You must remember this. Or not, see if I care
Post Content
Judge Parker, 8/22/26
Hey, remember how Neddy was freaking out because April, or maybe a fake April, was coming to violently drag Charlotte off into her world of intrigue and spycraft? Well, let’s check in on how that exciting story is goi– oh, what’s that you say? It’s endless boring emotional processing, as predicted? Ah well. Let’s check back a few weeks from now, or maybe never.
Crankshaft, 8/22/26
Hey, remember how Crankshaft dragged Harry away in the middle of choir practice for some mysterious and very important reason? Well that reason was that Montoni’s, a place that Harry has visited before since he lives in Westview and everything in Westview revolves around Montoni’s for some god-forsaken reason, has a picture of Harry’s dad and his band on the wall, proving that Montoni had served mediocre Ohio-style pizza to not one but two generations of Dinkles. Harry never noticed the picture before because of his trauma, probably, but now that he’s made peace with the fact that his dad was a neglectful drunk, he apparently is happy to learn the extremely boring fact that his dad also bought pizza from the local pizza-making restaurant.
Dennis the Menace, 8/22/26
Look, I guess Monopoly is a game about business, sort of, but I don’t think Henry should’ve required Dennis to dress in business casual just to play it.
145 replies to “You must remember this. Or not, see if I care”
DtM:
“Next, Mr. Wilson wants to play ‘The Game of Life’ with me, because he says I’m destined for the Poor Farm!”
Crankshaft:
“This picture was taken just before Dad and his cohorts ingested psychotropic drugs, sprouted facial hair and long locks, and repurposed themselves as ‘The New Vaudeville Band’ !”
Judge Parker:
“Wait a minute! I can see from looking at your second-panel visage that you’re not ‘April’ at all — you’re one of the ‘Nelsons’ of After the Rain fame, aren’t you.”
DtM:
“The rents are frozen here, Mom! — is this supposed to be New York City?”
JP: The dialogue is “serious family discussion” but April’s expression looks a lot more like “jesus what is that smell..?”
CSh: Not at all the point, but why the how does trading band candy for pizza work? That’s not your candy, and that doesn’t raise any money for the band, you’re just getting yourself some free pizza. Funny how every time Harry reminisces about his dad, we find out another way he was a real piece of shit.
DtM: I love that Henry is pretending to sleep in the most unconvincing way possible: completely upright, head tilted just slightly forward. Funny that Dennis is smart enough not to fall for it, but not so much to grasp how stupid his dad thinks he is.
Dennis showboats his victory as he takes a sip from his long island iced tea.
Dennis the Menace : Alice’s expression is because she’s noticing that Dennis didn’t touch his drink, and OBVIOUSLY he didn’t, otherwise he’d be “pretending” to “sleep” like his father at this point!
DtM: Looks like they lost all the cards, deeds, and most of the money years ago. Probably a lot easier to win with whatever rules Dennis has made up.
CS – Harry never noticed the picture before because he wears his cap with the visor down over his eyes, Beetle Bailey style. Hell, this may be the first time he’s seen the interior of Montoni’s at all!
DtM – You win at Monopoly by being the first to make the pain end. Henry’s strategy worked well. Now if only he’d stop using it in those meetings about door plug design at work, we could all fly safer!
Murky Tail:
Alternatively, Violet can start eating the insects that the bats would eat. That way the balance of nature is maintained.
__________________________________________
Wary Morth:
Wilbur: “I’m so concerned about Dusk’s welfare that I raced her to the door to get away from Bats Bellefrey!”
__________________________________________
Wrecks Moregone:
“I have a job offer for you! A pig butchering scam centre is looking for a replacement for their top scammer, Trixie.”
“You said a replacement. But there are two of us.”
“Yes. So whichever of you manages to scam the other gets the job!”
MW –
WILBUR: “Tolerates my feedback”? Don’t you mean “values my opinion’?
MARY: You heard me.
Rex Morgan Mashup: Fill in Grandpa Lyle’s blank speech bubble.
MW: If we’re VERY lucky, Mary and Jeff will take Wilbur on their next Encapsulate Date, and we’ll get to see it!
H&L: It was bound to happen eventually; Hi is drunker than Thirsty.
GT: Gil can’t risk being across the pond in case they invent a new sport that he has to coach.
DtM: Do we doubt for a single minute that Dennis won by means that will someday land him in Federal prison?
If you look at the first panel it’s reeeeeeal obvious how the band photo was inserted after the fact. If I had any figs left to give about the Funkyverse, I’d try to dig up the original panel and see what was actually there. Luckily, I’m fresh out of figs.
@pugfuggly: JP – What do you expect? Manley’s got interesting problems to solve, like illustrating how Mollusk McGreyFace is going to get his ass kicked by the Phantom because he’s too busy arguing with a chatbot on his phone to notice the sudden appearance of heatmapped Phantom on the panopticon that surrounds him.
DTM: The Mitchells bought a vertical format TV so they could watch TikToks on the big screen.
@Austria:
On “obviously the Larry Dinkle picture was inserted into the flashback, but what was there originally?” :
a) Nothing. There was nothing there originally, and since that was an empty spot they could sneak the picture in, they took it.
b) There’s also the possibility that this isn’t even an actual panel from an old strip, but an entirely new one, drawn in the old style to sell the “that picture has ALWAYS been there” angle.
@Baja Gaijin:
“I’m instantaneously changing my haberdashery from a black sweater with buttons, paired with a green shirt, to a green sweater without buttons, paired with a white shirt! — can’t you two nimrods see that?!?”
Pluggers Mashup: I’m pretty sure this is what the plugger’s first word is.
@Baja Gaijin:
“I’m pointing my finger at the same thing that all baseball players point at when they circle the bases after hitting a home run. Whatever that ‘thing’ is.”
@19 Bob Tice: Damnit! I forgot to change his clothes. I’m so accustomed to Mary Worth–she has so few items in her wardrobe, I can copy-and-paste without having to worry about what she’s wearing.
@pugfuggly: This “band candy for pizza” swap works pretty easily. Next time Dinkle needs to feed the marching band, Montoni won’t charge him for x number of pizzas, with being whatever number of boxes Montoni got.
This scheme, of course, has several issues, like the inevitable falsifying of records, but it’s not totally deranged.
@Baja Gaijin:
I honestly actually thought that that’s the way he presented in the original strip — all of which is to say that it’s too early in the morning for me to have done the actual work of checking the original.
I’m sorry I missed this one for a Scrotal Award yesterday, from Roger M. Wilcox (one of us, I presume) on the Mudge Facebook site with the panel of Mary saying “Especially in these uncertain times.”:
Well said, Roger (or whoever you really are on here).
Rex Morgan Mashup, Bob Tice Edition
GT: Well this marriage is off to a shining start, what with all the light-hearted bickering that is not at all passive aggressive!
@Baja Gaijin:
Okay, one more. Then I have to turn my attention to class planning, because my semester starts next week:
“I’ve got an idea for a reality show podcast starring the two of you that will earn you legitimate dollars at your next destination: ‘Reform School Girls Gone Wild’ !”
Crankshaft:
We’ve seen Harry looking at this exact picture before—the only thing novel about it now is that’s it’s in Montoni’s and has a dedication. Based on this I suspect that the band went to Montoni’s exactly once, hated it, and gave them one of their many copies of the picture out of social obligation.
Crank: Is the photo supposed to initiate a “Do the Right Thing” moment which ends with Dinkle throwing a garbage can through Montoni’s window?
Has anyone ever played Monopoly to its conclusion? Recreationaly.
JP: “Just make sure that ‘bridge’ isn’t a rainbow one. Alan is easily triggered these days.” Pantomimes lifting a bottle and chugging.
“Dad says he gets to pick the next game. Mom, do you know what the Campaign for North Africa is?”
Apologies if someone has made this joke previously, but maybe Harry would have noticed the picture sooner had he not worn his band hat over his eyes all the time Beetle Bailey style.
CS – Joke’s on Montoni’s, the entire band HATED pizza with burning passion.
RMMD – “Girls, as boring as you’ve been for the past 60 years or so since we first saw you playing violin in a parking lot (or has it been longer?), you were about to do something dramatic. That is the biggest crime possible in this strip, so I’m here to stop you.”
@pugfuggly: Geez, give him a break. He originally tried trading band candy for sexual favors but then quickly learned that people wanted something far more digestible.
The Familiar Mucus: “……and you, dear sister, are like a human being with their brain turned off.”
@Everything Is Better With Monkeys?.: CS – Joke’s on Montoni’s, the entire band HATED pizza with burning passion.
___________________________
Works out fine, burned pizza is a Montoni specialty.
Can I get a lawyer here? Is Harry committing fraud in panel one? He can’t use band candy for personal expenses. Is that pizza intended for a one-pizza band pizza party?
@Bob Tice:
Wait, you’re a teacher? Or professor?
My gal—who loves your comments and teaches as well—will appreciate that.
Marvin: This joke about an adopted Asian baby is just borderline racist enough that I thought maybe it’d end the comic but then I remembered that nobody actually reads Marvin.
GT: Beth married a high school coach but still doesn’t understand how the school year works. Or pays.
Shoe: Get a room. You can stuff that salmon all night long!
C’shaft: Excuse me….*leaves, sounds of screaming, cursing, and throwing things, comes back* Sorry, just had to get that out of my system, anyway…
So, storytime. In my teenage years, my family often went to the local Applebee’s for dinner. One night on the way out of the restaurant, I glanced up at the decor honoring the local high school and stopped dead in my tracks from shock. When I came out, my parents asked why I suddenly decided to block the doorway.
“I…I think Dad’s picture is up there,” I explained.
My dad went back to look while rolling his eyes, thinking that I was pranking him and he’d see a picture of a monkey or something. But it was no prank, and I wasn’t mistaken–my dad’s high school yearbook photo had been put in the display, along with the kid whose picture was next to his and some stuff for the baseball team. Dad had in fact gone to that particular school, but never played baseball, so whoever did the display must have just taken a couple photos from an old yearbook at random. But we had a good laugh over the coincidence, and that place became known as “Dad’s Applebee’s” for as long as we lived in the area.
My point is, however stupid you think this situation is, I can assure you from personal experience that it is infinitely stupider. Dinkle has gone into this restaurant–not even a random chain location, but a well-established local restaurant seen as an institution by the community–for years, decades and never noticed his dad’s band picture among the decor? Nobody else who goes there noticed this picture, wondered if the name “Dinkle” was connected in any way to the weirdly autocratic marching band director, and asked him about it until after he trauma-dumped on his relationship with his dad to the regular cast? Montoni himself never said “Hey, I have a signed picture of your dad’s band!” when Harry came buy on his monthly fundraising call? This may be the biggest waste of a week’s worth of strips in Tom Batiuk’s career, and that is saying something.
JP: “How about I just snatch her off the playground and flee to Mexico instead?”
@brendancalling:
Yep. Law school. 22 years running!
@pugfuggly: Pizza is basically the lifeblood of high school extra-curricular activities, and the quality tends to take second place to the ability to buy 10-15 extra-large pies on a fixed budget. Montoni could help the band’s coffers a lot more buy donating pizza (or at least giving the band a generous discount), and maybe get some publicity in the bargain at band events. But Batiuk’s knowledge of band fundraising is limited to schlepping boxes of World’s Finest Chocolate door-to-door, and he’s decided he doesn’t need to dig any deeper than that.
DtM: Don’t know what 1950’s NeverNever-Land the Mitchell’s live in, but down here we’ve been under a heat advisory for a couple of weeks. If Dennis’s REAL menace is that he forces his parents to crank up the AC to keep him comfortable in this non-breathable outfit.
@Ukranazi Stepan: Reckless More-Goniffs: If it is, in fact possible to repeat the word “scam” to the point where it becomes a meaningless sound in the void, this strip will be the first to discover how.
@TheDiva:
On Crankshaft, and the improbability that Montoni having THAT picture on the wall this entire time without Harry ever noticing or knowing :
And remember, Montoni’s CLOSED DUE TO BANKRUPTCY at the end of Funky Winkerbean, with EVERYTHING INSIDE being auctioned off! Yeah, improbably enough, when Mopey Pete (actually the Pizza Box Monster) bought the restaurant back, everyone who had bought something at the auction brought it back, but…
@Anonymous: Today Marvin is only produced to underpin the greeting card line, and I’m not sure if THAT’S still a going concern.
Dustin: Frankly the idea of Dustdad expressing any tender emotion for his children–or anyone else–is what’s really absurd.
GT: Forget it, Beth. The honeymoon hasn’t even started and it’s already over.
MW: Panel one may be the most unattractive possible angle of Wilbur’s face, and that’s no small accomplishment.
RMMD: Grandpa Lyle is lucky–most people of the Doublemint Twins’ generation wouldn’t even bother answering the door, unless they were expecting an Amazon package.
Cranky: Tomorrow, Ed drags Harry to the oldest dive bar in town.
They also have a Wall of Shame (aka ‘do not serve’ display)
Blondie: given that he is in a constant semi squat I would expect Dagwood to have massive quads.
@Anonymous: I’m sure there’s some rational explanation involving supernatural janitors, time-traveling helmets, and the black hole that recently opened in Crankshaft’s back yard.
GT:
Gil: “In New Orleans, babe, you can finally earn your beads!”
Beth: “Don’t try to fool me. You’re planning a recruiting trip. For high school golf.”
Hagar: These women are dressed very modern. Are we sure Hagar and Lucky Eddie haven’t wandered into Dustin’s “Bar of Women With Standards”?
Crankshaft: It’s very clear Harry’s dad is not buying pizza; he’s bartering for it. Why? Well, based on Harry’s age, his father has probably just lived through Executive Order 6102 and the Gold Reserve Act. He’s preparing for a post-gold standard world. His shock in 1971 at the general acceptability of a full-blown fiat currency probably didn’t cause the drinking, but it sure didn’t help.
@Bob Tice: Are lawyers overrepresented on this site?
Dennis the Menace: Ever since Dennis heard that Monopoly is based on Atlantic City, he’s been wearing shirts that would fit in both on the Boardwalk and in a few of the classier casinos. A sweet purple polo lets the dames know you’re the kind of fella who owns Park Place and all the railroads.
Dennis – Dennis, you beat your father at Monopoly because he pretended to fall asleep. Ask ChatGPT to take another crack at this caption.
Don Abundio, translated:
“The boss vowed to exercise every morning…”
“Even though he hates to get up early…”
“But I still don’t see how installing a treadmill in the bed is a good solution!”
@Sprobert:
That’s not Harry’s dad in the flashback, but Harry himself when he was younger. Yeah, before they tried to rebrand him as “kindly old retiree”, Harry Dinkle’s gimmick was “the uniform makes it clear that when you ask whether Dinkle is a marching band director or a fascist dictator, the answer is ‘Yes.’ ”
That’s why his eyes are/were perpetually covered by his peaked cap; he doesn’t have a face, he’s just a mouth barking orders and screaming abuse at all times (also, smugly smirking).
@Voshkod:
No doubt, because this is a refreshing alternative to the appropriately sobersided work we do.
Look at Dinkle’s hat covering his eyes in that first panel. That looks like something that belongs in a gag strip, not the Funkyverse. Seriously, how would he be able to project full smugness if he did some word play?
***
Dennis knows how wrong he looks in a polo shirt. Menacing level: 70%
***
The Monopoly cat piece was added in the early 20-teens. I don’t know how I feel about Dennis the Menace featuring something that contemporary. At least they have that lone light fixture to balance it out.
The art in Dennis the Menace is above average today, but… is Dennis still a kid here? He’s gone full young adult! If he’s aging, then the prophecies are true, and The Menacing has begun! Ia ia!
JP: I really feel for April at this moment. Look at her, getting buried under those big, heavy word balloons. She’s already started to feel the pressure in her forehead.
‘shaft: I think Ed has accidentally uncovered a massive pizza-for-band-candy scandal.
DTM: Henry died, the lucky duck.
CS:
Look, Harry! They also have a picture of you as a kid with your mom and dad eating here!
Hey, what the? That ain’t me and that ain’t my mom!
Harry then discovers his dad was one of those two family guys who had another wife and kid in another town.
@Baja Gaijin: “I’ve been trying to reach you two about your extended warranties!”
Rex Morgan Mashup, Bob Tice Edition 2: Electric Boogaloo
Rex Morgan Mashup, A. Mulyak Edition
Hägar the Horrible: I call shenanigans. Lucky Eddie’s “ex” has no visible tailfin or other mermaid accoutrements.
@GarrisonSkunk: Me at 9. Practically verbatim, though. . .
Pearls Before Swine: So, does Pastis live in Australia or something, where it’s cold in August? Or did they have to replace an offensive strip with something innocuous?
@Baja Gaijin: She also doesn’t have any legs. Long story short, I wouldn’t order the Fish-n-Chips at that pub.
JP – What’s choo talkin’ ‘bout, Willis….
Crank – Crappy band candy for crappy pizza – a lesson in fair trade…
DtM – A dog, a cat, and an anvil – this must be the Chuck Jones edition….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@Tabby Lavalamp: Didn’t Funky start out as a gag strip before the first timeskip? I’m no Funkyverse historian but that was my impression.
@Austria: I loved the original Funky. It disappeared from our deadtree before it made the time jump, and I didn’t get exposed to its horrible aftermath until I joined this group.
Crankshaft has been with me its entire existence, and I loved it in its early years. It didn’t need a time jump to get horrible, it just happened that way gradually.
DtM: Dude, your head is on backwards.
Judge Parker: April ponders the statement for a good five minutes then says “nah” and pulls out a gun.
Crankshaft: For as godawful as this “payoff” is, it is cute that the flashback panel is done in the artstyle of old Funky Winkerbean instead of the more polished modern art.
Dennis The Menace: Dennis, I’m pretty sure your dad is dead in that seat.
RMMD- “Burl Ives! What are you doing here?”
@TheDiva: I fear Batiuk doesn’t see it as a waste at all. He’s utterly, unshakeably convinced that his funny mean band director is the most beloved comics character since Superman, and that no amount of laborious mythos-building is too much. I never thought he’d top “Lisa’s Story will become the founding scripture of a new utopian society,” but he somehow keeps upping the ante.
MT- (Panel 3) Looks like one of the bats has already bitten Violet, and she’s turned into a Vampire.
Crankshaft:
Isn’t the eponymous Montoni still alive? Isn’t that Montoni in this very flashback? And he never mentioned Harry’s father to him at any point? I guess I don’t blame him, I wouldn’t want to interact with these people any more than is strictly necessary either.
FC- Say what you want about Billy, but he does give a damned good rim job.
RMMD: Grandpa Lyle was a member of Dillinger’s gang, so the entire extended family defers to him on matters criminal.
Crank: 1. Five men. Larry Dinkle led a five-man combo at the height of the big band era. Larry Dinkle is a loser. “Dinkle, this contract says I hired an orchestra. So where are the rest of you?”
2. Pizzerias took off in the USA after servicemen returned from Italian stations in WWII. Before 1950 you were able to get pizza maybe in bakeries in Italian-American strongholds like Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, or in some Italian grandmother’s kitchen. In Akron, even Cleveland, I very much doubt it.
BB: Careful, Walker clan. You’re treading on Doonesbury (and by extension, the president)’s territory today.
@Austria: @Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: So, the big recap (with a smidge of assistance from wikipedia) for those who don’t know: Funky Winkerbean did indeed start as a gag strip in 1972, specifically a high school comedy, basically a slightly edgier Archie. It was like that for twenty years, then began a shift into being a dramedy in 1992 after it time-skipped the characters into adulthood and switched to real-time. It continued from there up until 2007, which is where the infamous second “time warp” happened that turned the Funky-Verse’s timeline and continuity into gnarled mess.
Now, the thing is, those first thirty something years of Funky were – by all accounts – actually GOOD. The gag days were legitimately funny. The 1992 dramedy both had legit laughs and surprisingly well-done drama. It sounds unthinkable, I know, but I’m being for real: go back far enough in this blog’s archives and you’ll see Josh and commentors speaking positively of old Funky Winkerbean and describing it as a comic that successfully kept with the times and handled it’s topics with intelligent sensitivity and nuance. For all the horrors that later Les Moore and “Lisa’s Story” inflicted on us, the original plot of Lisa and her death from cancer was unironically praised by Josh as it was running. There were jokes about the increasing gloominess of the comic, but they were largely affectionate in nature.
It was after the events of 2007 and subsequent second time skip that everything went to absolute hell and the series began its march into the abomination it is now, with the transition being completed by 2013-15. Those same archives? You can see a DRAMATIC shift in the tone of Josh’s commentary from 2007 onwards. It seems to almost overnight go from “wow this is some alright writing, kudos for sticking to his guns” to “oh god, fuck off, pull your head out of your ass, man”. It’s actually pretty sad to see.
@Anonymous: He’s here to sing the Happy Happy Joy Joy song!
9CL is unintentionally funny today, given the current state of produce in America.
FC: Mommy, it looks just like Jeffy’s butthole after he takes a shit!
H&L: Wait until Thurston finds out Hi didn’t mean Trixie.
Dennis the Menace:
I don’t think the Mitchells know how to play Monopoly. The pieces go on the property spaces!
Today’s Family Circus is foreshadowing Billy’s future career cosplaying as a proctologist. (You know he doesn’t have the aptitude to actually go to medical school)
@TheDiva: Yeah, it’s horrendous and you sum up perfectly why. It’s just nonsensical and cloying on every conceivable level. I myself noted yesterday, what’s even the point of this reveal? It doesn’t change a single goddamn thing about Dinkle and his relationship with his dad. It has no connection whatsoever with Dinkle Sr.’s depressing career failure and death. Why are we supposed to give a shit about this?!
@Anonymous: I had to dig up today’s Marvin to see what you were talking about and immediately cringed with horror when I saw it.
@Voshkod: Coincidentally, a full playthrough of Campaign For North Africa would probably take about as long as it takes for The Phantom to get through an average storyline.
@Vulpes: Wait, are you for fucking real? Batiuk couldn’t even be assed enough to DRAW A DIFFERENT PHOTO?? This week of build-up was over a secondary copy of a photo that Harry already saw and owned??? Good fucking God.
@ectojazzmage: I haven’t been reading the comics as long as many of my fellow Mudges here, but I’ve seen enough FWs dating back to the late ’90s to realize how much it devolved up until its end in ’22. I hear 9CL used to be a decent strip that seems to have been deliberately ruined by its own creator. I think current Garfields and latter-day Get Fuzzies are/were okay, but they’re still shadows of their past selves. Everyone was disappointed when Bill Watterson announced he was retiring C&H after only 10 years, but it serves to make one of the best newspaper strips ever even better.
9CL: 1. You know what world-class musicians who live on Manhattan’s Upper West Side do all the time? They sell fresh produce from their farmstands.
2. Everybody thinks they can do Chandler/gangster parody strips, but even Watterson faceplanted when he tried it. Brooke has done it a LOT, and by God they get worse every time.
@Bob Tice: The other day, the Minnesota Twins players pushed a rookie out of the dugout because he forgot to wave to his teammates in the bullpen after he hit his first major league home run.
He waved. Was allowed back in the dugout with backslaps and high fives.
It’s the unwritten rules of the game.
@Voshkod: Lawyers are overrepresented on EVERY good site.
Is there a Menaceopoly™?
Low and Hi-Less: Trixie is what? 50± years old and they are just now getting around to changing her diaper?!? AND they’re getting the drunk neighbor to do it??!!?? Where’s Child Services?!!?? Won’t someone think of the senior citizen children?!?
@Voshkod: Does lawyer-adjacent count?
@UncleJeff:
I truly did not know this. Thank you. I just assumed that they were waving to Grandma or some such thing.
Incidentally, I am a Detroit Tigers fan. If I were a batter, I’m not sure that I would be saluting our bullpen this year.
@98 GarrisonSkunk: Hi and Lois saw “50” on the box of diapers, mistaking the quantity for the durations between changes.
The word “MONOPOLY™” evolved from the Latin phrase for “One Parrot”.
BELIEVE IT OR NOT! See if Josh cares.
@Bob Tice:
#100. Sorry to be a killjoy, but get back to lesson planning, Professor! (But can’t you just use last year’s outline?)
@ectojazzmage: @Vulpes: Wait, are you for fucking real? Batiuk couldn’t even be assed enough to DRAW A DIFFERENT PHOTO?? This week of build-up was over a secondary copy of a photo that Harry already saw and owned???
________________________________
At the risk of saying something good about Batiuk, at least he didn’t have his characters debating where to spend a month in real time like Frazzhole, in a naked attempt to get readers to say,”Gee,I really miss the witty banter between Caulfield and Mrs. Olson.” Didn’t work, Mallett!
I arsume the menace level for patricide is at the top.
@Activist:
Actually, I throw out my notes after each time that I teach a class. Obviously, I cannot unlearn what I already know, but I want to have the same experience of reading the cases I assign while my students are reading them, so that my experience is as much like theirs as I can make it. I learn something new with every re-read.
C-Shaft: “And I could have turned my head to the right and seen it at any time. Well, if it weren’t for the cap visor pulled tight over my eyes. How is it I never had a fatal accident in those days?”
JP: Sophie: That was a smart idea, putting a mickey in April’s drink so she’d fall asleep and wouldn’t cause any more trouble.
Abbey: Mickey?
@Bob Tice:
#106. Man, you must be a great teacher, and your lessons always both historic and fresh with new rulings. What courses do you teach?
Dustin: Ed hangs around the yard in sporty casual gabbing with his more attractive wife about the son who disappoints him and the daughter he puts his irrational hopes on. I prefer the original Tony Soprano.
GA: Welcome to Gasoline Alley, Mr. Brogan. Get ready to field questions on whether the potato famine is still going on every time you tell people your name.
GT: Beth thinks Gil can go off globetrotting and leave a cardboard standee to coach in his place and no one will notice. She’s not wrong.
Luann: Heh, I’m sure he’ll be missed down at the station. They’ll get him a card, which might be addressed to “Brett”, “Bud”, or “Herman.”
MW: Yeah, World’s #1 Dad here cares about his daughter more than anything except for maybe a stray bit of violently insane poontang.
Phantom: Mollusk still hasn’t caught on that he’s been HAL 3000’d out of his leadership role.
RMMD: Love how No Not That One The Other One assumes someone is at their door to scam them. They’ve been living in a scamcentric world so long they can’t see anything else.
Curtis: Yeah, the only thing more lovable would be a guy who’s infatuated with a girl because she looks attractive, but is nonetheless constantly making judgemental snark about her being shallow and vain.
DtM: TFW you suddenly wonder if the overalls you’ve been drawing your main character in since 1955 might be outdated, but have absolutely no idea what kids are wearing instead.
Pluggers: Is … is this the first time McKee’s tried to draw Rhino Man? Can it please be the last time McKee tries to draw Rhino Man? Hocking his TV was a lesser indignity than this!
OTF: Well, as long as someone did, I guess.
S4th: I assume Crispy Howard’s Eggs is a reference to the cult comic book and terrible movie Howard the Duck. Who is not green. The colouring mistake makes this look more like what I’ve seen of the Duck Who Cannot Be Named Here.
GA: “Kevin Brogan, huh? Well, I’m gonna call you ‘Twinkle Toes.’ How about doing a little soft-shoe for us there, ‘Twinkle Toes?’”
@Anonymous: Yeah, I made the same mistake Sprobert did, at least on first reading.
I think the confusion arises because showing that Harry’s dad was at Montoni’s before the astonishing reveal that this has been about a photo of Harry’s dad at Montoni’s would make narrative sense, and showing that Harry himself was at Montoni’s … doesn’t.
DtM: It looks like Dennis has entered puberty as well as picked up a new polo shirt and pants.
BTW Ma Mitchell, not only did Dennis get Boardwalk, Park Place and a few railroads from Henry, he also got the deed to your house.
The rent is due before the end of the month.
@Activist:
Conflict of laws, evidence, administrative law, electronic discovery and trial advocacy.
@Bob Tice: With puns!
Late Thread Cuisine: It’s jigglier than Wilbur Weston’s bingo wings.
I can’t believe no one has mentioned that along with a new wardrobe Dennis has grown a foot or more and looks about 12. Puts a new slant on the menancing thing.
Edge City (GoComics) – Or electrocution.
Gasoline Alley – I wondered if this guy is a new regular character, but not with a name like Kevin Brogan. Characters have to have names like Clovia or Baleen (my favorite). However, a comment on GoComics said that he was a real person who founded a charity to help comics creators in financial hardship. Now I feel bad.
Speed Bump – I want a John Kruk jersey.
Mary Worth – Last week Dawn was upset because Brandy is back and cozy with Tommy. It looks like Dawn had more serious feelings about Tommy than he had for her. Why isn’t this the focus of the strip? This is definitely preferable to another attempt at convincing everyone that Wilbur Weston is a wonderful human being.
@Horace Broon: Re S4th: Also, neither Howard nor the anas non grata lay eggs, and I don’t think they’d be eating eggs. Well, maybe eggs of other species, if they were really up against it. This cereal seems like it may be raising questions parents aren’t prepared to answer.
@Baja Gaijin:
#116. I like lime jello– strawberries are original, but I’d find room for it
#114. Good grief, Bob, that’s more than a full-time job! And electronic discovery would have to change by the day. Impressive, so I guess you are NOT semi-retired. Oh wait, maybe Professor AI is carrying the weight. (Just kidding)
@Peanut Gallery: 86- If’n I ain’t the Grandaddy of all liars! ( actually, I want to be a dentist)
Pluggers – He’s asking if Rhino Man got his TV back.
Rex Morgan – I just realized that Lyle looks a lot like Richard Attenborough. Maybe the twins could run a dinosaur cloning scam.
@GarrisonSkunk: Re Frazz – I think the last month was an attempt to show Frazz and Whatzername as thoughtful, philosophical people as a deflection from their usual judgmental superiority. They must be going through smug superiority withdrawal, so it won’t be long before they’re back to cutting up Mrs. Olsen behind her back.
@Baja Gaijin: Cuisine – McCall’s has a lot to answer for with that monstrosity.
A long time ago I worker with a woman who always brought a molded Jello salad to every work lunch party. She never brought anything as horrific as that.
@I speak Jive: A “brogan” is a big, clunky men’s shoe developed in Ireland and Scotland specifically for people who work in bogs. From the old Gaelic “brog,” or “shoe.” The word is used nowadays for any clumsy hard-wearing men’s shoe, as opposed, say, to what Fred Astaire would have on.
So as much as “Baleen” is a whale-sized woman, this guy’s name is essentially “clodhopper.”
@Ukulele Ike: I’ve heard of brogans but didn’t know the background. Going by the comment at GoComics, he was a real person. I Googled the name but didn’t feel like going through umpteen links to people with that name.
It’s mind boggling that anyone would name a baby Baleen. That’s assuming that it’s her given name.
@Baja Gaijin: It looks like it’s going to attack a bunch of teens at the beach or the movie theater.
@I speak Jive: It’s mind boggling that anyone would name a baby Baleen. That’s assuming that it’s her given name
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“She should give it back.”- Dr. B.F. Pierce, MASH
@Voshkod:
You’re a sick man, Voshkod. :)
Slylick Fox And Comix For Kinky Kids: This just in: Beloved Entertainer Moe Howard has been reincarnated as a five eyed spider. No word yet if Count Weardly was involved in the transformation.
@Baja Gaijin:
I’m so often the guy defending these, as I eat most substances, really, but dear God, I hate most fruit and I hate Jello. I need to cross the streams to destroy this thing, don’t I?
…though oddly, I like lime and most melon. Whatever. Go to Hell, Jello!
@Peanut Gallery: Don Abundio, translated:
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Its the old saying, ‘If you lie down with cheetahs you wake up with treadmills.’
@A Grave Mind: You’re a sick man, Voshkod. :)
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I saw the original production! Gary Burghoff really knocked it out of the park as the title character!
@ectojazzmage: #92: re-Campaign for North Africa: Back in the 60s the Barbie franchise had a board game called Queen of the Prom. My sister and her friends would play it a lot. It had so many pitfalls, like Chutes and Ladders but ten times worse, that it was almost impossible to finish. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that some where in America there’s four women in their 70s still playing a game they began in 1964.
@I speak Jive: Isn’t her backstory sailing on a whaling boat as sea cook? Or boiling the vats of blubber to make whale oil? I bet she picked it up there. “Starbuck” and “Queequeg” were already taken.
Mark Trail Mix: Can’t she just sell tickets to people into watching Batsex?
@120 Activist: How do you feel about cottage cheese? A pound of that is the base of this mold.
@122 I speak Jive: She didn’t bring in a jiggling monstrosity full of melon testicles? This think contains a cup of them.
@125 taig: SNERK!
@129 A Grave Mind: How do you feel about ginger ale? The bottom layer contains a cup of it.
@135 GarrisonSkunk: She’d be about 3 months late. Bats in the presumed latitude of the Lost Forest is about 90 days.
@GarrisonSkunk: “To the Batcave, Robin!”
@Guillermo el chiclero: I had that Barbie game circa 1962. I recall that the players had to join a club, get a boyfriend, and buy a dress before they could go to the prom. I remember playing it, but I don’t remember how long the games lasted. Sadly, I think that I don’t have the game any more, so there’s no long running game happening here.
@Ukulele Ike: Baleen’s backstory was before I started following GA. That explanation does make sense.
On the X-Files, Agent Scully adopted a dog which she named Queequeg. She was a fan of Moby Dick. When I finally read Moby Dick in 1999, I discovered that Queequeg was a cannibal. Scully’s dog’s previous owner had died, and the dog partially ate the owner before the body was discovered.
@I speak Jive:
“Going by the comment at GoComics, he was a real person.”
I Googled him as well and read the obit of the guy referenced in the comments. They had his picture and he looks nothing like the guy in the strip. It is hard to believe that Scancarelli drew such a realistically looking character and then not make him look like Kevin Brogan.
RMMD-“I’ve come to scam you.”
@I speak Jive: If a dog eats another dog, that’s cannibalism. If a dog eats a man, well, fair’s fair, we’re out of food, we drew straws, you lost.
CS: So the Larry Dinkle quintet had professional looking PR photos and played a lot of places-why didn’t they attain some level of fame? You still had your Nelson Riddle, Guy Lombardo etc. bands appealing to the post WWII cohorts, things didn’t just change to Elvis overnight. I suspect Larry didn’t have an agent and did his own booking and PR/promotions and failed to get guest appearances (a quintet would be suitable for a TV show for example). Expected to “get discovered” somehow with his local gigs and a new song. OK Harry get Les Moore to co-write a nostalgic retrospective on Ohio big band circuit and how people flocked to dance contests, found their loves at the dance hall and how that all went away with TV, movies and rock and roll, using Larry’s quintet’s experiences. Make Larry’s demise a heroic moment (a la Glen Miller’s plane disappearance in WWII or Buddy Holly’s plane crash), just on the cusp of newfound fame with the new song, etc. etc. … Nah, just be consigned and depressed because he drank a bit.
@I speak Jive: #139: If I remember correctly the players would draw cards as to who was their boyfriend. The cards had all of the high school stereotypes, the jock, the BMOC, the rich kid, the shop hood, the intellectual counter culture guy, and the nerd. The nerd’s name was Poindexter.
Hi and Lois parenting tip of the day: Have your alcoholic neighbor change your kids dirty diaper. His addiction makes him easy to take advantage of and if you video record it you might have a viral TikTok video you can monetize!