CSotD: Thought-free Monday
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We'll start the week with a bunch of apolitical comics that simply made me laff, starting with Zits, which has had Jeremy volunteering at the zoo this summer, a brilliant way to come up with a whole new bunch of dumb gags like this.
That's "dumb gags" in the best possible sense, of course.
I'm not sure how many zoos still have "petting zoo" areas, but back when I was a wee lad, there was a place in Lake Placid called "1,000 Animals" that pretty much encapsulated everything bad about old-school zoos. We loved it but I look back with horror at the place.
Today's Zits reminds me specifically of the fact that they had the vending machines that dispensed either Ry Krisp or kibble inside the deer/goats/llamas enclosure, which meant that all the animals crowded around jamming their noses into the slot where the stuff came out, and your role was to insert a quarter, turn the dial and stand back.
And if you did happen to get a Ry Krisp in hand, the llamas would swoop in among the goats and deer with their heads on a boom to snag it for themselves.
I'm told by llama enthusiasts that, while all llamas will spit partially digested first-gut cud at you if sufficiently provoked, the ones who do it most frequently are petting zoo rescues, which tells you a lot about how much they must enjoy their work there.
Last time I was at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, which is quite humane and progressive, you could still feed Ry Krisp to the giraffes, but only because their long necks and prehensile tongues allowed a gulf between people and animals that made all contact entirely the animals' option.
Giraffes are pretty mellow anyway, possibly because they know that, if you want to get funny, they can kick your ass into next Thursday with those powerful legs.
More nature notes
And Rubes hits a home run with this aliens/BigFoot combo, which also brings in a poop bag joke for the TriFecta. I don't think you could squeeze any more silliness into one panel.
There's potentially a serious rant in here about the impact of idiot-based television on our collective IQ, but maybe the solution is to point out the nitwittery.
Although the people you'd most like to reach would look upon this as an explanation, not mockery.
And kudos to Adam@Home simply for a camping gag that doesn't involve how scary and horrible and frightening it is to get 10 feet away from asphalt.
The "swearing at the equipment" gag is spot-on. I have picked up my father's penchant for grumbling at uncooperative inanimate objects, the difference being that he would stifle the actual obscenities and I am of a generation that doesn't.
I do wonder if the people who make tents collude with the people who make contour sheets for double beds, since there are always two lengths of telescoping poles and, just as you must start putting the sheet on the mattress in order to find out which way the damn thing fits, you also have to start threading poles through the slots before you can figure out which ones are for which part of the tent.
I don't know if the kids learn any nature lore by camping, but they can sure pick up some new vocabulary and a few lessons in anger management, or lack thereof.
Here's another award for avoiding shopworn gags: The Flying McCoys present the only lemming cartoon in recorded history that does not involve a cliff.
Yes, it's a stupid gag. You've caught onto today's topic, I see.
Anyway, lemmings don't really run over cliffs and waitresses only rarely serve them in beverages.
Glad he didn't ask for a squeeze of lemming.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Emoticons were a nice little development to solve the problem of adding intent to otherwise brief, dry text.
And then I think someone got them wet or fed them after midnight or something.
The original smile, wink and sad-face could add meaning and intent to an otherwise cryptic remark. They were a good alternative to writing an entire paragraph when a quick sentence with an emoticon would carry the freight.
As for "aggressive intent," I don't think there's an emoticon that can actually control your response to humor, sarcasm and irony, though I'd say having the Reply All girls come out against sarcasm is kind of like having Patsy and Edina doing promos to promote sobriety.
My issue with the emoticon explosion Parisi depicts is that the more you try to fine-tune them, the less they actually say. The various laughing faces and poops and others are like the earlier unnecessary extension of a simple LOL into ROTFL, ROTFLMAO and so on.
Something to say when you've got nothing to say. 😉
Historic Moment
(Tuesday, February 3, 1931)
(Wednesday, February 4, 1931)
Over at Comic Kingdom's Vintage collection, Thimble Theater has just hit the point where it added "starring Popeye" to the marquee.
This storyline, which began back here, also introduced the notion of romance between Castor Oyl's sister Olive and the aforementioned sailor man.
Watching this strip evolve has been fascinating, in large part, I think, because you kind of know how it's going to end but not how it's going to get there. The partnership of Castor Oyl and Popeye currently has a taste of Abbot and Costello mixed with George and Lenny, and I hope that adding Olive to the mix doesn't diminish that too quickly.
And, as another reason to pay so you can get Vintage cartoons, Buz Sawyer has now (1954) become a test pilot.
A few years earlier, Roy Crane had transitioned into a kind of military/administration salesman, which weakened his writing, but this new storyline anticipates "The Right Stuff," as Buz's wife Christy frets along with the other test pilots' wives over their husbands' safety.
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