You’re never gonna get an AI to dig a ditch, I tell you what
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Mary Worth, 8/11/26
Welp, I guess all the Tommy business has been resolved and now we can finally get into what we really want to know: what’s life at the Weston condo unit like when it’s just Dawn and Wilbur? Oh, you know, normal stuff, Dawn buying pans that are way too small, Wilbur being like, “Dawnie, there’s not enough room on that pan for all the food we like to eat,” Dawn taking it back to the pan store, which probably is used to this by now because they stock the small sizes that nobody really wants, etc.
Shoe, 8/11/26
Yeah, I’m just going to say it: the Perfesser is right, it sounds like his support group isn’t supportive at all and he’s not really getting much out of it. Did he accidentally join a class about how to do comedy roasts, and none of the other students are particularly funny, and this is the best they could do? Because that’s a common mistake.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/11/26
Big news, everybody! The scam twins were planning on kidnapping Sarah, but then their jailbird uncle explained to them what a “felony” is, and now they’re having second thoughts.
Dennis the Menace, 8/11/26
Everyone’s smiling in this panel and I think that’s lovely. It’s honest hard work, it keeps you in shape, you’re outdoors in the fresh air, and you often make a union wage. Yes, sir, ditch digging’s the life!
31 replies to “You’re never gonna get an AI to dig a ditch, I tell you what”
MW – Wilbur: “Dawnie, were you on pot when you bought that pan?”
It’s concerning when you realise that Jimmy is the smart one in his family.
I love how those scam twins are an obvious copy-and-paste job — same face, same hair, same angle, same clothing, same expression. I wonder if they can tell each other apart.
MW: What even is this plot line? What’s happening? Every time Moy starts a new arc, I think “Well, we can’t get any further from the basic fundamentals of storytelling and common sense,” and every time, she throws attempted goldfish murder or purple gorillas or Stevie Wonder or too-small pans into the mix. I don’t deserve this. No one deserves this.
RMMD: Rene, you’re slipping in your evil mentorship. If you’d put half as much effort into training your nieces as you did into promoting the Mirakle Method, they’d have taken over the world by now.
Are Rene and the Twins aware that the prison records these conversations?
.MW:
“I’m unable to play baseball using this pan, Dad!”
” ‘Baseball,’ Dawnie?”
‘I can’t ‘Bundt‘ with it!”
MW Its nice that this strip gives us regular reminders of how dumb Dawn really is, just to explain why her life is the way it is.
Shoe This would normally be a lead-up to the infamous Shoe Google Eyes of Horror, but Roz doesn’t flinch at all. The Perfesser dying alone would be the least shocking thing to happen in this strip.
MW What you were thinking was that you were allowed to maybe, just maybe, make one egg in a nice little pan that slips easily into the dishwasher. But until you move out away from your oh-can-I-squeeze-my-4-eggs-in-with-yours-thanx! dad that will remain but a dream…
Beetle Bailey : that second panel should be of the dugout locker room, with the speech bubble coming out of one of the closed lockers. Hey, that’s where Lt Fuzz was when his team played baseball in high school!
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Dennis the Menace :
a) “Yup, I’ll be diggin’ ditches and gettin’ bitches.”
b) Dennis then demonstrated his current aptitude by digging Mr Wilson’s grave in his front yard.
c) Funny to see what the “You won’t amount to anything and be stuck forever” dead end job was back in the 1950s, and how the perception of which job it is has changed throughout the years (currently, it’s “has college degree, can’t find any job at all”, right?)
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Rex Morgan M.D. : only in this strip would the villain be defeated by being told their plan would get them in serious trouble, and thus deciding not to go through with it. Oh well, as long as Rex still doesn’t have to get involved appearing in his own strip!
RMMD: The FBI is way too busy trying to find Antifa to bother with the kidnapping of Red Chief.
Shoe:
In a subtle but interesting defiance of comic strip convention, Roz doesn’t respond to Cosmo’s setup with so much as an “oh?” Based on her expression in the first panel I would normally suppose she lacks the psychic energy to do much of anything, but crushing depression is the ground state of being for the characters in Shoe and most of the time they still manage to keep up a conversation. Strangely, she seems marginally less miserable in the second panel. Nothing the Perfesser said justifies this change in mood, so I’m guessing she actually realized “hey, I don’t have to actually listen to this guy” and promptly stopped paying attention to him, immediately lifting her mood slightly.
DtM;
“An’ I’d like to start with the last ditch Mr. Wilson will interact with on this Earth, if you get my drift, Joey!”
RMMD In someone of normal intelligence, being reminded that kidnapping is a major felony beyond some beat cop law enforcement after saying “it’s *all* figured out” would yield a cuttingly sarcastic “that *does* sound serious” because of course they would have that in mind. But here I think they literally had no idea because everything they know about scamming seems to come from reading Slylock Fox for how to be a villain and figuring all they need to do is avoid violating some Kids Corner Fun Fact and they’ll get away with it.
MW – Moy is breaking the single most sacred rule of the strip. Mary must bask in the glow of her often unearned part in the resolution of the previous arc and spend two weeks repeating all the plot points to Dr. Jeff. There are sure to be consequences for this failure to follow protocol.
RMMD: To whom it may concern: Since Cut/Copy/Paste has taken you this far, how about an arc where Rene masters cloning and creates a felonious female army?
SHOE: This kind of funny, although I’m sure The Perfesser isn’t the first to drive a support group to unanimous loathing.
DtM: Number one reason workers strike gas lines- distraction. Blowing up the neighborhood would be Dennis’s crowning menace.
DtM: You’ll never get rich by digging a ditch.
RMMD: Here’s some advice for aspiring comics artists: just make all your characters twins. Then instead of drawing two people, you can draw one person and copy paste them. Add one little line on their forehead and no-one will be able to tell they’re the same drawing!
DTM: Sick of the neighborhood children coming to his house for no clear, Mr Wilson has resorted to the drastic measure of having a moat built around his lot. You didn’t think this through, Mr Wilson! This won’t stop Dennis, and now he’ll be treading all kinds of muddy water into your carpets!
Rex Morgan, M.D.:
I’ve never been to prison, but I was under the impression that during visitations a guard is present in the room at all times to monitor the interaction. And yet here Rene and his nieces are, brazenly discussing a kidnapping plot for anyone to hear. I’m guessing this will have no impact on the progression of the story, so presumably the guard went “Well, he told them not to do it, so it’s probably fine.”
DtM: I know Joey is supposed to be the dumb one, but unlike his buddy Dennis he realizes that this is an insult that could lead to them both being buried under a sewer pipe.
RMMD: Holy crap, these twins have no prefrontal cortex whatsoever.
MW: Dawn doesn’t realize Wilbur knows the pan is too small because he tried to cook his favorite dish of huevas rancheros with mayo. Or maybe she does but thinks she can exchange the food encrusted pan the way Wilbur tries to exchange his mayonnaise encrusted polo shirts.
DtM: “You won’t get the chance, kid. Mr. Wilson hired me to dig this grave and…other matters.”
DtM;
“Mr. Wilson said the only thing I’m equipped to do is to dig Mariana’s trench. But I don’t know any ‘Mariana.’ “
@Anonymous: Well, it shows the artist knows comic history.
Wally Wood has a famous quote from the pre digital era “Never draw anything you can copy, never copy anything you can trace, never trace anything you can cut out and paste up.”
@Everything Is Better With Monkeys: Who do you think “Dawnie” will run into on this errand? Never lose faith in the MW universe-the rules shall be obeyed and the readers be damned!
MW What _was_ I thinking? Well, that I needed a pretext to Go To The Store in order to happen upon Brandy’s Return. Little does she know that she owes her fine, sober boyfriend to _my_ encouraging words, otherwise he’d be ODing in a gutter right now! I will observe from afar and report back to Mary that my meddling apprenticeship is coming along well, then she can complete the cycle with her boat and restaurant magic to release us for the next meddle!
DtM: Having a dad who’s a (now retired) millwright and carpenter, I always get a little defensive when anyone trots out the “manual labor=failed at life” trope. That guy’s performing essential maintenance on vital public infrastructure, Mr. Wilson! What did you do with your day, apart from sitting on your porch and yelling at the kids on your lawn?
MW: The small pan gets the most use in our household, it being the perfect size to make a grilled cheese or heat up a slice of ham for a sandwich. Wilbur is the kind of guy who could go through a Costco-sized package of bacon in a single sitting, however, so I can see why Dawn’s needs might be on more of an industrial level.
RMMD: “Secondly, ‘kidnapping’ would count as something happening, and that’s not allowed in this strip. You might want to try over at Judge Parker; those people get abducted at the drop of a hat.”
RMMD:, take two: “It’s not like fraud and attempted murder on a cruise ship, where they give you free reign to roam around the vessel to the point where you can slip off at the next port with nobody noticing, something that’s totally possible to do on a modern cruise ship.”
Mary Worth: Huh. “Dawnie.” Here I thought they called her “Dawn” because she was dull as dishwater, and today’s strip doesn’t do much to change that opinion. But maybe not? Maybe Wilbur actually likes her? Very odd, much to consider, etc.
@TheDiva: George is a retired mail carrier, so it’s not like he made it all that much further in life, just a better pension.
Dennis the Menace: “Anyhoo, mind if I get a start on my future endeavors with your backhoe?”
JP: Teleporting is still in the future, so put on your thinking cap, Ned, and give Soph the support and advice she needs over the phone. Remember, she knows she’s just a temporary babysitter confronting a d lusionsl Mama Bear.
6Cx: Looking so party! Hope she meets a nice sandwich at the game.
How old are the twins supposed to be? They seemed like young teenagers when we first saw them busking, but since then we’ve seen them driving and drinking wine. I ask because someone in their early 20s, much less two someones, not understanding that kidnapping is a very serious crime that will get all sorts of law enforcement involved is…well…it doesn’t speak well of the Glenwood City School District, I’ll say that much.
Alt title for Josh’s post today: All Things Are True; Everything Is Permitted