Dot doesn’t really care for the theater, and more power to her
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Hi and Lois, 3/10/26
Not sure why everyone in this panel, including the lady behind the ticket desk, looks so God-damned smug. There’s no reason for it, not least because, if Ditto is operating the spotlight, it’s definitely not going to be on Britney. Based on what I’ve seen of his overall competence, they’ll be lucky if it’s even pointing at the stage.
Gearhead Gertie, 3/10/26
Oh, man, Gearhead Gertie died, you guys. She fell thousands of feet into the Grand Canyon and died in a horrible car wreck. I’d say she will be missed, but, honestly, probably not that much. I mean, her husband doesn’t seem that broken up about it, and for good reason.
Blondie, 3/10/26
Ha ha, it’s funny because Dagwood is so terrified of being alone with his own thoughts for even a single moment that his brain will simply spontaneously shut down when faced with the possibility!
Mary Worth, 3/10/26
“Hmm, is it possible that Harvey became enraged and stormed off because my advice was too good?” is absolutely top-notch Mary Worth. I’m standing up at my desk and saluting right now, that’s how incredible this is.
51 replies to “Dot doesn’t really care for the theater, and more power to her”
What’s disturbing is that, though this is an elementary-school play, the Playbill seems to be from Playboy.
H&L: That woman at the ticket counter is looking smug because the house is going to be packed. Everybody knows that Ditto is definitely dropping that spotlight on Britney’s head, and they don’t want to miss it.
MW: This meddle has been especially rejuvenating for Mary. Her hips, waist, boobs, and neck have been returned to that of a 20-something year old.
At least the delusional parents (Nameless about their daughter’s riveting acting talent or H&L about Ditto’s abilities, take your pick) are having a realistic dumb bit of one-upmanship. Next door at the Curtis elementary school, somehow pizza delivery restaurants are taking joke orders with no credit card or return phone number – Robert Munsch would call Curtis’ gambit far-fetched!
MW:
“If that bad man who foolishly and impetuously ignores my advice tries to come back, scratch his eyes out, Muffin!”
MW:
“Or, maybe he was actually just recoiling at the fact that I’ve now worn this garish purple cowl for 1,589 consecutive days!”
MW: Mary: “I’m bleeding, making me the victor.”
Gearhead Gertie:
“I can make it!”
Not without axles and wheels, you can’t.
It looks like Luann has found a new assignment to fail! Of the four choices, she chose the only one that absolutely isn’t a career. And the only one that shows no ambition whatsoever. And the only one that isn’t at least a worthwhile hobby. It’s like Fogarty is trying to find the most unemployable person in the history of junior college, and Luann is trying to break the ratings scale.
First I wondered why the “Gearhead Gertie” artists felt the need to label the Grand Canyon. Then I wondered why they felt the need to give Gertie a line of dialogue that added nothing to the observers’ commentary. Then I wondered why the two observers were saying anything either. Eventually I wondered why I was reading Gearhead Gertie in the first place, and finally why anything happens at all, and here I am, envying Gertie’s ability to just live in the moment.
Blondie : this joke would make more sense if Dagwood was falling asleep DURING the movie, not after having watched it.
Especially the part where Blondie chose to do a sudoku instead, and as we can see, it’s completely blank except for the numbers that are already there so you can do the puzzle. Either she did multiple puzzles, or, more likely she couldn’t fill in a single number in 65+ minutes.
***********
Dustin :
a) Everyone knew what DustinDad really meant, DustSis. You’re just being pointlessly cruel by spelling it out.
b) No, don’t say THAT Meg! You mustn’t break Dustin THAT way! Ed was saying that to imply “Even eventually moving out of here and getting your own life”, if you convince your brother he CAN’T he’ll just stay here forever!
Which is secretly what you people want because you NEED a punching bag and scapegoat so the others don’t turn on YOU***********
Family Circus : “But dad, if I move my squad of Astra Militarum from this vantage point, the Tyrannids over by the catalogue rack will have an easily beeline to take them all out!”
(Alternatively : “No can do. ThEy HaFf KaHp-tOOréd EeT for KAY-OSS!”)
************
Gearhead Gertie : …this is just a political comic with the labels changed, you can’t fool me.
************
Luann : This is a “which Luann character are you?” quiz, with it going “Most answers A = You are Bernice! Most answers B = You are Les! Most answers C = You are Luann! Most answers D = You are Tara!”
….Except “Dinner with friends” doesn’t line up with Luann’s personnality. She’s not about being “socially outgoing”, she’s about “creative expression”.
Besides, we all know Luann’s best case scenario career is birthday clown. It’s been foreshadowed CONSTANTLY!************
Mary Worth : “He’s upset because he KNOWS I’m right!” is something else, even for this strip.
Blondie: Blondie only looks up in surprise from her Sudoku when she hears Dagwood describe what he’s been watching as a “scary movie”. In fact it was just two hours of a camera pointed at an empty refrigerator, which is the most terrifying thing he can think of.
Phantom: “Yup, ol’ Col. Worubu always goes by the book. So sad too bad for Officer Dai that there’s nobody in the chain of command who can call him off and save her career. Alas, it’s completely unknown for such a commander to exist within the ranks of the Jungle Patrol. Oh well, back to the Skull Cave. I wonder what Diana’s cooking for dinner tonight.”
Pluggers: The bipedal animal hybrids that are Pluggers apparently have human teeth and I don’t like it one bit.
RMMD: I get it now. This is going to be one of those ‘liar revealed’ stories. Fatso here (I refuse to call her by that insipid nickname she’s chosen for herself) is going to charm her way into everyone’s heart until someone (let’s say Shorty of Shorty & Beanpole) discovers hey, she’s that famous actress that went missing! Then everyone will dismiss her (‘How COULD you! We TRUSTED you!’) until she makes some grand apologetic gesture that automatically makes things all better and earns Mud’s hand in marriage in the process. Can they drag this out through, say, Labor Day? Let’s find out!
JP: Yup, that’s Bogdan. It *might* be another representative of the Pavel Jr. Mob (‘We’re the best at what we do except for all those time a single woman bested us!’) but I don’t think they’d be that courteous about potentially having to fix the door.
S4th: You just gave sound advice with no quirky flights of fancy. Who are you and what have you done with Ted Forth (and could you do the same to Sally, Hilary, Ralph, Sally’s Mom….)?
GT: Quick! Everyone grab their annoying whistles and inappropriate hand gestures!
H&L: I have to give props to the writers here–the tech crews are an oft-forgotten part of any production, and it’s nice to see them get some recognition.
MW: Look, Mary, while it’s true that you touched a nerve, your notion that in that moment ascot guy realized that he needed to be careful is not at all in accordance with how he reacted or even basic human psychology.
Which, of course, given what Karen Moy knows about basic human psychology, probably means that this will inspire ascot guy to start fact-checking in such a way that he’ll end up blowing this scam ring wide open. Mary, of course, will practically break her arm patting herself on the back for setting him down the path, despite not doing anything beyond that.
GG: I smiled at the image of an old lady plummeting to her fiery death. Look what the “funny pages” have made me.
Hi and Lois: SMUG BECAUSE:
Brittney’s Parents: The spotlight’s going to be on her, and the DUI charges mean their guardianship will likely be restored
Ditto’s Parents: ???
Ticket Lady: 100% surfing PornHub when no one’s looking
That very tiny woman at the computer looks way too happy for someone who has been dealing with a bunch of parents at a school play without the help of an edible kicking in.
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I get Gertie’s husband just being relieved to not have to deal with his wife’s monomania anymore, but that other man seems strangely calm for someone who is witnessing an elderly woman Thelma and Louiseing herself.
@MKay: Like the rest of us?
MW- looking at that smile in the first panel, we can tell why she meddles- she’s TRYING to touch a nerve
It seems like Mary Worth sometimes has to remind us who Mary Worth is: Mary Worth is wise. Mary Worth wears purple. Mary Worth meddles in people’s love life. Mary Worth spouts platitudes and commonsense words of caution. Mary Worth serves salmon squares and muffins. Mary Worth is not about the god**** parrots, okay? It’s about Mary Worth!
FG: If I had an ex-coworker who would occasionally try and murder my brother and me (I think Ergon and Reno are siblings, right?), I don’t think I’d be quite this blase about it. Then again, Mongo seems like the kind of place where this is equivalent to stealing someone’s parking spot.
Blondie: Maybe the real terror is
the friends we made along the wayobstructive sleep apnea.Gearhead Gertie: Q: What is your only comfort in life and death? A: My only comfort in life and death is that I will die being sliced in half by the fiery wreckage of my car while going over the lip of the Grand Canyon screaming KYLE PETTY 5EVER!!
Six degrees of Gearhead Gertie: I got nothing on today’s strip, or the December GG strip referenced in the flashback, but the Mary Worth panel just above it, of Ian surrounded by clouds and being struck by what was either a beam of light from heaven or his shower as he thought about Sunny the parrot…
Around the time that strip ran, my local rerun channel showed an episode of “CSI:” whose plot revolved around an old man, a domestic disagreement, a shower, and a parrot. Suffice it to say this story did not end as happily. At least not for anyone other than the parrot.
No. Absolutely not. Dot and Ditto’s school 100% does not have a contract with actual, real-life Playbill. This is an elementary school, god damn it, the program for
Twitter: the musical!Watership Down, but blueNothing so easy as a chair consists of three black-and-white pages printed out on an ancient LaserJet and stapled hastily together by PTA parents, and the 20 that are on top of the stack are obviously coffee-stained– look, I’ve been around the school-theater block a few times, and that block does not have money or, in this case, a qualified spotlight operator.MW: Looks like it’s time for Mary to make a batch of Conciliatory Muffins for Harv.
MW:
“Let me get out my Book of Incantations, Muffin, and we’ll turn that indignant dandy into a toad!”
Pluggers are too dumb to have a nightlight. And proud of it.
Chix (sic): The chapter of Xunice’s illustrated sex manual describing depth of insertion and its consequences bravely eschews use of the hackneyed banana.
MW: Mary goes all “Bond villain” in panel one.
MW: Mary wonders if H____y will feel better about her when he finds out she named her new cat Trixie.
MW: (ring ring) Karen! Great panel with Mary and– …oh, so you got the deliveries? Yes, those 17 adorable orange Kittens ARE Muffin’s… no, no, remember I said she’d be PLAYING either a neutered male or female. And she IS spayed NOW, but not six weeks ago when she had her litter….. No, of course they shouldn’t appear on panel – we don’t want Muffin to be slut-shamed for a youthful moment of indiscretion… can you please use your indoor voice?
Anyway, she’s no longer nursing them – that’s why we sent all the Meow Mix – but they are at a critical stage of development where they’re still learning Cat stuff from their mommy. So we thought it best if Muffin and her precious babies all stay at your place, where Muffin will be close to her work site…. it’ll just be for a few weeks, then I’m sure you and June will easily find homes for all of those litttle bundles of joy… You seem to be sobbing with happiness. I knew those little darlings would warm your cockles. Wait don’t– CLICK
Hi & Lois: Guys, the joke is that both families have kids, and both kids are involved in a school play! They think it’s important, but it’s not! It’s a perfectly serviceable joke, written for and by people who don’t understand jokes.
Gearhead Gertie: It’s obvious that Gertie’s artist, Mike Smith, has a background in editorial cartoons. Instead of labeling Gertie’s doom-precipice “Grand Canyon,” he probably wanted to call it “Tariffs” or something, but it was meaningless, so his editors wouldn’t let him.
@Kevin Miller:
Gearhead Gertie fans also love Garrison, and a side effect is that without labels they won’t know what anything is.
Mary Worth – It’s possible to be right, but also be an asshole. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive, ma’am.
And the way she’s petting the cat – I have to think Moy and Brigman are just screwing with us.
@els: Hell, I’m just impressed they have paper programs. The most we ever get for the Divalings’ band concerts is a QR code posted at the door of the gym.
GG – Does the “Phoenix race” feature a Grand Canyon jump? Does it involve the drivers leaving the “Phoeinx Racetrack” and driving 200 miles to attempt it? I’m guessing no on both and that Gertie is insane.
CS: Max and Hannah add Pete and Mindy to their wedding day. They’ll so be disppointed when they realize there’s nobody at Montoni’s to order pizza from.
GG: I admit I don’t watch a lot of–well, any–NASCAR, but it’s my understanding that Evel Knievel-style stunt jumping is not usually a part of it. I mean, I’m not going to complain if Gertie decides to off herself but she should at least stay on-brand and do it by spinning out and crashing in a ball of flame while doing 90 on the freeway.
H&L: Are we supposed to be laughing at the Flagstons’ pride because Ditto is merely working the spotlight and therefore not good enough to actually be on stage, or are we supposed to empathize with it because technical theater is an essential but often underappreciated discipline in the performing arts? Or are we supposed to be wondering what kind of massively overfunded elementary school has such an elaborate setup for a first grade play?
MW: Mary, you’ve been around Wilbur Weston. Do you honestly still believe this kind of childish tantrum is the result of latent self-awareness?
Also, I don’t think Luann’s even capable of having lunch with a pal. She just had to bribe her own family with weiners to get them to talk to her at all.
H&L: There must have been a good sale on black skirts.
Nah, I don’t believe there’s any young girl named Britney now. Bryttaneh, maybe. Behritnee another possiblity. Brytknee, unlikely. But definitely not Britney.
Gearhead Gertie-Join us tomorrow as Gearhead Gertie enters the afterlife of perpetual reruns which no one will notice.
RMMD-Then I shall call you Minnie.
MW-“I seemed to have touched a nerve,” Mary says as her cat arches it’s back and swipes a claw at her.
MW-“If H@rvey doesn’t know I’m right he’ll soon know I’m right and that I’m always right.”
RMMD: Okay! —Hector stops Lorna just before she launches into her full R J Johnson Jr routine.
MW — After confronting the long, dark, fifteen seconds of the Soul, Mary Worth doubles down.
Gearhead And Gertie, the movie about a woman who drove off into the air over the Grand Canyon, which didn’t even make the price of a cup of coffee on its theatrical release.
GG — In fairness to Gertie, she was misled by the illusion that one side of the Grans Canyon is much lower than the other. . .
If I were Mary, I would be more concerned about why my cat keeps changing colour and what Dr Ed could have to say about it.
MW: This is the most realistic depiction of a feline in MW ever!
HtH: Apparently my Northern European history classes lied to me about dire poverty and famine. What’s next? The Little Ice Age wasn’t real either?
FC:
“Those little swords are not doctor-recommended for my haemorrhoids.”
“That’s just a Big Pharma lie you learned from ads on the TV news.”
Wrecks Moregone:
“I understand why they wouldn’t call you Mini anymore.”
__________________________
Murky Tail:
On the other hand, exposure to the Las Vegas midday sun could dry out enough moisture so that Rusty could be made Shiny with the application of some sandpaper.