Beach troubles
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Family Circus, 8/8/25
The whole gimmick of “NOT ME” is that the Keane Kids say “not me!” when confronted with naughty things that they have, in fact, done. Depicting him as an actual ghost-demon tormenting Big Daddy Keane while all four of the kids are fully visible and doing other things is 100% evidence that somehow the Family Circus has, against all odds, lost the plot.
Mary Worth, 8/8/25
You might recall that the climax of the original Olive story was that Mary saved the lass from drowning, and she’s frankly been chasing that high ever since. Olive may have since taken swimming lessons, but panel two has made it clear that Mary has been Googling “new york area beaches with rip currents” because she knows she needs to up her game.
B.C., 8/8/25
Big Monogamy has clearly decided that the best way to keep polyamory out of the mainstream is by messaging in syndicated newspaper comic strips, so, uh, I guess get used to keeping track of your various partners in an elaborate Google Docs spreadsheet, everybody!
83 replies to “Beach troubles”
FC: The hell with Not Me. Thel is rocking that two piece in the distance.
MW: What, no Fire Island? Loosen up, girls.
MW:
“There are a lot of possibilities! In fact, to believe what the physicists are telling us now about the multiverse, there may well be at least one universe in which I don’t meddle!”
“I wish I were in that universe.”
MW: Oh, gad. Now we have to see Mary in a bathing suit.
Why is cartoon character formally known as “Fat Chick” using paper?!? Don’t the B.C. cave people use stone tablets like the Flintstones?
FC:
I see that cartoon apparition Casper has grown to adulthood. But he’s clearly no longer a friendly ghost, as his signature jingle had suggested.
MW: Where are the Great Whites hanging out this summer? They should go THERE.
@GarrisonSkunk:
“Distressed — take a page out of Danny and the Juniors‘ book and tell your hubby, ‘Lascaux to the hop!’ “
FC You know, we rag on the Keanes pretty often for being weirdly religious, but if i had a genuine demon following me around, even when I went on vacation, I’d probably be cracking the Bible too…
MW Really love the middle-distance stare Mary gives as she spits out those local beach names. I guess the Google Brain chip installation really took!
BC Dear Distressed, did you have a question, or….?
MW: And just who’s going to pay for this beach trip to the Hamptons, Mary? Hell, I don’t think you’re going to pay for this dinner.
When Dr. Jeff finds out, he’s going to go” the Hamptons? All we ever do is go to the Bum Boat, and when we’re on my boat you never wear your suit?”
Mary Wormtounge should take Olive to the Joisey Shore! Olive can drink Snooki under the table while Mary mops the floor with The Situation!
@Doghouse Reilly (Minneapolis): The joke will be on Mary, though, because she won’t be able to clean the corners.
“Who put the sand in my Mike’s Lemonade™?” “P.J.!”, shouts Billy, Dolly, and Jeffy simultaneously.
MW: The story so far: Elderly woman flies across the country to see a young girl she has convinced is a “kindred spirit” on video chat. Elderly woman immediately gets the child alone, away from her parents, discourages the child from interacting with her peers because “they don’t understand her,” lavishes praise and attention on the child, takes her out for a romantic dinner, and now manipulates her into a swim suit.
Next come the photos.
@GarrisonSkunk: P.J. is much more about putting Mike’s Lemonade in the sand, if you know what I mean.
Mary casually mentioning the Hamptons kinda shows that she’s pretty much spoiled by her decades of extorting Dr. Jeff. As if it’s bad enough that she’s casually grooming Olive but she’s probably going to use the whole “I saved your daughter from drowning” card to get a beach house at the Hamptons for just her and Olive to put the Taylors in more debt. And because they’re idiots who only think about sex, they’ll do it.
Everyone remember when I called for a return to the B.C. format of “character at rock labeled ‘dumb joke’ tells dumb joke or commits hate crime”? Sorry.
@Charterstoned: MW: Where are the Great Whites hanging out this summer? They should go THERE
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Great White Keanes have been spotted on the Arizona beach. Everybody into the water!
@Charterstoned: Isn’t Great Whites a euphemism for when aged yuppies start their tourism?
FC: Today’s strip focuses on Alternative Family Circus which would explain the plot miscue. I see Thel and PJ playing in the surf.
Great White Keanes have been spotted on the Arizona beach. Everybody into the water!
(Comment repeated to make COTW eligible).
What’s this? Someone in “Mary Worth” is eating something that’s easily identifiable as food? We can’t have that!
MW: So, isn’t Mary wealthy in her own right? Her husband, Jack Worth, was a Wall Street tycoon, no? She is so casual about “The Hamptons”, I bet she owns a house there. We’re about to see a side of Mary that calls into question every choice she’s ever made, starting with moving to Charterstone and befriending all those dysfunctional people. Buckle up!
@matt w: Keeping a zombie comic strip alive used to be so easy a caveman could do it.
If NOT ME is transparent, then why does his forearm partially obscure his face, even as the beach behind is fully visible? Is this consistent with the rules of phantasmoptics?
MW: Mary and Olive go to sailboat lake in Central Park where clairvoyant Olive saves a scale model Titanic from striking an Italian ice carelessly dropped into the pond.
“Who is scoping out bikini clad beach bunnies while his hot wife is distracted, jutting about in the Arizona Ocean?” “Not Me!”
FC: To flesh out the strip for a full length movie, the producers test audience a battle between Ghost Grandpa and the Not Me demon.
Wrecks Moregone:
How nice for Mrs Halfsister that her doorbell announces that a dingdong is at the door.
FC: This is indeed a conundrum. All the Keane Kids are in proximity to a water-holding vessel. Only Dolly and Jeffy’s is the correct color, yet theirs is filled with sand.
After careful study of the crime scene, I’ve determined that Thel is the culprit. Just look at her, prancing through the surf and pretending not to notice any of this. The actual guilty red bucket flung behind her, just out of frame.
Curtis: Okay, Billingsley. Take the win.
S4th: You too, Ces.
RMMD: NO NO NO!! Not the wed one! Don’t ever push the wed one!
MW: with the exception of Coney Island, those are day-long excursions. And in the case of the Hamptons, pretty expensive.
Fun Fact: the one time I was in the Hamptons was after the band I was in did a day-long shoot for a Folgers commercial More fun fact: there were no functional toilets at the shoot, so by the end we were all holding in our poop. Even more fun fact: after the shoot, we went to a pizza place in one of the Hamptons, and olfactorily wrecked their bathroom.
The Family Circus: I suppose Not Me is going to be responsible for letting that toddler at two o’clock wander out into the ocean unattended, yeah?
@Weaselboy: [Extremely Danny Torrance voice] Wed one! Wed one!
@Guts Dozier: “No gods, no kings, no laws” has always been the Family Circus motto.
Mary Worth: “We could go to Ocean City, or the Poconos, or [glancing again at The New Yorker Summer Spectacular 1978] Maine…”
@Charterstoned:
Look, I don’t like this creepy storyline either, but I don’t want them to die in a horrible, tragic fire.
Fun fact: I know a guy who survived that fire.
Alt Mary Worth joke: “There are a lot of possibilities. They all involve mauve or lilac, you understand, dear.”
MW is going to The Hamptons? I’m fascinated about how she’ll get in.
Beetle Bailey: This is the first combat training for a new enlistee’s teeth.
BG&SS: Is her masterpiece “Michaelangelo’s David in Oak” or “sorry that tree fell thru your roof”?
Crankshaft: He’s mistaken for their Defencive Coordinator. Having their schemes called by an American, the Blue Bombers will give up 400 yards passing and 5 TDs until they switch out of man-to-man.
Welcome to another episode of COMIC STRIP ENDINGS WE’D LIKE TO SEE…..
Clumsy Carp:”Miss know-It-All’s Got Paper!”
Miss K-I-A: “Now I must kill them!” ( She proceeds to do so. End of Comic.)
COMIC STRIP ENDINGS WE’D LIKE TO SEE is a Josh F. Production
©2025 We End The Comics So You Don’t Have To Read Them Inc.
MW: Knowing the VERY little I know about NY, and the even less about its beaches….there isn’t anything similar about those three places, really, is there? An also, they’re REALLY far apart, aren’t they?
@ValdVin: the Blues Bombers will give up 400 yards passing and 5 TDs until they switch out of man-to-man.
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Followed by a smooth cover of “Soul Man” and “R-E-S-P-E-C-T”.
‘… is 100% evidence that somehow the Family Circus has, against all odds, lost the plot.’ Or is it the strip revealing that on top of the mutant kids and over medicated parents, there’s also secretly been hell beasts roaming thehouse as well/
Mary Worth: Rock, rock, Rockaway Beach. Rock, rock, Rockaway Beach. You can hitch a ride to Rockaway Beach.
@GarrisonSkunk: The Flinstones don’t use tablets in the strictest sense. They dictate into a squawkaphone, and inside that a bird chips the message in stone. It’s the latest technology since the baby elephant vacuum cleaner.
MW-Take a quick glance and try not to see ‘swinging’ instead of ‘swimming’.
FC-It was the cute lifeguard Bill has been making eyes at.
MW-“There are many polluted beaches in the New York area.”
MW-I hear Fire Island is nice.
@Hibbleton: the producers test audience a battle between Ghost Grandpa and the Not Me demon.
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“Who killed Grandpa again?” “Not Me!” “That’s what we call overkill!”, darnestly says Jeffy.
If your father is so strict that you’d have to lie about wacky beach shenanigans, it’s no wonder your sense of fun has twisted into a demonic poltergeist who has to do the harmless hijinx for you.
***
Dear Distressed,
Show your husband some Reddit stories of a surprisingly common occurrence when husbands insist on opening marriages (hint: you’re not going to be the one sitting at home miserable and increasingly bitter). Have fun!
@ValdVin: and inside that a bird chips the message in stone. It’s the latest technology since the baby elephant vacuum cleaner. me of the time Fred got that Parrotroid™ camera
Dustin “ Are you trying to be funny? Because that would be interesting.”
”I’m not sure what you mean.”
”That’s what I was afraid of.”
No funny snark, but after criticizing Gil Thorp art yesterday, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Judge Parker appears to use some of those old “make a face” stickers (well, the digital equivalent and from the artist drawing some sets) and put Reena’s eyes+nose at a poor angle relative to mouth+skull/face/chin. On the other hand, Sophie’s eyes are all over the place like a bad AI “photo”, so maybe that’s the equally unsettling alternative when there’s no pre-done set to use for the expression desired.
@Charterstoned: @ValdVin: and inside that a bird chips the message in stone. It’s the latest technology since the baby elephant vacuum cleaner.
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Reminds me of the time Fred spent his entire raise on that Parrotroid™ camera, only to eject the instant photo tablet on his foot.
Zits is back to “All parents are early Boomers” I’m 66, and talking about “a date” would have been kind of odd when I was a teenager.
Pibgorn: Tomorrow marks the One Year Anniversary since the last new strip.
BC: Somewhere, the spirit of Johnny Hart is frowning in disapproval: in their haste to condemn adultery his heirs have promoted the equally heinous sin of divorce.
MW: ….Karen Moy is deliberately baiting us, right? There is no way anyone could be so consistently clueless about normal and acceptable human behavior, is there?
BB: What’s up with the red hats?
Crankshaft-Ed has wandered into ‘Gil Thorp’.
MW-I’m waiting for a crazy woman to show up demanding food and drink and zippers. To tell Mary all about the comic strip she used to be in with two other women.
C’shaft: Is Canada like the proverbial small town where nobody locks their doors?
Dustin: So…women like “nerdy,” but only when guys are pretending to be nerdy and not when they’re actually nerdy? Even taking into account Dustin’s usual level of trenchant insight into the workings of the female mind, this is absurd.
GT: Emily looks like how JK Rowling sees trans people.
JP: Well, good thing that cabinet contained the evidence they were looking for, and not valuables or important paperwork or an astonishing array of “personal massage” devices…
Luann: Luann is looking for someone who understands she is incapable of basic self-care. Phil is looking for someone who will not be turned off by his massive and frankly creepy insecurity complex. I hate to admit it, but they’re kind of perfect for each other.
MT: Ernest counts as “a man in Cherry’s life”? Is there something she’s not telling us?
Pluggers are Toons. Which, you know, would explain the anthropomorphic animal thing.
For Family Circus, since Billy is walking away while holding a bucket, I interpreted that to mean he dumped the water and was walking away. Or maybe that’s just me trying to give them the benefit of the doubt lol
MW – “Kindred spirits” know how to keep secrets from parents who don’t understand them, don’t they, dear? Now, let’s get you out of that top.
@TheDiva: CS short answer: no. Longer one: no*, we use locks and basic security guards. Plus Princess Auto Stadium *maybe* has bilingual signs but they’re certainly *with* the international symbols for restrooms, so he had no excuse for getting mixed up in the first place
*with the exception of polar bear towns like Churchill where people are _heavily_ encouraged to leave all car doors and front doors unlocked for quick escape routes for any pedestrian facing a bear. Does Alaska do that too?
FC: Titillated by the prospect of engaging in an activity strictly forbidden by their fundamentalist church, Thel and Bil secretly hold a séance (after the kids are in bed of course) in the basement. What ensues is far from the terrors of “the Exorcist” and more like they used a Candyland game board instead of a Ouija board for the summoning.
@TheDiva: re MW: Of course we’re being trollled. Wake up and smell the salmon squares. They saw how everyone was reacting to the incest innuendo with Wilbur and Dawn. “Let’s give those pervs something else to talk about.” They know us too well.
FC: “Hey, if Curtis can do a supernatural plot, so can we!” I see your telekinesic grammy and raise you a poltergeist.
MW: Mary and Olive wind up in Lakewood, NJ, among the Chassidim. (There are some very nice beaches near Lakewood.) No shellfish will be served.
DT: Zappy the gun is getting equal screen time as Tess and Roberta; clearly it is the third member of the criminal gang.
RMMD: Was the would-be half sister living conveniently on their tour route?
MW: Ok – Olivia did get a small steak, but now MW is figuring out a way to get her into a swimsuit
GT: continuing to show that drawing sports is not the strength of the current team.
JP: So, the action thriller spy story is off in its own universe, while the dim girls are in this horror movie like plot – with Aksel still hanging around. Maybe his family owns the business so he can just take off at will? Don’t go into the basement!
Flash Gordon: Disappointed that Flash just hand-pushes the goon bots / goon bosses into the pit. Didn’t we just learn he was tired, beaten up, hungry but now he can arrogantly let himself be captured and just brushes goons aside?
@Weaselboy: Ha! Got the reference!
Don Abundio, translated:
“What a beautiful night!”
“Look at all the stars!”
“Why were you so annoyed with Juan S. Perfil just now?”
“Because there’s something I like to look at even more than the stars”
“And he keeps hogging my favorite mirror!”
Last night we went to a dive bar, the kind that only takes cash in 2025, and where a barmaid who looks like a linebacker passes the hat instead of collecting a cover charge. The singer got talking about texting the guy he thought would be playing bass to ask if he had a spare tuner, and got a response that boiled down to “Yeah, got four spare tuners. They’re all with me at the gig I’m working 2000 miles away.”
It got me thinking that if Rex Morgan isn’t going to be about medicine, it could at least have INTERESTING stories about small time musicians.
Hi and Lois – What was wrong with that splash? Too Christmasy. No L, no L, no L, no L…
FC-Where was Olive who could have prevented this tragedy?
MW-“Let’s go to the beach next week when it’s melonhead free.”
Family Circus: Meanwhile, Mama Keane is walking off into the ocean to her death in order to escape the horror of life on the Keane Kompound. The rest of the family is too busy being haunted by a demon to notice. Such is life.
Mary Worth: “There are a lot of possibilities!” Mary announces as she quietly slips ricin into Olive’s food and drink like Walter White so that she can feel good when she “heroically” takes Olive to the hospital.
B.C.: I mean, this one isn’t even a joke. Its literally just polyphobia in the form of old people seething and malding about kids these days and their sexual freedom.
B.C.: It looks like Johnny Hart’s grandsons (who currently produce the strip) have reached an age where their neighbors are starting to swing. A guy I used to work with discovered a whole network of middle-aged swingers in his neighborhood. His wife refused to believe him for the longest time until she finally got propositioned, and then she was offended that they’d waited so long to invite her.
Luann: This kind of insecurity is not unusual, especially in a young guy, but expressing it to his girlfriend makes him look weak. The fact that she’s chomping on a wiener while he does so only adds to the humiliation.
9CL: Her legs are as long as his, but her torso is basically the size of his crotch.
RMMD – Cody wore his best black tee for the meet up.
MW – Go ahead and say it Mary…..”LongGUYland”
MW – “Echo Beach, far away in time….Echo Beach, far away in time”
MW – Take her to Jones Beach, easy to ditch her in the crowd of a million
Wow, you really have to get here early if you want a Friday shot at CotW.
FC: Judging from those kids in the water, it appears the PJ-pocalypse is upon us and no-one is safe.
MW: Next w—? How long is Mary planning to stay, again? Is she expecting Olive to ask her to stay with her forever and be her new grandma?
@Left Nut: I always called it “Lawn Guy Land,” because that’s how it sounded to me. I imagined it was a bedroom community for all of New York City’s landscapers.
Heathcliff – Lemme guess: The pet shop owner’s name is Hootie.
Curtis: “Well, another successful summer job wrapped up! You failed to prove an old lady was telekinetic, and brought a dog back to a home it ran away from two years ago for unknown reasons! Absolutely no loose ends there!”
JP: “It’s all family photos … and the certificate of authentication that this cabinet is an incredibly valuable antique!”
Still, at least we have our absolute first indication that Leah’s evil plot isn’t happening entirely in Sophie and Reena’s heads. It’s a pretty thin one, but it at least counts as circumstancial evidence, which nothing else has.
MW: “Sorry, Mary, but my tummy brain warns me that if I swim in the ocean at the Hamptons, I’ll not only get caught in a riptide, but find a dead body that drags me into a murder mystery that doesn’t make any sense!”
SH: Today in “the plot is going to force Alex and Pam together with crushing inevitability” it’s the ghost of Palmtop’s cat husband (because that’s also a thing, apparently) here to give her permission to move on! That’s a plot device that’s never incredibly cringy!
S4th: I get that the whole joke here is that Ted is being extremely forgiving, but “No-one meant to harm the painting” is kind of glossing over that the Mafia Matrons were actually trying to steal it.
Speed Bump – Rare example of a cartoon in which it’s mainly the drawing that made me laugh.
BF: sounds like what they really need is someone with IT degree and broad social media expertise. Susan OTOH would be qualified as a volunteer taste tester
BETTY: WHERES SID? His influence is needed to protect animal clients from such humiliation. But wait– Melody the Mare is also missing, said she was out of country due to her PV role.
First, someone needs to do a welfare check on Sid. Second, if he’s ok, we need an investigator to check kiss cams of races to see if we find them canoodling.