Sunday is for old people
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Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/28/25
Well, I guess Truck’s not-son Cody did in fact come out ahead of beloved (?) tween neo-vaudeville novelty act “Shorty and the Beanpole,” because not only did he score an invite to Truck’s wedding but he was also allowed and/or required to perform. Obviously he was only paid in “exposure” and “the chance that he might feel the slightest amount of paternal affection for once in his life,” but now it’s all worked out … for him, anyway. Too bad about his band, but the lucrative world of younger people doing covers of country classics doesn’t have room for anything more than the one guy and one guitar that the nostalgics crave.
Mary Worth, 9/28/25
It’s only appropriate that in Mary Worth, interspecies psychic communication takes the form of a human projecting their own floating head into an animal’s mind, though I have to say that Greta and Max’s expressions look less like “We are receiving a message from our friend” and more like Olive has simply overridden their consciousness and will take control of their zombie-like bodies, for rescue purposes. Funnier to me, though, is Mary fretting “what if they forgot about us?” Like, as I age, I definitely have learned more and more that the people “in charge” in any given situation are just folks like me and often have things less in hand than I assumed all adults did as a kid, but I do sincerely believe that the people running a hot air balloon festival would in fact notice if one or more of the balloons went missing. Surely somebody involved has, like, a clipboard, right? A clipboard with a list of balloons on it?
Pickles, 9/28/25
It’s true, Grandpa Pickles walking into an oil change place and thinking it’s his optometrist’s office, which is almost certainly in an entirely different location, is not necessarily a sign that his vision is failing. He should probably take a comprehensive cognitive functions test, however.
Crankshaft, 9/28/25
This one … this one seems even more serious, to be honest. But Crankshaft is pretty sanguine about it. Let’s just take all these pills at random times and let the miracle of the human body take its course. See what happens. He’ll be behind the wheel of a schoolbus full of children when it all goes down, by the way.
33 replies to “Sunday is for old people”
Mary Worth Mashups: For your consideration, a few options for final panel. Do any of them seem either realistic or craveworthy?
Popeye: I love the throwaway panel and the final panel.
Slylock Fox-Looks like they haven’t elected a new pope yet.
MW-Oh, Mary, I’m sure the balloon organizers won’t want to incur your wrath by forgetting about you.
MW:
I don’t want to say that he’s a chowderhead, but this “Stanley” would never have had the wherewithal to hook up with Dr. Livingston.
RMMD, final panel: Mean Gene Okerlund is having none of it!
Pickles:
“I’m here for a ‘Quicky’ !”
THWACK
“What’s that, boys? Mary and that weird kid fell down in a forest in a balloon? Meh, screw them. Now what have you heard about Timmy?”
Pickles: The whole point of a “Quicky Lube” is that you drive up into an auto bay and they change your oil. You don’t make an appointment, park, then walk into a giant room with a tiny desk in the middle and ask about it. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure this guy can’t see because his glasses are covered with dirty motor oil, so maybe he’s in the right place after all.
Mary Worth: Look, gang, maybe you should be asking multimillionaire jewelry-store owner Kendra Scott for help, instead of a couple of dogs. I mean, they’re nice dogs, but she’s a lot more likely to have a helicopter at her disposal. And she just offered to help — for all we know, taking time off to rescue hot-air balloon enthusiasts from the sides of cliffs is written into her “Shark Tank” contract.
Mark Trail / Mary Worth: Meanwhile, Mark says: Watch out for the brown recluse spider! And speaking of tiny recluses, are they really expecting Saul to help? I’m almost certain he doesn’t have a helicopter!
MW:
“Allo? Passy vingt-deux-quinze? Qui est a l’appareil?”
“Stanley! — this is no time to be practicing ALM French with your dead cellphone!”
RMMD — Wait–I missed Shorty and the Beanpole? Someone else get married, quick!
MW — I confess I didn’t know who Kendra Scott was, but now I’m tempted to suggest that the quote should read, “Don’t be afraid to get a new husband.” Not really as germane to a teenager, a suspender–wearing balloonovator, and the spawn of Yog-Sothoth being stranded in a tree, I suppose.
Pickles: The optometrist office was located there twenty years ago which isn’t so bad. It’s when Earl goes to buy a pint at the liquor store which is now a daycare that gets the police involved.
RMMD: What is that hand gesture in the last panel? It’s like Mr Moustache is trying to prove to Cody that he’s got his DTs under control.
MW: Boy, it’s true what Kendra Scott, /switches tabs/ “executive chairwoman, designer, and former chief executive officer of Kendra Scott, LLC”, says: it’s ok to ask for help! Even if it involves using psychic power to control animals! I’m not totally sure that’s what Ms Scott had in mind when she (probably?) said those words, but her wikipedia page isn’t detailed enough to give her views on the paranormal, so I can’t exclude it.
Cshft: What Ed means is that he’ll likely die soon — regardless of his medication regimen — and none of this will matter.
RMMD:
“Folks, I’d like to dedicate this last song to all the mean-spirited commenters on our strip here, channelin’ a tune written by none other than that titan of a man, Mr. Hank Williams. Ahem.
“Your fleetin’ snark will make you creep
You’ll pry and pry, and try to bleep
But bleeps won’t come the whole write through
Your fleetin’ snark will dwell on you
“When sneers come down like fallin’ rain
You’ll boss around and gall my name
You’ll talk some more the way I spew
Your fleetin’ snark will dwell on you
[instrumental break]
“Your fleetin’ snark will whine some day
And crave the stuff you blew away
The time will come when you’ll be through
Your fleetin’ snark will dwell on you
“When sneers come down like fallin’ rain
You’ll boss around and gall my name
You’ll talk some more the way I spew
Your fleetin’ snark will dwell on you”
RMMD: Wow, the bride finally spoke. I guess it’s allowed in the circumstances, since she was praising her husband.
MW:
Max and Greta stare, steely-eyed, envious and in wonderment, at Francis James Barraud’s off-panel iconic painting “His Master’s Voice,” quizzing why they didn’t get the lucrative modeling gig that “Nipper” ended up securing.
RMMD:
“Why all the chicken scratch writing on the wall, Lou?”
“Well, I was looking at Zep’s album ‘Physical Graffiti,’ and I guess I just kinda got carried away with the conceit of the title!”
MW: Olive pauses the rescue long enough to take over Eve’s and Saul’s minds and have them squat walk around the dog park pecking and clucking like chickens. She is a kid, after all.
Pickles: They said it couldn’t be done, so congratulations to Pickles for finding a character who is more unsettling when seen in combination with the words “quicky” and “lube” than Dustin.
MW: I really hope that this is the point where everyone decides that MW has jumped the shark.
This strip’s plot lines have generally been about adult topics, like grief, various forms of dysfunctional relationships, and the like, and while they haven’t always been well-written they’ve at least been somewhat grounded in reality. Even Olive’s original “tummy brain” could be chalked up to some kind of hyperawareness of her surroundings.
This entire storyline, however, could have been yoinked straight from a low-budget “family” movie marketed at grandparents–a teenager who would rather hang out with a spinster than people her own age (and both looks and acts a few years younger than her supposed age) with the ability to mentally communicate with animals, an utterly contrived situation of mild peril, and old people who will be called upon to save the day, with dramatic tension being provided by whether or not they can understand what the animals are trying to tell them and if they can convince the authorities to go looking somewhere based on what is effectively mystical woo.
Now, what would be a fun twist would be if, while Eve and Saul were on their way to retrieve the trio, a search party sent out after someone noticed a missing balloon found them using mundane means, and Olive’s psychic summoning only meant that the dogs were available to provide emotional support once they got back to the festival grounds, but I don’t think Moy is going to subvert our expectations that way.
MW: I guess Olive could’ve made a worse mind meld choice; like Wilbur, who is likely slumped on the couch in a carb coma.
RMMD: Lou is breaking up the band? Tsk.
Phantom:
So Phantom is steering the old, stricken plane
He hopes that his efforts will not be in vain
This dual adventure is taking its toll —
He’d rather be earthbound with Jungle Patrol
The way this strip works, there are two tales to tweak —
The Sunday release, and the rest of the week
But each of the plot lines gives him the lead role
‘Cause both are connected to Jungle Patrol
Suppose that his plane landed right on her bike
Patrolwoman Han would say, “Go take a hike!”
While such a conclusion might not meet her goal,
We’d synthesize stories of Jungle Patrol
MW: It’s official: Mary Worth has jumped the shark. And yes, I’m saying this about Olive telepathically calling dogs to rescue them as opposed to Slenderwilbur or Wilburman or Wilbur surviving a fall off a cruise ship or any other nonsense this strip has pulled.
We know Olive can communicate with humans telepathically. She did it with Mary when she was drowning in a pool. But sure, a wiener dog is going to save them. Why, it’ll only take three weeks for her tiny little legs to get there. At least they’ll have a proper burial.
Moy has devolved into doing absolute nonsense for clicks and yet somehow it’s still so boring. It’s kind of an achievement, really.
MW I’d predicted “Max and Greta are essential to the rescue because they have Olive’s scent” and it’s somehow even stupider??!. And the writing… “what if they forgot us” – just mentioning that doesn’t make it OK to ignore that the freaking Balloon Festival would have someone with a clipboard, permits, checklists! Forget whether Moy has met an actual teen in the last decade or so, has she interacted with *anybody*? Gone to *any* human gathering??
It’s Sunday and time for JUNGLE JIM!
And this week there’s a bonus!
You;d think they would notice something like this when it was photocopied.
@Baja Gaijin: The flaming skeleton always gets my vote!
@Lauralot: The ‘telepathy’ in the old storyline was strongly connected with the whole “tummy brain” and “kindred spirits” and yeah, I agree *that* didn’t jump the shark because it didn’t turn the strip into the Psychic Adventures of Mary and Friend – plus you could speculate that Mary was subconsciously interpreting a distant splash sound. This storyline is continually rewriting the rules of the game of what the strip *is*, in order to present … a pretty boring geriatric fantasy?
H&L Because, you sweet summer child, you are the last teen in your school to _not_ figure out that they can slack all their assignments with CourseHero, ChatGPT and the like _plus_ it’s easier to learn to subvert online proctoring of tests than to actually, y’know, learn the *coursework*. So they’re at least getting you in-person for some of the assessments.
PICKLES: It turns out that Earl was just trying to psyche himself up for trying this new “massage parlor” he heard about and had a cover story on hand in case he chickened out
FC: The Keanes live next door to probably the most dangerous spot to raise children and toddlers on earth. Maybe that’s the idea.
Thel greets Billy at the back door; “You’re back??”
@Liam: Re: Mary Worth: Meanwhile, Mary keeps desperately chanting, “Rain keeps failing, rain keeps failing down, down down down.” to no avail.
Honestly laughed out loud at first two strips I read:
ZITS: yeah, while drones and satellite cams have destroyed backyard sunbathing in the buff, it has helped with civilian sleuthing.
CS: only wish the last frame had been of his toilet.
BETTY: Order the strongest option and add two ice cubes.
@Baja Gaijin: the roast meat, of course.
MW:
“Ladies, since I’m clearly no good whatsoever for anything else, let me see if I can break the tension here with a thematically-familiar humorous riddle — ‘What would a nondyslexic polytheist say if given a speaking role in this strip?’ ”
“We give up, Stanley.”
“Gods are great!”