Curtis will be sorry when Barry achieves samsara and he has nobody to harass
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Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/3/25
Cody may not be a blood relative to Truck, but they do have stuff in common: they’re both musicians, and they’re both aficionados of the sitting-based lifestyle. The difference is that Truck likes to sit on park benches, contemplating his troubles, whereas Cody sits in his not-stepmother’s diner, sponging off the free wi-fi while he dicks around on his laptop. Really makes you think about society these days!
Curtis, 8/3/25
Hey, remember when Curtis and Barry got expelled from their church congregation, for the sin of tomfoolery? Well, Barry has taken the opportunity to explore the sacred texts of the dharmic religions, and has been meditating on the nature of the soul and the possible purposes of the cycle of eternal rebirth. Curtis, meanwhile, has done exactly zero spiritual seeking. “It’s summer!” he declares. “We don’t hafta meditate on the nature of anything!”
Six Chix, 8/3/25
I was going to get mad about this strip, which seems to propose a world where dogs walk on their hind legs and contemplate art but can’t read, but then I realized that this is probably a ceci n’est pas une arf type conversation. Surely nobody drinking red wine at an art opening could be anything less than a sophisticated intellectual! I’m sorry I doubted you, dogs!
185 replies to “Curtis will be sorry when Barry achieves samsara and he has nobody to harass”
RMMD: “And then waits for a response. And waits. And waits.”
Is this strip set in Casablanca…??”
Six Chix-I don’t know much about arf but I know what I like.
FC-I prefer the Toot and Come Inn.
RMMD-While he’s waiting let’s go check in on some other boring members of the cast.
MW: That cocker spaniel wasn’t scolded; he was telling Mary to shut the hell up about her “dogs are great” tract because even he’s tired of it at this point. Not everyone likes dogs, you old bag.
RMMD: Does Cody not have anything better to do than drop everything to obsess about his genealogy? A job? A hobby? Making crystal meth?
RMMD:
“Aw, man. Now I know how Didi and Gogo felt in Waiting for Godot!”
Six Chix:
“Well, I suppose the Dadaist Jean Arf would consider it ‘Arf.’ “
RMMD: Things go south when Cody’s half-brother turns out to be a paranoid nut job who thinks Cody is a deep state actor. “Have you had the jab? Huh!? Huh!!?“
RMMD:
“Let me scroll down on my bro‘s info here to see if there’s anything more about him. Here we go. ‘Offers droll, cynical but brilliant observations on The Comics Curmudgeon.‘ Makes perfect sense.”
RMMD: OK, I’ll admit it: the Facebook panel with “School of Hard Knocks” made me laugh a lot. Maybe the soap comics are by and for a dwindling, aging demographic, but it’s a demographic that’s absolutely nailed observational comedy about what your cantankerous underachieving half-brother posts on his Facebook profile.
Curtis: Imagine if when you die, you’re transported to the bardo and your entire vision is filled with the face of a universe-sized Barry booming “Suppose our souls are here to fulfill some grand purpose?” I’d begging for good old Judeo-Christian Hell after that sight.
Rex Morgan: Buddy, if you’re going to spend hours sitting with your computer in a four-top by the window, maybe order more than a cup of coffee and a bagel. No wonder your newfound relatives aren’t getting in touch right away — they can already sense that you’re kind of a freeloader (and the “School of Hard Knocks” teaches students not to interact with people like that).
Curtis: If a couple of gluttonous boys are worried about being reincarnated in a different form that’s determined by karma, maybe you shouldn’t be serving them bacon.
Six Chix: That painting may not be “arf,” but we can all agree that it’s pretty darn arful.
Six Chix:
“Well, you know the old Latin saying, Fido: ‘Arfs gratia arfis’ !”
“Hey, don’t go all Canis Lupus Familiaris on me, Rex!”
Curtis: I can’t help but seeing the extreme close-up of Barry in the bottom row as a frownie-face emoticon.
MW: If Olive is an animal whisperer, she needs to fly straight to California and get the dirt from Wilbur’s fish. There are stories there that need telling.
SIXCHIX: I call B.S. At a REAL canine art exhibit, the paintings would be closer to the floor, so they could be peed upon. I mean, we don’t think they signed a guest book, do we?
@MKay: “There’s a fish in your building Mary, she’s hired a hit man to off her owners.”
@MKay: Wilbur should have a restraining order from anyone under the age of eighteen. Olive might be a delusional weirdo but even she doesn’t need to be subjected to someone who was probably on an unaired episode of To Catch a Predator.
FC: Adult Jeff opens the morning paper to admire today’s strip when he realizes he forgot to white out the CRT TV. “D’oh!!”
MW: Olive’s powers might tell her the dog is in a bad mood, but the REAL reason it tried to bite Mary is that we readers have finally realized OUR power. WE. MADE. IT. HAPPEN. For years, we’ve been merely hoping and wishing things would play out differently from what Moy and Brigman have given us. Now, we have finally figured out how to channel the strength of our collective thoughts, syncing them to change the course of events at Charterstone and beyond! The air conditioner “accident” was only our first, faltering attempt, but we’re getting stronger by the day. Stronger, and more focused. We WANTED the dog to bite Mary, and it WOULD have, too, if only that that brat, Olive, hadn’t gotten in the way AGAIN. Things are happening.
RMMD: Oh boy, the Rex Morgan M.D. I know never spares us a single detail, so I’m guessing the next week of this strip is going to be Cody taking sips of coffee and hitting refresh on his browser. If we’re really lucky, We might even get to see him order another side of toast.
Curtis: Anyone else read that last panel as “Allah time”? That sent me down a little rabbit hole to find out if reincarnation did actually appear in any Islamic traditions, and turns out that despite mainstream rejection of the concept, certain Ismaili and Sufi schools of thought still include the concept, to the point that adherents will ask for forgiveness of sins committed in previous lives. Also, it seems that certain breakaway sects, like the Alawites, hold reincarnation as a central tenant of their faith. Anyhow, no joke, just interesting stuff.
MW: Also, The Ladies seem to be laying the foundation for a hostile takeover, with Olive replacing Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!
Curtis: Barry becomes obsessed with the idea he’s a reincarnated 17th century Scotsman which embarrasses Curtis when he starts wearing his mom’s gingham dresses to school.
MW. They hate Mary. Wow. Dogs ARE great.
6C: They should ask Popeye.
Curtis: My first thought was, bacon with Cap’n Crunch? Really, Diane?
@Liam: Six Chix-I don’t know much about arf but I know what I like. -and I’ll bet it isn’t Six Chix!
Curtis: It took a bit but I realized that the 1/2 circle in the closeup is a nose and not a frown of some frightening being.
Curtis: Diane, I know it’s early in the morning and you’re busy cooking, but if my 8 year old was sitting in the kitchen regaling his brother with big unverified claims followed by “A book I read says it’s true!” I would at least gently suggest that you can’t believe everything you read, and maybe he should look into whether anything he read can be verified.
@10 Bob Tice:
Hey, what was that, that just flew over my head?
Pluggers have exactly the same anxiety dream as everybody else does. Oddly, they don’t seem incredibly smug about it.
Chix (sic): At the weekly group meeting it’s agreed that the whole gynocentric thing isn’t working so we’ll give dogs a shot.
MW: Narration box: I object to you. I object to intellect without discipline; I object to power without constructive purpose. —Mister Spock
MW:
“And might I add, my namesake galaxy-hopping cousin would absolutely love to administer a Vulcan nerve pinch to Mary.”
— Benjamin Spock
Six Chix: I know know if the dialogue was English, Scottish, or Welsh or what… but in one of the fantasy novels I read, the heroes come across a destroyed wooden sailing ship. Literally torn in half on the rocks on the shore. The survivors of the incident who refurnished the remains of the ship into a home called it “Arf-ship” Because it was ‘arf a ship.
@BigTed: There was a movie I once saw. These two kids (The younger boy and older teenage sister) had a Hispanic baby-sitter. The boy went through her stuff, and found a magical item that turned him into his spirit animal (A pig)
So the three (and the kid’s best friend) went to Mexico to find the babysitter’s grandmother on how to reverse the spell.
It was pretty dull, tbh.
But it had the GREATEST (accidental) burn I have ever seen in a movie.
The moody teenage sister wanders off, so the Pig and his friend are looking for her. They see a girl that looks like her from behind.
Friend: Hey!!
The girl turns around and it isn’t her.
Friend: Sorry! (points to the pig) we thought you were his Sister.
RMMD: Pretty bold of Beatty to rip off the opening narration of Casablanca. Sure, Cody wants to reconnect with his half-siblings, but it’s not like he has to “wait and wait” for an exit visa to get to Lisbon.
JP: I think you’re alone, Norweigian Not-Fred. If Leah the MaybeMurderer had been anywhere in the house, Sophie and Reena’s exposition screeching would have brought her in like a shot (heh…), just to shut the three of you ninnies up.
And just how long is Ces going to drag this out before letting one of these two bimbos realize how suspicious it is that this male barista is suddenly so interested in getting involved in this CIApril crap?
@12 MKay: I’d rather Olive hear what Libby has to say.
@15 Hibbleton: The CRT TV, the cable box, the analog clock on the bedside table, the out of order sign with the string, the film camera, the one huge inline skate that’s bigger than Bil’s foot, Curtis Wilkins’ cap perched on the edge of the headboard fastened to the wall…but he did remember to white-out the corded telephone.
MW: “Watch out, Mary. His owner scolded him this morning and he is a scent hound…. and you both smell like soil for some reason.”
6C: Dog 1: “But is it ‘ARF’?”
Dog 2: “I think that’s the implication. But then again, maybe it’s ‘ARM’, or even ‘ARC’. It’s supposed to be ambiguous. Or at least I think that’s the concept.”
Dog 1: “Damn these new-age hippie experimental painters and their fringe techniques, using these – what do they call them? – oh yeah, ‘colors’!!!”
“Ce n’est pas un ouaf,” s’il vous plaît. Zut alors!
FC: But what about Mrs. Morgan’s cat? Don’t tell me he’s still in the suitcase!
RMMD: That “School of Hard Knocks” guy has the right idea about sharing information online. Remember folks: If you give all your personal information out on social media, someone like Cody might try to contact you. And you KNOW Cody wants to borrow money!
H&L: Lois screws a 150 watt incandescent bulb into the stand-up lamp and moves it near the window.
“Well, that takes care of Trixie.”
6C: Looks like Pup Art to me, but I can’t place the artist. Roy Lickin’stein? Aidi Warhol?
RMMD: To be honest, if a stranger emailed me out of nowhere and claimed to be my long-lost half-brother, I’d automatically assume it was a pig butchering scam and delete the message.
SIX CHIX: “But is it ‘Arf’?”
Oh my god! Bob Tice is making comics now!
Curtis: The speech balloon in the first panel belongs to Barry. Why is he answering his own question by talking about a book that he claims is “really really for real real?”
This monologue seems harmless now, but twenty years later, when the cult comes under fire for all those disappearances, Curtis will realize his brother was workshopping some toxic rhetoric.
Awesome stuff, David Matthews (whoever you really are). On the “Readers of the Comics Curmudgeon” Facebook page, he posted a screen shot of an adult video in which one of the women – with a coy look on her face – has a newspaper folded in such a way that it shows a Pearls before Swine comic. As David said, you know you’ve made it when that happens. (Now please post a link to the entire video.)
C’shaft: Jeff…doesn’t get out much, does he?
Dustin: “My 600-lb. Tumor” is Dustmom’s private name for Dustdad.
MW: If a fourteen-year-old claimed she knew exactly what a dog was thinking, my assumption would be less “special snowflake child with supernatural abilities” and more “looking for attention, and probably neurodivergent.”
Foxtrot: But does this game recreate the experience that you are definitely swimming in multiple people’s urine?
Curtis – Remember, kids, Cap’n Crunch and bacon are important parts of an industrial-food-system-approved breakfast!
Curtis – “Suppose we were pigs in a past life?” “Mmm! My descendants are delicious!”
Don Abundio, translated:
“Did that huge filing job drive you nuts?”
“No worries, boss”
“I’m just filing myself now”
@48 Peanut Gallery: Do you mean “ancestors” instead of “decendants”?
Mary Worth Sunday quote: Ooh look, it’s the chapter heading and very first sentence of Benjamin Spock’s most famous book. This is just stunting on me now.
Rex Morgan: How did Beatty make Cody looking up his long-lost family look and sound like a stalker preparing to murder someone?
Curtis: Its not often that newspaper comics can make me say “what the fuck?”. But seeing Curtis and Barry get into a weirdly intense debate about reincarnation and cosmology is provoking that reaction in me.
Bizarro: He’s going to drop a surprise on them.
Lockhorns: “Face Painting” next to “Try Your Luck” is a neat throwaway joke (which I hope was on purpose) that I missed on first viewing.
Pluggers: The nighmare class she failed? “Egg-Sitting Arithmetic 101”.
Henrietta learned the hard way to not count her chickens before they hatched.
Beetle Bailey: This is a good go at a classic Beetle Bailey gag and worthy of all the room a Sunday strip takes up.
@TheDiva: Yeah, Olive is definitely the kind of kid that we’re supposed to think is cute and endearing but the way she insists that she’s different and special from her peers makes you want to throw something at her head. Or throw up.
@Liam:
FC: The Toot Uncommons?
RMMD: Is there any other kind?
@BigTed:
Wow, maybe Cody is Truck’s real son after all.
@Needless Exposition: Olive’s special, gifted, and talented. Just ask her!
DT: Doc Tess murdered Suleiman the loan shark slowly and painfully, and then sat there and smoked all of his cigars. Now, that’s cold-blooded.
Is reincarnation as most understand it real? No, that’s nonsense. But as explored by the great mangaka philosophers of Japan where if one is struck down by a large vehicle (“truck-kun“) they will be re-born, usually at an age where they will comprehend what happened, in a world that we would consider high fantasy or perhaps strongly resembling a video game, with powers far exceeding most inhabitants of that world? That makes theological sense to me.
@Baja Gaijin: No; if Curtis was a pig in a past life, present-day pigs could be descendants of that long-ago pig.
His father probably has an opinion on whether Curtis is a pig now.
@56 Needless Exposition: How about throwing up on her head?
@62 Peanut Gallery: Aah. Got it.
@Lord Flatulence: I could see her played by one of the Olsen twins in the 90s as some annoyingly precocious kid just like their character in Full House who had everyone wrapped around her finger in that Amityville Horror house. Probably Mary-Kate who played the super obnoxious scenes and is probably who I think of when I say that the baby on Full House was not cute.
@Needless Exposition: Nailed it.
Barry’s mother is trying to undermine his son’s belief in reincarnation by presenting him with meat from a slaughtered animal. Joke’s on you lady! Barry read a Druze book, not a Dharmic one, so he only believes in reincarnation among humans!
SC: Listen, “Barksy” as the name of the artist is a cute pun, but Banksy doesn’t paint on canvas — he paints on walls — and he doesn’t do deeply intellectual art — mostly pop-culture references and cheap symbolism. You cannot sacrifice sense for puns “Six Chix”, you are not Batiuk!
“What if our bodies are actually buried somewhere and we don’t know it?”
“That’s because both of you kids are messy! I always know where my bodies are buried!”
“Remember Arf? He’s back! In pop-art form!”
Lockhorns: Bottom right panel — looks like Loretta and Dark-Haired Lady have suddenly discovered they both share an Unfulfilled Passion, and are about to fulfill it…
You’d think the story now would be about established character Truck examining the psychological ramifications of this discovery, but Truck was just a gateway to introduce the new character, Cody, and follow his storyline. Anything rather than following Rex and his boring family!
“Suppose our soul are here to fulfil some gran purpose.” Notice the clever opposition between what the text says and what the art conveys. Barry’s eyes prove he has no soul!
Apparently public libraries allow children to access books that sway them from the Christian creed of the their families towards new religious beliefs from the Orient! Maybe those conservative Evangelicals were not so paranoid…
Crank: Hey, Jeff! Take a selfie with that statue of Louis Riel, famous lunatic, murderer of Thomas Scott, and — last and least — “Father of Manitoba.” Canadian history is the BEST!!! It’s just like the history of all the other great nations, if they were somehow left-handed.
Crankshaft Jokes about Canada and no hack references to hockey or Tim Horton’s? Step up your game, buddy.
@Ettorre:
Not in Oklahoma. Right Mr Walters? But the Trump Bible is in the plenty. GD POS
I guess Six Chix gets credit for crediting the street art to “Barksley”.
Curtis: “The souls of these pigs fulfilled their grand purpose, which was to drown out your inane yammering CRUNCHCRUNCHCRUNCH SORRY WHAT CRUNCHCRUNCH CAN’T HEAR YOU BARRY CRUNCHCRUNCHCRUNCH”
@Hemant:
There’s always some idiot that has to make everything political
@Ettorre: “Remember Arf? He’s back! In pop-art form!”
____________________________
Poop-art?
@Ettorre:
“In fact, he’s painting Alpo cans on canvases!”
@Sequitur:.
Over your head? Impossible, with your Latin nom de plume! :-)
@Anonymous: Um…dude, many of the comics here make little comments about “politics” all the time (indeed it’s a common joke-like utterance on Shoe,which created as an extremely low-level “satire” on the media, particularly Watergate-style muckraking, before they the creators forgot the premise…including the fact that they’re birds.) What you meant to say is “There’s always some idiot that has to make everything specific. Make it more generalized so that I can pretend not to know what the reference is about and can then reuse the joke about a political entity I dislike. You know, like the ‘pros’ do!”
Just saying that people using whatever passes for “punchlines” in these strips to make sly, humorous commentary of their own has always been a “thing” here. It’s as much as our “thing” around these parts as criticizing
Wilbur & CompanyMary Worth. I don’t make the rules, bro.@Anonymous:
There’s always an option to ignore things that hurt your feels.
@2+2=7: I nominate Wilbur & Company as the new name for Mary Worth.
MARY WORTH- The dog probably smells Mary’s dope.
FC: Mommy! Tell those sideburn wearing white trash goobers in the next room to quit playing their roots country music in the middle of the night!
RMMD: I’m hoping Cody’s loser half brother is Rene Belluso.
RMMD: Speaking of Rene, shouldn’t he be out of that body cast by now and working on a new scam?
@2+2=7: @Hemant: I am a-quiver with RAGE that Shoe continues to use Speaker of the House Tip “Tip” O’Neill as its template for corrupt congressmen, even though he’s been over thirty years in the grave.
BEETLE BAILEY: Just what is it the writers think soldiers do when they’re out in the field? For crying out loud, it’s not a damn camping trip.
Crank: “I can’t believe we’re actually in Winnipeg … to do a joke you did at greater length sixteen years ago from the comfort of our own backyard!”
HtH: I live in an area known for seagulls. And by “known for seagulls” I mean “try to eat a poke of chips within a mile of the shoreline and you’ve no-one but yourself to blame if you lose a finger.” I am so horrified by this man’s actions in encouraging seabirds to think human food is their buffet that I’m not even in the mood to research whether Vikings actually ate chicken wings!
JP: Welcome to Judge Parker, Askel, where every random, nonsensical conspiracy these two idiots blurt out without a shred of evidence is automatically true, because that’s how detective stories work, apparently!
MW: Panel 1’s kind of interesting. Olive likes dogs but her parents “haven’t agreed for us to get one yet”. Not “said no, but I’m trying to talk them round” not “are still considering it” just “haven’t agreed yet“. But they will. Once she’s honed her powers, they’ll agree to everything.
Pluggers: Technically, it doesn’t start “You’re a Plugger if…”, it just says that Pluggers have this experience. Which, since Pluggers are a subset of literally everyone, is probably true!
RMMD: I’m sure Terry Beatty would like us to acknowledge that he has skipped several days of characters sitting around waiting for something to happen. Has he skipped directly to the point where something does happen? No. Has he skipped to shortly before that point? Guess we’ll find out tomorrow, but probably not. But still, several days of sitting, jumped over like we wouldn’t miss anything by not seeing it. He’s learning!
RMMD — Cody has made the rookie mistake of predicating his next move on something happening in Rex Morgan, MD. He could be well on his way to his next reincarnation before one of his half-sibs decides to respond to or even read a message that begins, “I am your long-lost half brother.”
Curtis — All of this deep discussion about Life and the Nature of Existence makes me think that Curtis’s creator has a contract up for review.
@Hemant: How in the world did I initially read that as “There’s always an option to ignore shoes that hurt your heels” ???
@Ettorre: Also, he’s some sort of Phantom-Ninja Graffitist who manages to do his work overnight, never being seen and never being caught.
@Needless Exposition: See? See? You get the swing of how we do things around here!
@Ettorre: To be pedantic, Banksy does sometimes paint on canvas, like that time he did a painting that secretly had a shredder built into the frame which activated as soon as the auction was over, because paying silly money for the important message that you’re an idiot for paying silly money is apparently what art afictionados are into these days.
(The damn thing’s apparently worth more now. I’m not usually one of those people who dismisses modern art as a massive con, but sometimes…)
@Horace Broon: I would have thought that in Glasgow, they’d be known as “rivergulls.”
Mary didn’t care for Olive’s classmates’ reviews,wait till she gets to read Gene Shallet’s headline “O-LIVE?!? More like O-Filmed on an audience less stage with laugh track dubbed in.” He goes on to say “Olive makes “Alice” look sane.”
@The Rambling Otter: @Ettorre: Also, he’s some sort of Phantom-Ninja Graffitist who manages to do his work overnight, never being seen and never being caught.
_______________________
How does he not get smelt in his skin tight purple smock?
FC: Suddenly it dawns on Bil and Thel that in their frantic last-minute flurry of packing for their three-week road trip they stuffed every available suitcase with the kids’ toys and paraphernalia and forgot to bring extra clothes, underwear, diapers, toothpaste and toothbrushes and other toiletries as well as Billy’s rescue inhaler. Bil also forgot to put his credit cards, cash and driver’s license in his wallet. This will certainly be a vacation to remember.
P.S. Do I hear muffled barks and meows from the trunk of the car? Dollars to donuts they forget to bring pet food and litter, too.
ZITS: PSA- lifeguards are essential even for wading pools. But do these teens qualify as lifeguards?
BoT: how humiliating! Your human takes you out for a walk, shows you off when you’re nekkid as a lump of ore!
FBoFW: one happy puppy.
CS: two happy Pluggers
Dog dreams: JS and Peanuts
Curtis: Forget the flying cars, How is this 2025,and we don’t have Capt Crunch With Bacon Berries™ yet?
@Horace Broon: Whatever happened to “Crankshaft’s awful yuppie neighbor “?
@GarrisonSkunk:
Apparently Lillian moved in. It’s not an improvement.
The awful yuppie neighbors suddenly realized they could afford to live in Shaker Heights, clear across town from the Crankshaft family.
Hate to “actually” you but the headline should be nirvana not samsara – samsara is the actual cycle of rebirth, nirvana the final liberation from it …
That closeup of Barry was hard to parse. I realize now that that thing there is his nose, but I saw it first as a mouth, and wondered who the hell that pouty little mushroom-face was. I guess Barry IS a pouty little mushroom-face, but not in exactly that way.
Ceci n’est pas un arf
Congrats to Rex Morgan for delivering another strip as contractually mandated, who cares if anything “happens” in it.
@Horace Broon: True. It’s a message. Not a complicated message or artistically deep
Seeking wisdom, I picked up a copy of the “Arf of War,” and it’s a tough read. Lots of hate for squirrels, and tips for which dead and disgusting things I’m supposed to roll around in. LOTS of stuff about licking my own crotch. I’m TRYING, damn it!”
Cody’s brother-in-law looks like he killed his family with a machete MAYBE 10 minutes after that picture. Then won an award for Most Likely To Kill His Family With A Machete.
@A Grave Mind: Why not relax with some YouTube? Maybe binge the old “House Party” teevee show, hosted by Arf Linkletter.
@Ukulele Ike: Damn, that reminded me of how big a star Art Linkletter once was. Does anybody remember him now?
@Rube:
#114. Remember Arf Linketter? Oh, Rube, you pups say the darndest things
@Activist: Heh, at 66 I don’t generally think of myself as a pup, but Ike’s post made me think: “Hmm, right, he had at least two shows, but why? I guess he was pretty funny talking to kids, but wasn’t that mostly the kids? It was sad about his daughter, but he turned into a sanctimonious prick afterwards, but then again, maybe he was always a sanctimonious prick? I honestly can’t remember.”
Pluggers: Henrietta was having a nightmare about being bullied in high school by a chicken hawk, or her disastrous prom date with Foghorn Leghorn.
FC: So, the Keane kids aren’t going to do any sightseeing or outdoor activities during this “vacation”? They’re just going to lock themselves up in the motel room for a week, watch TV, and play with their toys. Wonder what “toys” Thel and Bil brought with them?
@Rube: #115: Here’s an eerie coincidence. When Linkletter’s daughter fell (or was pushed as some speculate) from that hotel balcony, the boyfriend who was in the room with her was also the same guy who was dating Carol Wayne (the busty blonde Teatime Theater girl on the Tonight Show sketches) and was with her the night she supposedly drowned while vacationing in Mexico.
@Guillermo el Chiclero:Yeah, I know. Either that guy was bizarrely unlucky, or….
@Rube: You inspired me to go and stream John Waters’s 1969 nine-minute movie, The Diane Linkletter Story. Filmed one day after she jumped out the window, starring Divine and David Lochary, all dialogue completely ad-libbed, Waters claimed it was made solely to test-run a new movie camera.
GENIUS STUFF.
(No, not really. But Divine makes a fetching Diane)
Free of charge on Internet Archive.
Late Thread Cuisine: OK I think I found something someone might like. No fish, no Jell-O, no shrimp, no sauces, no toast for anyone to complain about.
I’m at my parents’, perusing the ol’ deadtree, and the only thing that sticks out to me here is Grand Avenue. On the one hand, the slang seems to be mostly used correctly*, which is honestly pretty impressive. On the other hand, this is not a conversation human beings would have, ever. These two space aliens studied hard to blend in, but they’ve got a ways to go, yet.
*Not completely sure. I’m a millennial. This is zoomer/alpha-speak.
@A Grave Mind: #110
Just wait til you read “Adventures with Cerberus”!
@Baja Gaijin: #120
Chunks of okra (retch!) stuffed between two patties of raw hamburger garnished with lemon wedges? I know of *no* human on the planet who would find that edible, much less appetizing…
@123 Daisy: You forgot the carrot slices.
@Rube: He used to be a perennial entertainer at the Bohemian Grove. They loved him, apparently.
@Die Rosenkavalieren: He does seem like the kind of entertainer a bunch of dudes plotting world domination would appreciate,
MT: As a lifelong resident of the Upper Midwest, and having spent time in all those states and lived in four, I wish to point out that not all beaches are ocean beaches. There are very nice freshwater beaches too, especially along the Great Lakes. I didn’t mind the first half a dozen times that Jules implied that all beaches are ocean beaches, but enough is enough.
REX MORGAN M.D.: Um…why are we spending time on an auxiliary character of an auxiliary character of an auxiliary character (with the upcoming week promising to focus on fourth-tier auxiliary characters)? I mean Rex Morgan (remember him) doesn’t know or care about any of these people (he barely cares about his
friendsvague occasional acquaintances!) Why the Hell should we?Curtis: Barry talks about changing race and gender, but many traditions also speak of changing species, which he says nothing about. Either he’s not ready to talk about being a hippo on Boner’s Ark or he doesn’t think his family is ready to hear it.
RMMD: Cody’s awareness that you don’t have to physically sit around and wait for an email reply is at exactly the same level as Beatty’s knowledge that you can cut scenes where nothing is happening.
GA: I worked as a museum guide for a few months, and Rufus seems to be illustrating the desperate shortage of qualified help in some small towns. Presumably he got kicked out of his job at City Hall, which is no surprise.
9CL: Highly inappropriate Edda skirt ride-up at the end, but this is Brookeworld. What else is new?
C-Shaft: Next they’re going to round up some of the local talent to find out what various sex acts are called in Winnipeg and how much they cost in US vs. Canadian dollars.
Dustin: If these shows aren’t enjoyable to watch, it’s not like the titles are automatic kneeslappers either.
HtH: Okay, so the Viking ship has sailed on any kind of historical accuracy, but can we not remember that these people live in Scandinavia? At least put a ring over the “A” in “TASTY”.
MW: “It definitely didn’t sense the presence of evil when you crossed its path.”
@Poteet: #127
Absolutely true! Hubby and I have traveled to the UP of Michigan and also Indiana Dunes – both are beautiful lakefront beaches.
JP: Do Sophie and Reena actually believe there are no police in rural Norway? Of course they do. Hansel and Gretel were savvy and streetwise compared to these dummies.
@Baja Gaijin: #124
Okay, I was forced to take another look and didn’t see any so-called “carrot slices,” unless they were wedged in deeply behind the (retch!) okra. :-p
@2+2=7: What is Rex doing these days, do we suppose? I can’t even remember if he likes golf, or tennis, or museums, or reading, or…wait, he has those three extremely weird children who need to be brought up to some semblance of normal adulthood. No recreation for Rex. Good luck with those kids, Doc M, better you than us.
@134 Daisy: OK, look at the big okra slice near the center of the photo. Directly to the right and below and to the left appear to be carrot slices to me. I should have Photoshopped a couple of googly eyes on it.
@135 Poteet: Rex locked himself in the hermetically-sealed COVID-19 cave in the basement to get away from his extremely weird children and wife with the exteremely weird spit curl.
@Daisy: Hope you had a wonderful time! And it’s nice that North American beachgoers can choose between stingrays and no stingrays, something for everyone.
@Baja Gaijin: Bwahaha!
@Baja Gaijin: Does it have a *long pause to settle rising gorge* name?
@140 Poteet: I found only the image. I couldn’t find a name, though I’m sure “Abomination to the cows who sacrificed their lives to make this okra-infested monstrosity” would work.
MW: Olive, you are turning out to be a real killjoy. In a few minutes, when a taxi speeds right at Mary as she’s crossing the street, STFU.
@Baja Gaijin: Once again I like the way you think.
@Poteet: Yeah, I prefer an Audi i8…huh? Oh, you mean the animal…okay, sure, they’re cool too.
RMMD: The grandchildren are named “Russet” and “Fingerling.”
@Baja Gaijin: While I like okra, trying to figure out just what exactly that thing is takes away my appetite.
Lily, age 7, doesn’t mess around and goes straight to the top in submitting Starry Night to the Slylock Fox page. Maybe she’s looking to give that art forger character I don’t remember the name of a run for his money.
@Poteet: #127: The only difference is that the sand on Great Lakes beaches tend to be of a much coarser grain than those on ocean beaches, due to lack of tidal action.
Sweet Treat Time: A simple little dish, in a cute little cup. Nothing big or extravagant.
@146 Dr. Pill: If you’re truly a doctor, it probably reminds you of the reverse peristaltic remnants of someone with a bleeding ulcer. Or something even more disgusting as some of the other ‘Mudges will suggest.
@148 The Rambling Otter: And now we have the anti-“Abomination to the cows who sacrificed their lives to make this okra-infested monstrosity”. Looks yummy! Who’s the character on the cup?
@Baja Gaijin: This is an official merchandise, of the videogame franchise Animal Crossing, in which once a day, in the games you can get a nice little cup of coffee. The ambiance is very calm and relaxing. The coffee is served by a anthropomorphic pigeon named Brewster. The logo on the cup his is face.
I looked at that cup earlier and thought, that would look very nice to put ice-cream in.
Rex Morgan, MD – Say what you will about Cody, he’s at least an employed session musician, managing to pursue a dream and make it work. His half-brother Jonah, meanwhile, probably hasn’t held down a job for more than 6 months, and usually just to meet the bare minimum to appease his probation officer.
Curtis – If human and animal life reincarnates, perhaps recurring characters in myth and culture are reincarnated entities as well. While there is no Divine Comedy of comics (Though this blog is as close as it gets), we could makes some guesses as the at to which characters and creators may ascend, which come back at the same level, which drop down in a lower level, and which are to be banished to creative hell.
My guesses are:
Ascended: Peanuts, Calvin & Hobbes, The Far Side, Zits (eventually), Bloom County, Heathcliff
Reincarnated: Hagar, Beetle Bailey, Hi and Lois, Blondie, Dennis the Menace, Dick Tracy, Archie, Curtis, various Six Chix, Barney Google and Snuffy Smith
Lower Reincarnation: Pluggers, Shoe, B.C., Wizard of Id, Family Circus, various Six Chix
Hell: Marvin, Garfield, Frazz, Rex Morgan, MD, Mary Worth, Luann, Crankshaft, Funky Winkerbean, Intelligent Life
Six Chix – I know this dog is only asking the question to appear smarter and more cultured than he is, because a dog truly confused would cock its head and raise it’s ear.
@Poteet: Sophie can hack into drone cameras, but can she tie her shoes?
RMMD: Surprised no one (that I know of) has mentioned that Cody’s putative half sister looks exactly like an aged Sarah Morgan.
@Baja Gaijin: Is that supposed to be a budget version of steak tartare? Some pictures I googled look similar, although the authentic one adds a raw egg on top. Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse.
Back in olden times when I was in my twenties, I was at a small gathering where steak tartare was offered as an appetizer. I had to politely decline, since I’d enough science education to know that eating raw meat was a bad idea. Maybe that’s why I’ve made it to old age.
@The Rambling Otter: Thank you for the palate cleanser!
@154 Arabella: I’ve only had steak tartare in Europe. It looked nothing like the Late Thread Cuisine. If it did, I wouldn’t have eaten it.
Did anyone have Loni Anderson in a death pool? You can collect now.
R.I.P. Loni Anderson
@Poteet: @Daisy: “If you get stung….rinse the wound thoroughly with seawater.” Well, shit. If you step on a stingray at a GREAT LAKES beach, you’d have to quickly book an airline ticket to the coast to get your hands on seawater, and by then your foot will have probably fallen off. Those freshwater stingrays are the WORST.
@Dr. Pill: I like okra also, mainly in gumbo where I sauté it in the roux until it’s stringy and gooey, and then simmer it until it dissolves and thickens the broth into delicious murky gumbo. Also in okra succotash where I stew it with fresh tomatoes, corn, onion, and Lima or green beans. I never thought to put it between two ground beef patties.
@GarrisonSkunk:
Me (asking my sister): Who’s Loni Anderson?
My Sister (lists some stuff she was in): She was married to Burt Reynolds.
Me: Burt Reynolds must be devastated.
My Sister: Actually he died seven years ago.
Me: NOOOOOO!!!!!!
(Edit: My Mom and I have been binge watching the original Magnum P.I recently, so I am genuinely shocked. I mean, I’m sorry for Loni Anderson but I don’t know anything about her as I do Burt Reynolds.)
@The Rambling Otter: You’re young, by the standards of this place. Most of us remember her from WKRP In Cincinnati, which doesn’t get rerun anymore, since it had a background of 70s music played under agreements that have expired.
Gotta say, though, for some reason I thought she had died years ago.
Hi and Lois – When I was a kid, I was always a bit puzzled by this “rainy day” comics trope, because I had plenty of things to do indoors and spent a lot of time there regardless of the weather. And that was before PCs and smartphones!
@Rube: You were thinking of Carol Wayne. Or maybe Diane Linkletter.
@Peanut Gallery: Peanut Gallery’s Mom: “Peanut Gallery! GO OUT AND PLAY IN THE FRESH AIR!”
FC – Thank goodness they brought a creepy teddy bear to keep the melonheads awake and quivering in terror. It’s not as creepy as the one in a strip a while back, but it still looks like it’s biding its time until it goes berserk. They must have an entire toy chest filled with creepy teddy bears.
The teddy bear is a distraction to keep the Disney lawyers from noticing the Disney-like toys. Jef apparently updated they toys – they look much less like antiques than usual.
@Rube: My family doctor when I was a child had a book of Kids Say The Darndest Things in his waiting room. I always read it while I was waiting my turn to see the doctor.
@Baja Gaijin: I was going to ask WTF it is, but I see from later comments that it’s a monstrosity made of okra (blecch) and some kind of ground meat. NOPE.
@Poteet: The Tater Tots!
@Ukulele Ike: “But Mom!
It’s Howdy Doody time!I’ve only seen this episode of Gilligan’s Island three times before!”Actually, I wasn’t a total couch potato. I used to go out and ride my bike down the street and back during the commercial breaks, and try to time it so I came back right at the end of the break.
I watched so many sitcoms when I was a kid that I’ve hardly ever wanted to watch any since then.
@120 Baja Gaijin:
Was that dug up from a zombie grave yard?
@Peanut Gallery: I was the same way, though mainly with comic books. I DO remember enjoying The Good Guys, The Mothers-in-Law, It’s About Time, and My Mother the Car. That Avery Schreiber was a hoot!
And who could forget that miraculous year that provided both Mr. Terrific and Captain Nice?
@Ukulele Ike: Yeah, I think Mr Terrific is the one I watched, but I am honestly not sure, and can’t be bothered to look it up.
@166 Sequitur: Good question. I’ll leave it to the philosophers to determine the answer to that question.
@167 Ukulele Ike: I recently saw a few episodes of “The Mothers-In-Law”. What a stinkaroo of a sitcom. Even Eve Arden of “Our Miss Brooks” fame couldn’t save that formulaic poor quality copy of “The Lucy Show.” Later I saw “The Paul Lynde Show” on the same station. I can’t believe how bad that show was. The main problem was they made Paul the straight man [no snickering]. I guess this Sunday morning time slot was “Terrible Sitcoms That Didn’t Last Long, Thank Goodness!”
@Baja Gaijin: Well, hell. I was eight.
@Rube: I’m not old enough to have watched WKRP in first run, but my family tries to make sure to watch the turkey episode every Thanksgiving.
@Majicou:Quite possibly the funniest episode in the history of sitcoms.
@Philip: #151
Conspicuous for its absence is “9 Chickweed Lane.” Not even the lowest abyss of hell wanted that abomination. Perhaps it was consigned to utter annihilation to spare the Universe its toxic residue.
@Poteet: #138
Thanks! We did. The UP is so beautiful and scenic, with its lighthouses and quaint towns. I was quite surprised at the size of the waves when we went swimming one day, and the water was of course quite chilly! No stingrays, fortunately.
@Baja Gaijin: #136
I trust your word. Nothing can make me look at that eldritch horror again. =:0
@171 Ukulele Ike: I was about six months ago age when I saw it.
@176 Daisy: I wish I hadn’t. Tomorrowthread’s Cuisine won’t look as terrible. I think.
@Daisy: I’ve always wanted to go up there. How does it compare to coastal Maine, in terms of lighthouses and quaint towns? I’d have to get used to perch fish-fries instead of steamed clams and lobster, but I can deal with that. Pass the tartar sauce.
@Baja Gaijin: Yeah, uh-huh, right, it reminds me of whatever the hell you were talking about.
@Ukulele Ike: Gumbo is a good way to eat it. Also, breaded and fried.
@The Rambling Otter: Thank you, Rambling Otter, for bringing
some tastesomething tasty to the section.It’s already available if you look for it.
Monday Judge Parker: So Randy will now jet to Norway, probably Oslo, and run all over the place looking for April. What fun!
@181 Sequitur:
I just looked at Tuesday and nope.
***Updates Wikipedia description of Rex Morgan, MD to “a daily newspaper comic about a roots musician’s not-son surfing social media and slowly learning about Ancestry.com.”***
RMMD: The final panel is an obvious reference to the opening narration of Casablanca, which will hopefully lead to an artful shot of Mud Mountain Murphy being dragged off by the police while he pleads for help.
“Truck, hide me! Do something, you must help me! TRUCK!”
@The Rambling Otter: (Edit: My Mom and I have been binge watching the original Magnum P.I recently, so I am genuinely shocked.
___________
Are you confusing Burt Reynolds with Tom Selleck? AFAIK Selleck is still alive and kicking bad guys.
@Peanut Gallery: Yes, one of those real life “plugger” moments. Now, rainy days is no big deal so long as the power doesn’t go out.