I’m not sorry if it offends, actually, never apologize for pedantry
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Blondie, 1/4/25
Yes, I still read the newspaper comics strip Blondie every day, and I actually learn things from it! For instance, Herb saying “mega-horsepower” made me wonder if horsepower is in fact part of the overall International System of Units and can take prefixes like “mega”. Turns out it isn’t; horsepower measures the same thing as watts, although there is a slight difference between metric horsepower (735.5 watts) and imperial horsepower (745.7 watts). It also turns out that a typical snowblower is rated around 5 horsepower, so if we take Herb literally, his new toy has a power output about 3 million times greater than that. Dagwood would not be comically encrusted with snow by it; instead, he and his entire suburban neighborhood would’ve been vaporized instantly the moment Herb turned it on. Sorry if this offends but I must tell the cold, hard truth about the physics involved here.
Gil Thorp, 1/4/25
I have to admit that pleading “But I’m the voice of Milford sports!” is very funny, in terms of ways to defend yourself for getting in trouble for being gin-drunk on the job. Anyway, like all the damned souls toiling in new media, the primary metric on which Marty is judged professionally is going viral, and you’d think going on the air intoxicated would be a good way to do that, but based on his facial expression in the final panel I’m guessing he did it in a very depressing way, not a fun way.
Family Circus, 1/4/24
Billy admits it! He and the other Keane Kids aren’t “real people,” but are instead soulless abominations who should not be walking this earth. “Jeffy,” says Jeffy’s shirt, desperately trying to distract you from the fact that he is a Thing that does not deserve a name.
140 replies to “I’m not sorry if it offends, actually, never apologize for pedantry”
FC:
“Jeffy, they say that the eyes are the window to the soul. But Daddy is not depicted as having eyes — only glass frames. What does that tell you about whether Daddy has a soul?”
GT:
Why is that every frame in this comic is drawn at some kind of crazy angle? It’s as if one is reading The Blair Witch Project strip.
FC: Geoffrey replies; “The common people would say that, William.”
Six Chex: Why Isnt Grandma Turtle driving a Volkswagen Rabbit™ instead of a Beetle?
FC: It’s Bil (one L) Jeffy doesn’t even know his dead Father’s name. It’s even written that way in the signature…
Well, I would say that… if this wasn’t a repeat that Bil wrote himself 30 years ago.
FC: What’s with the angle here…? It looks like Big Daddy Keane is putting the kids on trial.
If any kid in the comic pages has to be on trial, it would either be Marvin or that smug little shit from Frazz.
So everything about Gil and Milford was a drug and alcohol induced fever dream of WDIG’s Hippy Dippy Weatherman, Marty Moon? I’m all for this twist!
Dustbin – This is about a half-a-step up from, “That’s art? My kid could do better than that,” except, with Dustin as a kid, I guess that wouldn’t apply for Dustbin dad.
GT: I read that as “You reek of sin, Marty!”, which is pretty damn harsh (if no doubt deserved).
Blondie : the first panel is a non-sequitur. The story here is an epidemic of SNOW ZOMBIES, and Dagwood’s patient zero.
**********
Gil Thorp : I like the nice touch the colorist gave of having Marty’s eyes be completely bloodshot. Really sells how all it took was a single temptation to sink him right back to “Insane Drunk ranting in a wooden crate” levels.
**********
Luann : “This is MY room. YOU go out.”
Okay, Bernice has a point that Luann will never accomplish anything unless she goes out and does something, but, like, I still think it’s kinda phrased in a way where she’s going all “get out of my bedroom, loser”, but it’s LUANN’s bedroom, not hers? I dunno.**********
Ripley’s Don’t Believe It :
a) …Is the follow up fact that Apple now owes someone still unknown a million dollars, and also the damage caused was worth far more?…
b) Isn’t eight years, in vintner’s terms, the kind of vintage that’s between “it just sat of the shelf for a while” and “okay, now it’s ACTUALLY aged wine”? So, eight years IS vintage, just not the “presitigious” kind of vintage that’s worth anything?
c) A relic of an era where computer nerds would NOT stop quoting their skits (and most of Holy Grail) nearly constantly. (They stopped doing that, right?)
RMMD: ‘One things for sure though, there will be as little actual medical drama in this strip starring a medical doctor as I can possibly get away with…’
JP: BAD TOUCH!!!
MW: “Maybe we can find my spine on the dance floor! Tee Hee!”
Blondie: It’s funny because that’s obviously not snow, Dagwood has died in the most gruesome way possible and has returned home as a ghost. No doubt he is being kept on earth as penance for all the deli meats he wronged in his earthly life.
GT: I’m sorry Marty, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from this strip it’s that there seems to be a vast media ecosystem reporting on every last high school sport event in Milford, for some reason. You can call yourself an ‘important’ or ‘prominent’ voice of Milford sports, but the voice? Get a grip.
FC: I’m loving that ‘JEFFY’ sweater. Obviously that eponymous melonhead can’t read it (especially upside-down) so I’m guessing that Ma and Pa made him wear it so they don’t mix him up with the dog.
MW: it looks like Dawn has dropped a lot of weight since going vegan.
@Giant Pondering Otter: FC: What’s with the angle here…? It looks like Big Daddy Keane is putting the kids on trial.
_____________
LAW & ORDER: MELLONHEAD VERBAL CRIMES UNIT
Some Darnest things kids say are too cloyingly stupid for any brains other then those of the most Geritol™ infused grandmothers. That’s when the members of the MVCU take over.
(Boom boom) JANUARY 4th ,8:09 AM Keane Compound
GT: The realization that one is “the voice of Milford sports” is enough to trigger a binge.
MW: Panel 2; yeah the drugs are kicking in.
RMMD: So, these are the survivors of some 2025 apocalyptic event. Medical professionals, short-order cook, flea marketeers, root country wailer and comedian. OK, why not?
9CL: At least the animal strips don’t feature some sort of interspecies horniness. It’s a break for readers.
Blondie: Snow-covered Dagwood heads straight for the arms of the nearest beautiful woman, because he doesn’t understand what the movie “Hot Frosty” was actually about.
Gil Thorp: “But I’m the voice of Milford sports!” seems less like a plea for his job and more like an explanation. “If you had to cover those idiot kids trying to move balls up and down a field every night, you’d drink too!”
Family Circus: Actually, kid, to real people (i.e., law enforcement and bill collectors), your mother’s name is Thelma and your father’s name is William.
@Anonymous: c) A relic of an era where computer nerds would NOT stop quoting their skits (and most of Holy Grail) nearly constantly. (They stopped doing that, right?)
Ni!
@Professor Well Actually: MW: it looks like Dawn has dropped a lot of weight since going vegan.
_____________________
At least 500 lbs of Wilburp Weston.
I just sent this message to a friend, and it hit me that it had some CC utiility. In today’s Sweardle I got all four guesses wrong with none of the letters even being in the final answer. Here’s what I wrote:
“Not one of those letters was in the answer. Had all 16 squares stay gray. My greatest achievement since early elementary school. I had never gotten a “U” (Unsatisfactory), and I wanted to be one of the cool stupid kids but wasn’t sure how stupid I had to be to get a U. So on a math quiz with about 16 addition problems, I got them all wrong. I had to work to make sure I didn’t get any right unintentionally. It didn’t get me into remedial math with the cool kids, but it almost got me sent to a shrink.”
As I was writing this, it occurred to me I was going for Jeffy Keane stupid. That’s hard to achieve.
GT: “But I’m the voice of Milford Sports!”
“Yes, but to real people you’re a drunk.”
Blondie: Convoluted thought for the day:
Usually one uses Horsepower instead of watts when ‘work’ is involved. An engine does work; a light bulb doesn’t. Watts, however, are measured in joules/sec and Dagwood’s boss is named Jules (dim. Julius). Therefore, in Dithers units, the amount of Hp output by Dagwood is zero.
GT: “But I’m the voice of Milford sports! For God’s sake, have you seen the descent into cheating and criminality our local teams have been devolving into these past few years? I can’t do this sober anymore!”
DT: There’s a link between the Totten family and Tracytown? My God. That’s such a shocking revelation that I almost regret to remind everyone that we’ve known that already since October and it was never a secret. Yes, Sam, it’s safe to say the Tottens are indeed connected to a city they’ve been living and working in for three quarters of a century. Brilliant policework, I can hardly believe this only took you several weeks to put together.
JP: “I’m meeting with Sam. We’re working on your defense. Don’t worry, we’re both legal experts and thus we know the very last thing we should do is ask you for any relevant information about the case. Heck, Sam doesn’t even want to talk to you at all! I really do admire that man.”
Especially excellent Flash Gordon today, with General Tahl saving Flash the effort of threatening him with a beating. I love third panel “Under Flash, Thun, and Velle’s watch” and by golly Schkrade squeezes all three of them in there.
Only 735.5 watts? Wimpy French horses.
@Hibbleton: And Jeffy already knows her real name is Thelma, whereas Billy won’t figure it out until he’s 12.
Mark Trail – It was only a matter of time until Millennial Mark Trail would encounter furries.
“Help? But I’m the voice of Milford sports—I’m far beyond help!
JP: “I’m meeting with Sam. We’re working on your defense.”
“Um, no offense, Dad, but I think I’ll just keep my public defender.”
CS: Annnnd today’s randomly chosen strip from Batty’s reject bin.
RMMD: Okay, I can understand giving Mud the (muddy) boot, but no Rene Belluso? Come on now!
DtM: The joke falls flat because mirrored-self misidentification is associated with advanced dementia. Should have been George and Martha Wilson.
MW-I resolve to solve the mystery of why you never see Dawn and Wilbur together.
FC-Real people being those outside of the circle.
Blondie-That is a rather impressive load Herb blew.
FC: Bil takes a clue from today’s Baby Blues and remarks to Thel; “About that college fund…”
Family Circus: Billy: “To real people, (inaudible) melonheads!”
By the way, speaking of the “real people/freakish abomination” dichotomy, I love the “what are those things?” look on Bil/Bill’s face.
I hope Wilbur was watching when our “elite” Minnesota football coach got mayo poured on him last night. The announcers say “it’s one of the great traditions in sports.”
Fascinated by Dagwood’s weird 1920s Mickey Mouse gloves. It’s fine if our flapper heroine and her dandy husband now live in a suburban McMansion and wear chinos and miniskirts and talk about snowblowers, but heaven forbid they wear gloves without huge cuffs and three weird ridges on the knuckle. That would destroy the precious jazz era ambience!
GT – Forget the OAN gig. Matt Gaetz is now Vice-President in Charge of Putting People on Suspension at WDIG radio.
GT – “But these kids get drunk after every game and usually come to school sloshed! Who’s going to speak for them?”
Billy knows that they have all been living in a newspaper comic strip for 23,686 days. Jeffy knows, too. He just doesn’t care. Sometimes they draw him in a shirt with “JEFFY” on it. Sometimes they don’t. Nothing matters. Better not tell Dolly and PJ, though. They aren’t ready.
Curtis-“Why did we tell a story like that?”
As one who aspires to be a great punner, like the legendary Bob Tice. I need to start practicing.
Dawn: You know what I resolve to do in the upcoming year?
Dirk: Bowl a better game?
Dawn: NO, I need to be more independent, like how fairies tend to be, they don’t take crap from anyone.
Dirk: What do you mean?
Dawn: I need to start practicing sylph-help.
FC-And what do her clients call Mommy?
Blondie – Edgy strip today – Herb brags about his blowing capabilities and Dag returns plastered with jizz….
GT – I don’t get the WOOF – a new FCC call designation? City building channels old style MT cabin chatting it up with Andy? What’s the 411, dog….
FC – Daddy gets two Ls now cuz he’s like at least a hundred….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
MW: Dirk the dick has insulted Dawn again. How long can KM keep this up?
@Vulpius: Yeah, old-school Mark would just go “Hmmm… that seems a little odd, can I punch this guy? Should I punch this guy? Nah, he’s not doing anything really bad, I’ll keep him away from Rusty though just to be safe.”
I can’t get onto the comments on Comics Kingdom anymore.
Also, adding to the fact that one of you said yesterday that snarking is no longer allowed so I wonder if I was actually banned. I was a pretty heavy snarker despite I haven’t been on the comments there in months.
Herb, that’s a single-stage snowblower. You’re a worse wimp than that low-wattage French horse.
GT: I appreciate Marty getting drunk on gin like he’s some aging martini-quaffing socialite or a tragic Dickensian vagrant, rather than just knocking back a bottle of Stoli or Jim Bean. Shows a touch of class, you know?
I have never been in an addiction recovery program, but I imagine relapses are not uncommon among participants and that such programs have ways of dealing with them in a constructive manner. This is apparently not the case for the Milford AA branch, who kick you out and let you fend for yourself at the first sign of weakness.
Wait a minute. Herb bought his own expensive snowblower instead of borrowing Dagwood’s and keeping it? Has Herb begun embezzling?
C’shaft: Have you ever wondered what short-timer’s syndrome looks like for something that is spectacularly low-effort to begin with? Well, wonder no more!
Dustin: The whole “lol, modern art” thing is a bit more disturbing when you realize it’s a tamer cousin of the fascist practice of labeling certain art and artists and “degenerate” and therefore something which needs to be eradicated from society. But then Dustdad would probably consider that a feature and not a bug.
Luann: No, first you need to have physical beauty, skill, intelligence, ambition, or just about anything other than the vague dreams of a five-year-old thinking about what they want to be when they grow up.
MW: “I’m going to find more ways for you to insult me! Come on!”
Phantom: I want to say that’s not how it works, but in the Year of Our Lord 2025 I’m afraid that is how it works.
Pluggers have alienated absolutely everyone around them.
FC – This is so surreal. The perspective makes the parents appear to be at least twenty feet away and ten feet above Billy, in a completely bare room, no less. Billy’s head is plopped on his shoulders backwards, although that’s nothing new. Jeffy is wearing a shirt with his name on it so he knows who he is, but he can’t read. Too bad Dolly isn’t there making a stupid malaprop while Kittycat horks up a hairball.
JP – “April and I got together and hired some rogue CIA agents to break you out of this joint. Then I’m going to help you fake your own death. That always works.”
Rex Morgan – Where are the Hanks and Mrs. Hank Jr? Where are Jordan Like the Country and Michelle? Where is Nikki? Are they no longer on the beloved characters list?
Breaking Cat News – Ah, yes, suddenly aging a child character. That works so well for Brooke McEldowney.
I didn’t have time to read the comics when this story started, and when I picked it up again I didn’t bother to catch up and read the beginning. I hope this is the end of this story arc.
Crankshaft – The one beside him is an old bat. Wait – that isn’t a bird. An old crow.
Batty is really scraping the bottom of the barrel with the alleged jokes this week.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: You had to make a serious effort to be as stupid as Jeffy Keane. He does it naturally. It’s like breathing for him – although he probably has to remind himself to do that.
RMMD: Is this the preview for the coming year? I figured we’d be attending Truck and Wanda’s wedding, but what about some of the other semi-regulars? Like Jordan and Michelle. I’ve had Michelle in the death pool through Covid and a possible assassination attempt. I think my only hope now is for her to tragically die in childbirth.
Why do we have Parker without Beanpole? Will he be Truck’s Bestie at the wedding?
I adore this blog!! From Josh’s commentary to the witty repartee right out of the gate from all of you it’s an endless buffet of sweet, salty, greasy and fattening treats! Thank you all! (Plus, where else can I possibly learn such arcane things as the physics of horsepower, word origins, weird rituals and ancient history and mythology in one place but here!!)
Now…the first thing that came to mind when reading “Mary Worth” was “Ha ha – I hope Dawn trips on a chair and tumbles to the floor with tablecloths and cutlery and scraps of food landing on her and Dirk the Jerk doubles over in laughter while calling her another stupid nickname like ‘Spazgirl’ “
I find that quite satisfying given how dumb this story and its characters are.
MW: when will Dirk get around to insulting Dawn’s performance in bed?
Don Abundio, translated:
“You treat me like a trophy. It’s you versus Don Abundio”
“Don’t be ridiculous”
“That little wimp could never take you away from me!”
“What you’re forgetting is…”
“… lust gives me superhuman strength”
@I speak Jive: #50
Ha ha – so true! Poor kid just can’t help it. Imagine if Jeffy sees Billy or Dolly wearing a shirt that says “Jeffy” and he has a crisis of identity leading to a total breakdown. “But…but…*I’m* supposed to be Jeffy!!!! Mommy, daddy, WHO AM I???”
Billy should be careful. If he leans just a _little_ more forward, his cranial foreport will interlock with Jeffy’s. He’s old enough to remember the intense purple explosion that instantly consumed his sisters Peg and Jeannie, and left his new brother P.J. in their place.
Zits Unusual Language to English.
MW: Dawn is going to poop herself after that giant kale salad isn’t she
I had never heard of anyone named “Thel” before today, so I googled it to see what it is short for, and there’s a character in Halo called Arbiter Thel ‘Vadam. Now I’m picturing momma Keane running around killing everyone and teabagging the corpses, and that’s the most entertainment I’ve gotten from The Family Circus
@LTJpezcore1: The “original” salad shooter!
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I hear that game was sponsored by a maker of mayonnaise and other condiments.
You never would’ve known by listening to the ESPN broadcast.
Seriously, they talked more about the mayonnaise than they did about how the two teams were affected by sudden losses of players and coaches (particularly Virginia Tech).
At least, PJ took his mayo bath in good humor (ESPN focused their camera on one Gopher player who acted like he was witnessing an execution in “Game of Thrones”).
Wilbur Weston would’ve been proud (and angry at the waste of good mayo).
FC – “So why does she call him ‘Dog’ and ‘Worm’ late at night when the bedroom door is locked?”
@Sequitur: “Intenta: Bam-Da, Tatata, Womp-Da” is perfect dialog. No translation needed.
GT: In my experience, an AM radio station in a tank town is more likely to be headquartered in a quonset hut on the edge of town than a gleaming concrete-and-glass edifice.
GT: Do we know Marty Moon was drunk on the air?
Until proved, I just figure everyone expects he was tonight because of repeated past behavior. I mean, when you’ve scaled the heights (of the Milford sports mediascape), everybody wants to see you fall.
@ValdVin: @ValdVin: That also bothered me.
They only showed Moon drinking AFTER his broadcast in a bar with one of the coaches.
And how could he smell of gin after a night spent in the drunk tank?
The alcoholics I have known particularly chose gin over beer or whiskey because it is basically odorless.
Billy, I shrunk the adults!
Billy can never get lost because of the big dotted line that follows him everywhere. Jeffy, though… Jeffy they had to label like luggage.
FC: But at the strip club downtown Mommy’s name is Jaymee Jutters.
Phantom: “Unmask? Are you nuts? Do you know how long it took me to get into this?”
@TheDiva: The Third Reich’s “Degenerate Art” exhibition broke all the records for attendance, like the German population woke up briefly from a bad dream and went “Oh, yeah, we used to be one of the most cultured, intelligent, and perceptive cultures in the western world, we had Beethoven and Goethe and Friedrich, what happened to us?”
@Peter of the Norse: It’s short for Thelma
@Giant Pondering Otter: @Peter of the Norse: I mean, I’m certain most here remember that classic movie “Thelma and Lousy Comic”
Curtis: I mean, it’s probably a more tactful question than “No, seriously, what the heck was that?”
DT: Does … does Sam think he’s just discovered that Tottentanz is actually Totten Sr, aka the whole reason he was looking into this in the first place?
FC: Sorry, Billy, but despite hiding behind the counter to impart this Forbidden Knowledge, Daddy has heard that you’ve been talking to “real people” somehow, and it’s time to increase the voltage on the fence again.
JP: “Your honour, I don’t know what happened that night. None of us will ever know, because the writer doesn’t. But my client would like to enter a plea of not guilty on the grounds of fillia judicus and ingenium principalis industria.”
“‘Daughter of a judge’ and … ‘main character energy’?”
“The defence rests.”
Phantom: Everything Neville knows about the law he learned from Judge Parker.
RMMD: Having already said as much on New Year’s Day, Beatty would like to reiterate that these are our main characters now. So long, Jordan and Michelle! Nice knowing you, Summer and Kelly! Even the Harwoods are old news! And I actually resent Beatty for the fact I even care about this — it’s not as if I found any of these people interesting!
Blondie – Herb’s Monster Snowblower is the same sort of single-stage machine that chokes on even slightly heavy snow. It was this kind of boastful exaggeration about his dick that got him Tootsie and the results were the same: a hasty ejaculation of white stuff that misses its mark and makes a mess for someone else to clean up.
CS: Either Batiuk directed Dan Davis to have Crankshaft break the fourth wall to enhance the “joke,” or Davis has decided he’s done with this crap.
Curtis-“So what happens to Les that Lisa is no longer in his life?”
@Anonymous: A relic of an era where computer nerds would NOT stop quoting their skits (and most of Holy Grail) nearly constantly. (They stopped doing that, right?)
Yup. That practice is most certainly pining for the fjords.
I say that as a computer nerd who is closer to 60 instead of fifty and laments the cultural illiteracy of these young whippersnappers coming out of tech schools who would not get the reference.
And then she’ll sing Muddy Boots.
With all the talk of vegans and such, maybe this will help.
GT – That the “voice of Milford Sports” is a gin soaked drunk says everything you need to know about the state of sport in Milford. That he is being suspended for stinking of gin, rather than the good honest reek of Piels tells you everything you should know.
Dustin: It has nothing to do with Ed Kudlick’s lack of imagination or appreciation for art. Nothing at all.
Will someone please tell Aunty Acid to soak her head in a vat of lye.
FC: But Grandma has a whole slew of names for Mommy, like slattern, trollop, lush, bimbo. Ain’t Mommy lucky to get so many names?
JP: I call foul. In no way during a jailhouse visitation would the visitor be allowed to touch or make any physical contact will the prisoner.
Dustin: Ah, the good old “Modern art, amirite?” trope.
What’s weird is that in the art world the abstractists still think of themselves as the cutting-edge revolutionaries while their form of art has been the mainstream establishment for well over a hundred years now. It’s the realists who are the oddballs crying in the wilderness.
@richardf8: Piels!
@84 Ukulele Ike:
Piels Beer. Never heard of it. It’s so dry you can blow on it and make it disappear.
@Professor Well Actually: When it involves consuming meat.
Dustin-So sayeth the man who charges by the word.
JP-More touching!
Tomorrow’s quote from Mary Worth.
Huh?
Ziggy-Ziggy’s a bottom!
@Uncle Lumpy: This is the part where I’m supposed to say “oversnarkapolgies, right?” Well, what if I just say:
A plugger knows the difference between a single stage and two-stage snowblower.
Thanks to Plowy McPlowface, Saint Paul, MN.
@Pozzo: I read it that way too! Repeatedly! Until I saw your comment! Yes, I was somewhat confused, but I’m used to being confused when reading Gil Thorp.
THANK YOU for crunching the numbers on this .. I hesitate to call it a ‘joke’. Innumeracy is not at all funny. Where did Herb even get this 11 GIGAWATT snowblower? Does it draw 1% of the world’s energy generation capacity somehow? Is it powered by ANTIMATTER? Then I read your debunking and understood you feel the same way I do. Humor is best when properly analyzed and put into a scientific context
I can’t wait for tomorrow to see Poteet‘s rant on June’s hair in Rex Morgan M.D.
She looks like Squiggy from Laverne & Shirley.
@Sequitur: According to the 1950s-60s Bob and Ray commercials, Piels was local to the boroughs of Brooklyn and Staten Island, NYC, so not surprised you don’t see it in Texas.
I drank the stuff myself a couple decades back (it’s a brave little brew), before imported Bitburger in four-packs went on permanent sale around here. Still under $2 for sixteen ounces.
@94 Ukulele Ike:
So it tastes like New York?
“But I’m the voice of Medford sports!…that’s why my breath smells like an old gym sneaker!”
AAGGGHHHH: Early golf comic.
@richardf8:
By no means! Your “Herb’s dick” analogy excuses the offense—ironically, by overwhelming it.
@Sequitur: Tastes like Bob and Ray. And Einderbinder brand Fly Paper, the fly paper you’ve gradually grown to trust over the course of three generations.
@Sequitur:
#88:: confirmation bias.
Don’t think, just believe.
@Pozzo: I saw the same thing, and honestly, that’s SO MUCH BETTER. “And He said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.” GET BENT Marty!
@Sequitur: It means you’re a mark, a sucker, a pigeon who’ll be taken in by the first grifter who comes along, reads you like a book, and tells you what you want to hear.
MW: will Mary approve of Dawn’s newly discovered masochistic tendencies? And when will Dirk move from insults to handcuffs?
I’m not going to stop complaining about how ugly the current incarnation of Gil Thorp is, but I will say that at least the third very ugly panel of today’s strip is very funny.
Phantom: Neville, your ratings are really going to go through the roof when First Tiger slashes your throat on live TV.
@Ukulele Ike: I remember those Piels commercials in the 1950s. I was in grade school at the time and didn’t know who Bob and Ray were. When I saw them on TV in the late 1960s I thought, “That’s Bert and Harry Piels.”
The beer must have been available in Pennsylvania. Never tasted it; I’ve never been a beer fan.
Let this be a lesson for all legacy comic strip artists. When your only three “creative” strategies are (1) republish a forty-year-old strip, (2) republish a forty-year-old strip but change the caption, or (3) trace elements from several forty-year-old strips — never go with number 3.
@Ukulele Ike: We lived in NJ. My dad drank it. Genesee Cream Ale too.
@Nobody: #108: Grew up in Ohio but I do remember Genesee Cream Ale and Genesee Beer. Their motto, “Our one brewery brews it best!”
FC: Billy figures out that he’s fictional (sort of.) And he tells his little brother, which would blow Jeffy’s mind if, well…
GT: “We’re WDIG, you dig? And we depend on you to be our beatnik voice. But getting drunk for high school sports is squaresville, daddy-o! Save it for when you’re writing poetry.”
Blondie: That’s not a bench, it’s a table. And if pressed you could probably do an impromptu autopsy on it. Some reason looking at Beetle made me think of that.
C-Shaft: Starting to look like Crankshaft—or maybe Crankshaft—made a New Year’s resolution to be stupider in 2025.
Dustin: If Dustmom actually thought she could take her husband to a Modern Art exhibit without his embarrassing her I don’t know what to tell her.
JP: They—meaning law enforcement—certainly will ask questions, but most of them will be “huh?” and “say what?”
Luann: Lot of A’s on the list. She’s just been picking jobs from random dictionary pages, hasn’t she?
Phantom: Neville Stokes’s “ratings forgive everything” theory of the justice system sounds like the way you’d expect things to work in 2025, but in fact a number of reality show stars have been sentenced to hard time. Keep your hand on your wallet or handbag as the case may be, First Tiger.
RMMD: If the main and supporting characters are starting the year off as disembodied heads up is pretty much the only direction things can go for them.
Luann: We all know that Luann’s room is a pigsty but it doesn’t say much for Bernice that she’s willing to sit on that filthy floor.
@I speak Jive: What about Stegmaier? I think it came from Wilkes-Barre? You get that?
Grew up in Buffalo, NY. Genesee and Genesee Cream Ale (“Genny Screamers”) were super popular low-end brews. The Screamers were particularly popular with the young ‘uns. There was a beer distributorship in Tonawanda NY with a distinctive giant cut-out of “Jenny the Genny mascot” on the roof. I recall the beer being…acceptable. How’s that for lukewarm praise LOL? Jenny herself was pretty hot.
A good college friend of mine grew up in Rochester, home of Genesee brewing. He enjoyed misquoting Kipling. “The great grey-green, greasy Genesee River, all set about with fever trees….”
OTOH, a good high school friend of mine ended up at the University of Michigan, which housed an honest-to-god cult over Genesee Cream Ale. He was forced by fellow students to buy cases in Cleveland on home visits and ferry gallons of the stuff back to Ann Arbor, where you couldn’t get it. (I feel the same way about Vernor’s Ginger Ale, common as spit in Michigan and Ohio, completely unknown on the east coast. I’ll take mine in a tall glass with a scoop of French vanilla, thanks)
Has anyone else been having a problem with slow refresh of the threads since Josh moneyed with the Modbot?
@Ukulele Ike: #115: Once worked in a dental lab with a woman from Michigan. She had her family up north send her regular shipments of Vernor’s to Houston.
@richardf8: I’m not familiar with that, but I’m not an authority on beer. I was trying to remember what beer my father drank – I’m not sure, but I think it was Pabst.
@I speak Jive: Oh my god, was your father Frank Booth from Blue Velvet?
@I speak Jive: Re RMMD: What really stands out to me is that Buck and Mindy are there but Cory isn’t. Maybe they disowned him for bad comedy?
@Ukulele Ike: Fuck Heinekens! Pabst Blue Ribbon, man!
@Guillermo el chiclero:
PBR FTW!
Personally, I prefer Modelo.
Miller High Life — the Champagne of Bottle Beers — sponsor of Milwaukee Braves radio broadcast — was what my daddy drank in the 1950’s.
Blondie – Since mega-horsepower isn’t a scientific measurement, our lax truthin-marketing laws basically mean it’s just 15 horsepower. Blondie is stuck in the eternal 50s, hence advertisement use atomic age terminology to oversell an snowplower that’s still overpowered for non-commerical use. The equivalent of today would be “AI enhanced”.
GIl Thorp – This is AM radio, where they only tolerate addictions to painkillers, and only if you are a political talk host in line with the current administration that’s in control of their FCC license.
Family Circus – Thel’s expression hints at a dark secret. “Thel” and “Bill” are merely code names for one government agency. Locked away in a government vault are the documents of their real identities, since scrubbed from public record. They are agents of a three-letter government agency you’ve never heard of, that is running a long experiment to see if melon-headed gollums made using forbidden magic could be integrated into American society. If so, America’s enemies stand no chance when their society is suddenly filled with malaprop spouting children that spill every secret they overhear. Only it won’t be to their mark’s social circle, but to the interested ears of US Intelligence.
@Ukulele Ike: Ha ha, no.
Mr. Jive drinks a variety of beers. He has been to the Yuengling brewery, and that is pretty much his everyday beer.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: It’s odd, too, that Parker is there when Cory isn’t. Aren’t they a team?
@124 Situation Normal:
When I was a kid my dad drank Falstaff because Dizzy Dean said to. We’d be watching The Game of the Week on (at that time) CBS and when ol’ Diz proclaimed, “Fans, its time to have a Falstaff!” my dad would say, “Ya know, he’s right.” Then he’d proceed to the fridge and pull one out. I always liked it because my dad would always let me have a swig or two even though I was only about ten at the time.
But then, I was used to beer. When I was six we took a trip to visit relatives in Germany. We’d often go to a local pub. They allowed kids in and they had a low alcohol beer that kids and many women could enjoy.
They also had slot machines that I would frequent and would win on a regular basis. I was know as “Das glückliche kind” or the lucky kid.
Old Frothingshlosh!
The Pale Stale Ale With The Foam On The Bottom!
CURTIS:. Is this a take on “Imagine” by Alison Lester? The plot is very different. What other book by that name could she have given him for Kwanzaa?
“But I’m the Voice of Milford sports!” will now be my defense when I’m accused of, well, pretty much anything, really.
@Sequitur: My Granddad, a proud Bohunk, was fond of the Detroit beer Stroh’s, because the full name, scrolled out on the longneck label, was “Stroh’s Bohemian Beer.” That was also my go-to for a while: a nice flavorful-yet-dry Czech-style Pilsener. (I also got the furtive intergenerational slugs; Czechs understand that Beer is Food.)
My father was never a beer drinker, and as for wine, “could not distinguish Amontillado from Sherry,” as Poe said*. He confined himself to a rare slug of Scotch over ice with a little water.
* Yeah, Amontillado IS sherry, Poe fucked up. You’d think a guy who liked booze that much wouldn’t make a booze error. But it’s still a good line.
@Situation Normal: #124: My dad drank Carling Black Label (Hey Mabel, Black Label!) and Duquesne (Pronounced doo-kane) or Duke for short.
@Sequitur: Ruh-roh.
Knowing Dagwood, that’s not snow, but whipped cream from that can of Reddi-Whip™ he slept with last night.
@Ukulele Ike: My dad didn’t drink much beer when I was a child, but when he did, it was Stroh’s, and I think it was mostly because we lived in an old suburb of Detroit and Stroh’s was the Detroit beer. I just looked up the Wiki article on Stroh’s — very interesting.
@Ukulele Ike: @Sequitur: Tastes like Bob and Ray.
______________________
Isnt that a line from the”Mis-tasters Of America” sketch?
“But I’m the Voice of The Comics Curmudgeon” doesn’t do much with the NYC police guarding Times Square on New Years Eve. Please don’t ask me how I know.
@Guillermo el chiclero: I think I was wrong about my father drinking Pabst beer. When I read your comment, Carling rang a bell. Now I think that’s what he drank. Like I said, I don’t drink beer myself, so I don’t know much about it.
I did go to a brewery tour many years ago, although I didn’t drink anything.
It’s funny because while many children aren’t treated as real people, usually the adults aren’t aware of it, let alone spell it out to the kids and make them internalize it!
@TheDiva: People have always put down whatever the new “thing” in art was. Fascists were tapping into an already existing bit of human psychology, not inventing a new one.