Why would a photo of Lassie attract them, even if they knew Lassie was actually played by a series of Laddies?
Seems to me it would make more sense for him to use a photo of Rin Tin Tin — or even Scooby Doo.
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Comics I Don't Understand 
RTT is WAAAY too macho; Scooby Doo is WAAAY too cartoonish. Laddie is what I’d call a metrosexual dog . . .
It’s all about the cheddar, son. Lassie is a household name, rich and famous. Bitches are into guys with cash.
Theory: Rin tin tin would be a geezer alert, and we all know comic artists are current and hep with it.
I don’t think Lassie, despite the name, is thought of as female. And even if the character is supposed to be female the actor is not and Grimm was passing the photo off as his own. And Lassie is a good looking dog. Certainly better looking than Scooby-Doo who is ugly. If you are going to pass off celebrity photos as your own you aren’t going to use Steve Buscemi’s.
And is “Comic that has a logic flaw that makes the humor not actually work” actually the same thing as “Comic I don’t understand”?
“If you are going to pass off celebrity photos as your own you aren’t going to use Steve Buscemi’s.”
GREAT comment (also great actor, but still . . .).
In the book “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies”, they had a dog named Ladadog. Which I thought was an odd name. Later I found out that it was from a series of stories about a Collie named Lad, collected into a book called “Lad, A Dog”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lad,_A_Dog
I think Ladadog was an English Sheepdog, not a Collie.
Probably has to do with copyright (Scooby Doo) or age (Rin Tin Tin is too old to be known at large anymore). I should think “Toto” might work.
That’s my breed!! I have five of ’em . . .
Toto was a girl, tho . . .
Woozy, it’s not a “Comic that has a logic flaw that makes the humor not actually work” until it’s no longer a “Comic I don’t understand.”
And second, “plain-looking male celebrity with beautiful wife” is so common that it seems odd when it ISN’T true. I bet both Steve Buscemi and Scooby Doo have very attractive mates.
beckoningchasm, I don’t think copyright is much of a factor in this sort of strip: if it were, Mike Peters and Doug Bratton would be cellmates.
Lassie had a TV show where (s)he had a stable and loving family. Success + desirable qualities, plus not bad looking, as such things go.
The reason Lassie was played by males is that female border collies don’t tend to have the same impressive ‘mane’ the males do. So Lassie is, in universe, a rather butch bitch. (Pun is too good not to risk moderation.) And the actor is a very manly man.
And I don’t think Scooby-Doo is ‘plain’, as dogs go. 1) He’s had so many girlfriends over the years (ranging from scruffy mutts to foofy purebreds), so he’s clearly got something going for him. It could be all his personality, but…’skittish with a big appetite’ is not usually a ‘get past the fugly’ type. 2) He’s a pretty solid example of a healthy Great Dane, within the limits of the cartoon style.
So does William H. Macy.
Lassie/Laddie were Rough Collies, not Border Collies.
Huh. Why did I get the breed mixed up?
Maybe ’cause Border Collies are becoming more popular than Rough Collies. In fact, I doubt many people know there are two Collie breeds – ROUGH Collies and SMOOTH Collies – that have basically the same coloring.
I thought there were basically two almost completely different classes of collies, now; one branch has been bred for looks, resulting in gorgeous dogs like Lassie, and the other has been bred for brains and working ability, resulting in dogs who are butting up on abstract reasoning capacity. Not that gorgeous collies aren’t smart, or smart collies aren’t beautiful, but the focus has been different. Rough collies and border collies don’t look anything alike.
@Woozy – Lassie is referred to using female pronouns on the show. What gender the dog considered itself to be is information I could not locate.
I was surprised to learn that the show ran for 19 seasons! That’s a lot of wells for Timmy to fall down…
“I bet both Steve Buscemi and Scooby Doo have very attractive mates.”
Don’t know about Scooby Doo but I once helped Steve Buscemi’s wife set up an Artist in Residency at the local science museum some 32 years ago or so. She was very creative and had a wicked sense of humor.
Rough collies (what lassie is) with thick coats is one of several types of show collies but there are smooth a. Border collies are the working type. I had heard that males are easier to train but that’s obviously false.
I always laugh at how intelligent border collies are supposed to be because my border collie was…. well, she was sweet. Okay, she would duck if you threw a frisbee at her but ….
“And I don’t think Scooby-Doo is ‘plain’, as dogs go.”
The hardest part of asking a girl out is… actually walking up to her, talking to her, and asking her out. Scooby’s one of the only Great Danes who can talk, so he’s got a BIG head start.
Buscemi’s wife is Jo Andres. They’ve been married 30 years. I’d say she’s reasonably attractive.
Now I’ve an urge to watch ‘Fargo’ . . .
I don’t know about Scooby Doo’s mate, but he has a very attractive cousin, Scooby Dee.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiMr4vzwP3eAhUCr4MKHeUiDyEQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscoobydoo.wikia.com%2Fwiki%2FScooby-Dee&psig=AOvVaw3ZArWdoJCbhKcDT05X9XsF&ust=1543715065567459
@Andrea “Now I’ve an urge to watch ‘Fargo’ . . .”
I recently rented “The Death of Stalin”, definitely a black comedy but I liked it a lot. Steve Buscemi plays Nikita Khrushchev.
Rotten Tomatoes ratings: 96% and 77%
Dog shows are one of the staple formats of the 1950s that seem to have disappeared. There was Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, and also Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, with his dog King. Now, like westerns and variety shows, shows with dogs as main characters seem to have departed — I can’t think of any offhand.
“Steve Buscemi plays Nikita Khrushchev”
Now, there’s a stretch. I’ll have to see if I can get it from our library.
Don’t forget Cleo of ‘The People’s Choice’.
Mentioning a character’s name can’t possibly be a copyright violation in itself. (If you do it while quoting something impermissibly of course that’s a violation.) It isn’t even a trademark violation in general.
MiB – Scooby’s most recent love interest is Nova from Mystery, Inc. (She died in the last episode, and then the universe got rebooted.)
Brian in STL: I’d agree. She’s a nice looking lady for someone her age. The real surprise, as I have not been keeping myself informed on the matter, is that Mr. Buscemi seems to have improved with ages.
zbicyclist: Watched trailer of ‘Death of Stalin’ on youtube, and found this that might interest you:
The Death of Stalin really disturbed me: the subject matter is just so horrible that I couldn’t maintain a jaded detachment; the horror of what was being depicted totally overwhelmed my ability to laugh at it. I recognize that as black humor, it is very well done, but it left me feeling massively disturbed and depressed.
Andréa says: Don’t forget Cleo of ‘The People’s Choice’.
How nice, that somebody else remembers that fairly obscure fifties comedy!
The episode I remember as the first one I saw involved them forming some kind of band or acting troupe, which he called “Cleo, Sock, and Mandy”. When Mandy saw the signs with that name, she was upset. I didn’t for a while catch on that Cleo was the dog and Mandy, the girlfriend (or secret wife!), didn’t like having the last billing, and below the dog.
Also this show was the occasion for one of those moments I’m sure we have discussed somewhere on CIDU, when you read something on public social media that you wrote, and don’t recognize that fact at first. My IMDB comment on this show is still there! Recently I looked up the show and was reading the user comments, and on a certain disputed point that was mentioned in a couple of those reviews, I read this one and thought “Yeah, this guy has got it right!” … And took a minute to realize it was me.
@Andrea: Thanks for the History Buffs link. This was 45 minutes well spent!
Mitch4: We were discussing the comic, ‘Cleo & Company’ on another thread – http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=cscwy
zbicyclist & larK: I, too, thought it well done. Not so sure now that I want to see the movie, tho, but as it’s in transit to my library, I’ll try it. At least I may have a shot (sorry) at understanding what’s going on.
“Cleo, Sock, and Mandy” was probably based on the 1950’s puppet show “Kukla, Fran, and Ollie” in which Fran, the human one, got middle billing.
And THAT, methinks, is a ChicagoLand reference . . .
Andréa, are you saying Kukla, Fran and Ollie is a Chicago reference?
Yes, as with Garfield Goose, I think they came out of – and were seen – mostly in the Midwest.
I don’t know where the originated, but they were on my New York television.
From Wikipedia: Burr Tillstrom was the creator and only puppeteer on the show, which premiered as the hour-long Junior Jamboree locally on WBKB in Chicago, Illinois, on October 13, 1947. The program was renamed Kukla, Fran and Ollie (KFO) and transferred to WNBQ (the predecessor of Chicago’s WMAQ-TV) on November 29, 1948. The first NBC network broadcast of the show took place on January 12, 1949. It aired from 6–6:30 p.m. Central Time, Monday through Friday from Chicago.
Garfield Goose and Bozo the Clown are also Chicago ‘natives’.
Before my time but in my youth Kukla, Fran and Ollie were treated as though they were one of the epitomes of the 50s, along with Davy Crockett, Howdy Dowdy and the hula hoop. I only saw them once in the 70s when a local TV channel was banking and failing on being able to hype a generation to nostalgia, but I got the impression they were well known.
Garfield Goose… not so much.
What area of the country were you living in?
I’m mostly referring to references in magazines and books which, I suppose, were mostly published in New York. But I’ a lifelong Californian.
This was my first exposure to Kukla, Fran, and Ollie below. I had to ask about it but *EVERY* adult, in California in 1972, I knew was able to explain it to me (I think even my pop cultural illiterate california native mother knew it). And of course after my first exposure I heard reference to it every where.
.
There’s Garfield, in the lower righthand corner!
“There’s Garfield, in the lower righthand corner!”
Where? Isn’t that Kukla and Ollie?
Yep, you’re right – I got carried away!!
Watched Kukla, Fran and Ollie in NYC in the mid 1950s and I always had the impression it was from NY from my dad – ah, another thing he got wrong (amazing how they don’t show up ’til he’s gone).
Not all attractions are based on looks. Sense of humor, intelligence, celebrity, even – yes – money, dog ownership, cat ownership, car, house… are attractions. Not sure if I told this here – when I was dating Robert my mom commented to me on how good looking he was. I was shocked. It had never occurred to me that he was good looking (late 1960s long hair, a bit chubby – good looking?) We had fun together and similar likes in music, movies, etc. He had a good sense of humor and our values seemed to be same (never marry a girl with his sister’s values). He was polite. He took care of me, when it snowed during the day he would have me sit in my car while he cleared the snow off it for me. He respected me as a person with a brain and physically. Good looking did not even occur to me.
‘MG&G’ seems to have a ‘thing’ for Lassie . . .
https://www.arcamax.com/thefunnies/mothergooseandgrimm/s-2154439