Mostly sullen teen edition
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Dustin, 4/17/25
Really loving Dustin’s facial expression in the second panel here. “Ah,” he’s thinking, “he doesn’t love her either. He may hate her as much as he hates me. It’s not great, but it’s kind of satisfying to know, honestly.”
Mary Worth, 4/17/25
Dawn’s face in panel two here is almost as good. That’s the face of a college student who is absolutely going to choke down the soggy, room-temperature sandwich she’s been carrying around in her backpack all day, just to spite the woman who was loudly fucking her dad most of the previous evening. The fact that she’ll save herself from being poisoned is just a bonus, assuming she wouldn’t prefer a quick death to enduring the rest of Belle’s visit.
Marvin, 4/17/25
This isn’t really about facial expressions, just about how Bitsy the dog is infested with parasites and that makes him an outcast from dog society. His facial expression in panel two, as he contemplates the fact that everyone is disgusted by him, is kind of poignant, I guess.
178 replies to “Mostly sullen teen edition”
MW:
Belle’s topping has the consistency of the oobleck in Dr. Seuss’ “Bartholomew and the Oobleck.”
MW: I wonder if I’ve been reading Mary Worth all wrong. Maybe it’s Wilbur who is trying to use Belle to kill Dawn, and Belle is just a slightly berserk innocent. Wilbur’s been trying to get Belle to make food and/or drinks for Dawn, and points out which ingredients are Dawn’s favorites.
And Belle goes along with it because…Belle is illiterate. Not only can she not read, she can’t even recognize shapes! This cost her a career in pro baseball, but instead of becoming bitter, she decides she’s going to help everyone she can. She has rebuilt several hundred mailboxes, for example.
It’s either that, or Belle is a gigantic hand-puppet that Wilbur found in a Goodwill store. He can make it speak by rapidly spinning one or both of her legs. And Wilbur’s goal is to turn Dawn into a hand puppet, so he’ll never have to worry about feeding anyone other than himself.
That is my truth.
MW: I’ll make a prediction where this goes. Wilbur goes to eat it instead so as to not insult Belle’s generosity and she stops him before he takes a bite.
MW:
“A couple of bites of this, Dawn, and your eyes and nose will be watering non-stop! — it’ll be ‘Make Rheum for Daddy’ !”
I regret to inform you that Ed and Helen are playing out long-established roles here, and that though he’s genuinely peeved and she’s genuinely slightly hurt, this is leading to a night of incredibly loud exasperationfucking. Far hotter than Belle and Wilbur. (OK I don’t regret to inform you of that, I just wanted to make you think about it because I want to watch the world burn.)
Dustin-“If I want to watch women dance they better be topless.”
RMMD-The killer spent all night hiding out in the bushes waiting for a crowd to appear.
Blondie-“That’s so funny. Now they are wrestling on top of the table.”
MW-Dawn won’t eat it because she doesn’t know if it is also gluten free.
FC-Originally it was ‘gang colors’ not ‘team colors’.
Marvin: Try walking down that sidewalk in sandals: a hydrant right up the middle, rivers of dog urine to the sides.
MW: How stupid is this family?
Pluggers: What TV channel is still broadcasting friggin’ Gunsmoke? Either they have a DVD of it, or their cable subscription includes the package of Old People Channels. (Because Pluggers absolutely still have a DVD player and a cable subscription.) Both of which contradict the idea of watching the game show duo that’s been on free TV every single weeknight since 1983. Either take advantage of today’s heavily tailored media environment, or don’t.
Dustin: “I should really get it fixed…”
MW It’s looks an awful lot like Belle has made a plate of meaty noodles to trick Dawn into eating flesh, which is fine, but a step back from straight up murder? C’mon lady, we had some momentum here…
MW: Really enjoying Mary Worth‘s descent into being a reverse-Final Destination. Instead of being killed by fate in strange and gory ways, Wilbur and Dawn keep surviving the universe’s attempts to kill them through random chance and the power of slobbishness. Think Wilbur can get an “I Shouldn’t Be Alive… But I Am!” column out of the thrilling tale of the poisoned purple pesto and the leftover mushroom sub?
Dustin: You might think this strip is a blatant violation of the 180-degree rule, but actually Dustin is just so two dimensional as a character that if you turn him around, he still faces the same way.
I thought at first that the second thought balloon in the last panel was coming from the fireplug, which would have been a real burn.
“Hey, I spend my life getting peed on and even I don’t want to be around you.”
MW: Belle thinks; “Shit, and I spent a whole hour shredding a box of Ex-Lax into (ugh) lentils.”
MW: “No worries;” Belle says. “But at least try some of my famous antipasto (made with genuine ant paste).”
MW:
“And you’ve just had some kind of mushroom/
And your mind is moving low….”
— Jefferson Airplane
Oh, wait a minute. Dawn’s mind is always moving low.
MW: they’re treating Dawn like a six year old.
RMMD: Narration Box has declared pops as the killer. It needs to talk to Low Rent Colombo.
As long as we’re talking facial expressions, look at Dustin’s mom. She’s not giving her husband an annoyed glance at his incredibly nasty, rude behavior. She’s just turned to look at him with a blank face, not angry, apparently disappointed and hurt. Seeing this, does he soften and apologize? No, he digs in deeper with more contempt. Man, that is some dark marital dynamics, even for a comics page that makes “ha ha women are from Venus” its bread and butter.
@Banana Jr. 6000:
Two episodes of Gunsmoke are aired daily on MeTV. Channel 30.2 where I live.
MW: Wilbur’s eyes are getting madder by the minute. It’s time for the Worth-Signal to light up the skies.
RMMD: Murder 101: Don’t hang around the scene of your crime. Is Vengeful Father expecting the cops to come through the crowd and say, “Nope, it’s definitely not THIS
guy,” before he feels free to leave?
MARVIN: Dogs have well-known high standards of hygiene. Poor Bitsy will not be allowed to join in when they eat poop, then lick the faces of the nearest humans.
Oh, c’mon, Ed. Who doesn’t enjoy watching the bear drive that little car?!
@Banana Jr. 6000: Gunsmoke airs constantly on Pluto TV, which is one of those free networks playing old shows. I watch it regularly for Doctor Who, Columbo, and Murder She Wrote.
Dustin: Dustmom looks up some recipes on the web. “Well, well, well, this looks perfect, Lentil Bolognese a la Belle.”
MW: Wilbur is getting more manic by the second. This will be the first airborne transmitted case of mania in history…
MW: Isn’t she WONDERFUL, Dawnie? She even does BUTT STUFF!
I wouldn’t eat that dog food spaghetti either, Dawn. Go do your ‘shrooms. Life is brutal.
MW: If I have to read “Dawnie” one more time, I’m going to write a strongly worded letter of complaint. Why this sudden and stupid nickname? Does Moy think that if Wilbur and Belle speak to Dawn as if she’s a small child dependent on parental supervision, Belle’s murder urges will suddenly make sense? Just lean into the crazy, Moy. You had no trouble doing that when Wilbur was shoving people into traffic.
RMMD: Looks like the Stalker Slayer is going to have a crisis of conscious. Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion where he…peaceably turns himself in.
I think Dustin is more like his old man than he cares to admit. Sure, he’s precariously balancing his 1970s-style soda can on the green leather ottoman, but at least he’s using a coaster.
Some cartoonist’s wife in the 1950s forced her husband to go to ballet or the opera and cartoonists have not let it go since then
Dustin is using that potato chip bag to conceal his erection. Hs was sitting on the couch watching porn before they walked in on him and now he’s stuck there.
Mary Worth: “Visit,” oh you sweet summer child: this is strictly a “Death or Glory” affair, meaning Dawn’s death and/or getting busy with Wilbur in Santa Royale’s finest Burger King bathroom. (Also, no one’s from Florida, Belle has nowhere to go back to, the entire state is a giant hallucination.)
The same sort of time dilation affects other people when they are forced to hang around Dustin’s Dad.
Fun fact: ballet used to be a male-oriented art in the nineteenth century because it was the opportunity to watch some young and physically fit girls in tight clothes move around the scene. The added bonus is that many dancers would also be available to be prostitutes or kept women. What I am saying is that the modern male is sclerotic like Dustin dad, he cannot even find excitement in the exploitation of female flesh
Disappointed you missed today’s “Phantom”: A man busts down a door to the sound of “BRATCH!”, then turns around and exclaims “!!” Either that or I’m on acid.
@Hibbleton: @brendancalling: MeTV would be in the “cable package of old people channels” I mentioned, and PlutoTV would be a streaming service I doubt Pluggers want anything to do with. The joke in the strip is jarring because it juxtaposes the laziest possible choice, with one that requires sophistication and effort. It’s like asking Plugger Wife if she wants McDonalds or osso buco for dinner.
How long do we think Mary Worth Incorporated is going to pad out the “Wilbur’s girlfriend keeps getting foiled in her attempts to poison Dawn” story? The point was made with the first one, but I personally hope it just keeps going for months, with increasingly more elaborate food-based ploys, until it culminates in a Princess Bride-esque switcheroo where Belle ends up dead after consuming the poisoned meal herself.
Dustin: “You chump,” thinks Dustin. “You went to the ballet while I stayed home eating tortilla chips and balancing a glass of milk on the sofa, both of which are strictly forbidden while Mom is home. I am wild, I am free, you are a henpecked cuck. Crap, I didn’t say that out loud, did I?”
@Banana Jr. 6000: Isn’t MeTV a broadcast channel? I don’t have cable or any streaming service and I still get MeTV.
Usually I have nothing but contempt for “Marvin”, so I have to give genuine kudos for finding a way to make a G-rated VD joke
@Lauralot: To be fair, it’s hard to treat Dawn like an adult, when she’s too stupid to realize two people are trying to kill her.
@Banana Jr. 6000:
They’re both over-the-air channels which I watch via my aerial.
@Lauralot: Maybe? I don’t even know. I just find this combination of TV choices jarring, for the reasons I said in #32.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: I saw a similar joke years back on Garfield and Friends, Garfield saying that Wyoming doesn’t exist.
@Banana Jr. 6000: I wouldn’t be surprised if adults have been trying to kill Dawn for her entire life, and it’s just so commonplace now that she doesn’t notice. Her mother may well have tried to off her as soon as she realized her daughter had any shared traits with Wilbur, and Wilbur would have set out to murder her as soon as she transitioned to solid foods and he realized he’d have to share.
@nescio: And Ed wonders why his staff smoke breaks keep getting longer and longer…
@Ettorre: I’m all for Ed’s impotence, but the fact is, any one of those dancers — male or female — could beat his ass, and he knows it. So I guess that’s just impotence in another sense?
@bakeryjumpscare: It is true that Mary Worth, like many daily soap opera strips, would be much improved by the introduction of iocaine powder, and also Mandy Patinkin.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Gosh, Juan! There’ve been some shocking rumors about you in the tabloids lately!”
“We actors say there’s no such thing as bad publicity!”
“Hi, Harry!”
“Oh! Hi, Juan!”
“Who’s that?”
“My publicist!”
MW: Speaking of… it’s weird that Subway does not supply mushrooms for their sandwiches. Have to go to Mr. Sub for that.
MW: The appropriate response to someone brandishing a fully-made-up plate of food at you as you enter the door to your home, waving it around in your face when you haven’t even taken off your backpack is always to claim you have something else to eat already. Even if you have to invent the leftovers, say you want to eat alone in your room, and either go hungry or sneak out later for food.
DT: Between the MW food-shoving and RMMD/Phantom* murderer-lingering-at-the-scene, who know Dick Tracy would be the ray of sanity today? Looks like we’re not dealing with a travesty of priestly breaking the silence of the confessional, counselling to go talk to the authorities (the sacrament not depending on this) is certainly allowed and the priest can go along as support so long as Homeless Guy does the telling
*“Jampa murder” + “why did you do this!!” + hidden person + Fate is still trying to get the monastery town into guerrilla warfare with The State That Must Not Be Named = Savarna took refuge in the monastery.
But why? She could have just skipped town right away, walking right out after exacting her revenge just as easily as she walked in. Rather than apparently running out now as Dorje tries to deal with this
MW: The only character in this ENTIRE Charterstone Worthiverse who has my respect and admiration is Carlos Alora. Just sayin’.
Dustin – Some enchanted evening. Consider yourself lucky – it could have been opera….
MW – Wilbie has a thumb up Belle’s ass in panel one….
Marvin – Nobody knows you when you’re down and out….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@Banana Jr. 6000: They have a closet full of VHS tapes, and a bunch of VCRs they bought for cheap at Crazy Eddie’s when the format was dying.
MW – Dawn knows what’s up. I mean, come on – surely you can’t think Belle is the first person to every try and poision her?
FC: Thel sees Jeffy’s spirit animal, a rabbit dressed as a flamboyant bandleader, hovering over the Easter candy display and thinks; “Overly dramatic and morbidly obese, that fits”
Mary Worth: My guess? Belle ends up accidentally consuming the meal she made for Dawn and dies. Or the Charterstone gang holds another “intervention” at the hospital, and she somehow drunk drives her bed off a cliff. The important thing is that evil is vanquished with very little effort from the story’s “heroes.”
@bakeryjumpscare: Oooo yes, especially when Belle makes one from a “it’s such a great substitute-vegan-version that you can’t tell which one has the soy and which one is the original!” recipe! Note: You can tell.
@Charterstoned: What about that Meagan lady who reacted to Wilbur’s catfishing by walking away from the date and making out with a waiter in plain sight?
MW: that’s Soylent Brownish Purple, isn’t it?
OK, I’m sure it’s not original to Dustin, but I like the line “Every half hour I looked at my watch and another five minutes had gone by.” Hell, I might even use that in a meeting. Except I’d say “I checked my watch every half-hour and five minutes had passed,” because it’s shorter and more natural to say. So maybe I don’t like the line in Dustin that much, but given how little praise the strip ever gets, I guess I thought I’d throw it a bone.
MW: what with all the moaning and screaming and he heing I’m surprised Dawn hasn’t found somewhere else to stay.
@Professor Well Actually: In fairness, if she stayed with Jared and Jess she’d still hear moaning and screaming, just interspersed with Star Wars references and trivia. And if she stayed with Cathy she’d constantly hear ACK.
@Victor Von:
That would totally work, the first part at least. Belle accidently eats the Clog-Be-Gone Special, dies, and *Dawnie gets accused of her murder!* The Death Meal was vegan, and she *is* the vegan in the house, after all.
“She worked really hard on a vegan meal just for you,” he said, as Belle shoved a plate of Prego and spaghetti at Dawn. “She’s an awful cook so really anything is a challenge for her.”
Mr. Allora is pretty much it for me in the Worth-o-verse. I sorta liked Zak right up until the whole Nanny named Nan and her hamburger gravy “story.” Kind of liked Iris too until that same story. Not that we’ll ever see them (or Tommy, or Brandi) again now that we’ve gone all-Wilbur-all-the-time.
@Banana Jr. 6000: #8: Just like the sun never sets on the Union Jack, the sun never sets on Gunsmoke, or Bonanza, or I Love Lucy.
RMMD: We now return to Redundant Theater, where this week we find our entire cast doing exactly the same thing they were doing last week.
JP: We now return to Spoiled Ungrateful Self-Absorbed Theater, where Sophie despises the people who gave her all this.
MW: We now return to Phony Passive-Aggressive Theater for some reason that escapes us.
Or, Dustin’s dad, you could have said, “I’m sorry, it’s not my thing but I hope you have a good time” and, I don’t know, did your taxes while Dustin’s mom went to the ballet with a friend or secret lover and enjoyed the experience without your embittered whining. Maybe, if this was your first time and you figured you’d give of the ol’ college try, you could say, “It wasn’t my thing but I’m glad you enjoyed it, dear.”
But you wouldn’t be Dustin’s dad if you didn’t angrily shit all over your wife’s nice memory of a night out enjoying the art of dance.
***
This never occurred to me before with the comics but should we be terrified that dogs are telepathic?
@Tabby Lavalamp:
Damn it! “Give IT the ol’ college try”! My kingdom for an edit button!
Phantom: “BRATCH!” I like it.
HtH: I’m trying to imagine the circumstances that led up to this but I’m not getting anywhere.
CS: NO ONE likes what you’re experiencing, Ed. No one.
MW: I think we are mere days away from yet another of Wilbur’s death-defying events. Vegan and lacking mayonnaise may be off-putting to Wilbur but I predict a quick scarf. Then somehow, someway, Wilbur will survive, Belle will be exposed yada, yada. Nevertheless I still hope for Dirk to show up, with Belle going gaga nuts over him. Shit, maybe Belle will still off Wilbur. Hey, a man can dream.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
Or M*A*S*H, which cannot be harmed by conventional weapons
MW: You know, if the creators want to ditch the narrative concept in favor of a Coyote/Roadrunner approach, with Belle trying to kill Dawn over and over again with ever-more fantastic plots until the heat death of the universe, I think I’d be fine with that.
MW: Enamored with Belle’s interest in “butt stuff,” Wilbur is fully on board with anything she wants from his bank account number to filicide.
So I decided to Google “mushroom sub recipes” and while I didn’t find what I would consider an actual mushroom sub, there was a portobello mushroom sandwich with a balsamic marinade, hummus, tomato, and arugula on whole wheat bread that looked pretty good. Of course I’m willing to bet that Dawn’s “mushroom sub” is probably just a handful of sliced white mushrooms on bread whiter than she is.
MW: The separate, *vegan meal,* appears to be spaghetti in marinara? Wow all that effort!
@Needless Exposition: Whole grain bread, actually.
Dustin: I think I figured it out: Dustmom, like everyone else in the Kudlick family, actively hates everyone else in the household, but she’s more subtle about it. Instead of the open disdain expressed by her husband, she tortures him by forcing things on him that she knows he’ll hate, like cultural experiences and vegetables. (The only problem is that Dustdad is never happy unless he’s bitching about something, so her methods are kind of counterproductive.)
MW: The problem with this set-up is that Mary is inevitably going to get involved, and then what? She can’t say “just give your dad’s new girlfriend a chance!” because that would be the wrong choice in this situation, and Mary is never allowed to be wrong. But she can’t be shown encouraging Dawn’s hostility towards a heteronormative relationship, either. I dunno, maybe she goes through Wilbur’s trash and tells him he should get Mr. Allora to fix his sink rather than going through so much drain cleaner.
@Professor Well Actually: Soylent Brownish-Purple…it’s eggplant salmon squares…dear god it’s eggplant salmon squares….
@jvwalt:
Ha haaa, you’re right! That ACME Lentil Bolognese never smells good.
@TheDiva: Uh-oh, I typed one of the trip words, apparently.
@The Witch: Or as Jethro Bodine would say, Marijuanna sauce….
@Banana Jr. 6000: for some reason Roku REALLY wants me to watch Gunsmoke. I took a peek and the video is really good… it must have been shot on film.moutnif curiosity, I checked Dragnet, which looked melted and smeared.
Pluggers: I think “Jeopardy!” “The Jeopardy Fan” forum to discuss the clues and judging errors, and then “Gunsmoke”. Does that make me a Plugger?
GA:
“Over a century old?”
“Yep. Hey, here’s something about a…flu pandemic?” koff, koff, sniffle
MW: Somewhere between the briffits and squeans Mort Walker forgot to tell Brigham and Moy to put little skulls in the waftatron of poisioned food.
H&L: “Ditto, can I run some ideas by you before I have the talk with Chip?”
Blondie: No shirt, no shoes, no…Health Inspector card.
@LTJpezcore1:#21 — Yes — I noticed that Wilbur’s expression now very much like Belle’s. Once again, me too late for an original snark.
C’shaft: And yet, you’re still friends with Crankshaft.
GT: Spanglish, like AAVE, is one of those speech patterns you don’t always think of as having grammatical or structural rules until you see an old white guy trying to replicate it.
JP: I want to Google rental prices on midtown Manhattan apartments within spitting distance of the Empire State Building, but I already know the answer is “more than two college students should be able to afford, even if one of them belongs to an absurdly privileged upper middle class family.”
Pluggers really don’t have anything going on in their lives.
RMMD: Let me guess: Overprotective Dad is going to have to come clean in order to prevent innocent Augie from going to jail, and also to prevent any drama from emerging out of this.
@astroboy: The only good characters in Mary Worth are the pets, particularly Libby and Pierre. Libby is hands down the best character in the entire comic since she’s been the only character to tell Wilbur that he can piss off…literally.
@Cleveland Mocks:
JP: We now return to Spoiled Ungrateful Self-Absorbed Theater, where Sophie despises the people who gave her all this.
Sophie and Neddy are independently wealthy. I imagine what I’d be like at that age with that kind of coin.
“Dad, Belle poisoned my vegan food!”
“And how can you distinguish between poison and vegan food? LOL, truly comedy is legal again!”
@Banana Jr. 6000: #8
“Pluggers: What TV channel is still broadcasting friggin’ Gunsmoke?”
Dude – our Comcast lineup in the ‘burbs of Chicago includes “GRIT,” a channel that screens old westerns! Call this ol’ gal a Plugger, ‘cuz I love “Gunsmoke”! YeeeHawwww!!!
Dustin: Hey, Ed. At least you got to gawk at a bunch of young, fit, scantily clad women. Helen could’ve taken you to an opera, where you’d get to watch a bunch of overweight, middle-aged frumps pretend to be mighty warriors and beautiful maidens.
@Banana Jr. 6000: ME TV, which in many markets is a broadcast sub-channel, broadcasts Gunsmoke. My parents watch it every day.
@Tabby Lavalamp: #63
“This never occurred to me before with the comics but should we be terrified that dogs are telepathic?”
I am terrified knowing that *cats* genuinely *are* telepathic. =:0
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: Just reading the other comments — apparently a lot of us are Pluggers who still have TV antenna on their roofs.
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: #88
Yesss!!! and when the Apocalypse comes, we’ll be the only ones with TV reception! :-)
@Hibbleton: @brendancalling: @Lauralot: @richardf8: @Guillermo el chiclero: @Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: Okay, okay, you’ve all made the point. I concede that my post #8 contained an incorrect assessment of the widespread availablity of Gunsmoke reruns, in Plugger-friendly formats.
@A Grave Mind: A bit of literary trivia. In Stephen King’s The Stand , it is mentioned that the Boulder survivors raided a Denver TV station for parts and tapes so they could have M*A*S*H reruns.
Only if it’s Jeopardy with Art Fleming. Otherwise you’re only a lightweight Plugger.
@Daisy: I saw a really early Gunsmoke the other day in which a very angry Matt Dillon was holding a clearly unarmed card player at gunpoint as he told him to leave town.
@Bob Tice: More like “Oooh. BLECCH!’ Amirite?
@UncleJeff: I’ve seen a Gunsmoke in which Matt and Chester shot down a gang of bandits from ambush. This gang had been robbing and killing homesteaders. This was so bad, Chester didn’t want to do it, but Matt said they had no choice, there were too many of them to take on in a fair fight.
Dustin using a coaster, but otherwise placing his beverage directly on the couch cushions, is the first time I’ve really agreed that he deserves all the abuse.
Blondie: Today’s “No Context” Panel – P3.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Pluggers: What TV channel is still broadcasting friggin’ Gunsmoke?
_______________________________________
MeTV, I believe. I see it advertised during MASH marathons.
Does the writer of Mary Worth think so far in advance to introduce Dawn’s vegan diet just to give future special villian guest star Belle an excuse to make a separate meal for her?
Does anyone understand today’s 6Chix? Is that Dr Suess-ish character and Ee some kind of meme that greatfully hasn’t reached me yet?
@richardf8: that’s exactly right, except my vhs tapes are stored in bookcases so I can easily reach them and stick one in one of the back up vhs players waiting to go. I won’t get fooled again by format change, no siree!!
(This is true).
@Hibbleton:
Sophie and Neddy are independently wealthy.
Ahh, I get it now. Sophie and Neddy actually did the Drivers a favor by letting them raise them. But the Drivers are just so damn needy, it’s driving Sophie nuts. So yeah, that tracks.
MW: What would be a real trip is after surviving the Belle story (which we know she will), Dawn eats at her favorite vegan restaurant and goes into anaphylactic shock because she didn’t know she had a major food allergy problem with lentils.
@jnoble: MW: I’ll make a prediction where this goes. Wilbur goes to eat it instead so as to not insult Belle’s generosity and she stops him before he takes a bite.
_____________________
Too bad they can’t do the bit where the fork melts from the poison, Willburp will just stick his face in the food and inhale.
@Garrison Skunk:
I have been wondering the same thing. It’s really why Thursday Chick is my favorite: I never know if I’m looking at a reference to something I am unfamiliar with or general insanity. What I do know is I’m going to get all boggle-eyed and yell “Happy Eeeeeeeeeaster” to my family on Sunday with no further explanation.
@Lauralot: I stand corrected. That was an AWESOME move.
Mushrooms on a sandwich? Or is it some funky form of vegan bread made of mushrooms? Why am I getting the feeling Dawn’s main reason for going vegan is as a form of self-harm? Obviously she could have good vegan food but she seems to consistently choose awful.
@Amelie Wikström: Her veganism seems to just be the “cut out all animal products with no supplements to make up for lost vitamins/minerals” which has been proven to be a rather dangerous diet that can lead to malnutrition.
Why does that dog specifically say that Bitsy has to go find a tree, rather than, say, another, unoccupied hydrant? Is there a rule that only parasite-free canines are allowed to urinate on hydrants? What about mangy dogs with intestinal worms, are they limited to peeing on telephone polls? Anway, nice to see Marvin diversifying from poop jokes.
Also, who wants to bet we’ll never hear about the drain cleaner again but Belle’s weapon of choice will remain this vague “poison” because somebody realized they’d have to do research if they wanted to be more specific, alternatively they did research and realized drain cleaner would kill Dawn and she’s probably only going to end up in hospital?
Dustin: Just like Hi And Lois, Dustin has decided to push in the bold new direction of not actually having any punchlines or even jokes really.
Mary Worth: Look, Belle at this point you may as well just shoot Dawn in the head or something. It’s not like Wilbur will have the intelligence to realize what happened, the dude is totally disconnected from reality.
@Voshkod: re: Dustin: I’ve always used the version that goes “I spent a month in Philadelphia last weekend.”
DT: “He wants to talk about shoes? Let me go find Lizz. Women and the shoes, amirite?”
I also need to know what kind of church this is that makes the priests dress like busboys.
Phantom: So is “BRATCH!” the name of the guy who was on the cot? I still maintain that it was a pile of dirty laundry.
MW: I look forward to the bit where Belle has rigged the piano to explode when Dawn plays a certain note, but Dawn keeps hitting the wrong key.
Dustin: Surely, Helen has friends, acquaintances, or long-distance romances who want Sara dead, who would appreciate the opera more than this asshole.
Guess the standard dog insult is not “go climb a tree”, it’s ” go pee a tree”. Who said “Marvin” wasn’t educational?
Dustin – DustinMom looks like she’s dressed in Leprachaun-core with the green jacket and gold belt buckle. She should have made date night Riverdance.
Mary Worth – Dawn has a good disdainful look, but her lack of sardonic humor (or any humor) makes her more diarrhea than Daria.
Marvin – In the Marvinverse being exiled from the source of piss and shit jokes is like being deported to El Salvador.
@vhs enthusiast:
I know what you mean. You should see my laserdisc collection.
@jvwalt: re: MW: “if the creators want to ditch the narrative concept in favor of a Coyote/Roadrunner approach, with Belle trying to kill Dawn over and over again”
I would be totally into Belle on rocket shoes.
@Amelie Wikström: Mushrooms on a sandwich?
____________________
Dawn found them in Belle’s bags. “I’m tripping with the Westons!” Wilburp and Dawn singing ” Time to Change” will certainly drive Belle out of the condo once and for all.
Dustin-“I tried slipping the dancers a dollar and they kept kicking me in the face.”
Blondie: These wrestlers look like cleaned-up versions of the type of mugs who would try to moidalize Popeye in a Segar-era Thimble Theatre.
@White Rabbit:
I know what you mean. You should see my laserdisc collection.
A year or so ago I was in Wal-Mart (Plugger Heaven) and asked one of the clerks if they had any music CDs. She said, “Those are obsolete.” I said, “So am I, but I’m still around.”
@Cleveland Mocks: @Cleveland Mocks: I got laughed at by Best Buy blueshirts when I asked about buying a CD player.
@White Rabbit: That sounds like the Harvey Kurtzmann/Jack Davis parody for Mad Magazine of “High Noon” (“HAH. Noon!)
The gang of outlaws is walking down the street backwards because they know the Marshall will never shoot them in the back.
RAT-A-TAT-TAT.
Picture of the Marshall atop a tank with its barrel smoking.
“Fun is fun and I know its not in the romantic Western Spirit but I gotta quit kidding around.
If the local police can’t handle it, I call out the National Guard.”
Wilbur’s going to eat it, and it’s going to be terrible on first principles, on top of being poisoned. At I was entertaining notions that the writer of Mary Worth might kill off a character for the sake of drama, but then I remembered all the times they’ve hinted that Wilbur was dead only to have him barge in and request a sandwich. Well, it’s another entry for his “I Should Be Dead!” column, at least.
@White Rabbit: That is actually an impressive collection, if true. You can’t get Laserdiscs at the Goodwill for 3/$1 like you can VHS.
DT: Oh, that’s right, there was a huge mystery as to why John Doe didn’t have shoes. I’d forgotten because it hadn’t been mentioned for so long. I think the last time it was mentioned, I was vaguely bemused that nobody considered the possibility that the shoes might have been taken by a homeless person, but thankfully, our heroes are now going to have this explained directly to them by the homeless person in question, who was brought to the station by someone else. Detective work!
MW: If this is going for black-comedy farce, the coincidences and accidents that somehow keep foiling Belle in her ongoing attempts to feed Dawn drain cleaner need to be a lot more over-the-top. If it’s not, then what the heck is it supposed to be doing?
@Amelie Wikström: Mushrooms on a sandwich?
I think it’s fallen out of favour with the plethora of fake meats you get these days, but I recall when the MLT (mushroom, lettuce and tomato) was the standard veggie counterpart to the BLT. As a vegetarian who strongly dislikes mushrooms, I’m glad those days are over.
@Ukulele Ike: I also need to know what kind of church this is that makes the priests dress like busboys.
The first time this guy appeared he was serving dinner in the homeless shelter, which kind of made sense, and then I guess Statton never got round to changing the outfit. It kind of looks like a Nehru jacket, which along with the priest’s Generically Ethnic appearance had me wondering at one point if perhaps this wasn’t a Christian church at all, but the confessionals and so on put paid to that theory.
@Horace Broon: #126:
Some Catholic missionary orders issue white cassocks and habits for use in tropical climates. That doesn’t explain Neo-Chicago though.
@Ukulele Ike: it’s more like Moy is trying a Threes Company-style “wacky misunderstanding” plot. But she forgot the wackiness, and anything that could be misunderstood.
@brendancalling:
There’s another channel that airs the same kind of programs. The target audience is the same. Cozi TV. Game show reruns, shows from the 60s thru 80s.
RMMD: will Narration Box get called as a witness in the upcoming trial?
I’m looking forward to the bit where Belle tries to throw an Acme anvil over a cliff onto Dawn’s head, but the Roadrunner ties it to her ankle, and it pulls Belle over the cliff, leaving a Belle-shaped hole in the ground.
Dirk Twacy Holistic Defective: There’s no business like shoe business like no business I know.-“Tracy Get Your Gun”
@Nobody: #129: Antenna TV (Channel 39.2 in Houston) airs Johnny Carson era Tonight Show reruns. I had to quit watching because it seems every week they run the one with Cathy (Ack!) Guisewhite riding in on her high horse ego trip.
MW: How about the one with the giant Acme catapult? I’d like to see Belle paint a fake tunnel entrance on the side of a cliff which Dawn safely drives through. Belle, in hot pursuit, goes splat against the cliff side.
MW: Don’t think Bats is deliberately trying to poison Dawn this time. It looks like she just shat on a plate of spaghetti, just for giggles.
Dustin: “You like that one, son? This little fellow named Leroy told it to me.”
MW: Obviously Wilbur will try to guilt Dawn into eating the dish because Belle worked so hard to make it, i.e. boiled a cup of Prince spaghetti and dumped some lukewarm Ragu on top of it.
Is Belle’s kink pretending she’s in old commercials? “Try it, you’ll like it” was an Alka Seltzer™ad. When will she move on to StarKist™? ” Sorry, Dawnie, MegaCorp wants idiots that taste good,not idiots with good taste”
@Artist formerly known as Ben: MW: Obviously Wilbur will try to guilt Dawn into eating the dish because Belle worked so hard to make it, i.e. boiled a cup of Prince spaghetti and dumped some lukewarm Ragu on top of it
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Awww, poor Antony! He knows today is Price Spaghetti Day!
MW: Belle: Worst facelift ever.
JP: It’s not that I’m crazy about Sophie, but I read JP right after I read LUANN, and that definitely makes Sophie look better.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Cathy (Ack!) Guisewhite riding in on her high horse ego trip.
___________________
Awwww! I missed Mel Mare’s Tonight Show appearence? I like how she hoof kicks Ed Mcmahon for that Clydesdale joke.
Between Friends – The jealous daughter is nearly thirty years old. This is even worse than Dawn.
Pluggers – We can get Gunsmoke on MeTV on cable, but it’s on during the day, not in the evening. I can’t imagine a plugger knowing how to DVR it.
No, he won’t be watching Gunsmoke after dinner. If a baseball or hockey game is on, he’ll watch that. If no game, he’ll scroll through the onscreen guide for at least fifteen minutes, flip to a few shows for a couple of seconds, and then end up watching the show about the swamp people who hunt alligators. Sheila will feel her brain cells die.
Rex Morgan – What’s going on? If Baldy McStrangler thinks anything is going on, he’s in the wrong comic strip. Nothing is ever going on in RMMD.
9CL – Same shit, different ages, different day. Brooke needs to give it a rest and come up with something new that hasn’t been beaten into the ground.
@Philip: Daria was at least intelligent and relatable even when she had her unlikeable moments. I didn’t feel the slightest bit of pity when Dawn said that she was rejected by her mother because not only was it a bad excuse of telling rather than showing, it was clearly a way to stroke Wilbur’s bloated ego and make him the “good parent.”
@Anonyminimouse: If she shat on that spaghetti, she needs a gastroenterologist yesterday. No healthy stool should look like something you insulate your walls with. It would explain her jealousy of Dawn if her youthful colon was like a Slip and Slide rather than the chum bucket next to the shark tank.
9CL: Before Amos commits to never dying perhaps he should head to the school library and read up on the myth of Tithonus. After all, we’ve already seen what he looks like in middle age.
C-Shaft: Good to know that Ralph is no longer making the same mistakes, like running for Mayor and hiring Crankshaft as his campaign manager.
DT: “Specifically about Dr. Scholl’s inserts. He says they changed his life.”
JP: Is it really true that the Spencer-Drivers won’t be seated within 15 minutes? They’re certainly big wheels by Upstate standards but maybe in Manhattan it’s different.
RMMD: It’s his first time killing someone and hanging around in Glenhaven, so he’s got something to learn about the local customs. If you really want to blend in you have to cover yourself in Woad. A lot of Welsh people came over to work in the mills.
Ziggy: Ziggy tries for the informal touch by dropping G’s from his gerunds but botches it by being inconsistent. He needs to be sent to Hootin’ Holler for elocution lessons.
A year or so ago I saw a Gunsmoke episode from 1956 or ’57 which featured Cloris Leachman. She was young, and it must have been one of her first acting jobs. She was very good, and it was a memorable episode.
@Guillermo el chiclero: I’ve seen that one a few times, and you are absolutely right about it. She comes across as a ninny with an inflated sense of self importance. She begins by speaking for all women about clothing, then she lectures Johnny Carson. ACK!
@I speak Jive: I saw a few Gunsmoke episodes a few weeks ago.
One episode, a man’s wife was dying and told him on her deathbed that their two young sons were not his, but that she had a fling with a violent outlaw at some point. The man declared that his kids had “bad blood” and would grow up to be evil gun toting outlaws, so in turn he became horribly abusive towards them, which even continued after the kids grew up. Not going to spoil the ending (which was pretty sad) but man… that was very deep and engaging TV.
9CL: It’s part of (god help us) “9CL Canon” that Amos had a grade school crush on Mary Rosenzweig, or “rose branch.” One wonders what a little Jewish girl is doing in a Catholic school.
Maybe her Dad is Jewish and married a Catholic, as in the case of late underground comix artist Justin Green, famous for the 1972 graphic novel Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary. (Bink’s Dad would sprout horns and a Star of David on his forehead at inopportune moments.)
@I speak Jive: Leachman’s first screen role was the small part of a woman who is t0rtured to death in the 1955 noir Kiss Me Deadly, based on the Mickey Spillane novel and starring Ralph Meeker as Mike Hammer.
The “atomic box” in the film was ripped off in 1994’s Pulp Fiction, because any good ideas Tarantino has have been stolen from earlier movies.
Kiss Me Deadly, though, is amazeballs good. Go stream it now!
@Guillermo el chiclero: Yep. The bottom line is that there’s plenty of places that will or do air Gunsmoke and related programs to answer the other person’s query.
@I speak Jive: The earliest thing I’ve seen Leachman in is Kiss Me Deadly, where she’s good but killed off very early (EDIT: I see UE has already been here.). The Twilight Zone episode with the kid wishing folks into the cornfield is a great early showcase for her.
@Ukulele Ike: Mary’s parents might just think it’s a high-quality school, although you’d think that Amos and Edda being students there would disabuse them of that notion.
@richardf8: The prices are INSAAAAANE! If you’re of a certain age and geographical US location you know who Crazy Eddie is and it’s not the dude who made those crazy ads. Thanks for the memory jog.
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: That is actually an impressive collection, if true. You can’t get Laserdiscs at the Goodwill for 3/$1 like you can VHS.
I have 201 laserdiscs, registered with the Laserdisc Database (lddb.com) and yes, it’s a real thing. I have three players, but lddb just started an equipment list, and I haven’t entered them yet. There used to be a shop here that rented discs. He sold out and that’s where I got my second set of the original three Star Wars movies, with the later revisions. I know a Trekkie who has TOS, the original series, on laser, two episodes per disc. The disc is an analog medium, with better picture and sound than VHS, and no copy protection. S-VHS was competitive, though. DVD and Blu-Ray are much better, especially 4K, and you can get players, but there’s not very much choice. My 4K copy of The Searchers is like watching a new movie.
@richardf8: They prices are IN$AAAANE! If you’re of a certain age and geographical location you know that store and ads. It wasn’t the dude who made the commercials either. Thanks for the childhood memory jog.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: “Mary’s parents might just think it’s a high-quality school…”
The aforementioned Justin Green started out at a parochial school and later transferred to a Chicago public school where most of the students were Jewish. To quote Binky Brown, “Jewish kids were smart. They could think and make cogent arguments, instead of repeating dogma back at the nuns.”
@richardf8: Eddie Cohen got in a lot of tax trouble and held himself up in Israel for a while trying to avoid legal ramifications. There’s a cool documentary about him.
@richardf8: There’s a good documentary about Eddie Cohen and his escape to Is real to avoid legal issues
@Guillermo el chiclero: @Guillermo el chiclero:
Opera singers: most women are large because they need to belt out songs in so many ranges. However, if you want to see a real babe who can belt out a song check YouTube for a number by Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli where they sing “time to say goodbye”.
@The Rambling Otter: Is Quiznos or Blimpie still a thing?
@The Rambling Otter: Is Quiznos or Blimpie still a thing?
6CHX:. The kid’s right. If two vowels are together in a syllable, usually the first vowel is long and the second silent.
TG:. Friends don’t let friends text drunk.
FG:. Dale knows not to be distracted by flattery. She’s had it up to her knees.
@UncleJeff:
CD player: I bought a CD player on Amazon, which is really a DVR and it was a piece of cheap junk plastic. They go for about $40. Recently I decided to add to my vintage Stereo (!) setup and I went to Facebook’s Marketplace and found two local people selling vintage a DVR/CD players, one by Panasonic for $25 and a beautiful Sony DVR/CD player for $10. They both work great.
@Ukulele Ike: DT: Jules was into shoes.
MARVIN: I deeply don’t care if the obnoxious titular character of this strip has severe diaper rash all the way up to his underarms and all the way down to his ankles. I have nothing against the dog, however (possibly because I don’t follow the strip), so I would like to point out that it has never been easier to prevent flea infestations, and there are a number of options available. Also, a dog with fleas that spends time indoors is highly likely to share those fleas with the dog’s beloved humans (have heard stories over the years). Also, fleas can cause serious health problems in dogs. So, in case there weren’t reason enough to dislike Marvin’s parents, today’s strip is another.
MT: It must be helpful to the Trail clan that the Grungey Boys apparently have the IQs of concrete pavers. Otherwise, the boys would probably have spotted that in-the-open trail camera. There is a lot of information online about how to hide trail cameras, including videos with titles like “Hide Your Trail Cameras From Deer And Idiots.” So it’s nice that the endemic dimwittedness in the LoFo area is so strong that precautions aren’t needed.
@Nobody: I never heard of blimple but I believe that Quiznos is still around. Personally I like “Firehouse Subs” but they are quite expensive.
@brendancalling: I agree, I also watch Pluto TV for classic Judge Judy I just wish they’d add more episodes, sick of repeating the same two seasons over and over again.
@Banana Jr. 6000: I was going to say, PlutoTV is a free service, so it makes sense that pluggers would be drawn to it.
But then I realized… that Pluggers would never “stream” anything that doesn’t involve an actual stream and a fishing pole. They would sooner just dig out old VHS tapes and watch on their big CRT television.
@Nobody: Although some shows such as… The sitcom “Empty Nest” isn’t on any streaming sites, not in reruns anywhere and as far as I know, was never on DVD.
Kind of sad, being a spin-off of The Golden Girls, the two shows would crossover sometimes.
@I speak Jive: #145:
@Ukulele Ike: #148:
@Artist formerly known as Ben: #150:
Leachman was also one of the earlier Lassie moms before June Lockhart.
@Ukulele Ike:
9CL: “One wonders what a little Jewish girl is doing in a Catholic school.”
Neither are Amos or Edda, which also is “canon”.
@Unca Bob: Woman opera singers who specialize in Wagner needed to be large because of the strength and vocal power associated with the roles.
I’ve seen Richard Strauss’s Salome twice in New York (and just bought a ticket for the Met’s new production in May).
The title character is barely offstage for the 90 minute duration of the piece, but each time I’ve been the lead soprano has been young/svelte/talented enough to perform the Dance of the Seven Veils herself.
@Anonymous: Explain.
@taig: MW: I look forward to the bit where Belle has rigged the piano to explode when Dawn plays a certain note, but Dawn keeps hitting the wrong key.
“Be-ee-lieve Me If All Those Endearing Old Quirks…”
@Ukulele Ike: TCM showed at least one Mike Hammer film within the past week, but I didn’t watch it. I don’t remember if that was the film they showed.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: I’ve seen the Twilight Zone episode several times, and it’s a good one.
@Guillermo el chiclero: I also knew that she was Lassie mom. I also saw her in an episode of Perry Mason.
She had amazing range as an actress. And I know that everyone remembers her as Frau Blucher! (*Whinny*)
@Artist formerly known as Ben: When that Twilight Zone episode was remade for the “movie” Nancy Cartwright played the sister(?) who the kid traps inside a cartoon on TV.
I recall an infamous line by Dan Castellaneta saying “Nancy Cartwright ends up trapped in a cartoon for all eternity. Just like in real life.”
@I speak Jive: #171: She also competed in the 1946 Miss America pageant, finishing in the top 16.