Big news Friday
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Beetle Bailey, 8/21/26
Big news, everyone! The men of Camp Swampy have finally decided to murder Sarge!
Daddy Daze, 8/21/26
Big news, everyone! The Daddy Daze daddy and the Daddy Daze baby are going to die in some kind of fiery car disaster!
Dennis the Menace, 8/21/26
Lots of strips have managed to shift focus over the years, even minimizing their title character: Blondie is really more about Dagwood now, Funky Winkerbean became a second banana in his own strip to Les Moore of all people, and Barney Google famously became Barney Google and Snuffy Smith and then Barney Google vanished from it for a good chunk of the 20th century. And sure, the remaining comics all have decades more of nostalgia built into them now and are less malleable in the public mind, but Dennis the Menace definitely seems to be making a bid to be about unpleasant interactions between Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, like it’s a Lockhorns for seniors, or an edgier Pickles. Sure, for the time being, they have to have Dennis frolicking somewhere in the panel, but soon, well, here’s the big news, everyone: get ready for Hank Ketcham’s Legal Heirs Present: The Wilsons! Featuring Dennis “The Menace” Mitchell.
33 replies to “Big news Friday”
BB: Well, it’s a lot less messy than rolling a live grenade under his bunk, like my dad said they did in Vietnam.
DtM: Ten to one odds say that Chekhov’s Football is going to go crashing through one of the Wilson’s windows.
Pluggers: Pluggers also know the lyrics to “The Beverly Hillbillies” by heart. Too bad “Bonanza” never never used the lyrics to their theme song.
Fun fact: Star Trek, I Dream of Jeannie, The Andy Griffith Show, and Bewitched also had lyrics to their theme songs that were never used. It was common practice back then to get lyrics thrown in as part of the deal with the songwriter. The show then had the option of whether to use them or not.
BB My least favorite part of this strip is Killer’s bedroom eyes in the second panel. What exactly does he have planned once thst pillow is applied?
DD Heh heh, more like Daddy Blaze, ammirite? But seriously are they going to be ok…?
DtM: Several year ago it was expressed on these pages that what kept the Lockhorns together was their shared love of anal sex. Probably a lot healthier than whatever it is that keeps the Wilsons a couple.
Blondie: I had a dream earlier.
That Dagwood had a ladder in a kitchen, to get something off of a high shelf. As he got the item, he jumps off of the ladder onto the floor harmlessly.
Blondie who is present says that Dagwood should be more careful.
I point out that Dagwood’s insides are probably 90% baloney by now, so he’d likely just bounce around the room.
After I say that, Alexander says “Dad are you okay?”
I’m thinking “Buttkisser”
Then shortly after I woke up, I wondered, was I supposed to be Cookie in that scenario? I never looked down… so I don’t know.
@Guillermo el chiclero:Too bad “Bonanza” never never used the lyrics to their theme song.
Wait, for real? I used to watch that in reruns from time to time, but I knew the lyrics too somehow (“We got a right to pick a little fight…”) . I can’t imagine from where…
Daddy Daze:
“Ba ba ba….”
“Timmy’s in the well?”
DtM:
Mrs. Wilson looks as if she’s contemplating doing a Lorena Bobbitt on Mr. Wilson with those garden shears.
JP: If I didn’t know better, I’d say Ces was trying to write CIApril (and Randy) out of the strip entirely. As Josh explained about strips shifting focus to someone other than their ostensible title characters. Look out for this strip to become ‘The Adventures of Neddy ‘n Sophie, featuring the Raspberry-Haired Brat.’
MW: ‘Especially in these uncertain times… that reminds me, it’s your turn to man the walls tonight. We MUST keep those commie hordes from San Francisco away from our precious Supplemental Nutrition!’
RMMD: [Opens door] ‘Smile.’ BLAM! BLAM!
Heathcliff: Ah, it’s Diogenes of CAThens!
DtM: Don’t be fooled; Dennis is seconds away from breaking George’s nose with the bullet pass of his life.
MW: Attention, Mary: Stand by for your next assignment – Brokenhearted Friend Zone Dawn.
gotta say, I find the tableau in Dennis today surprisingly pleasant and well-balanced
BB: This is just payback for all the times Sarge has tried it over Beetle’s face, if you know what I mean.
@pugfuggly: There was an episode of Cheers that opened with the gang singing the theme from Bonanza
@Guillermo el chiclero: my understanding, at least for Star Trek, was that it was about royalties. Roddenberry wrote the lyrics without a plan to use them because it gave him co-writer credits and therefore a portion of the royalties.
But they’re in front of him. The flames. They’re in front of him. He’s looking at them. He’s looking at the flames that are in front of him. Look, I’m not asking for Paul Greengrass-style realism from Daddy daze of all things, I know better than that, but if the guy a) can see well enough to drive, b) is able to parse that his pre-verbal child is making some kind of reference to fire, and c) has, like, nerves, he can absolutely detect a fire that is four inches and a thin pane of glass away from him.
MW – if Moy hadn’t been doing this for years, I’d swear that Mary is simply spouting whatever a substandard AI chatbot would spout. Wilbur is using a second off-brand system and their back and forth will continue to spiral into more and more meaningless drivel, and historians will note this as the time period when humanity crumbled into a mass of drooling troglodytes (who am I fooling, that started with the rise of Adam Sandler).
@Everything Is Better With Monkeys: in an interview on NPR’s “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” show, Dick Van Dyke gave the same reason for “The Dick Van Dyke Show” theme having lyrics that were written but not performed. Then he sang the song. I think Carl Reiner made the right choice in making the song instrumental.
FC I don’t know why it surprises me that the Keane kids are ignorant of (1) saltwater (2) size / scale (you can see across this lake!) and (3) the cause of waves. The actual disconnect between “feel the wind” and “see the waves pick up” is so dumb that this goes well past “cute kid saying to pin to the fridge” and into “check with the doctor and school for learning disabilities ASAP”
DD: On the one hand, the rise of electric vehicles means that there’s now a much greater risk of horrifying vehicle fires. On the other, this particular fire will take out Daddy and Angus, so there’s still a greater benefit to society.
DD: Most of Josh’s Daddy Daze posts ponder whether the father, trapped in the house all day with a pre-verbal infant, has gone insane. I think today’s interaction settles the issue, as he’s unable to acknowledge a freaking car fire without pretending the baby told him.
DD: Daddy Daze is one of the newest strips on the comics pages, which makes it all the stranger that Daddy’s car has the kind of bench seating you last saw in 1970s station wagons and a baby seat that looks more like the cardboard display stand they put sunscreen in at the drug store. Is Daddy Daze secretly re-running 50 year old strips, a la Family Circus? Was the idea of a man looking after a child too radical for the seventies squares, so the strips were buried until today?
@Monte: And I think the cast would sometimes sing them at state fairs and such like.
Six Chix: “We got a truckload of celery! We’re having a cyclospora party. We figured we’re all going to get it eventually, so we’d just get it over with now. By the way, it’s BYOTP.”
Beetle Bailey today is dark af but made me genuinely laugh!
Beetle Bailey: I can’t parse Killer’s expression in the second panel. Or… well, I can, but I don’t like what “bedroom eyes” implies here, so I’ve chosen to be confused.
C’shaft: Oh for f—IT’S HIS DAD DO THE REVEAL ALREADY!
(On a semi-related note, Divaling Two just started high school marching band, and I saw that his footwear is provided by “Dinkle’s World’s Greatest Marching Shoes.” I kind of envy him the innocence of only knowing Harry Dinkle as a particularly obscure niche mascot.)
Dustin: More like Dustdad is going to party like privileged middle-aged man with no sense of self-control or personal responsibility, go on a drunken rant about how the beneficiaries of the fundraiser are drains on society, and get himself and his wife banned from yet another non-profit organization. Woo-hoo indeed.
Luann: You’re going to quit your job and become a stay-at-home-mom? How original. [/Glenn Close voice]
MT: “Blimey”? What are you, a Cockney chimney sweep from the 19th century?
MW: Wilbur looks too happy at that statement. “You’re right Mary, these are uncertain times! Anything could happen! Why, I could seize this vegetable garden and force people to pay exorbitant fees for produce that hasn’t come from large conglomerates riddled with food safety issues, becoming like unto a god upon the earth!”
RMMD: It’s your grandfather, come to stop you before this story gets too interesting.
@Schroduck: Also everything indicates that Angus is under one year old, meaning he should be in a rear-facing seat. Granted, this would impede the setup of today’s joke, but honestly the joke isn’t doing much to justify the effort.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Mimosa is just like one of the family”
“She does everything she can to make it seem like we’re the same species!”
“But no matter how much I tan, I don’t think I’ll ever look like a baby elephant”
Dennis The Menace: Mr. Wilson is right! Even at his age (at least 140, almost as old as Walt Skeezix), you can still learn something new every day. And then learn it again the next day, and the next day, or 10 minutes from now…
Pickles brings you Pubes in the Peanut Butter.
DtM — Every character is the hero of his own comic — Roland Barthes, probably.
What do you call murdering your superior officer by slow pillow suffocation? Swaddlag?