Friday is for failure and indignity
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The Lockhorns, 10/24/25
Loretta has, presumably, been jogging for some time with her friend acquaintance who we are definitely never going to see again, and is only now passing by her husband, who has been sitting on that bench staring contemplatively into space for who knows how long. Because absolutely nothing the Lockhorns do is left to chance, especially when it comes to attempting to passive-aggressively destroy one another emotionally, we must assume that she carefully planned both her route and her conversational cadence so that this little bon mot would drop just as she was getting close enough for Leroy to hear it.
Mother Goose and Grimm, 10/24/25
I’m a normal person, so I do almost all my shopping either online or in a store, but some people do it over the phone, I guess? Maybe they’re all old and increasingly senile and the person on the other end has to say “Shopping…” every once in a while, just to remind them what they’re doing.
Pluggers, 10/24/25
Gah, pathetic, there’s no joke or wordplay or anything here, it’s literally just “Pluggers continue to engage in a traditional cultural/aesthetic practice, unlike most people, who have abandoned it or never knew about it in the first place.” They didn’t even put a plugger in the cartoon! I’d like to think they all refused to participate in such a half-assed non-gag.
Crankshaft, 10/24/25
I love how depressed this guy looks in the final panel. He doesn’t want to say this shit any more than you want to listen to it!
164 replies to “Friday is for failure and indignity”
Crankshaft:
“We’ll make a formal written demand for whatever documentation the district has about the dangers of glitter while we’re in the vestibule of the school. This is what is known under the law as a ‘FOYER‘ request!”
Lay off, Loretta. Leroy has finally found something he’s good at: Niksen, the Dutch art of ‘doing nothing.’
Lockhorns: Loretta and Leroy have the exact same shapes, so I’m not sure why she’s insulting him about his sedentary living. When your bodies are 90 percent bile, apparently exercise doesn’t make any difference.
Mother Goose and Grimm: This totally has the feel of a gag that the strip’s writer sprang in real life on some hapless overworked clerk when billed for something, and then decided it was too good not to share.
Crankshaft-Uh Marley and Scrooge were creditors not lawyers.
Lockhorns-“Yeah well I would have money if you didn’t spend all of mine,” Leroy yells.
MW-“Jeff, what did I say about your hand on my shoulder?”
RMMD-Thai good. You like shirt?
MW: Today’s stilted conversation make way more sense once you realize that Mary and Jeff are talking about the challenges of his having a small penis, ED, and Peyronies.
Lockhorns:
“I say this as we’re running by so that I can ‘jog’ Leroy’s memory about it!”
Mother Goose looks so affronted when asked what credit card she would like to use. “As a mythical creature of nursery rhymedom I should not be forced to participate in the modern economy! Isn’t it enough that I consented to contact you through this 1970s landline?”
MW: oh no…they’ve started a trite, stupid cliche off.
RMMD: Augie is looking decidedly creepy. He’s going to tell Summer the book will be published but it will need an investment for printing costs. Could she help?
Lhs: Ha, it’s funny because they’re out of money and living in the park! Am I getting that right?
MGG: Since the ascendency of internet phishing scams, I feel like phone scammers just aren’t putting in the effort anymore.
You’re a plugger if you put doilies on your chairbacks put continue to scratch the wall like a feral animal, like the walking contradiction that you are.
Cshaft: Look at Ed’s face in that last panel: I think that he’s finally realizing that this has all been one long sarcastic response, and that this lawyer probably took this meeting on a dare from his other parters.
Pluggers:
If Louis Armstrong were to sit in that chair, would he say ‘Hello, Doily!’ ?”
Pluggers: John Stettler misspelled antimacassar six times before settling on “doily” for his submission.
Looks like Dustin’s dad got relegated to performing bad punmanship with Crankshaft. Worst crossover in comics history.
MW:
This exposition of drawn-out banter is practically a Seinfeldian “show about nothing.”
Phantom: I’ve noticed that Stripeybutt is cramming all of these coldcocked guards into the same cell. What’s to keep them all from rushing him when he opens the cell door to put the new guy in?
Dustin: Ed Kudlick is a selfish fat pig # 2748.
@BigTed: This sent me on a quick archive check; while the willowy ladies Leroy lusts after are on an extreme, most of the Lockhorns bystanders are noticeably less squat than our heroes. Loretta’s power-walking partner is one of the most Lockhorniform one’s we’ve seen.
Did Loretta take up exercise because she wants to outlive Leroy and spend her final years no longer married to him? Or does she only want to rub on his face how healthier and fitter than him she is, but after he drops dead she will commit suicide, because this toxic relationship is her entire existence and she cannot live without him?
MW: Interesting, how few of these “extraordinary ” people Jeff actually meets. Mustn’t look behind the curtain!
PLUGGERS: No way! I’m a Plugger and the last home I saw antimacassars in was MY grandma’s.
FC: Careful, Billy. HTT Grandma is going to pull out some dirty dollar bills from where they were deposited after a night of lap dancing.
Ed thinks “Ooh, this guy’s good,” while filing that pun away for later use.
MG&G: To quote today’s Baldo: “Bad jokes… no charge.”
The point of doilies is practical: preventing hair products from staining the chair. But Pluggers are bald, so it’s another ritual long outliving its usefulness
PLUGGERS: You’re a Plugger if you know what Macassar oil is and why it necessitated the dreadful practice of placing doilies on the backs of chairs and sofas.
CS: The lawyer has already concluded that Crankshaft can’t afford his $10,000 retainer, and is now just fucking with him.
LH: There’s no way that Loretta has been jogging with a friend for all this time. She’s been hiding behind a tree, waiting for a jogger to come by, all so she could mock Leroy, who sits on the nearby bench, worrying about how he’s going to pay the mortgage.
P: Well, it finally happened. The combination of sedentary lifestyle, refusal to acknowledge modern medicine, and violent criminal behavior has caused the last of the Pluggers to go extinct. All that remains is their anachronistic cultural artifacts.
@Liam: The traditional gag name for a law firm would be Dewey, Cheatham and Howe, as established in the Three Stooges precedent.
MW: Dr. Jeff’s yacht grows larger with each appearance. I think it’s reached Navy destroyer status at this point.
Crankshaft: Breaking out the Scrooge puns on October 24th has me worried that this story arc is going to run for the next two months. Can we just fast forward to the bit where a sinister ghost shows Crank his death? (Wait, didn’t that already unironically happen?)
The Lockhorns: Loretta’s got no leg to stand on. The only cising she does is prancer-.
Pluggers – The plugger lifestyle poses a painful dilemma: They’ll have no truck with that newfangled online shopping. But they want to keep using macassar oil, and the only place you can buy it is online!
Don Abundio, translated:
“And now you’ve had the grand tour of my entire house”
“Wow! This place is like a giant maze!”
“Well, gotta run…”
“But I’m sure you can find your way out!”
Shlockhorns – I wonder how Loretta would look if she didn’t take such great care of herself….
MG&G – Please put it on my children’s account…you know, right under the national debt….
Pluggers – You’re a plugger if you use doilies to cover grease, piss and shit stains….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Mother Goose gets Grimm when the old bird discovers that she’s spent half an hour getting increasingly sarcastic and passive-aggressive with a robocall created by her dog.
Pluggers: Oh, come on! Everybody knows that Pluggers use Hoyer lift slings on the back of their recliners!
MW – Mary and Jeff have a side hustle writing fortune cookies and have found that they do their best work when they’re out at sea.
Crankshaft – President Merkin Muffley from Dr. Strangelove has had to take some truly awful gigs since Peter Sellers died.
When I saw the title “failure and indignity,” I was expecting Mary Worth. We’re at the stage in the wrapup where Jeff is verbally groveling and Mary still shoots down his hopes of getting near first base.
Plugger chairs don’t need doilies, they need Febreeze.
Crankshaft: I have no doubt that this final tortured pun was conceived first and the whole “Crankshaft wants to sue for glitter on the bus ridiculousness” was concocted to lead up to it. Now that it is over perhaps we can get back to the tedious mind numbing storylines about older than dirt comic book artists that we all enjoy!
Crankshaft: Why? Just…why? Why aren’t the rules of the bus company sufficient to enforce a glitter ban? Why does Crankshaft, rather than the company, feel like he has to sue the school district? Why are they suing at all? Why is the lawyer misapplying a Medicaid entitlement on the reduction of hemorrhoids? These are all questions I’ll never have the answer to, because I don’t read Crankshaft. What a stroke of luck!
@Liam: Thank you re: Scrooge and Marley’s profession; different kind of avarice entirely (a good modern equivalent would be a paycheck advance loan company). Can’t Batiuk just use Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe like all outdated humorists?
@Schroduck: I’m not sure, but there was an It’s a Wonderful Life riff where, predictably, everyone was happy and successful in Crankshaft’s absence. I don’t recall what the denouement was; probably he decided to stay alive out of sheer spite.
C’shaft: You would think “Boy, glitter gets everywhere and that sure is annoying!” couldn’t be stretched to a week’s worth of strips, but Tom Batiuk is a black hole of humor and anything caught in his gravitational field gets spaghettified.
MG&G: “Shopping” isn’t saying what Ma Goose is doing; she’s talking to Bradley Shopping, her regular high-class male escort.
Incorrect, Mother Goose and Grimm. She’s a goose. The correct punchline is, “Put it on my bill.” You fail at humor.
MW I am actually kind of impressed by how they keep slightly varying the platitudes, never quite repeating, never increasing the information content of the conversation. It’s so deliberately bland you’d think they were a pair of spies having an extremely coded conversation, where each pause and slight change in the platutide-o-rama indicates something else about the nuclear future of the Middle East
JP “and after she said – in a far too emotionally complex manner for her age – that her grandparents were never straight with her – wait! Is she reverting to age-appropriate behaviour? Because I only agreed to take care of her when I thought I was dealing with a precocious kindergartner who would actually help me organize my life!”
FC hey! one of the Keane kids has actually absorbed the concept of monetary denominations
CS: Getting an “F” from your educator fandom. Jarndyce. Or the Vaudevillian version, but not what you thought was clever.
FC: “…And you got any pesos for Daddy? He says they don’t take dollars at the Donkey show.”
Dustin: I can’t tell if the co-worker looks surprised because she thought Dustdad would actually listen to his wife’s advice, or because she thought he might actually let her have one of the donuts instead of shoving both of them in his mouth so he can proudly proclaim his contempt for his spouse’s healthy eating habits while spraying crumbs everywhere. Either way, she’s clearly new at the office.
Luann: This is what happens when Luann tries to think.
MW: Olive is a lot of things, but absolutely nothing about her says “normal teenager.”
Pluggers – I know it’s just “shading”, but that chair looks nasty. You know it’s being held together with pet hair, snack crumbs and decades-old farts.
Did you know that antimacassars are called that because there used to be some greasy hair oil called “macassar,” which gunked up everyone’s upholstery? Do you suppose pluggers are still using it? There’s no plugger in the picture, so I can’t tell if it’s the dog-man or the bear-man or the rhino-man — the former two at least have fur — but fur oil, ick?
The Lockhorns: It pains me to admit it, but I think I’ve figured Leroy and Loretta out. Most of their public assaults on each other’s dignity are staged. Leroy’s clearing posing here, just sitting there while Loretta orbits him, insulting his sloth to friends, acquaintances, and random passers-by, probably.
“It’s their kink” is way too simple an explanation for what’s happening here. Sure, that’s how it started, but the Lockhorns haven’t been intimate with anyone in years or possibly decades. Now, it’s… how they live, how they pass the time. They’re immortal, unfeeling things, and they’re not into anything. It’s more like the law of gravity. They denigrate each other in public simply because it’s what they do, not to make anyone feel anything.
I was trying to imagine the horror of living in the Funkyverse where politicians try to come up with tortured wordplay to name new laws then remembered that it’s commonplace in the United States of our world for politicians to come up with tortured acronyms instead so now I’m just going to go back to bed and cry for a while.
***
Finally, a Pluggers I can read in public without fear that someone will see it and think I’m the world’s saddest furry.
Crankshaft: In the first panel the guy behind the desk is already depressed. “Oh no,” he is thinking, “I have to use this idiotic firm name that both reverses Scrooge and Marley and adds some stupid extra name, clearly to try to dodge copyright infringement. I’m a lawyer, shouldn’t I know that A Christmas Carol has been in public domain for half a century? Curse you Tom Batiuk for making me sit here and spew this garbage.”
Huh. There are two words that might be the reason my comment went in the pending approval queue and I’m curious which one or both it is.
Crankshaft : Yeah, how dare those kids expose Crankshaft to contaminated air, and potentially compromise his breathing like that!?
…This strip is lucky that the “Crankshaft laughs as he covers all of Ohio in deadly smog because he can’t use a BBQ properly” ran two years ago (so everyone’s forgotten about it), rather than being this summer’s storyline…
@MKay:
@Hibbleton:
On this site I expect people to have words like antimacassar holstered up and ready to go with absolutely no forewarning, and you did not disappoint.
Crank: “There already is a school bus ban on Glitter… and within a five hundred foot radius around the school. Oh wait, that’s Gary Glitter. My bad.”
@ValdVin: The comments here are noted for their cromulent word use.
Slowly, imperceptivity, the Plugger changed. Arms and legs locked into set positions and began to grow into to each other. Their arms puffed up as their head retracted. Their dress, bright and floral with a cute white collar, spread to cover all their flesh. They were no longer animal, but had evolved into their perfect resting state. The chair was warm, moist at times, and shuddered and moaned when you sat down, but you had to admit it was comfortable, plump and well-stuffed. A chair fit for a Plugger; a Plugger fit as a chair.
@TheDiva: Unless, we are heading to full blown Christmas Carol – and Crankshaft will be visited by three ghosts tonight. Past ghost is his old baseball manager – from the last time he was truly unequivocally happy, Present ghost – all of the other people he works with are happy with their happy warm families, Future ghost – after he is gone, his bus driver locker is empty and then reassigned; his family moves on and the only picture of him they keep is crowded out more and more by pet pictures.
Dustin: is there a comics law declaring no character can change? For instance why could Dustin not get tired of his useless life and try to change–start getting to interviews on time, accept an entry level job and work on improving himself. Perhaps he could take a shot at being ashamed of how useless his life is. Give him a girlfriend. I think it might be possible to mine these changes for humor.
@Professor Well Actually:
Hey, Dustin (the comic strip) has changed; it completely dropped the “Dustin is a substitute teacher at the local school” part. Yeah, that was the initial justification for why he’s constantly hanging around an elementary schoolkid. Now, he just hangs around with a small child constantly with no explanation (outside, maybe, the intent being subtle insinuation that Dustin is less smart and mature that said small child).
I could have sworn that I once posted here that Dustin SHOULD just go “You know what, I’m never getting a straight office job, I’m just going to fully devote myself to being a substitute teacher” (ie “I want to be a part-timer forever if it means I get to keep that job”) or something“Mr Billings, this is the umpteenth time I have had to inform you that malapropisms have no legally binding effect in this or any other court of law. Neither the Freedom from Inflammation Act, nor the Statute of Imitations, nor the even-more-than-usually-misconceived Fat Riot Act have any legal force or indeed existence. Case – once again – dismissed.”
MG&G: Today’s Mother Goose & Grimm answers a question I’ve never asked: How does a bird use a phone? And the answer is “not well.”
LH: Loretta knows that Leroy is contemplating ending it all, and that it’s only her spite that gives him the will to live. If that’s not love, then what is?
Seeing the empty chair, I was expecting the caption to be “you’re a Plugger if you’re dead.”
Luann: A common mistake is being made. Which is more “real” – a chair or the idea of a chair. In fact, both are real – they exist, and have meaning and effect on life. One is tangible (the physical chair) while the other is intangible BUT just as real – some would say more important because the idea of a chair opens up possibilities of other sitting options.
Crankshaft: The schoolboard fires back that in fact glitter can be useful in many practical ways; namely, solving crimes. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a65662249/glitter-solves-murder-california-crime/ So, Crankshaft if that is really your name, who are covering up for?
MW: Just when you thought the writing had reached a nadir, the audience realizes that Saturday will be the usual surf & turf for doctor Jeff and fish for Mary; Sunday will be a recap of their boat ride and meal and another quote before a new adventure starts. The realization that the whole point of the Olive adventures in NY and in the air was this line in the final panel from Mary, about just making do.
GT: Again, art is good and a solid run of “good days”. What is the secret of the girls team? Is it like The Secret History? Did the team secretly kill the old groundskeeper?
RMMD: Comic historians will look back on this time, and note that the creators were increasingly bored. They really got into roots-country music and later trying to write a murder mystery – anything by that boring medical stuff dealing with life, death, health, and illness.
Sally 4th: Wow, the writers may have pulled off a very difficult trick. When a strip / show ages, and the once cute little kid enters adolescence, many have tried to introduce a new little kid. Usually this goes over as well as Pouchy or Cousin Oliver, but it looks this may actually work.
@Anonymous: I think you answered your own question there. Lots of people make a living as an always available substitute teacher, often getting a whole year gig to cover a maternity leave or the like. Something like that would destroy the “Dustin is a horrible loser that even his loathsome family is justified in mocking” narrative that the creators of this bilge love so much.
‘Shaft – “It’s a pity, you know. Glitter lung actually causes cancer. Were this another time, another place, I might make every interaction from now until doomsday about cancer. Do you know about cancer? Why, I was just reading this book, ‘Lisa’s Story,’ by Les Moore. Terrible book, but it did at least talk a lot about cancer. Where was I? Oh right, cancer….”
@Liam: Somehow I initially read your last comment as Jeff’s response to Mary …
Mary: Jeff, what did I say about your hand on my shoulder?
Jeff: Thai good. You like shirt?
I would assume that Peak Antimacassar was when men favored pomade for their hair a century ago. They could have made a minor comeback during the Jheri Curl era. You’re a neo-Plugger if you still use Soul Glo.
Insanity Streak: Sperm tricks.
FG: Aura attacked by the mob? According to the Schkrade Playbook, Wolfang should have taken her hostage.
Meanwhile, back up in the Royal Box, Barin has been torn to pieces like Orpheus with the Maenads.
(Ooooooo, post 69? Okay, Adrane rises from her sickbed, flies into the arena, and sexes everybody to death.)
9CL: Not as bad as it could be, but it’s still an adult inferring sexual relations in a discussion with a child.
@MKay: That’s similar to my confusion about “dad rock.” To my way of thinking, that term should apply to pre-Beatles rock ‘n’ roll at the latest instead of 1970s classic rock. And “grandparent music” would be Sinatra and Crosby.
Mary Worth Spanish to English.
MW – “If we recognized our strengths more consciously, we’d use our abilities more fully!”
“We do the best we can with what we have.”
The doc keeps trying to tell Mary that he still finds her kinda hot and she’d be a perfectly suitable sex partner, but Mary just responds that she’s too old for that shit, so how about a peck on the cheek?
Genuine Pluggers don’t just stand for displaying tasteful antimacassars on their furniture. No, they take to Facebook to dogpile Pro-Macassar groups, march in demonstrations with signs reading “SLEEK HAIR = SATANIC! SAY NO TO MACASSAR MANIACS!” and disinherit grandkids who show signs of Macassar-liking tendencies, such as hair gel use.
Fred Basset Spanish to English.
JP: “Wait… I can say, ‘No’, and eventually, after hours of screaming and throwing a tantrum, she’ll be tired and fall asleep. I just need to outlast her….”
FLASH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!: Too late, Flash invokes “Ming be trolling and that’s bait”.
@Voshkod: Ok, I had to make sure that I wasn’t the only one who saw that chair and thought “That chair looks like a plugger.”
Pluggers: Seeing an empty chair, I just assumed the plugger who owned it was dead. And that doesn’t seem that dark for this strip.
Frazz: Guess what everbody, with Halloween coming soon, that means we should be getting strips on Caulfield’s “witty” costume! Are we all excited?
Note: I purposely refuse to make a guess on his costume.
@Tonio: #67: Men in the 1920s were all going for the Rudolph Vaselino look by piling lots of styling goop in their hair. Some of those goops also contained dye to hide gray hairs. It’s said that actor George Raft would use an entire jar of hair creme at a time.
@Rube: #64: A friend of mine, a retired teacher, actually makes good money subbing as a side hustle, often getting long term assignments of several months. In Texas you only need 60 credit hours of college to sub but you get paid more if you have a degree and even more if you’re certified.
Crankshaft found this firm from a TV commercial — “Marley, Scrooge and Billings! We give opposing counsel the DICKENS!”
JP: Is a pet squirrel really worse than a puppy? Either way you’ll have poop all over the house, gnawed electrical cords, and chewed-up shoes.
MW-If you’ve ever wondered (or noticed) that Mary & Jeff are never seen with another couple or anyone else for that matter, today’s bland dialogue explains why
Pluggers still rub macassar oil into their thinning hair? Haven’t the Bright Young Things among them switched over to Dapper Dan, or at least Fop?
@popamatic: One of the things I miss most about the Retail comic strip is the Halloween weeks. Stuart made a wonderful Great Gazoo, Cooper was so esoteric no one could tell what he was supposed to be, and Val always looked particularly hot, especially in the TOS Star Trek minidress and the Josie-and-the-Pussycats bodysuit.
@Vanya: “You’re a Plugger if you keep that old chair around because, out of the corner of your eye, you can still sometimes see your spouse who sat in it for 40 years, and that sudden rising hope and crashing fall is what’s keep you alive.”
MW: GAAAAAA!!!! OH MY GAWD MAKE IT STOP!!!!
Moy must have been binge-reading every mediocre to just-plain-terrible self-help book from the 70’s and 80’s 24/7 to come up with this appalling dialog.
Oh my head…
JP. A year later, Franwit has finally heard about the “Peanut the Squirrel” scandal and thinks he’s found himself a storyline. Of course, somehow this will involve, not local environmental cops, but the CIA conspiring with “the Mayor” and Abbey’s long lost evil twin to euthanize the thing, all off camera, of course.
Pluggers: Is this “vintage core” styling? I guess Pluggers would be the logical influencer. Yes, I own doilies, table scarves, and other vintage linens, though I don’t put them on the upholstered furniture. They go on the curio cabinet and the knickknack shelves.
@Vanya: Same. Whatever Plugger wore the butt-groove into that chair is an ex-Plugger. RIP to…I’m gonna guess the dog one.
@TheDiva: #40: It was an episode of “Married, with Children”. The angel, played by Sam Kinison, showed Al what life would’ve been like if he was never born. Everybody was happy and content.
Peg was married to a successful businessman and was a dedicated housewife and supermom. The kids were high achieving honor students. Al decided to stay alive out of sheer spite because he couldn’t stand to see them so happy.
Pluggers: Until man-Plugger with a beer in one hand, and a remote in the other crashes down into the chair causing the doily to fall on his lap, which he callously tosses aside onto the floor.
Wife-Plugger puts it back on the chair the next morning, and repeat over and over…
Pluggers: I see an empty chair, and next to it, a crutch, lovingly kept.
Pluggers: Anti macassar fun fact: When Italy was proclaimed a unified kingdom, King Victor Emanuel II had a big outdoor ceremony. It rained heavily and the dye in the king’s macassar oil ran, ruining his immaculate white dress uniform.
@TheDiva: @Guillermo el Chiclero: Fairly Oddparents did that too.
Although despite everyone’s lives were better without Timmy, turns out that kids who wish to never be born are forced to go to some sort of purgatory dimension forever. Timmy was having none of that and chose to exist putting his happiness before everyone else’s.
@The Rambling Otter: #93:
“which he callously tosses aside onto the floor”
But not until he uses it as a napkin and blows his nose in it.
Soon all that remains of pluggers will be an empty armchair and fading memories.
@Guillermo el Chiclero: It was an episode of “Married, with Children”. The angel, played by Sam Kinison, showed Al what life would’ve been like if he was never born. Everybody was happy and content. Peg was married to a successful businessman and was a dedicated housewife and supermom. The kids were high achieving honor students. Al decided to stay alive out of sheer spite because he couldn’t stand to see them so happy.
Which is weird because my recollection/interpretation of the show when it was on was that Al was the way he was because Peg and the kids had essentially beaten him down over the years.
@Guillermo el Chiclero: hehehe! ^w^
@Hibbleton: Plugger eating habits and doilies are never a good match and can only lead to an antimacassar massacre!
@Guillermo el Chiclero: While I never found “Alf” funny, the rare time I got a laugh out of it, was when Alf wished he was never born (or just never came to earth)
The guardian angel shows the family at the dinner table talking about how great their lives are.
Mr. Tanner: What lovely days, I couldn’t imagine feeling happier.
Mrs. Tanner: Yeah, no troubles, no aliens.
Alf (to the guardian angel): You made her say that!
Guardian Angel: No I didn’t!
@Guillermo el Chiclero: Roman citizens (convulsed with laughter): “This guy is a RIOT! What we should do, we should tear down the entire middle of the city and build a humongous 19th century-style typewriter in his honor!”
(This monument to garish bad taste and overbuilding completely dominates the center of Rome. It is impossible to avoid. I bet Mussolini wanted one just like it for himself)
All of this talk about “It’s a Wonderful Life” parodies.
There was a webcomic I used to read, featuring videogame characters. One arc had the character King Dedede wish he was never born.
He and the angel are walking through the other town.
Dedede: Wow, there sure are a lot of weirdos around here.
One passerby: Jerk…
Dedede (to the angel): I thought that they couldn’t see or hear me!
Angel: I never said that.
@Professor Well Actually: Kelly and Parker are not going to do that. Dustin is their avatar of “kids today.” The strip is, in some ways, a mean spirited version of the Lockhorns.
FC: You asked for it, Billy. Don’t say you weren’t warned. Now Grandma is going to give you the sanctimonious lecture about filthy lucre.
Meanwhile, Thel juts in the background.
@Ukulele Ike: I’ve got a feeling Trump’s new addition to the East Wing is going to end up like that. The fact that he’s doing some extensive remodeling doesn’t bother me. Several past presidents have done it. During the Truman Administration the White House was gutted to the bare walls, forcing the First Family to live in the Blair House. Going by Trump’s previous architectural tastes I’m afraid that instead of maintaining the overall neo-classical design of the original structure it’ll look like an 18th Century rococco French whorehouse, kind of Louis the 14th meets Graceland after a side trip to Vegas.
C-Shaft: This sounds like it would be a class action suit, so whichever pseudo-Dickensian lawyer this is might want to question why there’s only one ancient litigant in front of him.
Lockhorns: From the placement of their feet, Loretta and her friend aren’t running either, just powerwalking. And passing Leroy every time Loretta thinks of a new insult, of course.
MG&G: Having your identity stolen by an anthropomorphic waterfowl is such an absurd situation that we have no defense against it.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: The humorist Robert Benchley occasionally made reference to his lawyers at the firm of Quibble & Quiver.
DT: The phrase “such as they are” is implicit.
Dustin: Dustdad hoovers up the two remaining donuts without even having to take a swig of coffee to wash them down. Someone tell Mary Worth and Dr. Jeff about this new human superpower.
FC: What amazes me about this scene is that Grandma gave Jeffy a quarter as well and he’s not blue yet.
GT: Jami and Beth have really hit it off because they’re equally bored at all the sports stories.
JP: Don’t dismiss the possibility that Charlotte was speaking literally and meant that her grandparents couldn’t walk in a straight line.
Luann: The Wachowskis really couldn’t raise much of a budget for this latest sequel, could they?
MW: There’s an old Muppet Show bit where Statler starts off booing an act while Waldorf praises it, and they each modify their responses a little until both say the opposite of what they did originally. It’s exaggerated for comedy, of course, but is still less of a drastic switch than Mary and Dr. Jeff on untapped human powers.
Phantom: The Phantom hauls in another unconscious evil mercenary. How long before he has a complete set?
Pluggers: On antimacassars, Wikipedia offers: “By the beginning of the 20th century, antimacassars had become so associated in people’s minds with the Victorian period that the word briefly became a figurative term for it. For example, antimacassars are suggestive of old-fashioned, Victorian-era women in Rebecca West’s novel The Return of the Soldier.”
That novel was published in 1918. This panel really goes beyond the usual “pluggers are old and decrepit” into “pluggers are long, LONG dead.”
@Artist formerly known as Ben: re: DT: MY take was that, being a half-wit, Silver would be safe taking fifty percent of the offered dose.
Shoe: From somewhere beyond this mortal realm, the spirit of Erma Bombeck looks down and curses.
@Sequitur: You got it wrong it’s:
My little chihuahua eats only the shit of CFA certified pure bred cats!
Fred and I have found that variety is the spice of life!
Indeed, I’m the universal coprophage, any ol’ shit will do!
@Daisy:
Karen was entering the room just as June was finishing a conversation on the phone. “Oh, okay. Well, keep in touch and let me know how she’s doing, will you?…Of course. As I said, Karen and I were hoping to stay a week there once our new storyline is laid out. And naturally, we were hoping she would be available then. Mm-hmm. No, I understand. She was just wonderful for us, though, the last time we were there. Well, give her our best, and I’ll see what I can do on this end. No, I understand. I’ll take care of it. Thanks again.” Karen disconnected and put her phone on the counter.
“What was that all about?” Karen inquired, curious.
“Well….” June hesitated. “That was the rental agency for the condo we stayed in last year when we went to the tropics. Apparently, our maid, Daisy, is having some…emotional difficulties.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. Don’t they have someone else available?” Karen seemed preoccupied. She was filing one of her nails. This annoyed June.
“Well, Karen,” June retorted, “I’m given to understand that it’s mostly YOUR fault.”
Karen held the emery board in check. “What do you mean, MY fault? She’s a thousand miles away from here and I haven’t spoken to her in months!”
“Yes, I know that, but your dialogue is making her crazy. I TOLD you our readers weren’t going to stand much more of this, but you have Jeff and Mary talking like they’re trying to outdo each other, saying things that would make any normal person want to slap them. Well, Daisy is one of your readers. I don’t think she can take much more of this.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but the syndicate has all of our stuff for the next two months already lined up. The new storyline doesn’t begin until January 1.”
“I think that’s a mistake, Karen.” June was serious. “If for the next two months all we can look forward to is Jeff and Mary’s usual date, with the boat ride, dinner at the Bum Boat, and a walk on the dock under a full moon rising, we’re going to have to come up with better dialog.”
“But Jeff and Mary have ALWAYS talked this way with each other!” Karen objected.
“Proving the point. Look, THIS time, when they’re on the dock, we can have them agree to give each other some space to explore…other options.”
“Explore WHAT options?” Karen demanded, defensively.
“Well, I think Daisy represents our readership. Fish or cut bait, you know?”
“So you want me to change everything for DAISY??” Karen set her arms akimbo.
“Yes. Yes, I think I do. And also, I want you to work the word ‘akimbo’ into a narrative box. People are discussing antimacassars, if you can believe that–I think a word like ‘akimbo’ would be a refreshing change.”
@111 Dr. Larry Erhardt:
If Erma Bombeck is having to read Shoe, we know where she went after she died.
@Dr. Larry Erhardt: Egregious, yes. And today’s FC joke was lifted verbatim from one of those weird DC titles from the mid-sixties, either “Bob Hope Comics” or “Jerry Lewis Comics,” except back then it was “shiny new dime.”
I clearly remember reading the joke sixty years ago but cannot recall any of my aeroplane flight details for tomorrow.
The Lockhorns – That look of pure ennui from Leroy shows that, even with more elaborate staging, timing, and preparation, he just doesn’t feel the thrill of being humiliated like he used to.
Mother Goose and Grimm – Sadly for senile Mother Goose, she accidentally signed up for the retailers high-APR credit card, and will be paying off this purchase for the rest of her life.
Pluggers – I am writing to the FTC to accuse Pluggers of clearly running an ad from Big Doiley, which is seeking to move some product this holiday season.
Crankshaft – Crankshaft is trying to finally be able to retire from this strip and having to generate puns and malapropisms everyday.
Even though he’s older as a character than Funky Winkerbean, his strip started in 1987, amid Reaganomic push against pensions and employee protections, while Funky got his start in 1972 when pensions were strong and protected. A lawsuit against the school district would give him enough money, plus a disability check, and he can retire, with one last send-off bus ride and mailbox massacre.
@Little Blue Bicycle: MW: Dr. Jeff’s yacht grows larger with each appearance.
__________________________
Mary fed it after midnight.
DT: Silver is probably everybody’s prison bitch in that cell block, hence his anxiety. In prison jargon thin, sprightly guys like Silver are called spinners. Impale them on your erect wiener like a speared corn dog and spin them around. Wwhheee!
Lockhorns: Maybe this is the turning point in the comic strip’s story arc, and Loretta is embarking on a weight-loss program that in a couple of years will remake her into a Blondie-esque object of desire. Her sniping at Leroy will become ever more one-sided as he’ll have no comeback when she makes fun of his physique. When she reaches her goal of toned godesshood, we’ll be treated to her deliberations over which financially successful man she will finally choose over Leroy – hopefully a nonagenarian for a couple of years of elderly sex hijinks, and once the rich man dies she can switch over to a penniless hunk for more conventional bedroom hijinks. I can’t wait.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: The Lockhorns: Loretta’s got no leg to stand on. The only cising she does is prancer-.
Fantastic old-lady cameltoe. Thank you for this. Five stars, would prance again.
@Charterstoned:#113 — I always enjoy your comments, and the long-form ones are a real treat. (back to shadows for me)
@Only Here For The Ads: Loretta will need to be stretched out on Procrustes’s bed to achieve that twice-as-tall-as-I-am vibe that Leroy finds so erotic.
@122 Ukulele Ike:
And a nose job.
MW: “Olive seems like a normal young teenager” is an absolutely fascinating bit of dialogue. And not just because of the obvious fact that she really, really doesn’t.
I wasn’t a “normal young teenager”. I think I was significantly less weird than Olive, but I was definitely “the weird kid”. And I embraced it. If someone had said I “seemed like a normal young teenager”, I’d have been horrified, because my experience was that normal teenagers were awful.
But Mary literally can’t imagine anyone not taking “seems normal” as a compliment, even when she’s rhapsodising about how extraordinary Olive is. So she has to claim that the girl who constantly talks about past lives and telepathic communication with dogs is extraordinary … but, you know, not in a weird way, where anyone would actually notice or anything.
@Old School Allie Cat: #48
Thanks, Allie Cat… I will never look at an easy chair the same way again… :-)
@Ukulele Ike: Ha. Yeah, he’s a homeopathic wit all right.
BG&SS: Nothin’ like some freshly broiled possum innards!
@Charterstoned: #113
Okay…this had me reaching for my rescue inhaler as I was in paroxysms of laughter! I can imagine myself as a stand-in for much of the readership here, being a post-menopausal working gal with an office job, a retired husband and a cat…(and a beaten up Lazy Boy recliner with leatherette arm protectors and a beat up old crocheted blanket on the cat’s rocking chair).
Yes. Karen Moy, you have done this to me…you have reduced me to a gibbering, sobbing wreck, ransacking my bookshelves for every copy of every insipid self-help and “inspirational” book, magazine and tract and tearing them to shreds! It has reached the point that I CAN’T STOP READING THE STRIP, for heaven’s sake! I CAN’T STOP!!!!
If you ever want me to return as your and June’s personal assistant/body woman (okay…not sure if that’s the appropriate term) at that resort ever again, GET A DIALOG COACH!!!!! June’s artwork is fantastic…it’s the WRITING that is driving me off the cliff!!! THE WRITING…OH THE WRITING…
*hack hack cough wheeze gasp* …must find inhaler now…must find inhaler!!!
@Drew Funk: #79
The chair *is* a Plugger. :-) We’ve all heard of transhumanism…this is transPluggerism…the sentient and insentient have merged as one. It was destined to happen.
@ValdVin: @55: As a dear, departed friend used to tell me, I’ve got a head full of sh*t.
@Tonio: I would assume that Peak Antimacassar was when men favored pomade for their hair a century ago.
I’m a Dapper Dan man myself.
@Dr. Larry Erhardt: If Ol’ Erma takes bloody revenge on the Perfesser while he’s somehow in midflight, it won’t be the worst thing in the world.
@Ukulele Ike: Loretta will need to be stretched out on Procrustes’s bed to achieve that twice-as-tall-as-I-am vibe that Leroy finds so erotic.
Leroy’s tastes are not the issue. We don’t expect a diminutive Blondie will have any trouble attracting a rich pervert with six months to live and a bored/incompetent lawyer who doesn’t know how to draw up a proper pre-nup.
Our brother-in-law was married for a time to a 90-pound Filipino girl who was 5 feet tall and sported a legitimate double-D rack – he showed us a photo and so we know she had a cute bush as well. We would offer him membership in the Bonehead Auxiliary, except that where it comes to women he’s even stupider than us. Cue the Surprised Pikachu graphic: it turns out she had a gambling addiction and a taste for alcohol. After they adopted an infant from her home country, she decided that maybe motherhood and giving blow jobs (to hubby – knock it off, you sickos) weren’t for her after all, and split.
<a href="https://joshreads.com/2025/10/frid@White Rabbit:
Here we sell Fop!
Anybody else read DtM today? That kid has now gazed at oblivion. Menace Level: TBD
@Situation Normal: I often wonder if you Mudges think I’m just…off. But, hey, it’s making some sense inside my own brain.
@135 A Grave Mind:
Dennis glanced in the teacher’s lounge and saw some naked teachers.
Zits Spanish to English.
@Sequitur:
Academic career-wise, I’m gonna say there were two in K-12 I wanted to see naked. This is plausible, sir.
Crankshaft: What’s funny, and is very on-brand for Batiuk, is that it seems like the strip might be attempting to villainize Crankshaft for something that the majority of the readers probably agree with him on.
@Vanya: too bad, because that would have meant I won my dead-pool. But I suppose the spirit of the rules requires the depiction of a body.
@Guillermo el Chiclero: a classic episode. right up there with the Labor Day special (featuring Aunt Toodie :) )
Safe Havens — when this new couple gets around to “it”, they need to finish before 7pm.
Late Thread Cuisine: It’s not looking at you with olive slice eyes. No, it’s not.
@144 Baja Gaijin:
I don’t know if it’s my device or what but all I got was an imgur blank page.
@Sequitur: me too.
@Baja Gaijin:
“No soup for you!”
@White Rabbit: @A Grave Mind Everybody posts, nobody reads.
I’m a-gonna post #86 the two of yez!
@103 The Rambling Otter: Good one! Almost as good as the second ghost to
assaultvisit Bill Murray in “Scrooged.”@115 Ukulele Ike: Do you remember the time you took an autogyro to Siam?
@118 Guillermo el Chiclero: Some days I learn something here. Some days I wish I hadn’t learned something here. Today is one of those days.
@128 Daisy: Your cat has a rocking chair?
@142 Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: I loved that episode too! A great two-part episode is when they moved into the grocery store. So many funny.
Late Thread Cuisine: It’s still not looking at you with olive slice eyes. No, it’s still not.
@151 Baja Gaijin:
That is just wrong.
Damn wrong.
@Baja Gaijin:
It got me to the Belgian Congo nesrly as fast as the Spruce Moose!
So…Turkish? Someplace Cyrillic? Won’t pretend I know non-Latin alphabets that well. Screw it, I’m totally in, let’s do it. Probably basically potatoes with some lemon.
@Maude R. Fawker: I live to
disturbservedisturb.@152 Sequitur: After the cracks the past few “good” recipes got…
@154 A Grave Mind: Yeah, no. Cauliflower, frozen peas, and that pus-like sauce drizzle. I just added the ingredients to the image if you want to see the sauce’s composition.
@156 Baja Gaijin:
Back to normal.
@Baja Gaijin: The curry glop sounds pretty similar to the base for using up leftovers in “turkey curry” … which isn’t bad but *definitely* clashes with dill. And there isn’t enough to drown the cauliflower anyhow (I’m not a huge fan of the stem cell mutant). But having been trained by my cauliflower-loving parents, I would dutifully put a bite-sized piece on my plate and eat it.
@Baja Gaijin: My first reaction was “What the fuck is THAT??” But on closer inspection I realized it was the brain of a Denebian Slime Devil. This must be an older recipe, because those things are illegal now.
@Bob Tice: #1
Have I mentioned how brilliant your puns are? No?
Well, your puns are brilliant!
@Charterstoned: #136
You aren’t “off” at all…you are beautifully neurodivergent!
Cue the soundtrack to “A Beautiful Mind”!
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: Me too!
@Baja Gaijin: #150
Yup! Princess Leia has her own rocking chair and her own bathroom. And her own dedicated staff! :-)
@Baja Gaijin: #151
That is an unholy abomination from the depths of the Great Abyss. Can’t wait to try it!! :-)