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Well, this week is Thanksgiving here in the United States, and one of the things I’m thankful for is taking a few days off of blogging. New comics return Monday! Those of you still checking the Interwebs may comment away here for the next four days (unmonitored by me, so play nice). Meanwhile, I thought I’d unleash the comment of the first half of this week:

“Did you hear about the entity that has qualities or characteristics?” –Skullturf Q. Beavispants offers the ultimate Herb and Jamaal setup

This, combined with Skullturf’s Pluggers triumph, makes November 21, 2007, officially “Skullturf Q. Beavispants day”! But there are runners-up to admire as well:

“I’d look up the exact title of the Curti-verse’s ‘Girls Gone Wild’ parody with the fudge-topping chapter or what-have-you, but doing research on the topic of Curtis would finally kill what little sense of pride I have.” –Flealick

“Do you actually think the Family Circus world-view could survive interaction with 21st-century Earth children? This explains why the ‘action’ in this strip generally involves the children standing around discussing something that confounds them (the location of their heart, ambiguous phrasing, shiny objects). The kids aren’t allowed to leave the home, and are forced to make up adorably-hilarious scenarios for the parents’ amusements. The ‘football tryouts’ were the final test; if Billy went outside, rolled in the mud, and came back to recite the dialogue he was assigned without running away (or crying), he was truly a Keane; and if he did flee the Keane Kompound, the dogs would make short work of him (and the marshmallow ass-padding would assure that the birds picked the carcass clean).” –Flealick

“Do beagles like the smell of vinegar and hate?” –gkl

“Monday I actually found B.C. amusing. Today I laughed at Cathy. Am I dying?” –Brick Bradford

“I’m guessing that Abbey is just the kind of swinger that wants to hear about all of her husband’s sexual exploits. Unfortunately, all Sam Driver will be able to say will be, ‘I just stood there.'” –FSogol

“Please remember that homoeroticism should be erotic. Rex and Niki, homoerotic? Yes. Herb and Jamaal? Not.” –sf_reader

“‘Thanks, Toby. I know it has to be done.’ Prediction: these will be Mary Worth’s last words as she is strapped into the electric chair, right before being sent to hell for all her crimes against humanity.” –Joe

“In today’s A3G, the Perfesser is waaay too happy at being cockblocked by Dick Smothers. ‘Taking my underage trophy-bitch to Hollywood? Why, we must celebrate! Have some of my special Vin du Arsenic ’93!'” –Buck Ripsnort

“Mary Worth? Love? No, no, no. Mary Worth is only using Chester to remind herself of how awesome she is. If Toby would permit Mary to lead her around by a leash and feed her from bowls in the ground, Mary would have run right over Chester in the road.” –The Grandstanding Oddball

Also! Today was actually a double day for Comics Curmudgeon reader-submitted triumph, as today’s TDIET was submitted by faithful reader MWGallaher!

Indeed, who among us hasn’t enjoyed day-old beans out of a can? I almost missed something here (right?) — specifically, this TDIET, so don’t forget to tell me in advance if you’re going to be Scaduto-ized!

Finally, to amuse you while I’m surreptitiously drinking gravy out of the boat, I offer you this amusing bit of Web comic commentary. Faithful reader Captain Thunder took a throwaway gag I did on Dennis the Menace a few months ago and transformed it into an inspired bit of pastiche. Enjoy, and happy Thanksgiving!

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The thought of Gil Thorp hiring one of his student-athletes to kill someone has left me so reeling that I’m not going to get to Sunday’s comics until tomorrow, but I cannot deny the masses the weekly COMMENT OF THE WEEK!

“Oh, well. As someone once said, ‘Early to bed, early to rise, something, something, Mary Worth.'” –John C. Fremont

Also very funny: Runners-up.

“Well, it’s not like the Funky Winkerbean cast has anything better to do on a Sunday. I’ve never seen them in church, though the only reason any character would attend a service is to ask God to free them from life in that horrendously depressing strip.” –Jim

“My issue with the FOOB hybrid isn’t merely that it sucks. It’s that it’s lazy and it sucks.” –Allie Cat

“Jeffy may have some previously undiagnosed cognitive disabilities. And by ‘may have some,’ I mean ‘definitely has many.’ Jeffy is so frustratingly literal-minded that I can’t even envision him successfully selling lightbulbs door to door. He’d misunderstand the instructions and try to eat the lightbulbs or stick them up his nose or something. When brought to the emergency room, he’d say his grandmother told him to do it. So very sad.” –Joe Blevins

“I really love that whole family of crazy indeterminate ethnics.” –Dr. Mad, on the Malotte clan

“Maybe Gil Thorp would make more sense to me if I knew anything about sports. But probably not?” –Shmork

“Mary’s not checking the bylaws, she knows them. She has to get Board approval for the dog, and she’s checking her sheet of who owes her, cause nobody rides the Mary Advice Train for free.” –INotI

“I like that Mary has a couch large enough to seat eight but a coffee table barely big enough to set your drink down on. I imagine her apartment is full of many slightly surreal touches like that, to disorient her guests so they won’t notice when she lights them on fire.” –Tats

“Is anyone else freaked out by the fact that Gil seems to be making his team practice this new offense inside the locker room? No wonder these guys have trouble on the field. They’re too bruised and sore from skittering around the highly waxed locker room floor. Practice must sound like a pack of wild dogs trying to stand up on wood laminate.” –Terry C

“Okay, so here’s the plan, Persuader. I’m going to destroy the Bugle’s delivery infrastructure, sabotage the presses, scare away all the advertisers, make sure that no one buys that stinkin’ rag … then I want to buy it! …Wait. Hang on, that’s a terrible idea. Who the hell persuaded me that this was a good idea? …Persuader!” –Inspector Dim

“Pluggers is assuming that there are people out in America-land making recipes with ingredients that they cannot buy. ‘I made tahini-polenta enchiladas but I couldn’t find any tahini or polenta at the store, so I used mayonnaise and pancake mix instead.'” –rhymes with puck

“The problem with not getting Mary Worth in my local paper is that I can’t keep track of all the characters. Oh, wait. That’s a good thing.” –Concrete Queen

“Jeremy appreciates the Beatles for perfectly sensible qualities like chord progressions, harmonies, and lyrics. Then Walt barfs up some half-baked pseudo-musicological balderdash that probably wowed ’em back in ’79 when they were passing the bong around. And Jeremy says ‘Exactly!’ No, Jeremy, not ‘exactly.’ Walt’s statement isn’t ‘exactly’ anything. I don’t even think it’s ‘approximately’ anything.” –BlinkAndItsOver

“I suspect this condo board non-episode is a metaphor for what the sex in a relationship with Mary Worth would be like: a tiny bit of tease, no follow-through, and you’re left wondering why the hell the topic even came up in the first place.” –DaveyK

“At least that trout is pink on the outside, as opposed to Rex, the self-hating salmon.” –SecretMargo

“Wait, does that mean that plastic water bottles are not actually edible? Uh oh.” –Nekrotzar

“Sweet yellow coat, Tommie. Is it tweed? Does it match your best petticoat? Is that mustard or jaundice yellow? Purchased at Talbots two decades ago, perhaps? No? The ‘poor didn’t want these’ bin at Fraulein Maria’s abbey? Even Ruby looks upset by that coat and the woman wears giant bows in her hair like she’s a six-year-old in a Christmas pageant.” –kitty

“I really, really want to see Gil’s arrest for encouraging an already troubled youth into going on a murderous crime spree. But first, of course, I want to see that crime spree.” –True Fable

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Well, here it is, the moment at least some of you have been waiting for: Mark Trail Theater on YouTube. I hope it doesn’t disappoint! We weren’t able to pull off the production values of those now-famous Mary Worth videos, so we went for campy. It’s going to be dark at first; stay with it.

(If you have a hard time seeing the projections, you might want to go directly to the video’s page on YouTube and watch it in full-screen mode.)

And now, some probably indulgent notes on the cast and production:

The play was part of a larger variety/talent show called Glitterama, which is put on by the zany Baltimore performance group Fluid Movement. We were one of the few acts that didn’t involve burlesque and/or semi-nudity (though on the first night after we left the stage there were calls for Mark Trail to “take it off”). It was very gratifying to hear everyone laughing in the audience, but we were fortunate to be the third act, and so they were all good and warmed up.

That’s my lovely wife Amber as poor neglected Cherry Trail in the first and last scenes, gamely wearing a curly wig, Keds, and (the ultimate sacrifice) mom jeans. She’s actually on the board of Fluid Movement, and at the last minute was roped into saying a few words about the group at the beginning of the show — in costume, of course. She’s a pro. She also was the driving force behind actually moving this thing from big talk on my part to reality (as she was for this very blog), and helped keep us organized as it progressed.

Our friend Sam only had a single line as Buck Jones at the very end, but he was a very crucial part of the production. He’s been reading soap opera strips for much longer than I have, and once we had settled on a plotline that we would use, he meticulously pieced together the panels to create the story and then wrote the script. And yes, other than the Sunday strip-style bear slander in the middle, virtually every line in this play is taken directly from the strip. He also wrote and performed that theme song, all by himself (the lyrics for which, if you have trouble hearing them, are “It’s the land of the beaver and bear/ And home of their friend Mark Trail/ Cherry and Andy and Rusty are there/ And all of the bad guys have facial hair/ In Lost Forest”). He also had valuable theater experience that kept us on track, and ran the slide projector during the performances.

Our friend Dave was for obvious reasons the only choice to play Mark Trail. I love the way he makes Mark so incredibly straight that he’s hilarious. He sunk so deep into his character that his wife (who is behind the camera here) forbade him to talk in the Mark Trail voice at home anymore. (Actual quote as we were helping clean up the backstage area, in Mark Trail voice: “If there’s one thing I hate more than bears, it’s litter.”) He was also great with props — for instance, he built that pup tent in a night when the Glitterama head honcho informed us that our previous effort (a tarp draped over some chairs) was sub-par.

Our friend Kaycee, who glams it up as Kelly Welly, was already a reader of my blog when she met my wife, and later realized who she was when some friends posted pictures of our wedding in the forum. Her camptastic Marilyn-Monroe-meets-Miss-Piggy version of Kelly’s voice (amplified by the hand mike so she could go for maximum breathiness) kept us on the verge of breaking up at all times, and some of the funniest little flourishes originated with her ad libs during rehearsal. She also provided costumes and props from her seemingly limitless supply, including the all-important bear suit.

Speaking of which … our friend Rupert did triple duty as Rusty, the arrow-ass bear (for whose ass we never got around to fashioning an arrow) and, in the final scene, Molly, all of which roles he embraced with total and deranged commitment, stealing everyone’s heart and mastering the quick change in the wings. My only regret about this video is that many of his awesome antics ended up just beyond the left side of the frame.

Our friend Kevin did a great job with the narration, making the whole bizarre thing sound official and halfway normal. The fake Sunday strip in particular got some of the biggest laughs of the night, not least because of his awesomely deadpan delivery.

And finally, that’s me dorking it up as both Bill Ellis and Ranger Rick Rogers. I find Kelly and the bear’s second entrance, during which I flail about desperately trying to figure out where I’m supposed to be standing on stage, particularly cringeworthy. At least at one point I got to walk off stage with a girl in one hand and a gun in the other — truly the dream of every American man.

Anyway, I’ll stop nattering on about this, but I really enjoyed putting this on with all these people. This video will obviously make you devastated that you missed it, but we’re already trying to figure out a venue for the next chapter of Mark Trail Theater: Molly Doesn’t Understand The Hostility! It will call for a higher special effects budget, obviously.