Dagwood’s “waiter routine” involves delivering one (1) cup of coffee
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Family Circus, 5/11/25
My favorite part of this strip about a husband taking exactly one day to help with the domestic labor his wife does all year is how, in Thel’s fantasy, Big Daddy Keane is perusing an 8 1/2 by 11 piece of paper with “PIZZA TO GO” written on it and smiling warmly. “Pizza? To go? Restaurant food, available to take back to my own home? I guess I was wrong when I said that these Italians had nothing to contribute to American culture.”
Blondie, 5/11/25
My least favorite part of this strip about a husband taking exactly one day to help with the domestic labor their wife does all year telling his wife she can put off her typical domestic labor until tomorrow is how the Activity Police officer has a gun on his belt. That undone laundry basket is going to get done, and we can do it the easy way, or the hard way.
137 replies to “Dagwood’s “waiter routine” involves delivering one (1) cup of coffee”
FC: Bil took the kids to a vampire playground by mistake.
Or maybe on purpose.
Blondie-Oooh! Dagwood got Blondie a stripper.
RMMD-Join us Monday as the next story arc walks into the clinic.
MW-Wilbur is in deep alright. Mary better have better oral skills than Belle.
FC-Mommy wants to spend time with a special lady friend.
Family Circus: I think the lesson in this panel is that Mommy is really quite a slob when she’s alone. And we’ve been blaming the kids for making messes all this time! If the rest of the family stays away too long, they might come back to a “Hoarders” episode.
Blondie: So Blondie’s breakfast in bed consists of a single cup of black coffee? It may be Mother’s Day, but Dagwood knows there’s only one way to keep his wife, a person of normal metabolism, at her current level of hotness!
Hi and Lois: Meanwhile, Lois does get breakfast in bed, and I guess we’re supposed to think it’s sweet when she shames Hi for not bringing enough for all four kids and the dog? I guess that’s why he tries to spend most holidays “golfing” (drinking) with Thirsty.
FC: Anyone else find it confusing that everything in the playground is labeled, as if it were a bad political cartoon? That’s right, Washington fat cats: while you’re in Congress putting taxes on eggs or whatever, real Americans are out there celebrating mothers by having BARRELS OF FUN like the LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD, and also an OLD TURTLE…which, er, is Mitch McConnel still in the senate? Probably something about him…
Blondie: I like how Dagwood immediately gets back into bed after doing his one thing for his wife on mother’s day. I mean, it was assumed that he wouldn’t be doing the laundry, but he wasn’t to make it crystal clear.
My top hit for “Three things cannot be hidden” is a website called “fakebuddhaquotes” so let’s see how this week’s Mary Worth Quotevestigation will go.
…huh, mostly confirmed (“not particularly accurate paraphrase”).
Blondie: The officer is carrying a broom because he revoked some mom’s driving privileges? Better to leave mother-in-law jokes to the Lockhorns.
Today’s strips show the duality of Comic Strip Time: I am torn between pointing out that Thel should be listening to a phone, not a boombox, and observing that having Dagwood say “chillax” should be punishable by death.
MW – All the talk about Electra complexes and incest are belied by Dawn’s belief that Wilbur can get in “deep” with anyone.
I was going to be like “Thel is a good ten years younger than me” but no. Billy, her oldest child, is seven years old and the real Thel Keane had her first child at age twenty-four. Thel is thirty-one years old and was born in 1994. How is this legal.
FC: Bil laments, the playground just isn’t the same since The Counsel put in a daybreak curfew.
Next Sunday’s Mary Worth.
FC – I get that “Old Turtle” is Boss Tweed, but I’m pretty sure the merry-go-round in the center was supposed to be labeled “Teapot Dome.” Whoever’s in charge of maintaining the Thomas Nast Playground is falling down on the job.
Don Abundio, translated:
“There’s not a thing wrong with you”
“I know, doctor”
“Did you see the nurses I hired?”
“They’re fashion models in nurse costumes”
“So can you help me keep this fantasy going?”
MW: Mary is exhibiting the kind of arrogance that gets friends killed. Dawn FINALLY tells her what the actual problem is – she (correctly) thinks Dawn is trying to kill her – and Mary’s response is “oh, let me talk to Wilbur! I can talk him out of thinking with his dick! You just go right back to that house you’re scared to be in, and don’t let that obvious psycho killer push your out of ‘your own’ house!” Meddle fail.
Pluggers: To be fair, mom was probably right.
FC: The last playground rule being “Go home at dawn” is such a great little joke that I’m going to pretend it’s intentional and Jeff Keane didn’t just mix up “dawn” and “dusk”.
Blondie: So Sgt. Workhouse dislocated his hip and is using a broom as a crutch?
FC –Is a history of playground equipment. From the foreground with the most modern examples moving back to swingsets and rings and metal jungle gyms, all the way to backyard playground creations, like the stairs into the tree, which would make any city attorney wake up in a cold sweat over.
RMMD: is that it? That can’t be it. Surely Kelly and what’s his name, who looks to be at least 45, are roots country fans and will be attending the same concert as Niki and Carla.
The less I know about what goes on in the “Barrel of Fun,” the better I’ll feel.
Blondie, 5/11/25: Are those doughnuts on Dagwood’s pajamas?
Big Papa Keane has not yet given Thel the Mother Day gift she most longs for: a vasectomy
Baldo: Dead Mom for Mothers’ Day. I still don’t believe Sergio could trick such an attractive woman into marriage. Maybe it was an “arranged wedding” in the Old Country, and his parents traded a donkey, two chickens, and a sack of beans?
* I’m NOT A RACIST! If this was a strip about second generation Hungarian immigrants, I would have made the same joke, but with a sack of potatoes.
* I am racist about Hungarians.
mary worth- last panel mary thinks i never knew these plastic flowers smelled so good
Instead of a full breakfast for Mother’s Day, Dagwood brings Blondie a cup of coffee while encouraging her to stay in bed. So I’m guessing he’s just trying to get her awake enough to have sex.
JP: “Just please, uh, don’t be so self-centered that you forget the time zone difference, OK?”
@Banana Jr. 6000: Oops, I meant “Belle is trying to kill her.” I really need to sign up for editable posts.
FC: Uh-oh, Big Daddy took the kids to the all-night playground after-hours. Thel’s peace and quiet will be soon interrupted by having to go down to the station and bail him out.
Blondie: Dag hopped back into bed because he’s got another gift he wants to give her.
RMMD: Niki clocks out and leaves that car up on that single-post lift all night. The next morning, the body is so warped the doors won’t open.
@Professor Well Actually: Yep, I have no doubt this is it. Could this whole bad date/stalker storyline have just been an excuse to get Kelly back in town so she and Niki could be written out of the strip, never to be seen again?
The lazy reuse of character design for Kelly’s new beau, combining elements of Buck’s son, his poofy-haired friend and even Augie Doggy Daddy points to the answer being ‘Yes’. I mean, look at that big-chinned, po-faced ‘I suppose!’ look in the throwaway panels. All that’s missing is a cell phone and the camera aimed just a little bit lower.
FC: Thel is doing it right; I never understood why spending MORE time with the kids was a Mother’s Day treat. But she’d better polish off those chocolates in a hurry. Dad can’t handle it for very long.
MW: Wilbur is “reasonable?” Mary has to be begged to meddle? What is happening?
RMMD: Love how Travis effortlessly age- morphs from fifty to nineteen. It’s a talent. Hopefully not his major, but still a talent.
FG: So, future-timeline-extracted Flash it is. Wonder if the rules of the Gordonverse include that if the heroes do something to avert the grim future Azura pulled him from, he’ll fade from existence?
RMMD: I know it’s supposed to be a humourous juxtaposition of the two twats being equally dumb about breaking things off, but really it just looks like the last two non-Amish adults who couldn’t handle “keeping in touch” with technology beyond a letter or postcard have now been infecting others of their generation since neither Travis nor Darla seem to think it’s odd that Kelly and Nikki weren’t communicating with the person they were supposedly “waiting for”
@Banana Jr. 6000: MW: The trouble is that Dawn isn’t actually telling Mary what’s wrong. She may (correctly) feel her life is endangered but she’s only told Mary about “vibes”. Dawn needs to explain the pressure to eat “specially prepared” food, the wild knife use and so on.
MW: “Well, Dawn, if he’s in deep, then I better wait until he pulls out! Hi-yooooooo! Come on, that’s funny! Look, I’m just trying to lighten the mood here. Loosen up, Dawn!”
SFx: What even Slylock cannot figure out is why Reeky Rat suddenly gives a damn about the appearance of his crappy trailer.
FC: My favorite detail is that this is the one day each year when Thel breaks out the boombox and plays her Michael Bublé at a moderate volume.
Blondie: “You deserve a whole day off to just chillax!” shouted Dagwood, raising his arms in the air exultantly like someone who had just found Jesus at a tent revival.
@Baja Gaijin: Yay!!!
DT: Monday: NEW ADVENTURE!!!
The symbolism of the “broken vessel” goes back a long way in art history. Everyone in that getaway car just lost their virginity.
Ripley: They all got dressed up in fox costumes to “care for an orphaned kitten that found its way to them.” Yeah, sure. The orgy begins in fifteen minutes.
Mara Llave: Keeper of Time Scorecard: Number of new strips since “reboot” two months ago: 2. Vintage of current strip: 3 weeks.
@Banana Jr. 6000: I like your scenario of Dawn having Dissociative Identity Disorder, where she eventually kills herself in the belief she’s doing Belle in.
FC: Thankfully, Billy caught the alien ship that’s been pestering Alice all these years.
Blondie: I’m honestly surprised neither of them have 1st-degree burns based on how they each hold that mug.
@Baja Gaijin:
Next Sunday’s Mary Worth.
Hey, there it is! Thank you. We’ve missed these!
MW: Later, when Mary talks to Wilbur, “Have you given any thought to getting your daughter committed?”
Dustin: We’re going to find out Ed accidentally livestreamed this whole thing.
Luann: Gravity doesn’t work that w… You know what, you do you, Tara. It’s telling that
the EvansesLuann and Tara can’t think of a single modern hero, but not in the way they hope it comes across.CS: Evidently Lil hasn’t yet gotten to the pattern for “Don’t ruin your sister’s life.”
9CL: Well, they’re in silhouette, so it’s difficult to tell which interchangeable couple this is. I’m kidding! It’s Amos and Edda, because only Amos uses the word “poitrine.”
There’s something uncanny about the playground in the Family Circus. It’s vast and unfenced, with no benches. There’s a tree with a makeshift ladder far in the distance. The equipment is placed too closely in places and arranged oddly. Soon the family will find themselves wandering endlessly through a tangled jumble of playground equipment, unable to find their way back.
“Go home at dawn,” the rules tell them. Only at the first light of day will the path to the parking lot open, their one and final chance to escape. If only they had read them. Thiel knows they won’t. She knows.
Blondie: I make the coffee in our house, and on Saturdays and Sundays deliver it to my wife, often with a silly little song:
Even I am a more supportive husband than Dagwood, is what I’m saying, other than I’m a fan of beer the same way he likes pastrami.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Song is © I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV. All rights reserved, please do not upload to Tik Tok.
@Pozzo: Hmmm. The “barrel of fun” appears to be a hollow empty tube. How apropos, Thel thinks as she reaches for the batteries to give herself a Mothers Day gift: some actual satisfaction for once.
Family Circus: The best part about this vignette is Thel’s thought bubble, or rather its trail down to her head. Like all great villains, the Mother eats the hearts of her victims slowly, one by one, savoring the cruelty, starting with the smallest and working her way up to largest and most aware of the horror that unfolds.
MW: Apparently all the time spent offscreen making “vegan food” and doing all of Wilbur’s work for him has atrophied Mary’s brain into thinking that she can override his raging middle aged libido when both Dawn and Wilbur have been proven to do idiotic things in the name of their sex drive. The sexiest thing Mary has done in the past century is flash an ankle to Dr. Jeff while he was distracted by the hunky Coast Guard.
Uh, Thel? I know your kids are never going to grow up but you are definitely too old for that teddy bear.
Blondie: Sergeant Workhorse looks like a fugitive from another comic strip. The art’s not bad, per se, the details on the uniform really pop, even if I think he might have his legs on backwards. No, it’s the face. It’s like something out of The Flintstones, if Fred and Barney suddenly lost their necks and grew functional chins.
Family Circus: I wasn’t sure FC was post-apocalyptic until I saw this pristine, abandoned playground on Mother’s Day.
@The Quiet Man: That seemed wholly unnecessary since they already had a plausible reason for doing so by graduating them from high school. I mean Kelly’s only relevance here was as Sarah’s babysitter (and mafia-princess-in-the-making during the strip’s fun, interesting years), but now that Sarah appears to be
50 years olda tween herself, capable of babysitting on her own, there was no place for Kelly or her dopey boyfriend. Especially since we needed to make room for all the new intriguing characters like….whatshisname…Bad Hairdo #25.FC – Little engine run out’a track, should’a given up the ghost years ago….
Blondie – Good boobs – phoned in gag….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@Cleveland Mocks:
Reeky finally convinced Wanda Weasel to drop by and he wants to spruce the place up a bit.
The funny thing about Josh’s attempt at a topic theme is that none of these people help with the domestic labor, even for one day. All Papa Keane does is “babysit” (you know that’s how he’d describe it!) his melon-headed brats, while Dagwood’s “waiter routine” is just him serving his wife a single cup of coffee.
@Baja Gaijin: Didn’t Neptune already reject him twice? Is the third time the charm?
Blondie: I didn’t expect Blondie of all strips to give a reasonably accurate depiction of how women are socially conditioned to not only take on the majority of domestic labor but to feel ashamed when they attend to their own needs at all, let alone put them before anyone else’s, yet here we are.
FC: Thel has the right idea. None of this going out to eat for Mother’s Day in an overcrowded restaurant with all the people doing their one nice thing a year for their female parent; a casual delivery pizza at home is where it’s at.
“No Shrieking.” What do you think is going to happen when a kid falls off the seesaw and hits their head on that train? The layout of this playground only makes sense if it was designed by the cousin of a personal injury lawyer whose going to get a kickback from all the dough that’s going to be raked in.
***
Blondie also has a job outside of the house, which makes it weird that Dagwood is inventing the “activity police” instead of saying, “Don’t worry, I’ll do it.” And by “weird”, I mean research suggests he’s very normal husband.
FC: And what about HTT Grandma Keane? What does SHE get for Mother’s Day? While her faithless son deals with his idiot children and that trollop Thel rests on her lazy behind, she can only sit by her landline phone and wait. Listening for the call that won’t come until it’s “too late” for them to come over or take her out for a meal.
MW – There is no way that Belle will respond to Mary’s meddling with anything less than than attempted murder. Finally, a relatable character in this strip!
FC: You can tell this a Playground of the Damned by looking at the slide. There is pristine grass growing at the bottom of the slide, when every slide that gets any use will have a giant mud puddle at the bottom.
And that old turtle might not be a fake one made of fiberglass, it could be a real live turtle that just likes standing there. At least it is in my mind.
Hey Billy, your hat is on backwards! Or is it your head? In any case, your torso is twisted 90 degrees out of kilter.
C’shaft: Well, that’s an absurdly generalized and unhelpful piece of advice. “Don’t download unsolicited and unrecognized files”? Sure, that’s basic common sense in this day and age. “Don’t pirate media”? Kind of a corporate PSA, but I can see the angle. But “Don’t download from the Internet”? You don’t know how any of this works and that scares you, doesn’t it? (Also, those are the ugliest, most boring cross-stitches I’ve ever seen in my life. No ornamentation or borders, no half-stitches or outlining to round out the curves, just blocky uneven letters rendered in DMC 310. This is what Lilian has been working on for “a long time”?)
DT: Dammit, all that trouble and the suspects went and got themselves killed before Dick could shoot anybody.
Dustin: So, is there a specific age when childish behavior goes from “sign that you and your entire generation is lazy and degenerate” to “endearing sense of play maintained well into adulthood” or is this just more of the strip’s generalized hypocrisy?
MW: Dawn talking to Wilbur did absolutely nothing, but Mary talking to Wilbur will absolutely do the trick because…ummm…because it’s Mary doing it, that’s why!
Pretty dark for a Sunday Luann. “All your heroes are dead, if they even existed to begin with.”
MW: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this would be SO much better of presented as a “Murder, She Wrote” mystery.
MW, part 2: Today’s episode is best read aloud as if you’re acting in an old John Waters movie. “Oh Mary, she perform acts with Wilbur… in my cha cha shoes!”
@Baja Gaijin: youre back!! My girlfriend will be so happy!!! And so am I!
@Guts Dozier: Well, somebody better get killed because Belle is starting to be all bark and no bite despite having several potential victims she can kill in a variety of unique ways. She’s turning into the biggest disappointment villain.
@TheDiva:
On Crankshaft : Well, I can think of two other interpretations :
*It means “Buy physical copies, not digital ones”. You know, a predictable sentiment from an artist whose TWO comic strips have depicted people throwing away all their old comics only to purchase them all again in Omnibus form multiple times.
*Batiuk is only bringing attention to the plight of a veteran, and is telling his audience to help him.
(“STOP ALL THE DOWNLOADIN’!… help computer.”)9CL: A strip where the dweeby guy talks in pretentious platitudes over multiple panels to how attractive the woman is and the last panel is them making out? This is new.
**sarcasm meter starts smoking**
It’s not that Blondie is guilty about not doing the chores. It’s that she really, really, wants to avoid sex with Dagwood.
Rex Morgan – Both the stalker murder story and the Kelly dumps Nikki story fizzled out in record time. It looks like the next story could be about a patient with a medical issue. Or maybe it will be Michelle and Jordan Like the Country, since we haven’t heard from them for a while. Whatever it is, I give it a week before boredom sets in.
Mary Worth – When Mary goes to talk to Wilbur, I hope that Belle is sitting on the floor with her knife like Karen Black at the end of the devil doll episode of Trilogy of Terror.
Wilbur, of course, will be oblivious and will be grinning like an idiot.
@Baja Gaijin: Yes!
@Anonymous: Yes. He’s worn those pajamas before.
@taig: Re Crankshaft – You made my day.
@brendancalling: Mary Worth should be retitled Meddle, She Wrote.
@Peanut Gallery:
¡Al ataque, enfermeras sexuales robot! ¡¡¡AL ATAQUE!!!
No shrieking. Go home at dawn. Nice.
@TheDiva: To be fair, Dawn can’t communicate with her dad except to tell him that they should sing karaoke because his brain only reacts to anything that can stroke his ego or his Little Wilbie. She tried to tell him about her domestic abuse experience and both of them downplayed it as “you don’t have to remember anything that you find unpleasant.” Because obviously you can erase the trauma of abuse with some gaslighting and denial.
Armed enforcement of gendered household division of labor seems too conceivable as something that could actually happen these days for it to be all that funny.
@Baja Gaijin: “Glompf” Don Martin approves.
@TheDiva: re: Dustin. Nah, guys just like trucks. I’ll bet he makes the “ding ding” sound when he pushes it backwards.
@I speak Jive: I’m glad I could make your day. I definitely thought of you when I typed my comment.
@CanuckDownSouth: Agreed. But I think Dawn said enough, even if she didn’t use those exact words. Dawn’s tone, and the overall context, should be enough to tell Mary “hey, I think I may be in serious danger here.” Especially considering Mary is supposed to be some kind of all-knowing empath. We’re well past the point where talking to Wilbur will do any good, assuming any such time ever existed.
@taig: It was a total mistake, but honestly, yeah, I kind of like it too. I hereby assign myself one internet point for accidentally writing a better plot twist than Karen Moy could.
@Needless Exposition: Prepare to be disappointed even further.
@Ukulele Ike:Pretty sure Mama, Papi, and Tia were all born in the US, and the grandparents’ generation were the arrivals. That would make Sergio’s generation the one that learned English while maintaining just enough Spanish to conduct basic family transactions with the parents, used their broken Spanish as a grownup lingua franca to keep secrets from the kids and then berated their kids, for not knowing any Spanish they didn’t learn from Dora the Explorer and Sesame Street.
As for how Sergio rates, well, absolutely every guy who is coupled off in this strip is batting above his class. Even the immunocompromised chick is waaaaay hotter than her boyfriend rates.
CS: Not to cross-post, but I posted a poll on Son of Stuck Funky asking what today’s Crankshaft is trying to say. The poll choices, and other theories proposed so far:
1. “Don’t download my copyrighted intellectual property”, a la Gary Larson or 90s Metallica.
2. “The internet is bad and you shouldn’t use it for any reason”, but Tom Batiuk doesn’t know what “download” actually means.
3. “Take proper cybersecurity precautions”, but Tom Batiuk doesn’t know what those actually are. (I put @TheDiva‘s “don’t download unsolicited files” in this category.)
4. “Buy physical books instead of eBooks”. Which is a position Lillian would hold. She is as a brick-and-mortar bookstore owner, writer of books that are presumably not in eBook form, and resident of a place where physical book signings are central to the economic and social structure.
5. “Do something more productive than downloading,” as per @Anonymous.
6. “Download from somewhere other than the Internet.” Which makes zero sense, but this is Tom Batiuk we’re talking about.
MW: And here it is, folks! A Very Special Performance by the Doves o’ Love Plus Two – an all-new choreography to interpret this momentous Plot Turning Point!
Heavy with symbolism, the tableau shows “Mary” swooping in from the left, trying to squawk some sense into “Wilbur” who is pointedly ignoring her. We see “Dawn” pathetically flailing below as her wing points to the arch-villain “Belle” who appears to be fleeing as she shrieks “She has it in for me! I know she does!”
But is this the end of “Belle”?? Has she met her match in “Mary”? Or will she turn to attack mode on the whole group? A later reference to “claws” in the narrative only enforces the motif of violence and bloodshed! Folks, this as good as it gets in Avian Interpretative Theater! A performance for the ages…
@CanuckDownSouth: FG – I’m 90% certain that none of this would have happened if Kit had just left Savarna in GraveLines.
@richardf8: “Punching above your weight” is the term I usually hear for this concept.
@brendancalling:
MW: I’d watch the shit outta that.
MW2: That too.
Family Circus putting forth one of the bleakest demonstrations of heterosexuality I have ever seen only to be topped by Blondie is a helluva mother’s day
CS: Uh-oh, did Batty click on something he shouldn’t have? Kind of feels like it.
Dag says “freshly ground coffee”, did he REALLY go down to the A&P, buy a bag of Eight O Clock™ coffee beans, and ground them into a fine powder?
@taig: Thank you!
FC: HTT Grandma is thinking, “Mother’s Day, hmph. In my day you thanked them for the card and flowers and got back to work. No act of Congress kept us from our family duties.”
FC: Where’s Thel’s bottle of Smirnoff’s?
FC: Yes, Jeffy. That’s a turtle. They labeled it so you wouldn’t think it’s a pangolin anteater.
Crank: Maw Broon did cross-stitch and I can confidently say TheDiva is right, Lillian is not good at it. Then again, she’s apparently a successful novelist, and I’ve yet to be convinced she’s good at that either. (Maybe she doesn’t want people downloading from the internet because she’s one of the few authors who actually could be replaced by Spicy Autocomplete regurgitating formula plots in slightly different settings?)
FC: Oh, no! Somebody muddled up the script for Mary Worth with the instructions to the signwriter at the Family Circus props department. The last rule was actually intended to be Mary’s dialogue: “Go home, Dawn!”
(FWIW, when I was a kid, on Mothering Sunday Paw Broon actually made dinner. In fact, not just then; I’m not sure if he made dinner quite as often as Maw, but it wasn’t surprising when he did. I have no patience for the whole “dads can’t cook” thing that has reigned unquestioned in the comics since the 1950s.)
RMMD: Oh, he’s back. Um, I’ve done “Flowers in the Window”, “Why Does It Always Rain On Me?” and “Sing”. Well, it’s almost too obvious (and techinically it’s a cover of a Del Amitri song), but…
Doctor’s receptionist stalked on her way to a bar,
Before it goes anywhere turns out he’s dead in his car.
His killer makes his confession,
Then it’s time for him to go.
And the teen couple stealth broke up at the same time,
To guarantee no conflict might grow.
And the strip will be boring today and boring tomorrow.
Nothing really happens,
Nothing happens at all.
The plots fizzle out by the end of the week,
And they all carry on as before.
And the strip will be boring today, and boring tomorrow.
DT: And the criminals might have gotten away with it too, if not for their own extreme incompetence they demonstrated every step of the way.
@Ukulele Ike: #22: That’s ok, Ike. It’s alright to make fun of your own ethnicity. I can tell Polack jokes and blacks can use the N word.
I remember an Archie comic from the late 60s where the school janitor Mr. Svenson was about to tell an ethnic joke to Miss Grundy. She admonished him that’s it’s rude to make fun of other people’s ethnicity. So he changed it to an Irishman, an Italian, “und a Swede.”
Blondie – Dagwood’s “Waiter Routine” falls flat. It’s neither a role-playing sex game, nor 10% of the effort he takes in making one of his signature sandwiches. Hell, at the very least it should be a vaudeville style act that makes Blondie laugh.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: What the hell, Sid! Avian Interpretive Theater?? Your intern screwed up again! I paid for a performance by the Lipizzaner Stallions, and I have the ticket stub to prove it! If I want to see avian choreography, I can watch “The Birds” and see more drama and better aerial acrobatics. This is the second time your intern has messed up my ticket order. The last time, I paid to attend the Westminster Dog Show and your intern sent me a VHS of “Lassie Come Home” that he didn’t even bother to rewind. How do I get a refund?
@Banana Jr. 6000: Oh, I fully expect to be disappointed since Karen Moy has the “gift” of making any kind of plot with potential excitement boring. Illegitimate children, hot for teacher, Bridezillas, long lost family reunions…the only thing she can write is Wilbur trying to upstage Mary as the reality warping center of attention.
@53 richardf8: Missing next panel.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Q: How many Germans does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: One. Ve are very efficient!
@Guy Nerdlinger (from Nerdling, Westphalia): Ve do not screw in a lightbulb. Ve screw in a bed like everybody else.
FC: I went into a large carnival “Barrel of Fun” when I was a child, and realized, too late, that it was full of people much bigger than me and that the “fun” part was when the barrel abruptly revolved and suddenly stopped and caused me to fall down and be stepped on until someone finally hauled me out, yay! What the fun is supposed to be in this stationary teensy version, I don’t know. Putting PJ in it, telling him to have a nice nap, and quickly going home without him is one possibility.
@Baja Gaijin: Bwahahaha!
@Peanut Gallery: Ooh! That’ll show up again on Friday for sure.
FC:
“Mom says that the playground equipment here us as inert and lifeless as Dad.”
MW: I’ve given up on anyone having the brainpower to think of looking up Batsy online. But could we at least maybe have someone visit Charterstone and recognize Batsy as a former neighbor who ended up getting hauled away, shrieking and flailing, by the cops, for trying to run over her ex with a pickup? Or perhaps there could be a TV show about dangerous scammers and Batsy’s gleeful face could suddenly fill the screen. If instead this turns into Wilbur suddenly seeing the light because of Mary’s supposed wisdom, it won’t be Batsy I want to kill.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: Congratulations! And I especially admire, as I always have, your savvy. You arranged this great regular gig for your Dove clients without them ever having to be in the same room as the human actors, and I’m betting the Doves barely have to hear the dialogue, either. And we readers get to visually touch grass, as it were. Nice work!
@Poteet: Or Dawn could buy and set up a nanny cam. Since she lives with Wilbur, a nanny cam would be a good investment on general principle. For example, I’d want to know how much of his drool was getting into my food.
FC: Everyone’s in lock step even as they dash across the playground. A little discipline makes things go a lot smoother. .
@Charterstoned: Now just simmer down, CS! We realize that Avian Interpretive Theater isn’t for “everyone” – but my Intern was sure that a person of discernment and sophistication such as yourself would appreciate the artistic nuances of the genre. And we are no longer an authorized ticket seller for the Lipizzaner Stallions. We are agency-non-grata after Melody Mare did a hard-hitting investigative report on the shenanigans goin’ on there. Ask her about it sometime!
But if you are dissatisfied with your order, we’ll of course make it up to you! I’m sorry, the original cast of The Birds is no longer doin’ live performances, but we have a few VHS tapes available, all in fair-to-good condition. And we’ll make sure it’s rewound!
@TheDiva: Well it’s all a crewel joke, isn’t it? (Oh, who am I kidding? Lillian could never master satin stitch, and would probably hang herself if she attempted chain stitch). The joke, near as I can tell, is how closely Lillian’s cross stitch resembles the lo-res raster graphic text of the CGA cards of the mid-1980s.
@Baja Gaijin: Thank you! Always looking forward to your takes
PLAYGROUND RULES (cont.)
7.If Dawn Weston arrives be sure to leave before Wilber follows.
8. Playground closes after Lisa Moore gets cancer.
DT: So the dum dums choosing a stick meant neither Aunt or Uncle would be driving. And he is such a bad driver that he doesn’t see the detour sign, flashing signals and workmen wearing safety glo vests with stop signs. The complex false identity embezzment and fake death scheme could have all worked had Auntie simply NOT involved them.
MW: Mary is in a pickle. She has known Dawn for a while and in her past interactions she has shown herself to be selfish and unaware of the feeling of others (see arc where she deceives her boyfriend to go clubbing and dancing with other guys). Yet, Dawn appears truly scared – like hyperthyroid big whites of the eyes scared. Look at how she beams in the last frame when Dawn asks her to try – like the vampire lore, Mary can only but in if you ask her in!
Phantom: This is a B-17 looking bomber – is this a flashback to explain what the kids in modern time would find? Or is this a vintage airplane that wandered away from a nostalgia air show.
RMMD: Another quick ending arc. Maybe we can get one with a medical theme.
Credit where credit is due: Six Chex has good art and a good joke today, complete with punchline!
As always, I love Blondie’s choices of changing background color. Sure, sea-and-salmon, but look at how today’s events match the gorgeous outside sky. House Enjoys Futility. House Feels Joy.
@Poteet: Dawn could buy and set up a nanny cam
______________________________
To bad that camera system Mary has set up in everyone’s bedrooms as seen in “Mary Worth The Animated Series” Isnt cannon for the strip! It sure helped catch that guy who was bothering catgirl Charterstoned Tennent M’Libby!
@Terry Rhoden:
Hahaha! The meddling kids WILL serve a purpose at the deposition, however.
I like the look Old Turtle is giving the approaching Melonheads, that turtle has seen many things…things far, far worst then a herd of Keane Kids heading his way!
@Guillermo el chiclero:
#87. Guillermo, im big on respect, including self-respect, so try to shut down jokes defamatory of any group of people. In turn, I do have a horrid repertoire of veggie jokes in which veggies meet horrid deaths. “Three ears of corn were jogging on the side of the highway….”
And two or three days ago you enlivened my comment to Melodie Thee Mare. Reveals as adults you do creative writing whereas I do expository. Feel free to improve anything else I write. Dunca.
Blondie: When a husband tells his wife to stay in bed longer with him that might have connotations, as long as the husband isn’t Dagwood.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: Well, as long as I’m not going to get a dog-and-pony show, I guess the videotape will have to do.
FC: Whoa! Waitaminute! It can’t be – Yes it is! It’s Turtle Carl, disguised as an Old Turtle! I’d know that world-weary expression anywhere! I can’t believe Uncle Lumpy would let him appear in Family Circus again, after that time one of the melon-heads tried to see what was under his shell! But I’m sure Unc must be around somewhere on the set, keeping watch. I’m guessin’ up that tree…
@Baja Gaijin: God, I missed you!
@116 Die Rosenkavalieren: But now to the important part–did you like the mashup?
@Poteet @98: @Poteet @100: Neither scenario is happening. washingtonpost.com has an easy-to-figure-out way to read future strips. You can see through May 25. That day alone will tell you where this story is going.
9CL: The moon, rushing towards Earth, is about to cause the tides to go crazy before the big impact. By standing on a flat plane Edda and Amos are only prolonging their agony as well as ours.
DT: Dick no longer can even be counted on to show up for the grisly deaths of the villains, and in this case I can’t really blame him.
HtH: If she wants something juicy for the stage version Hamlet should just do like his namesake and tell her to get to a nunnery.
MW: If Wilbur is “in deep” he’ll be available to talk to Mary in about eight minutes counting the shower I hope against hope he takes.
RMMD: Both Kelly and Niki have moved on but the guy Kelly took up with is aging at such an alarming rate that he won’t be a part of her life of his own for much longer without competent medical care. Rex can stay on the golf course, natch.
@Activist: #112: How about three sentient life forms were jogging on the side of the highway…?
@Banana Jr. 6000: And a paid subscription to CK provides an interface for it. But I refrain because I don’t want to read the comments here through the lens of dramatic irony
HtH – I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Hamlet, do NOT pass up a girl who wants to be a Viking raider. She will do for your library what your father has done has done for your mother’s wardrobe. First Edition Exeter Book, kiddo, what more could you want?
LTG 5/11: There are plenty who don’t care
Dagwood made a cup of coffee and then got back in bed? No wonder Sgt. Workhorse is choosing to ignore that splatters of blood, body parts, and other evidence of murder: no jury of Blondie’s peers would convict anyway.
FC- How long do you figure Bil sits in the park without any other family coming by before he thinks “Maybe I should have done something else for her”
@richardf8: Beatriz, the motor shop retail girl, WAS way hotter than Baldo, but they never truly dated. Whatsername impresses me less. Those teensy pigtails flying off the top of her head are a bizarre fashion choice, and the cat’s-eye glasses (pretty girls wore them “ironically” in the 1980s) even more so. I think she’s going for “manic pixie dream girl.”
Cute belly button, tho.
@Banana Jr. 6000: If I know what’s going to happen in the adventure and soap strips two weeks in advance, what possible motivation would I have to get out of bed in the morning? Andy Capp?
Old Flash Gordon looks exactly like Old Bruce Wayne in the “B@tman Beyond” animated series. That’s been bugging me all day, pleased I finally placed it.
PV: Hang on, Secret Sis of Val! It won’t be long now!
FC: The best gift will be when he only brings three back.
Luann – Will Bernice hang herself with her burnoose? Stay tuned….
@Banana Jr. 6000: In this case, for me, ignorance is (relative) bliss.
@Banana Jr. 6000:
@Poteet @98: @Poteet @100: Neither scenario is happening. washingtonpost.com has an easy-to-figure-out way to read future strips. You can see through May 25. That day alone will tell you where this story is going.
No spoilers, please.
@Inspector Gotcha: Psssssst!
Mary Worth will drop Belle Batsfrey down the stack of a steamship, where she will be devoured by rats. Meanwhile, Dick Tracy will prepare salmon squares and muffins, and prune his rose bushes.
FC: MW: The Keane Kidz go home to Dawn Weston where they are murdered savagely by Belle Batsfrey. Both strips end gloriously.
LUANN: What a pair of ignorant idiots. Coyote deserves better.
Monday’s Mary Worth: You’re not fooling anyone, Mary. We all know you defrosted some Red Lobster Frozen, Ready to Bake Cheddar Bay Biscuits. And you really shouldn’t have; Wilbur would have snarfed ’em down ice cold and asked for more.