Thursday updates
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Mary Worth, 8/21/25
Mary Worth Update: Olive rushed into the surf and saved her drowning classmate, is one way to describe what happened, although another and possibly more accurate way is to say that Olive forced the beach lifeguard to rescue not one but two children from the undertow. Anyway, this has gotten most of her erstwhile bullies to change their thinking on the whole Olive situation. But not Naomi! Naomi will never stop living her truth, which is that Olive is a big weirdo. And good for her. Probably Olive will finally lose her patience and use her psychic powers to violently explode Naomi’s skull, but I appreciate someone who stands by their convictions instead of changing their mind just because of a little bit of selfless life-saving.
Rex Morgan, 8/21/25
Rex Morgan Update: Cody tracked down his bio-half-sis, who informed him that her brother does not want to meet their father’s bastard spawn. But that hasn’t stopped Cody! There hasn’t been a lot of medical business in this strip lately, but I do wonder if Rex’s clinic is equipped to handle whatever kind of injury a guy could deal out with a leaf blower, if he’s surprised enough.
Six Chix, 8/21/25
Six Chix Update: Wouldn’t it be funny if eating way too much meat made you spasm uncontrollably? Ha ha! I’m pretty sure it doesn’t, though. The main thing it does is give you heart disease, eventually, though it might fuck your colon up real bad first.
104 replies to “Thursday updates”
RMMD: Jonah turns around and thinks he sees his two-timing father. “I thought you were dead!!” He says as he turns his weed whacker setting from stun to kill.
Six Chix:
“I just saw two countercultural types in the Haight-Ashbury district! — I have the hippie-hippie shake!”
RMMD:
“Jonah? Is that you? Say, why are you using that leafblower on a single cotyledon?”
“I’m turning a new leaf!”
6C: His workout pal should consider dialing back on the seaweed smoothies.
RMMD: This setup is reminding me of a workplace safety film that MST3K showed once, on how to get the attention of someone when they’re welding.
MW:
“Should we go over there to comfort Vicki, Naomi?”
“Nah. I need to file my fingernails.”
MW-“I’m going to start following Olive now.”
FC-“Is that the fish I smell or is there a convention in this town?”
MW-“Oh I could’ve done what she did but I didn’t want to swim out in rip currents and drown the both of us.”
Blondie-Eh. You should try Blondie’s pie.
Six Chix-It’s funny because shakes is something that people coming down from sever drug addictions get.
RMMD:
“That’s one powerful garden implement you’ve got there, Jonah! — how many leaves did you displace with it?”
“The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind….”
Jonah knows Cody is there, and who he is. Now begins the perpetual slow chase, Jonah never deactivating his leaf blower or removing his headphones, until Cody finally gives up several days later.
MW: Oh, Naomi, Naomi, Naomi! You are gonna be so bummed when everyone else is invited to the All Hail Olive and Mary Worth Spectacular at Madison Square Garden.
RMMD: Invasion of privacy. Invasion of personal space. Invasion of gene pool. I SO want to see Cody get leaf-blown into the next block.
RMMD – He sure seems anxious to stop Jonah. Something terrible must happen if a leaf blower crosses the Great RRRRRRRRRRR Barrier. Maybe all LLLLLLLLLLLLLL breaks loose.
I, too, respect Naomi’s purity of vision. As we all know, sometimes the only way to change someone’s opinion of you is by defeating them in an ox-head mace duel atop the Sphinx.
Wilber thinks he’s going home with a box of Ms Bumstead’s pubes.
FC: You’re crotch high to your mom, you stupid melonhead. Of course you smell fish.
69. “Wouldn’t it be funny if eating way too much meat made you spasm uncontrollably?” Gag.
Mary Worth : I was hoping this story would end with only Vicki becoming Olive’s friend, the other two mean girls now victimising Vicky as well. But now it looks like it’ll end with Olive having the two hanger-ons while Naomi is the ostracised “weirdo”. Ugh.
…Maybe it’ll end with all four girls being friends?
And Mary Worth suggesting they become a superhero group, even though Olive’s the only one with powers?************
Rex Morgan M.D. : I hope Cody realises that Jonah is ignoring him on purpose, and would be doing so “long-lost brother” or not.
************
Six Chix : That’s what happens when you take enough supplements at once to become bigger than She-Hulk!
************
Slylock Fox : EXTRA DIFFERENCE : In the panel on the left, that’s a really weirdly-drawn, inexplicably purple frog. In the panel on the right, that’s the weird purple fuzzy ball thing that hangs around Count Weirdly, having been shaved smooth.
Chix (sic): I remember when reading Piri Thomas’ Down These Mean Streets that “needing some protein” was a prison euphemism for oral sex. Just saying in the strip’s context, I’m not sure if this guys on overdose or withdrawal.
Frazz: After all that buildup, Frazz is going to race on crutches? What a dick move. It’s as if this whole event was set up to humiliate the teacher no matter who wins.
6C: Elphaba is casting a spell to transform him into the Cowardly Lion.
@Ken: YES! a classic! The RiffTrax crew are still out having riffed Time Cop in the theaters.
@Banana Jr. 6000:
Is it too much to hope Frazz re-injures his leg by putting too much strain on it racing? (Even though then, the strip would find a way to put the blame for that ENTIRELY on Mrs Olsen, ignoring how much of this race was on Frazz’s insistence they go through with it)
Phantom: So the ghost who walks is now hearing voices from his dog now? Is this going the way of the Son of Sam??
MW: So the lesson is that if you have to deal with bullies the best way is to save one of their lives while endangering your own?
DT:Is the redhead LaKoyle? Is she going to try to make a Faustian bargain?
JP: Wow, Aksel must be working for family – he wanders off in a crisis at work to litterally chase girls (ahem, women) and then saunters back to work as if nothing had happened! But now he has a cool story about there being a CIA agent and safe house in the area. Is this going in the Goofus reel for the CIA training video?
MW: All the (ahem) “clues” for what was going to happen — the mean girls, Olive’s swimming lessons, a planned trip to the beach — were available weeks ago. I’m kicking myself that it didn’t all click until the literal “red flag”. Anyone want to claim they were first to put it together?
We could make this a regular contest. I have to admit the last one, “Belle’s brother who’s a Wilbur lookalike shows up and whisks her away,” caught me completely by surprise – but from the comments, I was far from alone!
RMMD: Cody is in for a rude awakening when he finds out the hard way that his step bother is the Mayhem guy from All State and he gets blown into oncoming traffic.
Six Chix: Protein shakes? More like Proteus Syndrome!
Also known as Elephant Man’s Disease, wokka wokka?
…
Is this thing on?
MW:
Naomi strikes me as being the type of person with respect to whom if you’d asked her out on a date while the two of you were in high school, your odds of her saying “yes” would be exactly zero unless you were a certified bad boy. But twenty years later, after her first marriage, to the bad boy, dissolved in a sea of recrimination and she was chastened by the experience, you’d suddenly seem a lot more attractive to her.
Remember kids, if you want your peers not to hate you, you must do a great gesture, like saving someone’s life. If you have no one to save, you can save yourself, i.e. threaten to commit suicide. You thing I am misrepresenting “Mary Worth”? This is the same strip of “gaslight yourself out of trauma” and “embrace toxic people like Wilbur”
MW: I can only assume that this scene takes place weeks later, after the dramatic rescue is commemorated with a series of clay statues.
RMMD: Hmm, this scene is reminding me a little too much of those gruesome workplace safety videos. I suppose it would be ironic that Cody would spend so much time tracking down his biological family, only to be severely injured by his half-brother’s leaf blower. Well, maybe less ‘ironic’ than ‘stupid’…
SCx: Hey, did you ever watch He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon? Do you remember the whole sequence in the opening credits with Prince Adam transforming into Adam? Sorry, I can’t really formulate this into a ‘joke’ format, but…that.
Cody, don’t interrupt your half brother! Men hate being disturbed when they are busy with a blow job!
Rex Morgan, M.D.: Ask yourself one question, Cody: does a guy need a Kevlar vest and tactical pants to blow leaves? Well, does he?
I like that, after effectively removing the “medical” from medical drama, the Rex Murphy team are now trying to remove the drama
GT I’m not sure what’s more out of touch with teen reality – random “yeet!” or caring if someone wears a plain Tshirt more than once (“oh no! olive-mustard is so last year)
Also Rex Morgan, M.D.: My wife and I constantly joke about the neighbor behind us who obsessively blows her lawn, down to a single blade of grass, every night until well after sunset. She is not, however, to my knowledge anyone’s surprise half-sister. I should really ask her about that. (I will not ask her.)
Mary Worth: “Yeah, right. You didn’t, Naomi. Olive saved her life. You have nice hair, though.”
@Bob Tice: Excuse me, that’s the Hippie-Dippie Shake.
Also Rex Morgan, M.D.: RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRene Belluso!
Garfield Mashup: Does it work better this way?
MW: What Olive did was neither selfless nor life saving. It was foolish, reckless and narcissistic. She endangered herself, Vicki and the lifeguard all in service of her interminable need for attention and praise.
@astroboy:
FTFY
MW: I might be wrong but I think this whole story line is the plot to Madame Web.
“Today’s Rex Morgan was brought to you by the letter ‘R’, the numbers 8, 21, and 25, and readers like you.”
Come on, Cody, some people know they don’t want to be in the Rex Morgan, M.D. comic strip and you need to respect their wishes! Now Jonah has to get an anachronistic haircut and enjoy some weird hipster entertainment. I hope you’re happy, jerk!
RMMD: does Rex have the skills needed to remove a blower from Cody’s ass?
@Professor Well Actually: is it possible Cody will enjoy the experience?
@astroboy: And I wish Blonde Mean Girl would call Olive out for that. “All she had to do was tell the lifeguard, who was right there! It was an obvious ploy for attention, and I refuse to reward it.”
Lockhorns: Leroy’s leisure suit barely earns the name; it’s not ugly enough. Surely someone there remembers the 70s.
Arlo and Janis: Nice use of computer shorthand in another example of “it’s not the what, but the how”.
Luann: Tiff is disabused of the notion that the spa staff are aspiring monks who spend their every waking off-job minute meditating.
BG&SS: I can’t tell if injecting your cartilage-deficient joints is a gag, or tomorrow’s press release from the CDC.
FC: It’s supposed to smell briny, not fishy. Has everything there turned already?
Zits: We’re about to find out what the lethal range of a nailgun is.
Mary Worth – Naomi: “The whole fantasy of having your special gifts prove that you have real value as a human being, while never actually challenging the system that creates such outcasts is what really makes her a weirdo.
Besides, if psychic powers are real, we have to start asking why all the bad events seem to happen around Olive. Does she manifest those dangers in order to become a hero, rather than engaging in a socially perilous act of engaging with people as a regular person.
I swear, it’s like the superhero paradox, and Olive would get it if she paid more attention in class rather than mulling over her own awkwardness, as if every teenager isn’t feeling they are in a socially precarious situation at all times.”
Other Girl: “I didn’t think about it that way. No wonder you got early admission to an Ivy League university, while Olive is going to end up at Santa Royale’s community college with perma-student Dawn Weston as her only friend.”
“She saved Vicki. She’s not so bad after all.”
“Vicki showed weakness. Vicki is dead to us now. Do I need to remind you of the popular girl rules?”
“No, Naomi. Sorry, Naomi.”
“That’s right.”
Six Chix – Given that Robert F. Kennedy is the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, there is a good chance this is just early reporting on a developing outbreak of tainted protein powders. Mary Lawton has an early in to claim the ability to write the sequel to Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, the most famous book about bad sources of protein in the American canon.
MW: C’mon, Josh! This isn’t The Comics Cynic. Olive totally saved Vicki’s life, and the lifeguard was there just to make sure they were OK.
RMMD: I dunno. If Jonah is the kind of person who uses their leaf blower in the middle of August, maybe Cody doesn’t want to pursue this relationship.
6C: It’s a play on how “shake,” as in “protein shake” or “milkshake,” is a homonym for “shake,” as in the malignant palsy portrayed here. Ha ha! I’ve never seen that before!
FC: To be clear, Billy holding his nose while standing behind Jeffy has nothing to do with the caption.
MW – No, no, no. The correct response to “She saved Vicki, she’s not so bad after all” is “I would’ve let the little bitch drown!” It’s back to Bully Training for you, Naomi.
@Philip:
Perhaps he drank a shake made from raw milk?
RMMD – At long last, some medical issues in Rex Morgan. Leaf-blower-induced hearing loss and air pollution are serious matters!
Naomi here reminding me of my favorite music joke:
How many guitarists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
100. One to do it, and 99 to cross their arms and say, “I could do that.”
Blondie: Oh, dear. Past time to get Wilber back to the booby hatch.
DT: “Should I bring along my girlfrie— uhhh, my distinguished research science colleague, Dr. Blonde?”
JP: I see they went back again. This must be the only place in all of Norway that sells coffee.
GT: Oh, good, the “yeet” guy is back. Same to you, pal.
Don Abundio, translated:
“I want you to come fishing with me this afternoon”
“But… I don’t know anything about fishing!”
“Don’t worry. You’ll just be taking dictation”
“And with a mighty cast, I dropped the fly right at the nose of that gargantuan trout”
Luann: I wonder if the TruFans have already shipped Les and nameless merwarrior spa worker.
CS: “The award was sponsored by Bean’s End.”
9CL: “Scylla and Charybdis” seems nothing like a compliment, unless I’m looking at the wrong Greek myths.
Questionablecontent:
I do not miss Yay.
It’s boolschitt!
I do not miss Yay.
I do nawwwt.
Oh hai Yay.
RMMD:
Cody is in for a rude reaction when he interrupts Jonah’s first listen of the Unabomber Manifesto as narrated by Laura Loomer.
MW: I think we all agree that if Vicki had said “Yeet!” if would have been better to let her drown.
FC: Seems I was a day late on my “smell like Fisherman’s Wharf” bit.
Dustin: Well, it looks like the “bitching about nothing important” virus has spread to Hayden. RIP
MW: Naomi has the right idea. Any dumbass can do what Olive did which was not save Vicki’s life but instead make more work for the lifeguard.
@Ken: “Gentle pressure…”
A favorite of mine, along with the other Union Pacific safety short “Last Clear Chance.” Mr. Diva and I can’t go past a railroad crossing without one of us sighing, “Why don’t they look?”
@LTJpezcore1:
Hey, NO ONE will ever know if you’re wrong!
@Ukranazi Stepan: Well, *I* certainly didn’t miss Yay.
Were Yay and Roko doing the sex stuff together, or was it all a big flirtation? Roko does not seem susceptible to the lure of Eros.
9CL: Yeah, Scylla and Charybdis were horrifying sea monsters who crushed any ship that passed between them. You don’t name your wife’s tits after them, unless you are Leroy Lockhorn.
I recommend “Castor and Pollux,” if you insist on being all ancient Greek and fancy and shit. “Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray” is pretty good, too.
@Ukulele Ike:
IS he the same guy, or has the “yeet” spread? Is this like The Thing, spreading inexorably, people saying “yeet,” until finally beloved character….oh, wait, it’s Gil Thorp, and nobody likes any of these assholes.
MW: is anyone going to yell at Olive for endangering lives with her narcissistic grandstanding?
9CL: The female character’s hair leads me to assume she’s Black, and her skin tone leads me to assume she was cosplaying as Cynthia Erivo in Wicked last night and hasn’t gotten all the makeup off yet.
MW: “I could have jumped in the water like an idiot and risked drowning rather than leave the rescue to professionals, but I didn’t. This proves that I’m smarter than that weirdo Olive.”
MW – She not life saver – she shithead!
RMMD – He’s heard you album – he prefers the leaf blower….
6-C – ‘Roid rattles….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@Ukulele Ike:
On 9CL : Wait, they’re talking about her breasts? I thought they were talking about her legs
you know, considering how that seems to be the only part of the anatomy Brooke seems to care about!…I mean, then it would be an apt nickname : two horrible fleshtubes that try to lure you into a toothy, whirling abyssal hole.
…too far?…@TheDiva:
A favorite of mine, along with the other Union Pacific safety short “Last Clear Chance.”
Interesting because under the last clear chance legal doctrine, Olive had the last clear chance to avoid interfering with Vicki’s rescue from the lifeguard and would be totally responsible for her drowning despite Vicki’s own negligence (swimming under red flag conditions).
@taig: It was at least an amusing play on words, which is more than I can say for most of the strip’s material.
C’shaft: You would think the residents of Centerville would have learned not to encourage Crankshaft by now.
DT: Lady, you were in deep with a guy who named himself after a genus of shark, and now you’re about to enter contract negotiations with someone calling himself Dr. Faust. I’m just saying, you’re not showing the best judgement when picking your business associates.
Dustin: One of the pizzas had pineapple on it. Meaning that there was at least one other pizza (and probably more) that was pineapple free, and your hosts must have known that pineapple is not a universally beloved topping choice and provided ample alternatives for you. Jesus Christ, kid, you’re worse than Dustdad when it comes to complaining about insignificant inconveniences.
GT: Yes, because when bullies attack a trans student they focus on criticizing their fashion choices.
JP: “Just stay calm, the plot will resolve itself eventually.”
Pluggers are the laziest hard-working salt-of-the-earth types ever.
@Hibbleton: Except that Olive would probably be covered by New York’s Good Samaritan law (at least from suit by Vicki).
Dustin: I know hating pizza with pineapple is a thing but neighbor kid seems a little young.
@Anonymous: I believe Brooke’s hilarious joke today was that Amos and Edda are talking about her breasts, but Edda lies to their daughter becuase only immature or completely gross people have names for their breasts. I’ve never heard of anybody nicknaming their wife’s legs. How would that work exactly? “Scylla looking good today, dear, but Charybdis showing a little cellulite on upper thigh. Better hop up and down on her for an hour or so to even them up.”
@astroboy: Naomi: “See, I could have done that too! I have no problem endangering someone else for attention and praise.”
FANTASIES BURST
– LUANN,: Tiff’s idyllic paradise is downgraded to the passion of Les.
– BLONDIE: Sales persons should never irritate me he wife– wives decide if the purchase is worth the cost to the marriage.
– DOONESBURY: Honey, bad boys like Duke and Nebby are good for a summer fling, but don’t sell yourself short. A controlling narcissist does not deserve you.
6C: Those protein shakes have caused terrible edema in his arms and calves.
GA: Shaggy has not aged well since the gang broke up. And I think we all know what kind of smoke he’s talking about.
@Activist:
#78. BLONDIE corrected: sales persons should never irritate the wife. (My phone gratuitously added “should never irritate me” which i suppose is also true)
Six Chix: Just this week, a successful pro golfer blamed a terrible start (he 4-putted from 5 feet amongst other “adventures”) on the shakes caused by ingesting too much creatine.
https://www.pgatour.com/article/news/latest/2025/08/17/ben-griffin-disastrous-start-creatine-overdose-round-4-bmw-championship-caves-valley
30 seconds of skimming the wikipedia article informs me that creatine is NOT a protein, but is found alongside lots of proteins in meat, so someone calling it the “protein shakes” strikes me as plausible.
@Bob Tice:
#2. 6 CX: weren’t protein shakes a part of the short-lived Paleo diet? (“Live fast, die young” applied both to the diet’s popularity and the lives of the people who used it)
@Charterstoned:
You need to work on that gag reflex.
@Gil Bates: No, then he wouldn’t have the barbell bloat.
Don’t flash Gordon: Is Flash singing this recap to the tune of “American Pie”?
MW: The Mean Girls might begin to like Olive, but the rest of us still find her to be annoying as hell. Plus, Olive hangs out with that weird old lady who smells like The Bum Boat.
Six Chix: So THIS is how Shaky got his gimmick.
Now to analyze the gimmicks and deformities of… the 200 other Dick Tracy rogues galleries.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Knowing this comic, he’ll probably still win…
@Peanut Gallery: An early appearence by Edna Mode or is that Edith Head?
Breaking news! Ophthalmologists across the US report a surge in appointments for eye muscle damage caused by massive eye rolls when the victims read a comic strip called “Mary Worth.” We will not show the comic strip in our newscast because it would be unethical to add to the outbreak.
Frazz – Just as I predicted.
Pearls Before Swine – My favorites are the ones who waddle while looking at their phones.
FC – Holier than thou Grandma: No, your harlot mother didn’t bathe again.
@TheDiva: “and a soft kiss on the neck…”
@taig: I immediately pegged this as one of the Evansii’s patented ‘meet cute’ scenarios, no TruFanns required.
MW: So I guess everything is all wrapped up now. Olive gets to steal the spotlight and act like she’s the hero when all she did was make more work for the lifeguard. Spicy Latina and Little Orphan Knockoff seem to think Olive is hot shit now while Hatchetface Blonde is sulking about how she’s the only sane person in this story. And Mary will inevitably demand a parade in her honor for coming up with the idea of going to the beach while inappropriately touching Olive on the float.
@pugfuggly: When I was a kid, my school showed us a PSA on why you shouldn’t walk on train tracks.
Two teens were walking on the tracks, the one teen’s foot gets stuck, then a train is coming, the friend bails while the guy is screaming and screaming. Whoever that guy was, was a really good actor because his very believable screams still haunt me to this day.
@The Rambling Otter: The movie version of Fried Green Tomatoes has Chris O’Donnell’s character getting caught in the train tracks and dying in his late teens. And this is in front of his still fairly young sister and his love interest who were so horrified that they could only watch the inevitable.
@Needless Exposition: I should add that this scene absolutely scared the hell out of me no matter how many years have gone by and how many times I’ve watched that movie.
@The Quiet Man: But… the Evanses are the masters of misdirection.
@The Rambling Otter: Well, it was made in an era when it was OK to traumatize, maim, or kill children.
@Voshkod:
@Hibbleton: Except that Olive would probably be covered by New York’s Good Samaritan law (at least from suit by Vicki).
This kind of legal hairsplitting should be right up Judge Parker’s alley (ha, ha, just kidding).
@Ken: RMMD: This setup is reminding me of a workplace safety film that MST3K showed once, on how to get the attention of someone when they’re welding.
GENTLE pressure! Or you might wind up sitting on your porch blind from the welding torch that boiled your eyes out!
@White Rabbit: And with “gentle pressure,” you clearly mean on the penis? Or in the case of a female welder, soft, circular fingertip caresses around the nipples?
Six Chix: Like this guy, I also consume protein shakes to help with my workouts (actually smoothies made with whey protein powder along with fresh fruits and vegetables). Yet I’ve never started shaking uncontrollably while lifting weights — though if I did, I would wear real shoes rather than this guy’s slide sandals for obvious safety reasons. Also, I’d like to point out that a “green smoothie” shouldn’t literally turn your skin green like the person on the right, so there’s something really wrong going on there (but at least she’s wearing proper footwear, so good on her).
Mary Worth: On a scale of Carrie to Jawbreaker to Mean Girls, these teens are barely even Heathers.
@Ukulele Ike: Well, clearly, especially if that person is holding a lit welding torch and wearing a welding mask. It’s these little extra safety tips that have saved many from a life of blindness. Or worse!
OLW-“I could so totally have done that. I could have gone into the water and started to like, totally start waving my arms around and been like ‘Oh help! help! I’m like, so totally drowning’ but then weirdo girl would have to jump in and like totally rescue me before the cute lifeguard could and that old lady would be like so completely tripping and then how could I ever show my face like in school again? People would be like posting it totally on line and my like so called life would be saved but totally ruined! Gag me with like,a spoon or whatever!” Well,we at least know one thing. Mary is like,totally gonna need a nap on this flight home. I just hope Wilbur doesn’t like,totally forget to pick her up at like, the airport.
MW- 40 days later, as Olive pontificates about her Tummy Brain making her special, all the other girls gather around and shush the non-believers because she “saved” Vicki that one time.