Can I call in a wellness check on a cartoon character
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Mary Worth, 8/31/26
Hey, everyone, here’s a fun fact, if by “fun” you mean guaranteed to deliver the epiphany that oh my god I’m so old, how did I get to be so old: we are mere weeks away from the 20th anniversary of the death of Aldo Kelrast. Can contemporary Mary Worth come up with a storyline that could come close to that magic? Well, today we’re launching a new one, and I’m mildly hopeful, as it introduces two intriguing things: Mary and Ian spending time together socially and, apparently, enjoying themselves in a quite manic fashion; and some anhedonic old lady sitting in her Charterstone kitchen fuming about how nothing is as good as it used to be when she was young and had her whole life ahead of her. Not even putting oat milk on oat-based cereal (or “oatmaxxing,” as the kids call it) can bring her a frission of pleasure anymore! Looking forward to learning how she’s about to make this everybody else’s problem and nip Mary and Ian’s ha ha!ing in the bud.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/31/26
OK, fine, I guess we’re not going to get to see the scam twins try and fail to pull off a child kidnapping, but at least we’re going to be treated to a Socratic dialogue between Rene and his elaborately coiffed and mustachio’d jail buddy, in which the former attempts to explain how rating on a criminal associate entails turning them in to the authorities, usually in exchange for reducing one’s own looming criminal penalties, and is quite different from activating family networks to dissuade a loved one from a course of action that you don’t believe they’re equipped to handle.
Pluggers, 8/31/26
You could definitely have done a panel with this caption where the plugger is cheerfully strolling ahead with a measured pace, just like many older heavyset adults I see every day do. But we’re in the late Pluggers era, so instead we have to look at this, a “fun” comic in which a plugger is clearly in genuine distress.
54 replies to “Can I call in a wellness check on a cartoon character”
It definitely makes sense to predict that this cereal-filled and hate-filled curmudgeon will nip Mary and Ian’s ha ha-ing in the bud, but this being Mary Worth, I feel like there’s a strong possibility that their ha ha-ing will nip her hating in the bud. It could go either way!
Mary Worth:
“My goodness, Mary! — I’m higher than a kite! I haven’t been this wasted since the ’60s!”
“Ha ha!”
“Breakfast isn’t what it used to be! Food isn’t what it used to be! Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be! Ten years ago the pang of lost things was excruciating, now it is just annoying!”
RMMD:
“By the way, what in you in for, anyway, pal?”
“Sporting a mullet! — it’s a felony here in Glenwood!”
“I don’t get you Belluso. One moment you encourage your nieces to run their cons, the next you turn around to rat them”
“Are you forgetting where we are?”
“We are in prison and you are an unsavoury character?”
“No, we are in Rex Morgan MD and there is no character consistency”
RMMD. In today’s example of comics as cutting edge chroniclers of pop culture trends I see that the RMMD artist has made time to see Joe Dirt a mere (checks Wikipedia) 25 years later.
MW – Of course Nelly isn’t going to get much out of a box of Cheerio. Next time, buy the box with more than one in it, Nelly.
Mary Worth:
“I’d throw out this insipid breakfast food, but that would make me a cereal killer!”
Pluggers: Joe Feline’s body odor is giving away his presence to his prey. It’s time for a tongue bath!
MW Mary and Ian, forced into a car together – despite no carpool obligations – to satisfy the writer’s desperate plotting to have them hear or witness together the start of the next meddle-plot, at least *try* to escape their fate by not using the seatbelts. Ha ha! they laugh – an anniversary drive by Kelrast Kurve and we’ll be free! free of plots so laboriously drawn-out that you need a specific pan exchange excuse to have a character meetup, and changing one seafood entree for another at the denouement counts as excitement!
Mary Worth:
“So I ask Jeff if he can get his leviathan of a boat into the travel lane so that he can dock us before we go to the BumBoat, and he says ‘Yes — but wait a minute. There’s a ketch!’ ”
“Ha ha!”
GA: Look, if you’re so forgetful that you forget the friend you drew realistically in the strip, at least use post-it notes.
MW: The laughter ends just as the tape does. Ian asks Mary if she has another Cheech and Chong cassette.
Pluggers:
Pluggers realize, to their chagrin, that it’s hard to keep one’s balance using one’s arms when one only has four digits on each hand.
MW: Goes out with Jeff, comes back with Ian? You naughty, naughty girl!
DtM: George learns that Martha, in her infinite spite, has signed him up to homeschool Dennis.
H&L: The Flagstons have sprouted small, purple mountains in their back yard. No wonder the weather’s wonky.
MW: This Mary Worth becomes especially amusing if you imagine that Ian and Mary are spying on Nelly through some kind of hidden camera. I mean, they wouldn’t be privy to her inner monologue, but they could clearly see she wasn’t enjoying herself. And that would be enough to bring them pleasure.
RMMD: Hey, Panel Two Rene Belluso, is there some reason you’re not making eye contact with your friend? You know, the one who’s actually talking to you? Is there some other, more interesting inmate you’d rather be talking to across the yard?
Pluggers: This Pluggers represents a new low … for me. I saw that this plugger had coordinated his T-shirt and his sneakers and thought, “God, I wish my life were that together.” So, yeah, I’m now an aspiring plugger.
JP:
Alan, back when Woody Wilson was running the show we could afford to eat here!
Katherine, may I remind you that when Woody Wilson ran the show, we didn’t even have to look at the prices because he always wrote in some plot angle where we got to eat for free.
Mary Worth:
“That big ol’ boat of Jeff’s is compensatory, isn’t it, Mary….”
MW: Gary Larson’s masterpiece, The Far Side, contained a strip that generated outrage upon publication. This comic, Tethercat, featured two dogs smacking a cat which was tied by the tail to a tetherball pole. Musing on the strip’s controversy, Larson gave voice to the idea that would become the Tethercat Principle: that audiences will assume that whatever the last thing a character was seen doing, they will continue to do indefinitely, until shown otherwise. For Farside readers, the tethercat remained forever trapped and battered.
Using the tethercat principle, Dawn is off somewhere crying over Tommy in perpetuity, and so we as the audience are—wait, wait, wait, Mary and Ian are having an off screen affair while our new plot is about some madwoman raving over groceries? I have never been more excited in my life.
RMMD: “You should follow my example and make a list of people that you have wronged and then make restitution to them in an episodic fashion.”
“Earl! That would never work!”
MW I always wondered how the characters in this strip managed their perfectly-timed synchronized laughs, and now we know: hours of practice with Mary. Don’t worry about your busy schedule, she’ll come to you and we can do it in the car.
Pluggers So….that cat is shitting himself, right? Im pretty sure thats what we’re looking at here.
Calling this “the late Pluggers era” is going to look pretty naïve to the Pluggerologists of 2300, when Pluggers is the only form of media that remains legal.
Anyway, it’s my birthday today, and this absolutely bonkers Mary Worth strip feels like a gift to me personally.
There’s an engagement prompt which is “describe your favorite movie in as boring a way as possible.” Today’s Mary Worth narration box is like that, except it really is that boring.
Wrecks Moregone:
Moustache is so stupid that he makes Rene look like a genius, which made me ask myself, is he an undercover agent for law enforcement trying to get prisoners to confess to planned or committed criminal activities?
Then I realised that was far too intelligent story arc for this comic.
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Wary Morth:
What the hell?!? What happened to Mary’s compulsory 2 week victory lap? Are we moving straight on to her illicit affair with Pompous Axx and the two of them laughing at Toby? Please let this story arc involve an affair between Mary and Pompous Axx and a lot of laughing at Toby.
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Flylock Socks:
Cassie will do literally anything to get the red jackal to notice her, won’t she? She might as well just confess her love at this point and get it over with.
MW: The only reason I can think of to have Ian in panel 1 is because the sourpuss in panel 2 bears an incredible resemblance to the ‘School Management’ lady from several storylines ago. I’m guessing she’s going to turn out to be her twin sister or cousin or something.
DT: ‘A possible terror attack would normally be a job for the feds, but if you’ve seen who’s running things over there right now, the MCU is actually the more sober option!’
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Shrinkflation is out of control
MW: Me, contemplating the sad state of my morning muesli now that the Ferrero company has cornered most of the world’s hazelnut market in order to produce Nutella:
MW: It looks like Nelly Feneley is either going to be Mary next target (by being scolded and lectured into reclaiming her joie de vivre) or her new nemesis (by daring to challenge Mary’s rule as the opinionated old biddy of Charterstone). Either way, she’s poised to become the most likeable character in the strip, at least for a time.
RMMD: No, actually ethical boundaries are quite a common thing for criminals, especially fictional ones. Witness the gentleman thief who will not take a life in the course of his heists, the hacker who targets corrupt corporations, the tragic monster who cuts a swath of bloody bodies but is gentle and respectful to the woman he’s attracted to. The only place Rene’s perspective doesn’t make sense is Rex Morgan, where people are either pure good or pure evil and behave accordingly.
MW: I’m getting vibes of a previous arc with a crotchety old woman named Hannah… When was that?
Oh lordy mercy. Hanna Dingdong. 2014. Thank you, AI.
I don’t get you, Belluso. You have no empathy for strangers, but you do for close members of your family? Maybe it’s the several blows to the head I take each day in our ritualistic prison beatings, but it makes no sense!
I swear on a stack of Mary Worths I thought at first Nelly was using Cat Milk — is it milk for a cat, or milk from a cat? — and then my brain switched on and I realized that among all the other indignities of aging, she’s just lactose intolerant. We’ve never had a Mary Worth plot driven by flatulence, but maybe there’s a first time? Fingers crossed…
MW: Are Mary and Ian enjoying themselves? Or has Mary also become infected with the weird toxoplasmosis variant Ian caught from Sunny, and now both must helplessly “HA HA” as they speed off to PET STORE to buy parrots, more parrots, all the parrots!!!
BROKE: Young people cannot buy homes because of fat cats (politicians and billionares)!
WOKE: Young people cannot buy homes because of fat cats (old Plugger NIMBYs)!
Rex Morgan, M.D.
I don’t really have a handle on how big Glenwood is supposed to be—a population around 30,000, maybe? I don’t remember seeing any large buildings of the type you get in even moderately-sized cities, but then I don’t dedicate much memory to the architecture of Rex Morgan, M.D. The point is, it doesn’t seem nearly large enough to need its own eponymous(?) penal facility, yet here we are at “Glenwood Prison”. My best guess is that after the runaway success of Truck Tyler’s hit single “Glenwood Motel”, everywhere in the general vicinity of the town has rebranded in a misguided attempt to rake in that sweet, sweet tourist money.
C’shaft: “…By our standards, anyway.”
DT: I would think anyone who could turn a seemingly ordinary laptop into an IED would have every military and paramilitary organization in the world beating a path to their door, not hacking into Fake Amazon to reroute computer purchases.
HotC: Okay, I’m calling no way. Antonio would not know his daughter’s shoe size off the top of his head, in no small part because a kid’s shoe size changes so fast (especially in early adolescence) that bothering to remember it is a fruitless exercise even for a primary caregiver.
Luann: Give it two weeks, she’ll get bored and decide her new purpose in life is upcycling old t-shirts into shopping bags or something.
MT: That…would explain a lot, actually.
Phantom: Who knew the Python could wax poetic?
SH: “All creatures are sentient and can communicate across species, even the ones that they kill and eat for food” is a situation Safe Havens has never bothered to explore beyond a punchline, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change anytime soon.
What do Mary and Ian laugh about? I guess the fact that Toby trusts both of them and thinks she is valued by them. They both find it hilarious!
CS: By Asimov’s Three Laws, another week of Pepper the robor pizza server!? Can’t we get back to Ed dreaming he’s in “The Revenant”?
MW: FOR GOSH SAKES, MARY, HANDS AT 10 AND 2! PAY ATTENTION TO THE ROAD! Seriously, why is Ian in Mary’s car, where the heck are they going, and why are they chortling like Cheech and Chong inside the “fiberweed” van from “Up in Smoke”?
Pluggers: Midway through their 10K run around the park is no place for Pluggers to realize their Miralax is kicking in.
Rex Morgan, M.D.: According to experienced hands, there are really only three rules to prison life: 1) Business, mind your own f***ing, 2) See rule 1, and 3) Maintain your sideburns at all costs. It’s good to see this level of verisimilitude in a daily comic strip, kudos Rex Morgan, M.D.!
Pluggers: FALSE. Pluggers never rocked or rolled. They’re Glenn Campbell fans.
@Vulpes: The largest prison complex in my state is just outside a town of roughly 17,000, so I can see it. Why it’s called “Glenwood Prison” other than “X State Penitentiary” or whatever is unusual, unless we assume Glenwood is like Springfield and exists in its own peculiar geographic bubble.
Mary Worth:
“Nelly Fenely” clearly isn’t her real name, but rather what she goes by as part of her Milli Vanilli tribute act.
MW – Well, Nelly’s name anagrams to “Fennel, Yell Ye” – So, maybe she’s a retired Gordon Ramsey-esque Italian chef?
Let’s face it, Aldo Kelrast was a once in a lifetime event. Lightning cannot strike twice at Charterstone.
Plugging — Wouldn’t a Plugger from Ottawa KS be too busy workshopping new town names to worry about his expanding waistline and general squishiness?
@TheDiva:
On Safe Havens, and ignoring the implications of all animals being sentient, including the ones that are eaten EN MASSE : well, it’s a mite better than the way its sibling comic, Kevin & Kell, handles it, which is to PLAY IT FOR LAUGHS most of the time (and have enough of “oh no, one of the good guys might get eaten!” moments that are played for tension and drama for it to remain jarring).
@J.J. O’Malley:
MW: No no, hands not at 10 and 2 anymore! Your arms would break if the airbag deployed. It’s now 5 and 7. Try to keep up.
Pluggers: Is that orange stranger doing the robot, or having a stroke? I mean, he’s a Plugger; the answer is obvious, but rhetorical questions are valuable in their own way.
Mary Worth: Just look at those backgrounds! I can’t wait to see how Ian and Mary’s Journey to Atlantis (in a Buick) turns out!
MW — I’m pretty sure we’re meant to take the exposition of “As Mary and Ian Cameron talk in her car” literally–as in, they’re both saying “ha, ha.” Otherwise, Moy would have written “Mary and Ian laugh in her car” or even “Mary and Ian share a laugh in her car.” But since the next line isn’t, “as they drive over a cliff and crash in a fireball” it doesn’t really matter. . . .
Mary and Ian have clearly been, as the kids say, “toking it up”, right? I mean, that’s Ian Cameron. Laughing. Probably needing to get away from the free roaming parrots in his home. And Mary wouldn’t want her home reeking of marijuana cigarettes if someone drops by for a grey muffin. Except maybe Tommy. He’s cool and hooked her up.
***
Rene Belluso would normally be getting shanked for snitching, but this is Rex Morgan, M.D. and that would be an exciting story.
Mary’s car has an exhaust leak directly into the interior.
It is trivially easy to fry an egg or three (they’re not that expensive and toast some bread.
Mary and Ian laugh and laugh. Mary jokes about suckering Dr. Jeff out of yet another expensive meal with no recompense and Ian can’t stop guffawing about another round of martital relations on a drunken Toby. Good times!
I really hope this is not the start of the redemption arc for Rene! We have already lost an interesting scumbag when Murphy became a good, bland person, we cannot lose the only interesting piece of “Rex Morgan MD”!