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Pluggers, 2/28/07

Do you know what really offends me about this Pluggers? It’s not that it puts me, as someone who still gets his televised entertainment over the air, into the ranks of pluggerdom; I can deal with that. (And by the way, I haven’t purchased a new set of rabbit ears in more than ten years, so I’ve out-pluggered Mr. Bald Dog Plugger Man! Ha!)

No, it’s that this panel doesn’t contain the patented Pluggers play on words or little twist. It’s the one thing Pluggers does, and here it is refusing to do it. “You’re a plugger if you seek to purchase rarely used but still useful electronic equipment”? That’s crap. Here, this is what it should have been: “Pluggers wish on their lucky rabbit ears that they’ll get good signal for the big game,” with a drawing of the Rhino-Man wearing his team’s jersey and adjusting his TV antenna. DON’T MAKE ME DO YOUR JOB FOR YOU, PLUGGERS!

Apartment 3-G, 2/28/07

It’s possible that Katy is getting chemo treatments and we’re about to get a Very Special Apartment 3-G Storyline. It’s also possible that this is the artist’s idea of a hip-looking young woman. It’s not possible that anyone in Katy’s age range (which I put at somewhere between 15 and 40) would allow her uncle to plan her birthday party for her, nor is it possible that she would utter the phrase “Oh, cool! You’re the event planner!”

Crock, 2/28/07

As a native of Buffalo, I’m offended by the implication that the inhabitants of the Queen City of the Great Lakes are all voodoo priests, hungry for chicken blood. As someone who might one day require a blood transfusion, I’m offended that anyone might think that a chicken-to-human transfusion is even possible. As someone with eyes and taste, I’m offended by Crock in general.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 2/28/07

As usual, there’s enough material to analyze in this TDIET to fill out a good-sized Ph.D. thesis, but I’ll satisfy myself with the following:

• It’s a good thing that Shalimar is identified as a “teener” in the top panel, because otherwise I would have pegged her as a “same age as her motherer”.
• What with the floppy bow-tie, ponytail, and bad teeth, Shalimar seems to have wedded the least attractive member of James Monroe’s cabinet.
• “Shalimar”?

By the way, those of you who enjoy TDIET but don’t regularly read Ruben Bolling’s Tom the Dancing Bug should check out today’s installment. You’ll have to sit through an ad to get to the cartoon if you aren’t a Salon.com subscriber, but it’s worth it.

Mary Worth, 2/28/07

I’m not sure what’s more hideous: Mary’s aqua/urine-colored ensemble, or the pug-faced little child at the bottom left of the first panel.

Slylock Fox, 2/28/07

So, remember that Funky Winkerbean from last week where it looked like Wally got blown up (but really he didn’t)? Well, apparently it offended somebody (no, really). And yet the blatant phallic banana in this Slylock Fox will in all likelihood not draw a single letter to the editor anywhere in the country.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/25/07

“God damn it, June, I thought we’d been through this already! You’re the one who goes for teenage boys! I like charming, distinguished-looking men in their forties!”

You know you’re a smooth operating criminal desperado when you plaster your name all over your car’s license plates. I am so hoping that Officer Brushcut and his partner manage to take down Elvis, and possibly Eight Ball (whose vanity plate presumably reads “8BALL”), in an exciting gunfight that takes place entirely offstage, while we get treated to Rex trying to decide what kind of ice cream to have for dessert.

Mary Worth, 2/25/07

You will see few things in this life more terrifying that Mary Worth’s eyes in the first panel here. It’s as if she suddenly panicked about trying to sneak her huge stash of Southeast Asian narcotics through customs, so she just swallowed it before she got on the plane in Hanoi, and it’s finally kicking in. I’m assuming Jeff did the same thing, since he’s wide awake and smiling one moment and completely unconscious the next.

As for panel seven, I can’t say it better than faithful reader and longtime Mary Worth hater MossMoses did in a comment on a previous thread: “NEWS FLASH: MARY WORTH ADMITS SHE’S SELFISH, DETAILS AT 11:00.”

Blondie, 2/25/07

Right up until that last panel, I was pretty sure that this was the build-up to the most awkward wife-swapping session ever.

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Marvin, 2/14/07

There’s been something increasingly disturbing to me about the rage-a-thon that’s been building up in Marvin all week. Our titular enormous-headed baby has been alternately standing defiantly in the corner with his back to us and turning around to mug for the viewer, but I think this is the first time that his face has been such a transparent mask of evil and hate. Watch out, mom and dad: now that he has the ability to walk upright, he also has his hands free to kill.

Mary Worth, 2/14/07

I’m beginning to believe that this bedside conversation will go down in Mary Worth lore as the Great Meddle of 2007. Some might whine about how long and drawn out and boring it is, but that’s precisely the point; we’ve been privileged to watch Dr. Jeff’s will be slowly broken by degrees. Look at how he’s squirming around, clutching the bed handle in the first frame, adopting the universal Victorian “vapours” pose in the second: he’s like a particularly fascinating insect trapped under an entomologist’s pin, and there’s no escape for him.