Love and pee
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Archie, 4/8/26
You know, I had a riff all ready to go about how I hate it when a strip starts with character #1 parroting back something to character #2 that we’re supposed to understand character #2 just said immediately before the action started, and how Jughead in particular would never, ever use the word “proactive,” like he wouldn’t even know what it meant and if he did learn he would find it offensive to the point of blasphemy, but then I caught sight of the fact that Archie has “A.A. L. [for loves, I guess?] V.L.” on his notebook and Betty has “A.A. L. B.C.” and gurrrrrrrrrl, please, rethink some things and have some self-respect, I am begging you.
Pardon My Planet, 4/8/26
Jeez, lady, why don’t you settle down and maybe be more like your husband, who is just walking around with a featureless, blank paper coffee cup in his own home to match his featureless, numb facial expression. Unlike you, he doesn’t feel regret or wistfulness or anything at all. I guess based on the tight grip he has on a paper cup full of steaming liquid, he is feeling a great deal of pain, which at least lets him know he’s still alive, after a fashion.
Shoe, 4/8/26
I don’t know why, but it bothers me so much that Biz is wearing a winter cap. Is he supposed to have just put it on because, as a bird, he has to go outside to go to the bathroom? They’re already outside!
162 replies to “Love and pee”
There is no call waiting because cloacas do not allow to hold it. Finally they remembered they are birds!
Sorry “Pardon My Planet” but art about people under comfortable material conditions lamenting the emptiness of consumerism is a sign of the boom economy not [gestures at everything in the world] THIS!
Wary Morth:
I assume Sharon’s side business is hiring out her two sons to play as extras in remakes of Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph Of The Will”?
Aren’t travel mugs the ones with lids and insulation that you take, you know, traveling? Those are mugs that have destinations on them, simple souvenirs. Thus his featureless cup is all too appropriate, as clearly he has journeyed to the Void. The Nothing is freedom in the end, guy.
Jughead is right: if we break or invert chronological succession, causality goes to hell and any sense of personal responsibility loses meaning. Nietzsche and postmodernism will allow you to skip studying!
MW: So Sharon is Nurse Chapel from Star Trek.
FG: Jeez, you think Aegia could’ve had a cleaning lady come down here every now and then.
FC: You go to my room, and you’d better be naked when I get there.
Shoe: He’s going right there just out of sight. Right on the ground! (In the “thank God for small favors” dept., he leaves the rather large coffee mug behind).
Archie I really wish we could see the follow-up to this strip, where a grinning Jughead is yelling “Seven! Mitosis! The Louisianna Purchase!” in class while a dismayed Ms Grundy calls the schools psychological services.
PmP Maybe its just because I’m an introvert who doesn’t hist a lot of parties, but you have 25 mugs? In your kitchen? Are you eating all your meals out of them?
Shoe I like the Perfessor’s blank stare which makes it clear that they were not conversing at all prior to this announcement, and that Biz just really wanted to talk about pissing.
Archie panel 2 looks like it’s kicking off a 60s American Bandstand. “And now, here’s Betty with her Number 1 single: “Bland, Bland, Bland!”
MW: Unbeknownst to Sharon, her two sons make a lot of dough with their side hustle, working as subcontractors for the scammer network. Sharon’s new “connection” to Mary Worth has opened up a new opportunity and should prove…lucrative.
Archie:
A.A.L.B.C.? — American Association of Laboriously Boring Comics?
This is what happens when you sit on the other end of the counter, Perfesser. Shoe and people giving him crappy set-up lines don’t look so bad now, huh?
PMP: I like a good memorial mug as much as the next person, but it seems ridiculous to buy them on Amazon (which I also like as much as the next person) instead of buying them in the actual place that you visited. Can there be people who actually fake mug-brag?
MW: I cry foul. Mr Ascot looks to be about 100, and had just the one wife, right? My parents would be about 100, and I have college-age GRANDKIDS.
GT: Oh, goody, days of blow-by-blows about golf- THE MOST BORING SPORT.
Pardon My Planet:
“Is it a precondition to appearing in any given day’s one-panel offering here that one have hipster coiffure or hipster lack of coiffure?”
The blank expression is that of a man who’s fighting back the urge to mansplain wordplay to his wife. “No, dear. I see what you were going for, but those are not travel mugs. Travel mugs have lids and are insulated to keep your drink hot and not spilling on your lap while commuting. What you’re holding would more accurately be described as souvenir mugs.”
They missed a golden opportunity to put “J.J. + H.B.” on Jughead’s notebook.
Wrecks Moregone:
“Half a dozen customers for lunch. If I can get another half dozen for supper I won’t go to bed hungry tonight.”
PnP: Baldy knows he’s in a world out of place–the dying world of the newspaper comic. His coffee cup sleeve is gone. His apartment is vanishing. Soon all that will be left is his surprisingly detailed hairy arm clutching the print newspaper, the instrument of his martyrdom.
Shoe – You could just stick a cork up your ass.
PMP: Whoa, Los Angeles AND Las Vegas? No wonder she’s got wanderlust. Why, one day they may even dare to travel the rest of the I-15 to buy the travel mugs of that exotic Shangri-la, Salt Lake City.
I see Vegas, I see LA, I see a man in serious coffee-related pain!
The only Polycule article I would like to read is one about whether Archie-Veronica-Betty anticipated poly themes and can provide a legitimate model for healthy relationships. But no, we only get memoirs about situations where the readers get to cringe about how the wife is being manipulated by the husband. Where is the New York Time profile “Archie Andrews: simp or harem master”?!
MW: Actually, Mary, the main thing is that Sharon’s father got conned out of over $200,000, a fact you remain inexplicably committed to omitting.
But… those aren’t travel mugs. Those are just mugs. With place names on them. Which, judging by the baby blue (?) LAS VEGAS of it all, you probably got off Amazon for some reason. Do you think that “travel mugs” are… mugs that have traveled? Do you also have a neck pillow that says HONOLULU? A tiny Scrabble set emblazoned with WICHITA?
PMP: That isn’t a headline on the man’s newspaper. They’re tally marks, one for each morning he’s dissociated through his wife’s existential crises.
PMP people problems, amirite?
@Lauralot: We’ll probably hit that tomorrow.
‘Yeeeaahhh, about your sons’ going to college… have they applied for any full-ride scholarships? Have some heretofore unknown influential relative who can get them in on a nepotism degree?’
Archie and The Case of the Missing Ampersand
Pardon My Planet: I don’t know what Klaudette Nomi is complaining about. From the looks of it, she gets outside her Amazon cart plenty, to all the local garage sales.
PMP: “But other character, those aren’t travel mugs, they’re souvenir mugs.” “So what? Am I only allowed to talk about what I’m holding? The travel mugs are in the cabinet. Now may I continue, or do you have something else you would like to mansplain?”
Archie: If Jughead is now supposed to be a teenager living in 2026 then “proactive” is a completely normal word he hears from influencers on Tik Tok all the time.
Shoe: Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, a hat is just a hat, a coffee mug is just a…an…say, what the hell is those things, anyway?
@MKay: Can there be people who actually fake mug-brag?
You may be surprised at the different ways people express their loserdom and how many of these people exist.
Drat, I was gearing up to make a joke about the hearts on the notebooks before finishing Josh’s writeup on today’s Archie and realized I’d been beaten to it. My well of snark is running dry this week.
Archie: Like a ruin disassociated from its context, Jughead’s act makes more sense if you remember this first ran when Carson was still doing his Carnak bit.
“It just seems to sad to me that we have over 25 travel mugs but…”
The guy blinks in confusion. (Those are travel mugs?)
“Can’t seem to travel beyond my Amazon shopping cart”
The world is bending and blurring around him.
His wife then disappears as does the room, he comes to reality as a barista at a cafe in New Orleans back in the 40’s.
“We’ve got mugs for Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Las Cruces and Las Palmas, El Paso and El Salvador, and I think it’s finally time for you to forget about the Spanish exchange student you tried to date in high school.”
Blondie (writer) “Hmmm… I want to make a joke about an ‘impressive’ amount of debt as a tax situation, I can relate it to sending in all your debit/credit cards. But that’s actually not something the IRS would do, it’s something they actively warn against… I know! I’ll call the IRS employee Mr. Scammer, that ought to prevent any of my dementia-adjacent deadtree readers from taking this seriously as something they’d do. Welp, off to my golf game, gonna try out those Gil Thorp strained-perspective poses and see if that helps!”
PMP artist has a poor idea of what a ‘travel cup’ is (basically an adult sippy cup, for traveling with, get it?) These are souvenir mugs.
BB: The Walkers have a poor idea of what a nail salon looks like.
“Can we at least travel to cities that do not have an article in the name?”
“Why? Didn’t we have great fun in La Paz and The Hague? Come on, we still have to visit Istanbul!”
“I just want to see the Sistine Chapel!”
“I told you, if we find a way to get into The Vatican City without passing through Rome, we will go!”
Shoe is asking us to contemplate how and if bathrooms work in a treetop-based society, and frankly, I won’t stand for it!
The only way to purge this question from my mind is to give us a viable answer! Most birds can’t really control when and where they poop, so I assume the avian beings in this strip fly around for a while when they think “nature’s call” is upon them. Maybe they have an elaborate timekeeping system based on their most recent meal, or maybe it’s just a feeling deep inside them? Either is fine.
So yeah, I don’t like it, but that’s the storyline I need from you, ghost of Jeff MacNelly. Thanks!
PmP: Sad guy has had to use a disposable cup since he broke her “I heart Walla Walla” cup years ago.
Archie: I’d bet money Veronica is the one who wrote that on Archie’s notebook.
Archie: Come on, guys, get it right. It’s either A.A. + V.L. or A.A. ♥ V.L, but not A.A. L V.L.
Archie:
AA + Venereal Lesions
RMMD-“Then we muscle in on that Jordan and that diner of his.”
MW-Just tell the woman that her father is being scammed. No beating around the bush.
FC-Yeah, Thel. Send Billy to your room. He doesn’t want to play with your toys.
JP: That explains the disappearing bosoms. Manley is a leg man.
MW: “Gotta go, Mary. I’m getting the boys ready for college.”
Wary Morth:
In the meatime Trixie could be in mortal danger, alone and hunted by his ex-captors in a South East Asian country, where a white man would stick out like a sore thumb, with no money, no passport, no luggage or possessions, and no command of the language. What luck Moy and Brigman are sparing us the drama!
Those aren’t travel mugs. Those are mugs you get from traveling, which in the context of the panel makes a lot more sense, making me wonder if the artist has never seen travel mugs or if instead the entire thing is a desperate cry for help. I began to wonder that latter when I realized that there are LOTS of newspaper comics whose writers and artists seem entirely unfamiliar with, you know, the WORLD, and then I realized that Mary Worth’s current storyline is a dramatic attempt to let the world know that COMIC ARTISTS ARE BEING HELD IN A COMPOUND AGAINST THEIR WILL and forced to draw newspapers comics that are increasingly out of touch.
Sadly, because the primary recipients of this news are the over-70 crowd, they will continue to just deposit huge sums into the captors’ Paypal accounts.
@MKay: Not just golf, but isn’t this a radio broadcast of golf?
At some point Archie Andrews is going to be the first family-friendly comic character to bring up the concept of “thrupples” and I hope to have shifted off this mortal coil by then.
***
So Jughead’s plan is to disrupt class. At least he’ll fail high school, so he doesn’t have to law school and try to apply that flawless logic.
***
There is no shift in perspective in Shoe, at the most the focus has barely zoomed in the smidgiest of smidges. Where did that branch behind the Perfesser come from? Why are those leaves consuming that stool?? Is this tree actively consuming everything upon it?!?!? No, no, calm down, Tabby. That would be interesting and this is 2026 Shoe.
***
It honesty bothers me that the artist clearly wanted us to see both A.A. loves, so much so that they had Betty lift her notebook up in front of her for no discernible reason. I respect artists which is why it annoys me when comic artists do things like this or the change in foliage in Shoe. That one is even worse because I really like the art style in that comic so a branch just appearing out of the blue is more egregious than Betty lifting up her notebook to… clobber Archie?
DT: Mastermind “so youse three are well known to Dick Tracy, number one crime fighter, you three can tangle with him and his major crimes unit while me, my drones and lackeys do the heist, sounds perfect right?”
GT: Does anyone do radio play by play for high school golf?
JP: Ann – “go get Charlotte and … a spade or shovel, and if you have some quick lime that would be a big help…”
MW: Watching Mary is like watching a master angler set the hook! Notice how she dances around and after Sharon has taken the bait and engaged, she’ll hit her with the scammed $200,000. Enough to pay for tuition for both kids and most colleges. The meddling just writes itself after that. Aside: another strange MW cell phone hold.
@Bob Tice: The Pardon My Planet players are trapped in the 7th layer of Hell: one where it won’t stop being 1997. NOOOOOOOOO!
Crankshaft – If Loathsome Lillian really wants to tease us, she could look out the window and see a giant meteor heading for her book store. Or a falling air conditioner two seconds away from her head.
FC – No, Thel! He’ll find at least one of those bottles you have stashed in your room, and before you know it, he’ll be sloshed. How will you explain that to holier than thou Grandma if she drops in? Send Billy to his own room to play with those toys from the 1960s. He’ll be bored out of his mind.
Frazz – Frazz is imagining the fun he and Caulfield would have mocking that kid behind her back if she actually did either of those things.
Gasoline Alley – Give him a piece of cake to shut him up. How about Devil’s Food?
Mary Worth – If a perfect stranger called me out of the blue to tell me that I’ve been ignoring a relative and that I need to “reconnect” with him, I’d tell her to mind her own fucking business.
PMP: If she doesn’t travel anywhere, where and more importantly why did she buy those mugs? They aren’t souvenirs of places where she’s been, and she doesn’t look like the type to collect coffee mugs just for the sake of it. Does she have them to remind her of the places she would like to go, and can’t think of anywhere more exotic than Las Vegas?
GT: Sometimes the world seems dark, but remember, it could always be worse, you could be in Milford listening to coed high school golf on the radio.
@Ettorre: You guys don’t understand anything about Archie! Obviously it would be “Archie Andrews: simp and harem master”, duh! It’s the whole point of the comic!
PmP: Ham radio operators used to (still do?) ask other ham radio operators they contacted from different cities to send each other postcards so they could add the postmarks to their collections. They then show the cards to friends (who didn’t ask) that come over to hang out.
Just saying, my advice to this guy is don’t ask any follow up questions.
Crankshaft: Lillian should be indignant, as she is not a tease. She’s just a girl who cain’t say no.
Lockhorns: As they live in the NY Jets’ catchment area, Leroy and Loretta are allowed to root for a faraway team to get their winning from somewhere.
Blondie: Paying an accountant to fall for a obviiously fake IRS agent, when Dagwood could just respond to one if the dozens of spam calls and phishing emails, is how the Bumsteads never get anywhere.
Dustin is the right man for the job. “The job” being “tutoring first grade arithmetic”.
BG&SS: I’m not expecting George Carlin here. But at least listen to a bit of Will Rogers.
Also warn a guy next time, Josh! With that entry title, I feared that Marvin had produced it’s own line of romance spin-offs.
PmP: The husband is depressed because they’re still not discussing the real problem, which is that she has 25 souvenir mugs but won’t let him use any of them. She polishes them all day, over and over, calling them by name while he drinks his coffee from styrofoam. Also she can’t leave the house anymore. The mugs get lonely.
C’shaft: Pretty self-righteous for a woman who was in love with her sister’s boyfriend and decided to tank her prospects with him out of spite.
DT: Dude, this is Neo-Chicago. Every two-bit thug has beef with Dick Tracy; you didn’t need to buy up a bunch of Russian army drones to bust these three specific guys out of prison to find someone wanting to exact revenge on him.
Dustin: Dustin supposedly has an English degree, something which never comes up in his personality, interests, or behavior unless the writers want to make fun of people with English degrees–in this case, by laughing at their terrible math skills.
And honestly, Bitter Temp Agency Lady, how much math does he need to fill whatever entry-level position you’ve got open? Odds are if he can work the ten-key pad he’s golden.
FG: Look, Aegia, you may be some powerful impartial avatar of justice, but if you wanted to preserve the historic record Ming was so desperate to expunge you can’t just leave the books lying around at random in a moldering repository. Don’t you have any archivists on Mongo?
GT: My swing has better form than that, and I’m lucky if I can reach the blue target at Top Golf.
Luann: It’s really hard to be even more loathsome than Bernice, but Alan is certainly putting in an effort.
MW: Sharon needs to act fast; she’ll need everything she can get out of her dad’s estate to remodel that non-Euclidean nightmare of a kitchen.
@2+2=7: BROKE: Manosphere’s toxic tricks to get bitches
WOKE: Archie’s mild-mannered guide to be love women and be loved back by them
Archie – Don’t worry about the tiny initials scrawled on their respective notebooks, today with his sweatshirt Jughead is declaring his love for Sophistry!
GT: is that supposed to be Marty Moon and is he supposed to be doing a live broadcast for his radio station or podcast?
He’s using a 2000-era digital recorder and headphones that aren’t connected to anything.
One of my favorite photos I have at home shows a KSTP radio announcer doing a live broadcast from a golf course sometime around 1930.
The remote equipment and antenna are in a baby buggy.
@Hal:
And here I thought it stood for “Solipsism.”
Archie – Better punchline: “Mostly cloudy with a 20% chance of rain!”
Shoe – Call waiting only comes into play if you’re already taking a call. So, ewww.
Archie: All the notebooks at Riverdale High have either “A.A. L V.L.” or “A.A. L B.C.” printed on the side. They were ordered that way from the manufacturer! The school board knows that people ‘shipping one teen couple or the other is what keeps their district in business, and there’s no way they’re losing out on those branding rights.
Pardon My Planet: What’s really sad is that those mugs are all gifts from people who actually have traveled to those places — but never thought to buy her something until they were back at the airport.
Shoe: He’s wearing a cap because he’s old and probably sick, and can’t stay warm. And the way real birds deal with the cold is by shivering, fluffing their feathers, and cuddling together — and I think we can all agree that no one wants to see these dudes do any of that.
Pluggers: I think the joke here should have been that his eyebrows are getting thicker as the hair on his head gets thinner. (And please don’t talk to us about a dog-man’s mustache.)
MW- “It’s okay, Sharon, the main thing is, if your old man drops another 200 thou or so on his imaginary lover, the kids might have to blow off college to work full- time in your side business. That’s a lot or grass mowing.”
Many years ago, when I was in grad school, I asked the guys in my office “Betty or Veronica?” The consensus was Betty. She was just as pretty as Veronica, she was blonde, and because she was so desperate she would probably put out. That analysis is clearly borne out here. Archie, you’re an idiot.
I also asked “Ginger or Mary Ann?” (Some of you may be too young for this question.) The consensus there was Mary Ann. Ginger was a bitch, while Mary Ann was played by a beauty contest winner.
@Momster:
(Some of you may be too young for this question.)
This statement prefaces 80% of what I say. Although, I did use an Adventures in Babysitting .gif at work this morning, and one of the young pups got the reference!
Don Abundio, translated:
“The boss is using these to keep his new pet warm. Do you think it’s working?”
“I’ll go ask him”
“How’s she doing, sir?”
“The last thing you want is a giraffe with a sore throat!”
@Momster: If Ginger was a b*, it’s because she was played by an up-and-coming Broadway and movie actress who had studied with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio, but found herself stuck doing a Marilyn Monroe impersonation in a dumb sitcom. Still hot, though.
@Momster: #71 Morticia or Lily?
Archie – I don’t suppose I can fault the Archie Laff Generator for the artist’s decision not to feature Betty’s boobs….
PMP – Just keep moving along – no humor here….
Shoe – Besides, there’s no better target than when a politician’s toupee appears….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@Momster:
More interestingly, Mary Anne aged spectacularly well. She was still a knockout in some Gilligan’s retrospective I was bored half-watching in like 2000 or so. Ginger aged…poorly.
PARDON MY PLANET: I suspect the “punchline” here is a woman passive-aggressively nagging her man to taker her somewhere because
women, am I right?newspaper comics are, as always, the frontiers of oh-so progressive gender relations.@2+2=7: Having to exist in any comic strip that tries to be The Far Side but clearly isn’t, is a powerful enough interpretation of hell for my theology.
@Anonymous:
Carolyn Jones Morticia or Anjelica Huston Morticia? This is KEY.
MARY WORTH: Ok, I’m starting to suspect that this arc was really supposed to be about a father reconnecting with his daughter before Moy read an article about Pig-Butchering Scams (hey, quickly skimming the headline and lead-in summary counts as “reading”, right?) and got a delightfully wicked, ripped-from-the-headlines idea on how to make her comic “relevant” at the last possible moment (Moy blended the new subplot in so seamlessly, you probably didn’t even notice.)
Pardon my Planet:
I’m appalled by the implications lurking beneath this seemingly innocent panel. Based on her rubber gloves and preoccupation with drinkware, this lady was in the middle of doing the dishes the old-fashioned way, by hand, which combined with her apron suggests to me she’s participating in the whole “tradwife” thing that’s been going around lately. Unfortunately, based on her dialogue this lifestyle appears to not only have been forced upon her, but taken to such an extreme she’s not even allowed to leave the house, and she has to do all her shopping online. She’s practically begging her tyrannical husband to allow her to visit all the different wonderful places she knows only from the souvenir mugs he brings home with him, possibly to taunt her. Of course, I’m assuming he’s the one who has trapped her in this living hell, but her words seem simply plaintive rather than accusatory, so perhaps this situation is the product of forces beyond both of their control or understanding. Either way, I agree with her: it’s quite sad!
@I speak Jive: I always love a day when we can get a double rant from you about Loathsome Lil and HTT Grandma. Nice of Batiuk and Jeffy to set that up so well.
Most of us are too old and now answer Mrs. Howell.
Archie: I could never comprehend the Archie-Betty-Veronica love triangle. Maybe part of its because I’m polyamorous, so my first instinct to these kind of dynamics in media is usually “just share”. But I think the larger reason is because I simply cannot comprehend two women wanting someone like Archie so badly that they compete over him. That’s like fighting with someone over who gets to eat a piece of moldy whitebread.
Shoe: This might be the only time that the Perfesser has had a relateable reaction to anything in this comic. Cuz, yeah, that’s exactly the face I’d make if some asshole I barely know decided to get up in my face and loudly announce he needs to take a shit, than keep rambling on with some half-baked pun about how much he needs to take a shit.
Shoe – Of course Biz is going outside. That’s where the parking lot is. That’s where cars are!
Archie – Archie loves both Betty and Veronica. You realize that “loves” is a euphemism, right?
Pluggers – When does he get to his pubes?
@Momster: #71: What about Samantha or Jeannie?
@BigTed: #74: The producers also gave Tina Louise the impression that the show would mostly be about her, not Bob Denver’s character.
@A Grave Mind: #80: Carolyn freaking Jones all the way, baby.
Fun fact: In one of her first roles Ms. Jones played the first victim of Vincent Price in “House of Wax”.
@A Grave Mind: 80- Great point. But if we’re talking original TV version, Carolyn Jones.
Archie: Instead of wasting his precious breath, Jughead now just points to the word balloons that form over his head. Way to work smarter instead of harder, JH!
PMP: Okay, as an avowed non-reader of Pardon My Planet, I am very confused. This man and woman seem to be cosplaying as a 1950s sitcom couple, complete with a robust budget for props, and they’re doing so from what seems to be a very nice kitchen. But still they can’t travel? Is it a budgetary issue or are they trapped in some kind of Truman Show-esque simulacrum?
Shoe: If the second panel had shown Biz on the phone with an angry Mother Nature, and she’s asking, “WHERE’S MY MONEY?” … well, I would have respected that choice a lot.
JP: “Go get Charlotte. I’ll wait here. When he wakes up, I’ll hit him again.”
@Momster: Most of the men in my life are Team MaryAnn. They also share a crush on Doris Day.
@MKay: As for me, it’s Theda Bara and Mary Pickford. Hot-cha-cha
If Carolyn Jones came back to life I’d be on her doorstep tomorrow with a dozen roses and a box of chocolates. As a matter of fact, “alive” is merely optimal.
BF: why, oh why, Harv, didn’t you get out while you still could?
BETTY: Bubs in Toyland.
CURTIS: Guess the social shunning my friends and I experienced as wee ones didn’t really count as bullying after all
LOLA: The first part of this old oral chestnut is “twas the night before Christmas and they were all feeling Mary, but then she had to go so they jumped….”. Funny in high school, not now. (Me Too)
MW: time, and busyness, healed the rift. Plus forgetfulness.
P(i)MP: Judging by that guy’s expression, the only thought crossing his mind right now is, “O Jesus, is she having ANOTHER menopausal crisis?”
@Lauralot:
#23 MW: don’t think the $200K is the problem. Loneliness is. And perhaps dementia.
A&J: I think this is the first time I’ve ever read of Janis directly insulting Arlo….and he isn’t even in the room for the re-telling.
@UncleJeff: After seeing Broken Blossoms (1919) on PBS teevee at fourteen, I nursed a crush on Lillian Gish for years.
@Anonymous: My brother in Christ, if Lily with the pancake makeup appeals to you more than (rowrrr) Morticia, get your eyes checked. Only sexier goth girl is Vampira in Plan 9 From Outer Space.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Some of us have unclean thoughts about The Professor (not the one in Shoe).
@A Grave Mind:
#77. I heard Tina Louise hated the role. Her agent lied to her, saying she was the star in this drama. She reportedly never got another serious acting role so quit and did charitable work.
Shoe: If this is supposed to be relatable to the readership, it fails. I hold on when nature calls, more often than not. It’s called being a bit civilized. Birds, on the other hand, yeah they poop at all times, whether in trees, perched on power lines, or flying. Hilarious.
@ectojazzmage: Betty and Veronica are just using Archie to sublimate their forbidden attraction to each other. If this strip was a little more daring and a lot less rooted in the 1950’s, they’d have long since dumped the chump and gotten their own apartment. And Mr Lodge would STILL be relieved to get rid of that stupid ginger dork.
Shoe – When you are bird who does not wear pants perched on the edge of a tree branch, isn’t “nature’s call” easy and natural?
The birds in my neighborhood have no problem letting loose when in the mood.
@Ukulele Ike:
She’s been dead since 1983, you gotta consider the Pet Sematary factor here, Uke.
LUANN: Hmmm, thinks Greg Evans, sitting at his drawing board ready to create his next “masterpiece”, I know that Bernice is EVERYONE’S favorite character. What if I do an arc where someone tries to “out-Bernice” Bernice? Then the audience will have TWICE the fun! This idea is just a brilliant and inspired as when I implied cheerleaders were a bunch of tramps!
LUANN (2) Hey speaking of which, it’s time for me to channel my “inner-Bernice” as I hyper-critically “correct” an inconsistency in fiction, but I can’t help it because today’s strip is some bullshit! This story began with Bernice explicitly pointing out that she was studying for today’s test even though it was open-note, because she’s a (insert Donald Gibb’s Ogre voice here) NNNNEEERRRDD! What, was Bernice so lost in the erotic revery of how hard Piro was going to slam it to her for this “favor” that she didn’t have time to study? Unlikely, since that type of over–preparedness is a big part of her personality.
The things I hate most (ok, one of 500 things I hate most) about Luann is it’s lazy tendency to make characters act stupid and out-of-character just string together it’s paper-thin plots. Alan isn’t going to look “smarter” by making Bernice behave in Luann-like foolishness all of a sudden. Sheesh!
@Anonymous: When was the last time you saw one wearing a watch cap?
@Buck Ripsnort: #100- Can’t help it. I just always did dig Lily.(dig, get it?).
@Anonymous:
I personally did dig Lily, but Carolyn Jones Morticia definitely gets the win, here.
“I can never seem to travel beyond my Amazon shopping cart” is a masterclass in the joke-writing school wherein mentioning any cultural touchstone from after 2006 counts as a punchline. Does it make sense? It doesn’t matter! Other options might include “What’s the point of coffee when the real hot beverage is Instagram?” or “Why do we have a sink when we only ever do dishes on Uber?”
@Ettorre: @ectojazzmage: @Buck Ripsnort: In a flashback scene during the 2023 series finale of Riverdale, it was revealed that in their senior year of high school, Betty and Veronica were romantically involved with each other, Archie, and Jughead in a polyamorous “quad” relationship. (It was unclear if that included Archie and Jughead hooking up with each other, though.)
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Most of us are too old and now answer Mrs. Howell.
The answer is always Lovey.
@Buck Ripsnort: #100 Fun fact: Maila Nurmi, who played Vampira, had a 17 inch waist.
Archie – The Archie Joke-Generating Laugh Unit 3000 got an AI upgrade, and using Jughead to carry an inside joke to fellow AIs scanning for more content.
Pardon My Planet – Better dialogue: “I spend more time going around the house collecting these souvenir mugs than we actually spent on vacation!”
Shoe – Biz is wearing that hat because he his undergoing chemotherapy for his enlarged prostate, which also makes him have to piss more. It’s ruining his life.
ARCHIE: Oh you naive fools! Your quaint minds thinks this is Archie and Betty professing love for their preferred paramour, but these are actually abbreviations (that’s how “the kids” speak on their fancy texting whosiwhatits, right?, thinks the hip, with-it 75 year old men who run the Archie brand nowadays) designed to tiptoe around the censors for the most depraved sex acts around (Betty’s is particularly filthy, the naughty little minx!)
Archie: To be fair to Archie, I’m sure he’d like a pad with reactive inks that could shift from Veronica’s initals to Betty’s based on who happens to be closer at the time, but the technology’s just not there yet. Hmm, I seem to have started that sentence “To be fair to Archie” when what I meant was “Let’s talk some more about how Archie’s a terrible person.”
Anyway, Jughead’s dumb idea reminds me of a recurring bit in the Radio 4 panel game The Unbelievable Truth in which panelists sometimes challenge that the next statement the speaker makes will be true. Quizmaster David Mitchell allows this because it has never, ever worked. Of course there are a couple of differences, like that being funny.
DT: “All of you have a long history with the police, I think,” Sol says to the three guys he just broke out of prison. You can see why he’s the brains of the outfit!
FC: True story – many years ago Maw Broon was talking about the moment she suddenly realised that sending young Horace to the room with all his books and toys was not actually a punishment. I told her “Yes, but with my undiagnosed anxiety, anything would have worked as a punishment, as long as I knew it was intended as one. I felt too guilty about upsetting you to want to read or play with toys.” After a moment’s thought I added, “For at least two or three minutes, before I forgot.” (Also undiagnosed ADHD.)
(My parents’ room wouldn’t have worked either; I inherited my taste in literature from her. Her books were technically outside my age range, but I’d attempt to read anything with a spaceship or dragon on the cover. Or indeed, anything that had words.)
JP: “I’ll explain later”: the official motto of Judge Parker.
MW: I mean, if you’re saving the “Your dad’s been scammed” bit for later in the conversation (or perhaps thinking it would have more effect if he told her that part himself), I guess you want your opening gambit to have a bit more heft than “He mentioned your existence in passing once, before going on and on about Trixie.” But it’s true.
Phantom: “So when I broke protocol, I actually ended up blundering directly into an ongoing mission,” Han says in her defence. And she’d probably have gotten away with it if she hadn’t followed it up by showing curiosity about what the Unknown Commander does when he’s not lurking in shadows being very mysterious. Now she’s just going to be shot, and it’ll be Woboru’s job to bury the body.
Pluggers: The fur that completely covers the rest of his body is just a mess of tangles and he doesn’t care.
PMP: I am so glad that other ‘Mudges have questioned this strip’s understanding of what a travel mug is. Given Pardon My Planet‘s famous cutting edge, zeitgeisty finger on the pulse, I naturally first thought I must be using the phrase wrongly. (I guess the other character’s cup could be a travel mug? And he hasn’t put the lid on it because he’s not travelling anywhere with it? Maybe?)
LUANN: As usual, when the strip itself floosos you can always find solace in the Trufans picking up the baton for (unintentional) laughs.
From someone who’s forgoing Bernice’s psych classes to get her PH.D in self-awareness:
Boy I know someone who’s going to be awfully shocked once they find out what foundation their favorite strip has built on. For years!
Archie – Please, do yourselves a favor – go onto YouTube and watch the fake Riverdale movie trailer made by Point Blank Creative in Canada. It predates the TV show by a few years, but it takes every teen drama trope you can imagine and throws it at a wall. The casting is spectacular, and it is endlessly entertaining. It has drugs, sex, violence, everything!!!
Search Riverdale: Archie Movie Trailer
Please.
Archie: I can’t help but think of the Simpsons bit about “proactive” and some others being meaningless buzzwords stupid people use to sound important. Fortunately, Jughead isn’t in a position to fire anyone for saying it.
Shoe: Yes, Biz, we all know what “nature’s call” is. The fact that you have a cloaca might be a twist for me, but I assume it isn’t for the Perfesser.
@TheDiva: Ordered it off of Amazon. It’s literally right there in the dialogue ^^;
Archie: Today’s “Archie” reminds me of the time an elementary school student asked a visiting President Reagan if he ever felt the job wasn’t worth it and Reagan launched into an irrelevant rant about knowing nothing concerning the whole Iran-Contra business. Reagan’s spin doctors tried to blame it on the student for not asking a question that matched the president’s answer that he hadn’t made yet, saying it was “a case of the right answer being given and the wrong question being asked.” NOT that I’m comparing President Reagan to Jughead, I mean, you get that, right? Right?
REX MORGAN M.D.: “How’s business? Naturally as the restaurant owner and manager, I wouldn’t know anything about that myself and would depend on the wait staff to do the books for me. So yep, you can definitely put all your trust in my savvy business acumen!”
@Old School Allie Cat: Thank you, that’s pretty great! They even looked more like the Archie characters than the cast of Riverdale.
I always liked this Archie satire, from one of the first issues of Mad magazine way back in 1954:
https://www.reddit.com/r/archiecomics/comments/1d5t9bl/starchie_taken_from_june_1954_issue_of_mad/#lightbox
@Activist: #102: She did have a recurring role on “Dallas” as one of JR’s mistresses.
@Buck Ripsnort: @100- Fun fact #2- “Vampira” is also immortalized in a song by the Misfits. If you’re a fan, maybe give it a Google. Enjoy.
@Anonymous:
Better yet, listen to about 100 Misfits songs (Vampira much included). Start with Astro Zombies! You’re welcome!
C-Shaft: Lillian is a crowd-pleaser, not a cock-teaser. (Deepest apologies to you all.)
DT: The just-in-case grawlixes aren’t a surprise. The fact that Mumbles clearly annunciates “Dick Tracy” is. Grudging respect, I guess.
Dustin: If this agency doesn’t give aptitude tests to new contractors, I’m doubtful their average employee is much better than Dustin.
GT:
Mark SlackmeyerMarty Moon is speaking in the compulsory whisper, isn’t he?JP: Bogdan is learning the nevers. Never tug on Superman’s cape. Never get involved in a land war in Asia. Never take a surveillance assignment from Randy and/or April Parker.
Luann: Honestly this is probably fine, or at least it would be in real life. (Big difference, I know.) If the instructor wanted to catch cheaters, they wouldn’t make it an open notes test.
MW: Why commute to the hog butchering center—never mind becoming a prisoner there—when you can telecommute? Sharon has raised her boys to work smarter, not harder.
Phantom: Hey Patrolwoman, maybe don’t play it so cute in your boss’s boss’s Bond villain lair.
WofI: Butt-Chinned Nobel Whose Name I Don’t Care to Learn busted Rapunzel out of the castle where the evil sorceress was keeping her, and then just plopped her right back there. I’m not sure why he’s getting a second date.
@Old School Allie Cat: I remember that trailer. What’s weird is, when someone got around to making the actual Riverdale show, it felt like they were adapting the trailer, but only half aware it had been a joke.
That’s an ampersand, Josh. “A.A. & V.L.” Originally it was shorthand for “et”. I would have thought you would know about them, what with your classics education…
GT: Meanwhile the golf pep squad is practicing—“Get in the hole!! Get in the hole!!”
Well, about Vampira.. there was a alternate timeline in Archie comics, where Veronica became a Vampire Queen “Vampironica”
And another timeline where Jughead (and the rest of his family, including his cousin Bingo Wilkins, from his own somewhat obscure spin-off) were werewolves.
Then one comic combined the two realities where Jughead and Vampironica faced-off.
Not even getting into “Afterlife with Archie” which was the “Zombie Apocalypse” timeline.
@A Grave Mind: #127- I pretty much have. “Where Eagles Dare,” “London Dungeon ” and “138” are longtime favorites. Thanks.
I think maybe the redrew the Perfesser holding the coffee cup in the second panel because otherwise he would look like he’s dead. This way it only looks like he’s dead inside, which I understand is exactly the vibe this humorous comic about birds wants. He isn’t even there to react to the joke, just to remind us that there is no escape from the misery of existence. Birds, man! They’re just like us, unfortunately!
@Anonymous:
Fist bump
@The Rambling Otter: Although the “werewolf” Jughead plot, involves at some point in the comic, Jughead accidentally bites Reggie. Reggie as a werewolf, immediately decides that he wants to use this new power to kill as many people as possible. So Jughead has to stop him.
@Artist formerly known as Ben:
Sharon has also raised her sons to win at Stalingrad. Or some dumbass Winter Olympics thing, go with Super Luge, or whatever.
LUANN: So then what was the point of Bernice smugly telling her fish (yeah, she talks to her goddamn fish, but that’s another issue altogether) that she still studies for tests even if they’re open-note?
@The Rambling Otter: Also this cover would look badass or intimidating, if not for the fact he’s STILL WEARING THAT STUPID BURGER KING CROWN…
Late Thread Cuisine: Absolutely zero aspic involved in this recipe.
@Baja Gaijin:
Which proves even aspic has standards
I was going to share Sweet Treat Time, but I can’t get into Imgur.
A bunch of sites pop up in the search that say “Imgur has been blocked in the UK!”
(Despite I’m Canadian but whatever…)
Edit: Yeah I knew that Canada is a British Colony, but I didn’t actually realize that we were “that” close.
@The Rambling Otter: Well of course, how else would you know it was him? Maybe they could have had one of Wilbur’s Mondo Burgers in his hand.
@The Rambling Otter: It’s not a Burger King crown, it’s a Whoopee / Palookaville cap, descended from the mechanics’ wrecked fedora style and treated as something to adorn with buttons or bottle caps for individuality chiefly through the mid-20th century. Jughead maintains a love of classic youth style.
@The Quiet Man: I couldn’t imagine being a Were-Wilbur.
Then I got to thinking of that silly Johnny Bravo cartoon, where Johnny was on a date with a woman who revealed that she was a werewolf, and that night was a full moon, Johnny wanted out of it, but she promised that if he keeps the date as normal/routine as possible, then when she becomes human again in the morning, she’ll give him a BIG kiss.
So she transforms, and long story short, after the wacky yet disastrous date was over. And he hadn’t walked out on her, morning came and she turned back into a human. “Now for that kiss… wait, what day is it?”
Johnny: It’s Monday, why?
Date: On Mondays I turn into an annoying little bald guy named Melvin…
*transforms*
Melvin: Wanna look at my stamp collection? This one is of Fat Elvis, Oh and here’s one of skinny Elvis!
@Baja Gaijin: that is some fascinating goop. Could be good goop like flan syrup or a pile of unagi sauce but I expect it’s something horrifying
@CanuckDownSouth: I wasn’t being entirely serious with what I had said, and while I did know the fedora history, I was sort of quoting Linkara who once compared it to a Burger King crown as a joke.
My apologies, if I came off as ignorant ^^;
@Baja Gaijin: Cuisine – I have no idea what that is, but I do know that I don’t want to eat it.
@Ukranazi Stepan: @A Grave Mind: On second look, I do see where you guys are coming from/
@The Rambling Otter: sorry, didn’t mean to imply you really thought it started out as a Burger King crown, but it’s hard to pass up an opportunity for pedantry around here(:
@Baja Gaijin: Eeeeeeeek! Nazi Black Sun Wheel Jellyfish! Raw and alive!
@Anonymous: @A Grave Mind: Damn kids. Put some Ruth Etting or Rudy Vallee or Annette Hanshaw on the Victrola. Get yer jitterbug on.
Archie – The entire Archie love triangle made a hell of a lot more sense to me when I discovered the original run(s) of the comic strip: a lot more serialized storytelling, and for decades Archie himself had nothing but active disdain for Betty, who openly pined for him despite his frankly *horrible* treatment of her. It was only later when someone realized that it was far too cruel for Betty to have been the butt of 20 years of jokes about being too tomboyish to be attractive to Archie, and she got retooled into a legitimate love interest.
@The Rambling Otter:
Why do you have to imagine it? We already saw what this looks like when we invaded Dawn’s dreams.
@I speak Jive:
#148. You don’t want to eat it? Ha! When you poured that beer after dumping a chopped up hot dog down the drain, of course it’s going to come back up. The Monster wants to eat YOU! And Me! Snd each of us as we sleep tonight.
@Activist: It does look like some kind of regurgitation was involved.
@CanuckDownSouth: No problem, thanks ^^
@2+2=7: Oh yes, that was terrifying! But also in a way, kind of hilarious, just the idea that being Wilbur, is canonically horrifying (by his own daughter, no less)
@Activist: I had that experience in a way, the store sells fully cooked sausages. I just zap them in the microwave, despite having no actual microwaving instructions. The directions recommend barbequing them to get the all-around flavor. But, meh…
Yet sometimes when microwaving a sausage, the air escapes from it, sometimes making a horrible squealing noise.
It genuinely sounds like the pig is screaming from beyond the grave…
@The Rambling Otter: While traveling on the New York Turnpike I passed a truck that I thought was a box company with What
I thought was an otter mascot,and thought of you.. When I tried to Google the company with ” otter box company” this came up in the responses. While I realize otters are not beavers, I thought you might think these close enough, and be interested.
https://www.strangecattoys.com/products/misbeavhaving-blind-box?srsltid=AfmBOoobnFEH4qmzCmajg0H-KtZrn-a6k6aymIyOdnXAZlXwZw6AGevq
A&J: Mocking Arlo’s large nose, and doing it in front of this baby who has a large nose? Huh.
@154 Activist: Great imagination, but no. It’s Tiajin Yakameshi. According to the translation, “This Tianjin yakimeshi is made with delicious yakimeshi (fried rice) and eggs, topped with a sweet, dark black vinegar bean paste, a popular dish in Kagoshima, made with soy sauce from southern Kyushu. The eggs are carefully cooked one at a time using an iron pot to ensure they are fluffy.”
@Momster: What did they say at Wilma vs Betty?