Uncanny Monday
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Mary Worth, 10/13/25
OK, sorry, Mary, I know you don’t want to think too hard about the strange logic of Olive’s powers and the implications for free will and the nature of time itself, but what Olive’s saying doesn’t make any sense. Oh, she didn’t have a feeling of doom before the balloon crash, because it all worked out in the end (due to her psychic powers, not her prophetic powers)? So how do her visions sometimes help change the future? What about the time she was able to stop Mary from being killed by a falling air conditioner? That scenario had a happy ending, and yet … wait. Did Olive have the unmistakable feeling of doom because Mary survived? Holy shit. Holy shit. This whole thing just got a lot more twisted.
Herb and Jamaal, 10/13/25
Hey, Jamaal, I don’t think … anyone thinks baldness is a curse from God? Why would you even bring this up? Sounds like someone’s actually just overcompensating for some internalized baldophobia and you need to do some work on yourself and your self-image.
Luann, 10/13/25
Big news, everyone! Bernice and Luann have been Consumed by some kind of mysterious Portal. More on this story as it develops, if it turns out to be interesting (it won’t).
83 replies to “Uncanny Monday”
Mary Worth Mashups: Do any of these alternatives tickle your fancy?
MW: Olive’s psychic powers include as she eats one sandwich another appears on her plate.
As the Poet says, “Oh-ho-ho! Swirly Photoshop magic! I bet this thing could release some serious cacodemons. So, what? I—I just jump in?”
If this ends up being the same plot, I’m going to … not do much, likely.
Luann: So these two just felt an overwhelming feeling coming on, and fell into bed together? Don’t fight the urge, girls.
Luann and Bernice are taken to another realm, to become heroic and save the new planet from – that WAS the plot of John Carter, right? I feel stupid for asking, because absolutely nobody saw John Carter. It’s my own fault for shooting for a John Carter reference, really. Anyway, hopefully Luann and Bernice are dead now.
Luann is listening to Sunflower. We’re watching the opening scene of “Into the Luannverse.” Critics are calling it “the story that finally kills multiverse bullshit forever.”
Dennis the Menace: When did Joey get assigned to a new home? For the past while, he’s been wearing shirts that fit and, today, clothes appropriate for cold weather? For decades, all his parents would let him wear was that too-short t-shirt.
Mary subtly tutors the up-and-coming cult leader in the art of explaining away the failures of her “powers.” The plan continues apace.
@Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women: But leave the dog out of it, ‘mkay?
H&J: After suffering through one of Rev. Croom’s fart filled sermons, Jamal is glad to hear him say that being bald isn’t a curse from God
Leviticus 13:40-41: “a man has lost his hair and he is bald, he is clean.”
Frazz : Caufield is not mad that Mrs Olsen “got” him, he’s mad that she “stepped on his line” by saying what he was about to say.
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Hagar the Horrible : …so, is it Trudi or Sugar?
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Luann : that’s one weird segue for yet another week of reruns. And wouldn’t it be the third time this strip has gone to reruns this year?
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Mary Worth : is going to prod Olive into admitting she’s the one who sent the telepathic message to Max and Greta, so that they can have their little victory lap about Olive’s powers saving the day. Can next week come?
(NEXT WEEK : SABERTOOTH! meets Wilbur)***********
Slylock Fox : So the solution is that Reeky Rat is an idiot who forgets about his own schemes and is fooled by them?
Do faux-1958 diners have marble-patterned windows, now, or is that a great streak of calamitous pink smoke on the horizon?, becoming greater? Is THIS a job for dimension-jumping Luann and Bernice (no)?
MW: Well, good to know that as long as Olive is around, neither her nor Mary will be in any kind of real danger. So…I guess we can just kinda skip the rest of this visit?
H&J: I’m glad that you’re comfortable with your baldness, Jamal, but let’s not pretend that it’s God’s will for you to show off that giant pimple that is your head. When you die, that skull is going straight to Ripley’s.
Luann This looks like a PSA for Rapid Onset Homosexuality…
@Baja Gaijin:
The bear frickin killed me, dude. Sadly, not Mary and Olive.
MW: So, there’s Doom, and then there’s Doom-Lite. Gotcha.
H&J: You and Elisha, Jamaal.
@MKay:
So, there’s Doom, and then there’s Doom-Lite. Gotcha.
The difference is that the later can be played in windowed mode, and has fewer levels. Also, IDSPISPOPD doesn’t work, only IDNOCLIP does.
Jamaal is crouching in front of the mirror, because he’s about to be transported through it. Somebody, somewhere, must have said: “Freakish-Looking Dipshit” three times in front of theirs.
WILY WOMEN. (no reference to BC)
– MANDRAKE: Narda’s passivity in the face of danger was revealed as wisdom Saturday. When a hostage, appear sleepy and withdrawn. Then if occasion arises, surprise your attackers. Hope the people above today are Sky Banders who were worried about Blanche.
– PV: even a non-witch needs to learn to enchant. And Aleta does.
– 6 CX: Female Cervidae are so protective of the young in the herd, they positively fawn over them. What deers!
– S4th: Guess that in a child-centered family, the adolescent heads the table.
RMMD:
“Well, okay — I’ll give you a little hint. It’s a semi-autobiographical piece about a fellow who enjoys taking evening walks because he likes looking in the windows of people’s houses!”
“Nighty night, Augie.”
GT: First, the district is in charge of this rather than some board of ed or state capital semi-bigwig? Second, there are signs that a guest artist is working on it today.
Gasoline Alley: Slim wants to bathe in the aroma of sizzled, aerated grill grease, and who can blame him?
Zits: Looks like this Hapsburg is the black sheep of the family.
Blondie: “I was around for the original WebTV, and I tell ya, this one’s gonna last forever!”
MW: I don’t quite understand the confusion here. Olive’s premonition about the air conditioner was necessary to save Mary’s life. Her sense of doom was what would happen if she didn’t act. In the case of the hot air balloon, she didn’t need to have a premonition to save anyone. No doom, no premonition. (Her connection with the dogs helped, but that didn’t require any foreknowledge.)
MW: Grilled cheese? That’s too mundane. The new TikTok-inspired trend is incinerated cheese. Cheese sandwiches held under a flamethrower until they’ve been completely reduced to a slab of black carbon. An acquired taste for most people, but Mary is just glad someone’s finally managed to capture the flavour of her salmon squares.
Luann: Bernice just solved the Lament Configuration from Hellraiser, and she and Luann have been transported to the Cenobite realm, a hell of infinite sadomasochistic pain. Compared to the usual level of agonised fumbling youthful sexuality on display in this strip, this will be a sweet relief for them.
@Anonymous:
#11. FRAZZ- Thanks, Ms. Olson was the wily woman I forgot to the include.
HAPPY COLUMBUS/INDIGENOUS PEOPLES/ CANADIAN THANKSGIVING/MONDAY to you, whichever Columbus you live in.
MW:
“And speaking about unmistakable feelings of doom, Mary, what’s new with Dr. Jeff?”
@Schroduck:
It’s the only place in town where you can apparently get potted meat on pumpernickel! And they thought buying out this dying Johnny Rocket’s was stupid!
Luann:
” ZOOOP’s on!”
MW:
“Boy, did I score today, Mary! — this extra sandwich was going to be Stanley’s until they hauled him away for criminal negligence!”
H&J: “Grass doesn’t grow on a busy street” — that’s always been my method of denial…er, reassurance.
Luann: uh oh, I’ve seen this kind of bed in one of the Hellraisers movies.
@A Grave Mind: I actually liked that movie. Sue me.
H&J Has Jamaal ever considered wearing a hat with eye holes cut out like Dumb Donald of the Cosby Kids? He has the perfect skull shape to pull off the look.
Luann: Panel 1, Luann and Bernice just vibing, listening to the dog’s musical butt.
Mary Worth: Good times for Mary and Olive over at the No Eye-Contact Cafe!
@Schroduck: Oh LOL, great minds think alike.
Luann – I can only assume that “zooop” indicates a loud sucking sound. Because this thing sucks. It sucks to high heaven.
To celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving, here are a few random mashups of Dustin, Family Circus, and Rex Morgan to enjoy after the poutine’s gone.
Ah, a middle-aged, suit-and-tie wearing appliance/electronics salesman, most likely in a downtown storefront. No blue polo Best Buy sales Zoomers, thank you. More evidence that not only are the characters in Blondie culturally boomers despite their chronological age, but that the whole culture and economy is still post-war America in 2025 and a middle-aged, suit-and-tie guy can make a solid living selling TVs to Millennials who have tons of disposable income. I must say, I’ll kinda jealous.
S4th I’d snark about the silly obliqueness, but I think they’re actually avoiding trademark disputes. I was pretty sure it was only “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” that would be an issue, but Google says no, there was a lawsuit over a Great Pumpkin beverage.
JP Bringing up the character inconsistencies doesn’t make writing them OK
DT Anybody else getting hopeful that we’re seeing the setup for a Something’s Wrong at Diet Smith Inc plot? …And the time-portal painting was brought there, is it even vaguely possible it will come back and resolve some of those loose ends??
DtM: If God made a mature earth (like Adam) and there’s a question about how real were the animals recorded in the fossil record then by the same token, how real was Wilson’s childhood?
@Baja Gaijin: I was hoping for an angry mob with pitchforks and torches screaming “burn the witch.”
Luann — The eponymous heroine and her trusty sidekick have been drawn into an alternate universe which shows what History had been like as if they never existed–Judge Parker.
MW: The only thing that annoys me more than everything about Olive is the way Mary keeps using terms a British nanny would use: “dear girl,” for example. Fuck you, Mary.
@ValdVin: GT: specifically, a sign that reads “Guest Artist: Kit Mills.” Either Rachel “I DO have talent, I just don’t use it on GT” Merrel was too hung over to scratch out one of her doodles, or Henry fired her for not giving a shit.
Pluggers used to do things that were incredibly common among people their age. Who else can say that?
Luann: After going through the portal together, Luann shouts; “Where’s Puddles?” and to Bernice, “Why do you have long ears and a tail!?”
FC: “Hey, Lady. My dad says; ‘twins means you did it twice in the same night.’ What does that mean?”
@Baja Gaijin: All are awesome.
H&J: Are pithy t-shirt sayings protected by intellectual copyright law? Because I can’t think of any other reason why Jamaal is taking such a roundabout way of saying “God created a few perfect heads; the rest he covered with hair.”
Luann: I’m guessing Greg and/or Karen Evans has heard tell of Stranger Things, the hit series where kids growing up in the 1980s confront horrors from another dimension. Get ready for Stupider Things, in which two girls who haven’t grown up since the 1980s are horrible in another dimension.
MW: This is what’s known in writing circles as a “hand wave,” an attempt to hastily dismiss or explain immediately obvious questions or inconsistencies raised by the plot. Only here it’s less of a “wave” and more like Monty Python’s semaphore version of Wuthering Heights.
Herb and Jamaal: As one might imagine, the elderly dementia patients I work with often have a difficult time remembering my name, though they’re often surprisingly good with faces. So I tell them “Just ask for the big bald dude, they’ll know who you’re talking about.” They get a good laugh, and then they forget that too. Sort of like any random day on Herb and Jamaal, if you think about it, except for the “laugh” part.
(Alt joke: It’s only a curse if God doesn’t give you Elijah’s power to call in a bear strike, my dude.)
“We’re okay, thank goodness. But no thanks to you. Your powers are weak! I must teach you to sharpen them. Do you feel doom approaching now?”
“Yes! What is that? It’s horrible!!”
“Hi there! I’m Wilbur. I shouldn’t be alive!”
“NOOOOOOO! “
Luann: To be fair, a giant sucking sound for a giant sucking comic? You won’t ever find a more appropriate start to the week.
DT: I’m not surprised that some government or private entity (is there really a difference between the two at this rate?) has pulled strings to let Tess off the hook in exchange for getting her zappy gun into the hands of the military and/or law enforcement. What does surprise me is that Dick Tracy views this as a bad thing.
Dustin: Betty, honey, you live in the Dustin universe, where kindness and sympathy and joy go to die. Don’t let Dustmom or anyone else shame you for your coping mechanisms.
GT: Guest artist? Well, that explains why nobody looks like a face crudely carved into a tree trunk.
MT: Man, if there was ever an embodiment of “all hat, no cattle”….
JP: Has everyone forgotten that you yourself pointed out that doesn’t qualify you for this job?
RMMD: Every day I think, “The people in Rex Morgan couldn’t possibly get more bland and boring,” and every day I’m proven wrong.
Herb And Jamaal: Jamaal isn’t even bald, if you want to get technical. His head is pretty clearly shaved, which is to say, deliberately hairless rather than losing hair naturally. To quote Larry David, people who shave their heads aren’t really considered part of the bald community.
Luann: I don’t even know how to respond to this.
Mary Worth: [Smash cut to Wilbur standing the doorway, breathing hard, an intense look in his eye. A waitress approaches.]
“Can I help you, Sir?”
[Muttering] “Mayonnaise.”
“E-excuse me?”
[Now shouting] “I SAID, ‘MAYONNAISE!'”
[Cut to black]
MW – “Don’t question my bullshit, Mary. I’m now bigger than you and I’m eating two sandwiches to every one of yours!”
Don Abundio, translated:
[Sign: TO STUDIO]
“How’s your new movie going, Juan?”
“Terrible! It’s nothing but old film cliches!”
“It can’t be that bad”
“No? Excuse me a moment”
“I don’t care how rustic and colorful you are! Stay out of my chase scenes!”
[Sign: TOMATOES]
@TheDiva: Re DT: Only because there must be consequences when someone shoots at Dick. There Must Be Consequences.
@Schroduck: The most absurd part of your comment is the suggestion that the characters in Luann acknowledge human sexuality in any way beyond puritanical shunning.
@TheDiva: I thought MW might be lampshading, but that involves an element of self-deprecation (“yes, we know this is stupid”) that’s likely beyond Moy.
DT, third panel – What most of us say at the end of every Dick Tracy story.
9CL: Absolutely none of this make sense and yet it still manages to be disturbing.
First of all, thanks to Scratchy and Baja from the hat tip over the weekend!
My second favorite comic strip dog is Daisy (after Snoopy), but my third is Puddles. Sometimes, I think about how old Puddles should be and I wonder if Evans is ever going to address that, but then I realize that might be genuinely touching and probably beyond his capabilities, so I stop thinking about it.
@TheDiva: If we go with the theory that Something is Amiss at the House of Smith, it’ll be Zappy Guns for the cops, Zappy CANNONS for the military* until somehow that time-traveling picture solves everything and we can get on to the next bit of Costello’s inane fanservice. Maybe the cast of ‘Gilligan’s Island’ will show up, I dunno…
*The newest subsidiary of FaustCorp Ltd (formerly Diet Smith Industries).
There were a lot of ways to end Luann. The titular character graduates from college, the last panel is her throwing her cap in the air proclaiming ‘now for the rest of my life!’ Luann finds true love, settles down, the last panel is her swelling belly. So I may not have expected ‘micro black hole,’ I salute the artist, particularly for daring to do it on a Monday.
@Baja Gaijin: Burger Wilbur!
@TheDiva: It really shouldn’t surprise you that he would be upset. Remember, Tracy is a man of the law, and the idea of someone getting away with a crime scot-free is abhorrent to him.
So, Jamaal, what you’re saying is that God is petty, sexist, and hates Jason Momoa?
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I must be psychic, because I have an unmistakable feeling of doom whenever I’m about to read Mary Worth.
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Look at Luann’s face in the first panel. She’s tripping, and she’s tripping so hard it somehow managed to drag her friend into it.
Zits: That Austrian nihilist is so totally gonna have a gang-boink starring Jeremy, Hector, and the guy with all the hardware hanging off him.
Luann – That second-panel dialogue is exactly the same in the Tijuana Bible version.
Luann: I’ve never seen one before but I hope that’s some kind of karmic toilet, flushing Luann and Bernice into another dimension and out of mine.
DT: So the reason Tess LaKoyle is not facing justice is because of some unspoken interference? Not because DT and the MCU really have done a poor job in investigating. Thus far NO motive for LaKoyle for involvement with the loan shark. NO motive for needing the electrical power stations and zapping the utility workers. Sure DT – blame it on someone else for why justice isn’t being served.
GT: The new guest artist is an improvement despite trying to emulate the basic look and design. The faces are all LESS JOWLY.
MW: Olive is extra hunger. Extending her power to reach the dogs took a lot of calories. Good thing she ordered two sandwiches.
RMMD: We’ll reach the house in another 4-5 (blocks) days.
@Baja Gaijin: I’ll take Wilbur and the burger. That’s how desperate I am for this story to end.
MW: I am begging you, Karen Moy, to make this the last day on which Mary addresses Olive as “dear girl.” We have suffered enough.
@Tom: LaKoyle better be careful where she parks her car.
Dick’s bitter complaints about her case got him reassigned to Parking Enforcement.
LUANN: I don’t even wanna know what the Trufans are saying about this.
@41 Ken: I wish I had that artwork.
H&J: I’m used to Jamaal’s bald head, no problem. But I’m not sure I will ever get used to his *peers at it again* moustache and beard configuration.
MW: No, see, there is no Goddess but Mary, and Olive is Her Prophet. The air conditioner incident didn’t have time to generate any feelings of doom: her pineal gland linked straight over into the thalamus to move her expendable body.
L: if they got smooshed together by terrifying gravitational forces, could they come out as one person with a personality? Maybe if it were one very small person?
lf Luann and Bernice fell backwards into the inter-dimensional rift, as a scuba diver flops backwards off the dinghy, their feet would point in the opposite direction. Somehow, they’ve rotated around two axes. They will be spatially disoriented when they arrive in their alternate riot grrl selves in the 5th Dimension.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: They shot his hat. There must be blood.
Happy Thanksgiving, Canada. It’s good to know you are there.
RMMD: The Quiet Man and Artist formerly known as Ben kindly pointed out to me that I had somehow missed the Sunday strip wherein we learned that Rune, or Jex, were safe home following their exciting stop at the grocery store. After all the current blueness with no end in sight, I’m starting to think of that Sunday strip as the good old days.