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Archive: Rex Morgan, M.D.

179

Sitcom-adjacent jokes

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/20/25

On Sunday, June got the mail, and told her sons that the family had gotten a wedding invite, and they were like “You get free cake at a wedding! That’s the reward for sitting through the boring parts!” Then yesterday and today, she also told Rex about the invite, and he gave the exact same response. This would’ve been a perfectly serviceable bit if it had played out over a minute or so in a sitcom, but it works significantly less well in a continuity strip, where it takes three days and at the end you have to remind people what happened over the previous two days, in case they never read those strips, or just forgot about them.

Luann, 5/20/25

“Sassy old lady” is also a hoary sitcom trope, and I probably shouldn’t get as much amusement from it as I do, but you have to admit it works particularly well in Luann, when the sassy old lady quips are generally along the lines of “Hey why don’t you loser kids shut the fuck up for once in your extremely overthought lives, huh? Let’s have some tea.”

Crankshaft, 5/20/25

Look, buddy, this lady works at a florist shop, so I agree that she should not just repeat the name of the flower you named back at you as a question, but should rather let you know if they have them available and how much they would cost if they do. However, I do not think taking her question as an opportunity to launch into a meandering soliloquy about times gone by is going to speed up this transaction. Quite the opposite, in fact!

135

Speaking affectionately ill of the dead

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Dick Tracy, 5/16/25

The current Dick Tracy story wrapped up with our criminals fleeing from the cops and in the process conveniently getting into a terrible car accident that killed our beloved dipshit nephews and their comically cursing aunt. I guess all’s well that ends well, and by “ends well” we mean “ends with three corpses in the very morgue where, for reasons that have still not been adequately explained, this caper began.” By the way, do the dimensions on those corpses seem off to you? Like they’re unusually tall, right? Not sure I want to know what exactly happened in that car accident.

Dennis the Menace, 5/16/25

Wow, look at how angrily Mr. Wilson is sucking on that spoon in the background there, trying to get every particle and calorie that’s been permitted to him. He’s very hungry! He’s an old man, please just let him eat what he wants!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/16/25

Oh, so you think Rex Morgan, M.D., storylines are “boring” and “pointless” and “nothing ever exciting happens in them, why is this even in the newspaper?” Well, have you considered that if they were exciting, it would be very scary for the characters? Would you want to live in an exciting storyline? I didn’t think so!

138

Wednesday quickies

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Mary Worth, 5/14/25

Wilbur appears to be smiling guilelessly, but he has to know at some level that this conversation is not going great. That’s why he’s holding that muffin at the ready in the second panel. If Mary starts pressing him too hard, he can always lob it at her face and make a break for it in the confusion.

Marvin, 5/14/25

Wow, look at how genuinely upset Jenny’s dad is in the final panel here! A real important thing about the comic strip Marvin is that none of the characters in it like each other, despite the fact that most of them are related.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/14/25

“Hey ladies! I know you’ve been through some tough times … so do you want a murder truck? Don’t worry, I’m sure once you dig into the details you’ll find it’s the kind of murder you’d approve of.”