A marriage plot
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Gil Thorp, 1/9/26
Oh, you thought Gil got engaged because he was “in love” or “haunted by the specter of his mortality and eager to recapture a fleeting taste of youth” or whatever? Wrong! Like all great coaches, Gil is intensely competitive, and since his ex-wife is now a rival Valley Conference coach, he’s competing with her at all levels and at all times. Now, a less enlightened man would see getting engaged as a way to defeat his ex because she can no longer have him; but to Gil, getting married while Mimi strings along her current girlfriend would be the sweetest victory of all because it proves he’s better than her at getting married. In your face, Mimi! Who’s extremely divorced now?
Blondie, 1/9/26
Do you think that the Blondie writing staff gets burned out from churning out weird food verbiage like “holiday eating season” and “eating it forward” week after week? Or do they love it, constantly pushing the envelope with off-putting phrases like “one fat patty at a time,” because their relationship with food is profoundly disordered, just like the beloved comic strip character Dagwood Bumstead?
Intelligent Life, 1/9/26
I gotta disagree here; if my choices are seeing the unpleasant nerds of Intelligent Life discuss franchise movie box office numbers or watching them being hunted for sport, I will take the latter choice every day of the week.
131 replies to “A marriage plot”
In order to “eat it forward,” wouldn’t Dagwood have to, like, eat three other people’s lunches? And they’d have to each eat three other people’s? Will the sudden outbreak of fistfights in restaurants be mistaken for an outbreak of Rage Virus? Where’s Ghost Cat when you REALLY need him (eating three other people’s lunches)?
IL: why do all the characters look like they’re puckering up to kiss someone when they are speaking? It’s a weird artistic choice.
I’m glad that Lou’s efforts to cheer Dagwood up have been totally fruitless. Suffer, Bumstead! May none of your disgusting meals fill the spiritual void you feel!
I’m not familiar with this Intelligent Life character, are they dating or something? He’s definitely going in for a kiss in panel three, although Skip doesn’t seem to be into it.
@Jnoble: Blonde chin-guy is even leaning in toward Skip for the smooch.
I’m not sure what’s ostensibly threatening the survival of this doughy schmuck with a seemingly well-paying, safe office job, unless the Predators have dropped the HELL out of their standards. This needless, easy sci fi reference fits right in!
MW:
“To-bee is as lit as this Christmas tree! — ha, ha, ha!”
GT: I doubt Scarface is really this teen boy’s favorite De Palma film, but I admit it must be awkward talking to your mother about how many times you rewound and freeze framed the opening minutes of Femme Fatale.
Dagwood: “I have worsening depression that I self-medicate through eating, and my friends enable me for their own selfish gain! Ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!”
@Jnoble:
Oh, that’s just because Intelligent Life is worthless and terrible on every level, that’s all.
RMMD:
“Look at me, June! – I’m a mess! I have the countenance of Klaus Nomi and the body of Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle in today’s first panel!”
JP: No no no, we’re staying focused on *me*, Token Friend of Color. We haven’t solved *my* problem yet.
MW: So last night I watched the movie ‘Always’ with Richard Dreyfuss and Holly Hunter (plus Audrey Hepburn in what turned out to be her last movie appearance). At one point John Goodman, while a haranguing a bunch of pilots trying to get qualified to fly Air Attack against forest fires, says ‘A tree can explode like a BOMB!!’
Can’t imagine why an image like that would come to mind looking at today’s strip. No sirree…
S4th: And cue the mystical magical time portals that show you whats *really* important, [exasperated sigh…]
Like that shithead kid knows who Brian De Palma is. Nobody younger than 30 has seen any movie made before 2002, unless it’s a crappy animated adventure about a group of animals journeying/returning someplace. Not even kidding. Test it out!
Blondie: substitute text for last panel — “C’mon out, Fat Patty! I have a new client for you!”
MW: If someone could shop today’s strip so that “senses” is replaced with “causes” and there are laser beams coming out of Sunny’s eyes, I would be eternally grateful.
Also MW: Where did they get their Christmas lights from? Temu?
Wary Morth:
Good gibbering ghosts! It’s the “animal warns its humans about the fire” glorp again!
_______________________________________
What plot development? One of the tiny suns orbiting the Christmas tree is about to go supernova?
_______________________________________
Ian, mon, dinna fash yerself, yon burd’s about tae save yer pompous axx, and the missus’ as well.
Oon th’ ither hand, ye better think of how tae give the credit to yon meddling auld witch before yer hoose burns tae the ground.
GT: Whatever her marital status, Mimi’s living in one hell of an apartment. A (squinting) 70th floor penthouse beats a honeymoon in Vegas any day.
Gil Thorp:
“Let’s you and I have this unhappy adult conversation in front of a child, Mimi, so that we can warp him permanently!”
Blondie:
Here’s betting that a random restaurant inspection of this greasy spoon would reveal at least 185 Health Code violatons.
Intelligent Life:
“But our whole strip is pointlessly dorky, Barry — so what’s your point, assuming you have one?”
RMMD: Big talk from a guy who appears to be wearing a rubber toupee.
9CL: Is this the twin who never leaves the couch? I thought she’d snared some rich old sucker.
GT: They’d better leave out the “speak now or forever hold your peace” part of the ceremony, because I can definitely see Mimi making a scene.
@Jnoble: if not AI it’s the human equivalent of ripping off Scott Kurtz’s PvP with a dash of fellow travelers Penny Arcade. Nit a single choice I’ve ever seen is anything but a swipe, and one that doesn’t vaguely understand what makes a cartoon work
Gil Thorp:
“You keep that face scrunched up like that, Mimi, it’s going to stay like that — you know, just like in that cool Twilight Zone episode!”
The fact that Dagwood alone constitutes a “lunch rush” is something that should worry everyone involved.
@Ukranazi Stepan: Let’s also see whether smoke alarms feature at all. Toby probably traded them to the pet store for that big-ass cage she doesn’t even use.
@Bob Tice: I’ve seen DePalma’s ‘Scarface’, so I know what’s in it besides ‘Say hello to my little friend!’. If he’s telling the truth about it being one of his favorite movies at his age, then that kid’s already warped enough. Hearing a squabble like this won’t make any difference.
Intelligent Life: Huh, moving from the more common concept of survival as a hardcore “getting through the day” to the more cinematic idea of “getting through a phalanx of murderous hunters looking to bag me and mount my head on their wall.” Way to get all “Pooh: Blood and Honey” there, Josh.
Blondie – Eat it now -shit it forward….
IL – Well – back to the oozing slime under the rock….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
MW: An alarming development indeed! The humans still have their Christmas tree up and it’s January 9th! That’s it, I’m moving to Family Circus.
@Lauralot: Ian’s stereotypical Scots thriftiness – they’ve been using his childhood Christmas lights with pre-LED incandescent bulbs. Those things really could burn stuff.
@Jnoble: Picasso made an artistic choice. This looks more like an inability to draw mouths disguised as an artistic choice.
GT: God I hope we get a whole Sunday Strip where this kid breaks down his top 10 Brian de Palma movies. Are there separate lists for black comedies and crime thrillers? Where does Wise Guys fit in? Let’s really get into this.
Blondie: Dagwood’s expression doesn’t say ‘inspired’ as much as ‘wait, do you have fatty patties here? Since when??’
IL: I know that every character in this strip talks by pursing their lips for some reason, but that last panel takes on some really sinister overtones with that muscular man making that ‘kissy face’.
@colonial: You can almost see the creative process at work.
MOY: “This all leads up to a fire, where the parrot rescues Ian and Toby!”
BRIGMAN: “Great idea! What catches fire?”
MOY: “How about the Christmas tree?”
BRIGMAN: (consults schedule) “This will be running in the second week of January…”
MOY: “Um… We’ll have Ian decide to leave up the tree year round because… because he’s depressed by the bird!”
BRIGMAN: (slight pause) “OK….”
MW I know the endgame is Sunny saves Ian and Toby, Ian now likes Sunny and all is well but we have a *bird* who delights in destroying things and shitting on stuff. That shouldn’t change! Instead, what we’re seeing is the story Ian will tell others about how he came around, when instead he’s become the second victim (after Toby) of a new bird-borne toxoplasmosis-like parasite. Like toxo-infected rodents going from fearful to desiring the scent of cats, he’s now desperately enthralled by Sunny and even considers all his ruined things as offerings to the new Lord of the household.
Alice: I still don’t know whether Alice lives in a permanent state of confused, hallucinatory dissociation or some kind of nightmare dimension where a grown man willingly wears a ballcap-bowtie combo everywhere and at all times, but whichever it is, it must be a living hell!
DT: Femme fatale or not, I would be very wary of getting too close to Dick’s chin. That thing looks like at least half his morning routine is spent honing it on a wheel.
FC: This panel is funny because if the kids are trying to hide in the closet, it means Thel must be the seeker, but she’s not seeking them at all! No, she’d rather stand there, in the dark, inert, with her own thoughts and feelings reminding her that she exists, that she is a person, outside of motherhood.
MW: Ah, and here comes our deus ex machina, or rather, ignis de arbore to teach Ian the timeless lesson that a bird destroying his prized possessions and screeching profanities him specifically and personally and shitting in his shoes and pecking out his eyes is a small price to pay for not burning to death in hideous agony and really isn’t it his own fault for leaving the Christmas tree up past New Year’s?
GIL THORP: Oooh, I know one “Clover” that’s not going to be “lucky” tonight!
Ever since the new social justice-minded creative team took over at Gil Thorp, it’s become a pastime watching the commentariat at GoComics explode with rage that the strip is not strictly about sports. But if Josh is right, and we’re introducing a theme of competitive marriage, they may…well, actually they’ll be the same assholes they’ve always been, they can’t stand any more sexual diversity than the Luann Trufans.
Dagwood is just following RFK Jr.’s new food pyramid. One fatty patty at at time.
Intelligent Life: Good news, everyone! A recent Washington Post analysis showed that AI implementations could only successfully complete about 2.5% of the tasks assigned to them, suggesting that maybe ChatGPT isn’t coming for your job after all. Skip shouldn’t worry so much, in other words. The creators of Intelligent Life, on the other hand… (Kissy Boy will have to answer to HR.)
GT: Read that as “You’ll always be my baby jaw.” Damn small print and aging eyes!
MW: well, I predicted that Sunny would save Ian, tho from a burglar not an electrical fire. (Can there be an electrical fire without any cords,?). UNLESS Sunny awakens only To-be and says,”Fire! Flee! But don’t wake Pompous Axx.”. Toby giggles and elopes with Sunny.
GA: how ungrateful! They set it on shelf and it’s a constant subject of discussion. They carefully polish it and free the genie trapped inside.
PLUGGERS: Except in New Orleans, where all ages wear shorts year round. And are cool! (Pun intended)
FLASH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!: Ming has his own version of “Marry-Fuck-Kill”.
Curtis: He’s got a point, although most of us would have gone for the “Isn’t turkey giving done during the holidays?”
Pluggers continue to suffer from undiagnosed dementia.
MW: “BURN, POMPOUS AXX, BURN!”
I have often been disturbed by Blondie but nothing they’ve ever written as sent chills down my spine like “Dr. Phil reruns”.
@Little Guy: Curtis Now you’ve got me wondering how this would actually work – did the Rev push a giant grocery cart stacked with frozen raw whole birds down the street, stopping to unload one at every panhandler? They’d probably accept just to get the crazy guy away from them.
MW: Does Charterstone not have smoke detectors?
IL – “Tell me more about your stage 4 pancreatic cancer, Skip!”
MW-Time for Sunny to move to another comic strip.
FC-Mommy and Daddy are going to play Seven Minutes in Heaven.
FC-Uh, Daddy, that’s not why Mommy’s in the closet.
Blondie-Have another slice of Health Inspector.
IL – “No wait, I have two resoluations. Survival, and pronouncing every vowel as if it has an umlaut.”
@CanuckDownSouth:
“Hey, could I just have the machete and pony bottle of vodka that other guy is handing out? Up yours, civilization!”
Don Abundio, translated:
“I’m afraid to go home! I’m having a fight with my wife”
“Well, if you’re a real man you can win that fight”
“But I’ve been paid to take a fall in the fourth round!”
GT: I mean, it’s an improvement over Merrill, who tends to draw Emily like an offensive caricature of a trans woman, but I’m still a little unsettled by how the characters always seem to get more with each successive panel. Are they sipping their morning coffee out of a false Grail?
IL: Skip is absolutely the kind of nerd who imagines himself as the rugged, amoral protagonist in a Mad Max/Fallout-style post-apocalyptic hellscape.
@Lauralot:
I got bored and did the thing.
Lockhorns: Now that I know the Lockhorns live on Long Island, I understand the fount of Leroy’s misery: He’s a Jets fan.
Crankshaft: Unless the birds are radio tagged, Lil has no idea if those are 64 separa—
I get it. Ed’s gonna go overboard on this and make the extinction of the passenger pigeon look like one housecat’s quarry.
DtM: Maybe Dennis should back off on the alpha male-verse videos.
BG&SS: Yes, Snuffy, your industrious nature, which would put scores of Amish men to shame, is going to get you a free roof.
MW: This is repurposed art from when people put candles on their Christmas trees, isn’t it?
H&L: Hi is smugly standing there with hands in pockets? I didn’t know he was “heart attack” years old and inert.
HtH: Would it be funnier if she was holding Roget’s Thesaurus or have decades of anachronisms conditioned readers to think that wasn’t a purposeful joke?
C’shaft: Come on, Pam, you should know by now that there’s always a reason, and that reason is “to be a horrible human being to everyone else.”
DT: “You heard her, Sam. Start looking into the local Bolshevik community.”
Dustin: AI is making everyone lazy; now Dustdad is outsourcing his lame excuses to ChatGPT.
Luann: No, no, I think “needy, insecure, and demanding” was covering it pretty good.
MW: Oh sure, the one night Toby actually puts Sunny in his cage is the one night he’s needed to make emergency electrical repairs to the Christmas lights!
Phantom: “Hah, psyche! You thought we were going to discipline you for acting with disregard to protocol and possibly international law? This is Jungle Patrol, baby!”
@Lauralot: Okay, “Sunny caused the fire so he could hero syndrome his way into Ian’s good graces” is now my official headcanon. After all, Toby’s been giving him free rein in the house; who’s to say he didn’t make a couple strategic nibbles to the dangerously archaic strings of lights Ian refuses to replace because “they’re traditional”?
@A Grave Mind: Well, there are “staple” movies that pretty much everyone has to have seen at some point in their life.
Like “Back to the Future” and “Ghostbusters”
GT: Mimi looks like a woman again, not a middle-aged pro wrestler in a blonde wig.
Pluggers: On the few times it does get really cold in Southeast Texas, the standard walking about attire is shorts and a parka, often with flip-flops.
Dustin: Ed Kudlick is a lying, selfish, fat ugly pig #5,486.
Gil Thorp: The guest artist for this arc is really jarring for me because they’re really good and I’m completely unused to Gil Thorp having decent art. I feel like those people who supposedly freaked out while watching footage of a train in the first movie theaters, unnerved and distressed because suddenly the characters exist in discernable environments and have real expressions instead of just standing in strange jumbled voids while flitting between smile-mode and frown-mode.
Mary’s Worst: I see what you did there, Narration Box!
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: AI implementations only have to be able do your job. They don’t have to be able to do it competently.
@TheDiva: MW#55- It stands to reason that if Toby and Ian don’t have sense enough to close a birdcage door,(at least not till now), they don’t grasp the concept of un-plugging a Christmas tree.
Phantom:
“Well, let’s bungle in the jungle!”
“Well, that’s all right by us, sir!”
“I’m a jiver when I want stuff; I’m a flake when we disagree!”
I’m truly impressed at how good this Gil Thorp art is!
Blondie: In tomorrow’s strip, we meet Fat Patty.
MW: I used to have a small parrot. One day he ran under the couch, and after I finally coaxed him out, I discovered that he’d chewed halfway through a lamp cord. This story arc is going to portray Sunny as a hero, when in fact the bird was trying to kill them all.
@MKay: 9CL: I think this is the twin who was briefly going to marry a young surfer type, then moved on to being engaged to an elderly virgin billionaire, and now she’s ready to boink a man she literally just met.
@ValdVin: The strip was originally titled “The Lockhorns of Levittown.” Bunny Hoest lives in a mansion on Long Island Sound, where she used to host huge parties for cartoonists.
@The Rambling Otter:
I’d agree, but have coworkers who have seen neither. And yet are still allowed to vote.
BLONDIE: One thing this strip never gets “burned out on” is making pop culture references that are hilariously years out-of-date…(hint to Blondie writers: Not even Oprah would bring up Dr. Phil in a positive manner anymore.)
MW: This was all foreshadowed in the conversation about leaving the tree up, with Ian agreeing that it would, somehow, reduce his hatred of the bird. And we see that it will, in a way he never imagined, when Polly saves his worthless life. My practice has always been to unplug the tree when nobody was around to see it, but Toby is dumb, and Ian may be Scottish, but he’s not worried about the needless expense of the electricity. But didn’t they have a dog? In the cartoon hierarchy of pets, it would be the dog’s responsibility to warn of danger, not the bird’s.
LUANN: Luann: “And is calling myself “needy, insecure, and demanding” just the bait I needed on the end of my hook as I desperately fish for complements. Thank God you bit, Phil, so I don’t have to experience any growth or self-reflection in anyway. What a break!’
@White Rabbit: No, you’re likely thinking of the two seniors mashed together by Mary meddling them over their pets. We thankfully didn’t have to deal with *Toby’s* “is Lassie trying to tell me something” confusion during the hot-air balloon nonsense
@Banana Jr. 6000: Well, God knows I don’t. An AI-enabled teddy bear would be a lateral move for most of my patients.
@White Rabbit: Ian’s old incandescent Christmas lights burn out if you turn them on and off too much, and are wired in series* so when one goes the whole string is out and you have to change every bulb to find the bad one. It’s cheaper and less frustrating to just leave them on.
* They draw nearly ten amps, but the asbestos insulation is rated for twelve.
FC – Why not, Bil? You’ve been doing it for years.
LUANN: Why is Luann being allowed to just follow Phil around in the nursing home when he is presumably on the clock and being paid? This would never have happened at the nursing home where I worked back in the dark ages. Has someone in management been conned into thinking Luann is some kind of volunteer? Will the distraction of dealing with Luann being her typical pathetic irritating self be enough to cause Phil to make a mistake with those medications he hands out, causing a resident to have a serious medical crisis, which in turn causes Phil to lose his job? When Phil blames Luann for that, will she dramatically break down and jump from a bridge? Am I allowed to hope for that?
GA: I would display that gift with pride. As far as I can tell, it’s a static visual representation of the opening credit sequence from Casino Royale (1967), the greatest art/design moment of the late 20th century.
@Ukulele Ike: Except the Casino Royale sequence has more boobs.
And don’t miss the closing credits. That Mike Redway is a genius!
DT: I’m sure this guy is going to turn out to have a weird obsession with the Romanovs or something, but in that case, the name isn’t on the nose enough. This is Dick Tracy, his first name should be Nicholas. “Raymond Czar” is weird but random.
FC: “Dammit, Thel, if you’re going to encourage the kids to have fun, it makes it really hard to use you as the bad guy when I want them to stop!”
Garfield: Liz is a vet, so regardless of her feelings about what foods are best for herself and Jon, I’d think she’d know better than to feed tofu to an obligate carnivore. (The internet says “Tofu is safe for cats, but not recommended as it offers no nutritional benefits”.) The version of this strip that makes sense is Garfield complaining that Liz doesn’t think cats should eat lasagne or chocolate-chip cookies for some weird reason, and keeps trying to feed him something called “cat food”.
JP: Problem solved: Reena can go back to the States and start dating Glenn, and Sophie can stay in Norway and see how Aksel and Emil feel about polyamory.
MW: And the moral is, it really is bad luck not to take your Christmas decorations down before Twelfth Night.
SH: Okay, we’re doing “earthquake” not “haunting”, and the glass falling without anything else having tremor lines was just an artistic choice, I guess. I still feels that “Pam has to maintain the pretence that there’s a human woman and a cat in this hotel room” would make a perfectly good story without any Random Peril, but it’s apparently not one that even occurred to Holbrook.
Mary Worth – Sunny craps all over the tree, putting out the fire and saving their lives.
Pearls Before Swine – Wait until he hears maths and sport.
I recently binge watched The Great British Baking Show and was surprised to learn that in the UK flapjacks are a kind of bar cookie, not pancakes.
Pluggers – Next week: Pluggers wear two pairs of socks and long underwear under their lined pants every day from November 1 to March 31.
9CL – What happened to the old guy who was the love of her life?
It appears that Brooke is trying to give Polly and Lolly different traits (I hesitate to use the word personalities) – Lolly has been permanently and steadfastly in love with Alistair forever, and Polly goes from one love interest to another. This makes Polly come across as a sex obsessed nymphomaniac who immediately boinks every man she meets. How do the kids say it? This isn’t the flex Brooke seems to think it is? Something like that.
@Horace Broon: I suspect he goes by “Ray Czar,” and his weapon of choice is a straight razor.
@A Grave Mind: As a generalisation, sure. When it comes to specific people, my neice is under 30 and is a massive fan of eighties horror movies. (When she was younger, she was also into MGM musicals, but I don’t think she still is.)
To the extent that anyone in Gil Thorp has consistent characterisation any more, Jami is supposed to be a huge nerd. When I was a teenager in the eighties, it was generally held that nobody under the age of thirty was familiar with the works of Alfred Hitchcock. And this was largely true. But I was, because I was a huge nerd.
(On the other hand, I couldn’t even have told you if I’d seen a Brian de Palma film before I looked it up just now. I saw Phantom of the Paradise once, and I think I saw the first Mission Impossible, but maybe it was one of the others. Crime drama, which most of the others I’ve heard of are, isn’t my thing.)
@Ken: That sounds worryingly plausible.
@Horace Broon: You want worrying? How about, he goes by “Ray Czar,” and his head is shaped like a straight razor? This is, after all, Dick Tracy.
@Poteet:
LUANN: Why is Luann being allowed to just follow Phil around in the nursing home when he is presumably on the clock and being paid?
Also, consider that Luann can seemingly just hang out with Phil indefinitely while he’s at work, but that they’ve been having this whole argument on the basis that they supposedly can’t hang out with each other due to their work schedules.
…Maybe the thing is, Luann can just shadow Phil during his entire shift, but Weenie World won’t allow Phil to do the reverse?
@Horace Broon:
I’d agree, but as a movie dork 40 years ago, plenty of us knew 50s-60s stuff. The divide has gotten way more extreme. Knew a guy in the Marines, only 4 years younger, in 2007, said he’d never seen “that Irish shit old movie” Braveheart. Released 1995. It’s getting worse, fellow humans.
DT: Czar spelled backwards (in true Chester Gould tradition) is “Razc,” meaning Raymond Czar the gunrunner is on the run in a “race car.”
Nancy – the new artist is having a birthday!
DT: Raymond Czar or did Tracy mishear her? It is actually Raygun Czar or Raymond Tsar – and he was born Ray Star.
S4th: The sisters discover that the apres in apreski.
GT: Perspective geometry, detailed clear background, subtle use of shading. Whoa, is this guy from the ligne claire school of graphic novels? Is Herge or Jacobs taking over GT? The guest artist needs to ease up – he’ll burn himself out or worse, GET HIRED by a better strip!
JP: As the girls enjoy their endless mugs of cocoa, they muse how real life in comics doesn’t resemble the real life in the movies and TV on comics.
RMMD: Rex has been secretly using a mixture of classic Parker dark blue mixed with India ink along with his own secretly shellac mixture to give his hair that contoured molded look that only Lego minifigures can naturally achieve.
MW: No, No, No redemption arc for Sunny and Ian! This must be a fake out. That strand of lights should have undergone strict testing by UL and CE and would prevent a fire UNLESS Ian cheaped out and bout some shady off off brand under the table light set from a flea market that gets its supply from a whart in Jakarta where it has been sitting for months after it fell out of broken shipping container – hmmm, I guess since it is Ian, yup this is what happened.
Phantom: The colonel was just about to bask in the wonderful feeling of being correct since being technically correct is the BEST type of correct, but the sad disappointed looks of his men gives him heart and he springs into action for the Jungle Patrol. Fortunately the strip ends before he breaks out in the Jungle Patrol song (and all of its 8 verses).
@Activist, GA: Don’t laugh. That’s probably the next beat in this storyline.
Gil Thorp – Out: Queer people getting married because they fear it will be outlawed. In: Queer people getting married to beat their ex down the aisle.
Hollywood is primed for rom-com revival, and even in the current political climate, this idea could be the gay romcom that Bros aspired to be, but failed at.
Blondie – Dr. Phil hasn’t been licensed to practice psychology since 2006, which is about the same time Lou’s Diner passed a health inspection.
Intelligent Life – Maybe if anyone in this strip, or those who make it, consumed media that wasn’t strictly geek culture, they could rely on other stories to give them inspiration:
“I know what I have to do now. I’ve got to keep breathing because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?” (Castaway)
“Get busy living, or get busy dying” (The Shawshank Redemption),
“Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.” (The Big Lebowski)
@2+2=7: I would say, that using Oprah instead of Doctor Phil in today’s comic, would be more politically correct and relevant. But on the other hand, I like Oprah and wouldn’t subject her to getting referenced in Blondie.
Although, there was a line Judge Judy used to say, in which when litigants accuse her of not respecting their feelings.
Judge Judy: If you want to talk about feelings, then you’re on the wrong show, go to Doctor Phil.
@Philip: I would argue that “The Big Lebowski” appeals heavily to geek culture, as nerds love it and has been memed to hell and back, not to mention the many many fan interpretations floating around.
Edit: Heck, my Sister has a novel “The two Gentlemen of Lebowski” which is the story rewritten as a Shakespearian play, taking place in that period.
Can’t get more geek than that xD
@The Rambling Otter:
I think it’s big in “Film Nerd” culture, but I don’t know about the larger geek culture (sci-fi/fantasy based). The Venn diagrams between the subcultures are complex, but Intelligent Life is in the Big Bang Theory area where “geek” requires robots, spandex, or wizards
Blondie: You could also remind Dagwood that there’s no law against making big eating holidays out of MLK and Valentine’s Day.
GT: “Can we go back to talking about my middle school son’s love of movies about the cocaine trade and chainsaw murders? I feel like I was on sturdier ground there.”
@Philip: Oh indeed, it’s all very blended together at times.
Edit: Also I didn’t think that there was a fine line between “geek” and “nerd” fandoms (I thought they were the same thing) but now I’m starting to think things over.
9CL: “And introduce yourselves” would be a sensible step, assuming this clod actually has a name.
Agnes: I guess Agnes and her grandmother get Rewind TV in their trailer, and Agnes is picking up some tricks from beloved Sweat Hog Juan Epstein.
C-Shaft: The appification of all hobbies and activities is one of the drearier aspects of contemporary life, so of course Crankshaft and Lillian are at the vanguard.
DT: “Ray” is short for “Raymond”, so Endless’s husband is Ray Czar with a silent C. I’m frankly surprised that he’s a gunrunner, rather than a seller of stolen Gillette Mach3s. The guards at CVS where the shaving products are all locked up have shoot to kill orders on him.
Dustin: Putting aside the question of “deserving” ice cream, when I decide that I want some, I have it well before I go to bed. Am I some kind of weirdo?
MW: The Camerons were already flying pretty close to the sun, what with their getting the world’s hugest Christmas lights. Then Ian extended the Yuletide season all year and disaster struck.
Phantom: The Jungle Patrol are just rabid sports fans deep down. “In your FACE, General Chuma!”
RMMD: If you want to see how it would look you can just buy a small can of white paint to go with the big can of black next time.
Late Thread Cuisine: Don’t look, Kermit!
@Philip: Re Blondie: Well, that’s one more health inspection than I would have guessed.
@Baja Gaijin: Don’t look, Kermit, indeed. This is classic Doc Hopper grub.
@Baja Gaijin: Those are particularly good looking images!
@The Rambling Otter: #92: I always thought that being a geek was worse than being a nerd, like being into nerd things but physically repulsive to boot. Geek is a much older term, originating in carnival sideshows for a performer who did repulsive things like bite the heads off live chickens.
@Baja Gaijin: #94: Strangely, frog legs are one of the few things that people say tastes like chicken that actually tastes like chicken.
GARFIELD: Who’s cat is Arlene, anyway? It seems like Liz the vet would be a reasonable candidate, but apparently not. I know Odie was originally Jon’s roommate Lyman’s dog, and was apparently left with Jon when Lyman vanished. I’m pretty sure Nermal originally belonged to Jon’s parents (how he gets to and from the farm is anyone’s guess). BUT WHO ARE ARLENE’S HUMANS??
Luann:
My greatest fear is one of Phil’s coworkers is going to see Luann and go “wow you have a talent for healthcare”
But if Phil hasn’t said anything we should be safe from nursing school Luann.
@Rover Berkeley:
I remembers in the novelization of Garfield’s Judgement Day it said that Arlene was homeless and she tried to hide it from Garfield.
No idea if that is still canon.
@Baja Gaijin:
Can’t vouch for the dip, but frog is delish!
@A Grave Mind:
I cannot eat my brother.
@Ken: Ian’s old incandescent Christmas lights…
I see it all now, thanks! I’m surprised he doesn’t have the lights with a mysterious colored fluid that bubbled in a sealed glass tube.
@Baja Gaijin: I mostly expected frog legs, but some tiny adolescent part of me was thinking
piggypork butt.@Guillermo el chiclero: Interesting. In my sciencey subculture I’d had “geek” pegged as the better one – less insulting, it could mean you were offputtingly focused on some fandom / science subfield that you actually contributed to/ made progress learning from – like “geeking out” – and so didn’t care about fitting in with the norm, but “nerd” didn’t have that redeeming connotation.
@Baja Gaijin:
I’m sorry, I’m saving room for the chicken liver surprise.
@Human-eared Dragon: Luann proves to be a dab hand at emptying bedpans.
JP: A brighter pair of girls might choose to seek their fortune (and meet more rich boys) in London, Berlin, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Barcelona, rather than a bedroom community of Oslo.
9CL: A brighter young world-class musician might choose not to shove her tongue down the throat of every snowman-building pud who accosts her in Central Park. Why, this fellow may not even be a world-class musician! What will her social circle say if he plays washboard in a jug band?
@Ukulele Ike: ‘A brighter pair of girls…’
There’s your problem. These two spent their whole college life in New York City, a place teeming with wealth and exciting places, and seemingly did less there than Luann and Bernice did.
@104 White Rabbit: The bubble lights with the Kool-Aid-looking liquid inside? Oh yeah, that stuff was probably highly toxic and possibly radioactive. Why “possibly radioactive?” Because in the 40’s, it was the bee’s knees!
Just in case anyone has forgotten, “Jami” is pronounced “jam-ee” and not “jay-me”.
Intelligent Life: At this point Skip should quote the first “X-Files” movie, “Survival is the ultimate ideology.”
@Human-eared Dragon: My greatest fear is one of Phil’s coworkers is going to see Luann and go “wow you have a talent for healthcare”
I’m not sure why you’re so worried: like any other of Luann’s hidden skills and talents, she’ll just fail to take advantage of it, and it’ll eventually be forgotten. Remember how she’s really good at stage design? Neither does she!
@JeffMcm:
It’s pronounced bouquet…
@Baja Gaijin:
Methylene chloride was what was usually in them. While not radioactive, it can cause heart, lung, liver and brain damage plus is potentially carcinogenic.
@Baja Gaijin: Cuisine – That would be less horrifying if the legs were cut into pieces. Leaving the entire bottom halves of the frogs whole makes that platter look like a crime scene. Is that tartar sauce? Frog legs supposedly taste like chicken, not fish sticks.
Of course, that reminded me of the comics panel – you know the one.
@Ukulele Ike: Re 9CL – In the entire history of 9CL, the only males that I can think of who were not world class musicians were the two farmers who were abusing the cow that veterinarian Fleurie was treating. Well, maybe Elliott (Juliette’s second husband) – I don’t know his occupation. The chances are very good that any random guy is a world class musician.
@116 Anonymous: Mmmm, brain damage-causing Kool-Aid!
@117 I speak Jive: Many of the Late Thread Cuisines look like crime scenes.
@Ukulele Ike:
Could there be a Gasoline Alley crossover?
The Familliar Mucus: “Scat kids, Mommy and Daddy are gonna play ” Bill and the Naughty Coat checker.”
@Poteet: Hoping for things from Luann is allowed but not advised.
@Baja Gaijin: @117 I speak Jive: Many of the Late Thread Cuisines look like crime scenes.
____________________________________________
Those cases are handled by the dedicated men and woman of LAW & ORDER :Baja Food Crimes Unit
@I speak Jive: The cow-abusing farmers were actually Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, who revolutionized bluegrass music back in the day with their groundbreaking innovations in fingerpicking guitar and banjo. Since Brooke doesn’t recognize anything post-Rachmaninoff as real music, he limited their appearance to cattle fucking.
@Baja Gaijin: @Anonymous: The Brannock Device was popular for years before scientists discovered the poisonous qualities behind nearly 18 million lethal cancers between 1927 and 1975.
@123 Ukulele Ike: Maybe those Brannock devices were made from plutonium? I thought the unregulated foot x-ray machines in shoe stores caused those cancers.
@Baja Gaijin: Six of one, half a dozen of the other!
Anyway, stay away from shoe stores. Buy from your local artisanal shoemaker, or go barefoot.
IL; If you ‘Mudges want to see an animated version of “Intelligent Life” (Yeah. I didn’t think so). Check out Fox Animation’s Universal Basic Guys”.
(Holy SHIT, it is AWFUL!)
@Anonymous: The dessert tonight is “Crunchy Frog”.
@Tom T.: Thanks for that TIL tidbit. I didn’t even have an inkling until Josh’s saying “an hour train ride from Lincoln Center”. I remember Leroy is shown on a train platform commuting.
@Baja Gaijin:
#94. Baja, I’ve never tried frog legs but yours look good. Depends on how the frogs died
Were they killed before having their legs cut off? Or were their legs cut off while the rest of their body writhed in pain before dying. If we need to kill it should be done as quickly and painlessly as possible.
@Baja Gaijin: I’m very glad that’s an old photo, because otherwise I might feel obligated to rant about the multiple kinds of harm that global frog leg consumption is doing now. Instead, CC has been spared, yaaay.
Are Dr. Phil reruns a thing? I can’t imagine watching something like that.