Things that are and are not new
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Blondie, 1/28/26
Oh, man, I was all ready to go on a riff about how this is clearly a joke about the idea of a celebrity “hall pass,” e.g., the idea that a monogamous couple would give permission to each other to sleep with specific celebrity crushes, safe in the knowledge that it’s never going to actually happen, but then got sanitized down to the idea of “dining” with a celebrity, even though “dining” is transparently not what this is about, but then I got to the last panel and discovered that the Blondie brain trust is aware of the existence of Sydney Sweeney, and I’m sorry, that’s way too contemporary a reference. Nobody in Blondie should know about anything that’s happened after, oh, let’s say, 2013. “Is Emily Ratajkowski on their list?” is a punchline I’ll allow for this one. Anyone newer than that? No thanks.
Mark Trail, 1/28/26
Speaking of things that are and are not new, what about nature? Pretty old, right? Old and boring? It’s existed for billions of years? Well what about phones though? What if there were a nature crisis … about kids and phones, and kids stealing each other’s nature photography, via phones? That’d be pretty cutting edge, right? The perfect mix of the old and the new? A falcon, right there on your phone? Mark Trail is going to have to punch file metadata by the end of this somehow?
171 replies to “Things that are and are not new”
Is Sydney Sweeney on their list? Not for sex, as you well know my only lust is for gorging myself on food. But as an enduring pastiche of a 50s that never existed, I’m extremely interested in her advertising career.
Mark Trail:
“Apparently they concluded that Robbie took the picture because my own photography skills are a little Rusty!”
“More importantly, is there any way Sydney Sweeney could be made out of sandwiches?” is the sadly inevitable next line, here. It’s okay, Blondie, we know what we’re reading.
Mark Trail:
“That photo was the result of my own ‘peregrination’ into the woods! So to speak.”
Blondie: Many of these starlets have serious eating disorders which should be right up Dagwood’s alley. In fact, I would be very surprised if he didn’t already have a list divided into bulimics and purgers.
Mark Trail:
Rusty looks like a cross between Marine Boy and Luann in today’s first panel.
Blondie: “By the way…is Cronut on the list?
BLONDIE: I can sooner see Dagwood dining with Sweeney Todd.
MW: Ian decides that two birds in the hand are worth his wife and her…no, I can’t go through with it.
Phantom:
“Say, Your Ominpotent Mauveness, what do you say the three of us make a little coin by collaborating on an adaptation of Stravinsky’s ‘Volga Boatmen’ called ‘Zumaridi Muckmen’ ?”
@nescio: “ (forgot the end quote)
Robbie regrets taking those Quaaludes before the merit badge ceremony, but only briefly. Getting patted on the shoulder rules, man. And Rusty’s turning into a guy from DragonBall. Merit badge ceremonies sure sucked without Quaaludes, right?
Blondie Amazing that Blondie managed to find a very current celeb piece in what looks like a Time magazine from 1933.
Mark Trail:
“I’ve got it! — I’ll sue the filching little twerp for infringing my common law copyright interest in the photo! That will earn me a scout’s badge!”
Blondie: Spoilers for THE HOUSEMAID (2025), but I’m willing to bet any money that this strip came about when the Blondie creative team watched that film, saw the scene where Sweeney declares “I need a fucking sandwich” and proceeds to make and devour an enormous sandwich, and felt a strange powerful libidinal urge that they could only sublimate through their sandwich-sexual comic character.
Mark Trail: I was worried when Rivera took over and started writing Rusty as an actual Gen Z kid that he might get too cool and hip, but I’m delighted to announce that “A new Scout badge? Oh, I hope it’s me. I’m top-class in the Scouts.” is a thought bubble so square and perfectly Rusty-esque that even “More information about licorice can be found on the internet“-era Mark would tell him to loosen up a bit.
GT – is the writer trolling the artist’s huge and mishapen jaws with that “chin up”?
Blondie:
Sydney would no doubt be attracted to Dagwood’s raffish coiffure, redolent, as it is, of The Three Stooges’ Larry Fine’s own ‘do.
(gritting my teeth, crying) I just noticed Dagwood’s donut pajamas and that’s a pretty good joke.
I’ve never even heard of Sydney Sweeney.
Am I… more out of touch than the Blondie creative time?
Blondie:
The survey Blondie saw is right after the Cosmo article she just read, titled “What to Do When His Hair Sticks Out in Ridiculously Goofy Ways.”
Anyway, was about to riff on how food plays the role in Dagwood’s libidinal economy that sex does for most people, and then I realized; Blondie regularly makes food for other people and gets paid for it. The fusty legacy comic strip Blondie is running the filthiest cuck fantasy in history right before our eyes and we didn’t even notice.
MT: Do kids even do scouting anymore? Or view merit badges as something to aspire to? Even when I was a kid, it was considered dorky.
CS: Is this supposed to be a roast? The only joke happening here is that Dinkle apparently arranged for an entire band and orchestra to perform “99 Bottles Of Beer On The Wall,” so Ed could smirk at the camera. Are they going to perform all 99 verses? I’ll allow it only if tomorrow’s strip better is Crankshaft setting the venue on fire, or murdering them all.
Luann: So now Tara and Les are going to hook up? Sure, why not? Or make failure interesting somehow.
Pluggers are hoarders.
MT: Is it an optical illusion, or does Robbie’s cowlick actually grow larger the further away he is?
@Banana Jr. 6000: That should say “if the entire world of Luann is going to be about Luann finding a man, but she can never actually do that because Failure Is The Only Option, then the Evanses need to stop hooking up other characters. Or they need to make failure interesting somehow.”
Dining IS sex for Dagwood.
RMMD Based on the drawing of Johnny on the couch, that’s not appendicitis, it’s rapid-onset progeria!
GT Wait – yesterday was supposed to show Gerads whispering in Emily’s ear to taunt her? I wonder if Jami or Keri inherited her third-ear-on-the-crown-of-the-head mutation.
@Schroduck: I was going to speculate that Dagwood was attracted to her appearance on Hot Ones, but that sandwich is IT.
I suppose we should all thank our lucky stars Blondie didn’t decide to do “F*ck-Marry-Kill.” With sandwiches.
Phantom:
“Gents, let me conclude this polemic-infused tete-a-tete by serenading you with an adapted closing number from The Carol Burnett Show: ‘I’m so glad we had this time together/Just to have a gasp or zing a wrong/Seems we just got started, and before you know it/Comes the time we have to say “So long.” ‘ ”
SMASH WHOMP GRRR WHAM
I am really really angry that Mary Worth is trying to run a storyline where Ian Cameron realizes he’s a pompous ass and tries to reform. Stop ruining things!
@Banana Jr. 6000: re MT: There’s plenty of scouting, but the one year we tried out Cubs the kids were excited for activities/events like the pinewood derby, not random badge earning. I suspect gunning for badges for their own sake would be considered pretty dorky
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Blondie-Tuesday Chix crossover when
Also Blondie: Listen, Dagwood discovering the joys of milk is no joke.
@CanuckDownSouth: I remember Pinewood Derby being a big deal (and fun). But for the most part it was a lot of meetings, study, and not-that-exciting activities. Maybe it was fun if you were into outdoorsmanship, but I wasn’t. Plus the whole military-style hierarchy that some kids let go to their head.
@matt w: Ordinarily I’d say “Tuesday,” but here we are, a day later and none the wiser (because we’re still reading Blondie).
Mark Trail: Depends. Does metadata have a beard?
Also Mark Trail!
Is Blondie dipping its toe into becoming a political strip with all the contemporary controversy this week? Yesterday was abusive workplaces, today is… Wait. No. Look at Blondie. Dagwood just has a type.
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Dumb kid. Don’t straight up steal a photo like some sort of noob. Just do it the roundabout way with generative AI like everyone else these days.
RMMD: [Man enters and immediately collapses on the couch]
“OMG! Now the Uber driver has it too!”
JP: Can we just ‘and so…’ our way to the inevitable alcohol-induced heart attack and thence to the funeral?
RMMD: With those little bubbles floating above him, apparently Blonde Tow-Headed Boy got into the liquor cabinet and is suffering from a hangover. [sniff] They grow up so fast!
@The Rambling Otter: Consider yourself lucky, there was a very *very* stupid controversy a few months ago about a commerical she made for jeans that encapsulates just why people refer to this as the ‘worst possible reality’.
Blondie – Enormous boobs versus enormous sandwiches – why choose – Loweezy Smif gets you both….
MT – I got my Tic-Toc badge….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
RMMD-Where’s the pain? If this is appendicitis then there is pain.
MW-Toby then pulls down a ski mask. “Now let’s rob this restaurant!”
FC-“Look, Dolly! Smoke signals!”
It’s kind of funny in a way.
Shortly after reading today’s blog/Mark Trail. I was reading an Archie comic, where there was an Ice Fishing contest.
Long story short, Archie slipped on the ice, slid into Moose who ends up accidentally dropping the fish he had caught back into the water. Moose threatens to beat up Archie if he doesn’t give him the fish he had caught, to compensate for the ones Moose had lost.
Turns out, Archie had already caught the biggest fish, so Moose with his fish won the contest.
Moose did credit Archie although in a roundabout way.
I know Blondie is supposed to be a nice suburban housewife and all but geez lady. There are easier ways to initiate cunnilingus.
@Banana Jr. 6000: RE:MT: It would make sense of Rusty fawning all over it, though
Blondie:
“Is Sylvia Scarlett on that list?”
“You’re getting your S’s mixed up. No more Katharine Hepburn film festivals for you.”
GT: “Your team did adequate, Mother”? Someone really wants to lead the cheer squad.
H&L: I’m old enough to remember when comic infants were addicted to CRT TVs with rabbit ears.
RMMD Does the Comics Code prohibit drawing a barf bucket next to the couch, or is the next upchuck just going on the floor?
Mark Trail: In the new era of Mark Trail, Rusty has a certain amount of agency, and Mark is self-aware enough that I no longer think he would punch an unrighteous child.
One look at Robbie’s smug, punchable face, and I like to think Rusty knows what he has to do.
(Cut to: three weeks later, Rusty disposing of Robbie’s body at the pig farm)
NO RUSTY! THIS WAS NOT WHAT YOU HAD TO DO!
Haven’t seen Mark Trail in awhile. Pleasantly surprised to see that the art is up to the level of a moderately talented 10 year old.
Dagwood, as he’s married to Blondie, is thus canonically a boob man. Today’s strip tracks.
@Schroduck, Blondie: If that’s the case, that’s mad props for a very deep cut, and not for “Lemme check out Interwebz Nooz and find a popular actress who’s attractive enough to for a dinner date.”
@Liam, RMMD: That’s from the people reading the comic strip.
Waldorf and Statler chortling
Blondie: I’m very disappointed the punchline wasn’t, “What restaurant would we be eating at?”
MT: My knowledge of scouting is limited to a few years as a Brownie mumble-mumble years ago, but don’t you have to do certain activities and/or demonstrate certain skills in order to earn merit badges? In other words, this is definitely not something that you’d hear your scout master announce and think, “Gee, I bet it’s me! What a nice surprise!”
MT – You’d think Rusty would know by now that Boy Scout badges are not just handed out as a compliment for whatever you’ve happened to do, like the People’s Choice Awards. You have to do something specifically intended to earn a badge. So, more like the Oscars.
I am not sure that the conversation in today’s Dustin makes any sense, but the important thing is, the sister is being horrible without suffering any consequences. This family puts the “fun” in “dysfunctional”.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Hey bud, you want a hot tip?”
“Sure”
“I placed a lot of bets at these windows before it finally hit me”
“Where’s the damn racetrack?”
[Signs: TELLER]
C’shaft: It’s almost cute that Batiuk’s idea of the sort of mischief high school students get up to on long bus trips is limited to endless renditions of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.”
DT: Dang it, Mr. Mirror! You could have made a clean getaway if you weren’t screaming like that!
Dustin: Okay, I’ll give Meg this one. In fact, she’s probably smarter than her dad now.
JP: Geez, Alan, you need to blend your Grecian Formula better. If Pepe le Pew walked in he’d start sexually harassing your head.
MW: Yes, when I think of equally balanced partnerships, I think of an aging college professor coasting on tenure and his trophy wife who hangs out at their condo all day with the resident busybody.
Phantom: The Ghost Who Gives Villains a Stern Talking-To
Pluggers are at least making things easier for the relatives who will have to clean out their house after they die.
Blondie: I get the choice of hot actress Sydney Sweeney. As Dagwood knows, she just started her own lingerie brand — so she could afford to buy him one heck of a fancy roast beef dinner.
Mark Trail: Of course this kid has to steal other people’s photos. He and his dad don’t even realize that when you make a self-congratulatory video, there needs to be some kind of camera recording it.
Mary Worth: “Thanks for forgiving me for wanting a clean home free of large birds pooping in my shoes, Toby! If Mary has taught me anything, it’s that my normal, rational thoughts and desires are always wrong.” “I’m glad to hear that, Ian… because I just adopted three cats and a monkey. It’s going to be great!”
FC: “Look, Dolly! I can see my voice.”
“Ugh, Jeffy. I can smell your voice.”
Pluggers keep storage containers around in case they’re useful. No one else does that.
Mark Trail:
“I’ll lead that anthropomorphized little Ken Doll into the middle of a nest of boa constrictors! — let’s see the puerile guttersnipe photograph that!”
Obviously, Dagwood means Sydney Sweeney of 1931’s hottest all-female double act, Sweeney & Rabinowitz.
RMMD: Today’s the role of Johnny will be played by Hank Hill’s buddy Boomhower.
Josh got it wrong. Blondie is not saying “dining” as a euphemism for sex but because she knows that for Dagwood orgasmic pleasure does not come from rubbing genitals against each other but from taking part in massive consumption of food
@Rube: #58: That’s because the rest of us are saving old soda bottles and Mason jars for our basement meth labs, when we’re not at the track touting racehorses.
FC: Jeffy, we can also see your farts so please stay downwind.
Rusty should only get a badge when he finally learns that public institution are dominated by nepotism and that you should cut out toxic friends like Robbie
Oh, God. Johnny tried to remove his own spleen, didn’t he? That’s…terrible?
And thank you Meg. In case anyone had the slightest doubt the Kudlicks are all so deeply punchable.
“And Bobby, my other son, has received his ‘Aircraft Spotting’ merit badge with this excellent picture of an F-16 Falcon. Also Timmy, my other son, gets his ‘Automobile Photography’ merit badge for this action shot of a Ford Falcon plowing into a school bus. And Jimmy, my other son, has earned the ‘Sports Mascots’ merit badge for this photo of the Atlanta Falcons mascot in a dive bar in Greenbriar. Rusty, no merit badges for you until you reconsider that adoption proposal!”
Frazz – Stop encouraging the insufferable little shit.
JP – A few years ago Alan was a national hero for saving a person who was threatening to jump off a building. Now he has alcohol induced delusions and can barely function. How the mighty have fallen.
Mary Worth – *Eye roll* *Head desk* *Barf*
Pluggers – We used to go to the State Store when we needed boxes. Liquor boxes are sturdy and clean. Pennsylvania’s state run liquor stores are good for something.
9CL – Yes, parents are well known for telling their children about everywhere they’ve boinked. Polly should already know this if she read Amos’s “Dear Little One(s)” letters about how hot their mother is.
Wrecks Moregone:
I wouldn’t feel great either if I were six (?) years old and suddenly found myself transformed into a 50 year old man.
________________________________
Wary Morth:
This is the moment Sunny and Rosie have been waiting for. Peck Pompous Axx and Drunken Axx, Sunny and Rosie! Peck ’em! Chirp! Squawk! Ha ha ha!
@Guillermo el chiclero:
Jeffy is Pumbaa?
Blondie-I don’t think Dagwood understands what “eating out” implies.
Marmaduke-How lovely. The mailman brought Marmaduke a treat.
9CL-“The people at that funeral really hated us.”
9CL-“There was that time your Mother honeymooned me in the ass.”
MT – Well Rusty, it looks like you should’ve gotten the merit badge in Copyright & Trademark.
@I speak Jive:
To be fair, when I’ve been drinking all morning, I think I can do ALL kinds of cool shit! And ex-cons are totally helpful people!
Is it lame that I’d really, really like to see a Judge Parker, ANY Judge Parker, actually hear a case? Really, guy ripped tags off mattresses, I’ll take it.
RMMD- ” So Johnny, Summer’s gonna swing through White Castle and grab some sliders. You want the usual right? Double cheese and extra onions?” Michael: “Hey Sis, I think this milk has gone bad. It’s all curdled and smells like rotten vinegar! Boy those sloppy Joes in the cafeteria sure were runny today!”
Is Clara Bowe on the list? How about Mary Pickford? [Best read while listening to The Who’s Pictures of Lily]
RMMD- See, this is what happens when kids subsist on a diet of wedding cake and whatever kind of gruel they’re dishing up at Nick’s Diner. Makes them look like Hank Hill’s dad.
@The Quiet Man: #39 RMMD- There’s a reason they call it rotgut.
One of the Ramona Quimby books had a similar story beat. You have to crumple Robbie’s phone with your bare hands, Rusty, it’s the only way.
MT-Actually Robbie got his badge for some pictures of beavers he took.
Sydney Sweeney, eh? Dagwood certainly does
enjoy huge breastshave a “type.”Blondie: The writers managed to at least name a Current Year celebrity instead of someone who slid off the radar a decade plus ago, which is pretty impressive for the newspaper comics. But they’re still just demonstrating how out-of-touch they are because this is the most normie opinion imaginable played as if it’s some kind of wicked subversive punchline. Like, oh wow, Dagwood wants to have sex with a famously gorgeous lady with awesome tits? So brave. So stunning. Next, you’ll tell me that he also enjoys such radical, rebellious activities as having lots of money and eating ice cream.
Mark Trail: It’s survival of the fittest in the cutthroat, realpolitik world of being a boy scout.
Funky Crankershaft: The punchline is that when they finally get to the last bottle of beer Ed shouts, “One more time!”
Blonde on Blondie: the only celebrity Dag would want to have “dinner” with is Thelma Todd.
If Dagwood is talking about dining with a celebrity, it’s definitely about eating a meal and has nothing to do with sex.
FYI, Blondie is hotter than Sydney Sweeney anyway. There, I said it.
@A Grave Mind: Don’t forget that Alan is an ex-con, too. He was in prison for helping April’s father fake his own death. Maybe that’s why he isn’t conducting trials now, although I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in the courtroom. Seeing as how he can churn out one of his best sellers in a weekend, he should have plenty of time for dabbling in judging.
Dustin the Wind: Hardy har har. Meg really puts the unction in dysfunctional!
When a fire starts in a Plugger’s attic, due to overloading an outlet with multiple extension cords and space heaters, there’s plenty of kindling to make sure it spreads quickly.
MT: (Not a regular reader) Are these the real Boy Scouts™ we’re talking about? In fact, what’s the status of the Boy Scouts? Don’t they have to let girls in now, or something?
Blondie – The creators of Blondie are angling for live-action film adaptation, and this is really about their dream casting for the titular star.
Mark Trail – Making money in journalism and photography went out long ago, but credit? That is one of the last remaining things creatives have! AI may only generate mediocre writing that no one would want to read, but photography? Anyone who accidentally opens the Facebook app on their phone sees how the drooling masses lavish praise on clearly AI-generated work based on actual photographs.
Blondie – One last desparate stab at trying to be “au courant”. So who is Blondie’s list of people she wants to “…have dinner with.” Ronald Coleman? William Powell?
DT – So far The Mirror is in contention for least professional professional killer. (1) screwball plan that could have trapped the assassin in the bed, (2) failed to ensure a clean escape, (3) by using the fire exit, the alarm triggers and since most modern hotels have cameras monitoring entrances / exits there will be tape of the Mirror. Way to go NotTheJackal.
GT – Thank you Jason Margos, you were great! Now we are back to the jowly inbred Milford look.
JP – A lot of JP is ahem, far fetched, but the realism of this alcoholism related mental collapse is dead on. Perfect for scaring and scarring Charlotte for life! Apologies to Neddy who I thought just wanted to ditch Charlotte. She was teaching her an important life lesson and paving the way for Charlotte’s own trust issues complex. Way to go Neddy!
MW – The last shred of Ian’s own pompous bombastic personality is torn away and now he is as docile as someone who had a frontal lobotomy.
RMMD – For the ultimate in realism – the family should be stuck in the ER between hacking and coughing , sneezing, and vomiting people for at least 3-4 hours before being seen and it turns out he had just overeaten after being triple dog dared at lunchtime to consume as many gummy bears as possible in a 5 minute span.
“Is Sydney Greenstreet on your list?”
Looks like Ian and Toby need to be turned into Saint Bernards! It worked for Pam and Alex.
@GarrisonSkunk: By gad, sir! That could cause real trouble. Is Rusty’s peregrine falcon from Malta, by any chance?
@GarrisonSkunk: Yes, Syd looked like he enjoyed a good meal.
@treetown: and now he is as docile as someone who had a frontal lobotomy.
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…..or a bottle in front of he….
SlylickFox and Comix For Kinx: How to draw what it would look like if MASH’s Lt. Col.Blake,Hawkeye and Trapper John were played by rabbits.
Blondie: Since Dagwood is still wearing the art deco pajamas he had way back when his railroad tycoon family disowned him, I will stubbornly insist that it’s still the era of Pre-Code Hollywood. Dag’s preference for blondes would surely have him want to “dine” with Greta Garbo. (Personally I’d go with Norma Shearer.)
Mark Trail: I was curious enough to look up the Photography merit badge. It actually looks like a pretty good course, you have to know about f-stops and ISO speeds but software is also included. Nothing about metadata or plagiarism, though.
@Bob Tice: Rusty looks like a cross between Marine Boy and Luann in today’s first panel.
__________________________________
…with a pinch of Brenda Starr overall.
Blondie: No, the “dining” bit makes sense; Blondie is reading the latest issue of Food Addict Enabler Magazine.
Curtis: So, I guess we just assume Michelle is in anaphylactic shock until told otherwise?
JP: “They’ve been missing for months! You’ve also been missing for months, so I thought maybe you were in the same place!”
“Um, I haven’t been ‘missing’, Dad, I’ve been exactly where the state put me.”
“A state? You mean like the Kingdom of Norway’s a sovereign state? If you were in Norway, you must know where they are!”
MW: If you enjoyed Toby deciding that, now she had a parrot, it was safe to consider the possibility that other parrots might have homes that missed them (although that seems to have fallen by the wayside at some point), you’re going to love her declaring that, now Chinbeard has stopped arguing and accepted she’s right, they’re equal partners!
OTF: What if, right, what if there was “office camp” … and it was just working in an office? So anyone who works in an office is “at office camp”? Eh? Eh? That’s something that’s vaguely shaped like a joke right? No? Okay, supposing, um, supposing being promoted was “becoming a camp counsellor”? Is that anything?
RMMD: Have the experts at Walker-Browne been consulted as to whether boozles can also be used to indicate appendicitis?
Phantom: He’s been working on that line ever since he first heard that the general calls his prisoners “muckmen”, hasn’t he?
SH: “Is it possible that transforming into a plant has affected my physiology beyond the surface level?” asks a guy who has previously been established to gain nutrients from photosynthesis.
MT: Here are the requirements for the photography merit badge from Scouts BSA, which require a good deal more than taking/passing off as your own one (1) photograph of one (1) bird. Of course, this troop is not Scouts BSA but rather “Woods Scouts,” probably one of many dissident scouting troops opposed to Scouts BSA seeming wokeness, such as admitting girls, mandatory reporting of physical and sexual abuse, or ,in this case, not showing blatant, oblivious, incredulous favoritism toward your lying asshole kid.
MW: I don’t know if I can take three more days of Toby’s triumphant cuddling
before moving on to the pool party, especially if the birds show up (“TE AMO TOBEE!” “TE AMO AXX!”). If Moy has any sense or taste she’ll jump cut to Toby and Mary on the phone with Mary taking tacit credit for resolving a problem in which she was no way involved.@GarrisonSkunk: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; whatever valid criticisms can be made about Jules Rivera’s art, getting Rusty to look like a human of any description is a massive improvement on what past artists have done with him!
@Horace Broon: “CAN SASSY COME ALONG?” still haunts my nightmares.
@I speak Jive:
You’re right! Totally forgot that! Can ex-cons BE judges?
Never mind, looked it up, basically no. Good thing he’s the next Raymond Chandler (who accomplished WAY more while perpetually drunk), huh?
@Austria: Come on! Who didn’t love OG Rusty’s lipless mouth and Michael Jackson nose?
@Horace Broon: Curse you for making me look at OTF every so often. BTW, does anyone else here find Fi’s perpetual Resting Bitch Face totally hot?
Phantom: “Oh, god, he’s so right! We have been bad, bad boys.”
MW: Looking forward to Ian being exposed as the secret identity of Axx Cop, or the long-sought serial killer the Axxman of New Orleans.
Alice, the Menacing Mother: Alice tricks Dennis into enjoying baths by calling it a hot tub. Is there an actual joke in this laughing square?
@A Grave Mind: ” “Can ex-cons BE judges? Never mind, looked it up, basically no.”
Don’t be sad, Grave.
It wasn’t long ago that ex-cons couldn’t become President of the United States!
@A Grave Mind: “More importantly, is there any way Sydney Sweeney could be made out of sandwiches?”
_______________________________
Remember that edible Dagwood you made for me a few months ago? We completely wrecked Josh Fruhlinger when I exclaimed, “I look delicious!”
@Jym: I’ll take Myrna Loy myself.
9cl — I had totally forgotten about the gravestone. I wonder what lucky soul that us beefwits wouldn’t know had his grave defiled.
When I was doing BSA with my son over thirty years ago, the pastor of the church where we met kicked us out so he could bring in his own knock-off group where he could control the agenda. “It needs to be God and church focussed!” which kinda defeats the whole self-growth thing.
@Ukulele Ike: re OTF — the last two days, Fi was dressed in a purple turtleneck and smiling. I’d hit it.
@Hibbleton: the BSA got kicked out of a church 30 YEARS AGO for something more conservative? Now, THAT’S hardcore.
@The Quiet Man:
Check out Constance Bennett photos from the era just before thin eyebrows became the norm.
@pugfuggly: Blondie Amazing that Blondie managed to find a very current celeb piece in what looks like a Time magazine from 1933.
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Its actually Time Travel Magazine, announcing Humanoid Of All The Years Doctor Who.The Westview High Janitor left it in her shop, when he picked up the Cancer free brownies he ordered to replace the homemade ones Les gave Lisa, and paid with a Donald Trump $3,000 bill.
@The Quiet Man:
Guys, Fay Wray, c’mon.
CS: Not hackneyed as much as archaic. It’s just as likely he’d tear up at such bygone behavior.
What’s the word again for two words that are homonyms but opposite meanings? Thought of a new one this morning:
If reckless on ice, you will have an accident.
If wreck-less on ice, you are a good driver.
BF: but for the four-hour time zone difference, id say the lad was great– but rude! Try to be delivered during normal working hours.
@A Grave Mind: Eh, not denying her talent, but a woman who today is primarily known for two roles where she mostly screams her head off just isn’t my cup of tea.
@Hibbleton: Yeah, I see what you’re talking about…
Then again, I almost forgot Louise Brooks and Anna May Wong. Va-va-voom!
So Dagwood wants more of the same? Not very ambitious.
@Hibbleton: I was lucky; the church hosting us didn’t blink when we had two gay Assistant Scoutmasters. National BSA might have been troubled, but I saw no need to tell them. Fortunately, they’ve largely backed off that issue, even though it cost them the LDS troops.
@Charterstone: Dune: Thank you for your MT comment.
I was a Girl Scout more than fifty years ago and earned about fifteen badges It was hard work for a nine/ten/eleven-year-old. Following MT, which I do, is dumber than anything I ever did to earn badges. And I find this story even more irritating than the last three or four MT stories, which is a high bar to clear.
@The Quiet Man:
Oh, you’re right, just saying if she’d been President, she would’ve been Baberaham Lincoln.
Blondie, the Neighborhood Bumstead: “Can she be made of Sandwhichs? Remember that time we freaked Josh Fruhlinger out with the edible Dagwood face, and I said ” I look delicious! ” Imagine what eating a stack of Sandwhichs in the form of a glamorous girl will do to him?!?” (Looks to camera.) “This one’s for you,Crock, old buddy!”
@Activist:
#119: RMMD: another homonym –
If Rex-less at midnight, June will remember she left him at Eye Clinic where he whimpered her name as he died
@Philip: I once read an online story, that I didn’t know was A.I until I caught on.
The story actually ended halfway through, the last half just went on and on and on about platitudes about “being yourself” and “Loving who you are”
Ugh…
@Jym:
Since Dagwood is still wearing the art deco pajamas
___________________________________________________
Did we ever get a final official decision… are those bagels or brown donuts?
Blondie: If Dagwood is watching Euphoria at his desk maybe Dithers’s boot-to-the-ass management style isn’t excessive.
MT: I look forward to Mark’s Sunday lesson on how and where to find nepotism in the wild.
“You claim that Robbie stole this photo? Well, say no more! We’ll make this right by feeding him to the specific falcon pictured in the photo! Whoever tracks it down earns a tracking merit badge, and whoever ties him to a pole like Fay Wray in King Kong so the falcon can eat him earns a knot-tying merit badge!”
Late Thread Cuisine: A few leaves of spinach aren’t going to attract Popeye to eat this…this…spectacle.
@Baja Gaijin: My mother used to make something called Oyster Crisp. I believe that this was it but mixed with breadcrumbs and baked until solid.
BG&SS: Why’s Snuffy wasting his time stealing chickens if he’s got Preacher powers?
C-Shaft: I have a hard time imagining an event that I’d less rather sit through sober than this one. Sad to say, to paraphrase Doug Rattmann, the 99 bottles are a lie.
DT: Bad time to be wearing such a distinctive getup when two gangsters and/or G-men have just been alerted to your crime, as has the hotel detective, grown-up Riley Freeman.
Dustin: Can the Dunning-Kruger effect have a genetic component. The jury’s still out, but here’s some supporting evidence.
GT: There’s a NewsRadio where Jimmy offends the staff by describing them as “adequate” in an interview, which he thought was higher praise than it actually is. Sadly the classic 90s sitcoms seem to have passed from common memory, even among aspiring filmmakers.
JP: Not only would the state of Alan make little Charlotte want to get the fuck back to Spencer Ranch pronto, I half suspect Ann will spend the night poring over potential parole violations she could do so she can go back to being a guest of the state.
MW: Mary has never been less involved in a storyline than she was in this one, and given the two components of this “equal team”, can you blame her?
Phantom: Stripey is two-for-two in the “punching skull emblems onto your face” department and the “driving a metaphor into the ground” department.
@Baja Gaijin: As is often the case, the Weight Watchers jokes write themselves.
@The Quiet Man: For a Pre-Code dining companion, Claudette Colbert is your only choice. Watch the C.B. deMille Cleopatra from 1934!
Blondie:
Dinner is the ultimate hall pass for Dagwood. Is there anybody that doesn’t know he is more interested in eating then sex.
@Jym: 98
@The Quiet Man: #110
@Hibbleton: #115
@A Grave Mind: #117
@White Rabbit: #135
I’d trade them all for Jean Harlow or Barbara Stanwyck. Hell, I’ll even take “The Big Valley” era Barbara Stanwyck.
@Baja Gaijin:
What a waste of perfectly good spinach.
@90 Philip: on Blondie: “…titular star.” I see what you did there.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: #133: When most automakers boast of their horsepower ratings, Rolls-Royce used to cooly state theirs as adequate. When you’re Rolls-Royce you don’t have to brag.
@Baja Gaijin: Even the walrus and the carpenter won’t find this appealing whether they wear spectacles or not.
@Baja Gaijin: Cuisine – They did a sloppy job arranging the spinach leaves around that bowl of barf.
@Baja Gaijin: This Clam Chowder Salad needs more clams, not just one glop in the middle.
Drown it in clams… then maybe I’ll consider eating it.
Also I want Clam Chowder now.
Edit: I think I’m hungry, like dangerously hungry to find this abomination making me crave something…
@White Rabbit: You are absolutely right, I’d completely forgotten about Claudette Colbert. While I still need to see the 1934 ‘Cleopatra’, I have seen her show-stealing sequence in ‘The Sign of the Cross’ and that’s all I need.
IYKYK.
@The Rambling Otter: Just as long as the clam isn’t a celebrity…
@132 Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: Did she try to disguise it with leaves?
@134 Artist formerly known as Ben: I wonder what those Weight Watchers people from back then would think of our derision of their hard work?
@137 Deadly Goon Bugs: As one firmly in the Spinach Is Grody camp, I have to agree.
@140 Dr. Pill: I didn’t get the reference.
@141 I speak Jive: The heaping mound of what may have forcibly ejected itself from the kid in Rex Morgan is sitting atop frozen spinach. From a box. Slimy, flaccid, drippy, stringy vegetable mass.
@142 The Rambling Otter: Of course you’d eat it covered in clams. I’ve seen many nature documentaries showing otters cracking open clams for dinner. And looking so cute while doing so.
@Baja Gaijin: The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. ~ L.P. Hartley
@Baja Gaijin: Awwww :3
Thanks ^^
@Dr. Larry Erhardt: Or food critic, Gene Scallop from Spongebob (Who was voiced by Gene Shalit)
@Artist formerly known as Ben: The past is never dead; it’s not even past. — William Faulkner
Nobel Prize or no, I would rather read Hartley than Faulkner. “The Traveling Grave” and “A Visitor from Down Under” are two of my favorite weird tales/short stories.
@Baja Gaijin: “Spinach is grody?” Have you tried Spanakopita?
The spinach & oyster combination goes back a ways — the famous dish Oysters Rockefeller was created at Antoine’s Restaurant in New Orleans in the late 19th century. (Although insiders say the original contained many green herbs but no spinach)
@Ukulele Ike: He did have a feel for that kind of thing. Although I enjoy a lot of Faulkner too.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: I’m fond of Intruder in the Dust (1948), the closest thing Bill wrote to a whodunit. Good movie, too. Lucas Beauchamp is an amazing character. “I’m waiting for….my receipt.”
@148 Artist formerly known as Ben: So is the food.
@152 Ukulele Ike: Spinach and fetid cheese. Sounds like a Late Thread Cuisine. Bleah.
@Baja Gaijin: I stand by it. The Greeks taught the Romans how to cook, and their descendants the Italians taught the French.
@156 Ukulele Ike: I lived in Italy. I know something about food.
[I’m just winding you up.]
@Ukulele Ike:
#152: I love going to ethnic festivals and like to try their pastry hand sandwich with meat or veggies and sauce in middle. Currently I make, bake, and freeze a half dozen Cornish Pasties stuffed with carrot, broccoli, potato, and whatever in honor of Michigan UP. Every culture has one,but ive yet to try your Bosnian treat. A new bucket list item!
Thank you for making me consider Dagwood’s Sydney Sweeney vore fantasy.
@Baja Gaijin: I know enough about wild mushrooms to have tasted about twenty species without ever risking any that resemble the dangerous ones. That white glob in the middle looks like a giant version of something that I might see growing on a dead log in the woods that would cause me to think “nyuh-uh, don’t think so.”
BLONDIE: I looked up Sydney Sweeney and it made perfect sense that I had never heard of her. This brings up my question — are the Bumsteads the kind of middle-aged(?) couple who would watch British dramas and comedies on broadcast public TV? That’s how I find out about young actors, and it’s stodgy and dorky enough that it might make sense for BLONDIE.
@Poteet: As far as Doctor Who goes Dagwood is an old-fashioned Tom Baker man, mostly because he finds the idea of jelly babies intriguing.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: Personally, Jelly Babies are my favourite candies, and I never really cared much for Tom Baker as The Doctor, I mean I don’t hate him and he WAS a great Doctor I would never deny that, but he wasn’t a Doctor I was particularly close to.
First, Second, Fifth, Seventh and Tenth were my Doctors.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: Also, forgive me if I’m wrong, but aren’t “Sour Patch Kids” just Americanized Jelly Babies made sour? They have a similar texture.
@Poteet: Got me thinking of the scene in Avatar: The Last Airbender where Zuko and Iroh are fugitives wandering through the forest.
Iroh finds some berries, which he can’t quite remember would either make the worlds’ greatest tea, or is a deadly poison. He decides to risk it for the sake of tea.
It was poisonous, but he manages to survive.
Edit: I recall one fan had “Greatest tea or deadly poison?” printed onto a mug.
@Baja Gaijin: Me being bit too clever? I was thinking “oysters” and “The Walrus and Carpenter” from Alice in Wonderland. The “spectacles” I threw in as a pun just for the heck of it.
@The Rambling Otter: Tom Baker is my Doctor and Leela is my companion, forever and ever amen. Iowa public television still shows the old DOCTOR WHO episodes every Saturday night.
@Poteet: I’ve seen Pyramids of Mars, and Ark in Space.
Not bad :3
I’m going to see about watching Genesis of the Daleks soon. I own the DVD but haven’t gotten around to watching it yet for whatever reason… it’s a landmark episode. I really should :3
Sydney Sweeney: Oh Dagwood, do me! Do me right now!
Dagwood: I was hoping we could go to Olive Garden instead?
Blondie: This is Dagwood Bumstead we’re talking about. The man who is the eponym for a monstrous, improbable sandwich. A man whose main vice is his appetite for food. For this man, dining IS sex. The pleasures of the flesh offer no temptation to Dagwood Bumstead. But having a pretty young starlet across the table to watch him absolutely house a few greaseball burgers and probably a whole roast chicken? That he can get into! The real question is, has Blondie translated some “hall-pass” Cosmo quiz into terms Dagwood can understand, or is she subscribed to some sort of deviant lovers-of-disgusting-eaters ‘zine, an issue of which she’s printed out and brought into their marital bed in an attempt to get Dagwood interested in her?
Dagwood:
My wife and I have long had — or pretended to have, neither of us has put it to the test or had a real chance to — a “one celebrity” rule. Technically, it’s a one celebrity encounter rule, allowing me to indulge my long-standing fantasy of a threesome with the Turner Sisters, Kathleen and Tina. Shows how long we’ve had the rule.