14 Comments

  1. Unknown's avatar

    No. If this were the setup to a really bad movie, the part of the Tooth Fairy would be played by Dwayne Johnson.

  2. Unknown's avatar

    “the part of the Tooth Fairy would be played by Dwayne Johnson.”

    Do we know that she isn’t? The art of close to home…. speaks for itself. (or fails to.)

    I think this is *really* stretching the “yes, that’s all there is” explanation. I think this is just that Santa Claus, a childhood fantasy who goes to homes delivering things, asks a favor of another childhood fantasy who goes to homes delivering things.

    But it is *exceedingly* hard for me to imagine *anyone* thinking that is enough.

  3. Unknown's avatar

    woozy, that explains the left half. The right half has to have something to do with the joke, but I can’t figure it out.

  4. Unknown's avatar

    Actually some of the least hideous people seen in Close to Home.

    I know, praised with faint damns and all that.

  5. Unknown's avatar

    The movie “Rise of the Guardians” plays with the concept of delivery assistance (between Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny). It’s not the best movie Dreamworks ever made, but well worth watching, and a heck of a lot better than this comic.

  6. Unknown's avatar

    This also brings to mind Terry Pratchett’s “Hogfather”, where the realm of the Tooth Fairy is mixed up with that of the Hogfather (the Discworld version of Santa Claus). Maybe McPherson had something like this in mind, but what the joke would be I can’t say.

    Hm. Maybe I’ll go watch that TV adaption again. It’s the season….

  7. Unknown's avatar

    Why is the Tooth Fairy wearing a crown? Why is it decorated with the letter “V”? Why does she have a flowerpot of kelp waving in undersea currents and with jellyfish clinging to them?

    So many questions!

  8. Unknown's avatar

    Sadly, I was wondering why Australia and Canada? Numbers 245 and 240, respectively, of 254 as some of the least densely populated countries in the world, they are very large land masses and pretty far from each other. Because they are both (primarily) English speaking? (As an honorary Canadian, I do love quatre morceaux de Poulet McCroquettes at McDonald’s dans la belle province du Québec; not into the deux-deux-deux.) Or “safe” places to assume Christmas is a thing? And it’s not like the TF has nothing to do – 300,000 kids will lose a tooth and have it under their pillow on Christmas Eve. Maybe South Korea and the Netherlands?

  11. Unknown's avatar

    “woozy, that explains the left half. The right half has to have something to do with the joke, but I can’t figure it out.”

    So far as I can tell, and stretching the “that *can’t* be all there is, can it” beyond the breaking point…. I figure he just didn’t have any dialog for the tooth fairy but it being a sunday strip had to have more than one panel. … Could have put the tooth fairy panel on the left so that the joke, such as it is, reads from left to right. But if the cartoonist put that much thought into it, then he’d realize the joke is unsalvageably thin.

  12. Unknown's avatar

    “Santa” here looks more like Stephen Tobolowsky got a job at the mall for the season. And a mullet wig.

  13. Unknown's avatar

    I happened to be reading a Pearls Before Swine book, and Pastis mentioned that he put his weakest strips near the holidays where people are less likely to actually be reading them. Maybe McPherson figured nobody would pay any attention, so he didn’t have to actually come up with something funny?

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