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Dennis the Menace, 4/7/23

Last month I speculated on Henry Mitchell’s career status, based on my half-memory that he might be an engineer, and readers pointed me in some intriguing directions. In the 1950s/60s TV show, Henry works for Trask Engineering; on the fan-maintained Dennis the Menace wiki, we’re told that he’s a “a workaday aerospace engineer,” whereas on actual Wikipedia it says he’s “a workaday teacher at Dennis’s school,” which is clearly wrong (also I am desperate to understand why “workaday” appears in both those descriptions but I think I need to apply for a research grant so I can fully analyze the situation). Anyway, I’m going to take the preponderance of evidence here and accept that he’s an engineer, which makes Dennis turning to this total stranger for engineering advice all the more menacing, though based on Henry’s sidelong glance I assume these two are coworkers and he’s basically saying “See? I told you what a moron he is.”

Hi and Lois, 4/6/23

When I was in high school, our debate team hosted a tournament one year, and I was in charge of getting the trophies, and the time spent tracking down a trophy store and picking out the design and getting the orders in really rearranged the way I think about accolades like this. You can just buy a trophy or a medal that says anything you want! They don’t necessarily mean anything! Still, I appreciate today’s Hi and Lois as a corrective to this attitude, as it shows that if you get into buying and handing out trophies as a bit, your loved ones will get sick of your shit almost immediately.

Crock, 4/6/23

OK, fine, usually just slipping “[LATEST TECH FAD]” into a sentence at random and claiming it’s a punchline is something that sends me spinning into a rage, but this one somehow loops around all the way into being funny again. Like I’m laughing just imagining some callow teens that exist entirely in a boomer’s imagination brought to the brink of starvation and sullenly gnawing on their phones. “I love phone,” the teens say, refusing to make direct eye contact with adults in a forthright and masculine way. “Phone good.”

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Panel from Slylock Fox, 4/2/23

I dunno, man, I kind of doubt that the Forest Kingdom’s legal regime says you’re allowed to take away someone’s jar of nuts and weigh it just based on reasonable suspicion alone, but aren’t allowed to open it without a warrant. I kind of think Slylock is, once again, just showing off his ratiocination abilities here.

Hi and Lois, 4/2/23

I really enjoy how sour Dot looks in the final panel here! Like many English words, “season” is polysemous, and frankly Dot is not here for it.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/2/23

Sooooo, what do we think, is that Rene in yet another of his wigs, or is Dr. Mirakle just some guy? Either way, since he’s managed to purge Mud’s mind of the darkness that allowed him to produce such emotionally complex hits as “Muddy Boots” and has left him so happy that all he can churn out is nonsense treacle, maybe one of those private seminars would be pretty helpful!

Dustin, 4/2/23

Oh, hey, just FYI, last year on a cruise Dustin’s dad’s dick, or his balls, or maybe both his dick and his balls, popped out of his swimsuit while he was out in public. We should obviously be thankful that we’re only hearing about this second hand, but honestly hearing about it second hand is no picnic either.

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Hi and Lois, 3/30/23

“Oh, are you giddy with anticipation over a fresh new year, full of infinite possibilities? Well, have you considered that, since those possibilities are truly infinite, some of them … are bad, actually? That you could experience lows almost as intense as the highs you’re experiencing now, and indeed have, just as recently as last year? Just a thought to leave you with, I’m going to go ruin somebody’s else’s week now. Maybe I’ll tell Trixie that the sun is millions of miles away and doesn’t think about her at all!”

Mary Worth, 3/30/23

I was about to yell “STOP TALKING ABOUT EUTHANIZING PETS ON DATES, ED” at our poor burned out doctor, but you know what? The last date these two had, he couldn’t shut up about euthanizing pets, and then he tried to blow her off and she basically begged him for another one, so I guess he knows what he’s doing.

The Lockhorns, 3/30/23

Holy crap — Leroy whined about the ability of his cell phone to accommodate the fact that he uses it constantly and someone (presumably a Baby Boomer) tried to burn him by handing him an old landline phone? Folks … you’d better believe that the Lockhorns are Millennials.