Century Boulevard … we love it
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Blondie, 11/2/24
The Blondie creative team is usually very locked in to whatever big calendar full of real and fake holidays that’s clearly hanging up in the writer’s room, so today’s misstep is actually kind of surprising to me. Sure, it was possible, weeks ago when this strip was written, that game six of the World Series might’ve been played on November 1, but it was also possible that one of the teams would wrap it up in five games or less, as one of them in fact did (go Dodgers!). Anyway, I get why you’d risk it though, the glaring error is absolutely worth it to deliver this tight, flawless joke about a mailman streaming the baseball game from the night before, so his trainee has to talk to one of the mail route customers, like the regular guy usually does, about something that we don’t need to bother explaining, you know, the usual customer-mailman conversations we all know and love and have every day.
Marvin, 11/2/24
Of the weird holdover jokes from an entirely different era of gender relations that routinely pop up in newspaper comics, I have to say that “haha, it’s women’s job to cook but this particular woman is really bad at it!” are my absolute least favorite. The particular woman in question could be the speaking character’s mother, wife, or (as in this case) daughter, each possibility carrying with it its own specific unpleasant vibe. That said, I do think today’s Marvin is kind of funny because usually you think of “runing your appetite” as something you do with snacking, but Roy is just straight-up eating a whole actual meal here. Like he knows Jenny’s cooking is terrible, he wants no part of it, and he’s just made his own dinner early, because he’s fully self-sufficient.
Beetle Bailey, 11/2/24
Some days I think I’ve left the snickering sexual innuendo I was prone to in this blog’s early days behind, but then I encounter a strip like “Lt. Fuzz decides to horn in on on General Halftrack’s threesome,” sigh heavily, and realize I will simply not be able to help myself. Anyway, here’s today’s Beetle Bailey, in which Lt. Fuzz decides to horn in on General Halftrack’s threesome.
51 replies to “Century Boulevard … we love it”
Mary Worth Mashups
Family Circus: Oh, Dolly, never change. Your effortless sacrilegiousness is so delightful.
RMMD-Uhmm how old are you again?
MW-“Such a shame that there aren’t more bridesmaids at this wedding for me to hit on,” Wilbur thinks to himself.
FC-If your wish is to be excommunicated from the church and ducked into a pool full of holy water then yes.
Family Circlejerk – Just remember, Dolly, sometimes the answer is no. (No snark there, just a jab at people who expect their prayers are answered only if it’s a yes.)
The whole “She’s a terrible cook” joke, really in my opinion, only works if it’s from a meddling mother-in-law, like Marie Barone from “Everybody Loves Raymond.”
If it comes from the cook’s own Mother, it just comes off as petty and abusive. I mean, yeah, it’s petty and abusive coming from anyone, but really mother-in-laws, that’s their territory…
Blondie – I’m still going with my initial interpretation of panel 1: Mr. Beasley is attempting to discreetly warn Dagwood that Jack is in fact a convicted serial killer on work release. “Run! Run! if you know what’s good for you…”
Blondie – When I read the first panel, I figured Beasley was urgently telling his trainee to run away from Dagwood before it’s too late and he gets drawn into one of Dagwood’s endless inane conversations. I still think they should’ve gone with that.
@Roscoe: That also works!
Is Dagwood’s question: “Why do you look exactly like my neighbor who’s also my colleague, my carpool partner and apparently my only friend? Like, you don’t share a name or anything, so are you related? Did one of your parents remarry or have an affair? Are you in witness protection? Are you actually the same person, ashamed of having to deliver mail to make ends meet? I mean, this comic has been running so long that I don’t expect any new revelations at this point, but maybe the lore was all explained in a strip back in 1936.”
Marvin – “I mean, just look at this iced coffee she made. It’s so thick the ice cubes won’t even sink.” “That’s not coffee, that’s tea.”
Don Abundio, translated:
“Abundio, your dog used to jump all over me”
“Why is he being so aloof all of a sudden?”
“Because he just got back from the groomer”
“And now… he’s out of your league!”
Marvin Alternative Caption:
“If you keep eating, the food will become shit and you’ll defecate your adult diaper.”
“That’s the idea”
“Oh… right, I briefly forgot what comic we’re in.”
Look at the look on Lt. Fuzz’s face in panel 1. Sure, he heard the phrase “tee time” and knows what General Halftrack is really talking about, but even so, for one fleeting moment, he thinks there’s some don’t-ask-don’t-tell action going on he can get in on.
@Roscoe: See, my initial interpretation of Panel 1 was that he was warning Jack about the dangers of starting a conversation with, or just getting too close to, Dagwood. But that wouldn’t make an entertaining comment.
Marvin’s grandma has a secret life as Gearhead Gertie
My first thought of today’s Blondie, was that maybe he was playing “Super Mario Run” or something like that. But that would actually be modern and relevant, can’t have that.
I’m just going to ask this about Marvin.
The implication is that Roy cooked the meal himself.
It seems to be a plate of peas and mashed potatoes and meat (?)
This doesn’t feel realistic to me, it seems to me that Roy (or really anyone) for a snack, would have just made a sandwich or microwaved something, not go through the trouble to cook a full-blown meal just for himself.
Unless:
-It was leftovers from the previous nights’ meal
-It’s one of those “Hungry-man” microwaveable meals.
I hate it so much when I try to tear apart the logic of a terrible comic, and end up figuring out ways to justify the scenario…
Blondie: Making a tired “Don’t interrupt me when I’m watching the big game” gag is setting the hurdle as low as you can without burying it underground, and the Blondie team still managed to trip over it in ten different ways.
Marvin: Why Grandma is upset at Roy for eating between meals? Seeing as he has to use a fork and spoon simultaneously to eat mashed potatoes and peas and he’s missing his plate six inches to the left, he clearly needs the practice.
BLONDIE: Shouldn’t Beasley’s first lesson to an intern be to stand to one side, for when the congenitally tardy-for-work Dagwood explodes out the door?
MW: Better looking…
Better job…
Better in the sack…
Having overthought the matter, a despairing Wilbur collapses face-first into Mary’s culinary creation.
BB: They could have gone to the trouble of drawing the other two guys (Major Scabbard? Captain Greenbrass?) in the last panel. Looks like Halftrack is going to have to settle for some hot General-on-Lieutenant action. At least he might get a hole in one!
MW: I actually polled my friends today as to whether the officiant was Walz or McCain. The vote was split.
Beetle Bailey: There are few things as disorienting as Lt. Fuzz in mufti. I’m pretty certain white shirts with differently-colored collars went out with Gordon Gecko.
It’s been at least 30 years since a new character was introduced in Blondie (the nameless carpool partners) and now we’re seeing TWO within a few months? I foresee Jack and Maya finding true love in each other’s arms, in the classic romantic Mailman/Baker scenario.
MW: Estelle clearly prefers men with necks.
Marvin: has Grandma always been in the strip? Can’t say I’ve seen her before.
H&L: Pouring the sugar into his beer, Thurston shows why he’s at the forefront of degenerate but legal addictive tendencies.
MW: Okay, Moy traced a photo of Dan Walz for today’s strip. He almost looks like that ‘He-Man’ meme.
BB – Even with the verbal (tee time) and visual (golf bag) cues, I wasn’t certain that this strip was dealing with golf. Fortunately, the three flags in close proximity to one another tipped me off. Four would have been too many; two wouldn’t have been enough. Kudos, Walkers.
All the other ways Blondie isn’t making sense are just cover for the way “twenty more seconds” makes no sense. It’s not twenty seconds till the inning break because the seventh-inning stretch is an inning break. It’s not twenty seconds till the end of the game because there are two innings left after the seventh-inning stretch. It’s twenty seconds till the end of the song I guess? Beasley is streaming the entire World Series game on his mail route so he can sing along with “Take Me Out To The Ball Game”? I hope Dagwood’s question is “What is wrong with you?”
Blondie – At least Beasley isn’t jerking off to it….
Marvin – The morale is – tastes the same, going in or coming out….
BB – Fuzz is disappointed it wasn’t the sexual tryst he was hoping for….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Mother Goose and Grimm: I know Disney made Will Smith the genie in that terrible Aladdin movie and there was Shaq in Kazaam decades ago but I still find it weird making the enslaved obsequious servant Black.
Zits: I thought the joke was going to be that the cash Jeremy’s dad gave him was malodorous because it was in the back pocket of his pants but it seems to be just that Jeremy is a freeloading leech and also an idiot.
Baby Blues: If he wanted an apple he would have just got himself an apple. It’s a house you share and you are married with 3 children. I could see this working if one of the ungrateful children were complaining they want a snack but I hate when the joke is just that the husband is incapable of being self sufficient even though he’s the one with an office job.
Dennis the Menace: This works because Dennis is an ungrateful brat who would passive aggressively say something like this to his mother.
Pluggers: Arguable. Many pluggers are quite familiar with the runs.
GT: I don’t remember/care where Beth lived before, but if Milford is an interesting place, it must have been a corn silo.
MW: It’s hard to believe that Mary sanctioned a marriage ceremony that was not officiated by a man of the cloth. Who’s this guy, the local bank’s notary public?
@The Quiet Man: Skeletor for President!
DTM: It’s really important that the caption verified that Dennis is supposed to be looking in the refrigerator because that drawing doesn’t look anything like it. First of all why is the handle so far up and when was the last time anyone had a refrigerator in their house that didn’t have a freezer? Also why is Alice almost always hand washing dishes? I’m certain it’s been established they own a dishwasher. Is she obsessive compulsive?
Beetle Bailey: Is it more or less depressing to think that the Beetle Bailey Braintrust doesn’t understand the extremely common double-entendre at work here? No, seriously — grandparents around the nation are trying to solidify the a prioris structuring their experience before their eggs get cold.
Marvin: I devoutly hate, hate the way comics depict grandparents. Marvin’s grandparents would likely be in their 50s and still working. Instead they’re in their 80s and long retired. And don’t get me started on Crankshaft, who should be a great great grandfather but is presented as a grammar.
Curtis: How old is Barry supposed to be? Is he a toddler? He wears overalls which are fine for children still in diapers but once a child starts using the bathroom the overalls are impractical because it is too difficult for a child to manage independently. He seems to have constant screaming meltdowns and runs to his mother but he also watches PBS documentaries and he knows detailed facts about specific species of penguins? Is he emotionally stunted because his mother infantalizes him?
@UncleJeff: Should have had Arabs playing the Genies, I mean… where do Genies come from? Ireland?
@The Rambling Otter: But then why do I question these things?
King’s Quest 6 had the villain “Abdul Alhazred” (obviously) Arabic yet the genie under his command was white and Jewish(?) … huh?
@The Rambling Otter:
It’s a comic about an elderly goose woman who owns a dog and cat but then there are arbitrary times when characters are human. Mike Peters won a Pulitzer!
@UncleJeffers: “He wears overalls which are fine for children still in diapers but once a child starts using the bathroom the overalls are impractical because it is too difficult for a child to manage independently.”
This raises so many questions about Dennis the Menace.
Blondie: like most New Yorkers, the writers assumes that the Yankees could field the ball. Oops!
I love LA.
Some Chix has discovered Morning Thunder tea.
@The Rambling Otter:
I’ve speculated before that Dennis isn’t toilet trained. Hank Ketcham wrote one time that Dennis looks like he has a load in his pants. He’s what Marvin aspires to be.
Blondie: Out of curiosity and a lack of anything else that caught my attention in this strip, I timed a standard rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and the full song took about half a minute. So assuming Jack started speaking after Mr. Beasley sang the first line, then yes, at the end of his statement there would be roughly twenty seconds left in the song. Blondie got the math right, even if everything else about human behavior and interactions is completely wrong.
Marvin: Like Josh, I loathe the “women who cannot cook, amirite” gag with the burning heat of a thousand suns, but it’s especially stupid coming from the mother. The dated, patriarchal notion of domestic responsibility the joke hinges on dictates that she would have been at least partially involved in teaching her daughter to cook, so disparaging the daughter’s skills is either a) deflecting blame for her own failures, b) cruel contempt for the perceived inadequacies of her offspring, or c) disparaging the value of another woman in order to elevate her own, a nasty technique in any case but particularly creepy coming from a parent.
“…as one of them in fact did (go Dodgers!)”
Spoiler warning, Josh! My mailman and his young trainee are coming over to stream the World Series with me today. Now what will our threesome do?
BB: Horn in, LOL
@Little Blue Bicycle: All right-thinking New Yorkers root for the Mets, and we constitute the forefront of loathing the Yankees.
@Baja Gaijin: The last one. (I couldn’t work in a Menards joke)
Will there come a day when the artists of newspaper comics will draw scenes so realistically that the reader cannot distinguish it from real life? Perhaps. Then we can get on with our lives.
Pluggers: I did not need to see a Plugger dripping green mucus this morning. (Thanks, colorist!) We would have gotten the “joke” if he had been holding a tissue to his nose.
Beetle Bailey: Y’know, Camp Swampy not being a real boot camp, just a bunch of guys with a military roleplay fetish hanging out for orgies and such would explain a lot.
C’shaft: My theory of “The Pizza Monster is Batiuk’s poorly disguised self-insert character Batton Thomas” gains credence.
DT: So…the antagonist in the current Dick Tracy arc is a crime lord who oversees the public transportation-related offenses of the German immigrant community? I guess?
Dustin: You would think that if you were drawing art for a joke about a too-small sweater, you would draw that sweater in a way as to indicate it is a poor fit for the character. You would be underestimating the laziness of traditional comic strip creators, but you would think that.
GT: Beth, you’re the live-in trophy girlfriend. Your role in “raising” the kids mostly involves attempting to ingratiate yourself to your sugar daddy’s offspring by being “cooler” than their biological mother and by buying their love with expensive gifts.
JP: I will forgive everything bad I ever said about this strip if it turned into Neddy adjusting to life as a subsistence hunter-gatherer in a cabin fifty miles outside of Fairbanks.
Luann: Should just rename this comic Pick-Me Girls and have done with it.
MW: I mean, who would be a worse man than Wilbur? Adolf Hitler? Jeffrey Epstein? The guy who designed the seats on a Spirit plane?
Phantom: “Wait…so you’re telling me computers can be connected to one another and share information? Like some kind of…interconnected network? Or a web encompassing the wide world?”
Pluggers are disgusting.
Blondie – Mr. Beasley is actually watching the winning game of this year’s World Series. You see, Blondie is carried in the LA Times, which due to press deadlines did not mention the Dodgers World Series win on Thursday morning. In honor of the largest newspaper still carrying their comic (Well, it was before the mass unsubscription over a presidential non-endorsement), they delayed this comic as well. Comedy is all about timing, and they are locked into the timing of the dying newspaper industry.
Marvin – The “wife/mother who is bad at cooking” joke also overlapped with the “weekday breakfast for a family of four is feast of pancakes/waffles/toast/croissants/butter/jam/honey/eggs/bacon/sausage/fresh fruit/milk/orange juice/coffee, but kids and husband take two bites and one big sip and leave” jokes on television and in comedy films.
The bad at cooking trope in media no doubt dates back to the 19th century (and probably earlier in baudy bar songs), but the large and ignored breakfast trope feels like it came into being when Boomers started taking over Hollywood and really showed how much they took for granted the postwar prosperity their Depression surviving parents and grandparents made possible.
Beetle Bailey – On dating apps it’s not uncommon to see women stating “Not looking to be a third” due to the number of heterosexual couples looking for a threesome. Thanks to Lt. Fuzz, the military golf course will have to start instituting rules to keep status-thirsty officers like him from trying to invite himself to the threesome, foursomes, and other groupings of superior officers. He’ll also be banned from the club house for sending two colonels drinks from across the bar with the message that “he loves their vibe.”
FC – Next: A lightning bolt vaporizes Dolly. Jeffy becomes the undisputed moron of the family, and – what a coincidence! – his prayers were answered.
Rex Morgan – I have seen more Christmases with no snow than white Christmases, especially in the past decade.
Beatty can’t draw children, and he can’t write them either.
Frazz – Even though she just learned it, she’ll still manage to be smug about it.
It pains me to have something in common with Frazz, but I just learned that about Day of the Dead in the past few days, too.
Pluggers – Yuck! The one time the color monkey got it right.
9CL – I don’t know what Brooke is going for here. If he thinks that this is charming, sweet, endearing, or realistic, it isn’t working. If he’s trying to set up the new generation as the same narcissistic, loathsome characters as their parents, he’s almost there.