All old people problems, this time
Post Content
Crankshaft, 8/1/25
OK, fine, I guess if I’m doing Crankshaft two days in a row, I will explain why Ed and Jeff were in an airport yesterday: It’s because Pam accidentally spilled bleach on Jeff’s inexplicably beloved Winnipeg Blue Bombers shirt, and so to make it up to her husband she bought tickets to an actual Blue Bombers game for him and Ed, and now they’re flying from Cleveland to Winnipeg (a route many in the aviation industry call “the saddest city pair in North America”) to see some red-hot Canadian Football League action. Anyway, today I’m mostly mad about Jeff saying “No pun intended,” for two somewhat contradictory reasons. On the one hand, “passed the quarterback test” is barely wordplay, like homeopathic levels of wordplay, like “pass” and “quarterback” are in the same sentence but they’re not really relating to each other in any kind of grammatical sense applicable to football; and yet, on the other hand, because this is Ed Crankshaft we’re talking about, a pun was absolutely intended. The man hasn’t gone more than three sentences without intending a pun in his entire life.
Beetle Bailey, 8/1/25
Say what you will about Beetle Bailey, but I always respect just how grim the strips about the Halftracks’ failing marriage are. Like, look at the General’s face here. A lesser strip would have him be cheerfully blotto, but he actually looks genuinely distressed, like he spent the entire trip home perseverating about the fact that he’s returning much later than he promised and he knows he’s really going to hurt his wife’s feelings. And for what? Booze? He doesn’t even really enjoy it anymore! He’s got a real problem!
121 replies to “All old people problems, this time”
“It’s 8 pm!” Me, a Mediterranean: “Why is she screaming? This is very early in the evening! In some bars the happy hour is probably still on!”
MW: You know if this ACTUALLY goes in the direction of Carrie, I’ll take back everything I’ve ever said about Moy and Brigman….
MW: What exactly is it that makes Pimento so “different?” Her tummy-brain? Does she walk around school yelling things like “Look out! My tummy-brain says that light fixture might crash down on your head!” No wonder they hate her.
Beetle Bailey: “I’ve done everything, I’ve done everything right” thought Gen. Halftrack. “I come home drunk every night. I play golf or nap during the workday, when I’m not sexually harassing my staff. I overlook NCOs assaulting their subordinates, not to mention keeping dogs in the barracks, and I don’t even want to think about what goes on in that kitchen. What does a white man have to do to be relieved of command in Pete Hegseth’s Army?”
BB: Well, after all, Mrs. Halftrack was clearly looking forward to an evening of romance, under a starlit sky. She went to the trouble to make herself look alluring for her man, fluffing her curls, donning her sexiest fur-trimmed chenille robe to hide the leather outfit underneath, the works. And then he shows up besotted. It’s a good thing she has Beetle lined up as her personal cabana boy.
@Ettorre: Judging by her nightgown, Mrs. Halftrack keeps a Swiss schedule, and this is two hours past her standard bedtime.
BB It’s also 8PM and the general’s wife is in full “I am up way past my bedtime waiting for you” gear. I’d… rather not speculate what the Halftracks were originally planning to do 6ish, 7ish PM, presumably involving bedroom clothes.
JP and the cat was a clue! I guess we will get one of the “Leah is in on it” options, although they could still pull “using this AirBnB was just a coincidence” and throttle back the interesting plot.
“You’re late!”
“8 pm is not so late!”
“No, I mean that while you were drunk, you were supposed to turn the key to authorise the launch of the intercept missiles! It’s too late now, nukes will soon fall on us!”
There’s a hole in the moon and his lower half turned into a snakebody, but sure, the problem is Gen. Halftrack rolling up drunk at 8 pm.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: This explains her unhappiness. In some Swiss condos you cannot make noises after a certain hour, like 7 pm. Forbidden noises include flushing the toilet!
Thanks for explaining the Crankshaft “pun”. I honestly couldn’t make out what it was before you spelled it out.
Crankshaft: “Sure, ‘pun.’ Listen, let’s just say the quarterback test isn’t the only thing I passed. I’m going to need a pit stop while they fumigate the customs booth.”
MW: There’s a word for elderly persons who discourage children from interacting with their peers because their peers “don’t understand them,” followed by lavishing praise on the child.
MW: The two friends passed the old lady and her younger friend, walking in the opposite direction on the Central Park pathway.
The shorter man squeezed his companion’s hand. “See, they’re holding hands too. It’s cool.”
Also Crankshaft, sort of: I once asked a Canadian student if anyone in Canada watched, you know, Canadian football. She looked me like I had a third eyeball in the middle of my head.
Phantom: Wouldn’t it have been easier, and far more productive, for the warlord to have simply recruited out of work, but experienced miners to dig his ore rather than bamboozle a bunch of inexperienced white collar snowflakes who probably never had to bend their backs over a shovel in their lives? Maybe the warlord just has a thing against college boys.
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are on a streak of five straight Grey Cup appearances, it’s not that inexplicable that two guys from Cleveland would want to see what winning football looks like.
@Ettorre: You know, the more I look at this, the more it’s making sense, what with the cuckoo clock on the wall.
BB: Ignore for the moment what Mrs. Halftrack is saying in the second panel. The clock in the first panel clearly shows that the time when the general returns home is not 8:00 PM but is actually twenty minutes until midnight. The second panel thus apparently takes place on the next day, when they once again go through this very same harangue about the state of their marriage, as they do every day. Really, is it at all surprising that this man drinks?
I don’t know, maybe punning for Crankshaft is like Tourette. He can’t help himself. Literally
@Paul: Ditto on needing help figuring out that pun.
They were in Minneapolis, where Tommy Kramer was fodder for lots of puns. After he got married, the riddle was why he then got divorced: “He thought he was getting a tight end but it turns out it was a wide receiver.”
With all the DUIs the Vikings got around Eden Prairie, where their headquarters were then, Patrick Reusse had them mapped out in the paper and called it the Purple Triangle. Kramer was known for his drinking, and Max McGee – who was a color analyst on TV and owned a watering hole near Metropolitan Stadium – expressed concern when Kramer was injured during a game. “I hope he’s okay,” said Max. “He’s my best customer.”
BB: It’s the dark of night at 8pm? Did Camp Swampy transfer to Robertson Barracks in Holtze, Northern Australia (Sunset Today: 6:40 pm) ?
FC: Bil brings Jeffy home with a dripping bucket of Choco-Fudge ice cream over his head.
Thel yells at Bil; “At least cut some eyeholes in it!”
Cranky — Old man and middle-aged son take a plane ride to an out-of-the-way city for an obscure reason is really more of a Rex Morgan plot line.
General Halftrack’s War begins, with those three stupid kids who don’t get how stale yellow lights work!
More on Crankshaft – I almost enjoyed this one. When Roger the Perv and I went to Winnipeg for a game in 1993, it was my first border crossing from Pembina, North Dakota, since two fraternity brothers and I were strip-searched there 13 years earlier. This time it was two sedate old white guys (Roger the Perv is 18 years older than I am) in his Prius. But the customs agent had some fun with it. When RTP told him we were going to the game in Winnipeg, the agent asked us which team we were cheering for. RTP was flummoxed by the question. I finally yelled “Blue Bombers” and the guy let us through.
On the way back we went through Fort Frances into International Falls. The customs agent was a young woman who said something about “you and your son.” She quickly discovered her mistake by RTP’s reaction (he is sensitive about his age, which is why he doesn’t like being called Roger the Dirty Old Man), and she quickly waved him through.
@matt w: Okay, even as a Roughriders fan I admit that’s a good one.
Crankshaft: On the one hand, asking ridiculously trivial questions to try to screen out a single elderly man while letting his travel companion enter the country without so much as a cursory glance seems like bad politics. If we assume, however, they were specifically trying to find a way to exclude Ed himself, failing to ask sufficient ridiculously trivial questions to successfully screen him out is the mistake. Either way, we can take solace in knowing that there’s no way he’s getting back into the US.
Crankshaft: I refuse to believe there is a direct flight from CLE to WYG. And even if there is, I refuse to believe this family would pony up the cash for this premium. It is more likely their itinerary had 2 layovers – say, Chicago & Minneapolis. And their travel time took longer than if they would have driven directly to Winnipeg.
Crankshaft
“And who’s their quarterback?”
“Bo Levi Mitchell? Uh, Tracy Ham? Anthony Calvillo? Doug Flu—
“Sorry, sir. Please step into this room. And once again, I’m sorry.”
Lockhorns: That decent gag would have worked better if they knew how to draw a safety razor.
H&L: Dot must know someone with A/C. Was this written in 1960?
MW: As someone who is ignorant of Olive lore, I can tell that her differentness leaps right out of the page!
CSh: I was going to make a joke about how no-one gives a shit about the CFL, but then I remembered that there is one specific group of die-hard followers: American football fanatics that view our country’s mutated version with perverse fascination. Apparently, playing with only three downs, a slightly longer field and…other things, surely…is simply intriguing to a certain subset of our southern neighbors who enjoy it as some kind of exotic flavor of their favorite pastime. I mean, that’s what I’ve been told — as a Canadian I really don’t give a shit about the CFL.
BB: I can only assume that the good General means that things escalated from booze to pills to powder…
BB: Unfortunately things became hilarious when the general soiled himself.
Crankshaft:
“And what is your reason for visiting Canada?”
“I’m here to see someone.”
“Who is the someone you’re here to see?”
“Guess Who.”
“Sir, I’m the customs official. I don’t need to ‘guess who.’ You need to tell me who.”
“No, no. I’m not going to tell you ‘Who’ in response to your question, because I’m here to see the Guess Who, not the Who!”
“Um, ‘Guess Who’ broke up.”
“I give up. Who?”
“No, Daltrey and Townshend are still performing together.”
‘Not a surprise. They say that breaking up is hard to do.”
“Who says that???”
“No, the ‘Who’ doesn’t say that. Neil Sedaka does.”
Growing up in WNY back in the day, you had your choice of all the local US TV stations as well as the Canadian stations out of Toronto and Hamilton.
This meant we got all the BBC stuff shown on Canadian TV, like Dr. Who and The Two Ronnies. We got Canadian shows like Mr. Dressup. We religiously watched Hockey Night in Canada. My dad and I were huge Curling fans (I still am!)
But, I don’t remember ever watching the CFL. Like, not at all.
CS: I know Canada is very strict about letting someone into the country with any kind of criminal record. Isn’t Crank a serial arsonist?
Kudos to the Beetle Bailey team, with the set-up of the stars, Martha being ready for bed, and the state the general is in it only being 8 o’clock caught me completely by surprise until I remembered this is an elderly couple with a husband who refuses to retire. He’s still elderly though so 20:00 for that old soldier might as well be the middle of the night.
@matt w:
Downside, nobody knows what a Grey Cup is. Or if five of them is a lot. I think it’s a lot! Go crappy Canadian kickball!
MW: Of course Olive’s problem is going to be that she’s bullied by her peers. And of course Mary is going to “solve” this problem in the creepiest way possible by doing nothing helpful and further isolating Olive by insisting that she’s so special and that Mary is the only one who understands her. Then she’s going to convince Ed and Evy that Olive needs “special attention” in California and they’ll be all too glad to shove them both down the stairs and run to the bedroom.
Beetle Bailey:
“And at what exact location were you, pray tell?”
“At the enterprise zone down the street that has a bar in front of it, that officers like me enjoy frequenting.”
“No. Don’t say it.”
“Yep. The military industrial complex!”
An alert TSA agent hears Crankshaft say ‘Bomber’ and puts him, and us, out of our collective misery.
@I, Omnibus: Yes, they showed the MSP layover for a couple of strips. And while an all-day-plus road trip sounds pretty normal in the Midwest, I will admit that even if it takes about as much time, it’s a lot less tiring to let the airlines do the work of hauling you from point A to B.
As a Canadian who doesn’t care for sports, I can tell you there is a lot of national pride in our version of football being a better game than the American version with a longer field and only three downs. That said, American culture is a juggernaut and the NFL has many more teams so I’ve no doubt more people up here watch it than the CFL. The Grey Cup is still a big party day though. I haven’t been to one in years however because it’s still centered around football so I can always find something more interesting to do with my time, like stare at a wall or practise self-dentistry.
“It’s 8 pm! Believably dark outside at the beginning of August!”
BB – “…and from hilarious to introspective and from introspective to soul-crushing. When some of the guys started talking about a suicide pact, I figured I’d better go home.”
FC Plum & Nuts, plum & nuts… what in the holy old-man flavour nonsense is this ice cream parlour peddling? I’m pretty sure my dad – who gets excited when Rum & Raisin can be found! – would turn up his nose at it.
@Astroboy:
I grew up in Detroit in the ’60s. Channel 9 was a Windsor station that we watched religiously, because at the outset only VHF stations were available and your choice was either Detroit channels 2, 4 or 7 and Windsor’s Channel 9. I don’t remember CFL football games on Channel 9, but I do remember “Hockey Night in Canada,” which was magnificent; the broadcasts outshone by a large margin the local Red Wings feed.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
I think “you ‘passed’ the test” would’ve worked better for me. But I’m a simple man.
@I, Omnibus: #29:
“a direct flight from CLE to WYG”
You’re right. There isn’t. I already checked. That’s why they had the layover in Minneapolis. What surprises me is that Batiuk actually did enough research to find that out.
Crankshaft-What pun?
MW-“It’s hard not wanting to use my powers to kil them all.”
RMMD-And Cody left Truck with the rather extensive hotel bill.
FC-“How am I doing at blocking your chances with that cute cashier?”
Let’s at least give some reluctant kudos to whatever poor sap is drawing the Beatle Bailey backgrounds. Since the hands in the clock are different lengths in the two panels, that person actually drew them rather than just pasting in some clip art. So, kudos for the effort. But points off for screwing up “which one is the big hand”. Or maybe they just didn’t care. I could respect that.
“It’s 8 P.M.!” she shouted.
The General straightened himself up with all the dignity alcohol would allow. “My dear, you’ve been an officer’s wife for over thirty years now. You should know it’s 2000 hours, not 8 P.M. You’re the reason I only have one star. You’re the reason we’re stuck in Camp Swampy. Because you never really understood the military, and an officer is only as good as his wife.” He threw her a snappy salute and wobbled away.
Setting: Walker-Browne industries, 10 am. Old white guy indistinguishable from all the other old white guys in the meeting room is shushing everyone for quiet as he dials the rotary land line telephone.
“Oh, hello darling. Remember last week when I went for golf after lunch and then hit the bar and got home late and you were fuming when I got home? What time did I roll in? 8 pm? Thanks, darling”
Hangs up. “Gentlemen, her robe is pink, I think. And it was 8pm. We are done for the day. Let’s hit the links.”
@ValdVin:
Olive’s “differentness” has always been vaguely defined, because Karen Moy is a terrible writer, but apparently she has the ability to sense impending danger, such as her doctor being a drug addict, or A/C units falling from skyscrapers.
But her her “gift” is rather sporadic. It doesn’t alert her to the stranger danger of a maeddlephile in her midst, for one thing.
Don Abundio, translated:
[Sign: CHECKOUT]
“Why did that guy pay for my groceries?”
“I don’t know, Ma’am…”
“I guess the strip clubs aren’t open yet!”
Crankshaft – During World War II some soldiers would use baseball knowledge as a shibboleth to challenge unfamiliar soldiers to make sure they weren’t spies or saboteurs posing as Americans.
It speaks to the deteriorated state of US – Canada relations that an elderly American showing any interest in Canadian football is treated as a suspicious threat. It also shows the Canadians lack of respect for suspected American saboteurs or political radicals that they assume an American couldn’t be bothered to learn the most prominent player on a team that is the basis for their cover story.
Beetle Bailey – While I am not as young as I used to be, I at least feel young enough that 8PM doesn’t feel that late to me to be arriving home, or already in my bed clothes like Martha Halftrack.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: I have zero clue still whether this is an “we are obsessed” or a “we really don’t give a flying…” response
Crankshat – I’ve been detained at the Canadian border. They were lovely to me. They were not lovely with my colleague who was driving and overshot the stop sign at the guard post. Then he got mouthy with the guard. At which point they searched the car, our luggage, his camera and laptop, and took him to an interview room for a little talk.
To be clear, I side with the Canadians on this one. This guy was a disaster and required a lot of damage control.
Would you believe the dipshit overshot the stop sign coming back into the US? The US guards were like, “Fuck it, welcome home, citizen.” Given that I had a few Cuban cigars stashed in my bag, I was glad to get to Buffalo.
By the way – if you’re ever in Buffalo – Schwabl’s, beef on weck. Thank me later.
C’shaft: I’m not sure if the border agent’s interrogation is a sign of the chilly state of US-Canada relations, or an acknowledgement that “I came all this way for a CFL game” sounds like a cover story, and an unconvincing one at that.
@Old School Allie Cat:
He’s right, get the fuckin sandwich
@Old School Allie Cat:
Seconded on Schwabls’ beef on weck!
As an adult, being a licensed US Customs Broker, I had free reign crossing in and out of Canada. My port pass was always hanging from my rearview as required, and I’d add my photo broker’s ID. On the rare occasion that a line officer sent me to secondary, the secondary officer would just wave me on, saying the line officer must have missed it.
Nowadays we work from home and don’t have those passes and ID’s.
Are we sure Halftrack was not drunk even this morning? He removed his jacket and under it he has… another jacket
BB: Anybody notice that Mrs. Halftrack is just Sgt. Snorkel in drag?
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Also Swiss neutrality explains why this army company never sees any actual war, despite US foreign policy
FC – Kid, just get one of the chocolate ones. All the weird exotic flavors have been sitting out in those open containers so long, they’ve got an off taste and they’re full of ice crystals.
@Guillermo el Chiclero: And General Halftrack is just Beetle impersonating an officer, which means . . . I guess congratulations to them for maintaining a healthy sexual relationship through variation?
BB: Mrs. Halftrack should be careful. Her husband’s drunk enough to start quoting Winston Churchill.
Pluggers – You’re a plugger if you lose count of how many times you need to use the word “more” in a sentence, even though you only needed to use it two times.
@Philip: The baseball test wasn’t infallible. An American general came close to being shot for never bothering to learn which Chicago team was in which league,
@Philip: #55: Whenever I watched one of those old WW2 movies where the US GIs used baseball trivia as passwords, as a non-athletic no big fan of sportsball I assumed I’d be gunned down by my own troops for failing to know who plays third base for the Pirates. Back when I was of military service age I decided that if I ever was in a war and stuck in one of those “Halt, who goes there?” situations instead of sports trivia I’d use this to determine friend or foe. It’s something that every boomer aged person would know and no foreign spy would think of using (They’d be too busy memorizing every major league roster because that’s what Hollywood told them they’d need). I’d tell them to sing the theme song from “Gilligan’s Island”. If that failed I’d give them one more chance, sing the theme song from “The Beverly Hillbillies”.
Shaft – Having just visited lovely Thunder Bay, I can tell you that the Canadian border agents are friendly and will not quiz you on Canadian trivia. American border guards are…well, about what you’d expect.
@Peanut Gallery: Yeah, I was surprised not to see Pluggers on Josh’s front page today. That sentence was a disaster.
CS: “No pun intended.” “None taken.”
Crank – Yeah – no pun, period. No word play, no double entendre, nothing humorous in the slightest, notwithstanding intentions….
BB – Shit faced by eight. It’s a Camp Swampy thang….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Zits – In case you ever wondered what kind of sex life Jeremy has with his girlfriend.
JP: Unexpected twist! Leah is an evil witch and turned Mrs. Birkrem into a CAT!
Next week: Two more tabbies and a tom take up residence.
Dustin: Helen caught the lie from the beginning. After all, why would her fat bastard of a husband need to go to the hardware store? He never did any work around the house, and he had no hobbies other than complaining. And he never did anything with Dustin, who Helen assumed Ed hated so much because the boy was a reflection of his own self-centered indolence.
No, Helen knew exactly where they were going: off to stuff their faces with greasy fast food to spite her for daring to cook something that had vegetables in it (she’d hinted more than once that they could take a turn making dinner if her choices bothered them so much, but noooo, that was women’s work). For a while, she’d contented herself with the knowledge that her husband’s arteries couldn’t take much more of this abuse, but cardiac arrest had been too long in coming. And Dustin…well, it would be several more years before his metabolism slowed to the point where his eating habits would catch up with him.
But their laziness could be exploited in other ways. After all, they wouldn’t bother to walk the twenty feet to the indoor counter when they could order drive-thru and scarf it down in the car. It was a warm night; they would be sure to have the windows rolled up and the air conditioning running while they did so. And since Ed and Dustin did as much work with the car as they did everywhere else in the house (ie. none at all), they’d never notice the faint but critical damage to the exhaust pipe.
Helen smiled, the first real smile she’d had in a long, long, time. Soon, very soon she would be free. And her daughter…well, there was work to be done there, but she was still young and a forced digital fast would do wonders for her personality. “More casserole, Meg?” she said sweetly.
GT: That analogy implies that there’s something about Valley Tech that inherently corrupts everyone involved with it, which…well, we’ve already had the existence of ghosts implied, a malevolently sentient high school doesn’t seem like all that far of a stretch. Could be interesting, in fact.
JP: “Finally! Geez, you large hairless cats are so THICK sometimes! Even your inferior noses should have caught the smell coming from the basement by now, or did you think that was lutefisk? Maybe if I grab one of your charger cords and run down there with it, you’ll catch on…”
Luann: “Dammit, Luann, what will it take for you to break up with me? Do I have to bang your roommate?…Please tell me I don’t have to bang your roommate; she’s worse than you are.”
MW: Of course they don’t understand Olive, Mary! I mean look at her! She dresses like Medium Allison from Fun Home, she has the face and hair of a woman in her mid-thirties, she’s convinced she’s psychic and the highlight of her summer is hanging out with you! Nothing about this kid makes sense!
Pluggers can’t be bothered to buy a bigger size belt.
MW-Olive, you don’t need Mary’s help. There is a school in Westchester for gifted youths like you.
@Astroboy: There are several words for people like that. There are also sentences for them — long sentences followed by years of parole and a lifetime on the registry.
@TheDiva: #76: re-Pluggers: The discount stores don’t sell belts in morbidly obese, baby whale sizes. Also, pluggers are too poor to shop at the big and tall men’s stores. It’s Walmart all the way, baby!
Crankshaft: I’m legit surprised that the Canadians aren’t all being portrayed as raging stereotypes (e.g., riding moose and chugging maple syrup while being hyper-nice). I’m not really recalling the Funkyverse track record on depicting foreigners, but something about said Funkyverse makes me feel like the characters are seconds away from dropping slurs anytime other countries come up.
Reflecting upon the trail of dented parked cars, roadkill, and a pedestrian he’s pretty sure mostly got out of his way, General Halftrack drags his jacket through the front door and hiccups a callous response to his infuriated wife. “Why do I keep doing this to myself,” he thinks grimly as he breezes past the old battle axe and into the kitchen to eat spoonfuls of beef stew right out of the can. In the morning, as he scrubs the viscera from his grill, he makes a promise to turn his life around. But, later that afternoon, beaten down by the work day, surrounded by imbeciles and attractive women who will never give him the time of day, he marches right back into Happy Hour, ready to laugh again …
BB: 1) At least the Moon crescent is facing the right direction for 8 pm, though 2) it’s pretty dark the early evening (maybe we’re time-swapped to the fall or winter) and 3) those little blobs on the dark portion of the Moon, maybe those are alien spacecraft buzzing around the Moon?
the CFL hasn’t been the same since the Baltimore Stallions left after winning the Grey cup
on a related note, we almost got detained re-entering the US once because the border agent saw some of us were from Maryland and asked what a “Terp” was and the guy from Massachusetts driving had no clue what he was talking about.
@Astroboy: @erdmann: “And Oscar Wilde was the greatest of all writers, but he was misunderstood, too….”
@Guillermo el Chiclero: Tom Batiuk went to Winnipeg last year to see a Blue Bombers game. He discussed this on his blog in 2024 and mentioned that Jeff would do the same in the strip.
I assume that Batiuk changed planes in Minneapolis for his trip, which would explain why Jeff and Ed are doing the same.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: What does a white man have to do to be relieved of command in Pete Hegseth’s Army?”
Be efficient, don’t kiss the ring, mention the list and do on.
Dustin As Dustin doesn’t work or go to school, you would think he would be the primary cook for the family. However, the creators can’t think outside of stereotypes, so that never comes up.
JP – “We need to look for clues right now! Reena, you and Scooby-Cat head to the basement while Blondie and I check the upstairs bedroom!
DT: Apologies to Angry Red – she did zap the right guy – the goon going for his gat. Always take out the immediate threat. Now we’ll see if the zapper recycle/recharge time is faster than Ed Asner going for his gun.
Crankshaft: Was there some seminar about how to write off part of a vacation as business expense? JP went to Norway. Gil Thorp has the strip going to Germany. Crankshaft goes to … Winnipeg, Canada ?! C’mon at least try for the Toronto Argonauts or the Montreal Alouettes – apologies to Winnipeg, Canada.
RMMD: Time moves differently in the RMMD universe. One day in our time is 5 minutes in RMMD time. Over the next week, we’ll still be in the diner.
Phantom: Somehow, I don’t think the general and his goons spent much time reading the applications and crafting ways of coercing people to stay at their back breaking jobs as miners when they have like truncheons, machine guns, barbed wire, and attack dogs. I know that shows I’m not hip to today’s modern wage slavery but sometimes old school methods work best.
Beetle Bailey: When does Halftrack go to bed? 8 PM is a common dinner time.
MW: Now that a Freaky Friday option is off the table, we can still hope and dream for a Carrie and Firestarter mash-up. Olivia takes all of that pent up unhappiness and lets it all out.
Ted, congrats on getting on the float! Just want to thank you for your advice. Whatever the old folks said, young whippersnappers like you can teach us things! Like how refraining from urination actually does strengthen pelvic floor.
JP: the door opens. Soph reaches for her squirt gun. Buts it’s Mrs. B. returning from visiting the daughter in Stockholm.
LUANN: I can feel for Phil, insecurity because he has tech training whereas these other two were discusing University.
After undergrad I went with an older man who had a ton of life experience and a GED. When we parted, he said I had always been putting him down by using words he didnt understand. What? Call me clueless
Luann: Phil getting pissed off at Luann for doing life drawings is laughable. He’s a nurse after all. Even if he has gone this long, it’s just a matter of time before he sees a butt. And then what?
Crank, meta: Is that what that was? I was wondering if I needed to actually look up TSA terminology (or the Canadian equivalent, although I was prepared to bet Batty wouldn’t have bothered with that level of research) in case there was somehow a word that sounded like “quarterback”.
Curtis: Now straighten the damn hat!
JP: Welp, that’s the end to my faint hope that this was all an amusing misunderstanding. If the cat acts psycho around Leah and nobody else, she must be a murderer! That’s what it says in the Big Book of Hackneyed Murder Plots, and Ces would never contradict that!
In less hackneyed murder plots, I once read a Father Brown story where one character is absolutely convinced that the muderer must be this guy because the victim’s dog acted weird around him, and Father Brown correctly insists that if a dog acts weird around a man, it’s for doggy reasons of its own, not because it’s the angel of judgement. Same for cats. I’m a cat-lover, and I don’t agree with the popular belief that cats don’t care for their owners, but I’m absolutely sure that if I were murdered, my cat wouldn’t fly into a fury every time she saw the murderer. Not because she wouldn’t care, but because she wouldn’t understand. She’s just a cat.
@Guillermo el Chiclero:
#79. PLUGGERS: Heck, yeah! When we have to buy a belt for work (only place I wear a belt) i get whatever is lowest price in thrift shop and at home pound a nail in to make the hole I need. Rather spend that money at DQ.
@Rube: I’m sure Dustin’s parents never taught him to cook (“He’s the boy, ”), but this “enforced sabbatical” would be the perfect time to learn, wouldn’t it? Might even help him in his quest for poontang.
“I live with my parents, but I make an excellent Hollandaise.”
”Yeah? (pant, pant)”
@Horace Broon: In my experience, cats also tend to favor avoidance when it comes to humans they don’t like/trust, using aggression only when they feel cornered and threatened. Even if the cat did have some beef with Leah (murder-based or otherwise), it would probably just hide under the bed or in the basement when she’s around, rather than coming out to hiss and spit like Jones the cat seeing the Xenomorph.
The Family Circus Spanish to English.
Zits Spanish to English.
MW: Once again, Mary gives appallingly bad advice. How about Mary talking to Olive’s parents and alerting them to the fact that Olive is being bullied so they can make the school aware of this issue and take other steps to help their daughter? Or encouraging Olive to find friends her own age with similar interests so she has a support system, although I kind of doubt Olive’s school has a Tummy Brain club.
BB: Going by the big hand/little hand standard, in the first panel it’s actually 11:40. So the general got home in the middle of the day and then blacked out for 8 hours and change. That’s not so bad, is it?
C-Shaft: No pun intended and, as far as I can tell, no pun achieved.
9CL: Apparently everyone in this strip can just teleport around like an anime villain now? That’s swell.
Curtis: But there’s apparently nothing paranormal about Curtis’s hat brim jumping from one side of his head to the other. Just one of the standard features.
DT: It’s odd for now, anyway. Energy weapon murders will be common by Labor Day. By Thanksgiving they’ll be passe.
JP: You sure you’re up for clue searching, Aksel? You look like you’re falling asleep on your feet.
MW: Not to get too distracted from Olive’s very special teen angst, but Wilbur seems to have tagged along to NYC, and for some reason is conferring with one of the forgotten hippies from the early days of Doonesbury.
Phantom: Those two pale discs in the first panel are too far apart to be human eyes, but no matter. I can’t help but look forward to Stripey laying into tech support.
RMMD: Presumably accepting Cody as his son means passing down the family grooming secrets should Cody ever decide to grow his sideburns beyond three inches.
Cranky: They can’t even get their cliches right. Jeff’s response should have been “I see what you did there.”
@INDY: Short notice, so Aksel has to be both the Fred and the Shaggy.
9CL: Kudos to Brooke for providing Amos n’ Edda with a Brown Betty teapot. As he is an asshole, however, he got them one that’s too small for two people, and purple. (Also, today’s strip is disgusting. “Snorting like a dray horse?” Why do you let him NEAR your daughter?)
Phantom: You should have checked those white college boys for glowing eyes BEFORE you enslaved them. Turns out the US East Coast is awash in an excellent new batch of blotter acid,
BEETLE BAILEY: r/AreTheStraightsOkay
I like Josh’s implication re: Crankshaft that Jeff is only saying “No pun intended” because that’s what he always says, he barely ever listens to what his terrible father-in-law says, it’s not really his fault if there was not, in fact, a bad pun to respond to.
Late Thread Cuisine: No Spaghetti-O’s, no aspic, no stubby weenies this time.
@106 Baja Gaijin:
I’m not much of a fish eater so I’ll pass on flat fish stuffed with mushrooms.
I do like mushrooms but not when they’re in bad packaging.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV:
Wear a dress and claim you can get pregnant without a uterus.
@83 vince: Isn’t a “terp” a green Jell-O salad containing Old Bay-seasoned crab meat, cherries, and used pubic wigs?
@100 Artist formerly known as Ben: I’ve added the missing final panel. Are the eyes what you expected?
@Baja Gaijin: UNIMAGINABLE FILTH
(The presentation. Who knows, it might taste good)
@Baja Gaijin Y167: Ha, ha! You can’t unsee them, but you are making good use of them.
As for tonight’s fish, it’s only slightly disturbing overall. Might eat it if I was stuck in the Klondike during a blizzard and I have already eaten both leather boots and it’s the only thing available.
@Baja Gaijin: The two guys are speechless, as well they might be!
Six Chex And A Cat Named Gift Shop #9…..#9…..#9….#9….#9 : perhaps you shouldn’t be changing your clothes in gift shops.
@Peanut Gallery: “This man has no cajas!”
@Ukulele Ike: “I live with my parents, but I make an excellent Hollandaise.
________________________
Wilburp: “Hollandaise is here again! The skies above are clear again! No pun intended!”
@Ukulele Ike: @Baja Gaijin: UNIMAGINABLE FILTH
______________________________________________
Worst than Daisy filling in for Dagwood?
The Familliar Mucus:”You are having Plum’s Nuts and you will enjoy it!”
@Kenny Copeland: Wear a dress and claim you can get pregnant without a uterus.
____________________
Then why is Dagwood’s friend so excited about the men*s maternity shirt store?
Saturday’s Phantom: you wondered what those eyes were…
GGGRRRAAAARRRR!!
It’s only your friendly neighborhood wolf.
@Ukulele Ike: I wish I didn’t understand that, but I do.
@Old School Allie Cat: Wow. Now I wonder if he caused problems for you throughout the journey.