Various sadnesses
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Shoe, 2/11/26
Shoe is a comic strip about depressed bird-people that is pretty committed to the gag-a-day format, but it’s actually been doing a continuing story of sorts for the past week or so. The story is about how the Perfesser bought a beautiful classic car that has turned out to be impractical and unsuitable for everyday use, giving him a specific reason to be depressed beyond the strip’s general sense of ennui.
Crock, 2/11/26
Wow, I bet you assumed Crock’s Legionnaires were involved in a rapacious colonial war to build up the glory and wealth of France, but apparently they will sometimes impose harsh punishments on French industrialists who aim to exploit the colonized population in ways that violate the laws of the Métropole! It really makes you think (about how child labor isn’t really a suitable subject for jokes, and execution by firing squad probably isn’t either).
Mary Worth, 2/11/26
JESUS CHRIST JEFF SHUT UP DO NOT ASK HER ABOUT THIS SHE WILL RECOUNT THE WHOLE STORYLINE AT YOU AND WE JUST NOW GOT OUT OF IT I’M BEGGING YOU
85 replies to “Various sadnesses”
Mary Worth:
“Look at the birds, Jeff! They remind me of Toby and Ian:
— they’re ‘flighty’;
— they’re messy;
— they’re constantly chattering; and
— they’re possessed of ‘birdbrains’ !”
It looks like Mary Worth has settled into the Parrot Groove and has no intention of moving. It’s all callbacks to the Parrot Storyline now until the heat death of the universe, with increasingly tenuous segues. A strip circa 2039: “You know, Wilbur, the way you entered through the doorway just now reminds me of the time a parrot flew into Toby’s room…”
Mary Worth:
“Never mind that the awe-inspiring sunset was the point of my taking you out on this boat to begin with, Mary. Let’s spend our time talking about parrots instead of gazing at nature’s magnificent handiwork!”
Crock: Are child sweatshops known for providing their exploited workers with recess? Can’t help feeling this detail gets in the way of the “joke”, such as there is one.
MW: Seagulls are loud, annoying, stupid, vicious, greedy, and shit on everything in sight… I see where Mary’s coming from.
Shoe:
“What model of old car is this, anyway, Uncle Shoe?”
“The Cormorantvair. Unsafe at any speed!”
MW: Jeff smiles but in his mind’s eye he’s replaying the concierge scene from The Producers:
“Boids…Dirty, disgusting boids!”
“Urk” definitely feels like the sound a distressed bird would make, particularly one whose classic car broke down.
Crock:
“Bring them here and prove it!”
“How in the world can I do that when you have me tied to a tree?!? — what a Crock!”
Mary Worth:
“Look at the birds, Jeff! I’m inspired to wax rhapsodic about these gulls: ‘To everything/Tern, tern, tern‘ !”
“What prompted them to adopt parrots?” asks the man who owns a boat the size of a cruise liner.
JP: Ah, so this is a prison run by Pavel’s mob. They certainly have a lot of enemies if they need a whole prison. And what, pray tell, did Randy try to ‘take’? CIApril herself, I’m guessing? Note also that being in the gulag has done nothing to temper that old Spencer-Parker-Driver ‘I don’t need anyone!’ attitude. Buckle up everyone, this is gonna be good. And by good, I mean excruciating.
S4th: Good grief, Bettina, what the hell did you put in that snowball?
Luann: So it was this hideous woman in the shadows on Monday? Those masters of misdirection have struck again!
FC: After PJ demands a food taster, Thel gets in his face.
“How many times do I have to tell you Dead Grandpa wasn’t poisoned!”
MW: Looks like Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars! got that extension on his parrot contract after all—and scored some bonus appearances by his avian extras, as well! I heard those very birds were supposed to be in a Super Bowl commercial for some precision stunt work, but they picked Bill Shat instead. Maybe we’ll get to see their performance as they fly over Mary and Jeff!
MW: “And the ocean… it reminds me of when Wilbur had not one but two maritime accidents.”
“Like this?”
::Jeff shoves Mary overboard and guns the engine::
Luann:
Oxen tend to be vulnerable to attack by crocodiles, and that person is a close approximation of one.
_______________________________
Suburban Fairy Tales:
Hugging is right out. But kissing and tearing off each other’s clothes to have sex right there in front of pigmum? Bring it on!
_______________________________
Wrecks Moregone:
I don’t know; isn’t getting 20 years older in the course of a surgery something to brag about?
_______________________________
Pudgy Jerker:
Randolph, speaking in stereotypical Slavic accent makes me feel stupid, but what your excuse for really being stupid in real life?
Crock: Why are they reading him what he’s accused of when he’s already tied to a post, about to be executed? Assembly-line justice, Crock-style. You taking notes, Dick Tracy?
Shoe: He’ll have fun, fun, fun ’til MacNelly takes his T-bird away.
Crock: The year was 1993. North Americans were growing increasingly aware that their lavish lifestyles were coming at the expense of children working in sweatshops overseas. But rather than take action, many of us tried to use humour to diffuse our guilty consciences. Then, five years later, CROCK jumped on the bandwagon.
Ah yes, birds, they must be such a rare sight in a coastal California town– are you kidding me, Mary? So from now on, the sight of any bird at any time is going to remind you of those knuckleheads? “Look, a cat! It reminds me of Estelle… and her cat!” “Hey, it’s a bald guy! Makes me think of that fish…that lives with Wilbur!” We’d better hope Dawn never gets it in her head to foster, like, a baby squirrel, or we might have to confine Mary indoors for awhile.
Wake up from their nap would have been funnier and less disturbing
DT: Oh, snap! Who’s disfigured now, Dick? Who’s on a phrenologically predestined path to deviance, villainy and perdition now, lawman?
GT: “How do you separate church and state? How to do you calculate the hypotenuse of a right triangle? What is the only great ape not native to Africa? What is the devil’s interval and why is it so called? What does Silas Marner say about the intersection of wealth and happiness? Speak up, Thorp! The sports program is thriving because we threw our whole budget at it, so you gotta fill in for all the teachers we had to fire to make up the difference!”
@Unchecked capitalism: No, it really wouldn’t.
MW – Josh, reading my mind is not fair. This was my precise reaction to Mary Worth today, down to the ALL CAPS pleading.
Crock: Poor, dumb Schmeese. If he really wanted to avoid accountability, he shouldn’t have gotten involved in child labor — he should have gotten involved with a bazillionaire international child sex trafficker.
MW No, the one constant is that you you won’t stop going on and on about the %^^$#ing PARROTS!
JP I guess Russian-mob-prison got the factory-seconds for hats because when Randy folds down the earflaps that he has pinned up, they won’t go to his chin like the ones on overly-gregarious-prisoner, but instead flop all over his shoulders
BF I don’t follow this one much so I didn’t see Blonde Friend go through a bunch of bad jobs, but maybe just maybe before buying into the new company she should seek out the lady who quit due to a “better job offer” and get a clue about whether or not she was leaving a sinking ship
Mary Worth: Please let there be such a thing as bird strikes for yachts, please let there be such a thing as bird strikes for yachts, please…
So now Luann’s into older women? Sure, why not? Anything that shakes up her boring, do-nothing life is probably a net positive. Note that she’s been making that goo-goo eyes face for three days now, and at two or three different people.
Pluggers have early onset dementia.
CS: Forget the alleged punchline; just look at that child’s face. They look they’re watching a beloved pet die. It really drives home how pointlessly cruel this is. Then again, if they have to grow up in the Funkyverse, preparing them for pointless cruelty would be a valid point.
Shoe: Hasn’t the Perfesser always driven a vintage DeSoto? Wasn’t it pink?
MW: Look at the birds, Jeff. They remind me of Toby and Ian…. and uh, their parrots. It’s not because they’re birdbrains or something.
Shoe: See, you don’t need any fancy ‘punchline’ for your jokes. Sometimes the misery of your despicable characters is enough to inspire a heaty chuckle!
MW: Put that thought on pause, Mary: I really want to hear what Dr Jeff thinks a ‘typical bird owner’ is, because I get the sense that it is *not* complimentary.
“So, I know this may not be the most important thing right now – as I face the firing squad – but why am I tied to a giant cucumber?”
“Well, Crock wanted everyone to know you’re in a real pickle.”
Laughter
“OK, fire!”
MW: Come on, people, you can’t say we didn’t expect this. The strip has its
rutformat, ten or so weeks of “story” and then a couple weeks of Mary re-telling it to Jeff accompanied by puerile platitudes. It’s going to follow it to the extremely bitter end.I’ve never seen any of Shoe‘s characters on the ground before! Their entire world is in the treetops, and the strip used to include gags about them flying from location to location, how Loon couldn’t land safely, etc. Whether the car runs or not is almost irrelevant.
Except this story forces The Perfessor and Skyler to the ground, where the predators dwell.
Hmm. Carry on.
MW-“Consider the lilies, Jeff.”
MW-The seagulls who eat garbage from parking lots remind you of Ian and Toby? Yeah I can see that.
FC-Meanwhile Grandma is silently criticizing Thel instead of doing it openly.
Damn it, now I’m going to be spending the day wondering how attached garages work in these miserable bird people’s world.
***
Huh. Maybe Jeff’s a pretty savvy doctor after all, getting all the information he can on his future chlamydiosis* patients.
*Or whatever disease those bird brains are going to get as the result of their free-roaming parrots.
***
Tying a man to a pole then demanding he bring forth witnesses is… Yeah. I guess it’s what to expect from a colonial justice system that takes a man named “Schmeese” and dresses him up like he’s stereotypically French.
Are we really really sure that Mary is human? Maybe she’s a Replicant. Instead of birds, Jeff should ask her about upended tortoises in the desert. Why aren’t you helping, Mary?
SHOE: This is certainly not a comic strip about consistency or internal logic (They’re birds who live in and commute through trees. Tress which suddenly became way too small for the Perfesser and Skylar to live in, much less support an entire neighborhood for the whole cast to reside. Is it like TARDIS now?)
In the 1990s — the time this reruns are from — there was a huge scandal about Nike exploiting labour in Vietnam. I have to concede that this strip is mildly accurate, since Vietnam was a French colony. It is not accurate in the sense that Vietnam does not have the Sahara desert, but baby steps
MW: Unfortunately this has been a set pattern for a while. The story resolves, Mary takes a victory lap with her victim du jour, and then she takes another victory lap with Jeff. Only then can the new story begin.
9CL: Ugh, gross, no.
MW: Jeff keeps gunning his boat into unsuspecting seagulls resting on the water.
“No!!!” Yells, Mary. “That’s the Ian one.Try again.”
It is not enough for Mary Worth’s flat characters to put up stupid morality plays, we need a couple of weeks of Mary spelling out the lesson we are supposed to learn. Even in Aesop’s fables “O mythos deloi oti” was a later addition!
“Toby and Ian and their Parrots” is the Mary Worth version of the “Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain” abomination
@Will:
I miss the Charterstone pool parties. We haven’t had a Charterstone pool party since, oh, before Saul’s original snarly dog died.
“People change. It’s the one constant”. Mary is like “Screw you Parmenides, Heraclitus is my new best friend!”
MW: Mary was just waiting for an opening to yammer on about Toby and Ian’s latest (for lack of a better term) drama. Unfortunately, Dr. Jeff refused to supply one–probably because he was droning on about saving lives or whatever inconsequential stuff was going on in his life–so she had to create it. “Look, birds! I like birds! Say, you know who else likes birds…?”
Shoe: I dunno, if something had caused the hood of my car to blow clean off and land several feet away I wouldn’t still be sitting in it with an expression of resigned misery, but hey, I’m not the perpetually depressed bird-man here.
JP: “Excuse me, Kris Kringle. It’s time for my daily audience with the warden and all the guards where I threaten them impotently and they laugh in my face.”
9CL: “The only way to solve this enigma properly is for me to fuck each of you while the other one watches. Flip a coin, or eeny meenie miney mo for firsties?”
@Ukranazi Stepan: Make Chartestone Pool Parties Great Again.
I was watching a French series set in WWI and they kept threatening a soldier with “le peloton;” eventually from context I understood that this meant “firing squad” (a concept which had not previously come up in my study of French) and I looked up the literal definition of “peloton,” which is indeed “squad.” A fun lesson in etymology! Does this make my experience of this Crock strip richer? I’m going to say yes.
MW- using the seagulls as inspiration to rehash the story is new. They always have boat near the sea lion colony whenever she needs to go over a Wilbur story.
Is Shoe in reruns too, or is this just the first time that the creator realized that sometimes middle-aged+ people buy impractical classic cars? Is there a more obvious metaphor for Shoe than people who buy impractical classic cars, or vice versa?
MARY WORTH: “The Camerons don’t strike me as typical bird owners. Don’t you have to care about another living being in order to do that? Ian and Toby always seemed like they were struggling with the effort to do that about each other.”
Incidentally, I find Jeff’s passive-aggressive judgmental snottiness heartwarming. It means he does listen to Mary, after all. He’s become simpatico with her needs. They’re bonding, people! Tres romantique!
@Voshkod:
“I guess that would be an example of something corny, shown!”
C’shaft: Look, I’ll be the first to acknowledge that kids, especially the musically inclined, can and do listen to bands from earlier generations–Hell, the Divalings are both really into Metallica. But unless the choir is doing some kind of Bob Dylan medley for their concert, I’m calling “no way” on this one.
DT: Jerry is somehow simultaneously hilariously incompetent and brilliantly good at what he does. He’s kind of like the Captain Jack Sparrow of hitmen.
Dustin: “Mostly I just spout random celebrity names. Nine times out of ten he goes along with it.”
GT: Please, you think Gil Thorp needs to compartmentalize? Everything in Milford revolves around him; he doesn’t need to make any adjustments!
HotC: The Choco-Sun is fine, but whatever you do, do NOT give her the Choco-Ten of Swords.
JP: “And by the way, why are you suddenly talking in broken English? You were doing fine a little while ago?”
Pluggers never learn, even on the most basic level.
@mskyle: Would have been more interesting if they were punishing deserters by forcing them to use ridiculously overpriced workout equipment.
I understand your reaction to Mary Worth today, but you can’t fight it. Resisting only makes it worse, and Jeff understands that. He submits to the constant rule of his universe. No Mary Worth storyline has truly ended until Mary tells Jeff about it during a sunset cruise.
MW – Later, at the Bum Boat: “Look at that checkered tablecloth, Jeff! It reminds me of Toby and Ian… and their parrots!” Jeff sighs and thinks, “That’s eight times so far and we haven’t even ordered yet.”
Don Abundio, translated:
“Why do you look so worried about boxing with Don Abundio?”
“Well, there’s some other people I gotta pulverize in addition to him”
“Who?”
“His posse”
@TheDiva: Re: Crank: Middle schoolers aren’t still rockin’ out to The Basement Tapes?
Our Junior Prom was “Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread”-themed. It was magical!
Lockhorns: Anyone else getting “The Man Who Came to Dinner” vibes?
Hey, if Leroy and Loretta can go to the opera, I can pretend this is a classic theater reference.
GT: Jeez, I miss the days when separating church and state in public schools was a metaphor.
Dustin: My experience is that this gets easier with the years spent together. Of course, it’s easier if one of you is a psychotherapist and the other has a touch of ADHD.
Blondie: Just think of Dagwood as a human-sized curling stone, Mr. Beasley.
BG&SS: Granny Creeps has the right instincts but is a few centuries behind the tech.
Shoe-So much has happened between the panels. The hood falling off the car then the nephew struggling as he’s being made to put it back on.
Crock-The joke is that they are at recess. He doesn’t allow breaks of any kind.
MW-“Parrots eh? That sounds very interesting,” Jeff says. “Have I had enough to drink today or do I need to drink some more to endure this,” he silently thinks to himself.
@Ukulele Ike:
9CL: “The only way to solve this enigma properly is for me to fuck each of you while the other one watches. Flip a coin, or eeny meenie miney mo for firsties?”
“Oh, and this being 9CL, I will of course be inviting your parents over to watch and provide the play-by-play.”
MW: “People change, Jeff. Now, I never change my blouse, but still.”
MW:
June shuffled slowly into the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee, eyeing Karen over the rim of her mug as she took a sip, wondering if she should broach the topic that had been weighing on her throughout the previous night.
Karen was perusing that day’s opening panel on the comics page, smiling broadly. “I LOVE what you did with the boat, June! And the birds really add something! I’ve already heard from Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars! and he is absolutely thrilled with the placement. Are those the Doves o’ Love in that flock of seagulls? That’s PERFECT for Valentine’s Day!”
June took a breath. “I’m glad you mentioned Valentine’s Day, Karen. I’ve been thinking…that maybe it’s time for Mary and Jeff to take their relationship to the next level.”
Karen started, spilling her own coffee on the newspaper in front of her. “What do you mean?”
“Well, they’re in a rut, Karen. Mary has been in the background of our stories for a long time, and then she regales Jeff with everything that happened even though she wasn’t a part of it, and they eat surf and turf and salmon at the Bum Boat after a sunset cruise, then they walk on the dock under a full moon.”
Karen smiled. “I love when they’re standing on the dock together.”
June frowned. “At this point, Karen, shouldn’t they do more than stand together? Jeff is in LOVE with Mary. This time–especially since their evening out coincides with Valentine’s Day–I wonder if we couldn’t surprise our readers with the unexpected. Let’s have Mary and Jeff cement their love!”
Karen gasped. “You mean, KISS?”
June walked over to the sofa and placed her portfolio on the coffee table. “No, I was thinking more than that. I know they’re old, but they have FEELINGS, Karen. They’re healthy adults who have stayed together in a relationship for years. YEARS. Jeff calls Mary his “favorite girl” even though she’s the only woman he ever sees. I mean, besides his patients. Let’s do it, Karen! Let’s have THEM do it!”
Karen opened the portfolio and her eyes widened at the drawing before her. The moon was shining on the couple who were embracing unashamedly, close together with Mary’s right arm flung around Jeff’s neck as she pulled him close for a kiss that revealed the hint of a tongue. Her left arm was not visible, and Jeff’s face was strangely twisted, with a word balloon containing only the exclamation: GROAN!
Karen slammed the portfolio shut. “We can’t have them do this!”
June sighed. “Okay. It was just an idea. No worries. I’ve got the drawings lined up for their dinner at the Bum Boat. I added some heart decorations to the nautical decor. And I have them smiling faintly at each other. I guess our readers will have to be satisfied with that.”
MW – Oh, we’re on the boat now? I was hoping that we would see Jeff, with Mary riding shotgun, take Kelrast Kerve at speed in that Corvette of his so that, with the death of the title character, we could turn our attention to the swashbuckling adventures of the pet menagerie.
Blondie: When does Dagwood go to work? My mail never comes early in the morning – usually noon or later.
DT: The Mirror actually wears or glued a mirror on his face? Not some mask with a mirror finish? Not much detective work from Tracy. If the watch hadn’t fallen off, would we even be here?
GT: In another 50 years will Gil get another wife? By then Gil will be addressing the current issues of NIL for high school kids and those with 8 years of eligibility in high school, or maybe he’ll take the leap to the college level. He’ll be in his 70’s and his future girl friend will be 24 years old.
JP: That’s right Randy, your kick ass and take names later approach has worked so well so far – you are in some snow covered, freezing gulag. No need to change strategy now.
MW: Really, get the guest artist from GT (Louie Chin) who drew the cars – he is clearly good with vehicles and could help.
Phantom: So the house the General called his crib is right near some jungle and is near an alleyway? Doesn’t this place have a zoning board or is truly a wild no zoning rules world?
RMMD: That’s right Jimmy/Johnny – today’s medicine is all about costs – cost containment and cost shifting to the patients. Outpatient – means get out of the hospital, patient.
@TheDiva: RE:MW: See, you get what I’m talking about, and I concur! Mary sets up this awkward random passive-aggressive segue as a volley and Jeff passive-aggressively spikes it over the net with his dubious, judgey inquiry! They’re in sync with each other!
@Bob Tice: I bet you relished making that joke.
Dr Jeff is an experienced doctor, during his life he must have met thousands of people from all walks of life. I am very curious what he considers “the typical bird owner”
Six Chex and A Cat Named O’Boise In Search Of A Punchline: “Just be a Couch Potato™ like your Grandpa!”
As somehow who shares my home with a dozen rescued parrots, I’m curious as to what a “typical parrot owner” might be? Has a closet full of Hawaiian shirts? Okay, you got me on that one. The only other constant I know is that a pet store owner once let me write a check without showing ID. He said that in 30 years in business, he never got a bad check from a parrot owner.
MW: “Yes, tell me about the parrots now Mary, since you haven’t responded to my calls and texts for, what is it now, a month?”
“I’ve been busy Jeff!”
“With what? Your meddling amounted to a couple of hours tops. We’re supposed to be a couple Mary, not someone I take that same lame restaurant every few months.”
“Turn this boat around now Jeff!”
“No, I’ve had enough of your cruel neglect! Swim home!”
SPLASH!
GT: Milford, where media day operates like random surprise drug testing.
LUANN: Het, good news! For all zero of you who have been requesting they commition the long-awaited Sal and Eve: The Early Years, you’re prayers have been answered.
LUANN (2): I’m just kidding, of course. This arc is going to be about meeting Ox’s new (grisly-looking) girlfriend. Luann can already tell this new girl has fallen for the dumb meathead by they way she only addresses the dog and doesn’t even ask for Ox’s name, because this is what Luann thinks “flirting” looks like (which explains a lot about her current relationship with Phil.)
@Ukranazi Stepan: Seriously, creators, give the people what they want, and that’s hot fan-service of Mary and Wilbur in sexy bathing suits. Rowr!
@Pat443: He just says that because he’s desperate to get rid of parrots.
Phantom: No, no…don’t cut to Stripeypants inexplicably knowing the base’s shortcuts better than the militants who live there. Stick to the center of action.
Which should be General Chuma (six foot two, 200 pounds of hard muscle) putting Patrolwoman Han (five foot one, 95 pounds) into a half-nelson headlock and giving her a severe noogieing.
FC: “Grandma pre-chewed PJ’s food and now he likes it.”
MT: Why are they competing in their pajamas?
Shoe – Perfesser bought the car because he’s in a midlife crises (how it differentiates from his day-to-day life before, it’s hard to tell). When he bought this lemon he said told the gods to feel something again. They delivered on his prayer, and that feeling was buyer’s remorse.
Crock – This joke really did well over at the Nike corporate offices, since they love absurd humor like the idea of being held accountable for their labor violations.
Mary Worth – So it turns out this whole storyline has been a prequel to The Birds, and we’re at the point where Mary’s needless retelling of the story sends the seabirds into a frenzy that leads to the attack on the seaside town.
Birds are good. Birds are good. Birds are good. You WILL internalize the goodness of birds.
@Ettorre: How dare you remind me of this.
@Little Blue Bicycle: What kind of wood doesn’t float? Mary Worth!
Shoe: This has got to be the ultimate example of Shoe’s inability to commit to it’s whole “society of birds” premise. The bird people abruptly grown to the size of humans despite almost always being drawn as the size of actual birds (i.e., small enough to walk on tree branches), animals with the ability to fly have suddenly decided they need to drive to get places, and the artist even seems to have tried to imply there are roads designed to lead into trees in the same way they lead into towns or cities in real life. This storyline is just one massive gnarled tumor of confusion.
Mary Worth: Maybe a controversial opinion, but I truly think Dr. Jeff is the most pathetic character in this comic. His existence is entirely dedicated to serving Mary; giving her everything she wants, never questioning her, telling her she’s right all the time with her meddling and all the while being strung along with never-fulfilled promises of moving their relationship past monthly boat tours. It’s pitiful. I mean, shit, even Wilbur generally has his own drives and motivations outside of worshipping Mary.
Surprised Josh didn’t mention the three way going on in “Low and Hi-less” today between Trixie,Dawg,and Sunbeam.
@Ukulele Ike: Oh, I love that album (and Bob’s reissue, with some changes)
It includes my favorite “WTF, Bob?” song, “The Clothesline Saga”.