Can’t I enjoy my glass of wine and [squints] potato undisturbed
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Crock, 9/29/25
The point of this joke is of course that it’s annoying when a telemarketer (perhaps one offering you a “banking credit card”) interrupts you while you eat dinner, and what if someone a little less bound by social convention than you were to say something that might truly shock and discomfit said telemarketer? Wouldn’t that give you a delightful little thrill? Unfortunately, I feel the whole scenario is undermined by the fact that Crock is in fact depicted as a cruel tyrant who does deserve to face justice for his many crimes. Sadly, that day has never come, for every wrong he commits he commits in the name of the French imperial project, and even when the Fourth Republic collapses in the wake of that project’s failure, no French prosecutor will ever bring charges against him.
Hi and Lois, 9/29/25
I love how stricken everyone’s facial expressions are here! Oh no Dot has somehow learned about feminism somebody call the fuckin police
160 replies to “Can’t I enjoy my glass of wine and [squints] potato undisturbed”
Mary Worth Mashups: What do the dogs hear? Which Missing Final Panel seems most likely?
Family Circus: Based on Dolly’s expression, Thel’s not getting chocolate to help with her extremely premature PMS.
Hi and Lois:
“I dunno. Maybe so that they can fleece them during the divorce proceedings?”
“Dad, you mindless cynic, you.”
Crock: Fourth Republic? Please. We know Crock is one of Petain’s boys and a supporter of the Vichy regime. I hope he gets his head shaved when we take Paris back.
H&L: It goes from bad to worse when Ditto asks why he can’t be the princess.
Crock I like the little quotes around “click”, which to me indicates that the telemarketer is saying it out loud, in a kind of sassy way. It’s not the first time these two have crossed swords, and now it’s banter!
H&L Why don’t you tell them the story about the little boy and girl who were sent to live inside a giant spaghetti squash? Im a bit curious about that one myself.
“Dot, it’s because, one day, the prince actually COULD be president! That metaphor got a bit tortured but you get me. I’ll be at Thirsty’s”
Crock: The caller could care less if the Jury finds Crock guilty or not guilty of whatever crimes he may have committed. There is no credit card. There is no bank. The caller is making sure Crock is at his desk as the drone comes through the window.
“Honey, it’s because the princes actually have a chance of being elected president one day! That metaphor is super mangled, but hey, I’m a crappy father.”
Crock: You can tell that CROCK is a rerun strip, because modern telemarketers are completely undaunted by this sort of thing. They’ll just ask for the expected verdict date, and call you again the next day.
Hi and Lois:
Fairy tales can come true
It can happen to you
If you’re young at snark
For it’s scarred, you can find, to be harrowed of mind
If you’re young at snark
You can go to extremes with implausible means
You can laugh when your reams fall apart at the screams
And tripe gets more inviting with each sassing day
And drubbin’s either in your snark or on the way
Don’t you know that is worth every treasure on earth
To be young at snark?
For as titched as you are, it’s much better by far
To be young at snark
And if you should connive to a hundred, and jive
Look at all you’l derive out of being on drive
And here is the best mark; you’ll have a head spark
If you are among the very young at snark
[instrumental bridge]
And if you should connive till a hundred, and jive
Look at all you’ll derive out of being on drive
And here is the best mark; you’ll have a head spark
If you are among the very young at snark
I just keep waiting for that clam on Crock’s plate to burst into song, thus somehow making Crock cool. I will always be waiting.
The Flagstons can see the curved line encroaching in the background and hear the darnedest thing coming from Dot’s mouth. They are about to get trapped in The Family Circus and they are not happy.
MW: OK, so now what? Greta and Max draw a map in the dirt? Greta takes over Saul’s mind and begins to speak?
H&L: ” Go next door and talk to Mrs Thurston. She’ll tell you what NOT to do.”
B. Bailey: I would have thought that a broken cellphone lying in pieces on a desk would be one of easier things to draw in a comic strip. I have a lot to learn.
MW: Max and Greta both squat in a trance like state and do their business. Meanwhile, Olive thinks; “Man, I really have to go.”
Crock – A well-placed enemy of the French government, especially a Soviet agent, could play on Crock’s cruelty by faking being a flustered telemarketer and having Crock confess his many crimes thinking he’s tormenting a hapless low-level employee. This would give propaganda to the anti-Western causes and ended with Crock in The Hague on war crimes charges.
This is one of the many reasons the Soviet Unions lack for free speech and the press, especially morning zoo radio shows and their pranks, harms human rights everywhere.
Hi and Lois – Dot’s innocent question will inevitably result in Lois asking some serious questions that leads to divorce. Hi and Lois will split into two strips, with separate Hi and Lois strips sharing custody of the children.
@MKay:
That’s been tormenting me, too! I’m actually legit curious how Moy is going to have two idiot dogs convey to two idiot humans that Mary, Olive and the balloonivator (we’re keeping this) are trapped in some trees. Charades? A Stephen Hawking keyboard they find in the park under utter contrivance? And even then, wouldn’t they just type ‘woof?’
Crock:
“I’m afraid you’re confusing the American legal system with the French legal system, Monsieur Telemarketer — the latter, not the former, of which we’re dealing with in this strip. A jury doesn’t render a conventional ‘not guilty’ verdict; instead, a panel of twelve persons, three of them judges and nine lay persons, answer a series of questions from which the judge determines the result; balloting on the questions is in secret, and a simple majority vote is needed for conviction.”
“No. Don’t say it, sir.”
“Yep. This is ‘Croque,’ ‘Monsieur‘ !”
FC: Thel grows suspicious when she sees the Ks in ‘Chokolate crinkle cookies’ are all bolded.
Years later, when Dot came out as a lesbian, the family decided that, upon reflection, the signs were always there.
@matt w: Nah, Dolly would never be caught dead asking that question. Nothing approaching that sort of subversive feminism is allowed anywhere near the Keane Kompound. That’s how you can tell this isn’t the Family Circus.
H&L: “You’ll never hear little Dolly Keane asking questions like that. Now go to your room and practice your malapropisms.”
@A Grave Mind: Moy can’t possibly intend for the dogs to somehow point out a route to drive to the balloon crash, right? Good Grief, the balloon tree is in the dog park area, walkable from where Max and Greta are, isn’t it? Yet somehow also beyond the edge of cell-phone civilization and too far for people in the park to have seen it come down!
MW: Eve has become so off model that she wasn’t hit by the ugly stick but rather the entire tree. Meanwhile Olive seems to be the only person in the basket which is a perfect metaphor to her self centered personality.
@CanuckDownSouth:
It’s beginning to look that way. However, ridiculous as that is, would you rather sit through roughly two weeks of Max and Greta slowly leading Saul and Eve through the woods?
@CanuckDownSouth: The only theory that I’ll buy about the cell phones not working is that none of these morons know that you’re supposed to charge the battery. Which when you consider that every single character has no idea how a cell phone actually functions is a far more plausible theory than it should be.
Phantom Dude! Sure, we’re being startled by our coworker disappearing but watch where you’re flinging that thing, you clipped my ear!
S4th With Halloween on a Friday this year, there are fewer October weekends before it than usual. Not only are there plenty of decorations going up in the last bit of September, but locally I’ve seen that spooky attractions like farms’ haunted hayrides started in September instead of October.
And I’m pretty sure an animatronic murderous clown is now a bog-standard item you could order… yup. Spirit Halloween, Oriental Trading, Halloween Express (don’t Google it, Baja!)…
There is nothing over-the-top about Ted’s plans here. The world has finally caught up with his enthusiasm for the season!
Crock: “There comes a time when dishonesty becomes silence, that’s in Fanon, oui?”
Crock: Facebook gives me adverts from criminals selling stolen cloned credit cards worryingly often. Have we considered the possibility that the card-skimmers have moved onto telemarketing, and they hung up because they heard “not guilty” and were horrified to be wasting their time cold-calling the innocent? In their defence, if you were looking for a petty criminal in the phone directory, your first guess would probably be the guy called “Vermin”.
(Appropriately named) Crock – So…this is Hitler, and apparently there are things even Swiss bankers just won’t do. Who knew….
H&L – This is a job for the Christian Dare Program. Um…gender fluidity is bad, ‘kay….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Mary Worth – This is literally the third day in a row of showing Olive psychically attempting to tell the dogs she needs help. God help us all if Moy ever gets hired to do a Lassie reboot.
S Fox – We always knew that someday the forest animal overlords would eliminate the remaining humans who survived the Great Animal Uprising. But I never suspected Sir Hound, the most regal and civilized animal citizen, to initiate the discussion. But I guess the headless suit of armor and chipped battle ax are not so much a relic but a macabre trophy of Sir Hound’s past conquests over Mankind.
Hi and Lois: Come on, Hi: Princesses marry into high-status families to secure hereditary land rights through strategic clan/military alliances in otherwise tenuous economic circumstances. It’s either that or wait for rescue by a mushroom-tossing plumber. Did you even read that parenting book Lois gave you?
Also Crock: What, the vultures updating this strip to mine every last drop of its cultural capital and the Bill Rechin estate, but I repeat myself, had time to give Crock googly eyes in panel one but not add a phone cord?
Crock is giving the telemarketer waaaaay too much information. If a modern telemarketer knows the holder of a phone number has an upcoming court case, that’s enough infomration for them to take out a second mortgage in your name.
Something looks off with the text in the balloons
Slylock Fox-Wow! No comment on the proposed extermination for the last remaining humans?
FC-Those are special fancy chocolates.
@F M.R.: Hi and Lois
MW: Maybe we should start calling this strip Mary Sue Worth.
MW: Eve gets that horrified expression on her face every time Max goes on alert—look! a squirrel!! It’s one of the endearing habits that made Saul fall in tolerate with her.
You’re on your way, Dot, but the question is not “Why do princesses and princes?”, it’s always “Why are princesses and princes?” Viva la revolution.
***
Crock got me to thinking about it, and the only human telemarketers I hear from anymore (robocalls are an entirely different matter) are either corporations I already do business with wanting more of my money (bank, telecommunications) or scams. There’s a doors/windows/vents scam that calls all the time and sometimes I’ll waste their time, sometimes I’ll just click, but occasionally I’ll try to save them time by telling them I live in an apartment so they should put me on a do not call list and they just disconnect and I’ll keep getting calls.
Chix (sic): Sometimes the tree’s just gotta have it.
(If I had Baja skills, I’d add a pair of earbuds listening to Lola Young’s “One Thing.”)
I’m not sure what book Hi is reading to his kids. “Fairy Tails” sounds like he mixed up his porn collection with the “Fairy Tales” he should be reading to children.
G. *(&#$@! Thorp – If you’re going to do the lame H-E-Double Hockey Sticks, why not just go with “If You See Kay.” I look forward to Old Bag telling Gil “See You Next Tuesday.”
H&L – Is it the institution of marriage that bothers Dot, or the heteronormative narrative? Meanwhile, Ditto wonders why his father is reading him and his sister lame books that are several reading levels below their comprehension.
“Who do I have to blow to get some Harry Potter up in this joint”, is what Ditto is thinking.
@TK:
Hi was actually about to read them a chapter from the hit shonen manga by Hiro Mashima… which makes Dot’s question even more of a non-sequitur.
DT: Sure, why you are looking for a high voltage hook up, do you have a spare pistol and some ammo?
MW: the dog will now carefully draw out a topographical map showing where Olive, Mary and Stanley are trapped. Better yet, the dogs weird behavior lead their owners to join the search. The balloon company in the meanwhile has found Mary, Olive and Stanley. But now the dogs and their owners are lost in the woods.
Gasoline Alley: ? hairnets – that’s a fair cop.
Crock enjoys his last meal before the épuration sauvage. While tomorrow he will die for his crimes against France, tonight he will dine a Frenchman.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Mary herself is considered to be an “empath” despite the fact that her most well known quality is to tell people to do what she wants them to do. Empaths are often one of the most common Mary Sue abilities despite the fact that they’re so self absorbed that they wouldn’t know what empathy is if you smacked them in the face with it.
It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if Olive is supposed to be an empath, too.
H&L: Wait’ll Dot figures out that Hansel and Gretel straight-up robbed and murdered that old woman.
Silly Dot! Princesses don’t need princes to be happy, but they need a male husband to sell the trad wife scam on Instagram and TikTok
@treetown: For this to work, animal telepathy needs a directional component — “Look, Max is tugging northwest now, toward the Santa Royale Remote Forest Edge™!” In which case, I eagerly await the scene of Saul and Eve working with the search-and-rescue team, drawing lines on a map and triangulating the crash site.
Hmm, I guess there’s another way it could work, if Olive is transmitting a vision of her location and the dogs have been in that part of the Santa Royale Remote Forest Edge™ and the dogs can match their eight-inches-off-the-ground memory with Olive’s thirty-feet-off-the-ground viewpoint. But that would be silly.
FC: Is Mommy hinting at the fact that baby PJ can actually write?
Lois wouldn’t know the answer, she married Hi.
Crock: You can tell this is a rerun because absolutely nobody answers telemarketing calls any more. They just look at the unknown number on their phone and swipe “decline.”
H&L: Note that the book is titled Fairy Tails, indicating this is not an anthology of familiar folk narratives and fables but a book of ethereal sprites sporting a variety of animal tails. Dot’s question is her first tentative step towards the furry community.
H&L: “Well, there are other fairy tales where the princes get married.”
@TK: We were thisclose to seeing “fursona” in a legacy comic!
GT: H-E-Double Hockey Sticks? Hey, look everybody! It’s a sports reference in “Gil Thorp!”
C’shaft: Hey, if it isn’t the author’s barely disguised self-insert character, who everybody knows and loves for some strange reason!
Dustin: Question: does Dustdad think this guy is mentally incompetent because a) he believes cruelty, abuse, and disrespect are just part and parcel of a normal marriage or b) he’s confessed to feeling “love,” an emotion as alien to Dustdad as empathy or shame?
GT: Why is the spirit of recently deceased actor and indigenous activist Graham Greene levitating over Gil’s shoulder while wearing a grandma wig and glasses?
JP: Charlotte has already figured out that Neddy is a total pushover; she just needs to pull the sad-eyed “I miss my parents” routine and it’s ice cream three meals a day.
Luann: In further proof that the designated villains are the most interesting characters in this strip, Stef reveals herself to be an expert falconer.
MW: I can’t wait for the next week of Max and Greta leading their elderly owners through increasingly treacherous backcountry, oblivious to everything but Olive’s psychic summons.
GT: Yeah, he’s quipping, but he’s also going to get fired.
Luann: “Get me a five pound dog, and a falcon”, Stefani? How traumatizing do you want to make this halftime show?
Blondie: After all, what’s spiffier than a pince-nez? It does suit him.
Dustin is not the strip I read for the drama of unfaithful marriages even if the aggrieved party is some unnamed fellow we’ll never see again.
Zits: The teacher is wrong. While it’s never too early to learn how to starve as a failing musician, the music business has plenty of advancement opportunities for those willing to make musicians starve.
FC:Billy’s dream of ketamine-spiked chocolate will have to wait til high school chemistry lab. Spoiler alert: He wins first prize at the science fair!
MW: My guess is the Dogs Who Are Good will lead the Humans Who Are Dumb to a corner where an adorable little boy in an oversized cap is holding up a newspaper and yelling “Extree! Extree! Read all about it! Hot air balloon goes missing! Extree!’
The HWAD look at each other and realize that MUST be the balloon Mary ‘n Olive were in and race back to Charterstone to prepare for the arduous search and rescue. Meanwhile the professionals have already done their job and M’nO stroll up to the condo just as the HWAD barge out laden with mountain climbing gear.
‘But… but the dogs said….’
DT: “Third door on your left.”
C’shaft: “Can we pull up a couple of chairs and listen to lengthy anecdotes about your historic career? We’ve got nothing better to do for the next five hours!”
JP: I keep scrolling down for a non-existent final panel, thinking “This can’t be it.”
Crock: I’ve been seeing Crock comics all my life, and I never knew that Crock’s mustache could react to things he says and does. I’m still unsure, however, where the exact boundaries of his face are. Even in these three panels, it changes.
H&L: Ditto, you need to get on the phone to your agent. Didn’t they promise they were going to make you “the next Bart Simpson” with your own catchphrase and everything? “The strip’s breakout star,” isn’t that what they said? Well, look at the kind of material you’re actually getting. Not good, dude. Not good.
Apparently Olive got one of those “special” COVID vaccine shots that came with an embedded 5G chip, and she’s using that to communicate with the identity chips that Max and Greta have.
(It makes more sense than anything presented so far in this story. Which is, granted, an extremely low bar to clear.)
I love how Crock has a cell phone that looks exactly like the receiver of an old school Bakelite phone. Or, this drawing is from 1978 and they tried to update it by merely deleting the cord and base.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Officer! Don Abundio just crashed into a fire hydrant!”
“Good grief! And he needs my help?”
“No.”
“He won’t let me take a turn!”
SFx: Sir Hound, every problem has a Final Solution.
@TheDiva: Hey, if it isn’t the author’s barely disguised self-insert character, who everybody knows and loves for some strange reason!
And Batton Thomas is there too.
Hi and Lois: Well… there was “The Paperbag Princess” about Princess who was engaged to a Prince, then the Dragon kidnapped the Prince and burned down her Kingdom.
Seeing as all of her clothing was burned to cinders, she donned a sack as clothing and went to rescue him.
Long-story-short, after she defeats the dragon, she finds the cage with the Prince inside, who is a complete “Prince Charmless” berating her for “how dare you rescue me wearing…. that” “Go back home, get dressed and rescue me proper!”
So she just leaves him to rot in the cage and starts her new completely free life.
FC-For some odd reason when I try to enter “That’s the special chocolate.” Comics Kingdom rejects the comment.
MW-Did Wilbur fall down a well again?
“Tell her it’s because Eve ate the apple and if she can’t remember that simple fact, she needs to start going to Sunday school on Wednesdays as well.”
Hi and Lois-Because the world isn’t ready yet for a prince to marry a prince.
Dennis the Menace-Years later Dennis becomes a horder.
Wizard of Id is so badly drawn today, I can’t tell what’s going on.
It looks like they’re discussing a bag of something,with loose screws around it.
@A Grave Mind: I just keep waiting for that clam on Crock’s plate to burst into song, thus somehow making Crock cool.
B.C. had talking clams. Was it cool?
The subtext is that the princess could marry a fellow princess instead, or even a common woman if the chemistry’s there. Through her father and brothers, Dot has sized up what the male species has to offer and decided lesbianism is the best path for her. Hi is inviting Lois into the conversation to tell Dot about a wild “experimental” year she had in college.
Late last night Baja Gaijin got a warning not to read today’s Sally Forth. It should be made clear that there is NO clown in the strip. Only the word “clown” is said in passing. I really don’t think Baja will get upset over the word “clown” being said. At least I hope so since I just said it three times.
Adam@Home: Fart spray. Hmm. I wonder if that is a spray that smells like farrts or it’s like bug spray designed to get rid of the offending item. If so, that would be a simple room deodorizer.
Nails on a chalkboard. @James F.:
@1 Baja Gaijin:
That third mashup makes me think that Wimpy must live in Santa Royal.
Back In The Day: The comics are getting bodily function specific today. Farts and Piss.
(see also @78 Sequitur:)
Poulet is dumb enough to believe in the ideology of French colonialism and thus ruin is life by joining the OAS. Crock is a sadist who knows that the civilising mission was just an excuse to be cruel to subordinates and natives alike. After 1961, he will simply retire in the province, warmed by memories of pain inflicted and the assurance of impunity
Crankshaft: What disaster will Crankshaft turn this harmless scene into?
Family Circus: “Khocolate”?
Vintage Funky Winkerbean: The irony is that Bull turns out to be a P.E. teacher and football coach.
Lio: What it looks like wearing blue pants in a monochromatic world.
Mary Worth – Lassie reads MW, does an epic eye roll, hits her forehead on the desk several times, then calls her attorney.
Rex Music – Serious question: how are the other band members supposed to feel about Cody branching out on his own on their off days? “Play roots country and try to become a big star* on your own? Sure, why not?”
*Big star = playing a suppertime gig at a dive bar.
Crankshaft – Batiuk heard the word doppelganger, thought “What a cool word,” and didn’t bother to look up the definition.
He should also look up beloved characters.
@Baja Gaijin: Mashups – I hope it’s the middle one.
@A Grave Mind: ♪ Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal!
H&L: Princes and princesses are political pawns. If a marriage turns out to be happy, that’s just an added bonus. Like the added S in “princessess”.
MW- Saul: “What is it Greta? Are Mary and Olive still alive?” Greta:”yap!” Eve:”How was their landing, Max?” Max:”Ruff!”
@Sequitur:
Crankshaft will cause a disaster by NOT causing a disaster to happen; since nothing will go wrong, Skip will be able to continue this interminable interview.
Marvin Spanish to English.
@White Rabbit:
Dammit, Rabbit, I shouldn’t have to think these thoughts!
@Anonymous:
What are they looking at right now?
“Bark!”
Surprised Josh didn’t choose to highlight today’s Slylick Fox as Sir Hound clearly sows the seeds for animal rebellion!
@White Rabbit: B.C. had talking clams. Was it cool?
_____________________
B.C. clams had legs. Maybe they’ll kill Crock.
@A Grave Mind: We can keep it, I suppose, but not for the taciturn Stanley, who relies on gas jets to keep his craft aloft. No a true balloonivator stays aloft on the hot air of his oratory, like the Wizard of Oz; only a bloviator can be a balloonivator!
@TheDiva:
#54. Diva, in my experience declined telemarketers keep calling. For the last month I’ve been swiping upright to let them hold indefinitely. Have a little contest with myself as to see how long I can tie up their line.
For whatever reason, I get only about a third as many calls as I used to
@Sequitur:
He’ll burn the restaurant down.
@Sequitur:
#77. S4th: I read that clown description and had appalling visions from just that!
@Sequitur:
At least the “harmless scene” isn’t Crankshaft behind the wheel of the packed school bus. After the Sunday speculation about the consequences of Crankshaft taking the wrong meds, I was half-expecting that.
FRAZZ: I used to like liverwurst on pumpernickel with yellow mustard and raw onion. Thanks for the suggestion (as I blew on you)
CURTIS: Heart throb, talk with ZITS. Jeremy et al may be setting up an agency, so get in on bottom floor. It worked for WC Handy.
TG: Cathy (ach) was just served her divorce papers
@Sequitur: Crankshaft: “You know, Batsy, I always thought your comic strip stunk. Matter of fact, I stopped reading it at all twenty years ago.” (The other three men faint dead away)
@Anonymous: “DiMaggio, maybe?”
@Banana Jr. 6000: Well done!
GT: A good author would use this opportunity to redo Gil’s life entirely. Leave Milford, go to Valley Tech (and displace his ex in the process – bonus), and lay waste in all sports in the Valley.
@Sequitur: Are you doing the vintageFW thing unironically? I’ve been binging on reFOOB and vintageCathy recently…
@Baja Gaijin: The burger delivery is so lovely. #3 for me.
@richardf8:
Touche. One must own at least 4 top hats to be a true balloonivator. There’s a Wonkaesque thing here
@Activist:
Never had it on pumpernickel, brilliant! I might want a slice of Cabot American, but that’s possibly the greatest sandwich ever made. Also, Caulfield needs much more time with his head in a toilet.
CROCK: Look at that pile of green on Crock’s plate. Whatever it is, he seems to be eating vegetables, helping to ensure that he’ll be a relatively-healthy cruel tyrant for years to come. He seems to be following Michael Pollan’s basic recommendation: Eat [real] food, not too much, mostly plants. HE isn’t skimming the news while moaning softly and then scarfing a pint of ice cream. And look at those good teeth in the third panel. BAH. I just bitterly hope that wearing his hat while eating alone indoors indicates a little mild cognitive decline.
MT: Seriously? With excellent female environmental journalists across the country, Bill decides that because Cherry is the wife of an (alleged) journalist, she should get the assignment? This new storyline is off to a great start. *looks around* Well yeah, I could be following THE PHANTOM instead, I know, I know.
I don’t know if this is old news but it just came up on my page so here you go.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=woLLR_l0AIg
@Poteet: Ditto. Especially because I just learned my neighbor up the block (and the girlfriend of my elderly next-door neighbor) is the lady who wrote the picture book Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Her ex drew it, plus was also the art director of the National Lampoon a million years ago.
MW: I might be inclined to ask Greta and Max to go bite the organizers of the balloon festival, but that would get them into trouble, so this is a much better idea, as long as they don’t have to go dashing through lanes of heavy traffic, which I thought was kind of a thing in California. But maybe not near Santa Royale, wherever it is.
Actually this story brings back fond memories of my grandpa, who amused us wee ones with stories of a collie named Glassie who had one glass eye. She once saved Timmy by writing “FIRE!” in a bowl of mashed potatoes.
@Poteet:
From the looks of him, Bill’s been doing cocaine for, oh, 47 straight days, EVERYTHING is a great idea, and looking up numbers is super confusing.
@Poteet: MT: Seriously? With excellent female environmental journalists across the country, Bill decides that because Cherry is the wife of an (alleged) journalist, she should get the assignment? This new storyline is off to a great start. *looks around* Well yeah, I could be following THE PHANTOM instead, I know, I know.
For some reason, all the cartoonists who take over legacy strips seem determined to turn a side character into their main character/avatar. Rivera did it with Cherry. Marciuliano did it with Ted Forth (and turned most of the cast of JP into Ted Forth as well). Beatty did it with Roots Country Buck. Moy, most horribly, did it to Wilbur which makes me feel really bad for her family and friends in real life.
Crank: Batty, having heard about this thing called “hanging a lampshade” where you draw attention to issues in your work in a humorous manner and that’s almost the same as fixing them, decides to use it about the fact two of his many author avatars kind of look the same. He doesn’t use it to have Bottom-Of-The-Barrel Thomas point out how weird it is that Jff, a man considerably younger than him, has exactly the same obsession with Silver Age comic books. (I’m hoping for a strip where Jff says “Of course, I grew up with Kyle Rayner as Green Lantern, so I’ll always have a soft spot for him over Hal Jordan” and Thomas has him burnt at the stake.)
DT: Yes, as I suspected, she needs to charge up the zap gun for the demonstration, which makes “the zap gun is perfectly safe to take to the demonstration because it’s depowered” completely meaningless. And she needs to do it now, moments before the demonstration. If only there had been two in-universe days between observing the zap gun was depowered and arriving at Smith Industries!
MW: I’m genuinely coming round to the point where I want the strip to annoy me in the exact way that the strips I’ve dropped did, rather than continuing to pull me in with “How much stupider can it possibly get?” (Yes, I could just decide this is a good enough reason to drop it if I want to, but without something as infuriating as “Gil Thorp heroically triggers a rival coach’s PTSD” I’d never stick to it. I thought Wilbur’s fake death would be the breaking point, but I got sucked back in in less than a month.)
Zits: Some teachers feel that tying the course to students’ existing interests might make them more engaged in the subject. Other teachers feel that engaged students mean more work.
REX MORGAN M.D.: Oh, phew, that two seconds of conflict that was set up has already been resolved in an extremely marginal fashion before the sinister threat of something exciting happened. Glad we dodged that bullet!
It would be like if Scooby-Doo happened like this:
Fred: “Well it looks like we have another mystery about! So let’s split up gang and….”
Velma (deadpan): “Um, Fred…we already caught the culprit. It was Old Man Bellusco, caretaker of Rex Morgan M.D. schemes.”
Scooby: “Scooby Dooby Dooooooo!”
(End credits)
@Ken: Olive will signal to two dogs to line up single file. Their owners will wonder what are they staring out and finally one of them will squint and can’t see anything. The dogs don’t and can’t move being in a state of mental lockdown by Olive. Finally they go around and borrow a neighbor’s telescope and lining up on the direction they finally see a tiny splotch of color in the forest. They can’t figure out what it is and figure the dogs got spooked by coyotes or bears and feed them (breaking Olive’s hold) and take them inside.
REX MORGAN M.D.: Not that this “moral dilemma” required much internal debate or soul-searching.
Lou: “We want to book you for a regular gig here. Not your band, who I know nothing about including what music type they perform, even though it has to be roots country because that’s pretty much the only fucking genre that exist in our universe. Just you.”
Cody: “I don’t really want to leave my band. How about I do what you just said and play here when I’m not playing with the band. You can negotiate the timing with my agent…you know what I just said yesterday that you dismissed for some reason.”
Me: “SEE? THIS IS WHY EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING THAT “JUMPED THE SHARK” INSTEAD OF YOUR STUPID-ASS STRIP!”
MW: This is a job for Toonces, the cat who can pilot a dirigible.
FG: Called it. It’s Bok versus the Kiran Amazon. I just wonder what kind of Kiran witchcraft General Tahl, still nursing a broken jaw and a grudge against Bok, will pull to cheat a win.
FG: After Korro was defeated I wondered if any of our heroes was going to do the common sense thing and grab up that Frigian snowsteel blade. They did. All Mary Worth characters please take note how useful common sense is.
CS: Batiuk got tired of us always asking, sarcastically, where’s Crankshaft whenever he goes into one of these arcs involving tertiary characters. “OK, I’m going to make you AND Crankshaft sit through this Batton Thomas dreck! Are you happy, now?”
@GarrisonSkunk: I don’t mean to sound rude, but unless I know specifically what its referring to, I don’t click random Youtube vids.
Could be literally anything and that intimidates me.
-curls up in my Holt-
@Horace Broon: I don’t usually praise Family Guy these days anymore, but I really liked when they did that exact sort of lampshade hanging.
Seth McFarlane voices the family Doctor, and Lois’s father Carter Pewterschmidt with the exact same voice.
One scene had her father getting a check-up.
Carter: Hey, did you notice that we sound exactly alike?
Doctor: You’re right! I guess one wouldn’t notice unless we were in the same scene together.
Carter: We never interacted on screen before, have we? That’s weird.
Doctor: Very weird.
Rex Morgan – I made a comment about this issue already, but I just cannot get past it. Cody says he could perform at Lou’s on days that his band doesn’t have a performance scheduled. Granted, I have zero experience as a professional musician, but I don’t think that it works that way.
The band doesn’t have a scheduled gig, but wouldn’t any serious band still get together and practice? How would the other band members react to Cody’s side gig?
Imagine if Paul McCartney told John, George, and Pete, “On days we’re not performing at the Cavern, I’m going to be performing solo down the street at the Star Club. The owner likes me but isn’t interested in the rest of you.”
Cody could refrain from mentioning it to the rest of the band, but that will make it much worse when – not if – they do find out about it.
It would be so satisfying if the band kicked him out and then became huge stars while he plays on as a roots country Never Was.
@Horace Broon: re: DT: Say I showed up at your place of employment to make an important presentation. “Hey Broon. My laptop’s dead out of juice. You got someplace I could plug it in for an hour or so? Any coffee around this joint while I wait? Whisky’d be better, just a touch of water, but coffee will do.” I bet you and your colleagues would be just panting to do business with me.
@I speak Jive: It is “roots country,” not indie rock. Maybe the rest of the band wouldn’t care. I like the idea of Sir Paul heading down the block to play cornet lead in the kind of Dixieland jazz band that was so inexplicably popular in early ‘60s England. “Our next number will be ‘Ida, Sweet as Apple Cider.’”
@The Rambling Otter: Apparently the guy who draws Tundra got arrested.
@127 GarrisonSkunk:
He never really was arrested. He was detained as a person of interest. Being handcuffed and perpwalked off the train was cops going beyond their authority.
Of course back I’m the 1980’s, when this happened, cops often went too far.
FC: “There’s no ‘k’ in ‘chocolate,’ you little kunts.”
@Ukulele Ike: Paul liked music hall songs and wrote quite a few awful songs like that. John referred to them as Paul’s granny music.
I’m a die hard Beatles fan, but when I hear Honey Pie or Your Mother Should Know I change the channel.
I agree that Cody would be performing a different genre than his indie rock band. However, I don’t think that the band would be happy about his other employment.
@Sequitur:
Of course back [in] the 1980’s, when this happened, cops often went too far.
But not presently of course. Not at all.
@131 Audit the Audit:
It’s better to ask for forgiveness rather than for permission.
@I speak Jive: I have a personal “beef” with Paul McCartney
When he guest starred in The Simpsons, he told Lisa that its wrong to shove veganism views down people’s throats.
And seeing what Paul has been doing most of his retirement… >_>
@I speak Jive: Apparently you don’t know the music business that well, because if you were a professional like Truck Tyler, you’d know that the proper way to prepare for a gig is to eat up all of your
girlfriend’swife’s food (Ha! I bet you thought you needed to do things like tune your instruments or practice your songwriting skills or something. Pshaw! Amateur!)@I speak Jive: I dunno, I am no musician, but from what I have seen going to gigs and festivals and such, it’s pretty common for small timers to have a solo act, be in one or more groups, and do side and session work as it comes up. Everybody does what they can do avoid having a day job.
RMMD: I’m starting to think we will see George R R Martin finish The Winds of Winter before we will see cake.
MW: This takes place in California. Where is a wildfire when you need one?
@Rube:
One musician I follow had her longtime indie band break up. She now performs in a band under her old side project’s band name, makes more music and occasionally plays shows in her own name, is starting a third band, plays sporadic gigs as a support guitar player for bigger bands, and also works as a recording engineer / producer for other bands.
Very few people in indie music can afford to be loyal to their primary group only, and even if they can many of them have side projects to release music that doesn’t fit with their main group.
Late Thread Cuisine: This is the final banana Cuisine for a while. I hope.
@Baja Gaijin:
That looks delicious. What’s the catch? Is the ice cream made of Marmite?
@The Rambling Otter: I recall that Paul became a vegetarian when he and Linda looked at a lamb and thought that it was too adorable to eat.
I’m not vegan or even vegetarian, but I like vegetarian food. I used to buy Linda McCartney frozen dinners (I haven’t seen them in the store for a long time; I don’t know if they’re still around). I liked them, even though they replaced meat ingredients with quite a bit of fat and calories.
@2+2=7: One thing I do know is that a musician can avoid being an opening act by faking a diarrhea attack.
@Rube: I did not think of taking on additional bookings to avoid having an actual job. It makes sense, now that you’ve pointed it out.
I guess the main thing is that Cody will be going into roots country, which is the only music that matters.
Gil Thorp: That thing in the middle panel right third is the ugliest cookie jar I’ve ever seen, and I lived in Japan.
@I speak Jive: I like vegetarian food too.
What I meant to refer to, I was calling Paul McCartney out as a hypocrite, because he constantly rallies his vegan lifestyle towards others. Despite (again) what he said in that episode about “Other people are allowed to eat meat if they want, you shouldn’t shove your beliefs onto others”
@Sator Squared: Thank you. I wasn’t kidding when I said I had zero experience as a professional musician.
I can’t pick up the beat in a song. When I was in grade school I was one of the few kids who did not join chorus. If I had, the teacher would have told me to just move my mouth instead of trying to sing.
I accept that Cody can perform separately from the indie band. I’m going to have to find something else to obsess over. Maybe Max and Greta, if I can stop rolling my eyes.
@Baja Gaijin: Cuisine – “Children’s favorites shit” indeed.
That’s a lot of bananas, ice cream, and glop. At least it isn’t olive eyes, gelatin, coconut, or sauerkraut.
@The Rambling Otter: I’m a huge Beatles fan, but i have no illusions about them as people, especially John and Paul. Paul was my favorite, but I can see him as a hypocrite about this. I also think he’s often smarmy. To be fair, I’ve read that he can be very nice and gracious.
@77 Sequitur: I’d rather not take the chance.
@140 Anonymous: Marmite ice cream? Of course not–that’s the part of the dessert supplied by Marvin Miller. Don’t ask about the dark red sauce covering the strawberry ice cream ball…
@144 I speak Jive: I can add some olive eyes. Not a problem at all.
I expect, in six weeks, to see this pluggers entry: “you’re a plugger if you’ve eaten the wood parts of a corn dog on a stick. By accident this time. Really.”
@I speak Jive: “I liked them, even though they replaced meat ingredients with quite a bit of fat and calories.”
Typical of hippie vegetarian recipes — remove the 1/4 pound of bacon, add six pounds of cheese. See The Moosewood Cookbook, The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, etc.
@I speak Jive: it was just that same situation that led to the final blowup between Lindsay Buckingham and the rest of Fleetwood Mac (plus the fact that LB is a prick)
@Baja Gaijin:
“It seemed to me,’ said Wonko the Sane, ‘that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane.”
@Ukulele Ike: Remember when you got called to the carpet by the woke police for shortening the word raccoon two days ago? There’s six different dog breeds, trained to track by scent and tree raccoons. They’re called coon hounds, and that’s their official name, as per the American Kennel Club. As a racial expletive it hasn’t been commonly used for decades, and can be considered archaic. The last time I heard it was a joke by my racist Uncle Joe after the Martin Luther King assassination. I didn’t get it and thought what’s raccoons got to do with Martin Luther King?
@148 Baja Gaijin:
I assume you’ll be submitting that the the Pluggers people.
Now we’ll get to know your real name and where you live.
@Guillermo el Chiclero: I appreciate your post.
Of course I remember. Painful to participate in a place like this for nigh on 20 years and your buddies think you turned into a meatheaded racist overnight.
I think “coon” is still bandied about in the Deep South and East Texas, so I understand why I got yelled at….but I’m a New Yorker. Feel free to tsk me when I start ranting about the “schvoogies.”
@Guillermo el Chiclero:
#152. Many of us grew up in traditions where shortening raccoon was just a tradition. Or so they said. But in many other cultures those now-offensive words were said at fals accusations, beatings, whippings, illegal evictions, other cruelty. Thankfully, now we’re old enough to understand and avoid those reminders.
@Guillermo el Chiclero: Yeah, in one of my novels, a scene where a toddler sees a raccoon and goes “Coon!”
A friend of mine looking over the story said I should change that line because it’s an offensive term.
I mean, he KNOWS the context of what I meant… >_>
@The Rambling Otter: I did change the word to “Raccoo” which overall sounds cuter and has a coo in it, which sounds more like something a toddler would say.
@Ukulele Ike: I grew up thinking it was a short version of raccoon. But after checking online yesterday and getting yelled at by AI, I will be extremely careful never to use it again.
True story — there was a front-page brouhaha years ago in the Iowa State University campus newspaper because allegedly, a few students had referred to Asian-ethnicity students who were walking around on campus as “Squinties.” It turned out, I later learned, that a couple of students had seen a couple of thirteen-lined ground squirrels on campus and had mentioned that observation online to a few friends, using the traditional rural nickname for ground squirrels, which is “squinnies.” That word somehow got misspelled and/or misunderstood. I just checked with AI and apparently “squinny” is still fine to use as a nickname for a ground squirrel. Yay, because I like squinnies.
@Ukulele Ike: Wow! I gotta say that does reinforce my visions of what it would be like to be a New Yorker.
@A Grave Mind: Bwahaha!