Josh has some second thoughts
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Family Circus, 11/11/25
One of my favorite unintentional running Family Circus bits is when panels drawn decades ago that depict the Keane Kids in a car have seatbelts added in extremely half-assed ways. Just look at that shoulder strap vaguely dangling across Billy’s torso; he doesn’t even appear to have a lap belt, and there really is no way to overemphasize the degree to which none of this setup would restrain him in an accident. Presumably Big Daddy Keane knows this, and is more and more tempted to slam on the brakes and hurl his son towards the windshield as his blather becomes increasingly irritating. If only it weren’t for this blasted traffic!
Hi and Lois, 11/11/25
I was an early advocate for Hi and Lois returning Thirsty to his roots as a comical alcoholic, but even I have to admit that “Eat food? Produced via agriculture? No thanks, I’d rather drink an intoxicating beverage” may be going too far.
Mary Worth, 11/11/25
Similarly, I’ve had no complaints as Mary Worth does more and more animal-themed storylines, but “Ian acquires an erotic rival in the form of a parrot” is probably the point where I would start to register some mild complaints.
Shoe, 11/11/25
“Do you understand how much my spirit yearns to be free of this corrupt matter? Take this knife. Sacrifice the man that clothes me. Do it now.”
181 replies to “Josh has some second thoughts”
FC:
“An’ why am I usin’ the adjectival ‘slow’ instead of the adverbial ‘slowly’ to modify ‘ drivin’ ‘”?
Mary Worth Mashups: If the parrot could think, would it think one of these missing final panels?
MW:
Does Toby really think that a 13-ounce Amazon parrot is going to consume a 4-8 ounce green salad?
Rhetorical question.
MW. So, when does another, female, bird show up and threaten to report Tobey to “bird management”?
Six Chix-“I came up with a joke. It’s too funny. I rewrite the joke. It’s less funny.”
FC-“If this is 2025 then why do the cars look like the Seventies?”
MW-Ian will report you to SCHOOL MANAGEMENT.
FC: And how’s Billy supposed to smoke without the obligatory ashtray that used to be in the back of bench seats in old timey cars? Talk about half-assed, sheesh.
H&L: Did Hi hop on the back of Thirsty’s skateboard in P2?
CS: what’s the word for a group of assholes? A rectum of assholes?
FC:
“If this is RUSH hour, why aren’t we listenin’ to ‘The Spirit of Radio,’ ‘Tom Sawyer,’ an’ ‘Subdivisions’ on the car radio?”
@2 Baja Gaijin:
In the third mashup, while dumbass” works, “nitwit” seems better to my mind.
Either way, Toby is quite the ignoramus.
FC:
“Why are all the cars around us purple? — did we drive to the Mary Worth strip or somethin’ ?”
MW: A colourful, moderately-intelligent creature that mostly just repeats the last thing it heard, kept for show by it’s rich owner, is eating lunch with a parrot.
Shoe: I’m always fascinated by the crystal ball Shoe strips. All of the characters are bitter cynics, so why do they keep going to crack wise at the local fortune teller? Is this what people resorted to in the days before social media let you mock WitchTok from the comfort of your own couch?
H&L: Thirsty yearns for the olden times that he’s never experienced but has heard about, when beer was considered “liquid bread,” a way to quickly, easily, and safely hydrate and obtain necessary calories at the same time. This is not comical, this is a tragic tale of a man born three hundred years too late.
Beetle Bailey : Celebrate Veterans’ Day by discovering that soldiers can just have giant shelves filled with over 20 000 records in the barracks, next to their bunk.
************
Family Circus : “And why do you PARK in a DRIVEWAY and DRIVE in a PARKWAY?”
***********
Luann vs Mary Worth : a wife innocently joking about her husband would never eat a green salad with her
(I never thought about how much Ian Cameron has in common with Ed Kudlick…)is worthy of being singled out as an example of people being inappropriately amorous to animals. “IRRESISTIBLE BUTTSHOT!” of a DOG for an OnlyFans page, that doesn’t register. Sometimes I just don’t get you, Josh.Seriously, “IRRESISTIBLE BUTTSHOT” of a dog. This beats the “Luann makes up that she and Bernice first met when she was peeing in the bushes in front of her house” as being messed up.***********
On the Fastrack : “We’re here to talk about the irregularities in your accounting” “RIGHT, here’s your gigantic bribe.” …Nice one, not laugh-out-loud worthy, but I smiled.
The Family Circus: An alternate caption for this comic could be, “Why doesn’t this car have bathroom facilities? ‘Cause in just a few minutes I’m gonna need a bath!”
MW: When Ian returns home, he hears the parrot repeat, “We’ve got to stop meeting like this! What will IAN say? HAHA!” And then, just for fun, the bird adds, “Oh, Wilbur!”
MW: Too bad it’s a parrot. Brigman could have drawn a different talking bird and then Ian could have been cuckolded by a cockatiel.
MW: I guess in this updating of Leda and the Swan, Toby is Leda and the parrot is the swan but who is the parrot? Aldo?
Pierce had a good response in Zits today.
Purple Stripeypants: But what about taking up arms against an anarcho-syndicalist commune, whose members take in turns to act as sort of executive officer for the week, but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs, but by a two thirds majority in the case of more…..?
FC I like the tired side-eye that BDK is giving as his son workshops traffic jokes in what is clearly a parking lot.
H&L Did you know that some paleoanthropologists belive that human alcohol production predates agriculture itself? Clearly Thirsty is getting in touch with his inner early man.
MW Damnit, there’s a joke in there somewhere about cheating with a bird? “Cluckholded?” No, that only works if it’s a chicken. I’ll keep working on it…
Shoe Maybe beside the point, but why on earth would the Perfesser be seeing a psychic? You know it’s not going to end pretty, do you really want to know the gritty details?
@9 Sequitur: Take another look at the mashups. I made a couple of updates.
H&L: “And then, of course, it’s drunk tank to rehab. Ah, the circle of life!”
Hi sighs deeply as the next few hours flash before his eyes: an overpriced hamburger steak, a sudden interest in a Canadian curling match, and a violent argument over whether or not singing along to the TouchTunes machine counts as karaoke.
@Bob Tice:Does Toby really think that a 13-ounce Amazon parrot is going to consume a 4-8 ounce green salad?
Much as I love animals, ‘Toby accidentally kills her bird friend’ would be the funniest way this story could go’
“Chirp! Haha! Seriously, give me the booze, that’s what I’m here for.”
@Charterstoned: That would be far too well thought out for Moy.
@Bob Tice: I’ve no idea what an ounce is so it’s not rhetorical for me.
Shoe: Very rude way to decline the latest offering from your drug dealer.
H&L: “Brewery to glass” is pretty classy for Thirsty. I would’ve expected something more like, “pop tab to gut.”
9CL: Uh oh, Lolly forgot to take her daily dose of potion brewed from the chins of spineless men.
SF: Is this actually done in the real world? Being an introvert, my limit for guests is one day, max, so I can’t judge. But does it ever actually happen?
RMMD: Yes, Summer, it should definitely be done in person. Augie should hear every “um,” “er,” “but,” “if,” and “I don’t know ” in person. However, we don’t deserve it.
MW: So, the parrot DOES parrot. But if when Ian returns, Sunny joins him in incessant bloviating, I’m outta here.
The Family Circus: Dad’s Taxi Driver 1976, directed by Martin Scorcese.
Someone I knew once made a comment to a woman about how he liked her hair-do and how, “I once went out with this really good-looking woman. And her brother had a haircut just like that.”
I think of that comment every time I see June.
Meanwhile, it’s simple. Summer tells Augie Doggie Style, “I can’t stop you from writing this, but I can tell you what you did is chickenshit, and I don’t want to see you again.”
Mary Worth: It’s all fun and games until someone gets chlamydia. From the bird poop, yes, of course, from the bird dropping feces on my shoulder, how else would an abandoned academic housewife get chlamydia?
@Schroduck: One episode of Fresh Prince of Bel Air, had the family go to a psychic, Will kept cracking jokes about everything so the fortune teller put a curse on him.
I turn I am disappointed by the lack of curses on characters who probably actually would deserve one.
Shoe: “I saw a bright light, and started heading toward it! But at the last minute, I ran into my shell. That’s when I woke up.”
RMMD: Suddenly an exasperated patient pops up at the window: “Tell the bastard you get a share of the money or you sue his sorry ass!”
Lockhorns: I want to find out if Loretta was canonically born on November 12th, or if it’s the fourth birthday gag they’ve given her this year.
Crankshaft: Yes, test the faith of your parishioners with a ukulele act. Throw in a bagpipe while you’re at it.
BG&SS: Lil’ Sparky is jealous of the wild animal who doesn’t need to be dressed in a snowstorm.
FC: Don’t worry, BDK. In this crowd of immobilized, idling ancient cars the leaded gas exhaust fumes will whisk away all of Billy’s troubles.
Zits: Did Jeremy just get meta-bullied by two bespectacled guys bragging about perfect grades in AP classes?
FC: Tomorrow: Billy wonders why we park on driveways and drive on parkways.
H&L: The joke works a little better if Joe’s is a brewpub with an extensive menu of local craft labels, but we all know Thirsty wouldn’t frequent such a place. No, most likely Joe’s Pub is a dive bar that has somehow withstood the gentrification of this downtown shopping district, a dark, bleak space where a surly man in a stained apron plunks down mugs of Miller and Coors and will pretend to listen to your problems as long as you keep buying rounds.
MW: Maybe the bird’s not that intelligent after all, if he’s laughing at Toby’s jokes.
Mary Worth: In a moment that parrot is going to realize Toby’s eating eggs and things are going take a very dark turn and I am absolutely looking forward to it.
@7 Professor Well Actually: “What’s the word for a group of assholes?” The cast of Crankshaft.
@15 Charterstoned: Take a look at the mashups in #2…
@27 Ukranazi Stepan: How’s this? Does Toby really think that a 360 gram Amazon parrot is going to consume a 110-220 gram green salad?
FC: Billy should be thankful it’s Rush Hour and not Bim Hour.
HnL: Hi is showing his reaction to his knowledge that he’ll be pouring a vomiting Thirsty into a cab later.
MW: I look forward to upcoming scenes showing the parrot’s whisper campaign against Ian.
Shoe: Thanks, Shoe, for continuing to support my will to live.
@Ukranazi Stepan:
Ah, but even if you don’t know what an ounce is, you know that a 4-8 ounce salad is 30% to 60% of the weight of a 13-ounce Amazon parrot, so Toby would have to be expecting that the bird would be consuming 30 to 60% of its body weight at a single sitting – you know, like Ian! :-)
@Baja Gaijin: I think he would eventually think all of those things.
@Ukranazi Stepan: Wouldn’t it be fun, though, if Moy and Brigman had guest writers and artists to sub every once in a while, just like Family Circus? What would YOU do, if given the opportunity?
C’shaft: “You obviously have had some musical background, which for some reason nobody knew or talked about until about a month or so ago.”
Dustin: Most people would have just settled for a “Finance for Dummies? Sounds like the right book for you, har-har!” crack, but not Meg. She takes pride in her crude, mean-spirited comments.
JP: “I always listen to you, too…Mommy told me knowledge is power, and I never know when someone will casually drop something that can be used as leverage against them.”
@taig: Indeed, after a few days in that apartment with Toby, the parrot might start battering itself against the window to get out. Ian certainly takes every chance he gets to go to “conferences.”
Dustin “Good point. Suppose that I start by pimping out your sarcastic ass. Gimme a minute to get my belt.”
@taig: Au contraire, I think a BIM Hour could really be what we need to liven things up on the comics strip page. Gil Thorp and his teams could do a dance break in the middle of their obscure sports tableaux, Mary Worth would offer advice on how to correctly perform the choreography, Eds Crankshaft and Kudlik would get heart attacks from the exertion and Rex Morgan would have to finish the mandatory dancing before he could get back to avoiding being involved in their treatment…
(The Apple is truly one of the greatest bad movies ever made, a must-see for every lover of the schlocky and bizarre. I can’t recommend it enough.)
H&L – “I prefer brewery to glass, meaning I’d rather drink the contents of an entire brewery than one glass of beer. Damn, I need help.”
@Rube: Please, not even Matt Gaetz or ex-Prince Andrew is enough of a sex pest to tolerate Meg’s attitude.
Family Circus: At seven years old, Billy legally needs to be in a booster seat, but an artist can only do so
muchlittle.Pearls Before Swine: “If you can believe it, the yelling was even worse on the way back from the liquour store.”
Luann: A lot of dogs are going to sniff that image and get really confused.
CS: You just know Dinkle would rather go deaf (again!) rather than hear a ukulele solo.
9CL: Brooke isn’t the most competent storyteller, but it seems an awful lot like he’s trying to tell a story where Alistair has switched twins.
@21 Baja Gaijin:
Thanks for the shout out!
Heh, I like where Toby is going all out Wilbur with the mayo.
@Ken: Yeah, that poor parrot will quickly realize he’s found the most vapid conversationalist.
@TheDiva: Oh, definitely! In those comic strips, BIM Hour would be a welcome change. In Family Circus, though, a lot of melonheads would explode from the anti-Christianity of it all.
I learned about The Apple through RiffTrax, and it’s one of the few movies they’ve riffed that I needed to see without the commentary.
The mystery of the Keanemobile is multi-layered. With a front bench seat, where is the column shifter? Maybe there is none, which is the real reason they’re going so slow. To where? Billy has books, but rides a bus to school.
And of course, why was Billy in the back seat? Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?
@MKay: H&L – I prefer hyphenation to inscrutable double-substitution. Spent way too long trying to figure out how ‘glass’ represents the farm-to-table restaurant before I parsed Thirsty’s brewery-to-glass supply chain preference correctly. It doesn’t help that half the alcohol-forward establishments in my none-too-urban area present themselves as direct-to-customer breweries, prompting me to assume Joe’s was also set up that way.
The parrot is going to begin repeating “We’ve go to stop meeting like this. What will Ian say? Haha.” over and over again. When Ian returns from his “Teacher’s Conference” (drinking binge/ orgy) he hears it, refuses to believe the truth ( because the truth is ridiculous). A series of events leads him to suspect Tobey is having an affair with Wilbur, and in jealous rage, he murders them both.
Fortunately for Ian, turns out human flesh is the secret ingredient in Mary’s salmon squares. Unfortunately for Ian, now that he knows the secret, Mary has to kill him.
MW: I cannot predict which one will shit on the floor first.
REX MORGAN M.D.: The real plagiarism scandal here is Terry Beatty just straight up stealing scripts from the Mary Worth office. I mean a ditzy and neurotic blond women paralyzed with hand-wringing indecision over the extremely obvious solution to her dumb little problem to the point that she can’t even properly articulate what the issue even is? People this is “Toby” plot with her name crossed out for “Simmer” and dipped in “Ameripolitan” sauce. (Beatty: “But I made it 30% duller. That makes it ‘different’ enough to avoid rip-off accusations right?”)
Zits: I am generally appreciate this comic strip, but today’s got a genuine laugh out of me.
Dustin: I like how every non-Dustin character talks like an angry Gen Xer/Boomer yelling at their child. It adds to this strip’s consistency.
Mary Worth: God, please let Sunny the parrot rob Toby while she’s sleeping.
MARY WORTH: Hey, Ian, just to point out Wilbur was also taking lots of (supposedly work-related) trips away, leaving the women in his life perpetually lonely and…er…”frustrated.” Just trying to warn my boy before he finds himself on the bushes peering at Toby and her new companion, thinking, “Is he a parrot? Or into ill-eagle activities?”
Crock Spanish to English.
MW – All I see is a Parrot’s beak within an inch of a hoop earring. If that earlobe isn’t gushing blood tomorrow we can add parrots to the list of things that Moy doesn’t know how they work.
The Family Circus Spanish to English.
Slylock: Sea creatures mock humanity by playing with the sports detritus that fell to the bottom of the ocean when they fled the animapocalypse. Way to rub it in, Weber.
MW – Karen Moy finally found a way to get someone to laugh at a joke in Mary Worth.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Juan used to give out autographs for free, but not any more!”
“Now he charges for them?”
“Yeah. I helped him monetize and streamline the whole operation”
“And the rubber stamp is really almost as good!”
DUSTIN: Ugh, DustSis has such poor reading comprehension! Dustin was actually reading Fiances for Dummies! in an effort to find out which mail-order bride service has clients the most desperate to “settle.”
DUSTIN (2): Also, DustSis, I know that it’s in the bylaws (the Hateful Asshole Clause put in in 2010) that you have to meet your mean-spirited nag quota to be allowed in the this universe, but you might want to tone it down with the cruel-spirited discouragement a bit before your equally awful parents realize that you are also of legally-employable age and that dresses that end at your public bone (Hi Saturday’s strip!) don’t come cheap.
JP: Neddy to five-year old Charlotte: “I’m sorry about my going off about my ex-fiance before”
If this story is not about Neddy’s growing covert emotional incest syndrome, we have a problem.
FC – If this is the good life, why do the vacant soulless eyes in the rear view mirror mock me….
H&L – But the cow pies at Fran’s are to die for….
MW – Just missed the Halloween sexy lady pirate opportunity….
Shoe – I see great things for you – you will shit on Putin’s head….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
FC: You can tell the artwork is old because if it was done in the last 20 years half of those vehicles would be pickup trucks or monster SUVs. I’m surprised an old VW Beetle wasn’t in the picture.
GT: Semper Fi is great for the Marines, Gil, but what about the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, and Air Force? And what about the newly formed Space Force? The Marines aren’t going to be able to fight the Klingons and Romulans alone.
Pluggers: Andy Bear is older than I thought. I’ve assumed he was maybe in his mid-50s but to be a Vietnam vet you can’t be any younger than 70.
@TheDiva: Yeah, it’s a shame that Crankshaft’s innate musical talent went unnoticed for 106 years. He could have been a real star in Tin Pan Alley!
CS: Ukelele Ike, if you ever move back to Ohio you’ve got a paying gig waiting for you.
FC: I’m assuming Billy missed the bus and Bil is having to take him to school but what elementary school run requires him to get on the freeway? Most elementary schools are built in the suburban neighborhoods they serve. The only traffic jam will be right in front of the school, fighting all the other hovercraft parents.
Phantom: Put it this way, Colonel. You’re going to need more than one chopper.
H&L: “Also, I’m a sucker for the Mediterranean harp!”
https://publictheater.org/performances-jp/2025/f/firas-zreik/
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Like Ian would notice. The whole point of these academic conferences is to go get chlamydia from people that you were fucking in grad school.
Mary Worth: As Toby begins her emotional affair with a parrot, Ian is probably beginning his own with a cockatoo that looks exactly like himself.
Family Circus: Well, Billy, for your information, your father is driving slow purposefully so he can memorize license plates and use them to track down kidnappable victims for the Keane Kompound’s yearly blood harvest to the dark gods. Think before you speak.
Edge City: Len is going to shoot his dick off, isn’t he?
Hagar: I feel like there’s a panel missing.
“Not if she chooses to eat hay!…and I choose to eat horses!“
MW: Intimations of intimacy with a parrot? Stay in your lane Mary Worth, weird sex stuff is for Six Chicks.
@78 Ukulele Ike:
Only in the GoComics tread. Not in the Comics Kingdom thread.
The Born Loser: it’s not a comic that gets a lot of attention here, but I’ve always liked it.
Today’s mention of Veterans Day was quite nice and respectful.
Some of the commenters were getting a little snarky about some veterans having been drafted into service but another pointed out we haven’t had a draft since 1974 which is outside of most Americans’ memory so here’s a salute to Samson and good ol’ Brutus.
GA always used to make a big deal of Veterans Day but today we get just a half-assed mention as if Scandarelli just forgot until moments before submission.
B. Bailey: Too bad Rocky has to play his extensive record collection on the combined record player/speaker he got from the base AV department but then again Beetle and Plato don’t have earbuds or even headphones for their smartphones.
Hey, Ukulele Ike! Are you friends with Crankshaft?
DT: “Tall man from Tennessee.” This is Buford Pusser, isn’t it? Did we all know that the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and district attorney re-opened the investigation into Pusser’s wife’s 1967 death and determined (3 months ago) that Pusser shot her himself, after breaking her nose? Not such A BIG HERO NOW, is he, Dick?
Pluggers: “Would you like to enlist in the Army in 1945 and help us occupy the German capital, or wait twenty years and serve in the Vietnam War?”
”If it’s all the same with you, I’d prefer to Skip Berlin.”
@Sequitur: In the Comics Kingdom thread, ABBY is going to shoot Len’s dick off.
Careful there, Hi and Lois, that was some unfunny wordplay. Keep it up and you might breach the fabric of reality and find yourself sucked into the Funkyverse.
***
A word of warning, parrot. Karen Moy has never met a member of a non-human species before and is incapable of writing them with realistic behaviours. So far, only one fish has escaped this hell and it took dying to achieve it. Fly away while you can! And now that I’m thinking about this, I wonder if she has ever met another human before of if she has spent her life in a windowless room with nothing but ChatGPT to keep her company.
@Ukulele Ike:
“Tall man from Tennessee.” This is Buford Pusser, isn’t it?
This got a lot of play in Nashville. Mr. Cat and
I watched Walking Tall about a week before the announcement came out. Local media were informed in advance that some updates to the case were coming, and he works in news, so we wanted a little back story.
@Tabby Lavalamp: On MW: I have been checking Chat GPT out a fair bit recently, and it communicates far more idiomatically than the characters in Mary Worth.
@87 Tabby Lavalamp:
Moy lives in fear of being reported to School Management.
This was just like the time when Mommy and Daddy watched the movie “Traffic” while Billy was tied up and left forgotten behind the sofa.
@ValdVin: I have played bagpipes in church, even accompanied by the mighty pipe organ. When it works properly, there’s not a dry eye in the pews. When it works badly, there’s not a dry pew in the building.
Hi &
LoisThirsty (which, now that I think of it, sounds like a description of somebody who’s smoked a bit too much weed): I gotta go with Thurston on this one. Fran’s sign strongly suggests the main course is a barn served up on a very large plate. I think she’s taking this “Farm to Table” gimmick a bit too literally.It appears that the MW team is doing its own fresh take on Poe’s “The Raven.” The good news: Ian is dead and buried. The bad news: Toby lacks the emotional intelligence to be driven to madness so this story line will go on for a long, long time.
MW: What would sex with a parrot be like? I don’t know but it can’t be good. That thing at the front of its face may be used to peck things but can hardly be considered the kind of pecker Toby wants.
@Hannibal’s Lectern: I once tolled the bell at a church funeral during the recessional, for which there were also bagpipes. The bell pull was in a tower staircase, which was also where the piper was stationed, so I got to experience being inside a chamber with a piper at full volume.
HtH: I’m back, dahlings! Your patience has been rewarded! And they are showcasing my Horsesense by having me perform that counting trick I used to do on the Dog-and-Pony-Show circuit. Though Hagar could probably also count to twenty by using his fingers and toes.. to twenty-one if they wanted to get bawdy! hahaha
You may recall that I’m gluten intolerant, so that “hay” I’m eating is really shredded carrots. The food here fresh and plentiful – they are able to grow most all crops under that giant glass dome biosphere that surrounds the set. I don’t need blankets after all, and today I’m performing in the nude! Things were more “natural” back in olden times, you know…
Wait for upcoming exciting news regarding Judge Parker! Who do you think is supervising the construction of that new Horse stable?
I think it is kind of sad that, absent of any real human connection or affection, Toby has become fixated with a sub-intelligent animal that can convincingly mimic a person and provide empty validation. I feel like this could be a metaphor for LLMs, if anyone on the Mary Worth team were young enough to know what an LLM was.
That Family Circus panel looks to be a re-run from Nov. 18. 1997, which is kind of surprisingly recent. The seatbelts were there in 1997, but the traffic on the road has a decidedly 1960s/early 1970s look to it. I think sometimes the Family Circus reuses old art with a new punchline, but this is tougher to prove because you can’t just search using the punchline.
I think seatbelts in the Family Circus are always going to look a bit weird just due to how short the kids are. Billy is meant to be seven, but he’s clearly under four feet tall, even with that giant head. I think legally all the kids should be riding in some kind of car seats, but that would obviously make it much harder to reuse old panels.
@ectojazzmage: I love that Toby and Ian are so lame that they just have pseudo-affairs on each other.
Family Circus – Billy, Daddy Keane already has to drive you to school because you missed the bus, don’t tempt him with cliche “jokes” that even Crankshaft has moved beyond.
Hi and Lois – Thirsty knows that “Farm to Table” is just another form of conspicuous consumption, a means to let office drones like he and Hi to feel better while remaining ignorant of working conditions of farmworkers. Hi couldn’t tell you a lick about the farms that supply the restaurant, but Thirsty has absolutely done a few brewery tours.
Mary Worth – Toby is absolutely the sort to pick up fad diets, but instead of paleo, she is going pure parrot diet.
Shoe – “Honestly, yes. Your astrological sign indicates you lack ambition.”
I’ve added a few more Mary Worth Mashups. Could I somehow incorporate Helen Moss into one? Hmm.
@101 Philip: on Hi and Lois: Thirsty has been banned from breweries around the world after the “incident” in St. Louis requiring sterilization of a 10,000 gallon brewing vat.
HAPPY VETERANS DAY, TO ALL WHO SERVED…in war or not. I may have protested the war, but certainly did not protest YOU
So far down my list, GA and GT remembered.
HtH: nice performance, Mel. Sure, you eat hay because it’s what is healthy for you, while Hager eats the opposite… because he lacks horse sense .
Later down the list,
JS, MF (do not discuss), PLUGGERS also ho ored veterans.
FC – Jef forgot to add the whiplash preventing head rests to that bench seat. Heaven help Bil if that car is rear ended.
Today Billy would be carrying a laptop or tablet in addition to those books, and everything would be in a backpack. That must have been too much to update for one ancient cartoon.
Rex Morgan – I can’t concentrate on the story, because all I can see is those hideous hairstyles, which belong in the Hairstyle Horror Hall of Infamy. June looks like her hairstylist went crazy with a pair of clippers. If Summer’s ponytail was pulled any tighter, she’d have a beard.
9CL – Didn’t Alistair say a while back that Lolly was the love of his his life or some other blather? WTF is going on with this garbage? It’s like every character is ruled by their sex hormones and doesn’t give any thought to morals.
Mary Worth – Ye gods. Make this stupidity stop. This story has just started, and I can’t take it any more.
Between Friends – Benoit is in France, and the friend is in Canada. Time zones – how do they work?
Crankshaft – Thank goodness that the church in Oberndorf, Austria, had a guitar instead of a ukulele when the mice chewed through the organ pipes.
@I speak Jive: 9cl: if 9cl and Luann could be blended, would it be normal?
@Professor Well Actually: From what I understand from the comments, the average of 9CL+ Luann ÷ 2 would probably approach normal. I don’t read Luann – I can’t get past the ugly artwork. I do read Gil Thorp, which has even uglier artwork, but for some reason I really loathe the Luann artwork. I think it’s the characters’ lips and eyes.
FC: This seems more like a Jeffy question than a Billy question.
H&L: I’ve seen farm-to-table beer, but maybe that’s just for coast’l lib’rul eeleetists.
@SJK9000:
Ha ha, Toby now has her own “Toby.”
@1044 Baja Gaijin:
It seems that Thirsty does have a vat to piss in.
It seems odd that Beetle Bailey, a strip about soldiers, did not have one word to say about veterans today.
MW: If Sunny is a young parrot learning his(?) first human words—from. Toby.—then God help us all.
Shoe: For Madame Zoo Doo, asking about out-of-body experiences is just a way of making small talk. And now Cosmo has given her a handy reminder of why she generally doesn’t do that.
@Sequitur: Modern Beetle Bailey is not really a strip about soldiers.
C-Shaft: According to yesterday’s strip, The Ladies are already all over Crankshaft. The ukulele thing is just gilding the lily.
DtM: They’re playing on either a checkerboard or a travel chessboard that’s now littered with animal figurines. Margaret should’ve drawn the line way before she did.
DT: Dick is always glad to welcome another man with a right angle jawline.
Dustin: Thanks, Megan. Yeah, weird how nobody ever brings that up and it’s not the strip’s whole premise or anything.
H-Cliff: Hey, it’s okay by Heathcliff if Mrs. Nutmeg keeps on those foxy spike heels.
JP: Hey, at worst, Charlotte heard a few minutes of whining about the ex-fiancé. We’re the ones who had to watch the whole stupid affair unfold like a grisly highway accident. So, you know, if Neddy is going to apologize to someone for it…
Luann: I pray to any deity listening that Bets has never said “irresistible butt shot” while Gunther was in the shower.
Phantom: Stripey hasn’t decided yet whether to throw this supine new guy in the same cell as all the others or whether he’s the start of a whole new set.
RMMD: And now June has pretended to be interested in Summer’s problems as much as she intends to do. She’s not married to Rex by accident.
@113 Rube:
Yeah, at least Vintage Beetle Bailey would have war games.
“Do you understand how much my spirit yearns to be free of this corrupt matter? Take this knife. Sacrifice the man that clothes me. Do it now.”
Sacrifice the man? Or the bird? As a bird, his spirit yearns to fly.
Anyway, this remake of Jonathan Livingston Seagull has gotten really dark, really quickly.
Crank: Just out of curiosity, do people who’ve been reading this strip longer than me remember Ed’s uke skills ever being mentioned before, or did Batty just pull this out of the ether for the gag?
JP: Credit where it’s due. Establishing that Neddy has been whining about Hank to Charlotte (and Charlotte always listens to her) is the first time in this heap of trauma piled on
an alien disguised asa little girl that Ces has actually got me to feel sorry for her. Plus, of course, I’m grateful that I didn’t have to listen to Neddy whining about Hank to Charlotte.Phantom: Okay, I guess it is possible for a Bangallan citizen to break Bangallan law while not in Bangalla. And it turns out that, while I’ve been questioning this point for a while, now that it’s actually been stated, I realise I don’t know enough about international law to argue.
RMMD: Who says these plots move slowly? Why, in a mere week we’ve gone from “Summer doesn’t know how to feel about Augie’s book” to “Summer doesn’t know how to feel about Augie’s book, but she intends to discuss it with him at some point in the future”!
SH: I wish I could confidently be sarcastic about the idea that crooked subcontractors will immediately and blatantly attempt to bribe anyone who shows up from the contracting company asking questions and assume that’s the only reason anyone would do so. But, honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn it checks out.
@117 Horace Broon: on Crankshaft: Is “ether” the Scottish word for “Batiuk’s stanky ass”? Because that’s where Ed’s uke skills were pulled from.
“Be glad we’re driving so slow, Billy. Once we get to the draft board office, it’s off to Vietnam for you. You know how many strings I had to pull to get you in the Army as a 5-year-old? Surprisingly few!”
Ian will be even more insanely jealous when he learns the bird gets to poop on her.
@Sequitur:
Well, Gomer Pyle, USMC somehow never once mentioned Vietnam. Which I oddly have twice, now.
@Don: I think sometimes the Family Circus reuses old art with a new punchline, but this is tougher to prove because you can’t just search using the punchline.
They absolutely do. This panel of Jeffy leaning miserably against the doorstep while Dolly looks on with an expression that might be sympathy or might be blank or might be “Good lord, my brother’s a moron” was definitely used at least once in a context that had nothing to do with groundhogs. I’m pretty sure it was also on this site, but I can’t find it for the same reasons.
FC: I’m reminded of a story arc about a year ago where the Keanes visit New York (again–they apparently ran this same story in the ’90s and the ’70s). A YouTuber pointed out a background character at the airport in one of the comics, smoking a cigar. Someone missed that tiny detail for the second time around!
@Sequitur: “The idea is to move fast — a lightning attack. Or a….blitzkreig, you might say.”
@Horace Broon: #117: re-Phantom: I know it’s a court marshall offense for a member of the US military to procure a prostitute, even in countries or jurisdictions where it’s legal. It’s also against the law in several nations for one of it’s citizens to serve in a foreign military. The French Foreign Legion gets around that with a unique loophole. New recruits swear allegiance to the Legion, not to France. A Canadian man who travels to a foreign country, like Thailand, where it’s legal to boink underage girls, or boys, can still be charged with rape of a child once they return home, though I don’t know how enforceable that law is.
@I speak Jive:
Instead of being one.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: I shouldn’t have read your Luann comment. There goes lunch!
Thesis: Batuik is feeling his advancing years, and is turning Crankshaft into a Gary Stu. Discuss.
@Rover Berkeley: #123: Is that the same New York trip where the Keanes were knoshing down on 45 cent hot dogs?
@A Grave Mind: #121: That was a deliberate move by the producers so the show wouldn’t become dated and give it a timeless quality so it could be shown in reruns until the heat death of the universe. Notice that the Andy Griffith Show, which took place in rural North Carolina in the early to mid 60s, had plenty of stories about moonshiners and feuding hillbillies but no mention of desegregation or the civil rights movement.
@Guillermo el chiclero: The first Friedman Brothers alternative comic I ever saw was in Art Spiegelman’s RAW magazine in 1980. It was about the Andy Griffith Show characters lynching a random black guy who happened to stop for gas in their town.
”Suddenly, Aunt Bee strikes!”
@Sequitur: The last time I remember Beetle Bailey doing a Veterans Day strip, the message was something like “When you thank a soldier for their service, have you considered they might be as useless as Beetle Bailey?” I can understand why they decided it was better not to mention it at all.
@Baja Gaijin: Depends on the dialect. For instance, a Morningside matron (think Dame Maggie Smith in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie) would never say “ass”, “arse” or even “erse”, but might say “Batiuk isne telking out ef his mouth, but the ether thing.”
(My favourite description of the accent was a Scotsman column that said “Morningside — where ‘sex’ are what the coal’s delivered in.”)
@Guillermo el chiclero: Interesting. Thanks!
@Ken: Good an explanation as any.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
Well said, but I forget the legalities, but the Legion is basically sworn to France. It’s why so many guys who signed up just to be Legionnaires basically shrugged and said the equivalent of, “Well, Vichy is France now, whatcha gonna do?”
It’s less that Mary Worth is doing “animal-themed” storylines and more that they’re doing storylines that demonstrate that every character is just fuckin bonkers, real looney tunes, and using people having one-sided conversations with animals is an easy way to do that.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
And yes, isn’t it funny how the show is STILL hopelessly dated, and would rest with the Pharaohs if it weren’t for MeTV?
@129 Guillermo el chiclero: on Family Circus: No, that was the trip in 1982. In the original strip, they were noshing on nickel hot dogs.
And last for now, to Gil Thorp: Thanks for the thought, but Semper Fi is just the Marines, guys. So I dig it. The others are kinda thrown off, now. I’m pretty sure the Coast Guard has something Latin, too. Do the others? Army/Navy/Air Force people, you guys got something like that? Anyway, fix your art, it’s terrible.
@Horace Broon: re JP: Wait, Neddy’s complaining about Hank? I thought she was whining about the more recent ex-fiancé, Declan, or whatever his name was. But I now remember her trying to get back with Hank after that. I missed what happened there, if anything.
Late Thread Cuisine: Enough with the savory; how’s this sweet hitcha?
@Baja Gaijin:
Ick, gelatin, the Great Barrier. And serve with mayo? Or “dressing” (basically Miracle Whip)? Egad! Ya broke me, Baja. My sword, sir.
@139 Baja Gaijin:
I am somehow not thrilled about eating lava lamp food.
@Baja Gaijin: Use that flared mold right side up, fill it with a nice white wine, and we can talk. Gelatin with a red eyeball floating in it, not so much.
@Baja Gaijin: It looks like it’s getting ready to poop something out.
@A Grave Mind:
My late father-in-law who was badly wounded at Iwo Jima was nonetheless proud that I served during the Vietnam era. As a draftee I was assigned to the Signal Corps. His favorite saying to me was:
High above the cannon roar
You can hear the call of the Signal Corps-
HELP!
@Baja Gaijin:
#139. Baja, I had an old beau with an outie, but this guy’s rules.
@A Grave Mind: #137: The Coast Guard’s motto is Semper Peratis, meaning always ready or always prepared.
@Baja Gaijin: Cuisine – My first thought was that it needs a pair of googly eyes between the pear and the top. The eyes could be the sugar kind that are used to decorate cakes. Then there would be something edible in that horror.
I don’t understand why the poached pear – I guess that’s what it is – is just stuck onto that thing. One pear. It makes no sense.
Back in the day I had a friend that was probably about to get drafted. He worried about going to Vietnam so he joined the Coast Guard to avoid going to war.
He was in the only Coast Guard unit that got assigned to Vietnam. Fortunately, he returned safely.
@140 A Grave Mind: And the mayo/Miracle Whip is topped with crushed pecans.
@141 Sequitur: Lava lamp food. Gotta agree with that assessment.
@142 Charterstoned: Oh come one. Who doesn’t want to eat a dessert with a floating red eye in it? Apparently not Charterstoned.
@Unca Bob:
Fist bump, brother, for you both.
@Baja Gaijin:
Baja, this thing is gonna grab you and yell “we belong dead!”
ZITS: Neither of those show-offs is getting “any”, and at least one of them will flunk out of college anyway.
@Baja Gaijin: Reminds me of Larry the Cucumber from Veggietales after a bad LSD trip.
@143 taig: Oh come one. Who doesn’t want to eat a dessert that looks as if it’s getting ready to poop ? Apparently not taig.
@145 Activist: I’m pretty sure surgery can take care of that.
@147 I speak Jive: Googly eyes. That’s JUST what the dessert needs. Take a look at the Cuisine again–I added some googly eyes to the dessert.
@151 A Grave Mind: I think that’s the endive.
@153 Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: SNERK!
@Artist formerly known as Ben: Cosmo has given her a handy
Ew. You people.
@Sequitur:
Really? That’s kinda fascinating. The war history dork (I was in one, I’m allowed) wonders what he did.
@Baja Gaijin:
Baja, stop being funnier than me!
@157 A Grave Mind:
From what I remember they did harbor patrols and dock guard duty. He said he disobeyed orders because if he heard a noise he was supposed to flash a light on it. He would not do that. He just looked with whatever ambient light there was because he was afraid someone might try shooting at a light source.
@Hibbleton: H&L: Thirsty got Hi aroused.
@Baja Gaijin: Yes! The googly eyes are a great improvement.
@161 I speak Jive: I got ’em from Barney Google.
@160 Lord Flatulence:
That’s why they’re good friends.
@Sequitur: #148: One of my cousins served in the Coast Guard during the Vietnam era. He was stationed in the Aleutians chiseling ice off of marker buoys.
FC: when that originally ran, camel smoking pediatricians didn’t even recommend seat belts
@Baja Gaijin:
Lime Jello and peaches topped with mayo, aka the house special at Casa de Weston.
Mary Worth: They need to show the translation of the parrot’s “chirp”: “Christ, what an asshole.”
@164 Guillermo el chiclero:
I guess that’s better than eating Late Thread Cuisine. Or did he have to do that too?
@Harmless little bunny: when this originally ran, camel smoking pediatricians didn’t even recommend seat belts
Six Chex -it helps to have hooves instead of feet.
@Frank Garrett: when this originally ran, camel smoking pediatricians didn’t even recommend seat belts
______________________________
Thel’s doctor told her to smoke Camels, but she could never get the.humps to light.
@Sequitur: Heh, I like where Toby is going all out Wilbur with the mayo
Clue: Mary Worth Edition
“It was Toby with the Wilber in the Mayo!”
@166 Anonymous: Does it have enough mayo for Mr. Weston?
@168 Sequitur: I’m pretty sure making a military member eat the Late Thread Cuisine is against the Geneva Convention.
@172 GarrisonSkunk: Whew! You left out Wilbur’s Speedo. Thanks for that!
One cannot simply stop doing something they do subconsciously with no effort.
You’d think if they were going to touch up an old “Family Circus” gag to keep it current, they would also make sure it wasn’t going to run on a day in which Billy wouldn’t be going to school.
@Hobbes Fan: First time reading Family Circus?
More Veterans’ Day Stuff: My Dad was an Army artillery officer in the Big One. His group was billeted in Richard Wagner’s mansion in Bayreuth, where Pop played his piano. Probably “Yes, We Have No Bananas.”
Questionable Content: May’s abusive personality was much more attractive in her previous gamine-style rickety robot body. I have never cared for her new Amazon figure, especially the throw-pillow tits. And those eyebrows, couldn’t she have requested less caterpillar-like eyebrows? And the RMMD Summer-style ponytail looks painful.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Most likely. That’s another detail they overlooked.
@Sequitur: Rocky pulls out his mint first pressing of Blue Oyster Cult’s “Fire of Unknown Origin” and queues up the third cut on the A side.
“You see me now a veteran/of a thousand psychic wars . . .”
There. Happy now?
@Horace Broon:
Modern day Family Circus is definitely using old art. I just wasn’t sure if that was something Bil Keane was also doing back in the 1990s. That panel with the car definitely does not look like it was drawn in 1997 though