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Pardon My Planet, 12/22/24

One of my least favorite genres of “Images You Can Buy On A Poster Or T-Shirt” is “Two Dead Celebrities Dressed In Vaguely Rockabilly Outfits And One Is Giving The Other One A Tattoo And The Whole Thing Feels Vaguely And Unpleasantly Sexual.” I’ve seen this with Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn (on a giant poster hanging in the men’s room of a restaurant that seemed otherwise respectable) and Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein (on a t-shirt hanging on rack outside a store in Italy). This comic isn’t quite the same thing but I think we can agree it’s in the same general ballpark, and that ballpark is distasteful.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/22/24

No, I don’t buy this at all. A Christmas Carol is famously one of Dickens’s shortest books and Snuffy is a notoriously stunted and gnome-like man and was presumably even smaller as a child. I’m beginning to suspect he can’t tell different books apart, possibly because he’s illiterate.

Marvin, 12/22/24

Can you imagine feeling like you have to continue to live with Marvin, for you own safety and survival, and the thought of being separated from him sends you into a state of panic? Bleak stuff.

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Mary Worth, 12/8/24

Hello, fellow young people! Like me (a young person), you have no doubt been using the word “cringe” in its relatively new slang sense, as either an adjective meaning something embarrassing or awkward, or as a noun to denote something that inspires the feeling described by the adjective. This is a use of the word that we young people like to deploy on social media sites such as TikTok and [what are the other ones? Is TikTok still what young people like? double-check this].

Sadly, however, we’re all going to have to stop using the word that way, because Wilbur Weston just did, in the comic strip Mary Worth! Ironically, this act itself is incredibly cringe. That’s the last time I’ll use that word in that way; now, as a young person, I will be moving on to new forms of slang that are inscrutable to the many, many people who are older than me.

Pardon My Planet, 12/8/24

Hello, fellow young people! Are you familiar with the hot new musical film Wicked? Fun fact: it’s actually a prequel to another film, The Wizard of Oz, and this syndicated newspaper cartoon is a joke about the characters from that older movie! You’d think it’d be more direct to just do a joke about Wicked, the movie that’s currently popular, but that would require some research to determine what exactly its characters look like, and that sort of effort simply isn’t part of the Pardon My Planet game plan.

Daddy Daze, 12/8/24

Good news, everyone! The Daddy Daze daddy is dead. The Daddy Daze baby captured and killed him. Now, does this mean the Daddy Daze baby will soon himself die, from neglect? Unclear. He’s a baby, so normally I’d say yes, but he managed to capture and kill his father, so he has powers and capabilities beyond those of ordinary babies.

Hagar the Horrible, 12/8/24

Hey guys, if you’re so scared, why don’t you attack the castle during the day? Idiots.

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Pardon My Planet, 8/25/24

Ha ha, you guys, you know how Superman has heat vision, right? Well, what if — hear me out — what if he was out with his girlfriend, Lois Lane, but was subtly eyeing some other lady who he found attractive, but then his heat vision activated, possibly because he got horny, and then he set her on fire? Like, literally on fire, probably one of the most terrifying and horrific things someone could experience, her screams and the smell of burning flesh filling the restaurant. And then Lois is like “Superman! I’m mad at you!” Not because of the checking the lady out thing (they’re polyamorous), but because he’s horribly injured that woman and traumatized a bunch of people who just wanted a nice dinner out. Not so “super,” is it?

Mary Worth, 8/25/24

Oh, God, Dr. Ed absolutely has an elaborately colored spreadsheet on that laptop with the expected lifespan of all his patients on it, right? And there are a bunch of red cells in the coming week or so? Ed is the first vet who’s managed to really quantify exactly when every animal under his care is going to die, and he thought it would help him run his business more efficiently, but actually it’s crushing and depressing, just like the gift of prophecy always is. No fancy ball/exotic zoo theme can lift this burden from his shoulders!