Some folks in the western states put longhorns on the front of their car. But what the wreath means ? Christmas ?
“Do-de-do-dooo….Oh crap! I’ve got a cartoon due in twenty minutes! What do I have I can pull out of the drawer? Hmmm…how about this one I drew when I was super drunk?”
Are they driving a Ford Taurus?
(hey, *someone* had to ask….)
I like to pretend the bull in the middle back is facing the wrong way.
Okay, I’ve seen people put wreaths on the grill of Mercedes. And longhorns on the grill of trucks. And at xmas time as a gesture of goodwill we don’t kill and dehorn the steer but offer them a lift as we’re heading that way anyway and….
…okay, is there a caption missing because….
A bull fighter car pooling with the bulls?
My take is the same as Grawlix’s.
Incidentally, it was the custom for professional wrestlers to carpool between gigs, often with heels and faces who were allegedly blood enemies sharing such rides. So to me the undercurrent here is that “Bullfights are also ‘sports entertainment’ things, where the outcomes are predetermined. The matador probably uses a breakaway sword and the bulls blade lightly or gush fake blood, and after the ring is cleared everybody winds up in the same locker room, showers, has a few beers and a quick supper nearby, and then drives off to the next show.” Wow, who knew?
I took it to be a “cattle drive.”
The five matadors were carpooling home after the bullfight, but there’s a black wreath because the bulls all won.
So many comments are so funny – thanks!!
billybob, if the bulls all won, then THEY’D be driving the van.
And you really don’t want to order the cojones tonight.
Because I had absolutely no idea where to start even thinking about this, I looked around at other sites to see if commenters anywhere else had any ideas.
A couple people floated the idea of “cattle drive”, but, well, everyone else seems just as baffled as we are.
I once lived somewhere in the winter, maybe Santa Fe, NM, where a lot of pickups and/or El Caminos had wreaths over the grill, perhaps to soften the blow of hitting an elk (if it actually was New Mexico) The act may have been solely for the humor and spirit of it.
Trouble is, that isn’t what a matador looks like. Although it might be what someone who isn’t me thinks a matador looks like in a “draw Fozzie Bear only from memory” sort of way.
frosteddonut’s “cattle drive” is the only thing that makes much sense. Still, the wreath doesn’t fit.
Side note: why aren’t they helping him “steer”?
I like Woozy’s pun about it being a Ford Taurus, but that’s definitely a Toyota logo on the front of it. All I could take from it was “cattle drive.” even though many others beat me to it.
A stereotypical Mexican ranchero and five stereotypical longhorn cattle, one drinking coffee, riding in a minivan … what? Wow, that’s opaque.
My first impression of that wreath was that it looked like a cow “pie” with the center removed. It still does, although that still doesn’t explain the joke.
This has something of a Far Side feel to it… I wonder if it’s a nod to Larson?
Woozy – the big thing on LI, NY seems to be reindeer antlers (felt looking fabric) attached to the front side windows with a red nose attached to the middle of the front of the car.
I’d go with cattle drive also I guess – or an comics writer vamping as someone else implied.
I think cattle drive is a good joke that works with the image, but I think Grawlix and Shrug have it right. The driver doesn’t look like a matador, but “Hey, he’s Mexican and they fight bulls” is thinking.
@ CIDU Bill: I love that joke.
@Meryl, I also live on LI, and I haven’t noticed any cars in reindeer suits. Lots of people wearing antler hats (but not Rudolph noses).
A LOT of ReinCars/ReinSUVs/ReinVans here in FL, probably ’cause the antlers and nose don’t get snowed on and destroyed every year. Altho with the rains we’ve been having, I’m sure they were soaked anyway.
Once upon a time, when I decorated anything that didn’t move (and several that did; about 26-28 years ago), I had a raggedy wreath I didn’t want to use in/on the house, but couldn’t bear to throw away; I attached it to the grill of Hubby’s minivan. Oh, the comments Hubby got about that! The next year, he did something with lights (battery-operated, maybe?), and garnered even more comments.
A year later, ‘car wreaths’ were in catalogs everywhere, and they became ubiquitous; I stopped doing ours. Who wants to be part of ‘everybody’s doing it’ anyway?
and of course, the vehicle is RED….
Hey, at least the guy with the big hat *has* cattle.
@Shrug: You stirred a childhood memory from the ’60s. My small Nebraska town of 5000 had a second-rate (maybe third-rate?) professional wrestling card come to town. The 4-H building at the fairgrounds was packed, and we kids had ringside seats. The place was buzzing with an air of anticipation, fueled by cotton candy for the children and beer for the adults. Then we heard the back door open, and in marched the wrestlers, carrying shotguns and clothed in hunting gear. They’d been out all afternoon pheasant hunting together. They ducked into a side room and changed, then came out one by one clothed in wrestling togs and “hating” each other. Even as a kid, I knew the show was staged, but seeing that took away a fair amount of the excitement and wonder of the live experience.
“Not a creature was steering…”
The inverted Toyota logo reminds me of a CIDU thread from many years ago about…an inverted Toyota logo. It was at a time when some Toyotas were apparently accelerating uncontrollably, but I don’t think anyone could make heads or tails of what the cartoonist intended.
And the first thing I thought of was partying until the cows came home. In this case they were sensible enough to pick a designated driver.
Maybe the cartoonist should have drawn the vehicle as an AMC Matador :-)
(My parents had a big ugly brown Matador sedan in the late ’70s/ early ’80s.)
While we’re discussing vehicular holiday decorations, over the years I’ve seen more than one car with a small Christmas tree standing tall on its roof, fully lit. Then a few years ago I saw one with a giant menorah standing proud on its roof, also fully lit with Christmas lights.
Geez, having lived for over 60 years in Kenosha, WI, AND having a father who was an AMC engineer, *I* should’ve thought of that joke!
The middle front bull holds the driver’s hat-crown in his right-hand
hoof – the bull behind the driver can look out front!
How it got there? -Try imagination‼
Sure does boast about the width of that minivan, though. What between the long horns of the bulls and the sombrero of the driver.
The middle front cow is holding an ash-urn: the farmer and the rest of his cattle come back from the crematorium; the (funeral) wreath is pinned to the grill of the car because that’s how the cow died: hit by a car.
“The middle front cow is holding an ash-urn:”
That’s a Thermos; they’re going to work.
Carlfink – central to eastern Nassau, south shore – saw 3 in one day alone.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Some folks in the western states put longhorns on the front of their car. But what the wreath means ? Christmas ?
“Do-de-do-dooo….Oh crap! I’ve got a cartoon due in twenty minutes! What do I have I can pull out of the drawer? Hmmm…how about this one I drew when I was super drunk?”
Are they driving a Ford Taurus?
(hey, *someone* had to ask….)
I like to pretend the bull in the middle back is facing the wrong way.
Okay, I’ve seen people put wreaths on the grill of Mercedes. And longhorns on the grill of trucks. And at xmas time as a gesture of goodwill we don’t kill and dehorn the steer but offer them a lift as we’re heading that way anyway and….
…okay, is there a caption missing because….
A bull fighter car pooling with the bulls?
My take is the same as Grawlix’s.
Incidentally, it was the custom for professional wrestlers to carpool between gigs, often with heels and faces who were allegedly blood enemies sharing such rides. So to me the undercurrent here is that “Bullfights are also ‘sports entertainment’ things, where the outcomes are predetermined. The matador probably uses a breakaway sword and the bulls blade lightly or gush fake blood, and after the ring is cleared everybody winds up in the same locker room, showers, has a few beers and a quick supper nearby, and then drives off to the next show.” Wow, who knew?
I took it to be a “cattle drive.”
The five matadors were carpooling home after the bullfight, but there’s a black wreath because the bulls all won.
So many comments are so funny – thanks!!
billybob, if the bulls all won, then THEY’D be driving the van.
And you really don’t want to order the cojones tonight.
Because I had absolutely no idea where to start even thinking about this, I looked around at other sites to see if commenters anywhere else had any ideas.
A couple people floated the idea of “cattle drive”, but, well, everyone else seems just as baffled as we are.
I once lived somewhere in the winter, maybe Santa Fe, NM, where a lot of pickups and/or El Caminos had wreaths over the grill, perhaps to soften the blow of hitting an elk (if it actually was New Mexico) The act may have been solely for the humor and spirit of it.
Trouble is, that isn’t what a matador looks like. Although it might be what someone who isn’t me thinks a matador looks like in a “draw Fozzie Bear only from memory” sort of way.
frosteddonut’s “cattle drive” is the only thing that makes much sense. Still, the wreath doesn’t fit.
Side note: why aren’t they helping him “steer”?
I like Woozy’s pun about it being a Ford Taurus, but that’s definitely a Toyota logo on the front of it. All I could take from it was “cattle drive.” even though many others beat me to it.
A stereotypical Mexican ranchero and five stereotypical longhorn cattle, one drinking coffee, riding in a minivan … what? Wow, that’s opaque.
My first impression of that wreath was that it looked like a cow “pie” with the center removed. It still does, although that still doesn’t explain the joke.
This has something of a Far Side feel to it… I wonder if it’s a nod to Larson?
Woozy – the big thing on LI, NY seems to be reindeer antlers (felt looking fabric) attached to the front side windows with a red nose attached to the middle of the front of the car.
I’d go with cattle drive also I guess – or an comics writer vamping as someone else implied.
I think cattle drive is a good joke that works with the image, but I think Grawlix and Shrug have it right. The driver doesn’t look like a matador, but “Hey, he’s Mexican and they fight bulls” is thinking.
@ CIDU Bill: I love that joke.
@Meryl, I also live on LI, and I haven’t noticed any cars in reindeer suits. Lots of people wearing antler hats (but not Rudolph noses).
A LOT of ReinCars/ReinSUVs/ReinVans here in FL, probably ’cause the antlers and nose don’t get snowed on and destroyed every year. Altho with the rains we’ve been having, I’m sure they were soaked anyway.
Once upon a time, when I decorated anything that didn’t move (and several that did; about 26-28 years ago), I had a raggedy wreath I didn’t want to use in/on the house, but couldn’t bear to throw away; I attached it to the grill of Hubby’s minivan. Oh, the comments Hubby got about that! The next year, he did something with lights (battery-operated, maybe?), and garnered even more comments.
A year later, ‘car wreaths’ were in catalogs everywhere, and they became ubiquitous; I stopped doing ours. Who wants to be part of ‘everybody’s doing it’ anyway?
and of course, the vehicle is RED….
Hey, at least the guy with the big hat *has* cattle.
@Shrug: You stirred a childhood memory from the ’60s. My small Nebraska town of 5000 had a second-rate (maybe third-rate?) professional wrestling card come to town. The 4-H building at the fairgrounds was packed, and we kids had ringside seats. The place was buzzing with an air of anticipation, fueled by cotton candy for the children and beer for the adults. Then we heard the back door open, and in marched the wrestlers, carrying shotguns and clothed in hunting gear. They’d been out all afternoon pheasant hunting together. They ducked into a side room and changed, then came out one by one clothed in wrestling togs and “hating” each other. Even as a kid, I knew the show was staged, but seeing that took away a fair amount of the excitement and wonder of the live experience.
“Not a creature was steering…”
The inverted Toyota logo reminds me of a CIDU thread from many years ago about…an inverted Toyota logo. It was at a time when some Toyotas were apparently accelerating uncontrollably, but I don’t think anyone could make heads or tails of what the cartoonist intended.
And the first thing I thought of was partying until the cows came home. In this case they were sensible enough to pick a designated driver.
Maybe the cartoonist should have drawn the vehicle as an AMC Matador :-)
(My parents had a big ugly brown Matador sedan in the late ’70s/ early ’80s.)
http://www.curbsideclassic.com/my-curbside-classic/in-defense-of-the-1974-amc-matador-sedan-the-bullfighter-gets-a-bum-rush/
While we’re discussing vehicular holiday decorations, over the years I’ve seen more than one car with a small Christmas tree standing tall on its roof, fully lit. Then a few years ago I saw one with a giant menorah standing proud on its roof, also fully lit with Christmas lights.
Geez, having lived for over 60 years in Kenosha, WI, AND having a father who was an AMC engineer, *I* should’ve thought of that joke!
The middle front bull holds the driver’s hat-crown in his right-hand
hoof – the bull behind the driver can look out front!
How it got there? -Try imagination‼
Sure does boast about the width of that minivan, though. What between the long horns of the bulls and the sombrero of the driver.
The middle front cow is holding an ash-urn: the farmer and the rest of his cattle come back from the crematorium; the (funeral) wreath is pinned to the grill of the car because that’s how the cow died: hit by a car.
“The middle front cow is holding an ash-urn:”
That’s a Thermos; they’re going to work.
Carlfink – central to eastern Nassau, south shore – saw 3 in one day alone.