Literally, nobody wants to give pluggers the time of day
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Mary Worth, 12/6/25
I was going to make some comment about how Toby is confusing Sunny’s ability to mimic words with an ability to fully understand what she’s saying as she explains complex concepts to him, but then I caught sight of his face in the second panel. That’s a bird who absolutely understands what’s being said. He agrees with it in part — the part about his cage door being left open, that part’s good — but has no interest in giving Ian some space, and a lot of interest in fucking Ian’s shit up.
Hagar the Horrible, 12/6/25
Most ordinary medieval people — even relatively high-status ones like the second-in-command of a mid-sized Viking warband — lived in homes that were essentially one room, so no, I don’t find this one realistic. Hagar and Lucky are about to be torn to pieces by hungry wolves!
Pluggers, 12/6/25
You’re a plugger if you’re so cut off from contact with the world that you become unmoored from the passage of time, and also your phone doesn’t have the day and date right on the lock screen for some reason.
64 replies to “Literally, nobody wants to give pluggers the time of day”
I’m thinking Hagar is the Wolf food.
Pluggers have to balance their glasses on their nose since they haven’t figured out how to make them where the arms fit their specific ears.
Hagar: The wolves take one giant leap out of the house towards our heroes and just as they’re about to tear into their necks Hagar says to Eddie. “You know, we Vikings have no access to window glass.”
Mary Worth: “Salad fixings” are typically the cheese, seeds, nuts, fruits and other items you add to a salad so it actually tastes good. What Toby is giving Sunny here is clearly just dry lettuce. I’m pretty sure someone (Ian) is going to pay for that, and I for one can’t wait.
Hagar: “I forgot to bring home wolf food… or did I?” said Eddie, as he pushed Hagar into the house and ran away as fast as his legs could carry him.
Pluggers: “Oh look, it’s Saturday,” said the plugger as he picked up an old newspaper, just hours before being fired for not showing up to work on a Wednesday.
MW: Sunny may have a tiny brain and not be able to understand complex concepts but he knows enough to wolf down his food before Ol’ Fatso gets to it.
Hagar: We all know Lucky Eddie isn’t the sharpest axe in the armory, but why doesn’t he scrounge up some meat before exposing himself to the hungry wolves? The river crossing riddle with the wolf, the chicken, and the bag of grain is far beyond his funnel shaped skull.
MW Something about Sunny looking back while stuffing his mouth makes me think he’s going to attack this problem ‘Marvin’ style.
HtH: I can’t tell here if the joke is supposed to be that Eddie keeps wolves as pets, or if there are just a couple of wild wolves that are shaking him down for food, mafioso style.
Pluggers enjoy newspapers that take their time, which is why they don’t bother mentioning the date until page, oh, A7?
@Hibbleton: Nor weapons to defend themselves with… apparently.
MW I was going to write that Sunny should be experiencing this like the Far Side cartoon about the dog (blah blah blah blah Sunny blah blah…) but realized that it’s probably equally applicable to Toby as the bird’s intellectual peer.
Curtis Is there an ongoing gag that Curtis always mucks up photos? Or that nobody can get photographic proof of being with this barber?
Beetle Bailey : I was going to say Rocky might have actually been playing “I love you, You love me” from Barney, except… Well, if we the Doylist take is that Rocky is a greaser from the 1950s, and thus has never even HEARD of Barney and Friends, while the Watsonian take is that Rocky is in his early 20s at most, and Barney and Friends stopped airing… 15 years ago!? Huh, there’s SLIGHT possibility Rocky MIGHT have briefly watched an episode or two…
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Crankshaft : is now going to be obsessed with discovering the Pizza Box Monster’s secret identity, because he can never forgive anyone for having the affront and the temerity to be better than him at bowling.
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Hagar the Horrible : Remember the cute menagerie Lucky Eddie had in in house last week? Eaten by wolves.
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Moose & Molly : “But Chester, we HAVE to do SOMETHING! What are we teaching our children, letting them behave like that!?” “SSSSHHHHHHH! We told the entire neighborhood those were GOPHERS, who are definitely not our grotesque, mutated spawn, remember?”
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Pluggers : are such hoarders that they often believe they’re the wrong date anyway. “Man, what a lovely July 28, 1978. Boy, I sure hope that Khomeini doesn’t seize power in Iran, he’s threatening to cut off US oil!”
‘Mudges are probably old enough to personally remember how I’m probably WAY OFF on that one…**********
Ripley’s Don’t Believe It :
a) You know what you did, Flipper.
b) “Fun” “Fact” : the manual no longer includes thes instructions because it turned out it was more likely for a US diver to find himself in that situation than for the proposed solution to actually work.
c) Even then, it’s only just as dangerous as any other fish that size that can bite humans.
Remember that Far Side comic, where the Vikings are coming home from a pillage and their dog is happily waiting for them, wagging its tail.
The question isn’t “Can one make this scenario darker and less humorous” but rather “Why would anyone want to?”
MW – AWK – Fuck Chinbeard – AWK….
HtH – If you look around the den and you don’t know what’s for dinner, you’re the dinner….
Pluggers – Of course, Pluggers save on subscriptions by just keeping stacks of old newspapers around the house. The news is more or less the same all the time, anyway. TDIET….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
RMMD: “It’s really good! It’s going to be a huge hit!”
Summer knows she has to vigorously stroke Augie’s ego if there’s going to be any chance of him going from a (ahem) softcover to a hardcover.
Mary Worth:
“She don’t lie
She don’t lie
She don’t lie
Romaine!
Awk, awk!”
Just to make things a little weirder, with Lucky Eddie dating mermaids and wanting to f*** fish and all..
Maybe his parents (Siblings?) are werewolves, but turn on Saturday mornings instead of nightly full moons.
“Whoops, I knew I forgot something, we came back a day early. You go in first fatty.”
Pluggers: Peter G. Chronis? Chronis? That’s a time traveller name if ever I’ve heard one. You’re a plugger if you regularly stumble out of your time machine yelling “Maybe I’m not too late!” and grab the nearest newspaper, gasping in horror at the headlines as you realise you’ve ended up in the dark timeline again.
The last words Hagar hears from Lucky Eddie before being torn apart are “I only have to run faster than youuuuu!“
MW: SQUAWK! … Toby’s a dummy! … SQUAWK!
Hagar: Plan A is… go inside the house and risk getting killed to trap yourself in a room that you can’t escape from until either the wolves are asleep or they die of starvation. So you are able to properly leave.
Instead of, go to the butcher shop before going inside?
@Schroduck: -Applauds!-
Mary Worth:
“I’ll give that fulminating blowhard an ‘Amazon delivery’ the likes of which he’s never seen before!” muses a baleful Sunny.
RMMD: There really needs to be a Lenny-esque ‘Duuuh…’ in front of Augie Doggy Ding Dong Daddy’s word ballon in the last panel.
Also, for someone who’s apparently hunky dory with this whole situation now, Blondie still looks friggin’ miserable…
JP: Well, nice to know Glen’s “family charity” has a generous time off policy so that our favorite little sociopath can just jet home from Norway on a moment’s notice to spend Yuletide with the adoptive family.
Also, how much you wanna bet Emil is just off-panel, still in his longshoreman getup? Surprise!!
S4th: Okay, the little ‘Ow!’ made me chuckle…
Pluggers:
You know you’re a plugger if:
— you’re anthropomorphized;
— if you’re a male, you wear a flannel shirt;
— you’re overweight; and
— you have malformed digits.
Sunny’s door is open and Lucky Eddie doesn’t have wolf food? I smell crossover!
@Schroduck: Not even a cool, world saving time traveler either.
Other realities get Marty McFly and Doc Brown, The Doctor and Bill and Ted.
We get “Guy who submits to Pluggers”
@The Quiet Man: re: JP – that’s the one believable thing, I’m pretty sure that to legally operate in Norway they would have to follow the Holiday Act, guaranteeing a vacation/ leave policy the likes of which American workers can only dream of (25 working days!)
Pluggers:
Now, are these actual people who write in to that comic, or are the likes of “Peter G. Chronis, Denver, Colorado” the same as the late Gilda Radner/Roseanne Roseannadanna’s “Mr. Richard Feder from Fort Lee, New Jersey”?
MW: I realize we’re supposed to sympathize with Toby, but if the bird leaves the cage and attacks Ian, I’ll have to admit he’s in the right. After I stop laughing, of course.
(And we all know that’s going to happen, because why else leave the cage open?)
@CanuckDownSouth: Duly noted, and I appreciate learning that. Still not giving JP any credit for knowing that though, given that we have seen neither Sophie nor Reena actually doing any work, charity or otherwise. They blew through each of their 25 days long ago!
Now that she’s back in the States, here’s hoping the cops show up with a warrant (and maybe giant butterfly nets) to put Sophie in either a jail cell or rubber room for her criminal assault of a suspect in an active police investigation. Welcome to Cavelton, Emil, we’re all quite mad here!
PLUGGERS: Pluggers don’t have day and date on their phones because they don’t have cell phones and still rely only on land-lines.
HtH – Since the wolves are inside, either Hagar or Lucky Eddie should blow the house down. That would be a twist.
Pluggers: Oh look, it’s Saturday. That means funeral services for Betty, Andrew, and Carl. Let’s see who is coming up later this week…”
MW: That is a bird with mischief in its heart. Ian will rue the day!
HtH: One of these days, canines will be domesticated in the topsy-turvy, anachronistic world of this strip.
Pluggers: He could only pretend to be a time traveler so many times with his neighbors before they started calling 911 on sight.
Pluggers: In the thousands (dozens?) of homes still receiving dead trees on their steps, this comic will be snipped out and pressed on relatives and EMS personnel as part of the reason they don’t need to come by for wellness checks.
@Schroduck: I see I wasn’t the only one led to a time traveling scenario.
DtM:
“Can I help, Dad?”
(Ten minutes of whining and dithering later…)
“Dennis, go inside and enjoy some hot cocoa. It’s less work if I do it myself.”.
Luann: Huddle up, dog owners: Isn’t a strange person chasing an already shy dog, out in a new public place, going to do anything but make the dog run away faster?
BG&SS: One of Snuffy’s friends is already holding a pair of aces. And they’re both hearts. Looks like it’s not your day, Snuffy.
FC: “…emergency 24-hour orphanage deposit…”
Beetle Bailey: General Halftrack wasn’t hoping for Glenn Miller’s Army Air Force Band, but at least he didn’t get the “sad trombone” meme from the trombonist.
Arlo & Janis: I did not Jimmy Johnson to have kitty boo-boo face in the arsenal. Compared to other comics who show characters doing things they know nothing about, this is a person who has cat staff knowledge.
Judge Parker Mashups: What if the little girl wasn’t around? Who else could be visiting that causes so much excitement? Do any of the three visitors work?
Pluggers-Pluggers think they’re too good for a calendar.
RMMD-This book will be the biggest bestseller at airports.
MW-Well here’s your problem. Someone set this bird to evil.
FC-I see you don’t have Mary Worth’s number on there or in your life.
@Baja Gaijin:
I would go with the standard “Frank Stallone” meme.
Luann: Ah, a callback to the classic Inspector Clouseau bit, which only serves to remind me how terrible this comic strip is.
CS: Don’t worry, FIFA will give him an alternative trophy.
9CL: Oh yes, the repeat where Brooke teased another Edda pregnancy before he just dropped it altogether.
The solution is simple Ian. Tell Sunny ICE is one phone call away. Problem solved.
MW: I hope we’re going to start seeing Sunny’s thoughts soon.
HtH: Is “wolf food” an actual marketed item, or does Lucky mean he forgot to scoop up some roadkill?
FC: Santa Claus is on there so she call threaten to call him when the kids are naughty.
Dustin: What a weird week for this strip. DustinDad didn’t once make a sarcastic comment about Dustin getting a job or doing chores around the house.
@Baja Gaijin: I’m having trouble deciding between Bojack Horseman and the prospect of Wonder Mary whipping them into shape.
Family Circlejerk – Thel wins this jut-off.
Dustin: I love that Dustin is beating the pants off his asshole father. It’s gonna take Dustdad at least 3 bakers dozens of donuts to get over this defeat at the hands of his worthless son.
Sally Forth: Not expecting THAT in the armoire. I love the “ow” in the final panel.
Mary Worth: I love Sunny’s evil side eye. He is totally not going to give Ian space. At all. Let the avian havoc begin!
@Father Nosebest: But I don’t own a……
Oh my goodness…
I’ve caught the PLUGGERS!!!!!
The Vikings may not have any merchants that stock pet food, but at least their postal service is on its game.
@taig:
On Dustin being uncharacteristic : Yeah, “Dustin and DustinDad play a board game, the most that happens is that they get WAY into it” is kinda weird for this strip. The couple of things that were characteristic was DustinDad IMMEDIATELY sneaking in an insult to Dustin over his playing video games, and how they obviously switched the order of the penultimate and ultimate strip of this week, because they didn’t want this sequence to end with a despairing DustinDad screaming in rage that Dustin had beaten him (instead, it ends on Dustin essentially saying “I picked the ‘bad guy’ side in this game because I am a bad person who likes doing bad things”.)
@Baja Gaijin: I think Moy is going for “Sunny is the new Libby” after we responded so warmly to Libby peeing on Wilbur’s seat on the couch.
H&L: Lois’ lover successfully hides his identity from the kids before they leave the room. Speaking through the pillow both hides his face and muffles his voice.
MW: “Toby that stupid creature can’t understand what you’re saying.”
“Sunny is very smart Ian!”
“I’m telling you he can’t understand commands.”
“Yes I can you stubborn tub of Scottish lard. Squawk. Care to discuss Kant with me? Your recent presentation was weak!”
So MUCH focus on animals, I think Moy should just retool Mary Worth into a furry-based comic already…
I mean, June drew a furry-based comic herself “Captain Ginger” so it wouldn’t be too out of left field.
GT: “Thanks for dinner Roxy. I fell like I gained a ton!”
“Oh that’s just the artist. You’ll be hot again when the guest artist comes back.”
@The Rambling Otter: I mean, no matter what the arc, there are always animals present in them to some capacity.
@Schroduck: Ah well, I sleep in on a Saturday morning and someone beats me to the Plugger name joke, and yours is better! (I was thinking “You are the primordial deity who personifies time, you tell the paper what day it is.”)
@Hibbleton: As for the identity of Lois’s lover, I once again draw your attention to the appearance of Chip, and of Thirsty.
MW: Ian, in his first and only attempt at cooking, will prepare a turduckparr.
Pluggers: Sometime the first question to a suspected dementia patient is to ask the date and day of the week. It’s looking bad for the Plugger. Hope the doctor gives him some easy words to remember.
HAGAR THE HORRIBLE: Lucky Eddie: “Ugh! This is why I hate inviting Duran Duran over to stay. They’re always hungry like the wolf!”
Luann-“I hear Luann has a pet beaver. I wonder if she’ll let me pet her beaver.”
Pluggers-“Back in my day we used to stare at the sun until we went blind and we liked it.”
MW: Question: who is more inept at pet ownership, Toby or Luann’s sorority-reject sisters? Talk amongst yourselves.
Pluggers barely know what year it is, let alone what day.
Dustin: “Besides, I like making you suffer.”
JP: For the bajillionth time, six-year-olds do NOT act like this. Hell, in my experience teenagers don’t act like this.
Luann: So, Bernice crawled out of the bathroom window, right? Or she called the police about an active shooter matching Alan’s description?
Phantom: Dummies? They’re not the ones issuing the Miranda warning and not whatever the Ivory Lana equivalent is (if it exists).
RMMD: “Of course I think! This is Rex Morgan, absurdly good things happen to people like us all the time? Have you forgotten the murder truck?”