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Gil Thorp, 2/15/12

Ah, yes, Dirty Girl, a 2010 film that stars up-and-coming indie darling Juno Temple and had a bit of buzz going into the festival circuit, but got disappointing reviews and ended up going more or less straight to video! I’m sure that when Gil pops it into his DVD player later tonight he won’t be confused and angry and ultimately disappointed at all.

Slylock Fox, 2/15/12

Say, kids, rabbits sure are cute, aren’t they? Let’s learn some fun facts about their shitting and puking and sex lives, and about how their teeth are growing, always growing, which instills in them a primal and insatiable urge to bite bite bite.

Apartment 3-G, 2/15/12

Tommie and Margo have never experienced joy, but in their dim way can detect it in others. “Is this the ‘happiness’ we’ve heard so much about? I believe the hu-mans call it … ‘vacation.'”

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Pluggers, 2/5/12

I’m more than a little embarrassed to admit how much time I spent trying to figure out this Pluggers. Was there some site in the Belgian Ardennes where part of the Battle of the Bulge took place that had a name that sounded vaguely like “à la mode?” Eventually I figured out that it was just a dumb pun on “Alamo” because pluggers have only the vaguest sense of history, but know they saw something about couple o’ battles on the History Channel once, and also they eat ice cream compulsively. I HATE YOU MORE THAN EVER PLUGGERS.

Panel from Mary Worth, 2/5/12

One of Mary Worth’s sinister missions is to present brief quotes from radicals and weirdos in an attempt to make them seem bland and unthreatening. Today’s epigraph comes from a parallel universe where John Lennon wasn’t assassinated but instead took up a new career as a corporate motivational speaker.

Panels from Slylock Fox, 2/5/12

Oh look, the snowman is frowning because its very body is liquifying! It’s sad because it’s helpless to prevent its own horrible death, plus there’s some kind of monstrous demon-thing on its head grinning maniacally as it crumbles. This is a whimsical cartoon for children!

Apartment 3-G, 2/5/12

Ha ha, I’m really loving the way that Apartment 3-G, despite its dated aesthetics, is embracing America-in-decline’s warped values. “Whatever, Tommie, I guess saving lives and helping bring new babies into the world is just soooo important that you don’t have the time to churn out some forgettable pop hits that could make you and the multinational conglomerate bankrolling you a crapload of money. I’m not mad, just disappointed.”

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Mary Worth, 1/30/12

For far, far too long we Mary Worth trufans have been denied the Charterstone Pool Party that is our due. And now, it seems, we’re getting one with a vengeance. People lounging around in various hideously colored and patterned outfits? Check! A lonely Wilbur loading up a plate with earth-toned blobs of food-esque material? Check! Mary and Toby furiously gossiping about Nola Wolverson, well known local sex-hussy? You’d better believe that’s a check!

Even better than Mary and Toby sniping about what a whore Nola is (what sort of woman with a boyfriend would try to steal another woman’s husband? everyone knows that’s a single gal’s prerogative!), and indeed even better than Toby’s delusional belief that someone, anyone, might actually try to steal Ian from her, is the fact that Nola’s man-hunting actually refers back to one of the greatest plotlines in recent memory, The Erotic Adventures of Delilah. Delilah almost strayed from her marital vows before she realized that sex was gross, and so she got back together with Lawrence, culty motivational speaker husband and made a baby with him instead. Good times! Anyway, as much fun as it would be to delve back into Delilah and Lawrence’s sexual psychodrama, I hope the real direction of this next storyline involves Toby’s doubts about her own marriage, since nothing could be as delightful as the Camerons in emotional turmoil.

Slylock Fox, 1/30/12

My God, can you imagine the moral dilemmas that confront an exterminator in a world of sentient animals? And this guy’s a rat, so half the time people are probably paying him to massacre his own relatives. Presumably he found the offending bats and told them, “Look, the squirrel downstairs wants you dead, I don’t know why! Clear out as fast you can, I’ll feed her some bull about eggs or something. Just go! GO!” But no, Slylock is here to impose the iron-clad Law of the Wild: You take someone’s money to murder someone, you’d damn well better murder them.

Funky Winkerbean, 1/30/12

You’d think, with all the complaining I do about it, that I’m 100% opposed to modern-day Funky Winkerbean’s weird vibe, where the current depressing, realistic mood is slathered over a base layer of cheerful wackiness. You’d be wrong, though! I do occasionally like the strange tonal mismatch that results. For instance, our “wacky neighbor” character here (he is actually named ‘Crazy’) says something silly that in zany-world would get a laugh from the audience, but instead our redheaded waitress recoils in confusion and distaste, just as someone would in real life.

Dennis the Menace, 1/30/12

Now I know what you’re thinking: There’s literally no way to be less menacing than by helping your mom do the dishes when she asks you to, right? Oh, I don’t know, I’m guessing that the conversation before dad showed up went something like this: “Sure, mom, I’d love to help you do the dishes. It always seems like you’re doing them yourself. Why doesn’t dad ever help? Mostly he just watches TV after dinner, but how important can TV shows really be?” BAM. The seeds of discord are planted. Advantage: Dennis.