Balloons? These guys know how to party
Post Content
Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/4/25
Oh, man, Rex and June thought they were going to have an early night of it, but now it looks like they’ll be up late spinning an elaborate web of lies for their children. Will they be able to convince the boys that some sad slice of soggy coffee cake they bought at a gas station is in fact left over from Glenwood’s shindig of the year? It’s a tough call: on the one hand, the boys are pretty stupid, but on the other, they seem hyperfixated on cake, so they might figure it out.
Beetle Bailey, 10/4/25
Remember, folks, Beetle Bailey’s Sgt. Snorkel isn’t just a violent man with an eating problem; he also has a drinking problem! They don’t dwell on that so much these days but it’s still canon.
51 replies to “Balloons? These guys know how to party”
Beetle Bailey-Well this intervention is a bust.
RMMD-Come the morning Rex and June will have to face the wrath of Sarah who can tell the difference between a wedding cake and a store bought cake.
MW-“Eh. Mary says a lot of stuff. Have you ever actually listened to half the stuff she says?”
RMMD:
“Hey! This is the same cake they sell at the BP station.”
“What makes you say that?”
“It smells like gasoline.”
RMMD: Hands up all those who guessed that the next dramatic three-week-long medical story arc would be two people buying cake at a convenience store. Maybe there’ll be a robbery attempt and someone will get shot, allowing Rex to — well, probably do nothing, malpractice insurance contracts being what they are.
RMMD: I love how these two think that it’s the “wedding” part of “wedding cake” that has excited their kids. Buy them any cake, you don’t even have to hide it — they’ll just be happy to have a break from their regular diet of white rice and steamed turnips, or whatever it is you feed them.
BB: I like how that lower shelf looks less like liquor bottles than something raided from the chemistry lab. Ether and hexane for everyone!
MW: Notes still inflated balloon in background, adds hot-air balloons to list of things Moy knows nothing about.
MW: Aaaand there’s a road leading directly to the balloon. Which is still inflated, raising so many questions ranging from “why don’t they take off again” to “why aren’t they on fire”.
Rex Morgan M.D. : is being delightfully devilish, disguising a grocery store-bought cake as
his own cookingleftovers of a wedding cake.Hopefully he doesn’t have to deal with an aurora borealis, at this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, located entirely in his kitchen.
RMMD:
“That forgetfulness of yours really takes the cake, June!”
MW: Knowing they were miles behind their dogs, Saul quickly overtook them just by pressing the car’s Accelerator (TM) button, instantly turning his stodgy Buick sedan into a sporty fastback.
RMMD:
“I absolutely love lying to the kids, June! — to manipulate their impressionable, trusting little minds like that should qualify me for a ‘Parent of the Year’ award!”
MW: Stanley finally lets go of the tree branch to wave at their would-be rescuers, and the balloon instantly rises above the vast, dense forest gulp and goes on its way.
B. Bailey: Say what you will about his drinking, Sarge was considerate enough to include a cocktail glass for Julius on his booze cart.
Beetle Bailey:
“Tonight’s party is B.Y.O.B.”
” ‘Beetle — You Obnoxious Bastard’ ?”
Beetle Bailey:
“I hope you three guys have raspy voices, because that way, I can put the cart before the hoarse!”
BB: General Halftrack leaps in midair, in slow-motion onto the booze cart.
(I’m assuming he’s at the party, and if he isn’t, he is now)
MW: I’m just throwing this out there; maybe Olive is using her “gift” to CREATE catastrophes so she can get attention for rescuing everyone? A kind of Munchausen Syndrome, but not really.
RMMD: Spineless much? How about, ” We forgot cake from the wedding, so we stopped at the bakery.” They’re kids. It’s cake. They’ll eat it.
BB: Maybe Sarge is working his way through The Seven Deadly Sins. Although, when it comes to Lust…oh, never mind, I’ve made myself gag.
MW: Look out, Saul! There’s a tree crossing the road ahead!
RMMD:
“With the sinister extraterrestrial object 3I/Atlas — clearly the product of some malign alien civilization at work — bearing down on us, what difference does it make if the kids get cake or not, June? We’re about to be annihilated by the earth’s turning into a flaming fireball!”
BB: They’re going to have a wild time drinking all that purple codeine syrup, Sudafed, and whatever else Sarge could steal from the base pharmacy.
@Hibbleton: wait wait… what?
If the balloon is still inflated, that means that the fire (should) be still on.
In turn, if the fire is still on. The balloon should be rising.
I just broke my brain trying to think my way through this.
@Schroduck: “Soda… Sunny D… Oh yeah! Purple stuff!!”
MW:
Stanley is clearly staring off-panel in today’s installment. What is he looking at? A giant condor, about to try to make a meal out of one of our hapless trio? A pterodactyl or archaeopteryx, in some real-life rendering of Jurassic Park? Or is he contemplating a solution to Riemann’s hypothesis?
I am reminded of watching a Detroit Red Wings game many, many years ago. The opposing team had gotten a breakaway, and the puck handler was bearing down on the Red Wings goalie. The Red Wings were coached at the time by none other than Scotty Bowman, a genius if there ever were one. Every pair of eyes in the arena was focused on the puckholder and the goalie, to see if there would be a score or a save — well, every pair of eyes other than those of Bowman, who was staring in the complete opposite direction.
i
@The Rambling Otter: I think when this is all over, we deserve a special metapost just to analyze the problems — not Olive’s psychic abilities, I’ll accept those as a premise; but how balloons, forests, dogs, cars, and people don’t work that way.
MW:
I’m still trying to figure out what happened to the dogs’ leashes. My working hypothesis is that ne’er-do-well mainstay Rene Belluso came cross-panel from over at RMMD and purloined them.
@Bob Tice: Object permanence is so passé.
@Liam: re:RMMD – Joke’s on Sarah, then – as if this wedding bought anything better than the cheapest grocery store sheet cake. Any single slice or mini cake will be at least as good
@Ken: seconded!
GT Good of them to note this is a new player, since the art can’t help us figure it out
DT “Electrothanasia”? Is the Tracyverse such a hellhole with so many people seeking assisted suicide that they’ve developed specialized vocabulary for a variety of methods??
BB Somehow I doubt that senior sergeants go to parties hosted by enlisted men, but far be it from me to question the military knowledge of the writers of Beetle Bailey.
They were at a roots country Americana Ameripolitan wedding. You can bring home some cupcakes for the kids, tell them that’s all the bride and groom could afford, and they’ll have no choice but to believe you.
***
I’m trying to make sense of those balloons and failing spectacularly. Is one attached to the wall and the other attached to it? Seems like a waste of helium, but if they don’t have helium then why do they have strings? With party decorations like this it’s no wonder Sarge wants to pass out as soon as possible and forget the whole thing.
JP – So that’s why Neddy’s boobs aren’t what they once were! They’ve been Benjamin Buttoned away.
Lío – Um, no. Cats want ranged weapons, not pole arms. I know this because when we brought our sweet little furballs home from the shelter, they went straight for my wife’s model ballista.
@Ken: Both the Dachschund and the Retriever are good on object permanence, having each been bred for hunting tasks. Moy and Brigman, not so much.
“Someone has brought a generous supply of alcohol to our party. This is distressing for some reason.”
BF: Ah! I’ve been looking forward to one of these three having a stroke, but my money was on the whiny fat blonde one.
Blondie: Enjoy your alternate universe, and by the way, fuck you.
Nothing going on in the news? Boy howdy, I wish!
DtM: “It’s a sweatshirt and a napkin!” Dennis brags in a filthy sweatshirt.
Jeffy pulls his sweatshirt down to his ankles as he squats in a corner. “Challenge accepted!”
@Ukulele Ike: BF – Are we sure it’s a stroke?
Blondie – Don’t overlook the possibility that Blondie is in our universe and incredibly jaded. In which case your imprecation remains valid.
DT: All right, where did the coffee come from? Tess made Roberta fetch it, didn’t she? I can tell a Domme/sub relationship when I see it. “Two sugars, then stand quietly behind my chair while I talk business.”
JP: You can say a lot of things about Neddy, but you can’t say she isn’t self-aware.
Phantom has a plan, and the plan is to punch everybody in the camp.
RMMD – Developing a workable cold fusion technology: Genius. Switching out grocery store cake for wedding cake to fool your stupid kids: Not genius.
@matt w: What, you think Sarge is planning to Share?!? BYOB means it’s his own and the rest of those pansies can just piss the hell off!
RMMD – I agree with everyone who feels that receiving compensatory cake from a C-Store will be just fine with the kids, and there’s no reason to lie about it. In twenty years, when the Morgans tearfully confess to their adult children that the cake didn’t come from the wedding, the children will likely say “we know, but you’d have never let us have HoHos any other way . . . “
@CanuckDownSouth: I do believe that’s another one of Costello’s desperate bits of fanservice. In the first Superman cartoon produced by the Fleischer Studios in 1941, Superman went up against a Mad Scientist and his ‘Electrothanasia Ray’.
Makes a bit more sense than having the 1966 Batmobile put in a guest appearance, but only a little.
Blondie: The Bumstead’s ears are full of sand. An unfortunate by-product of the ignorant.
Blondie: Everything is great. I know this because they told me it is.
RMMD: Rex, you’re a genius! A normal parent would have just bought the cake and said, “Sorry, kids, mom and I were on our way home when we realized we forgot to get you some of the wedding cake like we promised, so we bought some cake for you at the store.” The kids will be cool about it because it still ends with them getting cake, and they’ll get a valuable demonstration in admitting to and rectifying one’s own mistakes. But your brilliant idea adds a lot of unnecessary preparation and subterfuge, and if the kids find out they will be angry at being lied to and/or internalize the idea that it’s okay to deceive people to avoid getting into trouble with them. Father of the year, you are!
“Damn it, Sarge, bring your own bullets! The armory isn’t going to issue ammo for us to frag Halftrack! I knew we shouldn’t invite you to the coup, but Plato was sure that NCOs are important when you’re overthrowing unjust authority. This what you get for reading Edward Luttwak!”
DTM: Look! It’s a sweatshirt AND toilet paper!
Rex Morgan: Unfortunately for the Morgans, while their sons are stupid enough to fall for this, their daughter is a mutant freak that will discern the truth and plot to murder them for their deception.
RMMD: If we ditch the packaging, those morons will never know the difference.
C’shaft: Just when I think Batiuk’s contempt for his readers can’t get any higher, he pulls the “I’m sorry you feel that way” non-apology card.
Dustin: Exhibit 65A in “Dustin and Dustdad are the exact same person twenty-five years apart.”
MW: Oh, of COURSE there’s a paved/packed dirt road running right by the part of No Cell Service State Forest where the balloon crashed. Of course.
Re Morgan, MD: “Grocery store up here a ways”? Is Rex affecting a Southern drawl? Did exposure to country music people turn him country? Or is he doing a bit, making fun of the friends and ancillary characters he just left?
The idea of a comic strip character just doing a bit for DAYS, pretending to be someone he’s not, and no one acknowledging it appeals to me. I’m pretty sure it’s just for me and the writer, but an audience of two is bigger than an audience of zero.
RMMD – Little did the Morgans know that their quick stop at the “24-hour grocery store” (only lowlife stoner types call it a “convenience store”) would precipitate them into the middle of an armed robbery and hostage situation in progress, trapping them in a tense standoff with the constant threat of imminent violence… No, wait, sorry, this is Rex Morgan. They’ll buy a cake and go home.
Don Abundio, translated:
[Sign: MINIATURE GOLF]
“Don Abundio has been practicing alone here every day”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know why… he usually plays standard golf with money at stake!”
“I have a theory, though…”
“Don Abundio’s going to challenge his business associates to a game without telling them this is the course!”