CSotD: The wearing of shades is optional
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You can count on Richard Thompson to take a look at a common element of parenting and come up with an answer that's half absurdity and half sly insight.
The humor in Cul de Sac comes with a bit of bite to it, bringing forth a response of "HAHAHAHA … oh …" which is why the strip has more staying power.
By which I mean, a pie in the face is funny, but, a minute and a half later, you're on to the next strip. An awful lot of comic strips deliver pie in the face, and that's fine. I like seeing people get hit in the face with pies.
With Cul de Sac, though, you're apt to start to go on to the next strip but then stop, go back and read it again, not because you didn't get it the first time around, but because you're not sure you got it all. It's like picking a spare rib back up to nibble at that one little bit that's still on the bone.
In this case, much of the joke proceeds from the fact that there is something sad about Petey, which puts him in considerable contrast to, say, Calvin.
Both kids are very bright, but Calvin rejoices in how far out of the mainstream he is, while Petey recognizes it without particularly rejoicing. And so his dad may be right, but the joke is that no husband outside of a comedy setting would share that bit of insight with his wife.
The strip reminded me of a Mad magazine piece from the early 60s, which sent me to the bookshelf. The writer was Don Reilly, the artist Bob Clarke, and here are two samples from the bit, which was subtitled "Great Oafs From Little Acorns Grow Dept."
Of course, we have nothing invested in these kids — they're one-offs created for this particular gag. We care about Petey.
On the other hand, it's worth observing that (1) hermits who know some weird random thing may be perfectly happy even if they never get on a game show though especially if they do, and (2) there are college professors who would qualify as hermits who know some weird random thing, so we're not debating a great spread of fates here.
(I don't mean the college professors who read this blog. I was referring to their colleagues.)
The other thing is that, in the abstract, we'd all like our kids to be popular, good-looking, academically successful, reasonable athletic and generally not just accomplished but acknowledged.
In reality, we — and they, let us not forget — have to play the cards that are dealt, and you don't often get a royal flush dealt right to you, or even enough of the right cards to take a gamble on filling it on the draw.
And the difference between poker hands and little kids is shown in the Mad magazine feature: You really don't know what you've been dealt until it's too late to ask for more cards.
Petey's not Wally Cleaver and he probably won't take Maryellen Rogers to prom, but the fact that he cares so much about shoebox dioramas and his cartooning shows that he's got something going on. And that's about all a parent can hope for: that there's something their kid gets excited about.
And that's actually quite a bit.
Today's Cul de Sac also made me think of Granada Television's brilliant "Up" series, which is a series of documentaries that has followed and profiled a group of British school children, starting with "7 Up," then finding and profiling them again every seven years, the latest installment being "49 Up."
I hadn't seen it since "28 Up," and am delighted, in this trailer, to see that the nice kid who had ended up homeless at that point had, by 42, come back into the world and found something to turn his talents to.
As will Petey. He's a good kid. And, if he wants to be a hermit, that's fine, as long as he's the best hermit he can be, and knows the most wonderful weird random things ever. (What? Too much pressure?)
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