What’s next, CRANBERRY SAUCE out of CAN?????
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Mary Worth, 11/21/24
This whole week has been about everyone (“everyone” being Toby and Dawn, admittedly) getting jazzed as hell about Thanksgiving, because Mary will be doing her famous home cooking for them, as is tradition now, apparently. Just like she did for Ed and Estelle’s wedding! Except today we’re learning that in fact that was a web of lies; Mary simply went to Off-Brand Costco, bought a shrimp tray, poured a can of shrimp cocktail into a mason jar next to it, and called it a day! She refused to rotisserie that chicken for the taquitos herself, but rather purchased one pre-rotisseried! What kind of “traditionalist” is she? Is just going to throw down a stack of freshly microwaved Hungry-Man® turkey dinners on the table next Thursday and dare anyone to argue about it?
Family Circus, 11/21/24
Oh, can Jeffy not play hide and seek because he can’t count? Well, then why was he playing hide and seek in this very strip mere weeks ago???? Finally, we have caught the Family Circus in a vile lie so blatant and hypocritical that it will have no choice but to cease publication forever. We did it, everbody! We got them!
Gearhead Gertie, 11/21/24
We’ve all had some fun with Gertie’s NASCAR monomania over the last … actually, I don’t know how long it’s been published, because it doesn’t have a Wikipedia article, which, you know, fair! It probably doesn’t deserve one! I don’t fall into the “deletionist” Wikipedia philosophical camp necessarily but I don’t think a Gearhead Gertie article is necessary, as convenient as it would’ve been for me to refer to it for this post. Point is, though, it’s been a while, and there’s only so much material we can get out of “Gertie sure loves NASCAR,” so it makes sense that the strip is actually pivoting towards “Gertie’s husband sure hates how much Gertie loves NASCAR, like you can tell it’s destroying their marriage and every day he dies a little bit more inside, but she she can’t see it.”
UPDATE: God bless you, “Gertie Fan,” aka Dclemens1971, for your Wikipedia service!
179 replies to “What’s next, CRANBERRY SAUCE out of CAN?????”
MW — Next week, Mary admits to purchasing the Priceco jumbo box o frozen salmon squares and giant cans of Splak!
FC: Jeffy replies; “Why can’t I just use my smartwatch like everyone else?”
MW: This raises the horrifying possibility that in Santa Royale, actual shops sell salmon squares. That there are huge factories churning them out, the rancid odor depressing house values for miles around.
So, it seems Gartie wasn’t always into Nascar, at least when they were dating/got married.
She must have had some sort of Nascar Awakening just a few years earlier that ticks her husband off.
And by “Nascar Awakening” I mean dementia. And by “ticking her husband off” I mean that he has anger born of worry because he’s very concerned for her. Hilarious!
DT: Having spent weeks assigned to this murder case, Dick Tracy has uncovered a shocking revelation: his investigation team needs to figure out who killed the victim and what their motive was. As expected of a genius veteran detective. Still, it’s only a matter of time before the meddling FBI takes the case over, especially since they appear to be outside the office right now and are only being held at bay by the crafty door-blocking skills of Detective Buckpass and her cereal box cut-out police badge.
MW: “And Estelle still paid me a full catering fee! It’s crazy how gullible she is! God, I love this place!”
MW: Is it just me or did Karen and June forget to say whether Ed or Estelle was moving? I know it’s a bit of a stretch to call the characters in Mary Worth “human people,” but typically mammal-presenting sapient creatures prefer to reside in the same living space after marrying.
CS: “Haha, just a little local humor for you! But seriously, we don’t play around with Ottoman incursions here in Centerville.”
GT: It really speaks to how godawful this comic is that a character can suddenly put on blackface and start bellowing about Y2K and it’s still not even in the top 10 dumbest things to happen in the past week.
MW:
“Now, mind you, I kept the rotisserie chicken spits in the taquitos to save time, so guests had to be careful to eat around them!”
MW: “That’s not all: I fished those crudites out of a Safeway dumpster, and those ‘mimosas’ I served were just a jug of Sunny D I left behind the radiator for a week! Seriously, the whole thing came in under 40 bucks!”
FC I love Jeffy’s blank stare. “So no learning and no more active play time? Sounds like a great argument for more TV, brother”
GG You know whats funny about this? Out of context this could be a mid-tier Bizarro or Six Chix. In context, it’s another stupid Nascar joke that fucking sucks. Your premise is bad, Gearhead Gertie, and you should feel bad.
MW: Ah, ‘Costco.’ Makes sense now. I read Priceco as Pree-ce-co and wondered what’s this fancy italian restaurant I never heard mentioned in the strip before.
FC:
“If you don’t learn to count, you’ll never be able to play hide-and-seek.”
“It’s no use. I’m like Ernest Borgnine’s ‘Marty’ — well-meaning but addled, an emotionally-stunted dunderhead!”
GEARHEAD GERTIE is to NASCAR what MALLARD FILLMORE is to politics. Discuss.
GG:
I’m surprised Gertie’s in such good spirits, what with Bobby Allison’s recent passing.
MW: “Then I just pulled out three or four of the dozen or so shelves full of blueberry muffins that I always keep stored in the pantry, and I put them on top of a two-square meter array of salmon squares that I whipped together with ingredients that I tossed into a wheelbarrow at the Santa Royale Aircraft Hanger of Seafood. All that remained to do was then to bind the whole conglomerate of food-like substances together by pouring an industrial drum of SPLAK! all over it!”
MW – Priceco…who could that be? Sam’s club – I’m looking at you….
FC – If you never learn to count, you’ll never be able to recount these horrors….
GG – Shoot, if you must this old gray head; But save my union suit, she said….
Adios Amigos, DJ
High and Lower –
Lois: You need to spend more time away from Thirsty.
Irma: Why do you say that?
Lois: That drunk at the next table just vomited and you cleaned it up.
@Hibbleton:MW: Ah, ‘Costco.’ Makes sense now. I read Priceco as Pree-ce-co and wondered what’s this fancy italian restaurant I never heard mentioned in the strip before.
“We’ve secretly replaced Dr Jeff’s italian Prosecco with Priceco crystals. Let’s watch…”
@But What Do I Know?: We saw Mary making salmon squares years ago. She was using a can opener. They’re just canned salmon on saltines. Karen Moy tells us way too much about her own cooking “skills'”
MW: Store-bought or not, Jeff you’ll still be expected to sing Mary’s praises on Thanksgiving. So pace yourself, you’re not a young toady, er, man, any more.
RMMD: The only thing missing from this picture is the dutiful, subservient wife, anxiously clutching her purse to her bosom.
SF: Ha ha, it’s funny that Sally and Ted just don’t have TIME because they WORK (sort of) and have ONE WHOLE KID.
GG: Gosh, it’s fun when someone is obsessed with one stupid thing and can’t talk about any other thing on Earth, EVER.
“everyone” being Toby and Dawn, admittedly
You left out Dr. Jeff (twice, now) and Mary herself.
Gearhead Gertie: The problem with having someone declared mentally incompetent is that they have to lose touch with reality and/or be so disoriented that they can no longer make decisions for themselves. That’s not Gertie, she’s just an asshole. Make one of the kids your durable power of attorney, Gearhead Gertie’s husband! It’ll be a nightmare to change, and in the meantime, you’ll be sleeping in a plywood race car hospital bed!
Today on
Mary WorthDiscovering The Joys of Warehouse Shopping: Karen Moy.Jeffy is looking so particularly not-smart in today’s Family Circus that I think Jeff Keane must be doing an It Gets Better kind of PSA. “As a child I had no glimmer of any talent whatsoever and here I am now drawing the country’s most popular comic strip! All it took was hard work and inheriting the business from my dad.”
MW: After that it was just a few quick trips to ExpiredMeatCo, WeekOldBreadCo, and NotQuiteCurdledDairyCo. Easy peasy.
CS: “And if we learn about the police breaking up an illegal weapons transaction, my headline would read, ‘Cops chop off arms deal.’ . . . Oh my God, I am so very very sorry!”
@Hibbleton: I’m incredibly happy to learn I’m not the only person that pronounced it that way lol
Figures that Mary would favor Priceco over some plebian place like Flor-Mart or Secureway.
Crankshaft : … I guess making the headline a totally opaque bit of wordplay that says NOTHING about what the article is about ISN’T completely bad advice, in that it would encourage readers to actually read the article to know what the hell that’s about.
**********
Family Circus : Jeffy being incapable of counting doesn’t contradict the previous strip; he was not “It”, and thus didn’t have to count. Billy is just trying to get Jeffy to be the seeker instead of the hider for once (probably because Jeffy is incapable of finding things, even in plain sight, making winning trivial).
MW: We’re all kind of burying the lede here in the sense that we finally found out what the super awesome wedding spread was — Shrimp cocktail and taquitos.
The only logical next step from that information is that Charterstone any kind of a residential community at all, but an insane asylum, and that the whole strip is nothing but a fever dream in Mary Worth’s mind
MW: “And, Jeff,” you know that fancy lotion you use on me during our sexy times. It’s Palmolive. My friend Madge told me about it. I love soaking in it.”
Mary shows that she is a Boomer.
Gearhead Gertie‘s schtick is far too narrow to support a daily strip. How many jokes can you possibly make about liking racing?
I kind of love the smug look on Jeffy’s face today. It’s like he’s thinking, “Well, what if I don’t WANT to play hide and seek? What if you’re gonna need more incentive than that to rope me into your oppressive ‘counting’ system, maaaaan?”.
I guess Gearhead Gertie’s husband – you know what, I’m just gonna call him Hubcap Hubby – is realizing he’s gonna have to make a pit stop and change his own tires tonight, because Gertie’s too busy fueling up with premium unleaded smugness to bother showing human affection.
GG: “And yellow means, ‘Whoa — slow down there, cowboy!'”
MW: Why does Dr. Jeff looks so concerned in panel one? Does Mary have snipers at the ready to make sure everyone follows her script? Because in that case, how is Wilbur still living?
GG: Gertie’s husband is steaming because like a lot of men he’s red/green colorblind.
@pugfuggly:
Ha!
@Noel:
Gearhead Gertie‘s schtick is far too narrow to support a daily strip. How many jokes can you possibly make about liking racing?
From what we’ve seen of it when Josh features it, the answer is ZERO jokes.
Possibly even NEGATIVE jokes, explaining why Josh struggles to be clever and jokey when he features it; he’s not powerful enough to counter its anti-humor!I’m not a big fan of “I’ll raise the chequered flag to signal I won the argument”, but it’s still better than “I’ll depict myself as a Chad and you as a Wojak to signal I won the argument”
CS: Don’t you know anything about modern mainstream media, young lady? If you find out there actually wasn’t a rise in spike deaths, your headline is ‘Lying ______ spike spike panic!’ The blank can be filled based on the ideological bent of your chosen outlet.
Luann: Sick burn, Mrs. Horner!
RMMD: In fact, why don’t you take a walk around the block right now? Your time’s up, get out of my office, and don’t forget to pay your bill on the way out!
“If Loretta Lockhorn was a NASCAR fan”
@Joe Momma: Objection! Observation of facts not in evidence! When has it ever been confirmed that Mary ever had ‘sexy times’ (blecch…) with anyone, let alone Dr. Jeff?
Snuffy Smith: I never noticed that Loweezy has fewer nostrils than Dolly Keane. I guess that’s a good evolutionary trait when one lives next to an outhouse.
Garfield: I’ll say it out loud and proud: Garfield was mildly amusing today.
Pluggers: You’re a plugger if you can’t tell if you’re entering demensia or suffering from drug interactions.
MW- enjoy your dinner Jeff, it looks like she also bought some frozen Salisbury steaks and canned green beans while she was there.
MW – Nothing classes up a wedding reception like taquitos. Also, you know what you can get in bulk in the frozen section of PriceCo? Frozen chicken taquitos. Fowl play, Mary?
CS: How pretentious do you have to be to get “Skip Rawlings, Ed.” stenciled on your office door, when you’re a one-man newspaper and you spend your day thinking up stupid shit like this?
@Hibbleton: isn’t pree-ce-co an ultra cheap bubbly wine?
@26 LTJpezcore1: Wait a minute! I call Shenanigans. On the November 8 strip, Estelle’s standing next to a table with a large vase of flowers, a large flat pan filled with beige glop, and a roasted turkey carcass. No tubular nor shrimpy-looking food visible.
BORING! At least tell us you meddled in the lives of some of the Priceco staff while you were there, Mary.
***
I can’t tell if Jeffy looks dull here or if he’s contemplating telling Billy to count how many knuckles are about to come his insufferable way.
BG&SS: Remove the word balloons and ignore the zoom-in, and today’s strip looks like one of those “Find 6 Differences” strips.
Chair. Brick. Flames. Loweezy’s head position. Snuffy’s head position. Blanket under Snuffy’s feet.
She hasn’t mentioned it yet, but Mary bought the beige glop at Entire Foods.
Rex Morgan: Note to the American Medical Association: In your outreach efforts to entice young people to become general practitioners, using this Rex Morgan storyline is contraindicated.
I think the thing about Gearhead Gertie that annoys me the most is how belabored/overexplained every joke is.
GG – I have to assume that her NASCAR monomania extends to the bedroom. If she wants some lovin’ from Mr. Whatever-Gertie’s-Last-Name-Is, she’ll say “gentleman, start your engine.”
FC-“If you don’t learn to count you’ll never break the bank in Vegas.”
MW-“I just went to a gas station parking lot and got a couple of research scientists to make the food in exchange for not reporting them to the government on the legality of their citizenship status.”
RMMD-“I can’t walk around the block. Most of the women in my neighborhood keep their curtains close.”
MW: Did Mary tell Jeff, “It wasn’t as hard as it looked,” before he asked about the food at Stell’s and Ed’s wedding? Man, that’s an awkward way of changing an already awkward topic. Physician, heal yourself and get some blue pills in your stocking this year.
FC: Look like Jeffy is about to play hide and seek with some golden nose candy!
@Baja Gaijin: @44 Is it possible that Mary doesn’t know what a turkey or taquito is? Probably not on a turkey but I’d actually believe it was possible she didn’t know what a taquito is
“And the white flag means I want to do things French-style tonight!”
Mary Worth – Mary is going to buy a pre-prepared meal from Priceco only to learn on Black Friday that every item she bought is being recalled due to unsanitary conditions at the regional factory where everything is made. Time for Mary Worth to become Typhoid Mary.
Family Circus – Jeffy can play hide-and-seek as a hider, but until numeracy comes into play he will never be able to do the seeking. Billy, having come off pre-recording several of his “dashed-lined” adventures, just wishes his younger siblings would be more capable of taking the lead in other strips so he can get a nap.
Gearhead Gertie – Contrary to the idea that “Anything posted online lives forever”, the Internet is a fragile space, and even many corporations with supposed interest in tending to their IP have been unceremoniously erasing it or removing it from easy access to serve short-term profitability goals.
“Lost media” is a fascinating rabbit hole to go down, even if honestly most of the lost media wasn’t that good to begin with. Gearhead Gertie is likely to become that, with it not even warranting a Wikipedia entry. Future historians will stumble upon the archives of josh reads dot com and find some of the only fragments of Gearhead Gertie. Hopefully they will also stumble upon former AV Club critic Nathan Rabin’s review of the strip and agree it is “a surreally lazy, one joke comic strip that its single abysmal “gag” is right there in the title… a curiously joyless proposition“, and instead choose to turn their attention to finding missing silent era films in the few abandoned theaters in places where the environment didn’t cause the celluloid to degrade or spontaneously combust
MW: Mary’s avoidance of extra work really puts the “quit” in “taquitos”.
DtM: He’s not breaking things or he wouldn’t be allowed over. So what makes Dennis a bad boy? He must be cracking wise on Wilson all day.
“I don’t know what ED is, Pops, but I’m sure you have it. Nyuk, nyuk.”
@Noel: Well, first Mike Smith has to actually write a joke. I’m still waiting for that…
@Philip: “Lost media” is a fascinating rabbit hole to go down, even if honestly most of the lost media wasn’t that good to begin with.
FEX has entered the chat.
@Not a Fan:
I’m good, thanks
Don Abundio, translated:
“Lesson time, Polonio”
“Gulp! Do I have to?”
“Don’t you think you’ve set a rather unrealistic goal?”
“Just get results”
“I’ll never be able to teach this elephant to read if she keeps falling asleep”
DT: Costello was hoping for free Springsteen tickets, but he never heard from Bruce so he went ahead and killed Sprengstoff off.
Crank: Ah ha ha ha. Ah ha ha ha. Knee-slapper. Batuik, retire.
@matt w:
You sure about the hard work bit?
@Cleveland Mocks:
“Cops amputate arms deal” would have been funnier. Dammit!
“253 269 863 261 . . . hang on, the yardarm hoist is tangled . . . 471 958 220 370 . . . just a second, need to catch my breath . . . 4 21 19 and 24 means ‘England Expects That Every Man Will Do His Duty.'” Punchline from Maritime Flag Signalling Sally
Gearhead Certie: An old lady who likes Nascar…. that’s the joke.
But really, I’m sure that there are lots of elderly women who like Nascar. We never hear of them because it’s completely unimportant and no-one cares what interests these random people have.
The only thing that makes Gearhead Gertie stand out, is her being absolutely obsessed with it, which is more sad than funny.
Blondie-“I work for J.C. Dithers all the fear has been beaten out of me.”
RMMD: Thrill to the action as Rex grasps at treatment straws while going through the entire differential diagnosis of nonspecific symptoms! This should take only a few months.
6Chx: Temptation Road.
H&L: Mrs. Thurston, of course, does not have children because her husband is always too wasted to get off.
GT: When quarterbacks in this strip throw the rock, it’s not a figure of speech.
@Not a Fan: #10
“GEARHEAD GERTIE is to NASCAR what MALLARD FILLMORE is to politics. Discuss.”
Compare: both strips are obsessed with their subject matter; neither strip is funny.
Contrast: one strip is about an addle-brained old lady; the other strip is about an addle-brained duck.
If you want to read an intellectual thesis on ‘Family Circus’, I am currently reading ‘Singular Sensation’, about single-panel strips (author is Michelle Abate). The part about FC is eye-opening.
I was more impressed on my first reading when I thought Mary said she made mosquitos out of rotisserie chicken.
@Philip:
Have you heard of the podcast “Ephmeral”? It’s all about lost media and I think it’s fascinating.
@Daisy: “Daisy named the duck!”
It feels like such a breath of fresh air, that I can read about the various insipid Crankbean plots on here, but I don’t actually have to look at them.
MW: Next she’ll tell us she goes to Bargainer Joseph’s.
MW: So the muffin is a lie?!
@Cindy Brady: Actually, she was quoting the name from “Not a Fan” so that doesn’t count.
Luann-“Dear, you should stop wearing that blank slate shirt. People might think “b.s.” stands for something else.”
Would “Golden Girls” have lasted longer as “Golden Gearheads”?
Mary is so old, she used to buy her fish at Omar the Merchant’s hut just a few miles across the desert from the nearest town. She heard some kid was born there around the time, Jessie or something…. she wasn’t good with names. But everyone started praising that kid and not her! “The nerve…”
@Noel: #28
…wait and see…
Mary Worth: There was a real-life controversy recently when Costco changed the recipe for its fresh-baked muffins, made them smaller, and started selling them in eight-packs instead of 12-packs. So if Mary’s “own” muffins suddenly taste different and there aren’t enough to go around for every sad person in the condo complex, then we can all agree that her entire life has been a lie!
@Garrison Skunk: I honestly can’t picture that image. If that was a thing, I can only see Dorothy as the Nascar fan. Rose would be too dumb to understand Nascar, and Blanche would just go to the races to pick up hot guys and Sophia would snark on Nascar and Dorothy’s enjoyment of it.
BUT I can picture a hypothetical one-shot episode in the show proper where the four go to a Nascar race and something wacky happens. Would be a helluva lot funnier than Gertie.
Six Chex and A Cat Named Paul Klee In Search Of A Punchline: Having seconds on BOTH key lime AND blueberry pie before Pumpkin Chick can have sex with them? Where are your Turkey-day manners Thursday Chick? For shame!
@Noel: Not only are NASCAR fans a tiny demographic, but Gearhead Gertie is way too shallow and outdated for anyone who actually belongs to it. Her entire NASCAR fandom is “likes Dale Earnhardt”, who’s been dead for almost 25 years now. A Jeff Gordon joke would be a bold leap into the future for this strip.
@The Rambling Otter: Would be a helluva lot funnier than Gertie
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Or “Golden Palace”, maybe if they had had Cheech Martin as the wacky racecar driver who keeps dropping in for some reason.
@LTJpezcore1: “Shrimp cocktail and taquitos.”
The rest of the wedding spread featured steamed pork buns, canned clams Casino, and matzoh ball soup. Mary was going for “continental cuisine.”
(pro tip: If you find yourself in a restaurant that has all those five items on the menu, go find another restaurant)
Coming soon: Mary Worth and Dr. Jeff Corey in Fifty Shades of Lavender.
Today is an important moment in the history of Gil Thorp. Tight ends actually are the Achilles heel of the 3-4. HB has incorporated actual football knowledge and I want to encourage him, even as the artwork goes down the long angular tubes.
I’m not surprised. Not only as a cook, but even in her role as consigliere, Mary uses store-bought ingredients, like all those quotations and aphorisms, which, just like cheap food, are of dubious provenance
GG: It’s technically within the realm of possibility that Gertie’s obsession which the strip has centered on for its entire run thus far is a very long-winded introduction to her character that will soon try to add some depth to her character as if the strip is in the first half of the first act of a film. Gertie has established her NASCAR mania and will continue to watch the races obsessively, but one day she’ll begin to wonder if she’s falling into a trap of her own making. From that point onwards, she could either enter the comic strip multiverse or go on a buddy comedy road trip.
@Noel: Gearhead Gertie‘s schtick is far too narrow to support a daily strip. How many jokes can you possibly make about liking racing?
______________________________
We’ll find out once Hanna-Barberra™(A Ted Turner Industry) starts “Where’s Gurtie?”, featuring a Walter Matthau impersonator as Gertie, a Mel Blanc impersoner as her husband and a Paul Lynde impersoner as the wacky neighbor.
Gil Thorp: At first, I thought he was saying “Yuk! Yuk! Hut!” like my cat.
Pluggers: I wonder where I am? I wonder who I am?
Crankshaft: Hilarious.
Mary Worth: This arc will be all about Mary defending her decision to simply buy pre-made meals for Thanksgiving from an onslaught of criticism from her friends for it, almost certainly as an attempt by Karen Moy to win an argument she lost in real life.
Gassed Up Alleycats: Did Samantha make a giant cat when Fastrack One crashed on Mars?
@Cleveland Mocks: #68
“RMMD: Thrill to the action as Rex grasps at treatment straws while going through the entire differential diagnosis of nonspecific symptoms! This should take only a few months.”
Ha ha ha!!! This strip isn’t exactly “House:MD” but I would love to see the curmudgeonly Dr. Gregory House mercilessly shred this utterly uncooperative patient with his rapier wit…or kick him out of the clinic after the first ten minutes.
MW: Taquitos? I don’t believe Mary would ever serve the food of one of the greasy, ethnic peoples.
@Lord Flatulence: Pluggers: I wonder where I am? I wonder who I am?
________________________
The one thing they don’t wonder™about is “What brand of bleached white flour bread should I buy?”
@The Rambling Otter: #74
It’s a gift, isn’t it? :-)
@Lord Flatulence: Crankshaft: Hilarious.
_______________________
Who spiked TB’s medication?
@The Rambling Otter: #76
:-)
@seismic-2: That sounds like a Steven Colbert “Meanwhile” introduction.
Mary Worth – If Mary combined a can of tiny shrimp with a jar of cocktail sauce, poured it over a block of cream cheese, and served it with crackers, she’d expect a fucking Nobel Prize.
Gearhead Gertie – She won’t be able to use the flags after they’re where the sun doesn’t shine.
6Chix – Some of that food is recognizable, but others look like indeterminate lumps. I guess there’s no pumpkin pie because Tuesday Chick is still making out with the pumpkin.
Crankshaft – Batiuk heard that Dave Barry won a Pulitzer Prize, so now he’s going with humor. The problem is that Dave Barry is funny.
MW: At least she didn’t just buy the taquitos off the rollers at 7-11.
HOTC: That pot that’s being stirred is just sitting on a box, not cooking on top of a heat source.
@ectojazzmage:
Oh, God. *dies of boredom
@Downpuppy: I hope she didn’t cheap out on the canned salmon. Inexpensive canned salmon has a lot of bones, including the spinal column, and lots of skin, all of which has to be removed. It’s worth it to buy the expensive stuff.
@Liam: This week of Luann reminds me of when Little Pianola was seven and caught me wearing a tee shirt with the NRA Blue Eagle on it.
“Dad, you can’t wear an NRA shirt.”
”Ha ha dear, this is the symbol of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration — the earliest and most seminal step in the New Deal — which would break the back of the parasite capitalists and spread goodness and light throughout the working poor and the neglected areas of our nation.”
”Dad, no one is going to know that.”
Hi and Lois: This woman is not mentally well and should be evaluated before she hurts herself or her children.
Beetle Bailey: Camp Swampy doesn’t let its troops have access to guns.
Bizarro: Is this about erectile dysfunction?
@I speak Jive: Those bones are handy for picking your teeth afterward.
Pluggers have dementia and severe memory loss! This is just sad.
I like to imagine that Gearhead Gertie’s husband is actually really big into Formula One, (the superior motorsport) it just never comes up because his wife’s monomania so completely overpowers it. Maybe they are fighting because Gertie is watching Nascar on one of the rare North American F1 Race weekends and he was hoping to actually watch it live without having to wake up for Azerbaijan time. Maybe he’s just come up from the basement to find a Dale Earnhardt Jr.standee encroaching on the single Ferarri poster he’s been allowed to hang in a corner of the laundry room.
No, shut up, I’m not writing Gearhead Gertie fan fiction! I’m normal!
I regret to say that I looked up some chicken taquito recipes on the internet and they all said “use rotisserie chicken from Costco.” Moy has Done The Research.
Does kind of throw into relief the complete lack of Latinos in a strip set in California. Even Apartment 3-G had Gabriella.
@Garrison Skunk: The one thing they don’t wonder™about is “What brand of bleached white flour bread should I buy?”
_____________________________________________
Got the reference!
Crank: “My journalism class is being taught by Les Moore, for some reason. Believe me, I’ve had the importance of godawful puns explained to me.”
Garfield: Paws Inc obviously don’t know many Yorkies. My cynophobia is much worse around small, yappy dogs than large, supposedly “aggressive” breeds, because in my experience most owners of big dogs actively train them to not be aggressive, but Yorkie owners just let them take out their Napoleon complex on anything stupid enough to get within reach. A were-Yorkie sounds terrifying.
GT: Ah, the old Y2K play. That’s where you let the opposing team score 100 … goals? tries? I know almost as little about American football as Henry Bajaras … anyway, you let them score 100, and then the scoreboard shows “00” so you win.
RMMD: Seriously? The last time this guy appeared he was taking absurd alternative medicine treatments that led to the return of Rene Belusco in a hilarious wig, now it’s just a meandering conversation that amounts to “You know what can cause tiredness? Lethargy.”
@Hibbleton: I read it exactly the same way!
@Ukulele Ike: A couple of years ago I decided to make salmon cakes and bought a cheap can of salmon. Never again. Between the spinal column and the skin, it almost made me barf. Now I use the expensive stuff exclusively.
I wonder if salmon cakes are a dessert in Mary’s world.
MW: had a MW moment recently where we were clearing out our Covid stock of “ginormous generic cans of baked beans in case civilization collapses”. We took some to a campfire event and everyone kept raving about how good they were and wanting the recipe. Unlike Mary this was unintentional though
CS: Normally it would bug me that the Centerville Sentinel on Skip’s door isn’t backwards, but I imagine he’s the only one who ever sees it.
RMMD: I hope Rex continues to just yell “SHAKE IT OFF!” to all his patients.
FC: @matt w: The syndicate colorizes old Bil Keane strips and updates the tube TVs and Thel’s Aquanet hairdo. Jeff does nothing but add his name to extend the copyright. Today’s strip is all his dad’s work, and the scenario is so generic that his dad probably reused the drawing a lot himself.
GG: @Noel: Fortunately for us, Gearhead Gertie runs on Thursdays only. And it’s the only comic strip in the Centerville Sentinel.
@Not a Fan: We can’t. The Duck isn’t allowed here.
@But What Do I Know?: Priceco doesn’t carry Splak, let alone real Spam.
Mary will have to settle for Armour’s Treet or Swift’s Prem, but given her cooking the guests will never know the difference.
@82 The Rambling Otter: Watching a gangrenous foot slowly rotting would be a helluva lot funnier than Gearshift Gertie.
@95 ectojazzmage: When the guests sit down to eat, they’re all silently thankful for Priceco (Puerco?) providing the meal versus last year’s Mary-made monstrosity of turkey-shaped muffins and cranberry-flavored Splak!
@Ukulele Ike: Per yesterday, I’ll bet you look really good in your flat caps, just as I’ll bet you don’t look like a tiny ewe is trying to give birth out of the lower part of your face. Skip just looks generally awful, and that has infected his unfortunate headgear. Let us all be grateful that we are not Skip.
@I speak Jive: I hope Mary picks up canned salmon when she’s at
PricecoCostco. Their brand is excellent with no skin, bones, or other yucky stuff. Can use the entire can with no waste.The bones in canned salmon have never been a problem for me – they’ve been cooked soft and are a good source of calcium. I did, however, throw out the skin, probably wasting valuable nutrients…
@Arabella: I don’t have a problem with the small soft bones in canned salmon, either. I did have a problem with the backbone and large pieces of skin. It was disgusting.
@126 I speak Jive: OK, let’s get some perspective on how grody the backbone and skin are. Are they more disgusting than Wilbur Weston in a Speedo, Wilbur Weston’s face in a kissy-face closeup, or the pissy couch cushion Libby pissed on that Wilbur then sat on?
MW: Jeff’s face is trying to look happy, but his eyebrows say he’s worried. I suspect the real relationship between Jeff and Mary is kinda like the HIGH ANXIETY relationship between Doctor Montague and Nurse Diesel.
@Arabella: #125:
@I speak Jive: #126:
A lot of people run the canned salmon through a blender, skin, bones, and all before making the patties. I empty the can on a plate and rake out the skin and bones with a fork. Not that much extra work. If one really wants to cheap out use the canned mackerel instead. BTW: Does anybody know why canned salmon comes in those funny shaped cans that are narrower at one end?
@jroggs: CS: “Haha, just a little local humor for you! But seriously, we don’t play around with Ottoman incursions here in Centerville.”
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Otto the Autopilot will return in “Funkplane!2: Just What They Thought We Would Do” co-starring Dick Van Dyke as Jack Tripper.
@I speak Jive: MW: I hope she didn’t cheap out on the canned salmon.
She used cat food.
@Guillermo el chiclero: A lot of people run the canned salmon through a blender, skin, bones, and all before making the patties.
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Thats a terrible thing to do to a fired salmon! Just let J.C. Dithers kick him in the tail fins and be done with it!Thats the humane thing.
@Tom T.: She used cat food.
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Libby’s thought bubble: “Oh my paws and whiskers! Not my Tender Vittles®!!!! Pierre, attack the two leggers! Urine for all, especially the one named Mary!”
OFF TOPIC REQUEST FOR THE GROUP: I’m looking for a white elephant gift for my department’s Christmas Party. My original idea (a gallon of McRib Sauce) was claimed already by another participant. Needs to be less than $20 and easily shippable in the CONUS. Anybody got any wacky ideas?
@Poteet: I’ll bet you don’t look like a tiny ewe is trying to give birth out of the lower part of your face.
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Tiny Ewe will return in “Austin Powers?: How Many Of These Dumb Things Have We Done Already?”
MW: I must be tired. I looked at P2 and thought Mary made shrimp cocktails out of rotisserie chicken.
@Baja Gaijin: Well, the thought of all three of those examples just killed my appetite for the rest of the day. I’d say that it’s all equally disgusting.
@Tom T.: Duh! She had a coupon.
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: OFF TOPIC REQUEST FOR THE GROUP: Does it have to be safe for work? I’d suggest The Sharper Image’s Life Size Blow Up Mary Worth™ Sex Doll With Removable Muffin just
$229.67 plus 27.89 for extra meddling circuits.
@MKay: #17:
“it’s fun when someone is obsessed with one stupid thing and can’t talk about any other thing on Earth, EVER”
The same can be said of most potheads I’ve met.
Today is Family Circus and two strips that I don’t know why they still exist.
@129 Guillermo el chiclero: So the salmon’s asshole won’t snap shut when the can exits…?
@133 Garrison Skunk: SNERK!
@134 Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: A sack of Lucky Charms’ marshmallows. A box of Oreo cookies from China. Chair leg socks. Blue cheese stuffed olives.
@136 Little Guy: The sad thing is that when I read your comment, I could totally see Mary making that dish, unironically.
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol:
Liquid Ass or Morning Breeze
@Little Guy: MW: I must be tired. I looked at P2 and thought Mary made shrimp cocktails out of rotisserie chicken
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Who can take a chicken? (Who can take a chicken?) Serve it up with lice (Serve it up with lice) Mix in some dubious quotes and a pound of hackneyed advice? The Mary Worth can/the Mary Worth can cause she mixes it with salmon and makes the world taste like Wilber.
@Baja Gaijin: A sack of Lucky Charms’ marshmallows.
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Our Office Manager buys small hollow Easter bunnies from CVS on sale and keeps them frozen in the office fridge…on Friday the 13s she takes out one for each employee, cuts off the head and fills the bottom with Lucky Charms™ cereal, then we each start Ft13th with lucky charms and rabbits feet on our desks.An office lottery then decides who gets the bag of chocolate bunny heads, and leftover cereal.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Oh those are good. Def. in the running :)
@Guillermo el chiclero: What about the corned beef that comes in triangular cans?
My favorite food writer, John Thorne, swears by that stuff for making your breakfast corned beef hash. Canned meat freaks me out, though….finally tasted Spam after a Hawaiian friend talked it up, and threw it all in the compost after the first taste.
I came here for Mary Worth. You didn’t disappoint. ;-)
mw and lets not forget marys speical drugs she puts into the food to keep everyone in charlestone under her thumb which she gets at a discount at costcos too. along with the salamon for her squares.
MW-Priceco’s signature tray being nothing but olives. Mary is rather talented.
@Ukulele Ike: #147: Those trapezoidal cans that canned corned beef comes in date from the Great War. Apparently the British Expeditionary Force ate lots of canned bully beef, all imported from South America. The can’s unique shape served two purposes, it stacked well in a British Tommie’s field pack, and if the soldier didn’t finish off the contents in one meal, the lid could snap back on and keep the remainder from drying out till later.
BTW: Despite coming mostly from Brazil and Argentina, South Americans despise the stuff, fit only for the dull palates of Americans and Englishmen.
MW: Hey, Mary could have gone totally prole, like to Dollar Admiral.
@White Rabbit: Or the local downsized “Dollar Lieutenant Colonel.”
@Guy Nerdlinger: Soon to be appearing in Beetle Bailey.
Ask and ye shall receive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gearhead_Gertie
@Gertie Fan: WOW. *bows*
@EJ: Mary Worth-It!
@Garrison Skunk: Thank you for causing me to skim part of the Wiki entry about Austin Powers, wherein I found the following, which, whoa, now I am imagining this excerpt being read by one of the “expat patrons.”
***
[Austin] Powers’ bad teeth were created by Los Angeles dental technician Gary Archer. [Mike] Myers came to Archer and told him, “I want bad British 1960s teeth”, based on a widely held stereotype. Archer took pictures of expat patrons at an English pub that he frequented in the San Fernando Valley, made sketches, and showed Myers the design. Myers told him that he had “nailed it”.
MW: With nothing on his plate but a few pebbles and a piece of the brown paper bag Mary’s muscatel came in, Jeff surreptitiously forks a mouthful from the baking dish.
Late Thread Cuisine: Is this the biggest sunny side up fried egg or what?
MW: Jeff and Mary enjoy their ritual dinner conversation, with Jeff hoping for action and Mary putting the brakes on.
Jeff praises Mary for the GREAT JOB, hoping he’ll get one later.
Mary asserts that it wasn’t as HARD as it looked.
She further humiliates Jeff by referencing the shrimp, and makes it clear she will skewer him like a chicken if he persists.
This strip is much more entertaining if you assume that everything they say is code for Mary as a dominatrix. Just sayin’.
@14 Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: How about Pickle Balls?
@I speak Jive: Would these cookies I made help? https://imgur.com/a/zNSmpni
FC: “You present an interesting conundrum, brother. I have one more inquiry. Am I permitted to use my fingers?”
MW: Of course anyone who finds out about how Mary Worth puts a dinner together has to die. It’s been nice knowing you, Jeff.
C-Shaft: As a cosmic punishment for thinking of that headline, Emily Reynolds feels her arm disappearing, a white beard growing on her face, black suspenders attaching themselves to her clothing. “No, this isn’t me!” she cries out. “I’m not supposed to be here!”
DT: “Boss, I think you mean ‘raises the question.’ ‘Begs the question means something…”
“Have your resignation on my desk by the end of workday, Lizz.”
Dustin: See, it would have been funny if you had Dustdad saying the same thing he does in P1 and the rest of the comic was just the other guy laughing.
JP: Talking about your age difference is a fine and normal thing. So’s leaning in for a kiss. Not sold on doing both things simultaneously.
6C: Well someone’s been thinking up gags while she has the munchies.
@Mountain Mama:
Well, I just finished History of Rome and could use a new podcast with deep archives to go through. Thanks!
@Gertie Fan: Where’s that ‘speedy deletion’ button?
@Downpuppy: They’re just canned salmon on saltines.
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Mary makes her own anchovies too?
@168 Garrison Skunk: She makes her anchovies out of tuna can drippings and Ritz crackers.
@The Rambling Otter: Aren’t you saving them to put in Christmas tins?
@Gertie Fan:
#155. GH:. Informative article, thanks s million. You must be a racing expert to pull together a Wiki article in a few days. Might you want to tell your racing history?
RMMD:. Doc, if you waste this opportunity to check his colon and prostate as well as ordering blood tests, we’re going to get your license revoked.
FRAZZ:. “The real fun of living wisely is you get to be smug about it.”. Hobbes, of Calvin and Hobbes, Nov. 18, 2024.
@Arabella: After reading the descriptions from the Mudges, I’ve concluded I don’t need “nutrients” all that much.
TG:. Nov. 21 strip. Maybe I shouldn’t miss working in an office.
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: At Menards, they have a game where you have to identify the farmer’s animals by their poop. I can’t think of the game right now but I can look it up if you like (you might also find it on the website)
I assume “Gertie Fan” is so named because they are the only one.
Sequitur, just in case you happen to see this, hope you are doing well.
@Philip: You are welcome!
@JustSomeGuy: Yeah, that should have been “Gertie ‘Fan'”