Toby doesn’t care about Sunny’s criminal past … she’s so open-minded
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Dick Tracy, 11/25/25
Ah, man, remember the Dick Tracy vampire car storyline from 2016? It was a fun one, and I personally would follow the principle of “don’t stop in the middle of your not-so-interesting storyline to remind your readers of a more interesting one,” but I’m not in charge of Dick Tracy. I do appreciate that advances in solid state storage have allowed Dick to keep a 3D image of a cool vampire car on his watch, for him to amuse himself with whenever the conversation about clown crime gets tedious.
Mary Worth, 11/25/25
It appears that Mary Worth takes place in a universe very much like our own, with the crucial difference that television never invented the concept of a studio audience or a laugh track; instead, the characters themselves laugh in an aggressive, artificial way to let the audience know that a joke has just happened.
Blondie, 11/25/25
When Dagwood says “Are you ready to take Thanksgiving to another level?”, it should come as no surprise that it’s a sex thing. The hat stays on, ladies.
159 replies to “Toby doesn’t care about Sunny’s criminal past … she’s so open-minded”
Mary Worth: Has any checked Toby for brain worms? Normal brains don’t work like hers.
Blondie: Dagwood’s kissing Blondie but he’s thinking about turducken.
Dustin: If Ed’s lucky, this Christmas someone’ll get him a “World’s Most Mediocre Lawyer” sippy cup.
Slylock Fox: Someone hates Lumpy McTentsleeper. Beavers don’t fell trees away from streams or rivers. I’ll bet Wanda Rabbit is behind this caper.
Blondie: has anyone noticed that Blondie’s expression never changes? She always looks slightly worried.
DT:
“And apparently he goes by the full formal name of ‘Ozob the Nwolc’ ! Now, I’m sure that’s code for something, but I can’t put my finger on what it is!”
Blondie: So we’re not going to say anything about Dagwood hanging a testicle on a door way and enticing his wife under it?
Yeah, I get it. Better not to mention it.
MW: Does Mary realize that just because a “talking bird” like a parrot, mynah, or cockatoo has learned to mimic the sound of a person going “Ha ha ha!,” that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s learned to equate the sound with being happy, and it will in fact repeat the words regardless of how it feels? Or is she implying Sunny is amused by “Friends” reruns, which would make him one of the first?
MW:
“Considering the almost maniacal repetition of monosyllabic utterances on our telecast, young lady, the name of our TV show should probably be ‘Channeling Phyllis Diller’ !”
“Ha ha ha!”
“Ha ha ha!”
Blondie: Wait until you see his condom with the little buckle on it.
Six Chix: Has Tuesday Chix not learned to Scotchgard her jack o’lanterns? If she had, she’d not be all depressed today. Well, not depressed because her pumpkin lover is flaccid and stinky.
Sally Forth: I love those two Gangsta Grammas!
DT:
“Now, despite Ozob’s having assembled the vampire car, Rikki’s real preference was to drive menacingly through the streets of Gotham with a combination tractor-trailer, thus earning Mortis the sobriquet ‘Rigger‘ !”
BLONDIE: Blondie plans and cooks the entire meal and cleans up. Dagwood dons a musty hat and hangs poultry from the ceiling.
DtM: Dennis has, quite innocently, committed his worst menace yet.
RMMD: Augie should have directed the bouquet to “Autumn Rook,” to subtly nudge Summer onto his side.
MW: Halfway to ever. So, like, semi-demi-hemi-ever?
MW: I’m getting a feeling that the parrot arc was dashed off as content-free filler for the gap between the Olive Saga and whatever’s going to start up after Thanksgiving. Pity, after all the great ideas that have been tossed around in the comments here, not that I expected anything that interesting would actually happen.
Blondie:
If this strip had been in circulation in 1678 when Puritan preacher John Bunyan was alive, he probably would have written The Pilgrim’s Regress.
DT: “Vampire Car?” There’s gotta be a Batmobile joke in there somewhere!
MW: Toby is watching a video cover of Flipper’s Ha Ha Ha song as sung by David Schwimmer and Lisa Kudrow on another of SiriusXM’s odd music genres: Punk Easy Listening.
MW:
“Mary, he even flies to the door for Amazon deliveries! — go figure.”
Thanks for the earworm, Rhymes With Orange!
@Ken: It’s most likely Ian will return from his convention and order her to get rid of the bird.
Blondie: Some people’s kink is having candle wax dripped on them during sex. We shouldn’t be surprised that Dagwood’s equivalent is hot chicken grease pouring down his neck.
I choose to believe that the constant praise for Dagwood’s idiotic ideas is part of an extremely long con designed to bleed him of whatever’s left of the Bumstead billions, culminating in the entire cast of characters leaving him alone on a blank panel.
RMMD: In her anguished mental state Summer doesn’t hear the soft tickticktickticktickticktick coming from the bouquet. Soon Augie will have no more obstacles to riches beyond his wildest dreams as the published author of a single true crime novel…
JP: Whoa, slow down there fella! M&M can only con so much travel money out of the syndicate for ‘research’. You can’t expect them to show Sophie moping around all those amazing places!
@J.J. O’Malley:
MW: Does Mary realize that…it [Sunny] will in fact repeat the words regardless of how it feels?
She’s just humoring Toby…as do most people.
On that note, I’m not sure what the final bid was for LBJ’s Nuts in the John Oliver auction to benefit public media. Last I saw, it was $25,000 (and if anyone knows, please share). As enticing as a presidential scrotum is, I did not bid on it, but Madame Ovary said we could have hung them from the high ceiling in our place. Would that count as mistletoe?
@Pozzo: Unfortunately, this strip already played that card when Costello had B.O. Plenty win the actual 1966 Batmobile at a Comic-Con raffle or some such bull%$#@.
Blondie’s positioning in panel 2 is objectively bizarre: fingers splayed, knees knocked out from under her, fully and completely on tiptoe, not to mention the fact that her face is turned completely away from her husband’s as he Nazi-salutes the wall… all of that plus the fact that they’re both still talking makes me grateful for both the reference to mistletoe and the “KISS” sound effect, or else I wouldn’t know what the hell’s going on here.
MW – When Ian returns and puts on Eddie Murphy Raw, the discourse in the Cameron household is going to get real real.
MW — Yes, because nothing evinces happiness so much as being able to mimic actions one sees and hears on a visual display!
Blondie: D’s nuts:deez nuts::turkey nuts:truck nuts. Discuss.
@The Quiet Man:
Soon it will be time to do the taxes in the US and so the creators just wanted to be sure they got all of their deductions backed up by solid published use. Next year the girls “charity” will take them to Tuscany or the Bordeaux wine country!
Abner, Abner Kadaver
His Vampire Car’s gonna grab ya…
I’m sorry, but that’s just a tractor.
Mary Worth: People are criticizing Mary for not understanding that Sunny is just imitating what he sees on television. But me? I commend him for showing more human emotion than any human character in this strip.
DT: “Yeah, I think in total there were 14 dead? Well, one of a heart attack, so 13 for sure. Anyhow, good times…”
MW: I don’t know about you, but I find it a little funny that Mary Worth, the emotional shepherdess of Charterstone, hears a *parrot* making a laughing sound and says “That’s one happy bird!” Yup, level one emotional indicator achieved, no need dig any deeper here.
Blondie: /five days later/ “Happy thanksgiving, Dag and Blondie! Thanks for inviting us over for the d– OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT SMELL?”
Abner Kadaver is such a good pun name. It’s multifaceted. I’m focusing solely on that to avoid thinking about Blondie and Dagwood’s sex life.
Meta 1: Sunny would be well-advised to stay away from Dagwood at Thanksgiving time, for many reasons.
Meta 2: Blondie’s posture indicates that it’s time to break out this holiday classic.
Dick Tracy: That’s less a “Vampire Car” than a “Vampire Tractor,” specifically a modded-out Ford, judging by its paint scheme. For shame, Dick Tracy! At least have the decency to use Vampire International Harvester red and black, they were headquartered in Rock Island, after all!
Blondie: Approximately six hours later the turkey leg was crawling with maggots, minus the ones falling on whoever was underneath.
Also Dick Tracy: Diet Smith’s greatest innovation lay not in the two-way wrist communicator itself, but in the vast relational databases it connected to, but more important, the imprisoned Bangladeshi workforce that carried out the mySQL searches by hand. No one could return SELECT (CONCAT “Rikki”, “Mortis”, “Vampire”, “Car”) AS Video FROM Villains faster, or cheaper.
The Family Circus Spanish to English.
@Hibbleton:
Lord knows that’s what Mary herself does. She probably just thinks that’s normal.
JP: I don’t know why Reena said she knows nothing about cooking. Everything looks so delicious!
@The Quiet Man: As far as I can tell, the syndicate offered just enough research cash for Ces to pick up a used copy of the Rough Guide to Norway. (Vigeland Sculpture Park is cool, though. Definitely on my list in the unlikely case I decide to vacation in Oslo)
Zits Spanish to English.
RMMD The card reads “I hope you like them, but if I have to return the book advance I can’t afford it and you owe me 200$”
H&L Lois, first, if your pediatrician isn’t going over growth charts for height and weight, get another one – maybe half an inch is on track, or maybe not! ditto for whatever weight increase! And if you’re worried he’s eating too much junk food, realize that *you* control an enormous amount of his access and you can deal with it *without* waiting for a doctor’s visit.
Sunny is gonna need more than quality pellets to make him the happiest parrot ever Toby – if ya know what I’m sayin’.
“No matter what his past, he’s home now.” Except, you know, for the whole “illegally smuggled” thing, Toby. I was really hoping Ian would be back home when the cops come busting down the door, but then I realized he’s the one who would be calling them and letting them in. Enjoy your contraband while you can.
***
Has Dagwood been working out? It would make sense that he’s tired of just cardio after all these decades, but I’m not sure the jokes would land the same when he gets to a bodybuilder physique.
Blondie-Stuff a turducken into Blondie?
RMMD-That’s some fast service. Summer just left Auggie.
MW-Hey look! The show where everyone laughs has added a new character.
Blondie-Dagwood got the idea from Dithers who dangles a sword above Dagwood’s desk.
MW-Let us remember that Ian is at a “conference”. He’s not dead. He did not divorce Toby. He will be home.
JP: Cat burglar Emil just happens to know where all these valuable works of art are located in Oslo.
FC: Dolly continues. “She originally lived in a Fuck Me pump. That’s why there’s so many kids.”
MW: Now that Sunny knows how to laugh, I’m guessing the conflict in this plot will come from Sunny guffawing at inappropriate moments. Jeff trying to make moves on Mary. Ian naked. Ian pompously bloviating. Ian objecting to bird shit all over the condo [insert Sunny letting loose on Ian’s head as he flies around the room]. Any visit to ANIMAL HOSPITAL as that day’s patients inevitably succumb to Dr. Ed’s ministrations. Any interaction with Wilbur, especially if Sunny can modulate the HAHAHA into a deprecating snicker. It’s just a laugh, but I think there are some awesome opportunities for Sunny to add Greek chorus-like commentary on the residents of Santa Royale.
DT – Yee-Haw! I’m ready for the tractor pull….
MW – My Sunny one, so insincere….
Blondie – Why did I just assume Dag was a breast man….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
DT: Gee, thanks for reminding me that Abner Kadaver, by far my favorite Dick Tracy villain, is dead dead and his henchwoman/babymama Rikki Mortis ran off with her lesbian lover years ago and hasn’t been seen since, and their departures are a reminder of how far the strip’s rogues’ gallery has fallen from its golden days. They didn’t need dialogue, they had faces! Grotesque, improbably deformed faces.
MW: Toby doesn’t care about Sunny’s past…but maybe she should? Because, you know, there’s all these rules and regulations regarding bringing domestic animals into a country and they tend to be especially particular about birds, and it seems extremely likely that Sunny was already being trafficked across the border in an attempt to circumvent those rules? I don’t think they have the Sarcastic Laughter Hour streaming in quarantine.
Dags uses all the Thanksgiving food stuffs as part of his elaborate sexual foreplay. He pulls down his pants and says; “Time to stuff the turkey.” As he removes Blondie’s bra he says; “Let’s check on the baked potatoes.” He grabs her ankles and exclaims; “I’m splitting the wishbone!” Just don’t ask where he sticks his “corn-on-the-cob.”
Blondie’s only skeptical about Dagwood’s ability to top himself because she hasn’t learned about the “Mobius strip” position from the Kama Sutra.
@Liam: [Some weeks from now] ‘Did you hear? A bus carrying people coming home from an academic conference was involved in a road accident. Most of the academics died!’
*Ha-ha-ha! Chirp!’
Blondie and Dagwood’s costumes for role play night: Dagwood wears a pilgrim hat and a v-neck sweater over a polo. Blondie wears a fishnet skirt. I did not need to see this.
DT – Oh great, now I’ve got the Heathcliff theme song stuck in my head.
♪ Rikki, Rikki, it’s a pity
Terrorized the whole damn city…
@J.J. O’Malley: There are some breeds of parrots that don’t merely “repeat” words. If trained, African Gray Parrots can identify objects and have (sort of) conversations with their owners. They are very smart.
DT – I love how this guy is adopting the language of art criticism to discuss Ozob’s silly car customizations. “Ozob’s breakout work, Vampire Car, signaled a shift in approach from the solemn, if covertly ironic, form of automotive menace typified by Stephen King’s Christine, to an overtly cartoonish aesthetic drawing on influences that range from monster truck rallies to The Munsters’ Munster Koach. Critics remain divided as to whether this shift represents camp, or even pandering, versus a clever inversion in which postmodernist technique is recruited into the service of a critique of postmodernism itself.”
@TheDiva: Maybe Toby will get arrested for being a part of this and not reporting Sunny to the authorities?
MW – HA HA HA!
Don Abundio, translated:
“You have a very bad cold! You’d better stay home”
“But my regular poker game is tonight”
“I hate to disappoint the guys! What can I do?”
“Now… Pretend he’s me and bet accordingly!”
MW: Part of me thinks this story is an ultra-sarcastic stealth parody about our nation’s current immigration policy. “You know what those Mexicans brought into the country this time? Illegal Amazon* parrots!”
(* – I don’t know if “Amazon” in the 11-23 strip means a certain variety of parrot, or if means the parrots were ordered on amazon.com)
@The Rambling Otter:
There are some breeds of parrots that don’t merely “repeat” words. If trained, African Gray Parrots can identify objects and have (sort of) conversations with their owners. They are very smart.
I imagine the people who train these parrots are very intelligent themselves…and Sunny lives with Toby. Draw your own conclusions.
@Baja Gaijin:
Did you just imply Toby owns a brain?!?
Woman on telly: “Ha ha ha!”
Parrot Sunny: “Ha ha ha!”
Readers: “Aaaaah aaaaah aaaaah!”
RexMD: Why do I have the feeling that the flowers aren’t from Augie???
Wrecks Moregone:
Winter, that bouquet is from Lorry’s not-son Cody or Corey or Whatever His Nane Was.
In other words you have a new stalker and Auuuuughie isn’t around to help.
C’shaft: I’ve never understood this particular running gag. It’s one god-damn leaf. You can pick it up and put it in the trash with one hand. It isn’t worth grousing over for several days’ worth of strips.
Dustin: Mustache Guy’s attempts to get Dustdad fired for inappropriate conduct hit the unexpected wall of Dustdad knowing something about legal matters for a change.
FG: Man, I would think someone in an intergalactic community, who in the course of his profession must encounter beings from various species and cultures, each having its own unique social constructions around gender, wouldn’t be so perplexed about the proper form of address for an enby smuggler.
GT: Gil: “She was my life companion, my dearest and closest friend, the one whom my heart still pines for…”
Emily: “Yeah, he gave me a couple kids, whatever.”
HotC: You kids today! When I was your age, we not only had to put up with commercials, they would cut all the swearing out of the movie too!
JP: I’m surprised Emil doesn’t mention any outdoor activities, given that a love of nature is deeply ingrained in Norwegian culture and practiced even in the cold winter months. At least, I would be surprised if I wasn’t convinced M&M are getting their information on the country from old Conde Nast listicles.
RMMD: I’m not sure what’s more insulting: that Augie thinks flowers will smooth over his idiocy in all this or that it will probably work with Summer.
GT: I’m legit worried for the Mudlarks here. If there’s anyone who knows how to exploit Gil’s half-assed coachery—and has the motivation to go full Cobra Kai—it’s Mimi. I just hope not too many players are hurt or hurt too bad when she goes scorched earth on the man who treated her one precious life like it was, well, just another season of desultory Mudlark football.
Questionable Content:
Has Faye been waiting around anxiously for Anhlikeable to return from her jog? Doesn’t she have a repair place to get to? Is she Anhnecessary’s mother now? The same Anhcouth she *hated* 48 hours ago? The Anhseen who was trying to eavesdrop on her and Bubbles having sex *just last night*?
No matter how much I hate this strip it’s not enough.
@Bob Tice: Maybe he’s a lanimirc.
“That’s one happy bird” is also what Ian says about his wife — he affects British expressions
MW – So maybe that little bird is actually Death and Toby doesn’t realize she’s died? And she’s in Hell with all the demons laughing at her from the TV? Which would explain why Mary is still there?
Blondie – That’s not the most obvious use for a turkey leg in this situation but you know Dagwood would eat the thing before he ever got around to pleasuring Blondie with it.
JP: If Sophie can stay in every night, working remotely from the rental house, why did she need to relocate to Norway in the first place?
RMMD: Props to Summer’s car for making that annoying beep when she locks it with her key fob. You hear that all the time in parking lots (I’m responsible for it often), but this is the first time I’ve seen (heard?) it actually depicted in a comic. Also, props to Summer for making the slightly healthier choice to binge on ice cream as opposed to getting wasted (we’ve already got one Judge Alan Parker in the funny pages).
LUANN: I’m sure Grandma’s thrilled that AFTER she’s dragged all her pots and pans across town to cook Thanksgiving dinner, her daughter tries to get everyone to eat out.
Nancy Classics – Those lines coming off the cake in the first panel: If she frosted the cake while it was still warm, it would be a runny mess. And you wouldn’t enter an unfrosted cake in a contest. Conclusion: Nancy’s cake stinks.
JP: Not only did Soph do absolutely NO research on Norway before traveling, she’s been in the country for six months and is still completely ignorant. At least Reena’s getting laid. And maybe Aksel lent her a Knut Hamsun novel. (PAN is the best.)
@TheDiva: Maybe today’s Crankshaft is a twist on O’Henry’s “The Last Leaf.” A neighbor has wired an artificial leaf to the tree, knowing Ed will stand there all day and get pneumonia.
Crankshaft: Leaves rarely fall straight down. They float, they flutter, they move about a bit. Crankshaft will try to follow the descending path of the leaf as it falls with the leaf bag open. He’ll trip and the whole bag of leaves will escape to make their way all over his yard. Serves him right for having a stupid sideways strip.
@The Quiet Man:
Sunny cut the brake lines.
Garfield: If the artwork wasn’t so polished, I’d swear this was a rerun from 40+ years ago. Has anyone even seen a waterbed at any point this century?
HotC: I’m dating myself here, but have any of you kids ever heard of DVDs or Blu-Rays? You can actually watch an entire 2+ hour movie with not so much as a single ad. And no subscription is necessary. You only have to pay for it ONCE. Of course, if the disc is scratched it’s gonna take about 4 or 5 hours to actually get through the movie.
Okay, I’m done.
@The Quiet Man:
And yet the driver a one Ed Crankshaft survived.
Blondie: This is the start of Blondie and Dagwood’s pilgrim sex roleplay, in which they’ll pretend to be starving to death until a hot shirtless Wampanoag guy comes along to teach them how to cook.
@75 Peanut Gallery:
Maybe those are stink lines. Nancy makes a shitty cake.
Dick Tracy: It’s 2025 and we have smartphones and Apple Watches, but they still can’t do cool things like project holographic images into the air. Yet Dick Tracy has been hoarding this incredible technology for half a century! He could be a billionaire tech mogul and just buy out all the local criminals, but I guess for him, all the fun is in the beatings.
Mary Worth: The thing about “Friends” is that the characters never actually laughed at each other’s jokes. When one person said something funny, the others would say something sarcastic back or just look at them like they’re an idiot. In retrospect, they were awful, awful people, and that’s why we enjoyed them. (Except Mary and Toby, who I assume were trying to show Sunny “Gangland Undercover” but couldn’t figure out how Hulu works.)
Blondie: If Dagwood really understood the symbolism of drumstick mistletoe, it would be pointing the other way.
Mary Worth – Excited to announce my new psychological horror film. It’s about a beleaguered and stuffy academe who returns to home in suburbia, only to discover that his entire town has become unsettlingly obsessed with animals and their supposed preternatural properties. He tries to tell himself that he’s just older and out-of-touch with the whole “fur baby” generation, but soon realizes something is horribly amiss when his wife and her “adopted” parrot begin laughing maniacally, and his demure biddy neighbor euphorically rants about psychic powers. It’s currently being shopped to major studios, with Jordan Peele and Vince Gilligan being floated as interested parties.
GT: That last panel is something the regular artist could never pull off. If I were them I’d be worried (moreso than usual).
Luann: “Lazy?” Going grocery shopping the day before Thanksgiving is not exactly go-getter on-the-ball behavior, granny.
Beetle Bailey: Gain another twenty pounds and Sarge will meet ICE recruiting standards.
BG&SS: Jughaid is technically correct, the kind of correct which makes him AP material in Hootin’ Holler. (I know I’m making a leap with that last clause.)
H&L: Doc, you put the height rod inches above a kid’s head. I’m worried about Ditto’s neck and the sphygmomanometer.
DtM: A homeschooled Dennis will end up carrying a tiki torch at a march.
Hey, everyone who said “He’s no longer a menace!”: Be careful what you wish for.
MW: “Coming up next on the Ha Ha Channel: a bit of Spanish flair. Yes, it’s the Ja Ja Show! In tonight’s episode, comic confusion ensues when Enrique’s neighbor Boris hypnotizes Maria into saying xa xa xa, always at just the wrong moment!”
Luann Sane family Thanksgiving planning (weeks ahead) “I don’t want to go crazy cooking, there’s a local spot with a turkey and trimmings buffet, let’s go out this year” “But I adore the leftovers! Look, I can cook a couple basic sides and buy a pie, how about you just pop a turkey in the oven and I take care of the rest?” “Do you know how much time it took me to do that homemade stuffing recipe last year? If I do it, the bird’s unstuffed, but I’ll pop chopped potatoes in for roasting.” “*sigh* I’ll do the stuffing in a casserole dish and make the sweet potato casserole – if you want a salad, you can figure it out, I want cranberry sauce so I’ll get a couple of cans when I buy the pumpkin pie” “oh, I can buy the pie, let’s agree that nobody cares for the salad, we’ll just nuke some frozen corn.” “Done.”
Luann Thanksgiving planning (day before) “Here is the never-announced-before plan to for the First Time Ever go out to some unspecified restaurant on Thanksgiving. I’m sure something will be open, right?” “Good thing I brought over half a kitchen’s equipment – I am about to take over despite there being no ingredients in the house. Now go shopping, and good luck finding everything last minute including a turkey that will be defrosted tomorrow”
I hope Luann’s got a pizza place on speed dial or they’re starving Thursday.
Blondie: Two observations today. 1) Most people don’t hang replicas of testicles in their living room. 2) Blondie has big breasts.
MW: Hooboy, crisis averted! They’re gonna go with “unclaimed property” as Sunny’s status! Yeah, The Ladies have assured me that he’s still set to be Toby’s Avian Companion – they just wanted a cover story so folks wouldn’t wonder about Sunny’s “former owner.” And a sympathetic backstory will add to his character development, so everybody wins!
As Charterstoned @49 points out, Sunny’s witty commentary can add a lotta humor and texture to the
sometimes-lackluster plots. Just furthering our goal of all the Charterstone residents getting a Pet. I think we’ve convinced The Ladies that the survival of Mary Worth Enterprises depends on it!A haiku:
Kelrast and Ozob —
Charactonyms, but backwards.
That is so emal.
@teenchy: I’m sorry, but that’s just a tractor.
A tractor with a big-block Chevy engine in it, maybe. Eight liters can make even that chassis scoot.
Haiku for Rex Morgan M.D.
Flowers at the door —
An arrangement that looks good.
The dog will eat them.
@Bob Tice: I refuse to stand by and let you slander the good name of “The Pruitts of Southampton!”
@Ettorre: I believe this is a British term(?) but I don’t know if the term “Pidge” for women is still acceptable.
(Looking it up)
Derogatory in multiple ways. Unless one is talking about a literal pigeon. Then its adorable.
@BeckoningChasm:
You would be, too, if you were married to that nimrod.
@Ukranazi Stepan:\
Not just a lanimirc, but a tsividicer to boot!
Dirk Twacy Hollistic Defective: Is Ghost Cat driving the Vampire Car? When does the Dirk Twacy Happy Meal toy version comes out?
@J.J. O’Malley:
In 2002, TV Guide ranked that “comedy” the 20th-worst television show of all time.
@Twinkles the Elf:
Firesign Theatre once recorded a nautical LP, long since consigned to the scrapheap of recording history, called “We’re All Ozobs on This Sub.”
Are we sure thats a TV and not a Superman style 2-D prison Mary keeps her victims into. “Ha ha, thats a very good thing you meddled,Mary!”
@Rover Berkeley: I will defend physical media with my last Pluggerish breath, but in these kids’ defense it’s not always easy. Sure, you can find a hard copy of the latest summer blockbuster or a popular anime series without too much effort, but just try finding a DVD of anything produced by Netflix through legitimate channels. (Then again, I’m surprised none of these nerds seem to know what torrenting is.)
Blondie: Honestly I though Dagwood’s notion of “another level” would be making his sandwich even bigger.
‘Mudgeons are beginning to dig in some pretty low dirt when “The Pruitts of Southampton” comes up in conversation.
JP: World’s largest collection of Edvard Munch paintings? How about the only collection of Edvard Munch paintings, Emil? If you want to get the full Munch experience you’ve got to go to Oslo. Most of his work never left Norway.
@TheDiva: You are correct. There is a movie or two I’d like to watch, but are only available on Netflix, which I don’t have. I suppose I could subscribe, watch the movies, and then attempt to unsubscribe (which is probably nearly impossible). But once I go online, I have more fun reading comics and everyone’s comments than watching a movie!
MW: I don’t know, but I don’t think the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Agency and HSI will accept “finders, keepers” as a defense for keeping a bird illegally trafficked over the U.S./Mexico border.
@42 TK: Are you talking about cloaca stuff? It sounds like you’re talking about cloaca stuff.
@64 Ukranazi Stepan: Of course she owns a brain. She bought it from Temu so you know it’s the best!
@Bob Tice: #99: Ironic since the original concept for “The Pruitts of Southampton” was created by their former TV critic Cleveland Amory. In its original form it was about two spinster sisters from an old money family that had fallen on hard times and their attempt to hang on to their one remaining asset, the family mansion. Their scheme was to run it as a bed and breakfast and most of the plots would be about their interactions with the assorted guests that came and went. Helen Hayes was tapped to play one of the sisters. Of course, we know what happened once the network suits got their hands on it.
Crank: Oh, good, it’s going to be an entire week of one panel, sideways Crankshafts with the same joke. That’ll save me a couple of seconds every day.
DT: So … is Dick just pulling “Oh, I guess if Ozob was doing custom cars for criminals, the first criminal with a custom car that comes into my head must be his work” completely out of his ass, or did Bogart actually tell him this off-panel?
The only thing funnier than cramming the information about Ozob’s former career into the last panel of a Sunday strip, and then elaborating on it by spending two days (so far!) with Dick and the Deputy discussing it between themselves later would be if it eventually turns out that Ozob’s former career is actually completely irrelevent to the story!
JP: I mean, you could write them down. Or you could just access the same Oslo tourism site that Ces has found.
MW: I just want to point out that in the past couple of weeks there has been more conflict in Rex Freaking Morgan then in this heartwarming tale of absolutely nobody suggesting there could possibly be any reason Toby can’t keep Sunny forever, no matter how many reasons obviously present themselves. Ian had better be absolutely furious about the situation when he comes home!
Phantom: Yes, Patrolwoman Han. The guy sleeping in the bakery that the bakers just pointed out to you is the man who told them to say he was never there, and they’re just really bad at it. Well deduced, have a cookie.
OTF: One of the funniest things in this strip — and I suspect not entirely intentionally so — is that Patina, Wendy’s daughter, started dressing as a goth so she could claim to be one of Dethany’s relatives and thereby avoid being seen as a nepo baby. Obviously, it’s funny that she thinks being a goth is genetic. But it’s even funnier that Dethany has basically taken over Wendy’s job. Apparently, people are supposed to think “Well, if a relative of Ms Trellis’s previous assistant, who enacted all her decisions (and probably ‘reinterpreted’ half of them because Ms Trellis actually makes bad decisions when left to her own devices), started working here, I’d suspect nepotism. But a relative of her current assistant who enacts all her decisions (and probably etc.) has to be here on merit!”
RMMD: Predictable plot twist #1: The flowers aren’t from Augie. Whatever nonsense they portend is resolved by Augie somehow, and Summer is so grateful she forgives him and lets him have his book published.
Predictable plot twist #2: “So, I’ve just started work on Autumn Rook Book 2: The Case of the Bogus Bouquet…”
S4th: “Also, don’t eat the yams, they’re all filled with uncut diamonds. Don’t ask why.”
@109 Guillermo el chiclero:
I guess the Brits showed that the basic premise could work when they come out with To The Manor Born i 1979.
DT: When I hear “vampire car” I think “something black with tinted windows and red upholstery.” When I hear “car made for a hitman” I think “something inconspicuous.” This, on the other hand, appears to be an earth mover souped up for monster truck rallies. I guess you have to be from Neo-Chicago to understand.
MW: What creature would not feel joy watching “The One Where Monica Has Orange Hair for Some Reason”?
“Only you could dream up the idea of hanging up meat as a festive decoration where it can attract any insects, provide a perfect environment for breeding bacteria, and fill the whole room with its odor as it begins to go bad, only I mean it as a compliment somehow. Let’s do the thing where I fall over and you catch me with one hand.”
Mark Trail: Oh sure, Mark. Eat some razorback tartare. Don’t worry about all the diseases and grody parasites these things are infested with. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right Mr. Outdoorsman?
@Horace Broon: re: DT: “Ozob also had a barista job at that Starbucks on Halstead down in Greektown, but they fired him after eight months for stealing Half-and-Half.”
”Tell me more.”
Re: Phantom: “You never saw me! I was never here! Now I’m going to lie down among the potatoes and take a nap.”
@Sequitur: #112: I still remember part of the show’s theme song.
The Pruitts of Southampton, live like the richest folk.
But what the other folk don’t know is that the Pruitts are flat broke.
9CL: “Just so you know, I think you are going to be wonderful for Alistair. By the way, which one are you again?”
C-Shaft: Leaves, like families with school-age children, have to live and die on Crankshaft’s schedule.
Dustin: Yes, and a tool that helps you get your pants less wet after spilling coffee on them is called a “paper towel.”
GT: The most important skill for athletic directors in Milford is drama queening, which explains Coach Gerads.
MT: “Jess, may I ask you a question? Is that really a mustache, or do you have a couple of really big leeches draining blood from your face?”
Phantom: Look, I’d love to live in a world where the most important part of arresting a warlord was to walk in and ask nicely, but…
6C: Nice to know that Bianca appreciates early Ministry, but her problem is that she didn’t buy a fresh pumpkin, not that Halloween ended.
@TheDiva: IIRC Abner Kadaver’s grotesquely decayed face was actually a rubber mask, but still and all, he and Rikki did have a certain visual flair.
@116 Guillermo el chiclero:
That kind of said it all. If one listened to the theme song they wouldn’t have to watch the show.
S4th: It was thoughtful of Pat and Deb to prepare — Parker house rolls; mashed potatoes; carrot croquettes; blue mashed potatoes; Giant Dick Tracy Moon Snails; and Brown Stuff Piled on a Plate — I guess they learned to cook in prison, from the other mobbed-up types.
But how good is all this stuff going to be after two days, when the holiday meal rolls around?
@Sequitur: A number of English comedies made a successful trip to an American version. TtMB was great, and too quintessentially English to be given the treatment.
TIL Pruitts was based on a novel by Patrick Dennis of “Mame” fame.
@121 ValdVin:
To The Manor Born was kind of a reverse thing because Pruitts came out in 1966 and TtMB in 1979.
@Baja Gaijin: flaccid and stinky.
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The opening act for Shorty and The Beanpole.
@BeckoningChasm:
That one facial expression is also shared by Cookie and that raven-haired neighbor.
I just chalk it up to old-fashioned sexism.
@GarrisonSkunk: flaccid and stinky.
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The opening act for Shorty and The Beanpole.
Many residents of metropolitan Minnesota will be aware of the real-life comedy stylings of Puke and Snot at venues like he RenFaire for the past 50-some years.
@ValdVin: There’s a knack to this sort of adaptation. I think firstly, it helps if the target audience hasn’t seen the original, so they’re not being compared. Secondly, you need both a grasp of what made the original a success and an awareness of what aspects don’t make sense in the new setting and how to replace them with something that does.
I think. Since I’ve never seen the really big UK-to-US sitcoms like All In the Family and Sanford and Son, because I don’t think they were ever shown over here (see point one) I’m mostly going by what I’ve heard. However, some of the shows that didn’t do this have been shown over here for some reason, like Payne, which dared to ask the question “What if Fawlty Towers … was bad?”
The worst one I’ve seen, however, went the other way. In the 1990s, ITV somehow got it into their head that if The Golden Girls was doing so well on Channel 4, obviously what the British people really wanted was a version set on the South Coast of England, and somehow convinced some pretty respected comic actresses to appear in Brighton Belles. The main thing I remember about it is Jean Bott (born in Cheshire) doing an appalling Scottish accent as the Sophia character (they subbed the Orkneys for Sicily and Glasgow for New York), and that her pizza rivalry with Mama Celeste in “The Triangle” was replaced by “Nitty McVitie” of McVities biscuits, which does not work, because there is no Nitty McVitie, either as an actual person or an advertising symbol. The correct version of that joke transplanted to Scotland is Ethel Baxter of Baxters Soup. Basically, it was a classic example of “The parts that were good weren’t original, and the parts that were original weren’t good.”
I have been constant and annoying in how much I hate Frazz. Today’s…made me think. I’m uncomfortable with this sensation, guys.
@Artist formerly known as Ben:
Didn’t it turn out that his actual face was also fucked up? I forget, and am SUPER lazy at researching this kinda stuff.
@A Grave Mind: #128: It was. It looked worse than the mask, kind of like the moss that grows on the sides of trees.
“I do appreciate that advances in solid state storage have allowed Dick to keep a 3D image of a cool vampire car on his watch, for him to amuse himself with whenever the conversation about clown crime gets tedious.”
Tracy is not amusing himself. He has an unrequited crust on Rikki. He’s singing to himself “Rikki don’t lose that number / You don’t want to call nobody else”.
Speaking of Vampire Cars… There was that episode of Futurama where Bender the robot became a “werecar” and was cursed to kill his best friend. The first person he goes after is Leela which caused Fry to get very jealous “I thought that I was his best friend!”
@Guillermo el chiclero: When my Mom was a little kid in the 50’s, there was a movie her parents were watching, which she saw bits and pieces of. A man and a woman shipwreck somewhere (an island?) and years later the couple would do trade with people coming to the island but obscured in shadow. Then the big reveal was that the man’s body was completely grown over with moss.
That gave my Mom nightmares as a kid. I don’t want to ask anyone here to do research on what that movie was, but at the same time, if ANYONE knew, you guys probably would.
Late Thread Cuisine: Jughead’s cap, only edible!
Well, I can’t wait for Baja any longer so I’ll post eelhead dumplings and be on my way.
@133 Baja Gaijin:
Oh, there you are. Enjoy your eel.
@Baja Gaijin:
Sure, why not?
@Baja Gaijin:
And here is the secret ingredient.
@Baja Gaijin: It really is all about the presentation, isn’t it? I googled “Blanquette de veau” and the photos look delicious, not like someone poured Elmer’s glue over wood scraps and scattered frozen peas across the top.
@A Grave Mind: I looked him up on the Dick Tracy wiki and apparently there was something about that, where he showed his real face to horrify Tracy. Of course he may have still been wearing stage makeup then.
@135 Sequitur: Eels? Look like elongated leeches.
@137 Anonymous: Oh puleez. That’s so totally fake Wilbur Weston wouldn’t salivate reading that ad.
@138 Ken: Agreed.
For those of you who were grossed out over the Late Thread Cuisine, take another look. I color corrected the card. Does that make much of a difference?
@Baja Gaijin:
Uhm nope.
@The Rambling Otter: Early 60s instead of 50s, but maybe ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE?
@Rube: #143: I was thinking the same movie because it did involve people shipwrecked on an island. The one time I saw it as a kid I found it more laughable than scary. At least we know it couldn’t have been the “Lost in Space” episode where Dr. Smith was turned into a giant sentient carrot.
As Mr. Otter described it they were probably watching it at home on TV rather than at a theater. Instead of a movie it could have been one of those suspense/horror/sci-fi anthology shows popular back then.
@144 Guillermo el chiclero: I saw that episode! Dr. Smith as the giant carrot! Hilarious!
Ozobs’ with the apostrophe after the s. We’ve only been talking about one but apparently they’re actually a multiple entity of some kind. This could be interesting. …Right? It’s not just a typo? It would be really nice if it could get interesting.
@Bob Tice: ‘Ozob the Nwolc’ !
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Thats what Dan Aykroyd yelled in “Coneheads the Movie” when he used golf against the Remulack creature.
@Rube: @Guillermo el chiclero: I presume the movie was 50’s or 40’s, but presumably earlier.
It’s hard googling a film, with the google ending in “Mossman” because there is a film director with the surname Mosman which throws it off.
Might be from the 30’s, 20’s -shrugs-
Then googling 20’s moss man. It gives me the 2020 Invisible Man remake.
Or a villain named Moss man from the He-Man franchise who looks just as scary as the image my Mom described.
I looked, and looked and looked.
Sites about Mossman from Masters of the Universe, Sites about a crypted called The Mossman, a episode from “Creepshow” where a guy ends up turning into a moss person (which has a completely different plot and couldn’t possibly have existed when my Mom was a kid.)
So I give up.
Also, I did find some info that thousands of early films and silent films have been lost to time. So, if that movie was one of them, possibly no-one remembers it and no-one ever will.
Hmmm…
@pachoo: Like if Pennywise could make copies of himself sending a Pennywise army all over the country to kill and psychologically torture people -shudder-
@The Rambling Otter: I’m also somewhat surprised that with all of my “moss” searching, nothing about Helen Moss came up.
Still, I’ll have to report someone working at Google to Internet Management…
@Baja Gaijin:
#133 creamed potatoes with new peas. Had it and loved it as a kid. Crown crackers are probably just a majestic touch.
@The Rambling Otter: #150: Found it! It was a television program, the 1958 anthology series “Suspense”, and not a movie. The episode was “A Voice in the Night”, based on the 1907 short story of the same title by William Hope Hodgson. It featured James Coburn and Patrick Macnee in the cast. If your mom is still living ask her if the guy that played John Steed in “The Avengers” was in it. The story was later used in the 1963 Japanese horror film “Matango” (US title: Attack of the Mushroom People).
Fun fact: Matango was almost banned for release in Japan because the makeup too closely resembled the burn injuries suffered by the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
Shit. The mod bot held me up. I’ll make it short and see if it passes. The movie your mom saw was an episode of the 1958 anthology series “Suspense”, titled “A Voice in the Night”. It was later remade as the 1963 Japanese horror movie “”Matango” (US title: “Attack of the Mushroom People”).
It’s very late at night, so that’s my excuse for this silly pointless one-time comment about an obscure online comic strip that never gets mentioned on CC. I’ve been following first WEST OF BATHURST and now IT NEVER RAINS for years, for reasons I can’t even explain to myself. But this new ridiculous plot problem of how to get rid of fourteen billion dollars is toooo much. Improve fast, INR, or I’ll be gone. [indignant very loud sniff]
@Baja Gaijin: Normal brains don’t work like hers.
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Can she be trained to sing “Putting On The Ritz”?
CS: Very remindful of Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders, in which an elderly man lived in fear that a tree next to his bedroom would fall and kill him as he slept. One night, neighbors felled the tree as a good deed. He woke up, looked out, and died of a heart attack.
Crock – I mistook the image as a barbecue grill. However, if the French Foreign legion is reduced to cannibalism because of yet another siege, they really should be cooking their dead in a Crock Pot.
Shoe – This enhances my theory that Pluggers and Shoe share a universe, it’s just that the flying bird folk kept their niche in the sky and trees, while domesticated farm birds bred too heavy to fly stayed with the mammals on the ground.
Dennis the Menace – Dennis already has an extortion racket where neighbors feed him cookies to keep him away.
Marvin – Marvin is going to have to go to grosser lengths to maintain body horror humor. Bubonic Plague is a possibility.