If there were an “Awww…” tag, this strip would be a perfect candidate for it. It’s more sentimental than funny. Arlo is just worrying about becoming old and forgetful, and refers to the stereotypical trope of elderly married couples in which the partners look like one another.
I think he’s suggesting that it’s usually Janis who worries about locking the doors. So they’ve reached a part of the marriage where they’re starting to act alike. Since I don’t think Arlo is all that vain about his own looks, I guess he’s worried that Janis will start to look like him.
I think Arthur is right. But it’d be clearer if they *were* acting alike. Instead they are acting as though they switched roles. Which is fine in as it mean Arlo is acting like Janice and Janice like Arlo. Except this assumes we the reader realize and understand that it was Janice who usually worries and he who says she is fussy. Has that been well established in the past? Is there any reason we should assume it’s usually Janice who worries?
Kilby, there is indeed an “Awww” tag (though I’m not sure it’s been used since Comicgeddon.
woozy, I think it’s common in comics and sitcoms for the wife to worry about locking the doors and the husband to pooh-pooh it. It’s also common for the wife to make the husband get up and check.
I don’t know of Janis had done this, but it’s comicsland role reversal. And even if it hasn’t been done in A&J, you’re supposed to be aware of this trope.
“woozy, I think it’s common in comics and sitcoms for the wife to worry about locking the doors” That’s true but I was leaving unstated but implied to be sexist. And it isn’t clear and common enough and is *sexist* enough to not be entirely clear.
On the other hand regular readers are supposed Janices an Arlo’s personalities a little. If Arlo has a history of being lackadaisical Janice of being OCD then it could be acceptable that we are supposed to know. But it have helped if we had seen *this* behavior before. Still not clear to the casual ready. Also doesn’t Arlo have his obsessive streak. About different things…
I’m not sure if doppelgänger came up here, but it was Word of the Day quite recently on one of the lists sponsored by dictionaries.
The scarecrow in the wizard of oz talked about his croppelganger in one of those dumb far side ripoffs. That was about a month ago.
Arlo is fearful of Janis emasculating him, turning him into a woman. She has usurped the role of door checker he had once had. It is a masculine role in his mind. He is fearful he will be transformed into a woman.
In a vintage Blondie strip she sends Dagwood downstairs to investigate a noise. After a prolonged silence it turns out that Dagwood abandoned the search in favor of making a sandwich. Gasoline Alley just recently recycled the gag with Slim Skinner.
From an old Cosby show:
She: Did you lock the door?
He: Yes.
She: Are you sure?
He: Yes, I’m sure.
She: Are you really sure you locked the door.
He: Yes, I locked the door and then I piled up all the furniture in front of it.
She: Did you lock the door?
He: Yes. I also drugged you, so there’s no chance of you escaping.
Too soon?
That will ALWAYS be ‘too soon’.
@ lark – You switched the roles. If you had left the order as “He: Q?” & “She: A!”, then the sequence would have had a different effect. I still don’t think that Andréa would approve of it, but comparing the two versions reveals a lot about society’s ingrained moral standards.
Part 1 – I lock the doors. At home before we go to bed I check the kitchen door (fed the ted is the phrase used as the brass screw holes and the lock look like a teddy bear’s face), the stove (count off – 1,2, 3, 4, 5,6 – OFF), and I then look at the outlets used for the toaster oven and such (nothing plugged in). Strangely I don’t check the front door as we rarely use it.
In the RV I pick up the car keys and hit the lock button and listen to it lock. Then one of us will go out for some reason (generally to the “real” bathrooms”) and I will lock the doors again. Then before we go to sleep i look at the lock on the inside of the side door (the only one easily seen at night) to make sure it is locked – I will then generally push the button on the key fob again anyway.
Part 2 – Over 4 decades ago – Robert’s paternal grandfather died. We were dating at the time (for a couple of years). His parents and much younger sister were in France on a trip and his other grandparents were “babysitting” (ie. staying there to make sure i did not sleep over). So we went with his maternal grandparents to the wake as his family was in transit back home. (My first wake.) The assorted granduncles and grand aunts and distant cousins all decided that I was his sister as we looked alike.
Currently – we daily park the car at a local park and walk to the adjacent post office to check our box. We have been doing this for about 8 or 9 years. One of the park employees stopped us 2 years ago and said “sorry, but I have to ask. What are you?” We explained that we are husband and wife and now wave and say hello to her.
We are both short and “plump’. We both wear jeans every day. We both have long hair (his silver, mine mostly brown) . I guess we just match too well.
First week of his freshman year of college, somebody told my brother “You have to meet this girl n the third floor: she looks so much like you, you could be identical twins.”
Honestly I’m not sure that’s a persuasive recommendation for anybody, but anyway they were married a few years later.
Kilby: I think you missed the first line from Mark in Boston’s post that I was responding to…
@ Andréa – More like “too late“. If Samson had released that one 14 months earlier, he could at least have claimed to be celebrating the 30th anniversary of Astaire’s death. Or he could have waited seven months, and gone for the 120th anniversary of his birth.
P.S. Nuts. Forgot to close the italics.
Dark Side of the Horse: Not in bad taste enough. It’d get a shrug as not that funny, and maybe some people would silently curl their lips to themselves, but no-one would actively boo or shame him. Now had it be singing as good as prince that could be argued “too soon”.
I was actually so puzzled I had to wonder “Wait, was Fred Astaire alive recently? At over 100? I could have sworn he died when I was in my twenties.”
The Cosby rape joke is definitely not too soon and because it is topical its impact is best immediately. It’s just many (most?) people can’t stomach rape jokes. And even those who can stomach them acknowledge them as cynical and distasteful and angry (which is the entire *point* of them, I suppose).
Comics I Don't Understand 
If there were an “Awww…” tag, this strip would be a perfect candidate for it. It’s more sentimental than funny. Arlo is just worrying about becoming old and forgetful, and refers to the stereotypical trope of elderly married couples in which the partners look like one another.
I think he’s suggesting that it’s usually Janis who worries about locking the doors. So they’ve reached a part of the marriage where they’re starting to act alike. Since I don’t think Arlo is all that vain about his own looks, I guess he’s worried that Janis will start to look like him.
I think Arthur is right. But it’d be clearer if they *were* acting alike. Instead they are acting as though they switched roles. Which is fine in as it mean Arlo is acting like Janice and Janice like Arlo. Except this assumes we the reader realize and understand that it was Janice who usually worries and he who says she is fussy. Has that been well established in the past? Is there any reason we should assume it’s usually Janice who worries?
Kilby, there is indeed an “Awww” tag (though I’m not sure it’s been used since Comicgeddon.
woozy, I think it’s common in comics and sitcoms for the wife to worry about locking the doors and the husband to pooh-pooh it. It’s also common for the wife to make the husband get up and check.
I don’t know of Janis had done this, but it’s comicsland role reversal. And even if it hasn’t been done in A&J, you’re supposed to be aware of this trope.
“woozy, I think it’s common in comics and sitcoms for the wife to worry about locking the doors” That’s true but I was leaving unstated but implied to be sexist. And it isn’t clear and common enough and is *sexist* enough to not be entirely clear.
On the other hand regular readers are supposed Janices an Arlo’s personalities a little. If Arlo has a history of being lackadaisical Janice of being OCD then it could be acceptable that we are supposed to know. But it have helped if we had seen *this* behavior before. Still not clear to the casual ready. Also doesn’t Arlo have his obsessive streak. About different things…
I’m not sure if doppelgänger came up here, but it was Word of the Day quite recently on one of the lists sponsored by dictionaries.
The scarecrow in the wizard of oz talked about his croppelganger in one of those dumb far side ripoffs. That was about a month ago.
Arlo is fearful of Janis emasculating him, turning him into a woman. She has usurped the role of door checker he had once had. It is a masculine role in his mind. He is fearful he will be transformed into a woman.
In a vintage Blondie strip she sends Dagwood downstairs to investigate a noise. After a prolonged silence it turns out that Dagwood abandoned the search in favor of making a sandwich. Gasoline Alley just recently recycled the gag with Slim Skinner.
From an old Cosby show:
She: Did you lock the door?
He: Yes.
She: Are you sure?
He: Yes, I’m sure.
She: Are you really sure you locked the door.
He: Yes, I locked the door and then I piled up all the furniture in front of it.
She: Did you lock the door?
He: Yes. I also drugged you, so there’s no chance of you escaping.
Too soon?
That will ALWAYS be ‘too soon’.
@ lark – You switched the roles. If you had left the order as “He: Q?” & “She: A!”, then the sequence would have had a different effect. I still don’t think that Andréa would approve of it, but comparing the two versions reveals a lot about society’s ingrained moral standards.
Part 1 – I lock the doors. At home before we go to bed I check the kitchen door (fed the ted is the phrase used as the brass screw holes and the lock look like a teddy bear’s face), the stove (count off – 1,2, 3, 4, 5,6 – OFF), and I then look at the outlets used for the toaster oven and such (nothing plugged in). Strangely I don’t check the front door as we rarely use it.
In the RV I pick up the car keys and hit the lock button and listen to it lock. Then one of us will go out for some reason (generally to the “real” bathrooms”) and I will lock the doors again. Then before we go to sleep i look at the lock on the inside of the side door (the only one easily seen at night) to make sure it is locked – I will then generally push the button on the key fob again anyway.
Part 2 – Over 4 decades ago – Robert’s paternal grandfather died. We were dating at the time (for a couple of years). His parents and much younger sister were in France on a trip and his other grandparents were “babysitting” (ie. staying there to make sure i did not sleep over). So we went with his maternal grandparents to the wake as his family was in transit back home. (My first wake.) The assorted granduncles and grand aunts and distant cousins all decided that I was his sister as we looked alike.
Currently – we daily park the car at a local park and walk to the adjacent post office to check our box. We have been doing this for about 8 or 9 years. One of the park employees stopped us 2 years ago and said “sorry, but I have to ask. What are you?” We explained that we are husband and wife and now wave and say hello to her.
We are both short and “plump’. We both wear jeans every day. We both have long hair (his silver, mine mostly brown) . I guess we just match too well.
First week of his freshman year of college, somebody told my brother “You have to meet this girl n the third floor: she looks so much like you, you could be identical twins.”
Honestly I’m not sure that’s a persuasive recommendation for anybody, but anyway they were married a few years later.
Kilby: I think you missed the first line from Mark in Boston’s post that I was responding to…
Speaking of ‘too soon’ –
https://www.gocomics.com/darksideofthehorse/2018/10/02
@ Andréa – More like “too late“. If Samson had released that one 14 months earlier, he could at least have claimed to be celebrating the 30th anniversary of Astaire’s death. Or he could have waited seven months, and gone for the 120th anniversary of his birth.
P.S. Nuts. Forgot to close the italics.
Dark Side of the Horse: Not in bad taste enough. It’d get a shrug as not that funny, and maybe some people would silently curl their lips to themselves, but no-one would actively boo or shame him. Now had it be singing as good as prince that could be argued “too soon”.
I was actually so puzzled I had to wonder “Wait, was Fred Astaire alive recently? At over 100? I could have sworn he died when I was in my twenties.”
The Cosby rape joke is definitely not too soon and because it is topical its impact is best immediately. It’s just many (most?) people can’t stomach rape jokes. And even those who can stomach them acknowledge them as cynical and distasteful and angry (which is the entire *point* of them, I suppose).
Is it too soon for this?: https://youtu.be/SBDRwiSZSBg
(The Barbecue Sauce episode of The Cosby Show)