Ian won the award because he’s the only male professor who turned down a sexual advance from a student this year
Post Content
Mary Worth, 12/16/25
There’s a lot of hand-wringing about “grade inflation” at elite universities, which I have for the most part thought is overblown, but, I dunno: if they’re giving Ian Cameron a “University Excellence Award,” maybe things really are bad.
Family Circus, 12/16/25
Honestly love Thel’s wary expression here. She specifically told Dolly not to talk to Santa like a dumbass, but she’s clearly talking to Santa like a dumbass, and Thel’s too far away to stop her. The way the composition draws your eye to her is great, and I’m imagining a Vertigo-style dolly zoom shot on her face as she listens to this nonsense unfold.
Luann, 12/16/25
Sorry I started doing Luann on this blog again after like a decade only to become fixated on shoving the “Ugh, Brand and Toni have an active erotic life and it’s disgusting” strips in your face. This one I enjoy because I’m imagining the DeGroot parents sitting forlornly around their living room thinking “When is Brad going to come over and aim the snowflake projector at our house? He said he would do it, but where is he? He better not be fucking.”
Slylock Fox, 12/16/25
What really jumps out at me in both versions of this panel is how old these pirates look. No wonder they seem so upset at this joke of a treasure! They’ve wasted the best years of their lives!
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/16/25
Damn, Maybelle Pratt! Turns out Snuffy Smith straight-up does not like you. It’s a good thing you’re leaving town!
132 replies to “Ian won the award because he’s the only male professor who turned down a sexual advance from a student this year”
Mary Worth Mashups: A few missing final panels.
Blondie Mashup: I think Daggy is hoping for something else.
Family Circus:
“Ha, ha, ha, little girl! — you sleigh me!”
FC-“I thought you would still be in the back drinking cheap gin.”
MW-That is a rather cheaply made award. Shows how much the University cares about Ian.
Six Chix-“Forgive the pun.” “What pun?”
MW: This is right up there with the shattered Major Award leg lamp.
Slylock Fox:
Well, let’s see:
1. Stech
2. Chostle
3. Drows
4. Grainer
5. Hovels
How’d I do?
Mary Worth:
The Shoes of the Pisherman.
FC: Damn colorists. Thel’s support ribbon for cognitive disabilities should be orange.
BG & SS:
Wow. Even the signage in Hootin’ Holler has elision issues.
MW: Ian faces the realization that an award made out of the same dough as Cheetos might not be all it’s cracked up to be. He finds some small consolation however, upon finding that the pieces are delicious.
Damn, Ian thought for sure that his favorite underpants would be safe if he buried them on a deserted island. But sure enough, the parrot found some suggestible residents of Santa Royale, convinced them that they were pirates, and after a few harrowing months of scurvy, Sunny stood triumphant.
LuAnn: “Elf Care” was sitting there, patiently.
MW: Trying to figure how Sunny saves Ian’s life which seems to be the direction this story is going. Can a parrot perform the Heimlich maneuver?
Frazz : now regrets making Caufield the most popular kid in school all the children are emulating, because now that they all speak exactly the same, he can’t tell any of them apart, and has no idea WHICH kid he’s speaking to.
**********
Luann : TOMORROW : Shannon shows up to cockblock Bwad & Toni.
**********
Mary Worth : the University Excellence Award was actually awarded to the university itself, not Ian. Ian got a copy of the trophy because all members of faculty did.
**********
Slylock Fox : this is a reprint… Good to see Sunny in an earlier role! I guess that’s how the Mary Worth people spotted him for the “asshole parrot laughing at bearded old idiot’s misfortune” part!
Mary Worth:
With kicks like that, here’s betting Ian could give Travolta a run for his money in Saturday Night Fever.
Urbanisation is the key to development. Only moving people from subsistence farming to industries with higher productivity can a country industrialise and raise living standards for everyone. The Pratts are part of a social process involving tens of millions of people and Snuffy’s small preference for this or that individual is nothing before the majesty of the march of history
“Slylock Fox” saw that “Mary Worth” was into asshole parrots and decided to chip in
B&SS: It never ceases to amaze me that the residents of Hootin’ Holler are illiterate enough to leave the “g’ off the ends of gerunds, but literate enough to replace it with an apostrophe.
Slylock Fox:
“Do a little Jimmy Webb/Fifth Dimension adaptation for me, or I’ll keelhaul ya, matey! – ‘Would you like to writhe in my beautiful dubloon?….“
This Santa has death in his eyes! Listen, if you can’t stand children, you really picked the wrong job!
FC – Cuz his sleigh is up on the roof, dumbass.
MW: The inscription on this award is puzzling. I guess the wording on the gold plastic part says “UNIVERSITY/EXCELLENCE AWARD/IAN CAMERON”. But the inscription within the white oval appears to be a plea for help: “I’M/IN A….” It could be anything!
“I’M A SIZE 13 FOOT/IN A SIZE 7 SHOE” or “I’M A WOMAN/IN A MAN’S BODY” or “I’M STUCK/IN A MARRIAGE WITH A DITZY WOMAN AND HER PARROT”.
MW: There are only two scenarios in which Ian would ever have a “University Excellence” award. One would be if Toby made it and claimed it was delivered in the mail, as an attempt to stop one of her husband’s violent rages. The other would be if he ordered it for himself.
Good to see Sunny’s brother survived too and it’s having a great old time ha ha ha-ing at a couple of pirates.
@Hibbleton: Maybe by going down Ian’s throat….
Pretty sure Ma and Pa Groot are aware that Bwad was born without genitalia and is therefore incapable of fucking.
SLYLOCK: The pirate was hoping to buy that property in Th’ Holler with his booty. But no worries, the Pratts will accept heart-printed boxers as currency.
MW: Are parrots generally known for being this destructive? Or only when you go out of your way to piss them off?
FC: Thel is calculating her chances of making it to an exit, catching an Uber and racing off to a new life. Maybe THIS time…
SF: Since the Forths so famously loathe whatever jobs they have, why don’t they make their amazing clairvoyant skills their lives’ work? Oh, because they’re not psychic, just bat-crap crazy?
“I always wanted to have sex with my wife dressed as an elf! But a Tolkien elf, not a Santa elf! Now my fetish is even more twisted!”
Wrecks Moregone:
The only way this “story” can be rescued is if it ends in Auuuuughie getting sued for plagiarism and ending up without any money. Then Winter can dump him and move on to a romance with Lorry’s not-son, Pickup or whatever his name is.
@MKay:
Parrots are extremely intelligent, but normally intelligence comes with the side effect of having a sense of self preservation, which Sunny is choosing to not display.
@Baja Gaijin:
Wary Morth: the last one is by orders of magnitude the best.
You must understand that Ian got this Excellence award because he was the best cosplayer in a “Bill and Ted” contest — he used to be much thinner then
@Charterstoned: Not a finger!
MW: FWIW crows and ravens remember faces and hold grudges.
Luann: Daaaawwww, Ox got a new dog for Christmas, and these two are getting a new piglet!
RMMD: Alternate dialogue – ‘Girl you sure are full of it, you can pull my finger!’
JP: BURN IT! BURN IT WITH FIRE!!!!
@Baja Gaijin: The third one is a masterpiece.
SFx: And with this discovery, the long-running “Treasure of Oak Island” series finally comes to a close.
MW: I suppose we could have just had Sunny destroy one of Ian’s beloved belongings to make the narrative point and leave it at that, but I’m enjoying this tack (i.e. destroying a new one every day) much more. It’s like a perverse 12 Days of Christmas, with Ian ending up in an insane asylum on the Epiphany.
FC: Boy, Santa looks super bummed. Maybe he’s thinking about his actual car — a second hand 2004 Crown Victoria — and how a sled might be nicer to sleep in.
Luann: I do not like the turn this sexy talk is taking. “Mmmm, yeah, I care about Elf Health. So is that like a genetic condition? Any sexy side effects? Joint pain? Oh baby…”
BGSS: What could moving even mean in the context of Hootin Holler? Surely all the surrounding villages are full of rival clans and blood enemies. No, I think this is a kind of end-of-life transition (i.e. moving into a cave and hoping a bear eats you before winter.)
Crankshaft:
Day 2 of the noticeably black and white strip offset by the red cardinal of death. Great timing, Tom.
MW: What other major awards can Sunny destroy, and why hasn’t there been some sort of media notice about possible lost Amazonian Parrots?
@12 Hibbleton: Sunny reaches into Ian’s throat to peck out a bolus of haggis lodged by his tonsils, thus saving his life.
@24 Charterstoned: I finished your thought.
Luann: “[Self-care] is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” — Audre Lorde, 1988
“I do care about elf health.” — Brad DeGroot, 2025
@Baja Gaijin: Is it Mash-Up worthy?
Also Luann: Look at Toni’s shoes, with their sturdy-yet-raised heels, the lovingly polished buckles, how she carefully handles them by the heels to protect their, uh, fragrance after a day of playing Santa’s helper. This isn’t a one-off costume. They’ve had this outfit. They’ve had it for a while.
MW: What sketchy for-profit diploma mill does Ian work for, anyway? If Toby is passive-aggressive enough to leave the cage door open and let the parrot loose in the apartment, any decent tenured professor at any decent college or university would be smart enough just to leave the window open too.
MW: “Oh no! My fragile excellence award, and the Jenga tower I was using to display it!” My sympathies remain low.
GT Is it even possible for the panel order to get shuffled in comics publishing? Because switching #2 and #3 makes the narrative flow a bit more sensible.
MW I’m also playing the what *was* that Excellence Award saying game, and my guess is an oval with Lorem Ipsum-type text involving IWI… INA… and then “Excellent Ian” below. Which would be perfect as a head-pat from a college too incompetent to realize there are no month-long conferences and they’re paying Ian to take a solo vacation during term.
Can someone explain today’s Six Chix? If there is a pun there, I don’t see it.
Mary Worth: Oh, Ian. That award is as fleeting and hollow as the plaster it was made of. You should have held out for the cut glass version, or at the very least a plastic that wouldn’t get your CV laughed out of the application for an endowed chair.
Toby, my hat’s off to you– this is one hell of a long con. While it probably didn’t take long to convince Ian / Charterstone / the world that you’re not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, I imagine that maintaining that exact level of simplicity would take quite a bit of effort. Now, you get to destroy all of Ian’s tacky shit and watch him blame it on a bird of all things, a bird you befriended in a park like some crafty, avenging Snow White. “Oh no, not your stupid playbill that doesn’t go with the rest of our decor! Alas, the award you absolutely 3-D printed for yourself! Also I shit in your shoes.”
Is the Crankshat story (with the cardinal that can be seen in red only in on-line versions) going to go the route of Sunny? Will Pam name it Stan the Man and have him torment her dad in the same way Ian is being terrorized? Can’t wait.
The Family Circus: [Santa looks to Thel.]
[Thel shrugs.]
[Santa’s fingers brush over button labeled DOBERMANS before pushing YEET. Dolly goes flying with rocket propulsion.]
CS – It’s a Christmas miracle. Jeff and Pam are being visited by the ghost of Stan Musial.
Slylock Fox: The captain’s parrot is just so delighted by their misery! It’s squinting at them with joyful malice! I… SUNNY?! Is that you?
When Wilbur had a feud with Libby, it was stupid because Wilbur complained about nothing (cat meowing) and it was Libby’s home, not Wilbur’s. But now Sunny is actually destroying stuff Ian holds dear and it’s Ian’s home. So this is less like Wilbur with Libby (an asshole having a stupid feud with an animal) and more like Estelle with Dr Ed (when a human being is supposed to sacrifice their life for an animal and we are supposed not to see it is absurd). It’s outrageous that I am forced to side with Ian!
@Ettorre: Subsistence farming would be a huge step up for the Smifs.
Sunny is so laser-focused on destroying Ian’s treasures that it’s hard to believe it isn’t intentional.
@Ettorre: And Toby brought a huge, expensive cage that she apparently refuses to use.
You can leave Hootin’ Holler? There were people living in Hootin’ Holler who could show their faces somewhere else without being chased away by an angry mob? And the strip never showed them to us?
Also Josh you are not sorry! You enjoy our suffering!
Damn! Dolly sleighed that fake Claus!
***
So we’re all agreed that the only reason Toby isn’t keeping the parrot in the cage is she’s hoping to provoke a cardiac event in Ian, right?
***
There is a strong “And whose underwear is this?” vibe coming from those pirates and good for them. Not the cheating part, Toothless Joe. Shame on you for that. But the captain’s replacement foot does have a flared base, bringing a whole new meaning to “peg leg”.
“Shore hate t’see him go !!” “Thar both goin’, Snuffy !!” “I know !! Like I said, shore hate t’see ’em go !! What made ya think I was referrin’ t’just one o’ ’em ? You’d hafta read my dialog in text !!”
“We’re snowed in, Brad. It’s time to play a little Donner Party.”
“Ooh, I like the sound of that.”
Stabbing noises; the drip of blood; the sound of the oven turning on.
@Rube: It’s possible she just doesn’t understand that doors are supposed to be closed
@Banana Jr. 6000: Subsistence farming is the median inhabitant, others do a little less “farming” and a lot less “subsistence”
@Harmless little bunny:
Can someone explain today’s Six Chix? If there is a pun there, I don’t see it.
You’ll notice the drop shadows are exact duplicates of the originals thus mocking the notion of a platonic ideal.
Hilarious once you know the context.
Ian is an overwrought blowhard, but why the hell isn’t he shouting at Toby “cage the fucking bird, already!”? I mean, she’s clearly too stupid to figure out that that’s what the cage she bought is for, but even in his rage and self-absorption, he should be able to get that much out.
In the meantime, we’ll all enjoy the chaos and mouth-frothing.
I wanted to say that before the Spinning Jenny clothes were much more expensive, so it was not unheard to pay your servants or your mercenaries with clothes. But let’s not be pedantic, it would still be disappointing.
Hottin Holler is in desperate poverty, and yet you can see some elements of capitalism! To produce something (fish) you need to invest some initial capital instead of eating it (the worms)
Lockhorns: Yet the only clock in their living room always reads 12:00.
Beetle Bailey: Good to see Sarge and the new recruits team up to take that oath (“protect from domestic enemies) seriously.
RMMD: “Girl – you know how to pick ’em. Well, aside from that creep who became your stalker. Still, 50% is a good average.”
Toby “Honey, tonight could be a special night of love and passion for us! And you know what would really arouse me? For him to watch!”
Ian: “Sigh, fine, if that’s what floats your boat, I’m in”
Toby: “Great Ian, just sit in the cuck chair!”
FC – Santa can’t leave his sleigh in the parking lot anymore. The naughty kids who got coal last year always slash his runners.
Slylock – Of course the treasure chest is full of underwear! The map clearly indicated it was a chest of drawers.
Luann: I just realized Toni snagged Brad’s shirt with her curly-toed elf shoes. And now I’m going to dunk my laptop and head in bleach to rid myself of the mental images.
MW: If I had to guess, I’d say that Sunny’s destructive tendencies are an indication that he’s bored and seeking stimulation through any means he can. Which makes perfect sense, given that he’s cooped up with Toby all day.
SFx: The pirates in the left panel are horrified because the trunk of modern clothing indicates some sort of disruption in the time-space continuum. The pirates in the right panel are horrified because they’re super, Our Flag Means Death-level gay and come on, heart-print boxers? EWWWWW!
@Baja Gaijin:
While I always appreciate an appearance by Rene, the last panel is the best in advancing this surprisingly entertaining story arc. Ian sudden wakes up and realizes he is in h#ll and this is his punishment: to be forever tormented by this parrot. Squawk!
MW: The broken award reveals a treasure map which leads Ian, Sunny, and Mr. Alora to Slylock Island to …dig up Wilbur’s boxers? It’s becomes clear. While he was away, Toby entered Ian in a reality TV scavenger hunt.
Snuffy – This is day two of “everyone hates Maybelle Pratt” week, and I already have a sinking feeling that we’re never going to find out WHY everyone hates Maybelle Pratt.
Don Abundio, translated:
“The boss is counting sheep again”
“Yeah, I know”
“I’ve never understood how this would help someone sleep”
The Pratts were the sum of their ills and ailments, but also the memories of happier times, memories that the gossips and snipers of the Hollow were all to willing to ignore in their constant efforts to focus on the shadows, to keep their hate of Maybelle Pratt hot in their hearts, because maybe you could overlook Jack Pratt’s drinking and feuding, but you couldn’t ignore the way Maybelle Pratt kept her nose a bit in the air, like she was too good for the Hollow and the people in it, and that pride was the sin that would taint her reputation even as her husband was passed out at the church again.
– William Faulkner, The Hollow
Crackshaft: Don’t open that window, haven’t you been reading MW!
DT: So Dick is now running with Catman(not a trademark infringement) deputy. So many questions. Why is Rojo running? They’ve gotten nothing – less than nothing. Are Dick and Catman running to the cruiser to run Rojo off the road? How will DT explain Catman in his official report?
FG: Watch out Flash, that’s not a moon!
GT: Coach Oakes is holding it down,… meanwhile at home with the flu Coach Thorp is throwing it up!
JP: Charlotte’s sassiness is very refreshing. Just dump everyone else and make a her a new Nancy / Little Lulu character with her beret. Neddy can be the straight man to her gags.
MW: It must have been some cheap knockoff lucite to shatter like that! Crystal glass, you say? For Ian??? School management probably has a close full of them just waiting to be enscribed.
RMMD: better lock him up now Autumn/Winter because once that money rolls in, that $10-20 thousand advance is going to be spent fast on a new wardrobe, fixing the teeth, help with his thinning hair, and a gym to get into better shape. And then he’ll be way out of your league! Meanwhile Rex and June are trying to rack up as a many procedures to accommodate the people who have met their annual deductibles!
@Peanut Gallery: *ba-DUM tish!*
FC-“Hey, kid, tell that woman to sit on my lap and I’ll give her a special gift.”
Luann:
Toni’s idea of foreplay is a perverse mindfuck directed at her unsuspecting sex partner. Remind him of a failed task, then prevent him from correcting his mistake with her feminine charms. The guilt he feels as he takes her in his arms is an aphrodesiac to her twisted brain. Extra pleasure is derived if it involves increased suffering of rival loved ones!
@Peanut Gallery:
Esas ovejas son monísimas. ¿Podría la tira cómica centrarse un rato en Doña Verónica y su adorable banda de ovejas delincuentes?
BCN: The size ratios are messing with me–I thought the bunny was Mrs. Cratchit and the mouse one of the daughters, but apparently it’s the other way around. Also Tiny Tim is the only character in fiction who can get away with being this glurgy.
C’shaft: I’d understand the concern if it were a blue jay. That little bastard would DEFINITELY be planning murder.
DT: They don’t know for certain this is Ozob’s moll/accomplice, do they? I mean Hell, she could just be some nice girl doing part-time administrative work at a body shop to pay her way through college who for some reason got sweet on her clown-faced boss. But that’s the way of things in Neo-Chicago: guilty until proven innocent, arrest them all and let the for-profit prisons sort them out.
Dustin: Lesser comic strip artists would have just taken the “Dear Santa, I can explain…” bit from whatever catalog of pithy, mildly amusing t-shirts they stole it from, inserted it into the strip, and called it a day. But to stretch out and overcomplicate the joke so that even the faintest traces of humor are removed from it? That takes effort.
GT: Unfortunately, Milford is not allowed to be successful in the absence of Greatest Coach Ever Gil Thorp, so all Ochoa can do is hope for a narrow loss.
JP: Yikes, Charlotte’s not beating the “forty-year-old dwarf who has convinced a group of idiots she’s a six-year-old girl” accusations today.
Phantom: The Ghost Who Didn’t Think This Through is shooting blindly into the next room where his allies/innocent bystanders are out in the open, but the criminals are safely ensconced in their cell out of the line of fire.
Pluggers resent being asked to do basic household chores.
MW – Hey – that cheap thing said for excellence as a participant….
FC – I was afraid you wouldn’t be here cuz you don’t have legal resident status….
Luann – Hope B-wad can bring his A-game….
SFx – Wow – that’s Captain Kidd’s skid mark….
BG&SS – I just cain’t abide by no woman who can eat no lean. I want some’a that possum gravy swimin’ in fat, too….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
You know “Garfield minus Garfield”? What about “Mary Worth minus Sunny”? Now it looks Ian is witnessing the disasters in his life and shouting “Because of you… you wretched nuisance” at God.
BG&SS — Hell hath no fury like a Snuffy scorned.
“That damned bird knows no limit to his perfidity! He shattered my Excellence Trophy and stole my trophy wife!”
Mary Worth: Yeah, Ian is fully justified in punting that stupid bird like a football at this point. It’s clearly actively evil and malicious towards him.
Slylock Fox: Some scant survivors of the Animalpocalypse turned into nomadic sea-travelers, but they were really bad at it and died of scurvy. Sad!
@Violet: There’s nothing more dangerous than a clever sheep.
Ian still doesn’t get the joke of having received an “excellence award” that shatters into tiny shards upon falling from a mid-height shelf.
@Bob Tice:
F. You didn’t follow the plain to read instructions.
@Bob Tice: Are you related to Samantha Fulnecky?
@The Quiet Man, yyyLuann: I waited until Tuesday, but it looks like the Evansii ended the storyline as requested.
MW: the only way Ian could win an award for rejecting the sexual advances of a student would be if the student were Dawn Weston. He’d be thinking of Wilbur the whole time.
RIP Anthony Geary. He was 78. At least he wasn’t murdered.
Those of us who are squicked out by the thought of sexytimes in Luann can take comfort that Brad taking off his jacket is as naked as he’ll ever get.
@Guillermo el chiclero: RIP Anthony Geary. He was 78. At least he wasn’t murdered.
_______________________________
One of the Plugger channels just ran that “All In The Family” episode where he played an effeminate friend of Mike who Archie labels ‘gay’.
@Guillermo el chiclero: I wonder if he will be disrespected.
The Familliar Mucus:”Dolly! I thought I told you to turn your ‘rude off’ when talking to Santa!”
@Professor Well Actually: #33- Crows can also count. At least Round Here they can.
Luann: Sex.
MW- And to think Ian took the award into the stall with him so it wouldn’t get broken.
DT: Poor Claudia Dinkley-Rogers. She just wanted to rebel against her parents by helping a criminal in a riduculous costume!
JP: It’s hilarious how Ces thinks he can do “Neddy unexpectedly turns out to be the parent figure Charlotte needs” and “creepy adult-child Charlotte is absolutely the brains in this arrangement” at the same time.
MW: “Not the award I was given for my significant contribution to being third in line when they were demonstrating the new 3D printer!”
RMMD: I love that Michelle hears Augie’s supposedly going to be rich and doesn’t even bother asking Summer “So what happened about that thing where you were mad at him for using your trauma?” She knows exactly what happened about that thing!
S4th: Given what we’ve seen of both Ronan and this gothic pile, it seems more likely that someone in the family used to own Hyatt Hotels.
Luann- Bwad’s gonna score! Huh Huh…Alan’s gonna spank the monkey while visions of Luann dance in his head.
@Bob Tice: I can picture Ian cutting a rug to the Bee Gee’s b-side “It’s Hard to Dance with Parrot Shit in Your Brogans.”
@Horace Broon:
DT: Poor Claudia Dinkley-Rogers. She just wanted to rebel against her parents by helping a criminal in a riduculous costume! She likes bad boys in make up!
MW: “Not the award I was given for my significant contribution to being third in line when they were demonstrating the new 3D printer!” Now we know how the award was made. It was 3d printed in the crafts class.
RMMD: I love that Michelle hears Augie’s supposedly going to be rich and doesn’t even bother asking Summer “So what happened about that thing where you were mad at him for using your trauma?” She knows exactly what happened about that thing! Keeping it real.
S4th: Given what we’ve seen of both Ronan and this gothic pile, it seems more likely that someone in the family used to own Hyatt Hotels. YES!
Mary’s Worst: CRASH! “My Major Award!” We will return to our special performance of A CHRISTMAS BORE-Y after these words from our Sponsers Little Debbie™Salmon Square Zingers™ and your neighborhood bottlers of Moxie™ Cola. Tune in an see if Ian shoots his Chinbeard off!
@GarrisonSkunk: #97: I remember a “Partridge Family” episode where Rob Reiner played a biker named Snake who dated Laurie Partridge on a dare. Reiner also played a hippy at a party on a “Gomer Pyle USMC” episode.
@Little Guy: Indeed they did, and cut to probably the least objectionable people in the strip, so I’m grateful for small mercies, at least until the Brat shows up (which we all know she will)@Horace Broon:
MW: Ian’s excellence trophy shattered because it was an Easter novelty, made of chocolate. Hollow, of course, the university doesn’t have the budget for solid chocolate Easter novelties. All the other professors ate theirs months ago — Ian’s the only one who thought it was real.
BG&SS: Maybelle Pratt. They hate to see her go, but they love to watch her walk away. (Nice that the Barney Google acronym reads “big ass”)
FG: As Flash and company land on the small, reedy, muddy island, look forward to a three-week remake of Algernon Blackwood’s “The Willows.” But with a half-naked gladiator instead of spooky trees.
@Anonymous: This was me, hit post too soon. What I was about to say was @Horace Broon: given how little we’d seen of Ronan I’d almost forgotten it was proven that he lived there and the big topper gag of this mind-cluck was going to be they went to the wrong address.
@Bob Tice: Wow. Even the signage in Hootin’ Holler has elision issues.
_______________________________________________
Is Harlan complaining they changed his hillbilly signs, now?
The Familliar Mucus: “Why,little lady,I park my sleigh on the roof,everyone knows that! Don’t they teach you whippersnappers ANYTHING,in those alleged ‘schools’?!?” “Mommy!!! Santa’s a Plugger!”
@Guillermo el chiclero: @GarrisonSkunk: #97: I remember a “Partridge Family” episode where Rob Reiner played a biker named Snake who dated Laurie Partridge on a dare. Reiner also played a hippy at a party on a “Gomer Pyle USMC” episode.
_________
He also played the boyfriend, Sheldn, to his then wife Penny Marshall on “The Odd Couple”
MW: Maybe someone who follows the strip more closely than me can explain, but… do they not own a birdcage? There’s got to be a better way to handle this than by letting the bird fly wherever it wants and then shouting at it when it breaks things.
@Bryan:
They do! And it is huge! It looks big enough for Tobey to walk into it! We had joked that it is where Ian stuffs Tobey for a time out.
BUT Tobey likes Sunny around perched on her shoulder chirping away, so she lets him have free wing of the place.
What a Frazzhole!: Does one wear Gore-Tex™ to a polar vortex?
BG&SS: What good would it do for the Pratts to leave Hooten Holler? All of the neighboring communities are just as impoverished, populated by similar inbred, ignorant, meth huffing, moonshine swilling layabouts.
Dustin: I like how all of the kids in these strips are precocious child geniuses but they still believe in Santa Claus.
@Bryan: MW: , but… do they not own a birdcage?
________________________
They do, but the problem is….Toby lent her credit card to Sunny, and he’s learned how to jimmy the lock using his toe claw as a counter pick.
Luann: Since they’re in San Diego it’s not surprising that their sexual roleplay involves nonexistent snow. And the dead-eyed lack of affect in the come-ons is no surprise, since they’re Luann characters.
MW: Tough break. Ian thought that his university excellence award was made out of brass, at least, rather than cheap ceramic with some shiny paint on it. Now, thanks to Sunny, all is revealed. As an old teacher of mine said, the truth shall set you free, but first it will make you miserable.
SFx: Well, looks like Ol’ One Eye can claim the loverboy boxers. His earringed compatriot would have to gain a good deal of weight to fit them, and precious little chance of that happening.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Dustin: I like how all of the kids in these strips are precocious child geniuses but they still believe in Santa Claus.
________
They all saw “Twas The Night Before Christmas” and know it’s a bad idea to piss off Santa, even if he doesn’t exist. They reasoned it out that there’s nothing to be gained by saying there’s no Santa Claus.
The Family Circus Spanish to English.
C-Shaft: For the cardinal, this is all eerily similar to when he was a little girl’s coat in Schindler’s List.
DT: The Neo-Chicago PD will help you put your abandonment issues to rest. Of course as Silver Nitrate can attest, the prison system can arouse all sorts of other issues.
Dustin: Santa opens the letter and says, “Who is this Hayden? Is he one of the Keane melonheads?” One of his little helpers whispers in that Jolly Old Elf about Hayden’s whole deal with Dustin. Santa’s rosy glow visibly blanches.
JP: While I wholeheartedly approve of Charlotte breaking Neddy’s proverbial balls, I do wish she’d find a less pained-looking smile to go with it.
Lockhorns: Leroy and Loretta arrive as the violet-grey background characters have almost but not quite succeeded in sequestering themselves in a separate panel. Ah well, better luck next time.
Phantom: Sigh. One would have hoped that Fezzik would have made better choices after the Man in Black liberated him from Vizzini’s service.
RMMD: The guy Summer went out with before Augie was the famed stalker who wound up getting vigilanted by the dad of one of his previous victims, so the “you know how to pick’em” sounds double-edged.
Lalo Y Lola Spanish to English.
Zits Spanish to English.
These pirates have come out of retirement for ONE LAST JOB, the underwear is just a stop-off before they, like, fix the Soviet satellite? Some shit like that? Show that shit in the middle of a Blue Bloods marathon, and count your money!
@GarrisonSkunk: #114: On Snake’s second appearance on “The Partridge Family” he was played by another actor, Michael Pataki, whom Trekkies will remember as the sneering Klingon officer who set off the bar brawl in the famous “The Trouble with Tribbles” episode.
@Ettorre: “I always wanted to have sex with my wife dressed as an elf!”
__________________________
A Keebler™ Elf? That way you can eat her cookies after the creamy middle/fudge covered sexytimes.
@124 Artist formerly known as Ben:
While delivering her zinger, Charlotte pooped her pants.
@Ettorre: #66: In the old days before synthetic printed fabrics clothes were expensive. That’s where the old comics trope of people wearing barrels to show poverty came from. Discarded barrels could be found in piles behind warehouses and freight depots, waiting to be chopped up for firewood. Today you could buy a men’s suit for what gardening stores charge for old barrels.
@A Grave Mind:
Could definitely see Kevin Costner taking on the rule of the one-eyed captain, if the money’s right.
@Sequitur: Sure hope Katherine warned Neddy to keep fresh diapers on-hand.