Tuesday is for dog-men
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Pluggers, 10/6/26
One of the interesting things about one-panel comics is that they often have to condense a series of actions into a single image-caption pair. So, for instance, in today’s Pluggers, we simultaneously see the moment at which this plugger gets the bright idea that he could perform dental surgery on himself and the horrible aftermath, where his mouth has somehow been moved unnaturally and definitely painfully almost all the way to his ear.
Mother Goose and Grimm, 10/6/26
As ever, I have questions on the legal, ethical, and moral position of Grimm on the spectrum between “sapient being with rights recognized by the state” and “pet,” but I think the strip treats him as a pet more often than not. With that in mind, I think the doctor would be well within his rights to refuse to admit him into the exam room, if only to stop him from making terrible puns.
62 replies to “Tuesday is for dog-men”
Mary Worth Mashup
He could be a vet seeing both which doesn’t clear things up at all.
Judge Parker: I did NOT mashup Wilbur Weston’s face onto that woman’s head. I would do a much better copy-and-paste job.
Despite her name, is this the first time, she was actually referred to as a literal Goose?
I think Shoe is getting to me.
Pluggers First of all: “mastered cutting his hair”….are we sure about that? What do we call that do, the Dead Spider?
MGG: I like how both Mother Goose and the Doctor seem to be completely ignoring Grimm’s comment. A lesson for us all.
@Hibbleton: In mean, in Puss-in-Boots: The Last Wish when Puss lost his eighth life, he woke up in a veterinary clinic. Despite being having human level sapience/sentience.
So, really this only muddles things further.
@Little Guy, FLASH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!: Anti-Zap Feature for the Win to the Southpaw Alien!
Wary Morth:
“No! It’s not true that I’m turning into a Na’vi!”
Ron Douglas, DDS, seeds the Plugger emergency dental work pool with half-baked ideas.
MGG Forget the puns, I don’t want to go to a doctor who lets a bare dog butt on the counter surfaces where things like meds, bandages, or even notes that get handled and passed around go!
Pluggers: Hilarity ensues as plugger dogman attempts to procure blackmarket novocaine.
Wary Morth:
A few days ago I was actually contacted by a very obvious pig butchering scammer. “She” sent me a message on Telegram saying “Hello”. Knowing that any random attractive woman avatar message had to be from a scammer, I answered back “Yes?”
“She” replied, “Is this Prash?” I said “no”. “She” said “Oh, I must have got the wrong number.” I said “Obviously” and closed the chat. “She” then remessaged “I hope I didn’t disturb you by my message.” I said “No.” “She” then said “I’m Marina from US, but I’m currently in Dubai. Where are you from?” I said, “None of your business. You should look for Prash, whoever he is.” “She” said “I just wanted to make friends.” I had got tired of the charade by then and replied: “You know you’re a scammer, I know you’re a scammer, so please go look for someone stupider than me” and blocked the number.
That’s a typical pig butchering scam opener, the kind Trixie would have pulled on H?rvéy Hart in the real world. Pig butchering scams also tend to not be simple romance scams (“Send me money for my aeroplane ticket and my spinal surgery”) but highly sophisticated crypto investment scams complete with fake investment websites, but I doubt Moy has ever heard of crypto.
I’m just posting this as a general awareness message and a reminder of the possibilities that Moy threw away along with the Trixie story. It could have been interesting. Very.
Instead we got…..this.
Mother Goose:
Shouldn’t the doctor be a veterinarian?
MGG: Normally I’m against that kind of thing, but it would be great if the doctor kicked this particular dog. Hard.
Wrecks Moregone:
MaeMae: “I’m competing with Crankshaft for the Most Useless White Elephant award! Or possibly, you know, planning on opening a money laundering centre for hire to the highest bidder.”
Mud: “In Glenwood?!? The only offer you’ll get is from Rene Belluso.”
MaeMae: “Surprise! I’m Rene Belluso in disguise!”
PLUGGERS: Slapstick home dentistry has advanced beyond the “string looped around a tooth and a doorknob” technique, and now uses scissors for those tricky extractions.
Pluggers:
Pluggers always have two pockets on their flannel shirts, because you never want to commingle your No. 2 and No. 3 pencils.
MG&G:
“May I take a gander at it, Miss?”
“Punning as atrociously as my dog is fowl play, Doctor!”
JP: Man, I am so sick of this shit. Can Sophie please uncover some bizarre confluence of national security, state secrets, and traffic law precedents that gets April free and clear and this strip shut of CIA shenanigans forever?
RxMD: Soap Strip Pro-Tip: To stretch out your storylines, if you can call them that, make sure at least one character in each scene as an abject, absolute moron so that you can have your other characters state and restate the obvious over a course of days rather than moving your story, if you can call it that, along.
MG&G:
The doctor turns the tables on Grimm and yanks at his canine teeth.
JP: I don’t read this regularly, so I may have missed something. When they dropped the developing story lines about Charlotte meeting her parents, Ann and Neddy making a TV show, and Judge Parker resuming his career, in order to switch to “April confronts the CIA part 34” — did they at least insert a humorous record-scratch sound effect?
Before reading the caption, I assumed the Plugger was about to self-neuter.
Pluggers are so deep in medical debt they’re needing to resort to self-surgery.
MW – I have a lot of respect for Brigman, but I can’t fault her for following Moy’s lead and phoning it in.
MG&G: So, he’s either a Vet accustomed to talking patients, or a General Practitioner in whose waiting room, one risks taking a fall in a pile of goose poop.
GT: “Poor, Mimi.” Is that the misuse of a comma, or is Gil grading Mimi on her coaching?
Has anyone dialed 911 and requested a wellness check on Ron Douglas of Longmont, CO yet?
GT: So … is Gil’s new wife threatening to interfere with Mimi’s custody rights here, and why? Because Mimi lost a game? Is that how it works in the Valley Conference? Visitation is for winners only! Also, why’s Gil getting shitfaced at a bar listening to a Friday night football game when he should be, y’know, coaching a Friday night football game? I’m used to things not making a lick of sense in this strip, but all of this seems even more insane than usual!
@Pozzo: #22: Many years ago, someone told me that the best way to neuter a goat was with a rubber band. To this day, I don’t know if it’s true, or if she was a horrible person. If true, then rubber band beats scissors.
Pluggers: A damning indictment of the cost of living for those on a fixed income that’ll probably end up on someone’s refrigerator.
C’shaft: “Actually if you look over in the magazine row, we have–”
“THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW AND I HATE IT.”
DT: “Just look it up on Google Maps.”
“I’m from the 1930s, do I look like I know what Google Maps is?”
Dustin: “Look, I’ll take any emotion that isn’t the open contempt I receive from you and everyone else in my life.”
GT: Beth’s smug look indicates that she’s just been waiting for an excuse to detach Emily from her children, and there’s no justification more iron-clad in Milford than losing a football game.
JP: “Yeah yeah, every shady organization in the northern hemisphere is after me, can we wrap this up? It’s Taco Tuesday.”
Luann: I assume the speech is intended to be motivational or persuasive in some way. Based on the titles alone, Les has at least made a minimal effort towards that criteria, while Luann clearly intends to smugly lecture her peers about how awful they are. Lazy he may be, at least he read the freakin’ rubric.
MW: I’m not sure whether to be disappointed or grateful this dream sequence doesn’t focus on Mary and Ian cavorting right in front of Toby’s eyes.
RMMD: We had an art house downtown; it was a nice place, and was selling alcohol to audience members well before the multiplexes jumped on that particular bandwagon. It closed down suddenly three years ago when the owner passed away, and though supposedly there’s a search for a buyer nothing has come of it. I wouldn’t mind if a retired movie star decided to make it their pet project, although I’d probably object to them blocking up the street so they could yap about it to their significant other.
@Charterstone: Dune: If visitation is for winner’s only, shouldn’t those kids be in foster care by now?
@Baja Gaijin: First panel, I just noticed that they’re staring at the tops of each other’s heads. Why? Is there a louse crawling there?
Wrecks Moregone:
“Okay — but why buy it in the first place?”
“Because they refused to give it to me for free.”
You could do a statistical analysis to measure who acknowledges more often that their protagonists are birds: “Shoe” or “Mother Goose”. The results would not be interesting and it would be a waste of manpower and calculating power, but you could do it!
“How hard can it be?” is also the ad for Pluggers’ favourite pill!
@Baja Gaijin: Wait, how do you have tomorrow’s strip today?
Putting aside everything that tells us the dog-man is going to use those scissors as a tool in fixing his teeth somehow (the best assumption is that they are so soft he can cut right into them) one thing that frightens me is that with a plugger’s understanding of the world is that he probably has a vial of mercury that he plans on using for a filling.
***
Sigh. I like the pun. You win this time, Goose and Grimm.
GT: Because Gil’s ex hasn’t suffered enough for daring to leave him, now they’re withholding her children because she lost a football game. I’m sure the family judge is going to love that.
Pluggers: You wanna know how I got these scars?
FG: “It gives Ming a moment’s pause.”
Internal dialogue: “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, Fuuuuuuuudge….”
@Charterstone: Dune: *If* this strip made an iota of sense, this would be Beth saying that Gil has to take the kids because she is *not* dealing with the post-football-loss drama, that’s on him as a fellow coach. But they probably have some points spread written in the custody / visitation agreement and Mimi is now too far down to be allowed to spend time with Keri and Jami
@Lauralot: re: GT – the judge probably wrote a points ranking into the visitation agreement. This *is* Milford after all
@Lauralot, GT: She’s wimmenfolk. She can’t take a loss easily, unlike
the menfolk*Gil.* Because Coach Wedding Crasher also has his meltdowns.
Mother Goose & Grimm: I saw the shadow over MG’s beak in panel one, and I thought it was related to her medical problem. Nope! Apparently, she wears a shadowy veil at all times!
The shadow she’s casting on the wall in panel two looks like a human fingerprint. I’m increasingly comfortable diagnosing her with umbralitis, a disease that obviously can’t exist, but- [gestures] – you know!
Pluggers:
A plugger has not, in fact, mastered cutting his hair,
Pluggers – The idea of home dental is abhorrent, until you remember that time you had to have two teeth extracted in an emergency dentist. Though at least if you botch a haircut, you’re only screwed for a few months, tops…
My mom’s friend’s second husband pulled his own tooth with a pair of pliers. I wouldn’t call him a Plugger, though, at least to his face. Another time we went over their house and he had a big gash on his knuckle. When I asked him how he got it, he said on another guys teeth when he punched him in the mouth. My mom knew a lot of colorful characters.
GT: Hey, I wouldn’t want to inflict Keri the Malcontent on anyone else either.
DT: “Where is that, and why are we wearing checkered caps like we’re a pair of British bobbies?”
MW: Um, Toby appears to be getting off on this…
JP: Welp, I stand corrected. Hi, Chief Pissy McBitchface! Way to keep a low profile and not arouse the suspicions of the people around CIApril!
I guess it’ll be tomorrow that we see Pavel Jr. in his Temple of Doom plotting CIApril’s downfall, based on CPM’s cryptic remark there…
Pluggers-Remember it’s up and down on the wrist not side to side.
MW-Remember dreams are short things lasting only a few minutes. This dream is going to be running all week. So think about that a half hour dream spread out over one week.
MW-And this is the whole week. Toby dreaming of people she never met before.
RMMD-Because there are no other theaters in town showing movies where adults hug and kiss.
Plug: I was — there’s just no other word for it — relieved when I scrolled down and saw that this was about pluggers being too cheap to pay for various services from trained professionals. My first instinct, for some reason, was that this plugger was going to cut his own penis off and wanted to stare at himself in the mirror as he did it.
MG&G: I really wanted a third panel where the doctor turns around and says, “Sir, I am a medical school graduate. I know very well that the hollow, muscular tube in a goose’s throat is called an esophagoose. Please let me continue without further interruptions.”
FC: “Hey, Mom! Billy’s pissing out his window again!”
DtM: The juxtaposition of Dennis’ rope and Joey’s neck is a little unsettling.
Score one for team DtM.
@Baja Gaijin:
Nice!
A true fever dream.
But it still begs the question – why isn’t Ian at home sleeping next to Toby? why didn’t Toby just ask him about these rumors that he was seen gadding about with Mary? I guess because all of these actions are all too rational.
Still a nice arc and I hope we see Nelly become a regular fixture in the strip.
@Charterstone: Dune:
OK here is an attempt to patch up the plot holes.
1. Milford has a bye week due to some imbalance in the conference schedule. Rare in high school sports but they can occur.
2. Maybe Beth is saying this weekend it will be all on Gil to deal with the kids and she’s going to be at a spa. Usually these custody/weekend agreements have been arranged legally and not subject to the whims of the new wife – unless she wants to appear in court. (paging Judge Parker!)
MW: As is the nature of dreams, the next scene shows Wilbur tied to a huge spit roasting over an open fire.
“I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that bratwurst before bed.” Thinks Toby
@Ken: No, no record scratch but they did have a nice “Previously on CIApril …” insert and a brief montage with visual and sound bites showing April slashing and killing her way across Russia, blowing up the Gulag, and rescuing Randy.
The fact that his teeth are showing so far up his snout, tells me he has already made the first incision with the scissors and will now either reach for his pliers, or a power drill
“Actually, Mother Goose, we’re here to talk about the hallucinations. The one that appears to be a dog. Do you see it in the room with us? I see. OK, I’m going to up the perphenazine dose again.”
@Baja Gaijin: Totally accurate.
@Baja Gaijin: That looks more like old man Wynter’s sour face.
PLUGGERS: A Plugger has mastered the art of cutting his hair….(citation needed)
PLUGGERS (2): Also, this isn’t a “Pluggers” comic. It’s a Tim Taylor comic (More power!) What’s the next caption? “A Plugger snitches on his drug dealing companions.”
Pluggers: A plugger will reinvent the defunct profession of the barber surgeon to save a few bucks.
Crankshaft : “It’s actually something called the ‘direct market’, in the sense that local comics shops, and people being able to order omnibus online, have supplanted the need for pharmacies to have comics racks. You don’t think dedicated comic book shops and being able to order omnibus online are a bad thing, right?”
************
Luann : 14 pages!? Either Luann plans to speak very quickly, or for her professor to yank her off the stage with a hook cane when she goes overtime, or she’s not leaving early…
…What am I saying? Those 14 pages are probably double-spaced, with enormous font… and written in crayon… and probably just “STUDENT POOR ETHICS : I AM A GUD STOODENT. ALL THE UDDER STUDENTS ARE BAD STUDENTS. ESPECIALLY HIM, LESS. THANK YOU.”
***********
Pluggers : You know, it’s funny because that’s the Plugger that’s usually used for the “is totally bald” captions, despite the whole “COVERED IN FUR” thing. Which makes the joke perplexing; is there an intention that the Plugger actually ISN’T any good at hair cutting, it’s just that he doesn’t need to because BALD (despite COVERED IN HAIR)… if so, is the implicit joke that the Plugger will soon not need a dentist because ALL TEETH FELL OUT, DENTURES NOW?
@treetown:
Because that’s not how Toby stories work! See, Toby is a Strong Independent Woman (snicker) who is valued for her ability to react to everything in a cool composed manner (snort. I swear I can never get through that with a straight face.) Anyway Toby’s biggest fear is that if Ian finds out she got jealous or showed any concern with their relationship at all, he’d lose his respect for her (giggle. Hold on, I’m gonna need a moments to compose myself here.) This is how all stories with Toby go (or all stories with Toby involving accusation of infidelity anyway).
So basically, Toby can’t do the rational thing here because it would mess up her reputation of being so rational about these things. That’s a plot point that just keeps making too much sense!