CSotD: Saturday Morning Cartoons
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Constant Readers know how I sneer at talk about Gen X and Gen Y and all that.
The Baby Boom was about a large number of kids coming at roughly the same time after WWII, and there are demographic ideas to be pulled from it. The other day, I was remembering a news article I read in the ’80s about how the graying of that bulge would call for things like sneakers with more support, plus an increased need for health workers. And here we are.
But that’s a marketing issue, mostly based on the size of that particular group, and largely on what they need, and only on what they like in the sense that there have always been orthopedic shoes, but the new wave of elders wouldn’t want those clunky Frankenstein shoes, so Nike and Converse needed to, pardon the phrase, step up.
However, it’s bad marketing to break things into decades, as Ruben Bolling pointed out several years ago. For example, my sister is three years older than me, and came of age in the Beach Blanket era of pop music, while the British Invasion hit when I was just becoming a teen, giving us very different tastes in music.
I like, however, that Mary Lou leads off by predicting that the baby will be a Sagittarius, because, while there are things you can say about that type of person, even believers in astrology think going by sun signs is nonsense.
Bright marketers and demographers feel the same way about those pop-culture generational categories.
Here’s another episode in Susan’s career crisis. I hope Savreen will talk her into calling that company back and asking to be hired after all, not because of the stock offer but because I don’t think she and Harvey need the extra income nearly as much as she needs a job that won’t kill her soul.
But the stock thing made me laugh, because that was most of the compensation at my first post-divorce job, which was silly but I was desperate. It was a start-up in which they would mail out a monthly catalog listing the videotaped movies they had, so customers could have them delivered like pizzas.
Yes — Blockbuster, only they delivered.
I wrote three reviews per month for the catalog, and got the loan of both a machine and all the movies I wanted, plus stock in a company that went belly-up in less than a year.
But I got to keep the VCR, which would have cost about $300 if I’d had to buy it, and that’s nearly the equivalent of a grand today.
Maybe Susan could get them to throw in a new washing machine or something.
Juxtaposition of the Day
What makes the Other Coast such fun is that Adrian Raeside clearly spends a lot of time thinking about animals, and his dog strips are particularly good at reflecting canine traits.
Herding dogs come in two flavors: “Heelers” that follow behind the cattle or sheep, nipping at them to get them to move, and “Strong Eye” dogs that get in front and move them by intense staring.
Border collies are strong-eye dogs, and if you’ve ever seen one just playing fetch, you’ve likely seen The Stare. It’s very effective at intimidating sheep, which is why sheep rarely eat at border collie restaurants.
Paul Noth — who, BTW, is compiling a book as we speak — clearly spends a lot of time thinking about political behavior, and his best cartoons reflect it. I really wish his cartoon weren’t so funny, because the world would be a much nicer place if it wasn’t so applicable.
Another dog cartoon, but this one about hunters, not herders. A friend who had had a succession of Brittanys with which he hunted rabbits told me that good hunters stop and wait while their dog relieves itself.
The reason is that, if you keep walking, the dog will learn to run ahead when he feels the urge to go, so he doesn’t get left behind. The result is that any birds or rabbits he flushes will be out of range.
It’s a good idea for any off-leash walking, since staying close helps you maintain better control.
And if the idea of hunting rabbits didn’t put you off, this cartoon ought to do the trick.
I’ve always been a firm believer that omnivores should take more responsibility for their food choices, but this isn’t quite what I had in mind.
Back when then-wife and I were contemplating going back to the land, I mentioned that rabbits are prolific and delicious and she very quickly assured me that Thumper was not going to be on the menu.
Thank god Disney never made a movie about lobsters.
Tom Toro — who BTW has a book coming out in October — is another cartoonist with a sharp eye for work that I could readily use either in these humor collections or in political wrap-ups.
In this case, Dear Leader is so deeply jammed into the pocket of the petroleum industry that he has ordered cancellation of a nearly completed major wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island, which not only increases our long-term reliance on old-school generation efforts, but will cost 2,500 jobs.
The company building that project is based in Denmark, because we haven’t done enough yet to piss off the Danes.
For matter, we haven’t done enough to piss off each other. Trump ran on a promise to lower the cost of living, but both food prices and, as seen here, electricity prices have continued to climb.
One of the main benefits of being a cult leader is that you aren’t required to live up to your promises. The pigeons are convinced that life will become fabulous any day now.
Looking things up on Bing is pointless: It’s like those late-night comedy bits where they go out on the street to compile interviews by questioning the stupidest people they can find.
I’ve compared Bing to this clip before, because I’m convinced that the Microsoft genius that came up with it had watched SNL and been inspired:
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