The Spice Girls would hit that town like an atomic bomb
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Beetle Bailey, 6/27/26
Beetle looks like he’s in a great mood in panel two, and honestly, why wouldn’t he be? He got a pass into town and all he had to do to get it was agree to run a quick errand for his friend — an errand that honestly seems pretty fun in and of itself. Who doesn’t like going to the bakery? They have pastries there!
Andy Capp, 6/27/26
The question of what year Andy Capp takes place in is still, in my opinion, a live one, but perhaps it’s best phrased as “Yes, it’s 2026, but what year is Hartlepool in, culturally?” Disco may be the new hotness today, but the UK’s probable next Prime Minister is from the North, so I am confident that he’ll uplift this forgotten backwater at least to the point where they’re aware of the Oasis/Blur feud.
Mother Goose and Grimm, 6/27/26
I’m still not afraid to point out that Mother Goose and Grimm is more and more often using widely known, decades-old jokes as its punchlines, though I have to admit that these dogs’ extremely grave facial expressions give this tired line an interesting twist. “Do it, Grimm,” says Ralph. “Put the gun in your mouth, if you’re serious about this.”
115 replies to “The Spice Girls would hit that town like an atomic bomb”
MG&G:
“What should I do?”
“Aw, nothing. Their bark is worse than their bite!”
FC: “Great question, Jeffy! I’d say ‘the little koala on the changing table’ but that was thirty pounds ago. Oh, that reminds me, I have to buy more diapers for you.”
Zits: Next, on Zits After Dark, Jeremy tunes in Tokyo. Yes, it’s unusual that a teen nowadays knows about shortwave radio, but he’s an old soul.
DtM: In which we find out that Dennis’ outgoingness is simply a mask for a kid who’s actually pretty far on the spectrum. Problem is, by the time I pass from this mortal coil, Dennis still won’t grow into the older man with a way too large model train installation.
H&L: Gawd, this really is a stickler. I’m old enough to remember when every new house build in the USA wasn’t under the bootheel of an HOA. But there’s a limit to everything, Thirsty. Hi, this is what spite fences were invented for.
RMMD:
“She’s miming violin playing?”
“Girl, you know it’s true! You’d better forget her number.”
Andy Capp:
“I’m here for a dramatic reading of some Dante.”
“No. Don’t say it, mate.”
“Yep. Disco ‘Inferno‘ !”
CRAAAAAAAASSSSHHHH
JP: ‘When your a Parker-Spencer-Driver, you can just grab ’em by the p****y. They just let you do it!’
(Seriously, look where Abbey’s arms are leading and tell me that isn’t what she’s doing!!)
JP: Are we sure Charlotte is CIApril’s kid? Abbey’s showing that same terrifying open-mouth smile Charlotte gave when she thought she was getting a pet squirrel.
CS: Welp, that’s a wrap people! Dinkle Sr. had one moment of shining glory, then it was all downhill from there! Literally, as he careened through the fence at the future Bull Bushka Curve because he was so stinking drunk because he was so depressed at Elvis taking the food from his mouth.
RMMD: That’s right Sarah Plain and Tall! Sneer at those Poors! In fact, why don’t you just walk right up to them, snap that instrument over your knee, kick in that amp, then punch both of them in the head? When the cops come, they’ll arrest them and apologize to you!
GT: Who are these people, and why aren’t they either engaged in Sportsball or self-righteously complaining about the state of the world?
MG&G: Well, if today’s lesson was “Play Dead”, then Grimmy would have a decent excuse to miss it.
Luann: Ladies and gentlemen, the reason this ‘pregnancy’ storyline is going down the memory hole after this week.
Luann 2: The next words out of both their mouths was ‘I’ll get the coat hanger!!’
B. Bailey: In the background, Gen. Halftrack drives his off-strip pal Mr. Magoo away from his latest misadventure, i. e. mistaking Camp Swampy for a zoo and specifically, throwing peanuts at Sgt. Snorkel.
MW: Tommy’s moving up in the world. He now curates the Pop Art section of his tech-billionaire step-daddy’s art collection. Each cereal box is individually hand-painted. His next task is to stack cans of Merda d’Artista in the Shock Art section.
Beetle Bailey: C’mon, Beetle, you know Sarge is going to give you that pass — it’s the only item on his desk! Surely he must have some work to do in his role as a first-line supervisor responsible for the health, discipline, and daily training of junior enlisted soldiers… but apparently he can’t start on any of it as long as his thoughts are dominated by a chocolate eclair.
Mother Goose and Grimm: The whole point of “obedience school” is to make a dog submit to his owner. Is that really the kind of relationship that Mother Goose has to Grimm? If so, Grimm had better stop playing hooky — he clearly needs many more years of study!
Hi and Lois: It’s always funny when they acknowledge the vast acreage of yard space these land-rich suburbanites own… yet Thirsty chooses to place his lounging-and-drinking chair right next to Hi’s property line. How long until Hi realizes that the crabgrass and insects hiding in the Thurstons’ untamed lawn (not to mention whatever creature those scary eyes belong to) are making their way over to his own side — not to mention his unwashed neighbor’s funky personal scent wafting over? Eventually that little fence will be turned into a 10-foot security barrier, and these two mismatched buddies will only be able to spend time together at work and on the golf course and while visiting each other’s homes.
Mary Worth: “Tommy’s self-esteem is really low. I mean, he’s placing the generic cereal boxes on the higher shelves, and the more expensive name-brand ones at the bottom. That goes against decades of carefully researched grocery-store shelving science, and is clearly the sign of a sick mind!”
@The Quiet Man:
Also : If Bwad and Toni thought that a child they conceived in LATE JUNE was going to be born in EARLY-TO-MID-JANUARY, well… One runs out of ways to say “These two idiots have absolutely no knowledge about how having a kid works”, in face of constantly piling up evidence.
MG&G — “What should I do?’
“Call in dead.”
“That’s terrible advice!”
“Well, who do I look like, Mary Worth?”
“Kinda.”
Andy Capp:
Andy drifts into unconsciousness as the strident syllabifications of Jean Knight’s “Mr. Big Shot (Who Do You Think You Are?)” emerge from the disco.
I expected the “Spice Girls” title was a reference to the fast-paced RMMD action, where June has for the fourth — fifth? — time said that the twins aren’t really playing the music. Good news, though — Sarah has finally caught on, and is as outraged as her mother. Stay tuned for next week’s action, as Sarah crosses the parking lot to confront the two.
AC: Frankly I think the gay disco club should have been more supportive. I mean sure, Andy isn’t exactly a catch, but he deserves to have a place where he can be himself! (Note: “himself” is a drunken, lazy lout.)
BB: You’re telling me our service men and women don’t have regular access to bread products? We used to be a country!
Luann Did something bump an April week of strips? Because there’s “bad at math”, and then there’s “can’t count to 9 using his fingers” and I was *hoping* a firefighter like Brad who might have to clear a burning building of a known number of occupants would be required to do better than *that*
Blondie Wait – is a legacy strip allowed to acknowledge that societal standards have moved on so things like being literally beaten by your boss aren’t funny anymore? Can somebody please tell the married couples in Beetle Bailey and the Lockhorns that there’s this newfangled acceptable thing called “divorce”?
Wary Morth:
For a wild moment I thought it was “Tommy can go down on himself”.
___________________________________
Wrecks Moregone:
“Of course it stinks, you’ve been holding in that bubble since we left home!”
Family Circus Mashup: There’s a reason your picture isn’t on a bathroom door.
MGG-Grimm’s got to play dead? But he missed the day it was taught.
BB-Leave the gun. Take the cannoli
C’shaft: So basically Batiuk saw Forever Plaid, in which a 50’s close-harmony group is literally a victim of changing tastes when they’re killed by a busload of girls traveling to see the Beatles perform on Ed Sullivan and who want to give one final concert before passing to the great beyond, and said “what if that, but grim, joyless, humorless and without all the uplifting, nostalgic songs?”
Dustin: I’m starting to think the number of strips involving male characters being insulted by women is less a result of misogyny and more an unhealthy masochistic outlet.
MT: They’re being sarcastic, right? There’s no way this dialogue makes sense with that body language unless they’re being heavily and cruelly sarcastic.
MW: “….and me, of course.”
Pluggers are in the early stages of dementia.
RMMD: Look, that girl spent long hours learning to mime along to Lindsey Stirling’s “Crystalize,” got matching outfits and haircuts for her and her twin, and hauled her electric violin kit out to the Aldi parking lot in the middle of summer; she’s put more effort into this ruse than anyone in the Morgan family has exerted in the past several story arcs and I think she deserves credit for that.
Mark Trail: Punkinhead and the duo of dorks just achieved their “Wilbur Weston Lurking Behind Bushes to Eavesdrop” badge.
Mary Worth: A whole cereal aisle and zero boxes of Splak!? I call shenanigans.
Phantom: I love it! They showed the big bad criminal getting kicked in the face by the young blond!
@Baja Gaijin:
Now I’m once again wondering how Thel gave birth to these melonheads.
Murky Tail:
I’m pretty sure Rusty’s friends can find him, just by smell.
These three, on the other hand…..
@Ken:
A little-known factoid is that Mary Worth herself was one of the original Spice Girls. She was the only Spice Girl to have two distinct (and alliterative) sobriquets: “Meddlesome” Spice and “Malodorous” Spice.
Luann: Presumably, these two have been having intercourse all along. What makes them think that this time Brad has shot off a ‘loaded bullet’, so to speak? Did the couple hook up their shower to a tank of holy water?
RMMD: Wow, talk about your tough crowds!
DtM: Hard to believe that the Mitchells still aren’t on the citywide Do Not Visit list.
H&L: Unfortunately, whatever is in the bushes doesn’t look big enough to devour Thirsty.
BB “…I gotta get something to get that taste out of my mouth.. “
@9 BigTed: on Beetle Bailey: “…but apparently he can’t start on any of it as long as his thoughts are dominated by a chocolate éclair.” A chocolate éclair, as in a single unit? No, this is Sergeant Orville “Bottomless Pit” Snorkel: he’s jonesing for at least a dozen pastries.
DtM: Looks like this couple won’t be able to enjoy the full hour they paid for.
FC: Thel has to explain why public toilets don’t have a
doggyJeffy door.So even ignoring the WWII / Swing Era stuff that implies we’re dealing with spry dozen-decades-old folks, is Crankshaft ever going to make sense? There’s the one great night at Starlight… where they didn’t return from intermission. Speculation Dinkle Sr died then is contradicted by this journal reminiscing about the “magical evening” (where they didn’t complete their set or debut their new song??). There’s the bit about alcohol abuse. And seeing rock and roll make them feel like never-was (except they had that Starlight success). Maybe Sunday they’ll have the time-travelling janitor come by to sweep up the plot mess.
Flash Gordon is still bugging me about why Fria would have Vultan at liberty but for *that* strip I have some hope that the upcoming meeting between them and Flash will note some kind of not-completely-crazy arrangement with the conquered Hawks. (But I still don’t think Fria’s dumb enough to accept any promise or oath or lie that the Hawk machinations were all doddering daddy’s fault.)
@21 Ukranazi Stepan: Thel holds the world’s record for “Largest Episiotomy Scar.”
@23 Bob Tice: “Malodorous” Spice. That explains why Posh Spice’s face always looks like she’s smelling something terrible.
Today’s Andy Capp, got me thinking to an old Simpson’s joke, where Homer (looking for Marge who was kidnapped by a biker gang) enters a biker bar.
Homer: Hello, I’m looking for…
(Instantly cuts to him laying on the pavement outside)
He gets up and goes back in: I really need some h…
(instantly cuts to him laying on the pavement again)
MG&G – Grimm can speak English and use a land line. Unless he’s using those skills to stage a coup against Mother Goose, obedience school seems superfluous.
Crank: Man, Dinkle must have been seriously trashed that night. “The band sounded so good I couldn’t help but break into a little dance myself. The dancers on the floor admired my ‘hot’ moves, stopping to point and laugh.”
BB: I’m surprised Miss Buxley is willing to be seen in public with the shirt that Beetle’s wearing. Her idea of dressing down is putting on a different little black dress and ditching her pearls.
That’s fantastic news about The Enthusiast – I’ve been meaning to read it! It sounds like a really interesting dive into the world of comic strips.
Beetle Bailey:
It would be great, by the way, wouldn’t it, if the Spice Girls all had nihilistic names instead of the ones they have — e.g., “Dystopian” Spice; “Sepulchral” Spice; “Funereal” Spice; “Tartarean” Spice; and “Saturnine” Spice? They could roll into town and do covers of Morrissey hits.
*sigh* Spam at #35.
Family Circus: Jeffy is telling Thel that he knows his father is a secret drag queen.
Phantom: Heloise Walker had to use the cover name “Helen Wheels” because Sahara had seen her monogrammed luggage.
@CanuckDownSouth: FG: It does seem like there’s some sort of joint-rule going on here, with the hawks still having armed peacekeepers about to help try and apprehend Flash and Bok. Still seems like an odd choice.
FC: Jeffy is non-binary.
MG&G – Now, that’s a deep cut: “Grimmy Needs a Shooter” from Warren Zevon’s album Bad Luck Streak in Obedience School.
Don Abundio, translated:
“This is my special Neapolitan ice cream cone. Observe… Chocolate… Vanilla…”
“Strawberry!”
“Frankly, the strawberry’s always been a troublemaker”
Dennis the Menace: “Sorry we have to cancel the orgy. It’s not because you’re Black it’s because our son is an insufferable shit.”
DTM: You know Dennis can’t wait to ask them if they’re made from chocolate or if they’ve never taken a bath. Waiting 20 minutes shows tremendous self control. Those obedience lessons are really paying off!
@lynn:
Jeffy is non human. He was created in a laboratory accident.
Mother Goose: My grandmother had a boston terrier like Ralph when I was growing up. So, speaking from experience, I can confirm they are indeed the kinda dogs to suggest suicide to get out of an awkward social situation.
I know not how many newspapers there are that would risk printing 9CL, but I’m sure I wouldn’t want to be reading the funnies over breakfast and seeing a guy in a cheeky swim bottom from behind. Get help, Brooke.
Yet more evidence of Sgt. Snorkel’s craven corruption, demanding bribes from the enlisted men under him if they want even a moment’s respite from their drudgery. If Gen. Halftrack was an even halfway competent leader, the sergeant would be drummed out of the army on a dishonourable discharge.
***
Well, you can tell by the way he uses his walk, he’s a drunken man, no time to talk. The music loud and the beer is warm, he’s been kicked around since he was born. And now it’s alright, it’s okay and we may look the other way. But we can try to understand this comic strip’s effect on man. Whether he’s a drunkard or whether he’s a bother, he’s Andy Cappin’, he’s Andy Cappin’.
***
OBEY (but with Mother Goose instead of Andre the Giant).
Writing my comment, I realized for the very first time that “Andy Capp” is a pun on “handicap” and a quick peruse of Wikipedia bears this out. I can’t believe it took *checks notes* my entire lifetime to notice this.
MW: So it’s not just the phones; the characters in this strip hold everything using only their thumbs and pointer fingers. It seems really hard. Why do they do this to themselves?
Mother Goose and Grimm:
Obedience school is mostly about simple commands reinforced by praise and treats, so if you ask me, if dogs in this universe can talk and use the phone, they shouldn’t need it. Look, they’re even aware of their own mortality!
Wait, Andy Capp is from Hartlepool?
Ha! Try not to hang any monkeys, Andy.
@Bob Tice: Example of Nihilist Spice Girls songs; “2 Become 1” but instead of a romantic and sexy song about intimacy, it’s about a woman falling into a deep crippling depression after her husband dies in a horrific car accident. It’s still sung like a bouncy love song.
@CanuckDownSouth: The contrast between your description of how Crankshaft is an incoherent mess of contradictory information being thrown at the reader and you actually making legit, non-mocking speculation about Flash Gordon’s plot and setting says a lot. Both about how bad Crank is and how strikingly good modern Flash is compared to many of the newspaper comics featured on this blog.
@Hibbleton: They’re aware of the Narrative Law of Conservation of Detail and believe that since this sex scene was onscreen (barely) it must have been plot important, ergo, Toni’s pregnant, since that’s the only possible result of sex that this comic is interested in.
@TheDiva: Let’s be honest, Andy Capp would drop a slur near-immediately upon walking into a gay club and that’s why he got kicked out.
@The Quiet Man: The jokes about Sarah charging across the parking lot to violently assault the music twins for their “scam” (if you can even call it that) is disturbingly plausible. Beatty seems to have a particularly raging and weirdly personal hatred of the very idea of con-artists, as evidenced by both this story’s treatment of the two… I wanna say teenage(?) girls and prior stories involving Rene.
RMMD: Just walking away? Isn’t June going to teach her that street performers must be confronted physically and given a piece of your mind?
Andy Chapstick: It’s too bad this isn’t a Sunday strip. There could be two more panels of Andy being thrown out of the club before he breaks the fourth wall to announce, “I’m starting to think they don’t want me here. Cor blimey and all that rot!”
Two bites at this particular apple.
Andy Capp:
Andy’s dialogue implies that this is a club he’s never been to, yet the bouncers still knew to reject him on sight, so his reputation obviously precedes him. But reputation for what, exactly? When we see him at the pub he mostly just sits around drinking beer, and to be honest I can’t really see Andy as much of a dancer anyway. I guess if you’re a trendy disco club you don’t want people who are just going to loaf around taking up space, but still, the violence of the ejection seems excessive to me. A firm but polite rejection would have been sufficient!
OR
Disco emerged from the music and nightlife culture of Americans of African, Latino, and Italian descent, along with, LGBT people (which is likely why the genre aroused such hostility, as seen in events such as the infamous Disco Demolition Night). But as today’s Andy Capp shows, now those oppressed people’s unique cultural contributions have acquired the standing in society to both attract and reject louts such as Andy Capp. Happy Pride!
@The Quiet Man: I misread your RMMD comment as “Sarah Palin.” It still works.
RMMD: If June succeeds in driving off those “musicians,” maybe Shorty and the Beanpole will take over the spot with their “comedy” stylings! Their stuff isn’t original, either, but no one in Glenwood has ever heard of Uncle Josh or Gallagher & Shean.
@Baja Gaijin: Phantom: I love it! They showed the big bad criminal getting kicked in the face by the young blond!
I love it! They showed her delicate toes!
@Vulpes: No, Disco music aroused such hostility because it sucked. I was there, I saw everything.
@Vulpes: Yeah, I saw that PBS American Experience episode about the so-called “War on Disco,” which pretty much framed the whole rock v. disco thing as “rock fans are racist homophobes.” But having lived through the period myself, I think they got it almost entirely wrong. At one point in the show, somebody being interviewed observed that at the time, people listened to rock, but they danced to disco. That, to me, was really the heart of the matter. It’s a different idea of what music is for. It’s kinda hard to say rock fans were racist when they idolized Jimi Hendrix, or homophobic when Queen (who were pretty much out by the cover of their third album) had one hit after another. The “Disco Demolition Night” was a publicity stunt by a shock DJ who had a legitimate grudge against disco–he had lost his job when his station went from rock to disco format overnight (apparently without even telling the staff).
If anything “killed” disco, it was the song “YMCA,” because that song achieved absolute perfection of the form. Once “YMCA” was out, there was literally no reason to ever write another disco song, because no disco song could ever match it. Kinda like how “Mr. Blue Sky” put an end to the Electric Light Orchestra as it was the ultimate perfection of Jeff Lynne’s orchestral pop style. “OK, folks, move along, nothing more to see here…”
After that epistle, y’all deserve a comment about Handy Crapp, so here it is: I know it’s going way too far to ask some actual effort from Goldsmith and Gannett (the actual “Reginald Smythe”), but it would have been so easy to rework this strip in the form of Andy walking into a thrash club and being flung bodily out of the mosh pit…
@Ukulele Ike: No, Disco music aroused such hostility because it sucked. I was there, I saw everything.
Last year we hosted a charming 18-year old German au pair who was in turn charmed and, yes, impressed when I dusted off my Gloria Gaynor and Ritchie Family albums. Not all music needs to appeal to every demographic in order to be “good” if it brings happiness to some. She had never heard such sublime melodies, apparently – KC and the Sunshine Band was a revelation, likewise the full oeuvre of the Village People’s masterworks.
In fairness, her opinion may have been colored by watching me dance with my 1-year old grandson who also found the tunes captivating.
Dennis the Meanass: actually, Dennis is planning to go to his room and read a comic book. His parents are just saying this to get rid of those pesky Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Who’s menacing now?
FC: They didn’t have anything to represent “squamous,” Jeffy.
@Baja Gaijin:
#20. PHANTOM: As I remember, it was purely self defense. Nomad was trying to push Heloise out the plane, and she fortunately pushed him out instead. It rocks– whether you call “it” karma or the Golden Rule.
Hmm, why didn’t the fall kill Nomad?
@TheDiva:
$19 RMMD: hear! Hear! Maybe she’s not a great fiddle player, but they put in initiative and planning. They still might need food and meds– tell her about your clinic, June. Better to fake talent than faking poverty.
@Hibbleton:
#24. LUANN: Exactly, just because it was passionate doesn’t mean it created an embryo. Btw, when a doctor confirms a pregnancy, how do couples know which act of intercourse it was? They usually pretend to know.
BB: The only other condition is that Beetle has to wear the rugby shirt that Sarge tried to give his nephew, and which said nephew sent back.
MG&G: Will the school believe that a dead dog is on the phone talking to them? Well, by most belief systems, a live dog shouldn’t be talking to them either. Maybe, bordering on madness.
Crank: “Yesterday, I was reminded my dad was a drunk and I was sad. But today I was reminded that he was an egotistical asshole, just like me!”
DT: I complain a lot that the criminals in Neo-Chicago are all morons because they have to be even stupider than the cops, but honestly “cybercriminal completely masks his location and identity, then makes an extremely traceable post bragging about what he’s done” actually sounds about right.
Phantom: Yeah, if I were Sahara, I’m not sure I’d be volunteering “You fools! I don’t want revenge on the Phantom for capturing me! I want revenge on my teenage daughter’s bestie for capturing me!” either.
S4th: Once they’ve set off on their road trip, and are away from the house and its giant bird, what is Ces going to do when he can’t think of a punchline?
@Horace Broon: On S4th – There’s plenty he could do. Have Hilary go into another dissociative fugue state, have Ted bring up his stupid childhood painting that got ruined for the umpteenth time, have Sally suggest a ‘Starlee & the Moonbeams’ singalong, cut to Sally’s Mother and her ne’er-do-well friends getting up to some adorable criminal activity, have Ted’s useless brothers give chase because they need Mommy to wipe their butts, cut back to the Forth’s neighbors watching like helpless infants as Hiliary’s friends slowly destroy the Forth’s backyard and surrounding property with their idiotic amusement park idea…
See? All sorts of stupid, asinine directions for Ces to go in!
@Vulpes: We occasionally see Andy start bar fights, and the scenes of him walking home suggest that even when he’s not violent, he’s a very loud drunk.
As far as the “how backward is Andy’s Hartlepool?” question goes, it’s just occurred to me that Andy might think of Disco Club as being “trendy” but it’s possible that everyone else sees it as a nostalgia bar. (The 80s club in my home town is called Club Tropicana. I’ve never been in, but I feel sorry for the bar staff, because I can only assume that every ten minutes some genius of banter is saying “But I was told the drinks were free!”)
@The Quiet Man: Yeah, all likely possibilities. Also, everyone thinking Ronan is amazing and him being politely baffled by this.
Luann: So, a preemie baby at 29 weeks. For Zodiac reasons.
Someone page Andy Robinson….
@Horace Broon, DT: That’s how they catch the criminals. If Dick Tracy was in a Sherlock Holmes story, he would just wait for someone to gloat, “Ha ha! I stole that blue carbuncle!” and call it a win.
@matt w: I’m surprised Miss Buxley is seen in public on a Saturday… it’s called “Buxley Wednesday for a reason!”
@Horace Broon: If I was working in a Disco Bar, I wouldn’t be able to resist when setting up.
“Dis goes over here, and Dis goes here…”
I would do that all the time.
@Vulpes: I think animals are actually aware of their own mortality.
I mean prey animals run for their lives when being stalked by a predator. So they must know what death is.
And my old dog, the day he passed. He went into the backyard, and laid down by his favourite tree passing away a minute later.
I think the question is. “How MUCH do they know about death that we don’t?”
C-Shaft: The sentiment is nice enough—as reflected in Harry’s almost human facial expression—that I’ll ignore the fact that “best band leader in the world” sounds like Batiuk throwing bipolar disorder into the mess.
DT: A hoagie roll filled with dry ground beef and nothing else? Excessive hacking must do weird shit to your tastebuds.
Dustin: Fitch can’t detect sarcasm, but to be fair, no one involved with the strip writes it very well either.
HtH: Sure, Beret Guy has a decent story, fulfilling Hagar’s stated purpose in being there. Thus far, though, he hasn’t made a credible threat of lethal violence. Then and only then can Hagar do some recruiting.
JP: By all appearances, Abbey is in severe discomfort too. Something metallic inserted somewhere.
Luann: Now that these two are not-naked, we can forget their horrifying bedroom/bathroom patter and focus on their shaky grasp of the calendar.
MW: Tommy’s got other things on his mind as it is. The generic cereal is boxed up in the cereal aisle, which is all well and good. But why is the generic soda POP packaged that way? It seems like it can only lead to leaks and further messes. Tommy’s stockboy skills are truly being put to the test.
RMMD: This scene will soon be continued, accompanied by kerosene and matches. No one pulls the wool over Sara G. Morgan’s eyes!
@Anonymous: If both Degroot children were born extremely prematurely (say, 26-27 weeks) and didn’t pay attention at any point in biology class (which they didn’t), and if Nancy talked about “the six months I was pregnant with you,” that belief becomes depressingly plausible. This would also explain quite a lot, like why Frank and Nancy haven’t been nearly as hard on their offspring as they should be and some of Brad and Luann’s other issues.
@65 Activist: I thought the plane crashed then she kicked him in the face. I was only partially correct: the plane crashed, she BRACKed him in the face with her phone, then later she kicks him in the face.
BB: Hey Sarge, remember this line? “I will not use my grade or position to attain pleasure, profit, or personal safety.” It’s from the NCO Creed, you sack of shit. Try reading it sometime.
LUANN: Because of course Shannon has been wandering around the house unsupervised the entire time Brad and Toni were getting it on in the shower (and then making idiotic innuendos afterward). Are the Evanses trying to make these too look completely unfit for parenting? Because they’re doing a great job of it!
@Bryan: Re Luann: The other possibility is that they can’t remember whether or not Shannon exists. I mean, if you include her, the strip’s cast of characters might actually balloon to the double digits. Doesn’t the very thought of having to handle that load make you want to lie down?
I caught up on two weeks of comics on a Kindle that alternatively froze up and lost my internet connection. Do not recommend.
Catch up comments:
FC – At least I could skip the week that “Billy” drew.
Mary Worth – Several weeks later, and Brandy is still away!? She’s worked for a few years at a third tier grocery store, and she has more vacation time than a state employee with twenty-five years of service.
Frazz – Two weeks of smug superiority with a few random mocking Mrs. Olsen behind her back.
Gil Thorp – There wasn’t a queen of the prom, because there wasn’t anyone there who was more attractive than a subhuman Morlock.
The guest artist can actually draw.
Crankshaft – How do we know that Loathsome Lillian didn’t ruin Larry Dinkle’s life, too?
@Baja Gaijin: True enough –I’m sure Beetle knows just to order the “Sarge Special,” then hope the box will fit in the trunk of his car.
@Bryan: On BB: I thought you might mention that the US Army hasn’t required a pass for a routine trip to town for over 50 years, but what you did was better.
Today’s comics:
Pluggers – I call BS. They are still sore at the kid who didn’t invite them to her birthday party in second grade.
Rex Morgan – Has Sarah aged slightly? I think that she’s around twelve now, but I don’t remember her being so tall and starting to develop. I wonder if the boys have also had a corresponding growth. I hope they’re growing out of their idiotic behavior, too. That’s what doomed Leave It To Beaver. Beaver was kind of cute when he behaved like a clueless moron when he was seven, but not so much when he was still doing it at thirteen.
Those girls must not know about the ordinance that allows only roots country within the Glenwood town limits.
MW-Poor Tommy. He could have been Chief Table Wiper at Weeineworld.
RMMD-“This calls for a revenge scheme that will utterly hurt and ruin their lives,” Sarah declares.
To defend Mr. Ike a bit, I lived through disco too, working as a musician. Sturgeon’s Law applies to disco like everything else, and the record labels at the time milked that golden goose until it screamed. Disco Stu on the Simpsons was no exaggeration at all. An awful lot of “disco” by 1976 was pure corporate crap, just like rock in the 80’s when they finally got the formula nailed down.
Its just odd that Andy Capp was the only strip that attempted a punch line. In the old days they would have shown Andy starting a fight, so progress.
@Ken: Getting paid for just being there is a Morgan thing! Nobody else gets to do it in their town!
@Baja Gaijin:
#78 PHANTOM: Thanks for correcting me and the documented video. Can’t argue with a video, can we.
MG&G: even a cat can call in dead only eight times. A dog, however, can call out umpteenth times for having gotten sick eating grass, licking butts, etc.
@Cheez Whiz: The record I so wish I had kept in 1976: “The Ethel Merman Disco Album”.
The elderly movie/Broadway star croaking her way through her own “There’s No Business Like Show Business” , “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy” (hey, it was the Bicentennial) and other standards with the most generic corporate “dance” music you’ve ever heard.
I also wish I still had the fuzzy white bell bottoms with blue and green blotches my mother bought me as a joke.
I was a bit of a rock snob at the time but now I have an affection for Donna Summer, the Traamps, Chic and others of the era.
Petrillo’s Special: Now every dog food grinder comes with a box of tiny wood planks and a branded play dough container.
Thanks to Mother Goose & Grimm for mentioning Grimm’s calling obedience school. It still doesn’t make sense, but it at least it saves us from wondering what his job could possibly be.
@Cheez Whiz: Yeah, there’s nothing inherently wrong with disco. A big part of the backlash against it in the 70s was just the fact that radio played a very narrow selection of it all the time, making it seem more repetitive than it actually was.
More recent disco revivalists like Escort have done some interesting stuff too.
BB: Sarge isn’t putting a lot of effort into his line reads anymore.
AC:
@StripReader: How do you do, fellow non-bots?
@82 I speak Jive: on Mary Worth: With Tommy’s lack of object permanence, Brandy may have returned to work weeks ago. He didn’t notice because she’s working the dog food aisle, not passing through Tommy’s cereal aisle.
@83 BigTed: Box? Try pallet. A pallet of éclairs will last Sarge through the weekend. Maybe. It takes a lot of extra calories to maintain his Plugger Bod.
@90 Activist: Be glad that your brain prioritized other information over Phantom history. Mine didn’t. I wonder what data point(s) I’ve lost to Phantom lore?
@92 UncleJeff: Oh. My. GOD. Why did I search out this album on YouTube and listen to a track? Over a minute of intro that sounded like bumper music on CHiPs right as the action heats up. That voice belongs on Broadway, not in the disco. Wow.
@Hannibal’s Lectern: #62:
“without even telling the staff”
In Houston our long time AOR (Album Oriented Rock) station KLOL 101 FM went from rock to Spanish overnight, without telling the listeners or even the staff. The morning DJ, who went by the name of Outlaw Dave, showed up for his morning shift only to see the place swarming with Latino guys speaking Spanish. Assuming they were part of the janitorial staff he told one not to forget to empty the wastebasket in his office, only to be cussed out in Spanish by one of the new DJs. The radio industry has long been known for treating its people and listeners that dirty and cavalierly. Howard Stern even went on a rant about that.
@Baja Gaijin: “Oh. My. GOD. Why did I search out this album on YouTube and listen to a track?”
I live to serve.
@Hannibal’s Lectern: “The “Disco Demolition Night” was a publicity stunt by a shock DJ who had a legitimate grudge against disco–he had lost his job when his station went from rock to disco format overnight (apparently without even telling the staff).”
Alcohol was also reportedly involved.
What A Frazzhole! :Frazzhole actually admits he’s not perfect in everyway! One small step for a frazzhole, one giant leap for Frazzhole kind!
Mary’s Worst: Mary shows off how much of a sadist she is, leaving her window open within earshot of the zucchini still on the vine, saying “Have another zucchini muffin”, confirming the zucchini of their future fate, as well as the actual fate of their picked comrades.
@Hannibal’s Lectern: a publicity stunt by a shock DJ who had a legitimate grudge against disco–he had lost his job when his station went from rock to disco format overnight (apparently without even telling the staff).
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Was that the inspiration for the movie “FM”?
@UncleJeff: Alcohol was also reportedly involved.
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“Oh, Al Cohol, you lovable drunk, is there nothing you won’t do?”-Homer Jay Simpson, adapted.
Enough defending Disco; 1970s music was bad enough without Disco coming in and putting its ass on it in the last few years.
Luckily we had the jam bands — Little Feat and the Grateful Dead, for two — making some of their best music, and then Talking Heads swooped down with their first few albums by 1977-1980. And Newgrass jam bands for oddballs like me. And then London Calling in 1979.
@106 Ukulele Ike: We are in Xanaduuuuuuu!
@I speak Jive: #82:
“the week that “Billy” drew”
I always skip over those weeks, including the comments about them. As I said before, it adds weeks to my life.
The Foxtrot strip once did a spoof of those Billy drew weeks. Jason Fox was trying to buck for the position of Bil Keane’s replacement artist whenever Bil went on vacation, which according to Jason was over ten times a year. He thought those strips were actually drawn by a real seven year old. If I remember correctly he was trying to borrow his sister’s ellipse guide to get the kids melon shaped heads correct.
Bil Keane, who was still living at the time, had a good sense of humor about it. Shortly thereafter there was a Family Circus cartoon where a perturbed and a obviously annoyed Billy is sitting at his drawing table while Dolly tells him that Jason Fox is a lot better artist.
RIP David Clayton-Thomas, front man for Blood, Sweat and Tears. He was 84.
@Guillermo el chiclero: I have an ironclad rule that I never read the weeks that Billy is the guest artist. It’s not worth the time.
I don’t remember the Foxtrot strip you mentioned, but I appreciate that Bil Keane had a sense of humor about it.
Another ironclad rule is that I never read Non Sequitur the weeks with a Danae story. I can’t stand her and that horse.
@Guillermo el chiclero: There’ll be one child born in this world to carry on…
@Ukulele Ike: But even the Grateful Dead were influenced by disco on “Shakedown Street.”
Disco Stu has got the brews.
@UncleJeff: @Cheez Whiz: The record I so wish I had kept in 1976: “The Ethel Merman Disco Album”.
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“He thinks he’s the Bee Gees. War is hell.”
@Bryan: Shannon is more than old enough to be left “unsupervised” for half an hour in a house with adults in it.