Hollywood elegance? In my roots country hotspot?
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Hi and Lois, 6/4/26
Honestly there’s a really sad story written on Ditto’s dumbfounded face in panel two. “Oh, wow, I guess he barks all the time because he craves attention and affection? Huh. I feel bad now!”
Andy Capp, 6/4/26
Andy Capp is really educating me about the United Kingdom: it’s a country that loves art and includes a town named Beer. Admittedly it’s a tiny village of less than 1,300 people, which is surprising given that Britain is (another fact I’ve learned from Andy Capp) an island of inveterate alcoholics.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/4/26
Doug, no! The Glenwood Hotel’s whole deal is that it’s a run-down piece of shit! You’re going to screw with the whole brand!
165 replies to “Hollywood elegance? In my roots country hotspot?”
Andy Capp: “You had me at ‘Bud.'”
I’m always fascinated at how we ask dogs “Who’s a good boy,” as, obviously the dog doesn’t know. Do I not know? Who, in fact, is a good boy? This is too much.
RMMD-“Everyone who just visited the restaurant were staying at other hotels.”
MW-Fab Fro Yo? I don’t know. I would rather have the country’s best.
Shouldn’t he be, like, “Boddington Guinness” or some shit? I’m told in the UK, Bud isn’t common, and is a “fancy” import. Way to be be uncommon and fancy, man of Beer!
MW: Dawn is clearly drawn at a completely different scale from Tommy, suggesting she was copy/pasted into the strip from a folder of assets. I have to say, I admire Brigman’s dedication to giving this strip exactly as much attention as it deserves. Which is none.
RMMD – Shithole chic is in these days….
MW: Buckle up, Tommy. Dawn is going to beat the dead horse of “You’re no dummy if…” until she lands on the one thing that proves you actually are.
“It’ll just be a matter of time before she muscles me out of my own operation, but I’m an ineffectual dipshit! I am Doug.”
AC You know, if I were a scammer trying to fleece a room of none-too-bright bar flies, thst would probably be my opening line too.
RMMD “I could get the light fixed, for example. God its dark in here…”
Ph: For instance, what do you know of thinly disguised oligarchs who like to wear alien masks?
DT: Uh, I thought you were already *in* the escape vehicle, BB ol’ buddy. Were you expecting to make your escape hanging from one of the loot-carrying drones?
S4th: ‘No, Hilary, I could not hear your ‘dream balloon’ (whatever the $#@% THAT is…) but I want you to stop making goo-goo eyes at me from across the room!’
MW: So now we know where the Westons go for fuel for their #$%!-eating grins…
RMMD: ‘Maybe we’ll finally be able to bribe the health inspector to upgrade our rating!’
CS: Well, we got a ‘punchline’ a day earlier than Horace Broon predicted, but I’m choosing to focus on the fact that Eugene/Ed never takes off that damn hat. Sure, I like *my* hat and wear it every chance I get, and I’ve gone on painfully few dates, but even I know you’ve got to take it off when you’re dancing!
Andy Capp:
“His name is Bud Weiser — when you say ‘Bud Weiser,’ you’ve said it all!”
AC: American asks a native for directions to the town of Beer. “Never heard of it.” Shows him the name on a map. “Oh, you mean ‘Beer’.”
RMMD:
“That’s something to think about. I neglected to make upgrades and kind of ‘Doug‘ a hole for myself. So to speak.”
MW: This relationship isn’t going to work. Dawn eats her fro-yo out of a bowl. Tommy prefers a manly cone. He don’t need no sissy spoon.
Today’s Pluggers theme could also work for my proposed new strip, “Your Parents Were Hipsters If…”.
If Andy Capp tries to claim Guinness for the UK, it’s going to set off an international incident.
“He’s just saying ‘hello'” is the start of a lot of tragic news stories involving dogs and children. If your large territorial carnivore is making loud sounds at another person, its just being friendly.
***
I’m just trying to picture some guy walking into a bar and just introducing himself to everyone in North Ameri… oh, there’s shouting… Hey, you shouldn’t have pushed hi… OH! Fists are flying! Ah, the police are here now. Great, now everyone’s being kicked out of my mind palace.
***
Look at Doug’s face. That is the look of someone who was about to torch the place for the insurance money and now it looks like he’s stuck here.
But seriously, don’t teach kids to pet strange dogs that are barking at them.
@Dan: It wouldn’t be the first time the English tried to claim Ireland.
Luann: pokes head in Okay, the Evansii did restart the camp counselor storyline. Knowing them, they will just use the same strip prepared already.
Luann: Do you, Phil? Do you really? Because Luann and her friends bait-and-switched you about this job. She said she was applying for a work promotion, which allegedly would have paid for her plan to invite herself to live in your apartment. Now you know her new job is temporary, and you don’t know how much/little it pays. Luann took a giant steaming dump on YOUR timeframe for moving into YOUR apartment. Why are you putting up with this? Don’t tell me she’s good in bed; we know full well you two can’t even smooch in a backseat without her same friends getting all up in your business.
CS: “Tension builds.”
“Bud” is the first sign of the twenty-first century shift from alcohol to weed. Some day you’ll be explaining to kids how the comic strip Andy Capp is “from beer.”
From the linked Wikipedia article and presented with minimal further comment about the relevance to Andy Capp:
“Beer is a seaside village and civil parish in the East Devon district of Devon, England.” … which is on the opposite side of England relative to Hartlepool, Durham, which is where (according to Wikipedia) Andy Capp takes place.
“its picturesque cliffs, including Beer Head” (emphasis in the original)
“It is a coastal village that grew up around a smugglers’ cove and caves which were once used to store contraband goods. These are now part of the attraction of the village.”
RMMD: Soon, the dingy mid-century chic will be replaced by hanging Edison lights, exposed brick, and faux ghost signs and a egg and toast plate will cost $27.00 Plenty of micro-brews on tap, too.
MW I suppose Tommy could be mostly done with his cone, but I prefer to think the server took one look at his smarmy face and shortchanged him as much as humanly possible.
HtH The real joke is that Sven is a card sharp about to reel *them* in after they’ve fallen for his bad luck tales
GT Wait – I thought Lucas existed before this storyline, which according to the Strip Rules means he was already in at least one sport. So he was doing that miserably to make Coach Thorp and/or his family who must live in Thorpford – er, Milford! – happy? Actually that tracks.
Beetle Bailey: Do you think it’s a requirement of the US military that they wear chefs hats while serving or is that something Cookie does because he actually feels proud of what he’s prepared? Is Cookie disillusioned about this unspecified slop he’s dishing out?
Dennis the Menace: Why is George Wilson drinking from this hilariously small cup as he says he’s trying to forget Dennis exists? Is it a shot glass? Was he sitting there with a shot glass of whiskey just waiting for the opportunity to drink?
MW: As I predicted yesterday: Tommy and Dawn, sitting at a table holding spoons awkwardly and exchanging platitudes. OK, Tommy’s holding a cone awkwardly and Dawn’s monologuing the platitudes, but close enough.
For my next psychic prediction: The frame pulls back to show Mary sitting in a nearby booth. Her face twists with rage as she realizes Dawn is meddling Tommy, and using her techniques to boot. The interloper must be driven from her territory.
GT: Two things I learned from today’s strip: (1) Gil’s a southpaw; and (2) he and Lucas are immortal highlanders and now that golf season is over, they must duel for one another’s heads. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!
MW: Moy really ruined Tommy’s “No thoughts, only fro-yo” vibe today by adding thoughts.
RxMD: Motel shmotel—if Mae Mae’s going to move to Glenwood, it’s her hair that’s going to need capital upgrades if it’s going to get up to code. She’s going to need to add at least six inches on top and sharpen those bangs if she’s going comply with §1963 of the local Roots Rockabilly Updo Ordinance.
Wrecks Moregone:
Maybe with the mansion money you can afford to buy backgrounds so it’s not just your face in the panel, ultra close up.
Andy Capp: Bud just walked into the pub and forcefully announced his presence, and already the bartender’s over it! I love how he’s stalking through the background with narrowed eyes, studiously avoiding this noisy poltroon’s gaze.
Andy wants to drink this fella! But in a sexy homoerotic way or in a horrifying vore way?
@Ettorre: They say it’s good to learn a new word each day, but I wish today’s hadn’t been “vore.” Ah, well, takes all kinds.
RMMD — “I figured on selling the mansion in Hollywood and investing the money here in Glenwood.”
Don’t do it , Doug! You know what they say, Never invest with crazy!
AC — Many a peer in England brews/A livelier liquor than the Muse
Luann: Phil is gay, right? That’s the only way this whole thing makes sense.
FC: Don’t read him anything about food…and math. Last night it took me an hour to explain how infinity +1 makes sense.
H&L: Both Ditto and Dog are mad at new kid for his condescending manner. “You wouldn’t think I was so good if I started humping your leg.” Thinks dog. “Or maybe you would, pervert.”
JP: “Are you getting where I’m coming from? I need to protect my energy. I feel unsafe, in a toxic holding place, and I need to begin setting a boundary. By the way, nice clown shirt.”
MW: Tommy’s Thought Balloon: Man, I’m glad I ordered Vanilla and not Cigar Ash.
Phantom: “Well, aren’t you the smug son of a bitch. How about “Twister,” then?”
CS: Calling it now: Eugene will take at least two weeks to tell us he has cancer.
From the Beer wiki page: “Bacteria taken from cliffs at Beer on the south coast were launched to the International Space Station in 2008. . .The survivors are now reproducing in a laboratory. Except for one that evolved, got loose, and roams the pubs of England, looking for new victims.”
Sex Organ V.D. : “Do you guys have a Glenwood Valley P.T.A.? Mud and I are writing a song.”
@Banana Jr. 6000: I don’t know, this whole “Lillian never has to face how horrible she is” writing makes me think the writer by now doesn’t even think Lillian did anything terrible. So I’m guessing Eugene’s going into memory care knowing he has the early stages of Alzheimers/ dementia. There will be a follow-up later where he can’t tell the difference between Lillian and Lucy and they end up with a ‘happy ending’ old-folks-home romance. Yuck.
AC: I thought Europeans tended to look down on our mass-produced American brands, because they are quite frankly crap compared to local brews. Andy Capp strikes me as the sort of guy who would drink rubbing alcohol in order to get tanked, however, so I’ll allow it.
RMMD: Here we see the point when Glenwood goes all-in on its brand as the Mecca for kitchy nostalgia. In a couple years this place will be all faux-retro diners with twenty-five dollar boozy shakes and art galleries selling Googie-inspired abstract sculpture. Sure, the town’s economy will take a boost, but what will that matter if it loses its filthy, run-down soul?
Does it disturb anyone else that even Dawg resembles Thursty?
Complaining about Rex Morgan not focusing on medical stories is a losing battle, but I swear to god if someone doesn’t stop talking about investment or celebrity gossip and shit themself right now I’m gonna lose it.
H and L:
“I’m going to see how smart your pooch is by asking him three questions in rapid succession. This journeyman catcher, first name ‘Phil,’ toiled in the majors in the ’70s and later became a coach — who is he? This word describes the protective cover of a structure — what is it? And this word describes the vaulted upper boundary of the mouth — what is the word?”
“WOOF WOOF WOOF”
“Ditto — the dog’s a genius!”
MW: “You’re no dummy! I know dummies! I’m Wilbur Weston’s daughter!”
GT, panel 4: no dialogue as Gil and Lucas beat each other into submission.
@GarrisonSkunk: Yes. Yes it does.
What can you say? The man gets around.
C’shaft: You were not living in the good old days, Eugene. Jim Crow was rampant. Women couldn’t open their own bank accounts. Japanese citizens were being rounded up and sent to camps, and Chinese immigrants still couldn’t become citizens. The entire fucking world was at war. You just think it was the good old days because you had the privilege and financial liberty to do a tepid two-step with a girl who looked like an old maid at seventeen before being shipped off to your cushy far-from-the-front-lines assignment. Now go to your ten-by-ten assisted living room, shut the door behind you, and never, ever come out again.
Dustin: I wouldn’t be throwing stones, kid; both you and Dustin will be indentured servants on some tech billionaire’s moon mining operation.
JP: “And that’s why I wanted to make you feel helpless by getting you a diner job without your knowledge or consent.”
MW: Great, now Mary’s outsourcing her platitudes to the supporting cast.
GT: Um, is Gil flirting? Surely not, but “I’ve suddenly found a reason to like this” is a classic trope.
@Ken: Knowledge should be shared
@TheDiva: On JP – A job that she could easily get out of by going to Ernest Borgnine and saying ‘I’m sorry, but Dad’s a few bricks shy of a load. I have no intention of coming to work here. The next time Dad comes in and says anything about it, just smile and nod and say I’m doing fine but I’m not on shift at the moment.’
On CS – I wonder if we as a species are ever going to get to a place we can honestly call the ‘good old days’ without requiring a giant ‘except for…’ asterisk.
GT: Reverse those last two panels, and it looks like Gil and Lucas are about to go at it with their golf clubs.
S4th: If I’m Mr. Balmaceda, I’m quitting and getting the heck out of Dodge before I’m accused of hitting on my underage student.
ZITS: Umm…..Isn’t Yahtzee a DICE game?
GT: “I never thought I’d find a sport I like, but golf — it throws all that ‘be a team player’ horseshit right out the window! Have you ever noticed there’s no ‘I’ in ‘me,’ either? God, I hate other people.”
AC: So, no joke, as a child we used to go on holiday to Beer, mainly because my dad likes trains and Beer’s economy was centred around a model train museum and a couple of preserved historical tramways. Anyway, Wikipedia tells me that both the museum and the light railway closed last year, so I don’t blame Bud Guinness for seeking a new life in Hartlepool. At least they’ve got the big ships museum.
Doug out here turning the Glenwood Hotel into a ‘Hollywood Elegance in my Roots Country Hotspot’ vibe? Bro, this is just the gentrification of Nashville happening in comic strip form. Next thing you know, the Glenwood will have $18 craft cocktails named after obscure Hank Williams B-sides, Edison bulbs hanging from reclaimed barn wood, and a pop-up ‘authentic’ hot chicken stand run by a guy from LA who discovered buttermilk last year.
“I’m thinking we redo the hotel in honor of a Hollywood classic. We’ll need an old lady’s corpse in the window up there, and a couple of knives. Can you grin with sinister intent?”
@Lauralot: MW: Dawn is clearly drawn at a completely different scale from Tommy, suggesting she was copy/pasted into the strip from a folder of assets.
_________________________________________
Wilber is the ass,Dawn the asset.
Suspecting that “Bud” was not a very English name, I went to its Wikipedia page, and the only English Bud was Bud Flanagan, born Chaim Reuben Weintrop. Interesting background for Andy’s new china!
DT: At least some of the other cops are apprehending the crooks and not caught up in the diversion. But hasn’t most of the loot already departed on drones?
Beedy Eyes and Double Up just show once again why they are goon tier level. A getaway car that leads to another car is a classic trope but usually it is done in a garage or somewhere there is a lot of innocuous traffic to act as a screen.
JP: Just leap ahead to when the Judge finally dies and is buried and the strip transitions to Charlotte going to find April and Randy.
RMMD: And this is the point where the later documentary notes the Lorna Starr made a series of bad financial decisions squandering the millions she had earned in films. The most disastrous was buying into a small town hotel.
Andy Capp:
It’s becoming clear that the universe of this strip is strongly influenced by nominative determinism: Andy’s last name is Capp, so he wears that damn hat all the time, and this newcomer is named after beers and even from Beer, so Andy figures he must be a fellow drunkard. (The fact that one of those beers being American and the other Irish goes uncommented on shows that Andy puts alcohol far above mere nationality.) So naturally I started wondering, what’s Chalkie’s deal? You may be surprised to find out that there’s no lovingly curated Andy Capp wiki out there, nor does TV Tropes have a Characters page for it, so all I was able to find out in the amount of time I was willing to invest doing internet searches for this bit is that his last name is White. “Chalkie” appears to be a somewhat common nickname for people named White, but that doesn’t mean it reveals nothing about his character. Is he a schoolteacher, a disturbing possibility considering his close association with Andy? A tailor? A gymnast? A serial killer who disposes of his victims in chalk mines? If the latter, Mr. Guinness here better watch his back if his love of drinking means he displaces Chalkie in Andy’s affections.
Andy Carpp: Appearing at Andy’s pub starting Monday, the comedy stylings of Guinness and Costello with their immortal routine “Brews On First?”
I…huh? Is there a joke in today’s H&L? Is there even an ATTEMPT at a joke? I’m not finding one.
@CanuckDownSouth: Plausible guess. And Lillian’s spent so many years (80+!) keeping her secret that it makes zero sense for her to blurt it now. Of course, making sense is not a prerequisite on Planet Batiuk.
@TheDiva: When I was living in New York’s southern tier, there was a beer that the locals who couldn’t afford Piel’s bought called Stegmaier. I used it for cooking, but not for drinking. When my not-then-yet-wife and I moved to Minneapolis, we were wandering around a boutique liquor store, looking for Sam Smith’s oatmeal stout and MacAllen’s Scottish Ale, when we discovered a barrel full of a quaint microbrew from Wlkes-Barre, PA. Stegmaier. We laughed our asses off and left with a couple of pint bottles of the Sam Smith’s.
BLONDIE: It’s all comfort food? Elmo, here, have an habanero sandwich
FRAZZ: For bladder reasons, is backpacking possible for seniors? I was considering going on a six-day backpacking adventure with young friends when I remembered getting up three times the prior night. How do you handle it?
GA: so that’s how they keep their hamlet small and secluded– the Welcome sign faced in.
MW: Dawn is practicing her role as Mary’s advice-full understudy.
RMMD: act in haste, repent in leisure. She’s been in town what, three days?
@Bob Tice: Fun Budweiser fact #1: There is actually a Czech Budweiser that has no connection to the well-known American brand, and the two have a long-running trademark dispute.
Fun Budweiser fact #2: There was once a Major League Baseball player named Bud Weiser. Which was pretty much his real name. (His middle name was Budson.)
These are the only two fun facts about Budweiser.
@Schroduck: Thanks for the link to the Hartlepool Royal Navy Museum. Pleased to learn they have a tourist attraction other than Andy Capp.
Love that 1817 frigate! The model for the figurehead was 1974 Richard Pryor in a 1964 Carol Channing wig.
MW: Uh oh, it’s Jared!
Does Tommy’s new haircut allow a summer vacation for the artist while running old Dawn-Jared art from a cancelled froyo subplot?!
https://joshreads.com/2020/02/sex-and-snow/
@richardf8: “The Wilkes-Barre local beer.” The mind boggles.
The youth of Wilkes-Barre dreams of attaining social and financial success and relocating to Scranton, which they view as a sort of Paris, or even El Dorado.
RMMD: “The Glenwood Hotel: We take the Care out of Careworn!”
Gasoline Alley: Don’t leave old-timey jokes lying around unused.
“Turn left at where the Wilmuth barn used t’be.”
Luann: I look forward to reading Phil and Luann sharing a summer’s steamy, spicy correspondence.
Not in a family newspaper; on Archive Of Our Own.
Pluggers are crafty enough to lift Calvin and Hobbes gags but aware enough realize they’re playing to a “Father Knows Best” audience.
H&L: “Canine being unwantingly petterd by a stranger.” Are they finally starting the “Dawg gets sent to a farm upstate” arc?
@CanuckDownSouth:
#39. CS: CDS, Eugene mistakes Lillian for Lucy and dies happy. Hope you gave the writer an idea.
@Asenath: Nice find! I was thinking just yesterday that Tommy’s profile looked off-model, and what do you know, he’s now got Jared’s aquiline nose.
H&L: Before commenting on this strip, I realized I’d forgotten the name of the Flagstons’ dog. Barfy? No, that’s Family Circus. Ruff? No, that’s Dennis the Menace. Dammit, what’s the name of that dog? So I looked it up. It’s Dawg. Their dog is named Dawg. That’s one of those moments when life seems especially pointless.
AC: I appreciate that this strip has a very specific dress code for its alcoholics, e.g. suit, flatcap, and clogs.
RMMD: Meanwhile, poor Rex is waiting in the wings. “Say, do either of you need a doctor?”
Andy Capp: “This is a British pub — we don’t have bar stools, and we don’t serve Bud on tap! Also, at this particular spot we don’t have TV screens showing sports, we don’t play music, we don’t have signs or photos on the walls, we don’t serve hard liquor, we don’t have bar snacks, and in fact we don’t serve any food or beverages other than Guinness and Guinness Extra Stout. (The third tap is clogged.) Now stand there and drink this entire pint before the head goes down, and I’ll draw you two more!”
Frazz – He’s planning some serious exercise, but Frazz’s random protege still looks down on him and thinks it isn’t good enough. Frazz is the standard for exercise, and he’s the only one who does it right. They can’t encourage him because they have to be superior. One reason this is one of my hate reads.
If he needs a coffee shop, he definitely needs what she heard.
Mary Worth – Dawn’s fro-yo dish is a perfect metaphor for this story: a shit sundae.
9CL – How heartwarming that twenty year old Alistair shops from the same catalog as Amos: the Frumpy Goodwill Rejects catalog.
Rex Morgan – Wait – Doug OWNS the motel? I thought he was employed as the manager. Of course, an employee that clueless would have been canned long ago.
Edge City (Comics Kingdom) – No snark, this is how to treat service employees. And people in general. It made me think of Batiuk’s seeming contempt for these employees.
Breaking Cat News – Another one that caused good feelings today.
MW- “People can always improve their lot in life. Take my Dad for instance….or better yet ..let’s not!”
@Where’s Rocky?: Don’t forget when they tried to bulldoze RCA Studio B!
“Evening, lads. My name’s Bud Guinness and I’m from Beer. So if you’ve got any jokes, let’s have ‘em now, cause I’ve heard ‘em all.”
(Confused silence though the pub.)
RMMD- (Thought cloud above Doug’s head) “That’s something to think about … I give her an inflated bid for upgrades,..pay Luis and his crew like,60%…pocket the difference..yeah! Fuck blackmail…embezzlement is the way to go!”
REX MORGAN M.D.: Lorna/Mae Mae: “Well I was going invest in some magic beans, but I couldn’t find any vendors selling them, so I guess I’ll dump my money into the hotel.”
REX MORGAN M.D. (2): I do love how the build-up and catalyst for this storyline was that even after 10 years out of the limelight Lorna/Mae was relentlessly stalked and pursued by a rapacious entertainment media and tabloid machine with her whereabouts being aggressively speculated as top-tier news. And yet, now that she’s delivered the answer to that burning question, the press immediately dropped all interest in her? Either the paparazzi here have the work ethic of Luann, or else they’ve been following the same narrative we’ve been following for months, and decided that they needed to follow a story that was actually interesting and engaging for people to read, like determining whether the latest up and coming starlet has fake hooters or not.
REX MORGAN M.D. (3): Wow Lorna/Mae Mae sure is dedicated to the welfare of this motel that’s she’s been working at/living out of for only a day, huh? (yes folks this interminable slog of a non-story has somehow only taken place within 24 hours.)
Don Abundio, translated:
“Dude, with these costumes we can rub up against all the hot babes”
“Plus we can pee wherever we like!”
“You forgot licenses!”
[On truck: DOG POUND]
MARY WORTH: Um…excuse you, people, but Mary has already interacted with Tommy in this storyline the minimum amount of minutes required to be able to qualify for at least one (1) free sunset cruise/Bum Boat victory lap at Dr. Jeff’s expense. (“Hey I exchanged banal pleasantries with that drugged-up loser. That counts, ok! If it wasn’t for me, he’d still be smoking his ‘whatevers’ in his greasy wife-beater and even greasier ponytail. I already ‘fixed’ him. Get off my back!”)
@The Quiet Man: Probably not, but then we’ve never gotten to the point where elders love to hold forth on how much better everything and everyone was when they were younger, either.
I find it fascinating that Batiuk envisions the Greatest/Silent Generations as the ones downsizing and going into retirement communities and nursing homes rather than his fellow Boomers, when the former have become a rapidly vanishing minority of centenarians and the latter are already well into their decline. It’s like he wants to reflect on the nature of growing older without admitting how much it applies to him. I think it might be interesting to see a couple of seventy-or-eighty-somethings reflecting on how they marched in the streets and wanted to change the world and wondering if it had made any difference in the end. (Theoretically, of course, if it were written by someone who can do that sort of thoughtful retrospective without descending into smug self-satisfaction.)
@richardf8: #62: There’s a local beer here in Texas called Shiner, made in a small brewery, the Spoetzel Brewing Company in Shiner, Texas. It used to be ranked along with Lone Star and Pearl as the cheap well beer served in every honky tonk dive bar, which the local wags referred to collectively as armadillo piss. After the microbrew craze Shiner is now sold as a craft beer and priced two to three times as much as before.
@Tabby Lavalamp: *Omnivore.
You know, it’s just hit me that this entire Mae Mae/Lorna plot is just wish fulfillment for a very specific kind of right-leaning rural American. All the lefty movie stars are secretly fed up with their world of vice and iniquity, and long to move back to the real America and get real jobs and marry real men named Mud Mountain. It’s just a watered-down version of those conservative romance novels where a loudmouth liberal activist gets “rescued” by a virtuous Trump-loving man. Not saying there isn’t toxic artifice in Hollywood, there clearly is — I just can’t help thinking that Lorna the A-list actress had a lot more power in the world than Mae Mae the motel waitress, and I’m a bit skeeved at how excited the comic is to see her “back in her place.”
@TheDiva: AC: My wife and I were in Dublin years ago and were taken to a Boyzone concert at The Point, where our host brought us shots and beers. My wife, who loves Guiness, took a sip and said “this tastes like Bud!”. To which our host proudly said “Tis!”. We also went to see Deep Purple in London at tne O arena, and there was a massive wall of Bud long necks near one of the many, many bars.
Andy Capp-Wait until Andy finds out that Bud Guiness is a teetotaler.
@Guillermo el chiclero: See also: Old Style, Hamms
@Dr. Larry Erhardt: I did an interview with Jim Fowler of “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom”.
Afterwards, he gave a talk to a small group of nature lovers.
“First of all, please don’t tell me about the joke that Johnny Carson said about me and Marlin Perkins. It’s quite likely I was sitting five feet from Johnny when he told it”.
@Activist: I was considering going on a six-day backpacking adventure with young friends when I remembered getting up three times the prior night. How do you handle it?
I pee three times.
@I speak Jive: re: 9CL: While Alistair slouches around in saggy-ass pants and a sweater vest, his piece and twinpiece dress exclusively in tank-top tee shirts hemmed a half inch below their buttcheeks. Why not?
JumpStart – An “AI hip” is a hip haphazardly cobbled together from fragments of other people’s hips, without their knowledge or permission.
@TheDiva: “The good old days” was always a load of shit. I have zero desire to relive any of my own prior decades, much less eras before I was born. No matter how cool the music was, how much fun I had, or how much I miss certain things that aren’t around anymore. (I’d love to be young again, but that’s not the same thing as living through the 80s again.) Almost all progress since 1946 has been positive, and I welcome it continuing that way.
We need a word that means “toxic nostalgia”, because it is a major societal problem IMO.
@Navigator: I agree with your take. There’s a lot of 9CL-style* fetishism manifesting itself as political opinions these days.
* – not the same fetish as 9CL, but narrow and obscure to the same degree as 9CL’s fetishes.
@TheDiva: #46: re-CS:
“the good old days”
Don’t forget diseases that are curable today were death sentences back then.
Mutt & Jeff – “The Mutts have been very nice to me! Well, at least the dog has. That cat with the lisp is a selfish little shit.”
LUANN: Phil: “I know how much this camp job means to you…you know that job I found out about at the last minute after I was led to believe you’d taken a completely different job in because I thought you wanted enough money to move on with me. Clearly, I got your number, Luann! Anyway I’ll be sure to write and text you because we obviously have great communication skills as a couple!”
LUANN (2): Luann: “You are the goofiest romantic ever, the way you apparently wished Bernice into the cornfield and all.” (Note that Luann isn’t making any promises to keep in touch with her best friend, btw.)
LUANN (3): Hey remember a couple of months ago when Luann made a BFD about how she and Phil aren’t spending that much time together (because Luann rearranged her schedule for work at the last minute, a tidbit that certainly has no thematic relation to this story, of course)?
Well, the Evans clearly don’t, so never mind.
REX MORGAN M.D.: “By “upgrading the place”, Doug means getting up to “Days Inn” standards be because a big-shot celeb like Lorna/Mae Mae is used to the fancy-schmancy stuff!
Crank: This joke is stupid and questionable on it’s own, but it’s even worse with context, right? “You, Lucy and I were living in the good old days. Now we’re living in the getting old days! Well, you and I are, anyway!”
DT: I get the sense that this is the moment when Soll hangs the morons out to dry. But then why go to all the trouble of half an escape route?
JP: So, I was scrolling backwards to try and get a sense of this shapeless coversation that it really feels like Alan should be having with Katherine, not Anne, when I realised there’s a timeskip between Sunday and Monday, because Ann’s wearing a different outfit. But they’re both bright orange. I guess she developed an affinity for that colour of clothing somewhere. (I’ve heard it’s the new black!)
Phantom: “I’m not going to fight you because we both know I’d win.” Okay, sure.
Pluggers: So we’ve just given up on anything remembling a joke or play on words in the caption? It’s just “You’re a plugger if things that are factually the case for people born a long time ago apply to you, because you were born a long time ago”, and the picture can do all the heavy lifting?
SH:I was going to question how hard swimming directly into a target is, but then I remembered this is the same strip where a merkid is the world’s greatest basketball player because of his practice at letting a pufferfish swim through a hoop, so whatever.
@A Grave Mind: Shouldn’t he be, like, “Boddington Guinness” or some shit? I’m told in the UK, Bud isn’t common, and is a “fancy” import. Way to be be uncommon and fancy, man of Beer!
@TheDiva: I thought Europeans tended to look down on our mass-produced American brands, because they are quite frankly crap compared to local brews.
Okay, so my own understanding, as someone who lives in the UK but doesn’t drink, is that “we think mass-produced American brands are crap” is somewhat closer to the truth than the idea Brits consider Bud to be “fancy”, but it should also be remembered that most British people drink mass-produced British brands, which they will tell you are somewhat less crap, but microbrew/real ale fans (and continental Europeans) say there’s not much to choose between them. Since I don’t drink, I don’t know.
What I do know is that we had those stupid adverts with the frogs over here too.
@2+2=7:
On Luann point 1 : This is because this is a leftover from when this story (should have) ran last year, pointing out that it was Phil who suggested Luann follow her heart, join Tara and apply to be a camp counselor. (I wonder if “Tara tells Phil about the ‘promotion’ ” was a retooled from a different conversation they had in the original version of this storyline (explains Tara suddenly believing Luann WILL get the promotion and get enough money from it despite telling her otherwise the week before, and Phil going from seeing the Dream as an overpriced scam to an aspirational goal, it wasn’t what they were talking about initially))
On Luann point 2 : *tosses this into the enormous “Luann and Bernice aren’t actually friends” evidence pile*
On Luann point 3 : Phil and Luann exchange which one takes their relationship for granted, and which one believes the other will magically disappear FOREVER if they look away, quite a bit, don’t they?
GIL THORP: Ok, I’m not the biggest connoisseur of any type of sportsball, but even I’m aware that this game doesn’t usually have two people tee off at the same time while facing in opposite directions, so I’m going to assume that this is actually some Gil Thorp-themed Beat-em-up we’re seeing (“I think I starting to like golf myself” Gil says, as he and Token Black Student smash clubs over identical off-panel mohawked baddies.)
@Anonymous: re: Luann.
Luann gets fired at the camp. Comes home. Finds Phil and Bernice in bed.
@GarrisonSkunk:
Dawg is an incarnation of Thirsty, damned to serve as a generically named pet for whatever sins of its past life
@TheDiva: CS, RE: Aging. The whole vibe I get with Crankshaft is that it’s like a decade or two behind. It was the ’00s and early ’10s when the Silent Generation left the work force, for the most part. Like you said, it’s the Boomer Generation that’s retiring and the older members of that generation that are going into care homes/assisted living facilities in the here and now.
Hi and Lois – Dawg is still bitter he lost the role of being Sarge’s dog to Otto.
Andy Capp – “I’m a Miller by trade, and I’m exhausted from work. You could say I’m Busch-ed! But I hope to Foster some camaraderie. Of Coors, I am willing to buy a round for you lads!”
Rex Morgan, MD – Mae Mae: “Fantastic! Since this is a girl from the big city moving to a country-coded town story, the first thing we need is a gazebo. Do we get the Hallmark Channel on cable? I want to consider options!”
@Horace Broon: Speaking as a microbrew IPA snob who’s been to London multiple times: “somewhat less crap” is about right.
I think this is true of most countries: their national mass-produced beers are a little better than US domestics, mostly because they’re not subject to stupid American packaging rules. I think the USA has limits on what you can call beer, based on its alcohol content. Which is why we get product categories like “malt liquor”, more specific descriptors like “stout”, and whatever the hell Zima was.
Molson’s in Canada and Corona in Mexico, were somewhat less crap than I expected, and Red Stripe in Jamaica was significantly better than the US version. I’ve heard this about Australian beers, but I’ve never been to Australia, so I can’t testify one way or the other.
MW- ” I try…” “That’s the spirit Tommy! You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, Yo-Gurt what you need!”
@Where’s Rocky?: The parking lot will be full of Cybertrucks, the flannel shirts will cost more than a lumberjack’s weekly salary, and the roots country music will be replaced by Jason Aldean and Morgan Wallen,
Six Chex discovers meta humor….”Stop complaining about our carpy art! You don’t understand partial art!”
H&L: “Who, indeed, is a good boy? You have given me much to consider, child. Now leave me to my ruminations.”
RMMD: You can just hear the slot machine sounds in Doug’s head. Mae Mae has been an action star for most of her adult life. How the hell does she know when her silent partner is embezzling funds?
@Comically Challenged: The entire damned comic page is at least a decade or two behind, if not an entire generation. Parents of teenagers, like we see in Curtis or Dustin or Zits, would have grown up in the 80s, or maybe even the 90s. Curtis’ dad hates rap, even though his childhood was the golden age of it. Dustin’s parents scream “boomer.” Other strips like Pluggers express laughably outdated preferences for things like huge 1930s-style radios. Lillian and Eugene natter own about some long-demolished big band ballroom, which was almost certainly whites-only. See my remark in #93.
@Philip: And they will explain to you why Jason Aldean and Morgan Wallen *are* roots country.
@2+2=7: Maybe they’re playing Super Battle Golf. Which would instantly make Gil Thorp way cooler. I want to hear Marty Moon describe the high school golfers firing rocket launchers at each other. (Because, yes, this would only be broadcast on the radio.)
@Banana Jr. 6000: I always appreciated the Czech Republic’s Staropramen Pilsener beer to the extent I would cross an entire street to move on from a non-Staropramen beer hall to one with the Staropramen sign hanging over the door.
I found out today that the brewery (the second largest in Prague) is now the property of the multinational Molson-Coors corporation. I’m sure they’ll find SOME way to ruin it, even if it means adding actual dog shit to the fermentation tanks. Coors beer….brrrrrrrrrr.
Since we usually complain about the wrong/poor/lazy coloring choices made in these featured comics, I’d like to point out the three beer tap handles were given individual colors. I thought that was a nice touch, but since I don’t know English branding of beer, I have no idea if they accurately represent UK brand colors. Anyone else know if they do?
9CL: Does Brooke have any idea what twin sisters might talk about? No. But does he care to find out? Obviously not.
C-Shaft: If they were dancing to Larry Dinkle’s big band it seems more like they were living in Batton Thomas’s Three O’ Clock High, which doesn’t sound like something I’d get misty over.
Curtis: Curtis thinks his slice of Montoni’s level pizza is an Instagramable meal and the internet is gonna be brutal.
DT: If it were me I’d put my weapon down a little more gingerly. Last thing I’d want is a Saturday night special landing on my foot.
Dustin: If Hayden can be Johnny Carson there’s nothing stopping Dustin from being Rich Little.
GT: Seeing as there’s no golf ball visible, it looks like what they really enjoy is collecting on gambling debts.
MW: The Fab Fro-Yo is what John Lennon wanted to call the Beatles with Yoko added. That’s why they broke up.
Phantom: “Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three, ere the other side he see.”
“Sigh. I guess when I took the code name ‘Python’ I should have seen things like this coming.”
JP: “So whaddya think of my speech? This is gonna be the standard gibberish whenever I do anything weird and offensive. Good plan, huh? I figure I’ll get a lot of leeway just so you and Katherine won’t have to hear me blather like this, haha!”
@Poteet: And he wonders why he’s been written out.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Basically agreed. Although as a conservation geek, I’ve seen what has been lost in the last sixty-plus years, and know what may happen if current trajectories are not changed.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: Right!! He is also making some of us, meaning me, sympathize with Ann, which I didn’t think was possible.
MT: Once again I wish that instead of following this weird big-mouthed human drama, we could follow the adventures of Lucky the Cute Baby Beaver/Fox/Deer/Dog/Bobcat/Whatever. At this point, I’d be very happy with Lucky the Cute Baby Spotted Salamander.
I do hate to break it to those less alcoholic than me, but Bud (or Hamm’s, or PBR, or whatever) is what beer actually tastes like. Dipshit microbrews mix in like, orange rind and lemon zest and other such crap. Mass-produced American swill IS, in fact, beer. Wanna drink hickory or eat your beer with a fork, can’t help you.
Yes, I know Ancient Egyptians ate their beer.
@Ukulele Ike:
Aw, c’mon Uke. Coors Original is good! I’ve no clue why everyone only drinks their Light, which is an abomination.
Crankshaft-“Remember how you ruined my life? Do you remember how I could have been happy with your sister? I wasn’t able to be with another woman since then. I’ve had to console myself with men for the rest of my life.”
@A Grave Mind: #124: All light beers are an abomination. I can taste where the beer ends and the water begins.
Continually mystified by Rex Morgan; I thought that this woman’s whole deal was that her career was over and she had gone bust financially, which was why she was working as a waitress, but now we learn she has a mansion? Her actions are absolutely nonsensical.
@Banana Jr. 6000: (I’d love to be young again, but that’s not the same thing as living through the 80s again.)
I recall an analysis a poll where the question was “What was America’s best decade” or something like that. The analysis found that the answers were over 90% explained by the age of the respondent — they might as well have asked “in what decade were you twelve years old.” Because when you’re that age, you have the feeling that life is full of possibilities while still remaining largely ignorant of the “real world,” and your parents are still providing for you.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
I have no dispute, sir.
All this beer talk reminds me of the recent news that scientists extracted yeast from the last meal “Ötzi” the iceman mummy ate, and used it to make sourdough bread. Surely a beer will be next. After which, the zombie apocalypse, according to every horror-movie trope.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Yeah, I’ll admit to being a fan of certain historic aesthetics, but I’m an even bigger fan of being able to own my own property, not dying from childbirth in my 30s, and a truly astonishing array of food, entertainment, and travel options.
(That said, you’d probably need to hold a gun to my head to make me work with AI and even then I’d seriously consider the gun, and you can pry physical media from my cold dead hands because I still like my books with pages and cover art and my movies and music not requiring me to pay twenty a month to some subscription service to access them.)
@Navigator: Ugh, you’re right. Or a Hallmark Christmas movie. Seriously, take about sixty pounds each off Maena and Mudgus, throw some snow on top of it, and give it a twee name like Holiday from Hollywood and it would fit right in with the rest of their December lineup.
@A Grave Mind: Hey, I never said it wasn’t beer. Just that it was of low quality in my opinion. I’ll even drink it sometimes.
Coors Light is the best example of the “making love in a canoe” joke. Natural Light is a close second.
@Vulpes: I’ve always imagined Chalkie is a pool player. I believe Andy has been shown playing pool, but I don’t suppose Chalkie ever has. He’s permanently shackled behind that bar.
@TheDiva: I’m 54 years old, work in IT, and have a lifelong principle of “don’t resist change.”
I want absolutely nothing to do with this AI shit.
Lately, I’ve been thinking that AI is little more than a Google search with improved natural language skills, but the same kind of recurrent flaws. And a very condescending tone, I’ve noticed. As part of this conversation, I tried to Google information about beer types, and I got an AI response that was offering to make a call to my local Total Wine about my preferences. (Which I would never go to, because it’s 10 miles away, and there are better beer stores in walking distance.) In full training video-level customer asskissing mode. Ugh.
@UncleJeff: LUANN: That will never happen because the female leads in this strip are all required to stay as pure as the driven show. Only male leads are allowed to get physical, and only with characters created to be their designated Nice Guy Reward.
@Bryan: *SNOW. Driven SNOW.
@Banana Jr. 6000:
Yup. Yeah, Natty Light was my favorite for downing 14 pints, acting like a titanic ass, and falling over somewhere. Ah, to be 20 and at a super lame party again.
@Banana Jr. 6000: #107: I’ve never been to Australia either but I have a friend who lived there quite a while and goes every year to visit. She said no one down under drinks Foster’s. It’s purely for the US market.
@JeffMcm: No, you missed the nonsensical start to the pile o’ nonsense – Lorna “hiding out” from the where-is-she-now paparazzi staking out her house “and all we’ve seen for ages and ages is her overweight maid going in and out” (because put on some pounds and you are completely unrecognizable instead of tabloid-nitpicked with your photos analyzed). She wanted a change and as I recall heard Mud’s song on the radio and then somehow ended up at the motel incognito
@Ukulele Ike: #115: I used to drink Rolling Rock beer when it was made in their one brewery in Latrobe, PA. After they were bought out by Anheuser-Busch and closed the original brewery I quit because I figured it was just Budweiser in a green bottle. Nothing against Bud but if I want a Bud I’ll buy a Bud.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
It’s made in Canada, I believe. Want an actual Aussie beer you gotta do Cooper’s. It’s fine, but not worth what you’ll probably have to pay.
@richardf8: #62: PS: I applaud your choice of Sam Smith’s Oatmeal Stout, one of my favorite imports. Whenever my wife nags me to eat oatmeal for my health (I loathe all porridges) I just bring home a few bottles of Sam Smith’s. I also like Theakston’s Old Peculiar and Old Nick’s Barleywine Ale.
@A Grave Mind: I don’t do beer myself, but I do have a glass of wine on a semi-regular basis and I agree with those who have said that, talk all you like about terroir and mouthfeel and pairings, at the end of the day the “right” wine is the one the individual enjoys drinking. I imagine the same holds true for beer, coffee, cheese, or anything with a wide variety of options and an astonishing number of people willing to get really, really snooty about it.
@Ukulele Ike: I remember when we complained about twenty-something Edda wearing matronly, mid calf length jumpers with ratty turtlenecks. I guess this is Brooke’s answer to that.
I don’t understand why Amos and Alistair wear their pants pulled up nearly to their armpits. (Amos especially.)
@CanuckDownSouth: Minor correction: Lorna heard Truck Tyler’s song Glenwood Motel on the radio. That’s how she ended up in Glenwood and the motel in particular.
@I speak Jive: 145 RMMD- And wasn’t it Truck’s picture on the wall at the motel? Mud’s had fallen off. Termites or something. Will Truck and Mud be OK after this? Mu Mu hears Truck’s song, goes to Motel, reveals herself, and draws business away from Nick’s, Truck does have a vested interest (in Nick’s). They may need to talk. Or just have Doug kick some embezzlement cash Wanda’s way.
@TheDiva: I might agree with you, but fear of the Bomb has sapped my will to the brink of apathy.
— 1963 Uke
@Pozzo: @Banana Jr. 6000: We need a word that means “toxic nostalgia”,
______________________________________________
“Nickatnite”
@Guillermo el chiclero: Sam Smith’s stout is pretty good, but their porter is some fine stuff. At some point within the past 10-15 years it got the Beer Award for best bottled porter in the world.
I used to like Rolling Rock myself. That mysterious “33” and that lovely little prose poem painted permanently onto hundreds of thousands of dark green longneck bottles. Really sorry to hear the Latrobe place shut down. I visited the damn place about 25 years ago…but I don’t remember getting any free beer.
@CanuckDownSouth:
And now that Lorna/Mae Mae has been “found out” those papperazzi that’s she been she’s been evading for ten years are …suddenly not a problem, because that’s just how logic works when you live in a world that’s fundamentally allergic to conflict.
@I speak Jive: I wouldn’t call that complaining — I’d say we were all just performing our civic duty by pointing out that Brooke is a dick. Dressing a young Edda like Shelley Duvall in The Shining? Has he even MET Edda?
Besides, no one here has ever objected that Edda isn’t showing enough leg. That would be like touring the Everglades and bitching that there aren’t nearly enough mosquitoes.
MW: “It doesn’t matter how much formal schooling a person has! What matters is how well you can lick a clit without overworking it. Well???”
@Ken: I remember hearing a variant of this where the age was nine years old. I actually felt some agreement with that. When I was 9, I was in fifth grade with one of the best teachers I ever had, could walk to school, toys like Legos were (in my opinion) at their peak, and my family lived in a place that was familiar and comfortable.
When I was 12, on the other hand, we had moved house to a neighborhood where the kids were more hostile, I had to ride a bus for the better part of an hour to get to school, etc. That whole period from 6th to about 11th grade was pretty dang rough (mentally at least).
@GarrisonSkunk: Then or now? When I was 9 (and younger) I enjoyed watching some of the B&W shows with my parents, as well as “Get Smart”, etc. I sometimes wish I could have talked my parents into letting me stay up all night to see all of their programming. Just once, like on a non-school night or during summer break. Ah well…
@Peanut Gallery: Actually, my current theory is that Chalkie got the name when he drunkenly showed up to the bar naked carrying a big club, possibly intending to enact revenge for some perceived slight from another patron, and he reminded Andy of the ancient Cerne Abbas Giant chalk figure (NSFW). When you consider the names that could’ve been bestowed upon him from that incident, I think he got off pretty lightly.
@Ukulele Ike: #149: To this day nobody in charge (at least when it was an independent brewery) could answer where the “33” came from or what it signified, though there’s been several theories.
Come for the snark, stay for the beer reviews.
@A Grave Mind: #123:
“Ancient Egyptians ate their beer”
At least the ancient Sumerians strained their beer through clay collanders and drank it with a straw made from a hollow reed.
Got your bottle handy? Count the words in the poem.
From the glass lined-tanks of Old Latrobe
we tender this premium beer for your enjoyment,
as a tribute to your good taste.
It comes from the mountain springs to you.
The snappy young 1930s ad man pointed at the big sheet of paper and said “Ain’t she a beauty? And not too long, neither!” And wrote a big “33” under the last line. The copy boy took the whole sheet after everyone left, and sent it verbatim to the printer.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Sumerian beer even had varieties like bitter, honey, cloudy, and others. They’re also the reason time is divided into units of 60 and degrees are divided into units of 360! I learned this from Fall Of Civilizations, which is an amazing YouTube channel.
@TheDiva: Oh my god, I didn’t even think of that. That is what they’re all about, isn’t it? Quit being an independent big-city lawyer and start popping out babies for this guy on his gingerbread farm.
RMMD: It could be mildly interesting if Mae Mae finds out that her mansion can’t be sold at this point because it has been taken over by a couple of stalkers, and that significant time and effort will be needed to get them out.
MW: I dunno, Tommy. I reserve that facial expression for when I’m eating gelato.
@Banana Jr. 6000: #160: Those party animal Sumerians, they even gave us the term honeymoon for the month after a wedding. The bride’s father was expected to provide his future son in law with a month’s supply of mead, made of fermented honey.
@A Grave Mind:
#123. Interesting beer analysis today. You did know, did you not, Adolphus Busch (IV, I think) died a couple days ago, ending that branch of the family tree.
@Guillermo el chiclero: It’s amazing how many Sumerian inventions still exist in some form today.