What Type of Stereo Would You Like?

This Baby Blues joke depended on knowing that Wanda wanted to get out of the house because she's a mom, defined by being in the house all day, chained to the stove or where ever it is the Dad wants her to be. To get the joke, each of the others have to label themselves so you will understand the stereotype. Hammie is a "kid", so he likes toys, but Zoe is a "girl"; girls like specific, gender appropriate toys.

If we're going with generalizations, let's at least be honest.

Darryl: I liked the young mothers, particularly those whose breasts were swollen with milk.
Wanda: I appreciated you letting me out of the house other than to schlep the kids to school or soccer or a birthday party. I am so grateful to you that I didn't mind lugging the baby and the diaper bag and watching out for our kids because you were too busy staring at the young mothers, particularly those whose breasts were swollen with milk. You are dead meat when we get home.

For better or Worse is now in reruns, and recently looked back on those days of misguided women's liberationists:

That's it, John, let her know her proper place so that a generation later, Darryl can feel free to keep Wanda housebound and spend his time staring at the young mothers, particularly those whose breasts were swollen with milk.

Suicide is Painless

Saturday brought a depressing, winter, seasonal affective disorder theme to the comics.
In "Dennis the Menace", Henry Mitchell has just spun out on the ice-covered, quiet residential street. Since we know that Alice is the one who always wrecks the car (because she's a woman) we know this is Henry's deliberate, murder/suicide attempt. He had hoped to smash into something, anything and end this tortured existence with Dennis the Menace. He and his wife are clearly despondent at his failure, as Dennis still shouts in their ears. Meanwhile, on the sidewalk, a neighbor stood in place as the car careened toward him, doing adonut but just missing him (Henry failing again). The man was hoping ... hoping that the car would crush him because he cannot take another winter of shovelling away the mounds of snow the snowplows must have left, only to have his wife drag their daughter along the walk he's trying to clear - the daughter he knows will soon be a victim of this hellion, Dennis, who terrorizes the neighborhood.


In "Zits", Jeremy, sick of his mother's perpetual optimism in the face of a world sinking deeper into chaos, feigns a suicide attempt. In the background Walt is carrying out the real thing. He has the light cord around his neck and has knocked the ladder aside; we see his legs flailing helplessly as he struggles for air. Unfortunately, neither his wife nor his son cares enough to turn and see what he is gurgling about. And so we await Sunday's comic for the start of life without daddy in Zits.
These two tragic scenes made me think of John Prine's song "Souvenirs" (written by Steve Goodman).

All the snow has turned to water
Christmas day has come and gone
Broken toys and faded colors
Are all that's left to linger on.

Here is a video of it - Prine's throat in this is till ravaged by cancer surgery and his voice is rough and changed, which makes it all the more poignant to go with the sad theme of today's comics.

Mr. Potter Would Love It

If you read today’s Dinette Set comic, you have dismissed it as not one of the best. If so, you missed the joke. On the surface, Julie Larson has led you to believe that the humor is to be found in contrasting Dale’s idiotic purchase of a large Christmas tree with Timmy sagacious selection of “one big present … or the cash equivalent”. However, thinking a little deeper, you realize that Timmy’s grandma knows it is Santa who determines what the present is, not Timmy; she is cruelly exploiting the boy’s genetically underdeveloped intellect and trauma induced retardation for her own amusement. Though the habitual child abuse by Timmy’s grandparents, which undermines his mental development, is a continuing theme of Larson’s “humor”, that is not the real joke today. You may have noticed Burl’s holiday sweatshirt, which reads: “I stole LuLu’s petals”, making reference to the classic movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”, in which the Bailey family waif has a beloved rose that has lost two petals. The petals become the talisman providing George Bailey his tenuous connection back to his real life. The idea of stealing the poor child’s petals and, moreover, her father’s life, extends the hilarious child abuse theme, but, again, that is not the real joke. If you remember the movie, or read the information in the link, you know that the girl’s name is Zuzu, not Lulu. You may think that Larson has made an error but, no, the wrong name is intentional. Burl obviously bought the sweatshirt at the Crustwood WalMart, who purchased their stock of holiday sweatshirts from China. You know this because you know that the impoverished, exploited factory workers in China do not celebrate Christmas, they don’t know what “It’s a Wonderful Life” is or who Zuzu is and they wouldn’t know that the American name “Lulu” has only one capital “L”, not two. What Burl has done is help WalMart take away American jobs, destroy our economy and lead us to the point where Timmy will be lucky to get even one small present. So, it is not Timmy, it is not Dale, it is Burl who is the real “blockhead” and THAT is the joke in today’s strip. I laugh every time I look at it.

Women Are From Mars

I am NOT turning this into the Dinette Set Curmudgeon but I couldn't ignore today's comic. Even more uncomfortable than Dale's dislocated elbow yesterday is weightlifter guy's dislocated head today. In the second panel he turns his head all the way to the left to look at the "chicks" standing to his right. More awkward than Burl accosting the man in yesterday's comic is the chicks possessiveness today toward the exercise ball and their creepy demand that Jerry "hop off and spray it off." Ewwwww...I think. But the real problem I have with today's comic is the women have no reflection in the mirror in the second panel. The joke is based on the fact that Jerry can not see them in the mirror, which makes no sense...unless the women are actually vampire women from Mars. I suggest this because Earth vampires never have a reflection but Martians can appear and disappear at will*, suggesting that Martian vampires can control their reflections.
*(I base this on my knowledge of "Uncle Martin", a Martian who crashed on Earth and lived among us with his secret known only Tim O'Hara. Based on TV shows of my childhood, half the people in the 60s were living with someone "different-from-us" - a Martian, a witch, a talking horse, a woman reincarnated as a car - and hiding that condition from everyone. Hilarity always ensued. This formula was copied later by Mork and Mindy and then by the Laura Bush sitcom where she lives in the White House with a man comically attempting to hide the fact he has no brain.)

Dining Out

I enjoy the Comics Curmudgeon but he tends to focus on comics which are consistently worthy of mocking and misses the flawed exceptions to generally funny comics. In today's "Dinette Set", the joke is confounding and the artwork is disturbing. Has Dale interlocked elbows with a strange man who is peeved by that action or has Dale merely dislocated his own elbow? Is Burl hugging the strange man or merely putting his arm down the man's pants? I am grateful to Julie Larson for having Burl and Dale state each other's name in the conversation. I am am sure the charcters are often as uncertain of who is who in this strip as I am. I do like the strip, especially the signs and memos in the backgrounds of the frames. But I don't get the joke at all today. I guess I am a ding-a-ling! Huh, reader? Can someone please explain it to me?