CSotD: Real Life Misadventures
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We’ll start with this punning riff on Liberty Mutual’s Lemu Emu and Doug spots, which people love to hate. The company may have set itself up for abuse with their earlier, awful commercials, particularly the young woman mourning her old car “Brad,” but I think this series is amusing and occasionally funny. Not as witty, certainly, as anything Progressive has done, but not bad.
The pushback from viewers reminds me of a blue-jeans store in Colorado that did Crazy Eddie-style commercials everybody hated. Their spokesman would dress up in silly costumes and, with his partner, scream prices and throw blue jeans, and when I had open lines on my talk show, people would often call in to say how much they hated the commercials.
So I brought him in as a guest and we got crickets. The few people who dared to call in complained a little, but then admitted they’d bought jeans from him, and the show turned into a tame but interesting discussion of advertising and marketing. He knew his game and I’d been in TV advertising a few years earlier.
Tame, then, except that we had set up a bit which called for a triggering phrase, which he dropped when the woman whose show ran after mine came in to do her usual promo. He interrupted her and included the phrase, so I told him to shut up, he yelled at me, I yelled at him, we yelled at each other, I ordered him out, he stormed out of the studio and I thought she was going to have a heart attack. One of the real highlights of my brief career in radio.
A couple of years after that, the store began running normal commercials and promptly went out of business. That’ll learn ya.
Another adventure from my past, this one triggered by an incident in which Kelly Clarkson was told by a store clerk that they had some other things she might like, with an implication that she couldn’t afford the fancy piece she was examining. Ms. Clarkson, who could have bought the shop 10 times over, went on line to complain and things degenerated from there.
I used to collect Victorian boys’ novels, G.A. Henty in particular, and a trip to Denver always included stopping by an antiquarian book store. On one of these forays, I found about two dozen of his books, mostly first editions, on the counter and asked about them. The clerk said they hadn’t been fully examined yet, but I asked for an estimate and he insisted they would be quite expensive and so weren’t for sale and made it quite clear that the conversation was ended.
I went to the store next door, where my GF was looking at art, and told her what had happened, then explained to the proprietor that I’d just sold my house and had a substantial amount of money in the bank. I gather she told the bookstore owner, who guessed correctly what collector his clerk had stiffed, because when I got home, there was a message on my machine, and I obtained the expensive-but-worth-it collection.
If the snobs who dissed Clarkson had any brains, they might have achieved the same happy ending.
Excellent piece by Steve Sack, riffing on how Trump insists everyone loves him despite his having approval ratings in the cellar and candidates in his own party ducking his endorsement.
Both Pepe and Trump are convinced of their desirability despite unmistakable messages to the contrary. Sack captures the postures and expressions of all involved, and it’s a masterful comparison.
Now try this mental exercise: Imagine if a cartoonist instead drew Trump as James Bond, romancing a lovely, compliant woman.
Pepe has been banished for the very reason he existed, while Bond — in his Roger Moore persona — seems off-putting today with his double-entendres and constant, promiscuous advances, though, in his Daniel Craig incarnation, he is much more down to business and prone to actually falling in love.
Maybe Pepe should have been a one-off like Michigan Frog, great once but not a gag that sustained enough to justify sequels.
But there are people who still think of old-school Bond as a great lover, and of 48-year-old Animal House as a still funny movie, and of Dear Leader as having deserved a sequel.
It’s the same the whole world over, and while there are elections coming in the US, they’re also approaching in a number of other countries, including South Africa, where Madam & Eve remind us that all politics are local.
That’s about more than potholes, though voters in nations with parliamentary systems are voting for their local representatives, who will form the national government. They know who the leadership is and it’s a factor in their choices, but even in a system like ours, we have elections determined not by international relations but by the price of eggs last time around and the price of gas this year.
Even if those little things are caused by far larger issues, it’s day to day life that most people bring to the polls.
Shameful Juxtaposition of the Day
Zyglis drew this cartoon in 2024, part of the portfolio that won him the 2025 National Headliner Award. It stands well without further analysis, but I particularly appreciated it as a single dad, because, while all parents share the responsibility it cites, there’s an extra stress added when you are the daily role model.
Which means I was doubly appalled at this slop thievery which has been all over social media lately, often posted by political groups, not just thoughtless individuals who don’t notice the lack of signature, a hint that it’s stolen merchandise.
I bet that if some local political group asked, Zyglis would let them use his cartoon to encourage voting, though it would be nice if they’d offer him a few bucks as well. And I hope whatever unethical jackass ran his original piece through AI wasn’t paid for the theft.
And, as a father — single or not — I can’t help being offended that they pointlessly changed that part of the message.
MALCOLM: Dispute it like a man.
MACDUFF: I shall do so; But I must also feel it as a man.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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