Someday they’re gonna reveal who’s under the boxes and I promise it will be extremely underwhelming
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Mary Worth, 12/10/25
We all know, of course, that Mary Worth takes place in a world similar to but not exactly like our own, where America’s most famous 20th century actor is the handsome Saul Lewman and Sonia Sotomayor served out her career as a Superior Court Judge in Santa Royale County. But I’m sorry, the proposal that the greatest stage actor who ever lived in this universe is someone called “Sir Richard Wellbottom” is simply too much for me to believe. This man would be haunted by the cruel nickname “Dick Goodass” and would never find the strength to perform on stage!
Crankshaft, 12/10/25
For years there was a running bit in Funky Winkerbean about a guy/monster/entity that looks like a person made out of pizza boxes who haunted Montoni’s, and as near as I can tell I never bothered commenting on it or even thinking about it all that much in my years of blogging about the strip, but post-Funky, this being has migrated to Crankshaft for some reason and I just want to be on the record as agreeing with this little girl. It isn’t right! This shouldn’t be in the newspaper! It’s dumb and weird and nobody cares!
Herb and Jamaal, 12/10/25
The full quote here is “When they study our civilization two thousand years from now, there will only be three things that Americans will be known for: the Constitution, baseball and jazz music. They’re the three most beautiful things Americans have ever created.” Why do you think this strip left out the “only”? Is it because it wants you to believe, against all evidence, that in the distant future there will be four things Americans will be known for: the Constitution, baseball, jazz music, and the comic strip Herb and Jamaal? It could happen! You never know!
96 replies to “Someday they’re gonna reveal who’s under the boxes and I promise it will be extremely underwhelming”
The little girl means Pizza Monster’s erection, naturally.
Mary Worth:
“That blasted bird completely obliterated the collection bag on my XL2100RHS 12″ dust collector model! Alas, poor Oreck! — I used it, for days so: a bellows of infinite catch, of most excellent fancy!”
MW-He was a Wellbottom not a Goodbottom.”
RMMD-The Bidding War is so intense I’ve heard they’ve gone to the mattresses.
Sunny’s “Squawk!” translates into: “Wellbottom was a hack, I saw his Henry IV, Part II!” It is SO on, Ian!
Crankshaft:
“When the ‘toon hits your eye
Like a big pizza pie
That’s a bore, eh?”
— Dean Martin (adapted)
Shouldn’t Herb be far more concerned with the fact that his restaurant, yet AGAIN, is empty? Or are non- business hours the time for malapropisms and trying to pull off Blue Steel?
Crankshaft:
“Have you been a good little girl, or have you been saucy? Now careful — that’s a trick question, and Santa might be looking for an answer that you don’t think you want to give him!”
MW: Sunny is obviously a fan of Wellbottom’s most hated rival, Ken Kensington.
MW I know the writer is just pulling a random name to avoid having to take sides on the Laurence Olivier vs. Ian McKellen debate, but given how thinly comics often veil renamed people or things, I chuckle to imagine there’s a real Sir Richard Illtop, star of the stage, that they are trying desperately not to insult.
Crankshaft:
Is this like Slylock Fox, and we’re supposed to spot the differences between the two “Christmas Carols”?
MW: The inscription that the parrot destroyed was: “To Ian Cameraman, from R. Wellbottom. I’m not in this particular play, of course, but slip me another $20 and I’ll sign anything else you brought to the bar tonight!”
OK, I give up, I’m already tired of Ian’s caterwauling. Let’s get Mary in here with muffins post haste.
RMMD: “You mean…?” “Yes, ten whole dollars and some magic beans!”
JP: Wow! A sudden ability to draw animals well enough to be published! Better get ready for another bidding war! (Are we sure Neddy’s middle name isn’t Luann?)
S4th: Old Ted’s lying about Sally leaving him. That’s why he had to buy an Orgasmo-ball from Woody Allen’s far future-set comedy ‘Sleeper’.
Crankshaft:
“Santa might be in a position to fulfill your wishes, young lady, because he’s got lots of dough!”
CS – Finally, comments readers have been making about the strip since Batiuk started stuffing it with “Funky Winkerbean” refugees in 2023 actually make it into print.
H & L – Hahaha, it’s funny because Hi feels trapped in his stifling job and suburban family life and dreams, Lester Burnham-style, of escaping to another world. Tonight in bed he’ll see a naked Thirsty beckoning him from the ceiling as rose petals float down.
MW – “Sir Richard Wellbottom”? Really? And who played Desdemona, Lady Iva Bigbosom? I hate to tell you, C. Everett Koop, but if the darned mag meant that much to ya, maybe you shoulda had it framed, or at least bagged and boarded it. That’s what I did with my Famous Monsters of Filmland #200 autographed by Forrest J. Ackerman.
H&J:
..there will be four things Americans will be known for: the Constitution, baseball, jazz music, and the comic strip Herb and Jamaal?
Seems that’s exactly what the artist envisions when the diner is depicted as a diorama set into the side of a building like a museum exhibit.
Is Sir Richard Wellbottom the black person on the Playbill cover? If so, Sunny the green supremacist shredded one of the few non-Caucasians in Mary Worth.
When you are informed, at the last minute, that Lawrence Olivier’s performance is looked back on as kinda problematic, and need to pull a name at extreme speed.
Crankshaft seems to be going through a process I call Sethmacfarlanization.
CS: The elves look nonplussed; they have no idea what’s going on. Did this pizza box monster devour the real Santa and then usurp his throne?
MW: Ian’s autographed Playbill got shredded? Big whoop. A personalized autograph kills the resale value anyway.
Pluggers: It’s true that bald people can never have a bad hair day, but they have to be actually bald. This is just a chrome dome. Also, he’s a dog. How does this work exactly?
MW: Mary recalls that she not only knows Sir Richard Wellbottom personally, but happens to know that Wellbottom now lives in Santa Royale and owns a pet store that specializes in parrots, which allows Wellbottom to replace the signed Playbill, rehome Sunny, and start an affair with Tobi.
@Guts Dozier: Well, Monday’s strip said Pizza Box Monster is there because Ed Crankshaft is sick. So I’m hoping did he overthrow the real Santa, and we’re just waiting for the poisoned pepperoni to take effect.
MW: Ian is totally setting himself up as the bird’s straight man. Works for me.
RMMD: Summer can’t figure out a book, but bring up money and fame and she’s suddenly a Rhodes Scholar.
SF: Good to know that nearly twenty years does nothing to de-idiot Ted.
9CL: If I ever find myself at a concert where this happens, I am walking out. Loudly. Ostentatiously. Fortissimo. ( see, Brooke, the common folk know music terms, too!)
CRANKSHAFT: So, parents, no red flags? No alarm bells? You just plop your kid on the knee of a talking box man. What are you getting them for Christmas, “Bag O’ Glass?”
“(paraphrased).” That’s how you do it. Bow your head in shame, Mary Worth Sunday quote box, Herb and Jamaal just ate your lunch.
The big production of Othello in 1995, which is when thirty years ago was, starred Laurence Fishburne. Impressive of Ian to have got a signed Playbill for a movie.
H&J — Rome, 25 AD. Tavernus Ownerus muses to himself that Rome will be remembered for its adherence to Roman virtues of propriety and modesty, its delicious eels in aspic, and the wonderous gardens of Herculaneum (that Pompei place is a dive!)
Cranky — What’s in the boxes? Pain. Pain is in the boxes.
Mary Worth: Dick Goodass most certainly would perform on stage. Just not one you would like to attend. Or touch, really.
@The Quiet Man: re:JP – I assume this is a one-shot, handmade book. I’ve done that before with pages in clear sleeves of a 3-hole folder cover, also once with scans printed and bound at a place like Kinko’s. Plus there are “fill in your own” blank books with picture spots / lines for text at craft stores.
Also Mary Worth! Is it too much to ask that much like the horses in Young Frankenstein whinnying every time Frau Blücher’s name is mentioned, Sunny squawks whenever he hears “Richard Wellbottom”? Of course it is, but it’s Christmas, let’s just toss it out there and see what happens.
Crankshaft: Tomorrow’s panel: Little girl is trundled into a van with tinted windows and deported to some godforsaken hellhole like South Sudan, El Salvador, or Indiana.
@A Grave Mind: The little girl means Pizza Monster’s erection, naturally.
And it’s in a little cheesy bread box, right?
Mary Worth:
“For there’s Basie, Miller, Satch-a-Mo, and the king of all, Sir Richard! No. Wait a minute. That’s not the ‘Sir’ that Stevie Wonder was singing about, is it.”
H & J: ..and no one pays any attention to two of those any more. But at least we have the pitch clock now so it’s not all three.
Cranky: I’m waiting for the crossover with “Curtis” and reveal that Pizza Box Monster is the Thumb in Gunther’s pictures.
RMMD:
In an ironic twist, Rene Belluso purloins the prized manuscript, claims it as his own, and then absconds with millions after selling the book rights. The End.
C’shaft: “And if your present doesn’t arrive in 30 minutes or less, it’s free1”
MW: (in the voice of Kevin the Minion) “He said ‘bottom’”
Everybody snickers.
H&J – Gerald Early (paraphrased)? Of the New Haven (paraphrased)s?
MW: This is a situation in which a character is objectively correct, but also that character is Ian, so who cares?
Crankshaft: My guess is that at the end of the strip’s run, it will not be revealed who is dressed in all those pizza boxes. Batiuk will want to leave it a mystery believing that the question will trouble the world years to come. Was it Funky? Maybe Les? Maybe Batiuk himself entering his own creation! Fans will be obsessed. Over time conspiracy theories will develop! Somehow it will be tied to the JFK assassination and the so called Moon landing. Scholarly articles will be written. Batiuk will smugly take this secret to his grave and we readers here and elsewhere will weep not knowing the truth. Oh, the humanity!
@Banana Jr. 6000: The “reality” series “Pawn Stars” did that with a quest by one of the characters to get Bob Dylan to sign a copy of his “Self-Portrait” album (regarded as the worst of his prime years).
Chumlee “found” Bob sitting in a sidewalk cafe. Bob happily signed the album.
The kid returns to the pawn shop and gets bitched out by his boss because Dylan’s autographed it “To my dear friend Chumlee” which the boss said made it useless for re-sale.
@Kirk Out: It’s Battom Thomas, who closes the strip by digging up My Father John Darling and dropping off the remains at Montoni’s just in their annual health inspection.
MW: My first thought was Sir Richard Burton, with “Bottom” for “Burton,” but I don’t see how “Good-” fits in. Also thirty years ago he was dead, but that could be a side-effect of the MW demographic’s average age being upwards of 60 – the same reason the magazines at the supermarket checkout are all “Remembering Pearl Harbor” and “70 Years of I Love Lucy.”
@Dan: Do tell. What, did Olivier play Othello in blackface or something?
@CanuckDownSouth: Of course, that’s a realistic, even touching thing to do. Remember though, this is JP where the characters always seem to end up falling ass backwards in to rewards of some kind, but they still act all pissy about it.
@Kirk Out: Batiuk already entered his own creation as “Batton Thomas,” world-renowed cartoonist and the featured subject of a 10-part interview series in the local ‘newspaper’ run by the crazy one-armed beardo. Hey, maybe the beardo is in the boxes with a prosthetic arm he only wears for that purpose! Whatta tweest!
MW: Ian obviously learned a lot from Sir Richard Wellbottom. I mean, look at this performance — the gestures, the facial expressions, the posture, the dramatic pauses, the emphasis on certain words. It’s pure Wellbottom from top to, well, bottom.
‘shaft: You have to wonder about the parents who remain in line with their children. They can see, right? They know what awaits them at the front of the line, correct? “Just twenty more minutes, Tyler, and you can be the one awkwardly perched on the lab of the unsettling pizza box automaton.”
H&J: Herb has a lot of time to ponder matters like these because his restaurant has literally zero customers. What I want to know is, why are Herb’s thoughts paraphrased?
Did they name the strip Herb and Jamaal because “Being Smug About Weird Stuff In An Empty Restaurant” was taken?
Also, I know H and J loves deliberate vagueness, but is that black streak on the left side of panel one a vagued-up American flag? Sometimes we fly the flag at half-mast, but I’ve never heard of flying a single, thick stripe.
MW: I would argue for the magnificent Hamlet of Haywood Jablomie, but chacon a son gout, as the French say.
H&J: Herb is smirking at us, as if daring the reader to disagree with Richard Early. Which is odd, because you could add soul food to that list.
MW: Sorry now I’m just picturing “Sir Richard Wellbottom” performing a bawdy version of Othello at some dirty theater
“O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on”
“Hey Iago, I got some meat for ya to feed on, right… /zip/ …here!”
/Ian, tears rolling down his face in the front row/ “Brilliant…”
Crankshaft:
“Oh, no! Santa is AI! — Arctic Imitation!”
H&L: Hi better get his ass in gear. It’s already Wednesday and he hasn’t written word one of his “Goodbye, World. Hello Tahiti” manifesto on his last remaining sheet of copy paper.
MW: Suggestions for thinly veiled names of Othello actors:
Wenzel Dashington
Raùl Pobeson
Harry Fishboil
Earl John James
Thevery Rivers
But let’s not neglect Richard Wellbottom’s Desdemona, Regina Goodtop
I assure you, Herb, in two thousand years the dominant Swiftian religion will ensure that the history of the United Swifts of Taylor will remember one other beautiful cultural icon from its stormy past.
***
It just took me five seconds to find Playbill protector sleeves online, and even special-sized binders to keep them in. Keeping that out just laying around was asking for trouble, Ian. My copy of an issue of the comic Saga signed by the artist Fiona Staples is in a hard plastic shell. Ain’t no parrot going for that when there are easier pieces of paper to get to in my home. What I’m saying, Ian, is that your carelessness with your irreplaceable memorabilia is a you problem.
MW: Things go from bad to worse when the six-foot hoagie Toby ordered to mollify Ian is accidentally delivered to Wilbur’s apartment.
Wilbur answers his door to Toby knocking: “Sandwich? What sandwich?” (Belches long and loudly)”
I was thinking that somebody in the Dustinverse could make a fortune if they came up with a business model that didn’t involve being a condescending prick, but probably nobody else in the universe would understand what was going on.
Clearly, Sir Richard Wellbottom is a too-clever by half reference to both Nick Bottom, a mechanical, and Peaseblossom, a fairy, from A Midsummer’s Night Dream. Oddly enough, these are also Ian’s drag names.
@Kirk Out: It’ll be just like Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” except for the part where people care about the answer.
Snuffy Smith : Loweezy is looking distraught not because Snuffy is saying he only loves her for her money, she’s distraught because she realises the “number of ways” Snuffy loves her is going to cap at 19.45 (their total fortune).
***********
Crankshaft : The little girl is actually complaining that Santa is smelling LESS like stale pizza than usual (also, burnt charcoal, gasoline and rum balls, because her usual Santa is Crankshaft).
***********
Luann : the problem with these dorm stories is that they seem to be written as if Bernice was still part of them, so it means one of the quartet has to spontaneously become a rules-obsessed nagging stick-in-the-mud, and it’s really weird coming from DEZ, the character that was introduced as a wild free-spirit to contrast with Bernice!
(well, IMHO)
***********
Mary Worth : you’re acting like Shakespearean actor Sir Richard Wellbottom’s previous career as the pornstar “Dick Goodass” is not one of the most well-documented things ever, Josh.
***********
Slylock Fox : Which picture is different? Number 2. In the two other pictures, Lexa was lured out of her house by the noise of the tennis ball colliding with her wall, so she could be attacked; in picture number 2, Lexa was simply going out for some fresh air.
MW: I love Sunny in the final panel, that’s giving “Jurassic Park T-Rex victory roar” vibes.
In the novel “The Golden Bowl”, author Henry James gives a character the triple-butt name of Fanny Assingham.
Crankshaft: “This isn’t right”? What was your first clue? The fact that the wreath is sitting in a giant spiderweb?
@The Quiet Man: re: Othello: that’s the long and the short of it, yeah–and since this was in 1965 he really didn’t have the “standards of the time” excuse to fall back on. One critic demanded to know when he was going to perform “Mammy.”
C’shaft: You said it, not me.
MW: “Sir Richard Wellbottom” sounds like an adult film star who specializes in Shakespeare parodies: Much Ado About Pegging, King Leer, Romeo and Juliet and Rosaline….
Beetle Bailey: This is the most emotional intelligence I’ve ever seen out of General Halftrack. Good for him wanting to keep his marital happiness above the dreaded Lockhorn Line.
HtH: If readers identify that unruly fellow as a claims adjuster, this comic is pretty funny.
Blondie: I’m a guy of a certain age, so I get to ask: Is it real to see a man who remembers dial phones doing this? Why is Shelley “The Machine” Levene hawking cellphones?
DtM: Dennis, the only reason she cares about you coming back in from recess is the drawn-out interrogation by the school board. Your teacher is already wondering if throwing your football into the road makes the resulting crash an Act of God.
When the Jews of Prague were threatened by a pogrom in the 16th Century, legend holds that Judah Loew ben Bezalel forged a protector from the very mud of the Vitava River. The golem fought hard to defend the Jewish population of the city until one Friday when ben Bezalel failed to deactivate it, forcing it to violate the Sabbath. Tragedy ensued, and the golem was eventually destroyed after wreaking havoc. One hopes the people of Westview remember the moral of the story, that the creation of life is a power reserved only for the Creator. One also hopes they only used cheese or veggie pizzas in this box golem, because anything with meat and cheese is treyf , and would almost certainly result in an abomination before the Lord.
CRANKSHAT: “This isn’t right…”
1: CORRECT! Pizza BM is touching you inappropriately with his (its?) LEFT hand. Good job by the Centurdville School District!
2: CORRECT! The sensation of cold grease from used pizza boxes soaking through your undies is NOT right!
MW: “Ah yes, Dick Goodbottom! I was young, he showed me things I never knew existed. And now I can no longer read his touching words, “good night sweet poopsie!”
MW – Gone! Ian’s precious memento from his Wellbottom experience at the Santa Rosa community theater. If I was a Wellbottom, baby he was the tops….
Crank – I want the shits…I’m talking extreme foodborn pathogen diarrhea. Isn’t that every kid’s rotten chestnut and spoiled sugarplum inspired Christmas dream….
H&J – Don’t forget obesity….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@Gil Bates: Sir Laurence Olive
Sir Richard Ralphy
Sir Stuart Patrick
Sir Burt Dickson
Sorry Crankshaft, but you’re no Heathcliff.
@BananaSam:
And the Pizza Box Monster is no Garbage Ape.
He’s barely even Jimmy the Frog everyone inexplicably hates (and tries to ignore), or the Man-Eating Giant!
…PBM is maaaayyyybee those nameless robots that show up every once in a while…
Sir Richard Wellbottom?!?!?? What about famous Broadwayman Ken Kensington?
While I can easily imagine Ian wearing a dorky fucking robe and slippers that make his feet look like Wilbur’s hoofs, I cannot imagine that he allows his young, supple trophy wife Toby to wear anything more than earrings and nipple piercings inside their lush Charterstone digs. Ian’s almost certainly a John Norman devotee.
JP: If Woody Wilson was still writing this glurge Neddy’s childrens book would become a best seller, win both the Caldicott Medal (for artwook) and the Newberry Award (for writing), and spawn a blockbuster animated movie.
Pluggers: Bald? But he’s covered. In. Fur.
RMMD: Double it. What that means is the vanity press house that was offering to print off 100 copies of Augie’s book for $10,000 says they’ll now do it for $5,000.
MW- That Dick Goodass must’ve played one badass Othello.
BCN: Being a huge fan of A Christmas Carol and a crazy cat lady, I’ve been kind of living for this. It’s probably the best adaptation involving semi-anthropomorphic animals who run a news broadcast about their daily lives possible.
Dustin: Dustdad, you’re a low-level associate in the kind of large firm that runs commercials during syndicated network television. This mechanic is a skilled tradesman and business owner whose time and labor you require to do the basic car maintenance you never bothered to learn because you think manual labor is for uneducated losers. Apples and oranges.
FG: First “Sir Richard Wellbottom,” now “Octosak”…the comics are really testing the limits of what they can get away with today…
GT:…And not to be outdone, Gil Thorp is dropping Spanish curse words.
JP: Oh God, don’t tell me this is a set-up for Neddy becoming the next Anna Dewdney (unless you tell me she’ll also suffer Dewdney’s fate but at a much earlier age).
RMMD: Oh come ON!
@TheDiva: #63: Since Moor meant a native of North Africa Othello could’ve been of Arab or Berber ethnicity. Instead of a racially insulting blackface Olivier could’ve just gotten a good tan. Oh, wait. I forgot it’s against the law for an Englishman to have a tan, unless he’s in the Colonial Service and stationed east of Suez.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
JP: However, because Messrs. Marciuliano and Manley have been writing for some time now, the children’s book will no doubt be some kind of sequel to “The Boy with Green Hair,” just to go along with the ambient weirdness and ponderousness of everything now associated with the strip. Either that, or it will be a sequel to Duchess Sarah Ferguson’s “Budgie the Little Helicopter,” and Budgie will die in a crash — you know, sort of like Le Petit Prince.
@Kirk Out:
If Pizza Monster removes the boxes on his head to reveal smaller pizza boxes, I would forgive SO much. Possibly even the final Funky strip.
“This isn’t right” could refer to about 90% of the comics featured on here.
@Tabby Lavalamp:
I have to argue against this. Ian lived with no pets and one idiot (who could’ve thought “oh, shit, I should at least put away Ian’s Playbill!”) when he left. Not prepping for your significant other to bring home a large tropical bird while you’re gone is a SANE person problem.
@Hibbleton:
@Doc Wonmug:
Was also going to bring up Kensington.
Senile old Karen Moy: Who’s that?
@A Grave Mind:
I would forgive SO much. Possibly even the final Funky strip.
Which one?
The combined Crankshaft/Funkyverse cast singing “FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER AMEN” in a church?
Summer thinking something along the lines of “If you think about it, Dad’s refusal to jump off this diving board is him using his agency to subvert the expectation that ‘what goes up, must come down’. “?
Lisa the Nth being told “It’s time to retire (to bed), dear. Don’t worry, Lisa’s Story will still be around tomorrow” by her mother?
Pluggers: There’s a trope called “Furry Lens” where anthropomorphic animal characters, are literally never referred to as animals at all. And really could be human and nothing would change. With the animal characters being a sole visual aesthetic and otherwise isn’t canon.
Pluggers seems to fall into that, unless they pull a Shoe and start acknowledging it someday.
Does Sunny’s triumphant squawk read to anyone else as “Now I’M the greatest stage actor who ever lived!” or do I need to talk to some people about some medications I may need to get on or off of?
@Anonymous:
Yeah, I’m going with Lisa’s Story Is Some Precious Artifact In Some Jetsons Future, but there’s lots of fine candidates here.
I thought it was cool that MW left us with the implication that the actor was Avery Brooks (who has played Othello in multiple acclaimed productions through his career) and now they’ve ruined it with this Wellbottom nonsense.
Herb and Jamaal: Meanwhile in Doonesbury, the president looks up from his funny pages at the White House breakfast table and says, “Jazz? Boring! Baseball? Boring! The Constitution? Also boring — but just wait until they see the exciting changes I’ll be making to it soon!”
@Voshkod: This is got to be the comment of the week!
RMMD: If they’re going to be that vague about money matters, why don’t they just have Augie write the amount on a slip of paper, fold it, and slide it across a table to Summer?
CS – Unfortunately, “Montoni’s” is clearly marked on the pizza boxes, so they can expect to see an angry mob storm their restaurant with torches and pitchforks. Or a bad Yelp review.
Mary Worth: Ian should look on the bright side; he now has an excuse to get a new Othello playbill, one signed by actor with a less stupid name.
Herb And Jamaal: If there’s one thing Herb loves, it’s staring off into the middle distance while making smug faces for no reason as a mysterious omnipotent narrator rambles incoherently.
My Christmas wish is that the parrot pecks out Ian’s eyes.
@The Quiet Man: Olivier’s blackface Othello was obnoxious enough, but his shuffling, eye-rolling, and constant ad-libbed interjections of “Feets, doan fail me now!!!” are legendary in the history of the West End stage, up there with John Gielgud’s portrayal of Red Indians waving tomahawks and Ralph Richardson’s Chinese laundrymen.
@Ken: I heard it was Warren Beatty.
@Anonymous: Oh, his Desdemona gave him rave reviews.