valid question, Estelle was quite a catch for that low-affect dummy “Ed”.
I choose to believe that when Mary proposed “going swimming after dinner” on Nov 14th, she was insinuating they should go skinny dipping off Dr Jeff’s boat out in the bay where it’s dark and Mary could “do a little snorkeling”.
“Okay, Mary, so in the second panel, you kiss your boyfriend.”
“Uh… sure…”
“Wait… you know what kissing looks like, right?”
“Of course, I do… it’s when you humans show affection by touching faces where your food intake holes are.”
“Good enough!”
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Fort Wayne beating Minneapolis 19-18
This was the “we really need to invent the shot clock” game, right?
@74 pugfuggly: Hey! Step off that
soaptwo-four box! I agree with you.Hi and Lois: The panic that Chip’s Wannabe Rock Star Friend has here confirms my worst fears about this Zoomer Generation that seem to think that they don’t need to worry about academics and think that becoming a TikTok or Instagram influencer or other kind of vapid celebrity is a viable career path. They have all been told they are special snowflakes and are completely unprepared to deal with the reality of how things actually are. His parents have just informed him for the first time in his life that he won’t be able to just freeload off them indefinitely and his dreams are crushed!
Mary Worth: I can understand why a still not-quite-out-of-his-prime doctor would wear a Manly Chest Padded Muscle Undershirt (TM) to bulk up his form, but for Mary? Hardly seems worth the trouble.
Dick Tracy: Ahhh no, Harry Hypno is going to put everyone in a trance and make them do his bidding! Oh, wait, you say that’s just a regular guy, and that’s how his eyes normally look, and that creepy thing he does with his hands is just how he expresses himself when he talks? And he gets people to do his bidding through bribes and threats, just like any normal schmo? Never mind.
MW – So now that we know Mary’s famed kitchen wizardry is right out of the Campbell’s Soup Cookbook, is it any surprise her version of adult intimacy is strictly 1950s as well? She and Jeff even have twin beds, though in this case they’re not even in the same building.
@Cleveland Mocks: I had to check back because I always forget what FC is about 20 seconds after I read it. I was afraid the caption was “Mommy, Billy fired a rifle bullet from a warehouse through the back of Jeffy’s head, and now Dolly has brains all over her.”
@ectojazzmage: re: DT: The two bad guys remind me of Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare in the Coen Bros’ 1996 Fargo.
“Pancakes.”
Beetle Bailey: Beetle has finally decided to commit murder suicide. Should have seen that coming.
Family Circus: This cartoon was probably hilarious when in was originally printed in the 1960s and the majority of people remembered who John F Kennedy was.
Bizarro: A store called “Just Mirrors” that only sells mirrors is the kind of place that I believe a stoner would think of while stoned as a front for his business. “It’s the perfect cover because if the cops ever raid it they will just arrest the people in the mirrors and because everything in the mirror is reversed what they are doing is actually the opposite and I think I just blew my mind”
MW: what are the odds that Jeff has a hand on Mary’s ass?
@ectojazzmage: You’re on to something here.
In theory, Pluggers is an exercise in self-deprecating humor. In practice, it admits too many unpleasant truths. As you observed, today’s intended joke is the very relatable “Pluggers struggle with difficult packaging.” But the execution of the joke feels more like “Pluggers are too stupid to operate a milk carton.” All of the strip’s staple jokes are like this:
“Pluggers are old” comes off as “Pluggers are decrepit and near death.”
“Pluggers are fat and enjoy food” comes off as “Pluggers are extremely unhealthy.”
“Pluggers take a lot of medication” comes off as “Pluggers are addicts.”
“Pluggers are blue-collar” comes off as “Pluggers are lazy and incompetent.”
“Pluggers are frugal” comes off as “Pluggers have atrocious credit ratings.”
“Pluggers are nostalgic” comes off as “Pluggers are set in their ways to the point of obnoxiousness.”
“Plugger moms are overworked” comes off as “Plugger dad is absent from his children’s lives.”
“Pluggers do things the old-fashioned way” comes off as “Pluggers pay no regard to any social norm from this millennium.”
And, on a meta level, the daily “thanks to our contributor” comes off as “This comic strip is so lazy, we let the readers do all the work. Especially Reed Hoover (may he rest in peace).”
I’m surprised Pluggers hasn’t caught on in North Korea, or some other “America sucks” country. It’s an earnest portrayal of the worst stereotypes of American behavior. And all they’d have to do is translate it.
Phantom: Why don’t you all f-f-fade away (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
PLUGGERS: Weak! If this were a REAL Pluggers comic, the caption would be “A Plugger Goes to the Dentist.”
Gasoline Alley taps into the rich “suffocating in space” narrative pioneered by Dick Tracy.
@pugfuggly: My Mom is a plugger, among other things she keeps pliers in a drawer as well as has trouble with those tiny twist off caps.
REX MORGAN M.D.: Given the facial expression Rex is making while emphasizing “physical activity“, we expect the “wah-wah pedals of vintage eroticism” to start up anytime soon (by which I mean the backing beat to a roots country ditty, of course, the only that inspires arousal in a denizen of the Rexverse.)
@Banana Jr. 6000:
Yeah, although the clock didn’t come in for another four years, although oldtimers around here (almost all dead by now) remember it starting within a few weeks of this game. I think the commissioner just let everyone know you better not do this again. But end of game and overtime stalls persisted, so they finally started the shot clock.
19-18 article
LUANN: Hey, Mary Worth? While you stand there, mashing your lips lifelessly against your unmarried paramour (like some kind of hoochie mama), Miss Thing here is stealing your bit of spouting vapid platitudes to dim-witted dumbasses. You better step up and defend your turf as comics’ resident elderly busybody!
@Baja Gaijin: Hey! Step off that
soaptwo-four box! I agree with you.Sorry, we Canucks can get sensitive about milk, especially in view of upcoming trade negotiations…
@The Rambling Otter: My Mom is a plugger, among other things she keeps pliers in a drawer as well as has trouble with those tiny twist off caps.
Eh, maybe I’m wrong about this one, but Bearman definitely looks like the type who has tools littered around the house and just grabs the closest one for the task at hand, regardless of its utility for it. We’re just luck a power sander wasn’t in arm’s reach.
MW: At least John Rose didn’t treat us to a parting shot of Loweezy and Snuffy kissing. Sure, there would’ve been a lot of tongue action, but not the kind we’d want to see.
“Well, tough shit. I have to look at this stuff and now so do you.”
Well, that’s a sea change from “I read the comics so you don’t have to.”
I think I like the brutal honesty of this new mission statement. It explains why I keep seeing Dustin and Gearhead Gertie!
Pluggers: Nope, uh-uh. Don’t try to tell me that Pluggers keep their precious tools in random drawers and not hung lovingly on a pegboard in the garage, in a tool-shaped space outlined in pencil to designate it as the correct spot for THOSE PLIERS AND THOSE PLIERS ONLY.
Crank: “Wait, if you know exactly what’s happening, how much work do you really still need to do on the story?”
“Are you kidding? Do you know how much effort goes into crafting a truly epic gloat about someone else’s misfortune? Remember, you can’t spell ‘newspaper’ without ‘spite’!”
“Um, actually, the word ‘newspaper’ doesn’t…”
“Look, do you want to be a reporter, or do you want to be a (shudder) copy editor?”
FG: I do like the idea that these are three seperate species of giant raptor who have evolved to work together. It’s something that as far as I know never happened on Earth, but I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t, and it makes the planet seem more alien than if it was just a flock of Mongovian Eagles, while still being fairly plausible.
@matt w: The last time he did that, he got Milk all over the floor and Sheila wouldn’t let him have any Ice Cream for a week!
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I once read a Terry Pluto book where that 19-18 game was the impetus for the creation of the shot clock. I remember it took them some time to come up with a good plan. There was even a proposal where teams took turns on offense, like in baseball. (Holy cow, that would have sucked.)
I don’t remember all the details. But somebody worked out the number of shot attempts in an entertaining NBA game of that era, divided it by the length of the game, and came up with 24 seconds per shot. Which it still is to this day, despite everything else that has changed about the NBA.
OK this is very clearly setting us up for a split btwn Mary and Jeff. He’s not leaving because of an early morning meeting, he’s LEAVING TO GO STICK HIS WICK INTO ANOTHER BEE’S WAX. Mary will have to deal with the tumult of her OWN life for once, and it’ll be a great way for the strip to bring back long-time (or long-lost) legacy characters who Mary helped at one time so they can return the favor.
I’M SO HERE FOR THIS.
@Esther Blodgett:
Heresy! The pencil is used only to scribe the outline of the pliers onto a sheet of contact paper so it can be cut out and stuck on the pegboard in the correct spot for THOSE PLIERS AND THOSE PLIERS ONLY.
Kids today.
FC: Oh. My. God. (It’s like the National Lampoon’s infamous “Elvis” issue)
DT: Why does crumpled-nose goon suddenly look like Dick Tracy in the 3rd panel?
@Horace Broon:
Funnier than any Crankshaft ever.
@Uncle Lumpy: Did you hear about the constipated mathematician who was stuck on a problem?
He worked it out with a pencil.
I’m sure this would work with a Plugger, too.
RMMD: Has everyone settled on sleep apnea as his problem? I’m going to suggest my go-to diagnosis – hypothyroidism. Fatigue, sleepiness, ache all over, stiff, overweight. He does still have his eyebrows, but the outer third of them looks to be missing. Also the dark brows with gray or white hair can signify a secondary diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes.
I’m not a doctor but I play one online.
Frazz – She’s the teacher. She’s in charge. She doesn’t have to give the paper back just because the insufferable little shit wants it.
Pluggers – I seem to be losing strength in my hands and arms, so I sometimes have trouble opening jars and packages. Rao’s sauce is sometimes a bear to open (see what I did there?), but the worst is the cards of Immodium caplets. They come in a sort of blister pack, but there’s no easy peel off the back. “Tear at notch.” Sure. Superman couldn’t open it without a pair of scissors. The really, really bad thing is that if Immodium is necessary, the last thing anyone needs is struggling to open it. Especially if they’re away from home and in a public restroom.
@I speak Jive: I also seem to be losing my grip lately. Lids, pull-off tabs, tearing package tops open are all a problem. I mentioned this to my doctor, who’s probably mid-50s. He said he’d been having trouble lately, too. Maybe it’s the packaging that’s changed.
@McCapwell: I’m in my seventies, and I have never once called it a charge card. I’ve always thought of it as a credit card.
@Bob Tice: I Laika your joke.
@Tonio: You’d shake your head at the novels that were targeted at teenage girls during that time. When I was in junior high in the early 1960s I read a lot of teen romances that were written in the 1940s and 1950s. The stories were incredibly chaste, with teen couples ending up holding hands. The authors I most remember were Betty Cavanna and Rosamond du Jardin. The wonderful Beverly Cleary also wrote a few – her characters were better written, but the stories were still chaste.
The edgiest book I recall reading during that time wasn’t a romance, but was about a girl whose mother was an alcoholic. I don’t remember who wrote it.
None of these books could ever be mistaken for Judy Blume’s work.
@Doc Wonmug: … where it’s dark and Mary could “do a little snorkeling.”
I just threw up in my mouth a little.
@Ukulele Ike: I’m going to hell for laughing at that.
@Arabella: I think you’re right – the packaging could be harder to open than in the past. Even the plastic bags in boxes of crackers are hard to tear open.
@I speak Jive: Modern day packages of crackers and potato chips practically require explosives. A 1980’s-era military MRE was easier to open.
@jroggs:
#1. Jroggs, I was just going to compare JP (youth and neediness) with MW (old age and dulled habit) but you were first and better. Gotta get up early to beat that JRoggs!
I returned a bottle of vitamins to Costco because I was unable to twist the top off, even with my jar opener which works on most things. When my 42-year-old son who works out regularly couldn’t budge it either, there was no use keeping it.
@Activist:
#114. What irks me are those untearable packets of catsup and mustard. I sometime just have to take them home and use scissors.
> I have to look at this stuff and now so do you.
*taps sign with original name of Josh’s blog, slams door*
@Baja Gaijin: I dunno, but I just loooove, platonically, Fish Blonde.
@McCapwell: #6
Yo! Or…the little girl may be eerily prescient if, decades from now, people will actually use a plastic card to charge their EVs’ batteries. Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!!!!
@I speak Jive: I read a lot of Louisa May Alcott books in the early Sixties, and then I discovered Mary Stewart. None of it was helpful or informative in regard to Sixties Midwestern junior-high social customs *shudder,* but as escapism, it was fabulous.
I haven’t had any trouble with cartons of milk lately, but yesterday I needed a pair of needlenose pliers to open a container of olive oil. In my own defense, it was extra virgin and (theoretically) imported from Italy.
@Banana Jr. 6000: The 24 second shot clock was suggested by the owner Syracuse Nationals in 1954. There is a monument (and a working shot clock) outside of the old home of the Nationals.
In my younger days, my high school lost a game 3-2 (there was no shot clock). The previous time the two teams met ended in a brawl, so our coach decided that instead of not playing the next game out of protest, he wouldn’t let either team play and stalled tne whole game.
@Cleveland Mocks: Hey, wait. I live in Iowa, the heart of where the tallgrass prairie used to be until it was turned into corn and beans, and I also like “coastal elitist.” We have a sorta kinda tiny version of it here — the county containing the University of Iowa is sometimes called “the People’s Republic of Johnson County,” har har.
If we’re griping about things that are hard to open, my personal worst is Bombay Sapphire gin. I practically always have to wrap a rubber band around the lid before I can twist it off (BTW, that’s not a bad hack for opening a lot of jars and bottles).
@Horace Broon: Copy editor! Ah yes, copy editors! Thank you for that very amusing reminder of how things used to be.
@Activist: #117: And when you do manage to tear one open it’ll shoot ketchup all over you.
@I speak Jive: #112: Technically, only an American Express card is a charge card because you have to pay the whole amount the next billing cycle and not float the debt over several months or years.
@ectojazzmage: #77: re- MW: People kissing is actually very hard for artists to create convincingly. I remember a Superman man comic from the late 60s where Supe was kissing Lois Lane. It was even an open mouther but it came off as them giving each other mouth to mouth resuscitation.
Re hard-to-open items, I bought one of those rubber-type opener-sheets with a color image of a chickadee on it, and that has helped more than I expected, though there are still items that require cursing and creativity.
@Poteet: #124: That Peoples Republic moniker is also used for Madison, Wisconsin, Boulder, Colorado, and Burlington, Vermont.
@Arabella: Oooh! Very interesting! I had no idea about the eyebrows. Don’t ever hesitate to play online doctor again. It’s not like Rex is doing such a great job.
@Ukulele Ike: #85: And you you don’t believe me Mr. Zapruder next door caught it all on his 8mm home movie camera.
@Horace Broon: Luckily for Queen Dovanna, Grandma Gordon taught young Flash how to wring chicken necks back at the old Gordon family farm. A skill easily translatable to a Mongovian Pitchbeak.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Ah, thank you! That does make a lot of sense, and when I just checked, the People’s Republic of Ann Arbor turns out to be a thing as well.
@110 I speak Jive: During a “non-emergency” time, remove a sufficient number of pills for an “emergency” from the package. Place them in an zipper bag or small bottle, making sure whatever receptacle is easy to open when in a rush. Repeat after the next emergency is over.
@125 Rube: Try a crab claw cracker or walnut cracker to open bottles with small tops. Replace the cap with a suitably-sized cork that leaves enough cork outside the bottle you can easily grasp it.
GA: I refuse to use her stupid name, but I’ll guess that the furious doll will somehow come to the rescue in a very irritating way. Or maybe there will be a sudden irritating discovery and use of solar power. Irritation will happen, that’s for sure.
@Baja Gaijin:Thanks, but the elastic bands work fine on Bombay Sapphire bottles. I just don’t understand why that particular brand causes me trouble more often than not, when I have never known of anyone else mentioning it.
@Baja Gaijin: It’s just not least likely to happen but what we want to be least likely to happen. (All 3 in my case.)
Mary Worth is a comic strip that somehow exists even though it serves no audience. Did this involve extremely long-term contracts that King Features Syndicate would love to escape from? Who knows.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: #62: I was also in 3rd grade when it happened. I’m sure the teachers and staff knew about it by lunch but they kept us kids in the dark until afternoon dismissal (impossible today with cellphones and computers). We were waiting for the dismissal bell to tell us to go to our busses when the loudspeaker from the principal’s office broke in to give us the news. What’s weird it wasn’t our principal but the school janitor who made the announcement. Our principal, Mrs. Fishburn, was probably to broken up to do it without crying.
@Horace Broon: I suppose, as a former copy editor, I should take umbrage with that. But given the state of the written word nowadays, I’m afraid it’s a lost cause. @Poteet: “How things used to be”? Man, I feel old. I have sudden sympathy for the old-style Linotype operators who watched their jobs disappear as we brought more and more typesetting computers into the newsroom.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
#139. FC:. Interesting, how our schools handled it, mine was a small rural school. In my third grade class (I was standing at sink washing out my paintbrush) a staff member came to class door and whispered something to our teacher. As she cried, teacher told us to put away our work, that someone had shot our president, and entire elementary school would be in gym to watch TV. One student cheered, and teacher immediately shut him down.
In gym, principal said he couldn’t suggest we pray but that we should think good thoughts wishing that our president would survive. My first exposure to idea of freedom from religion. We were together when we got news and silently shuffled back to class. As you can tell, that assassination was a turning point in my life. Thanks for listening.
DT: As with traditional organized crime, so with whatever kind of unsavory scheme this company is. When you promote people out of nepotism they might not really be up to speed.
GA: The “Days Since Arty Caused a Multiple Fatality Space Accident” sign gets set back to zero. Oops. Sorry, girls. Next time pick the creepy doll who’s just a creepy doll, not “the next stage in parahuman intelligence” or whatever. Oh, right. There won’t be a next time.
MW: A kiss somewhere between “chaste” and “fake.” The scene makes much more sense if you conclude that Dr. Jeff is one of Mary’s older nephews.
BB: Beetle is playing it absolutely cool in his probably successful attempt to kill both Sarge and himself. Sarge may have to salute him in admiration just before they make impact.
C-Shaft: What happened to the hedge fund to make it go bankrupt? Regardless of how technical and abstruse it was, it would have made a better use of panel space than the Fahrenheit 451 thing.
Dustin: We didn’t hear/read what the pickup line is, so be thankful for small mercies.
GT: “Martinez fires it off to banner. Banner’s been unstoppable since he got hit with gamma rays last summer. This one’s in the bag.”
Luann: Why does Mrs. Horner appear so chipper? Only she knows that the shortbread cookies she fed Luann are filled with laxatives.
Phantom: Oh great, now we get Avarice’s misguided attempt at a rap career.
RMMD: I have no idea who Miss Galexia is/was or what her hoax involved, but Mr. Lewton’s smirk all by itself makes me want to disinfect myself.
@Dr. Pill: It’s clear that I wasn’t clear enough. I miss copy editors. I definitely miss copy editors. I REALLY miss copy editors. I miss copy editors every single time I see wince-inducing errors when newspaper-reading. The same is true for online reading in general. I occasionally snarl about the absence of copy editors when a mistake seems especially egregious. But then I remember that the way things are now, some journalists are probably living on ramen noodles and Skittles while sharing a two-bedroom apartment with five other people.
And I know that copy-editing is not easy because I worked as a free-lance copy editor for a university press for a short while, and then I was very kindly informed that while I was doing a good job, I wasn’t doing it fast enough, and speed mattered. So I say, thank you copy editors. I admire you, copy editors. And I’m grateful to have benefited, for many years, from your good work.
@Blinky the Wonder Wombat: I broadcast a tournament game which had our local team playing a team which played a deliberate stall.
The game was so boring a crowd of about 2500 was silent
I was telling my audience I would quit playing rather than suffer through this style.
The coach – standing about 50 feet from me – shouted “if ya don’t like it, go home.”
Both referees came up to me and told me I was absolutely right (we won – 18-12)
Cranky: Obviously the hedge fund’s ill-advised purchase of a money sink like the Centerville Sentinel is what broke it financially, taking the retirement savings of thousands of unwary investors with it.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I was in eighth grade. The senior class assembly was scheduled for that afternoon, and everyone was looking forward to getting out of class to see it. The principal came on the PA system and said that he would be calling classes to the assembly, but he had to announce that a bulletin on the radio reported that the President had been shot. We went to the auditorium, and I ended up seated in the first row on the side. The assembly was a series of skits and songs. I could see the principal offstage in the wings, and, when he came onstage in the middle of the assembly, I knew what had happened before he announced that Kennedy was dead.
It was one of the days that I will never forget.
@Poteet: I love Louisa May Alcott. At a point in my life I was obsessed with Little Women. I should read it again.
I love the movie version with Katherine Hepburn as Jo, but dislike the 1949 version. I can’t stand June Allyson.
@Baja Gaijin: That’s a good idea! Thanks for the suggestion.
@pugfuggly: Oooh, true true :3
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
Mrs. Krieger conveniently just happens to be dead. Very fishy alibi.
@Professor Well Actually: “MW: is there some significance, sexual or otherwise, to Jeff kissing Mary’s upper lip?”
Better than kissing her lower lips. That salmon smell gets everywhere.
I always thought that the shot clock in basketball was instituted because of Dean Smith’s godawful four corners offense at North Carolina. Also known as stall-ball. He had some nerve calling it an “offense.” Well, it was offensive to most of us basketball fans.
I come for the comics snark, I stay for the pedantic
baseballbasketball carping.Pluggers: What other forms of cartons could be considered “difficult”? Jars I might understand – I’ve encountered a few that were difficult even for me to open. But I’m pretty sure a small child could open one of those milk cartons. If you so weak that you can’t open that, then pliers aren’t going to help.
Plugz: I dunno, man. Shalimar Florida sits between Lake Lorraine and Ocean City. And those are just the names of the places on land. Elite or not, there’s no way you’vs got them beat on coastal.
@I speak Jive:
Now, are there Soviet cosmonauts still up there as well? — I think the Yuri is out on that one….
@Doc Wonmug: she was insinuating they should go skinny dipping off Dr Jeff’s boat out in the bay where it’s dark and Mary could “do a little snorkeling”.
___________
A water based three way between Mary Worth, Sgt Snorkel and Louise Lugg? Does Buxley get to ride shotgun?
@Poteet: Ramen and Skittles™can be quite filling if seasoned correctly.
Oh man, I just used pliers to open a bottle of soda the other day. Guess I’m a Plugger. Also I guess pluggers, like me, worry about their teeth.