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Kudzu, 11/19/04

Ah, Kudzu, never afraid to take on the tough, controversial topics. See, the strip sometimes takes a break from beating up on strawman caricatures of left-wing ideas to poke a little fun at prominent right-wing figures. Presumably this is to kowtow to the all-powerful liberals who run all aspects of this country (except for the Presidency, the Congress, and, coming soon, most of the Supreme Court). Anyway, proving once again that she’s the most pointless and out-of-place character in this strip, the parakeet (whose name I cannot be bothered to look up) manages to baffle America’s comics readership by (a) having a cell phone and (b) somehow, and for some reason, giving its number to Bill O’Reilly. (The fact that Bill O’Reilly wants to talk dirty on the phone to a bird will, sadly, not baffle America’s comics readership.)

Anyway, I thought I’d put this punchline to better use than Kudzu’s making of it:

For more wholly inappropriate Family Circus recaptioning, check out Bob’s Family Circus over at martyz.com.

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Family Circus, 11/18/04

Seriously, though, I’m starting to worry about what’s going on in the Family Circus. My current theory: in a deliberate attempt to sabotage decades of wholesome goodwill, the artists will have it make progressively less and less sense, just to see how long it will take for people to start complaining. In six months, Billy will be wearing a dress and crawling around on his hands and knees shouting “I’M A TREE! I’M A TREE!”, while PJ just looks on and laughs and laughs.

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Mary Worth, 11/17/04

It’s now obvious that Mary Worth is an addict. She’s not addicted to crystal meth, like some people we could mention, of course. No, hers is a more psychological addiction. In today’s strip, we learn that Mary Worth is addicted to drama.

The King Features marketing blather about Mary Worth says “The reader is asked to remember that Mary Worth stories are not about Mary. They are about a continuing parade of people who enter Mary’s life.” You know: cranky old restaurateurs, violent English professors and the co-eds who love them, tweakers. This bit of ad copy glosses over an important fact, though: how does it just happen that all this fascinating human pageantry takes place in Mary’s apartment complex?

Now we see the truth: kindly old Mary Worth is really a Machiavellian puppet master, callously using her deep insights into human nature to manipulate her neighbors into deeply inadvisable courses of action. In today’s strip, Mary is urging one of her neighbors to go after a married man. There’s no other way to interpret this. Oh, sure, she’s covering her tracks with “not as a romantic pursuit,” but really, how many of you would receive a phone call from an old flame telling you that you were someone he or she “still cares and thinks about” and not think the worse (or best, depending on your point of view)? For God’s sake, look at her face! Look at the way she’s crossing her scheming fingers! She’s practically salivating at the thought of the romantic carnage she’s about to unleash! Oh, the shame!

Incidentally, here’s another fun line from the King Features site: “Contrary to popular belief, Mary Worth is not a continuation of the Depression Era favorite Apple Mary.” Never has the word “popular” been so sorely misused.