Remember that comic that used to be about Christian cavemen? Well, I’ve got some interesting news
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B.C., 10/8/25
I find it funny that [pause to once again consult the character list in the “B.C. (comic strip)” Wikipedia article because I can’t remember which of three main male characters is which] Thor comes in portentously relaying some “fact” he learned in a book that’s actually just a math calculation, and I find it very funny that the calculation is wrong (the actual answer is around $110,173). I suppose the suggestion that we could solve the larger issue with sex work is also pretty funny, though it seems petty to point out that it won’t really help if we just sell sexual services to each other. No, we need to market our hot vids to the deep-pocketed European, Asian, and Gulf markets if we want to wipe out the national debt, which is why I’m promoting an agenda to Make America Sexy Again, Or Perhaps For The First Time.
Mary Worth, 10/8/25
Sorry, man, I’m sure they do good work, but I refuse to believe that the fire department in a small California seaside community is the “best in the business.” C’mon, Olive, you’re a New Yorker now, this is exactly the sort of thing that’s supposed to trigger an insufferable monologue about the guys who put out fires in The Greatest City In The World, actually.
64 replies to “Remember that comic that used to be about Christian cavemen? Well, I’ve got some interesting news”
Mary Worth Mashups: Do any of these storyline branches portend an interesting denouement to this storyline?
MW: I think she means ‘best in the business’ of rescuing people from atop pine/palm hybrids. Whether balloons are necessary is unclear.
MW:
“Ladies, this is pretty much a microcosm of my daily life right here.”
“How so, ‘Stanley’ ?”
“I’m higher than a kite!”
“In all my years at the balloon festival, this has never happened.”
Not counting last week. Please don’t ask about last week.
(Thank you to everyone who sent so many kind messages. We’re doing the best we can and trying to get things sorted out.)
MW: Mary, of course, has to get the last word in so that she can sound equally knowledgeable and condescending as a passive aggressive dig at her protégé’s self
centeredsacrificing act of going last.[grumpily observes that back in my day, the unit of currency in B.C. was clams]
MW: Yeah, well, if they’re so great, how come that rescuer hasn’t correctly attached the harnesses to that cage?
BC: Fat Broad’s (can’t remember her new name, and really I don’t care) money consultant job here, is like if you take Lucy’s psychiatric booth and suck all of the life and soul out of it.
Still, despite being a kid, I can sooner picture Lucy getting the calculations correct, because she’s a modern capitalist wannabe while these characters still live in f***ing caves.
Sounds like Stanley is already giving his lawyer something to work with when Mary and Olive file their lawsuit.
MW:
“We’re going to be okay! — you know, just like Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury and Frank McLaury ended up being at the ‘Okay‘ Corral!”
Mary Worth: “I swear, in all my years at the festival, a balloon crash has never happened! It’s almost as if we had been visited by some bad-luck magnet, who attracts doom wherever she goes! Of course, if there actually was someone like that, I suppose she would try to hide her terrible dark mysticism… for example, by pretending to be someone who predicts awful events, so it wouldn’t seem so strange that she’s present whenever they happen. Of course, such a person could never actually exist… Or could she???”
MW: “I swear, in all my years at the Balloon Festival, a balloon crash has never happened! That’s because incidents like this one are always classified as unscheduled arboreal landings!”
Phantom:
“Phantom, what do we do when that guard — I forget his name now — comes to?”
“Oh, ‘Potatoes’ O’Brien? — don’t worry about him. He’s out for the duration.”
MW:
“”Ladies, I’m not sure what I’m going to do when I’m back on terra firma. I purchased this craft on an installment plan — but now, under the contract, since it’s been destroyed under my watch, a balloon payment is due!”
BC: Since an erotic subscription service doesn’t seem like a feasible plant for national debt relief (does every American have to pick up a dozen followers from outside the country?) I’m going to assume that Jane is just redirecting the conversation. “Stop it with all that economic nonsense, wouldn’t you rather see some saucy feet pics? That’s right, I’ll dab my muddy feet on a piece of slate and send it to you once a month, for like, five rocks or whatever.”
MW: “We have had a lot of missing ballooners over the years which, now that I think about it, probably should count as crashes?”
MW: Stanley’s cryptic remarks highlight how the presence of Mary and Olive on the same end of the country seems to be throwing the universe out of balance. Air conditioning units spontaneously fall from the sky, dogs are overwhelmed with irrational anger, teenage girls throw themselves into the water, hot air balloons veer sharply towards the elements…
This is not the act of “kindred spirits” but rather the universe fighting for control.
RMMD: Look at these two young, happy people! So full of life! Everything’s coming up roses for them! Cue the knife-wielding mugger who will stab Augie over a few bucks. Blondie (can’t remember her name) will revert to the true nature of the wimmenfolk in this strip and kneel shrieking over his stricken, bleeding out body, entirely forgetting that she’s a trained medical professional.
This looks like a job for… The Street Sweeper!!
Rex, meanwhile, is at home in his den all pissyfaced and muttering about not knowing or caring to know what the hell a ‘Derpy Tiger’ is. He looks at his buzzing phone telling him to get his ass to the hospital ASAP.
‘Nah,’ he thinks, ‘this whole ‘Hunter-Ex’ thing has got me depressed about the state of our national culture,’ and throws his phone in a drawer.
JP: Yup, Neddy’s going to make the argument that the raspberry-haired brat needs a change of scenery (a ‘mini-vacation’ if you will!) and is going to spirit her away to Norway (ha!) on a grand adventure to find her parents! What fun and exciting mystery* await them!
*There will be no fun or mystery, just a lot of pissy-faced people.
MW: “A balloon crash has never happened…and when they do happen they are generally 100% fatal so you should be thanking me. You’re welcome.”
Seriously, don’t google famous balloon accidents. It’s horrifying.
MW: “We’ll rescue you soon, but here’s a mini-skating rink you can amuse yourselves with until we get there!”
MW: Further proof that Olive is making these things happen. Someone, just give her her own reality show, already.
RMMD: Boooring! Where’s the demented busboy with the ponytail fetish who is stalking Summer?
DtM: What conversation could Dennis possibly have eavesdropped on to come up with this? Was Dad caught sniffing women?
H&L: I have a butt load of reasons to be happy that I’m retired from teaching, but THIS just made the top of the list.
GT: Coach Thorp has a fascinating life that is entirely invented by other people.
FC: It’s better than, “Wipe your snotty nose, you little turd.”
9CL: I just learned that “attention to your happiness” means, “unending narcissistic exhibitionism.”
Is it for OnlyFans of taxing the rich?
***
Are first responders allowed to put people back in a tree after listening to them for thirty seconds after a rescue?
RMMD: Did I miss the strip where Augie and Summer died? Why are they drawn as specters? Although, you’d expect the recently deceased to have a more interesting conversation. Maybe they don’t know they’re dead.
B.C.: Comics bloggers are very different from you and me. They check the math on a legacy strip’s calculation.
BB: 1. Still paperwork
2. Odd that she was able to
change clothes.
Also B.C.: I want $1827.00 and thirty seconds of my life back, B.C.!
Wary Morth:
“Come to think of it, I never carried a tummy brained insufferable teenager and a platitudinous meddling hag up before, either. Hmmmmm.”
________________________
Wrecks Moregone:
“A novel? Is it a detective story? Does the killer murder his victim by boring her to death?”
“Why, yes! How did you read it already?!?”
Mary Worth: “We’re going to be okay! I am a little concerned about the physics, though. Shouldn’t our combined masses create sufficient inertia to slide us off these pines rather thin outer branches? I’m not afraid of falling, in other words, I’m afraid of why we haven’t fallen.”
@Baja Gaijin: I like the potential of the first one, but I must admit either of the others are more likely, since the balloon is still inflated. Come on, Brigman, it takes all of thirty seconds to do an image search.
Funny how the hot air balloon doesn’t seem to have collapsed any. I guess all the hot air from Mary and Olive is keeping it nice and taut.
BC: Okay, this was lifted directly from William Devane’s ad for OnlyFans.
MW-“We’re high up. Imagine what this would be like if we weren’t stoned.”
RMMD-“Well I decided to lie about who I am to get the book published.”
FC-“I’m sure we’re sorry but that hamster was tastier than the usual stuff we eat.”
BC-A society so devasted that they are now awaiting the Third Coming of Jesus.
Sadly, the 7 billion 660 million other people in the world would have to pay nearly 5,000 dollars each for American sex to solve that debt and most of us don’t have that kind of money. By the latest estimates the average wealth in the world is close to $12,000 per person, and almost all of that is owned by 3,110 billionaires, most of whom are Americans themselves. Hey, that gives me an idea for for the US can pay its debt without foreign aid. . .
JP: “This house is so full of sh…………shaving cream. Be nice and clean. Shave everyday and you’ll always look keen”
FC: At the end of the line is Jeffy gnawing on a mouse.
MW – I had a dyslexic moment and thought Olive said “I’m afraid NOT, Mary.” I figured she sensed that SRFD totally sucked at their job.
anonymous was me
Blondie Really, it’s OK to say you have to keep your attention on the road rather than feigning interest and asking your coworker whether the series they’re watching is an action movie
GT Are there really any famous high school football coaches who would be in national news? Is that actually a thing? I know there are famous college ones, and even then I think the play type/level is so different from the professionals that it would be weird for one of them to be hired as an NFL coach.
Also, is Thorp’s statement that he’s coaching Milford supposed to obliquely say that the school board changed the “trans player” policy, or are we still supposed to be waiting for that?
MW: I’m no longer worried about Mary, Olive and Stanley because it looks like that fireman is hanging to that basket without a safety line or harness!
GT: I get that the nuances of USA high school sports can be confusing – different rules than college or pros, changing seasons, but rarely does a high school coach get plucked to be a high level college or professional coach. Gerry Faust rings a bell, but that didn’t end well.
DT: Tracy is hoping to goad LaKoyle into attacking him since he has nothing but circumstantial evidence so far. Faust is just chilling and taking this in. He is thinking “hmm, this day is turning out ok. I thought it was going to be a dull show and tell and paper signing, but i’m really enjoying this …”
This is how you know Mary Worth is true art. It rises above the base urge to make a rescue look interesting, but instead uses it’s medium to portray the reality that most real-life rescue operations are slow and methodical. Using multiple days worth of comics is a great way to invite the viewer to feel what the characters are feeling as what was previously an extraordinary circumstance slowly turns to the-
Oh. Oh wait. You’re telling me that they’re just padding it out until Sunday where they’ll have enough panels to show Olive getting blasted back up into the sky and she has to commune with a past life to figure out how to land the balloon or something like that? Well. That’s fine too.
MW – Chilling fact: Olive was born after 9/11, and the valor of the FDNY is a tale from a history book to her, not lived experience.
Mary Worth: Most stories end just after their climax, but the serial nature of comic strips means Mary Worth stories never end. They just keep careening into each other forever! If the price we pay is several weeks of nameless firemen unfurling their ladders while the main characters intone “After you! No, after you!” like the gophers from the Looney Toons cartoons, so be it! It’s the price of Mary’s immortality.
@Art Critic 9000: In case Olive does get blasted into the sky or some other problem happens during the rescue, we should all start practicing our “Bet you didn’t see that coming, Olive!” line.
For my money, the best firemen in the business would have to be in Chicago. They got serious after 1871…
DtM: “Everyone smells if you sniff hard enough.”
Sometimes the quip makes you see through the strip straight to the author. Shouldn’t this guy be on some kind of watch list?
BC — Good to see that BC is displaying a misconception about “paying back the national debt” in line with the average Congres, uh, caveperson. . .
@Ken: Brigman: 30 seconds more than this story is worth. But at least I got to draw dogs. Dogs are good!
GA: Let me guess…. that 10 point deduction for PDA is the “cut line” for passing the inspection, and if the Temp Cook and the Temp Waitress show no further sign of affection, the inspector will pass them, and he’s going to be there, at the diner and no where else inspecting, 24/7 to make sure that they stick to it.
@Amelie Wikström: I’m sorry, turning 3,110 billionaires into meat pies that sell for 5 bucks a pop won’t do it either.
I think that if I were trapped in that balloon basket, right now I’d be more worried about the pocket black hole that’s evidently been stashed inside the floor. Local gravity is clearly very distorted; look at how “down” for the firefighter and his rescue gear is at a different angle than for the balloon. This also explains the pacing of this story; clearly, we the readers are looking towards the event horizon and are experiencing a lot of time dilation.
@CanuckDownSouth, GT: We haven’t any decision from the School Board, and while I’m expecting Gil to be shown the door, he’s LORD GOD THORP, and he can coach ANYTHING and ANY level.
If he’s THAT All-Powerful, let’s see him take a coaching job in the NHL and win the Stanley Cup with an Canadian team. Or, even, the Canadians.
MW: Are the Santa Royale Firemen like the Royal Canadian Mounted Police?
B.C.: “Ever heard of OnlyFans? No? Well, hey, genius, you invented the telephone years and years ago [he really did, there were tons of strips about it in the ’60s and ’70s], maybe get going on inventing the Internet.”
“Santa Royale firemen are the best in the business. To be fair, their business is mostly helping Wilbur when his forearm gets stuck in the big jar of mayo! But you’d be surprised by how trained they are on that!”
@Amelie Wikström: Not quite true. Latest estimates are that global wealth is about $454,385 billion, and global population is about 8.1 billion people, for about $56,097 per person, on average, and the top 1% (about 80 million people) control about 45% of the wealth.
@Lord Flatulence: No, the stress is different: ROY-al, roy-ALE. Also the second vowel.
@Needless Exposition: Belated condolences and hugs to you and your family. Hang in there.
@Tom: Actually, we’re both wrong. I probably counted, unfairly, non-liquid assets like real estate and factories to claim billionaires own “almost everything,” and the average wealth is $15,108.
MW: Yeah, the Santa Royale fire department is rescuing you and your idiot baloonivator like a trio of treed cats. What have the fine men and women of the FDNY ever done that could possibly compare to that?
GT: The Hartford Courant published stories about the Patriots moving to the Nutmeg State and believed it would happen.. don’t know if I trust some HS coach is being recruited straight to MLB on their say so.
Lockhorns: Leroy is entering a bidding war he will certainly lose.
RMMD:
“What’s your novel about?”
“Two high schoolers who are determined to be the next Hope and Crosby!”
“Who?”
FC: …by which Billy means a living hamster
H&L: Trixie misses her hasty pudding. Who cares if it will give her dysentery, beri beri, and scurvy? Let the kids live a little!
@TheDiva: I was going to say that FDNY didn’t have nearly as many forest-related rescues, but it’s turned out the Santa Royale Vast Dense Remote Forest Edge™ is considerably smaller than Central Park — possibly even Jackie Robinson Park — and even more accessible by roads.
DT: Dr. Lakoyle should shoot Dick for that condescending “Ms.” alone.
Dustin: Please, that whole statement is a stretch. The only “lifting weights at the gym” that Dustdad is ever done is picking up a sack at the White Castle on the corner next to the 24 Hour Fitness.
GT: Yeah, the NFL is just dying to get their hands on a high school coach who barely manages .500 most seasons.
JP: Go on, Neddy, say what you meant to say. We’re all thinking it.
Pluggers are full of pseudo-philosophical horse hockey.
RMMD: “Now that we’ve established the existence of your writing, which has never been mentioned in-strip before, maybe we can talk about it like normal people.”
MW – “I swear, in so my years at the festival, no one’s ever lost their balloon pilot’s license. Guess there’s a first time for everything.”
Stanley is pushing an angle to avoid a bad Yelp review: “Well, I have done this trip hundreds of times and I never had any problem. You take your first flight and we crash. You can’t help but wonder wheter the problem is not me, but you!” Funniest thing is, he might be right! We have plenty of evidence that Olive is jinxed!
Luann: I’m calling on the collective wisdom of The Comics Curmudgeon readers. Is there any college in the U.S. where students are allowed to keep (non-service) dogs in the dorms?
The most anachronistic thing in today’s “BC” is these cavemen using the term “trillion”. Their primitive brain does not have advanced math skills to count that high, their numeracy is mostly “One fish, some fish, all the fish (12)”