Workshopping terms for friends of Elmo. “Frelmos?”
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Blondie, 7/4/26
On this, America’s most sacred fireworks-related holiday, not one but two comics did “people making fireworks noises with their mouths in lieu of setting off actual fireworks” jokes. One of them was Crock, which I’m not even going to bother inflicting on you; I kind of enjoy this one because it ends with at least the hint that Elmo and his little friend are going to come back with actual fireworks that they’re going to set off in the Bumsteads’ living room.
Beetle Bailey, 7/4/26
At least Beetle Bailey, the strip about America’s military, takes a properly patriotic tone! Oh, wait, what’s that you say? They actually did a joke about the grim reality of the physical abuse of low-ranking enlisted men by their superiors? Hmm. Hmm!
Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/4/26
Rex Morgan, M.D., meanwhile, doesn’t have time to celebrate. It’s focusing its patriotism on improving America by targeting and revealing the scammers that bedevil us all. Or the one scammer who’s doing that, anyway. A lot of commenters were like “These ladies are somehow going to end up both being Rene Belluso,” and I was like “Ha ha, very funny, but that can’t be right,” and they’re not, but they almost certainly are his nieces, given that we learned a couple years ago that Jimmy was Rene’s actual name. Anyway, I gotta say that “pretending to play your violin so people give you spare change” is not anywhere near as impressive as “running a scam self-help cult that ends up actually helping people” but you gotta start somewhere, I guess!
131 replies to “Workshopping terms for friends of Elmo. “Frelmos?””
Pretty lame vaguery, Elmo. “Happy 4th?” Fourth what? Dose of Ritalin you’ve skipped? Beer stolen from your parents? Home you’ve invaded today? Disgraceful, just disgraceful.
Blondie: “Friends of Elmo”, plural? Let’s wait until a second friend of Elmo’s shows up before we waste energy on this matter.
FC: Thel, the little jerks are sticking in one place and keeping their mouths shut. There will be plenty of screaming and screeching later; don’t spoil this time off.
Blondie-And that’s how Elmo detonated a nuke.
MW-Let’s talk about your exes, Wilbur.
FC-“What? No. We’re doing the famous pose of ‘See Nothing, Hear Nothing, Speak Nothing, Know Nothing’.”
Crankshaft-“What are we all doing here? Is this a Pied Piper thing?”
RMMD:
“Let’s the two of us do a topical ditty to celebrate the fact that we took in twice the amount of tips as we did the day before!
“Double your pleasure
Double your sum
With Doublemint, Doublemint
Doublemint scum!”
Family Circus: Who stole Jeffy’s nostril? Was it that darned Barfy?
MW: “Speaking of exes, Dad, remember when you let a homicidal maniac live with us and ignored my concerns until your precious goldfish was threatened?”
RMMD: Is every member of the Belluso family destined for ineffectual villainy, or is the Snidely Whiplash gene recessive and only presents in an unlucky few?
MW: The real fireworks are the petty bursts of emotional attacks in Wilbur’s domicile.
Did every comic blow off the semiquincentennial? Even Hi & Lois, which is doing a whole week about it, didn’t really acknowledge the big day as such. I wasn’t expecting a repeat of last year but I was expecting some acknowledgment that it’s not just an ordinary Fourth of July.
Wow, the Walker Co. so clearly forgot it was gonna be the 4th of July when this ran, I kinda love it.
“Shit, what do we do? Can we draw an Uncle Sam hat on Killer real quick? Some fireworks out the window?”
“How about the tiniest ‘Happy 4th?’ imaginable?”
“But 4th what? Be specific man! Tee time’s in 20 minutes!”
Blondie:
Who lets these little messengers of the devil into the house to annoy Dagwood, anyway? Blondie? Cookie? The rarely-seen Alexander?
Mary Worth: Oh no you di-int, Wilbur! Cue the montage of the Colombian Giantess, the Crazy-Eyed Floridian, and the others.
They’re “visiting” Uncle Jimmy, nobody uses that word unless jail or a hospital is involved. Is he STILL in that bed? Is he “the best” at consuming solid food yet?
RMMD:
“We’re twenty-somethings, each of whom has an unfettered ability to make our own couture choices, and here we are dressed absolutely identically. But we’re not dorks or anything!”
MW: “Oh yeah, dad. What about some of your old girlfriends…like…like…Hey, wait a minute. Iris is Tommy’s mom.”
Kudos to Blondie for not going with the very dated: “Let’s put a cap in his ass.”
MW:
“Why isn’t Mary Worth present in her eponymous strip today, what with today being such a momentous occasion, Dad?”
“She’s off touting the adult incontinence underwear that the readership is always joking about her sporting.”
“No. Don’t say it, Dad.”
“Yep. It’s her Declaration of ‘In Depends‘-ence!”
Blondie: /pulls out baggie of white powder/ “This should have enough ‘kick’ to make us loud enough to wake up Mr B!”
BB: “It took 3 hours of drinking before he even let me go to the hospital! I nearly passed out from the pain! Funny, huh?”
RMMD: Jeez, these two are a wire-tapper’s dream come true. Any more details you’d like to drop about your ongoing scam, ladies? Maybe remind each other of Uncle Jimmy’s address and phone number, and reminisce about some other crimes you’ve done with him?
@matt w: As far as I can tell, the comics are following the lead of pretty much everything else. It’s a huge contrast with the Bicentennial, if you’re old enough to remember that. I did notice yesterday Coke has special red-white-and-blue “USA” cans — but they’re for the FIFA cup.
BLONDIE: An alarmingly large amount of so-called humor is based on the fact that people don’t lock their doors.
MW: “Which Weston made dumber relationship choices?” can join the known list of Impossible Questions.
RMMD: *Cue sinister music*
@Ken: I’m just old enough to remember the Bicentennial being a huge deal, yeah. And its not being triple-digit temperatures anywhere in the Northeast. (Only in the 80s up here in Vermont, which is plenty bad in my house without central air–and an air quality alert with “patchy smoke” because of fires in Canada, which sounds about right.)
Well, at least Family Circus celebrated by not only acknowledging the holiday but giving Thel one of her rare speaking lines.
Blondie: Elmo and Generic Child Character setting off fireworks inside Dagwood’s house as he tries to sleep would’ve been much funnier as the primary focus of the this installment, rather than merely it’s imagined punchline. At least that way we could imagine a significant chunk of the Blondie cast dying horribly in an explosive inferno.
Beetle Bailey: I don’t see why a broken arm is a big deal for Beetle, it’ll just magically heal Looney Tunes-style between strips like every other injury in this comic.
Rex Morgan: God, as if this plot hasn’t been weird and vaguely creepy enough, we’re now seriously going down the route of “scammers aren’t just evil, they spread their unholy taint to their relatives”. Soon Beatty will be dedicating entire strips to calling for con-artists to be rounded up and placed on reservations and their children sent to residential schools to “kill the scam, save the man”.
CS as noted, the culmination is Dinkle playing his father’s magnum opus in public… solo on a trumpet. A piece supposedly written for a whole Big Band. Maybe the band didn’t quit because the crowds dwindled but in frustration because that’s either a terrible piece with no role for anything other than a showboating trumpet, or a terrible one with each instrument – no matter its strengths – playing the same dang notes.
MT Paging Fashion Police… paging Fashion Police… we need a ruling on a so-called tuxedo in Mark Trail!
MW Dawn desperately tries to overcome the Worthiverse Conditioning, tugging her head, shaking it to try to get her mouth to form the words that will brutally compare her relationship choices with her Specialest Quirky dad’s homicidal and scambait exes, but she just… can’t… quite… tears of frustration from in her eyes as all she can do is get the smallest scowl to appear…
Spotting AI fun: last night on public radio before announcing the music, hot told us it was 15° but wind chill was -3°. Was he talking Celsius, was his a repeat show, or has AI taken over public radio too? You decide.
Fun Fact 2: my town has healed so much that even on July 4 at 1am, there were no firecrackers, gun shots, or screaming sirens of police, firetrucks, or ambulances! Is this healthy, or a sign our spirits have died? You decide..
CS: on Sunday we will be treated to premiere of Larry’s masterpiece. And Harry will put his troubled memory to rest.
yLUANN: Never heard terms file fold or military roll, but I know what Ox means. Love his and Bee’s casual conversation — hope Team Evans doesn’t put a romantic spin on it.
BETTY: Peeking at lurid eye magnets does NOT mean she approves.
BF: see comments for BETTY. Cursed distractions.
JP: we’re drawing horses.. and I alone am doing Bailey. Or else.
RHYMES wO: don’t you just hate it when younguns try to take your freedom under cloak of “protection”?
RMMD: I’m hoping Rene Belluso (I think we all agree Josh is right about “Jimmy”) has been badly injured in one of his scams. Now, unable to leave his wheelchair, he has turned the two girls into his instruments of vengance against his nemeses, the hated Morgan family and their little dog too! “Yes, yes,” he gurgles, “today you nearly got them to give you 39 cents. My plan is coming together perfectly!“
Murky Tail:
“You called me dad! I suppose it’s time I told you, you’re adopted.”
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Wrecks Moregone:
Uncle Jimmy’s the best…….at getting caught!
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Wrecks Moregone II:
It seems low stakes enough to be a Belluso scam.
A high level scammer might, instead, pretend to have a medical degree, open a nursing home, and have a comic strip named after him in which he hardly ever needs to appear.
@MKay: Once you get down to it, I don’t think it’s actually that hard, Wilbur is MUCH stupider than Dawn on just about every level, especially relationships. Like, for the crap we give Dawn, her idiocy really tends to boil down to her having shit taste in men and while Moy likes to delude herself otherwise, Dawn probably wouldn’t be blamed for most of her breakups in real life (e.g., Jared).
Wilbur, on the other hand, is directly at fault for every single breakup or relationship drama we’ve seen from him (with the exception of Dawn’s mother… pointedly from BEFORE Moy wrote the strip, back when Wilbur was a normal person instead of what he is now), and his antics are baffling and usually vaguely horrifying, like faking his death or obsessively stalking his ex after she dumped him.
@Bob Tice: That’s just what twins are often like, to be honest.
@Bob Tice: Yeah, that’s something that’s always weirded me out about Elmo in this comic. Like, why is this random kid in the neighborhood so obsessed with Dagwood and how does he keep getting into Dagwood’s house? It’s not like Dennis the Menace, where the Wilsons are clearly family friends of the Mitchells and Mrs. Wilson babysits Dennis regularly; there’s no indication that anybody wants Elmo around or that Dagwood and Blondie even know his parents personally. It’s so bizarre.
@MKay:
Similar to personal birthdays, the older you get the less it is celebrated. Also, it’s tainted with…well… you can figure it out.
As always, Arlo & Janis nails it.
Mary Worth:
When in the course of subhuman events….
MW: Seeing these two mental giants snarl at each other, I can’t help but think of the words of Htom Sirveaux: ‘Perhaps booze would alleviate this situation!’
Ph: And here comes the ‘zappy zappy’ and the napalm and the ‘noble’ death of these spear-wielding ‘noble savages’. Surely their involvement with the masked white vigilante has only brought peace and joy to these people!
S4th: Uh, what now? They aren’t in one of the last line of fake wood-paneled station wagons? Their little fugue state gave them the frikkin’ GADGETMOBILE????
DT: Psst! Sam! Child labor laws are being rolled back across the country! You can still get out of this!!
JP: Be careful Sophie, this is a test. The hardest animals to draw are horses and dogs. The easiest is a monster because a monster can look like anything, but most people know what a horse and dog look like. Charlotte is watching you.
Flash: All the recent fighting and head bopping has left Flash addled. Why is he fighting everyone? Does he have to prove how tough he is? Is he having problems with Dale?
Mary Worth: This should be good – an excellent opening thrust by Dawn. Wilbur’s predicted response: Dawn, I’m a self centered nincompoop, that is my charm. You have to find your own niche in life.
Rex Morgan MD: Wasn’t Saul Goodman’s real name Jimmy… coincidence?!
RMMD: The only suspense left is a) which sit-down restaurant (the diner) and b) when June recognizes them, will she be stealthy or make a scene.
@treetown: Beatty hates the Breaking Bad universe, does he?
RMMD: The violin music may be prerecorded, but the people are still giving of their own volition with no expectations of receiving anything in return. Is that even a scam, or is that just panhandling?
The only way this counts as a scam is if Glenwood had strict anti-panhandling laws, but still issues busking licenses. That’s an unlikely combo of local laws to have, and even if so, the clerk at Town Hall who issues the license is the only real “sucker” here.
Unless you count them lying about their hardship on their cardboard sign? But if Uncle Jimmy is still in that hospital bed, they may technically be telling the truth about hospital bills.
Pluggers It’s nothing to me, I’m Canadian, but aren’t Americans supposed to treat their flag with, some, you know, respect?
RMMD – “It’s a good thing there are two of us, so we can recite plot exposition to each other!” “Yeah. Absolutely.”
Don Abundio, translated:
[Sign: RARE BIRDS]
“Come on, Admiral”
“But that bird creeps me out!”
“Don’t be a coward…”
“A bird can’t really steal your soul”
On Monday we learn that Dinkle’s composition was intended to be played by 30-piece, all-kazoo orchestra. Clearly, the booze had taken it’s toll.
@James: 30-piece, all-kazoo orchestra
Mr. Dinkle, I knew Spike Jones. Spike Jones was a friend of mine. And you, sir, are no Spike Jones.
Blondie: I like that Dagwood is concerned in panel three … but not concerned enough to actually get off the couch.
BB: What do you do if you’re the author of a long-lived military comic strip and you realize way too late that the strip that is running on America’s 250th birthday is (a) not patriotic at all, and (b) deeply upsetting in its implications? You scrawl “HAPPY 4TH!” on the wall in the background. There! Problem solved!
RMMD: Oh, these scheming, evil young people — planning to visit a relative, talking about that relative in glowing terms. Is there any sin too heinous for them to commit?
Blondie: This strip would be much funnier without Dagwood’s thought bubbles revealing he’s not asleep. Although I guess that would leave it open to the interpretation that he just died on the couch and now the weird boy who lives next door is going to give him a makeshift Viking funeral by exploding his corpse.
Is Rene Belluso the Biff Tannen of the Rex Morgan franchise?
By which only he (and various relatives) can be the villains.
No matter where in time Marty goes.
Ancient Rome, the far-flung future, the roaring 30’s, the Wild West, there is ALWAYS a Tannen there to deal with.
@matt w: They are all holding off for Sunday.
More room to draw Walt Wallet in his Uncle Sam costume (without his attendant).
Or the cartoonists all watched the Great American State Fair On TV and decided “well, if they don’t care, why should I?”
If Mary Worth spends the next week with the Westons throwing bad exes at each other, culminating with Belle trying to murder Dawn, I’d be down for that.
S4th Commenters at CK are debating the model of car Ted is driving. Dodge Omni? Get your opinion in now!
FG: For my money, Flash Gordon has the best 4th of July strip, and they didn’t even need to name drop the holiday.
@Joe Blevins re: Beetle Bailey: It’s possible that the cartoonist didn’t remember at all and it was an editor who arranged to pop in that July 4th message…No, wait, there’s been no sign of an editor at Comics Kingdom for years, never mind.
Pluggers: Are all in on desecrating the flag.
RMMD (in my head, I always pronounce this as “Rammed”): Mr. Beatty, please show on this doll where the bad scam artists hurt you.
FG: So, if he doesn’t get his butt royally kicked, instead, Flash physically beating up a Queen and pissing off her subjects will accomplish what, exactly?
FC – Thel’s tiny waist is amazing. Scarlett O’Hara would call her doctor for 0zempic if she saw Thel.
Rex Morgan – We can dismiss the suspicion that these scammers are Polly and Lolly. The scammers have an Uncle Jimmy. And chins.
Crankshaft – If there’s a Pulitzer for self indulgent, self consciously glurgey bullshit, Batiuk is a lock.
JP – Charlotte’s going for a contract to draw horsie pictures for a museum book. It worked for Sarah Morgan.
Mary Worth – If Dawn returns the low blow and gets personal on Wilbur, I might forgive Moy for some of this half baked story.
Ripley’s – A crummy commercial.
Beetle Bailey – Physical assault. Happy Fourth.
@Schroduck:
now the weird boy who lives next door is going to give him a makeshift Viking funeral by exploding his corpse
Kinda like the beach whale with everyone running for cover from falling Dag bits.
JP: “We’re drawing horses.” Well, that’s a surprise. I always figured Sarah Morgan for the Ring girl.
@Guy Nerdlinger: sounds like a job for DavesCarIDService (: not really, he only does real photos)
Scientists have not yet discovered what era Blondie takes place in, but I’ve always assumed Dagwood and his people possessed door-locking technology.
Until now. And all those times Elmo walked into the Bumsteads ‘ bathroom.
@Rube: If I didn’t see that actual shirt design at the start-the-party-early town music/ carnival event yesterday, I saw its fraternal twin. From what I understand, it’s against US flag code to take an *actual* flag, cut it up and sew it into clothes, but putting the proper representation into clothing design is fine. It’s clearly widely socially accepted.
@pugfuggly: Re RMMD – Reminds me of the Far Side comic with the gangster telling the gang the address and having them repeat it over and over, with a parrot in a cage in the room.
@Little Guy: The scam twins are idiots if they don’t leave town right away. It’s an amateur move, not to mention stupid, to eat at a restaurant in a town where they were just begging for money because they’re destitute. If any other diners recognize them, their scheme could fall apart. At the very least, they can forget about begging in the same town the next day.
FC:
Thel: “The fireworks won’t start until it’s dark.”
“Oh, yeah.” Says a leering Bil.
Look at Elmo teaching his friend you can just walk into someone’s house to scare them. It’s okay that the kid is left nameless for now, we’ll all learn it soon enough from the tragic news stories after he tries this in the wrong house.
***
The joke’s even funnier if you picture Beetle at the bar for several hours nursing his badly injured arm while pretending to laugh at his abusive sergeant’s jokes. (Happy 4th!)
***
It’s July 4th and this comic takes place in the United States. They missed the perfect opportunity to do a subtle holiday joke and call him “Uncle Scam”. Oh well, they can make up for it by revealing that those are wigs and the entire Belluso family is bald.
H&L: 1. Where did the kids get the junior park ranger outfits? 2. Where’s the idiot tourist standing wayyyy too close to the wildlife?
BG&SS *sigh* The easy way out for a July 4th strip. On brand though.
Blondie I’d going with Elmorites.
O/T: Boingboing.net forwards a story about National Treasure Weird Al Yankovic backing out of a commercial for an artificial intelligence company/product. No AI for Al!
FC: Normally I’d question why Thel is so dressed up for a holiday that usually involves outdoor activities and casual wear but since that dress that looks like she spray-painted it on to accentuate her sweater puppies I’ll just give it a thumbs up.
@Rube: Abbie Hoffman was arrested in August, 1968 at the New York Stock Exchange for wearing a shirt with a U.S. flag pattern. (And for throwing money off the balcony.) Like most everything else in the USA, it depends on who you are and what you’re up to. If you’re Yippies invading Wall Street, it’s off to the pokey with you.
@Guy Nerdlinger: 1986 Dodge Charger. Or a Plymouth Turismo. Same thing.
Dick Tracy:
“Hey, Tracy! — breaking news from the World Cup! Someone SCORED in a match!”
BLONDIE: So did they just PRETEND to set off fireworks in the first panel? Talk about a missed opportunity. The last panel should have depicted a blackened, smoking hole where the living room carpet once was, with pieces of spent fireworks strewn about.
BB: What better way for a sergeant to celebrate America’s 250th than by physically assaulting a private who (quite understandably) doesn’t want to go to the bar with him?
RMMD: The twins are gonna wind up on News of the Weird’s “Least Competent Criminals” column.
FG: This is essentially a ruse Flash cooked up to get Fria to sit on his face. “It is his one weakness, O Queen!”
DT: “Just reminding you I have a WIFE. And DAUGHTERS. With SHIKSA names!”
”I noticed. Isn’t Joan, like, one of the most famous saints?”
9CL: I may vomit.
Dustin: Heh. His talleywhacker went limp, metaphorically.
6Chx: I may vomit.
GT: Nice work, guest artist! That is one fine post-apocalyptic dystopia!
Blondie: This “friend” normally wouldn’t hang out with Elmo, a semi-geeky kid who’s shunned by the cooler boys in class, but he’s intrigued by the idea that somehow it’s actually okay to trespass into a strange adult’s home and do whatever they want. Sure, right now it’s just yelling fireworks sounds at a guy who’s trying to grab a little extra sleep on a weekend morning, but the next step might be cherry bombs in the bathroom and bottle rockets in the living room. He’s a little worried about the fact that Elmo’s wearing a matching black shirt and hat — could this guy be a little too much into the pyrotechnics? But the chance to see some ‘splosions is more than any boy can resist, and if it means a stint in juvey, well, those are the risks you have to take.
RMMD:
Meanwhile, oblivious Mud and Truck fret that “Taylor and Travis,” about whom they’ve just heard, are a newly-formed competing roots country act.
@Hibbleton: Reminds me of one of my favorite Simpsons gags.
Archie – Their next risible flight of whimsy will be about a device you can carry in your pocket that lets you watch an endless selection of short videos.
@Victor Von:
#51. BLONDIE: even adults less eccentric than Dag enjoy childish pranks. I’m pretty sure he actually enjoys Elmo and friends. Oh, and if he wisely did lock door, he’d be sure to give his little buddy a key.
Wait, _Uncle_ Jimmy? If “Jimmy” is Rene, that means Rene had at least one sibling, and that sibling managed to reproduce! Also, depending on how reproductively successful the befuddled Lyle Ollman was, there is significant cash from the “Mirakle Method” for his heirs, which just might be these scamming evil twins/mother-daughter jazz combo.
Just how deprave are these scammers? Twins or similar looking mother/daughter, there’s got to be a good deal more cash in satisfying old rich guy’s weird sexual desires than in violin-synching down at the Glenwood Kroger.
@I speak Jive: 53- Simple idiocy still places these two in the far upper percentile of the population of Glenwood. They’d probably do even better in Santa Royale, given the Westonian factor.
@Ukulele Ike: #57: When liberal Colorado congresswoman Pat Schroeder wrapped a US flag around her shoulders the right wingers howled, but it was OK for a post fight Rocky Balboa to wrap one around his profusely sweating body after he beat the big Russian.
BTW: Were mobs of crazed looters pillaging Brooklyn this weekend while the entire NYPD was at Madison Square doing security for the Swift-Kelce wedding?
I didn’t know Evil Keneval was a Plugger!
@Peanut Gallery: Shoot, I thought that was going to be Homer throwing the giant firecracker in the dishwasher. No matter how many times I watch that scene, it never fails to make me laugh.
@GarrisonSkunk:
*Evel Knievel
RMMD: Uncle Scam
@Guillermo el chiclero: “Real feel” over 100 degrees for the past five days. Too hot to loot.
I’ve just been sitting inside looking at the back door neighbors through a telephoto lens. I think that big guy who looks like Perry Mason killed his wife and cut her up.
Curtis: The background panels visually depict the consequences of Curtis’s winning the hot dog eating contest.
Crank: Just out of curiosity, should we know who any of these people are besides Lillian and Ed? I’d add “and why they’re here” but we don’t even get an answer to that question for Ed (Lillian sort of makes sense, given the tangiable connection to that time she ruined her sister’s life).
JP: “School’s out for summer. Based on how storylines around here tend to go, it may well be out forever and blown to peices before September!”
Phantom: “Wait,” thinks Vindicta, “I spent a fortune and my self-proclaimed genius on an AI-modelled, drone-powered prison escape, in order to get past a couple of guys with spears? Did I overthink this?”
Blondie:
We’ve all become inured to Elmo, a small child who is not related to Dagwood in any way and whose parents are never seen, hanging out with Dagwood, frequently even wandering into his house uninvited when Dagwood is trying to sleep. (The fact that the agency in this relationship resides entirely with Elmo creates a sort of adult-child power imbalance that Humbert Humbert only wishes he could justify himself with.) But today we see a disturbing development as a second, presumably equally unrelated, child begins to accompany Elmo in his pilgrimages to see Dagwood. I’m concerned that this cult is going to start growing exponentially and ensnare all the children in the world in short order, but I’m not sure how to prevent it, considering Dagwood is apparently unwilling to take even simple preventative measures like locking his door despite knowing they’re going to come back and bother him.
Mary Worth:
(Sorry, I’ve been sitting on this for weeks)
Dawn: Tommy has Changed!
Wilbur: That’s impossible. Tommy is a console gamer.
Dawn: Didn’t you see his Puro keychain?
Wilbur: Doesn’t mean anything. Everybody has a Puro PFP. Probably mistook it for King.
And then it turns out Dawn has been stuck in the very first room of “Changed” since it released.
@matt w: There was one strip I read that mentioned it was the 250th — Hägar the Horrible, which at this point is probably best understood as a strip about a family of really dedicated LARPers.
@Lauralot: Apparently the latter, since Ollman the Old Man, the kindly and idealistic real inventor of the Mirakle Method, is Rene/Jimmy’s uncle, and Rene comments on how annoyingly nice the whole family is. He doesn‘t say “Except the twins, they have potential” because
Beatty hadn’t pulled that out of his ass yethe didn’t want to tip his hand.@Baja Gaijin:
Ida Know
@Human-eared Dragon: I’m torn between respect for a niche joke and being upset that you’re making me think about Mary Worth and latex fetishism together.
Blondie: They just need someone to put a boot in Dagwood’s ass, but where will they find Mr. Dithers on a Saturday?
RMMD: Uncle Jimmy. So the hidden bad guy isn’t Rene Belluso. Unless he’s changed his name. Or fooled these two into thinking they’re his nieces. Or is building a small army of robots like Harcourt Fenton Mudd.
@Horace Broon: Vindicta is funded by the US government through Trump’s CIA; he doesn’t give a damn how much money he spends. He could have sent two agents armed with handguns (hell, baseball bats) who would have been perfectly capable of overpowering guards with spears, but where’s the fun in that?
C-Shaft: No one’s talking. Best Crankshaft ever.
DT: “Not that I’ve been pulling your kids’ school records as part of a larger project of stalking you, ha-ha!”
Dustin: It’s a good thing that the fireworks are duds or else Dustin might have lost some fingers, and he’s going to need all of them.
JP: Slowly back away from the paper and crayons, Charlotte. Drawing horsies is Sara Morgan’s thing, and you don’t know how close to the edge she is. Plus, her mother is already teaching her to hate and distrust redheads.
Luann: For a second it looked like Ox was going to ask the potentially awkward question of whether Puddles is dead.
MT: The great thing about Happy’s wedding outfit is that he can reuse it later on when he opens a chocolate factory with a bunch of singing midgets.
MW: I refuse to believe that even a sad sack like Wilbur thinks about or cares where Dirk is.
MG&G: France was the chief foreign ally of the nascent American republic during its War for Independence from Britain. So maybe pick another day to insult their cuisine what do you say.
@Liam: #3:
“Is this a Pied Piper thing?”
Only if he marches the entire cast of the Funkyverse like lemmings into Lake Chippewa to drown.
@I speak Jive:
Re: Family Circus — Thel really needs to dial back on the corset training.
@Vulpes: Humbert Humbert? Oh come now. There’s no need to go that dark. The Occam’s razor explanation is that the Bumsteads’ home was owned by a man who killed himself and his entire family, and that Elmo is the restless spirit of his eldest child. See? Perfectly innocent.
It’s kind of fascinating that Dagwood decides he’ll pretend to be asleep after he completely fails to respond to the kids yelling behind him. What was the real reason he didn’t move? Is he finally starting to suffer gastrointestinal consequences for eating sandwiches with six pounds of meat, or is he too depressed to care, or what?
My suggestion for friends of Elmo …….. El-bros, or is that too Mark Trailish?
@GarrisonSkunk: Made me grin anyway.
The Familliar Mucus: I see Thel had her pouch done and moved over to her hip.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: @GarrisonSkunk: Made me grin anyway
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Thanks.
@Human-eared Dragon: Wilbur: That’s impossible. Tommy is a console gamer.
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“You haven’t been in his Roxx™brand sex chair,Dawn,have you?”
@Anonymous: Thel had several yards of lower intestine removed surgically. She also had her kidneys moved to her butt.
@Vulpes:
Aw, thanks.
I imagine the monsters from that game would be too repulsed by the cast of Mary Worth.
@80 Liam: Heh heh heh.
Late Thread Cuisine: What a classy chafing dish. Too bad for its contents.
Sorry, that last post lost my ID.
MW:
“Dad, he’s a veritable Joey Chestnut! — he ate the contents of 66 stacked cans in ten minutes!”
@matt w: Did every comic blow off the semiquincentennial?
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Frazzhole celebrated by having Caulfield and Frazzhole talk behind the backs of July 4th celebrants in general.
Curtis, panel 2.
“Christ, what an asshole!”
Blondie – If you want to break Dagwood’s will, you don’t use actual firecrackers, you use “firecracker chicken” with a spicy sauce. Dagwood’s midnight snacks show he favors food over sleep when he’s not in a food coma.
Beetle Bailey – Beetle could legitimately sleep though World War III, and is not as food motivated as Dagwood. Physical torture will get his attention, but thankfully for America he’s too low status to have any information our enemies could use.
Rex Morgan, MD – My prediction is this scam ends of a reverse Music Man, where instead of screwing over people, it engenders a true love of music and creativity among the community.
How will this impact the roots country scene based out of the Glenwood Motel? With Mae Mae putting the town on Hollywood’s radar, and a fresh infusion of musical ideas, the city of Glenwood will be the center of a new scene for a few glorious years.
However, after that it will become a gentrified haven like Nashville, where the real roots musicians will be pushed out by high prices and social pressures to create “safe” country music that can be played on the radio. If Taylor Swift and her husband Travis come to town and so much as glance at a For Sale sign, you know it’s over.
@Baja Gaijin: Cuisine – Imagine going to dinner at someone’s house and being served barf.
Oh, I don’t know — looks a bit like MW’s Zach’s favorite meal of hamburger gravy over white rice.
Corned beef hash looks like a dish of barf with a couple of fried or poached eggs laid on top. Tastes delightful. If you like corned beef hash.
Frazz: This illustrates the problem of just using whatever character as your authorial mouthpiece. You wind up with an elementary schooler in the Year of Our Lord 2026 bemoaning the loss of lawn darts.
Luann: The Evanses wanted to mark the occasion, but they’ll be damned if they’re going to interrupt this gripping storyline for it.
Rex Morgan: Can’t help but feel like those women could do a *lot* better just by posting videos online of themselves gloating. That’s a thing, right? It’s probably a thing, and if it’s not then two pretty twins could make it a thing. Call it gloat ASMR and watch the money roll in.
@Philip: #103: Taylor and Travis were already looking at some property in Chagrin Falls, Ohio (Tim Conway’s home town) but that place has always been pricey.
@Horace Broon: #77: re-CS: They needed the younger people in the group to hack through the thick underbrush surrounding the ballroom’s burned out ruins.
BTW: A large part of the old amusement park grounds are now a public park owned by Medina County but the ballroom ruins are still off limits. Dinkle and crew are trespassing.
Blondie: “Ka-blooey”? Has Elmo been visiting the DeGroots’ kafe?
@103 Philip: on Blondie: If you want to break Dagwood’s will, you don’t use actual firecracker chicken with a spicy sauce, you use firecracker “chik’n” with bland sauce in a firecracker chicken box. Imagine his surprise and disgust when he take the first disappointing bite.
@104 I speak Jive: Did you notice the slug crawling across the orange slice? Maybe it was included to distract from the vomit-filled casserole dish.
@105 Ukulele Ike: True. It’s a fairly standard mid-century casserole based on cream of something soup. The food stylist should have made it look, I dunno, less chunderific.
@Baja Gaijin: I did notice the slug. I don’t know if it was a distraction – it could be trying to get as far away as possible from the casserole.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
I always associate Chagrin Falls with Bill Watterson, so now I imagine Taylor buying up and landscaping the wild woods where Calvin and Hobbes had their philosophical discussions while riding a wagon or toboggan at dangerous speeds on paths they blazed.
@The Quiet Man: That one’s also good!
@Guillermo el chiclero: Huh. Taylor Swift WISHES she could be as beloved an entertainer as Tim Conway.
@Andrew Millar: It is a thing. With the more “stupid” criminals who literally post stuff on Youtube and Tiktok.
Like footage of them holding wads of money “Look what I just stole!”
@Ukulele Ike: You mean the guy whose movies have mostly faded into obscurity and whose career only truly peaked in his senior years doing voices on Spongebob alongside Ernest Borgnine?
(I did love “The Private Eyes”, for the record, as stupid and hokey as it was)
(Removed a comment)
I felt that I was being too harsh on Tim Conway.
@Baja Gaijin:
I have had enough “bad” Stroganoff to know that there is truly no such thing.
Monty: The colorist really fell down on this one. For the joke to work, the guy in the third panel needs to be bright orange.
https://www.gocomics.com/monty
@Ukulele Ike: I just had a comment disappear, and I don’t know why. Wait – I do know.
I remember Tim Conway from his McHale’s Navy days, but his time with the Carol Burnett Show was genius.
The dentist skit with H@rvey Korman gets the most love, but my favorite is his elephant story. I’ve watched the video dozens of times, and I laugh out loud every time.
@A Grave Mind: Really. Like pizza. Or sex. How can you mess up an onion/mushroom sour cream sauce, seared steak, and a big bowl of boiled kasha? (by adding too much sour cream and making it gloppy. Don’t do that.)
@I speak Jive: Those two are among the greatest, but I have a special affection for Mr. F. Bunny, Esq., Attorney-at-Law. Burnett’s reactions are even funnier than Conway, and it must be extremely difficult to steal a comedy scene from a man dressed as a bunny rabbit.
I believe Elmo evolved from a similar character named Alvin who was one of Alexander’s friends and Mr Dithers’ son, and as such had carte blanche to both enter the Bumstead home and physically abuse Dagwood at will. I guess the new writers just figured it was easier to make a clone character that inexplicably had those rights instead of creating a new adult character for Dag to interact with.
@Ukulele Ike: #122: My favorite part of the Mr. Bunny sketch is when he starts nibbling on the potted plants.
@The Rambling Otter: I felt that I was being too harsh on Tim Conway.
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One nice thing about Conway,he had a good humor about himself and his career, his vanity licence plate was 13WKS, reflecting the average amount of time his attempted sitcoms would last before being cancelled.
Fucking Tim Conway lured Ghoulardi away from Cleveland to the bright lights of Hollywood in 1966, promising the star appeal of Ensign Parker in McHale’s Navy.
Ernie Anderson ended up with a semi-lucrative gig as the voice-over for the Carol Burnett Show and The Love Boat and The Powerpuff Girls, which afforded him an income to play golf and drink a lot of martinis, which seemed to be his goal in life. Died in 1997.
I can appreciate the brilliance of his comedic bits on the Carol Burnett Show, but some of us can never forgive him for playing someone with a Parkinsonian gait for laughs. If you don’t understand this, you’re lucky. And you might come to understand at some point in the future.
Blondie: It’s disturbing enough when you imagine that Dagwood lets Elmo and his friend into his home to “hang out”. But even weirder and more confusing when Dagwood is sleeping (or trying to) and Elmo just shows up. Does he just let himself in? And brings his friend along, I guess? Because I can’t imagine anyone else letting him in. What would he say to Blondie? Hey Mrs. Bumstead, can my friend and I come in and wander about your home?
Somebody on my fb feed posted the OG “people making fireworks noises with their mouths in lieu of setting off actual fireworks” comic (Pogo, with Rackety Coon Chile saying “BANG!” and Porky Pine and Churchy reacting), and it was beautiful.
Mary Worth – I suppose a quote from Ben Franklin is in keeping with the mood of the weekend, but really, couldn’t this have just been “. . . but fuck one chicken . . ?”
Late to the party, but it has to be “Elmigos”.