Presumably Mom was playing “stray cow” when she was in Texas, but…
Why “Crazy Uncle Carl”?
And what’s the actual joke?
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Too wordy.
It’s a complicated (and irrelevant) setup for a very minor gag: one would expect the avuncular epithet coming from the father who’s been cheated upon, but this uncle is so nutso that he actually calls himself “crazy”.
Didn’t everyone have an uncle who called himself crazy?
Actually with DNA testing these days a lot of “uncles” are being found out about.
It’s been a long time since I read it so I may have it wrong, but as I recall Nabokov’s “Ada” featured cousins who turned out to be full siblings thru not just a matter of concealed fatherhood but on later revelation also disguised motherhood.
@ Mitch4 – Nabokov always was a tireless promoter of simple, conventional romantic relationships.
This comic artist is being a “rebel” and trying on his bad boy outfit for the Arlo Award. Kind of like tearing those “Do Not Remove” labels from your mattress!
A more pertinent question arises from this: for Texas Uncle Carl to be considered the biological uncle of the little halfling longhorn in the first place, he must be the brother of one of the black and white cattlebeings (most likely the bull, but – with a bit more ewwww – conceivably the mother cow is his sister). So if he is supposed to the bio brother of one of them, why does he look so different from his sibling, whichever one it is? (Unless he is simply an honorific “uncle”, in fact just a family friend.)
As to why “crazy” Uncle Carl – maybe the possibility of the child inheriting Mad Cow Madness is now an extra worry for the family on top of an adulterous affair with progeny.
@narmitaj I’m pretty sure he is meant to be, as you do consider at one point, “simply an honorific ‘uncle’, in fact just a family friend” — though we might suppose more particularly the mother’s friend.
So it’s just an adultery-offspring joke, not an incest-offspring joke.
Narmitaj makes a good point about Carl not looking anything like the bull who is supposedly his brother. Perhaps this is one of those cases where the term “Uncle” is used as a title of affection or respect. I have seen times when kids referred to friends of their parents as Uncle despite no biological connection.
She couldn’t resist. He’s a real stud. (or is that term only used for horses?)
I can only guess that the cartoonist originally just had the two parent cows on the couch with the long-horn on the floor but thought the “stray cow” aspect had to be explicitly spelled out. So he added the the Crazy Uncle Carl, the real father. Except he added him in the least natural most inexplicable way.
Assuming the joke is that Crazy Uncle Carl must be the calf’s father because they look similar… if Carl actually IS Daddy Cow’s brother, the kid might just look like him! I am pretty much a clone of my dad’s sister, but she is definitely not one of my parents.
I suspect the ‘crazy’ was just added as an excuse to give him googly eyes.
I’m kind of confused by the impossibility of the situation. Being an Okie, I have always understood there are only steers in Texas!
Uncle Carl *can’t* be either the father or the mother’s brother. They are Wisconson dairy cows and he is a Texas Longhorn.
Possibly the joke is in the older versions of these illicit offspring stories the actual parent tends to be on the periphery being called an “uncle” (or often “aunt”) while never being allowed to be part of the family but never forced completely out either via an agreed arrangement or fear of threatened exposure.
Anyway, this joke simply isn’t well or clearly told.
If it’s just the fact that Junior looks like his “uncle,” how does this differ from the 637 other “baby doesn’t look like his ‘father'” comics we’ve seen here (other than not having any real point)?
“how does this differ from the 637 other “baby doesn’t look like his ‘father’” comics we’ve seen here”
Originality? In a single panel Far Side clone?
Is that a new standard? Did I miss the memo?
Why does Crazy Uncle Carl have to be a biological uncle? Why can’t he be married to a biological Aunt? Our kids have 4 uncles and 5 aunts, but they have 3 biological uncles and 2 biological aunts.
Ah yes good point. Wonder if they had kids and what they looked like.
I have these wonderful conversations with my son regarding so-call “unrealistic” parts of the video games we play. Y’all are debating the family tree’s realism, and completely ignoring a) Talking cows and steers; b) Steers that can transport themselves form Texas; c) Cows/steers that can stand on their hind legs; and d) Sofas with enough support to hold two grown bovines. But the patrilineal puzzle has caught the eye :^)
” Steers that can transport themselves form Texas;”
ah – I missed the “Cattle Drive” comic over the holiday break! So at least the transportation issue is settled :^)
You’re welcome . . . and don’t you love it when things come together like this?
If the crazy uncle is a steer, then paternity isn’t much of an issue (no pun intended).
“If the crazy uncle is a steer, then paternity isn’t much of an issue”
It throws the underlying question open even wider. If Crazy Uncle isn’t the baby daddy, then who is? It still doesn’t look like it was that fellow on the couch.
“and completely ignoring a) Talking cows and steers; b) Steers that can transport themselves form Texas; c) Cows/steers that can stand on their hind legs; and d) Sofas with enough support to hold two grown bovines. But the patrilineal puzzle has caught the eye :^)”
You are making the common error of confusing “(un)realistic” with “(lack of)rationale”. No one expects comics to be realistic. But we do expect a comic to have a rationale. “Crazy” Uncle Carl showing up when discussing the son’s parentage *should* have a rationale. But it doesn’t.
Same joke, now done better with no words and inanimate objects!
@woozy “No one expects comics to be realistic. But we do expect a comic to have a rationale.”
Yeah, there is that, internal consistency. Which is why it’s maddening when Superman could spin the Earth backwards to travel back in time, change the future… but only ever did it once (that we know of!) Great thread.
Berber: Also, he only did it to save one particular woman that he liked. Apparently if Lois hadn’t died in that earthquake, all the other people killed would have been out of luck.
” Which is why it’s maddening when Superman could spin the Earth backwards to travel back in time, change the future… but only ever did it once”
There’s the opposite.. Star Trek decided that time travel was possible, so in three different episodes that featured time travel, they used three different methods for doing it. Then, when one of the films had time travel as a major theme…(By contrast, the episode of the animated series that is generally regarded as the best, they needed to time travel… so they use the Guardian of Forever.)
Berber – I live in a house with no children and all of our teddy bears, dolls and the like “talk”.
Right now the young teddy bears have started one of their “if we should have a day off due to the bad weather on Monday and did not as it was a holiday, the school owes a day off”.
Yes, we are crazy, fun people in this house who don’t have children or pets (I am like you Bill about pets).
Comics I Don't Understand 
Too wordy.
It’s a complicated (and irrelevant) setup for a very minor gag: one would expect the avuncular epithet coming from the father who’s been cheated upon, but this uncle is so nutso that he actually calls himself “crazy”.
Didn’t everyone have an uncle who called himself crazy?
Actually with DNA testing these days a lot of “uncles” are being found out about.
It’s been a long time since I read it so I may have it wrong, but as I recall Nabokov’s “Ada” featured cousins who turned out to be full siblings thru not just a matter of concealed fatherhood but on later revelation also disguised motherhood.
@ Mitch4 – Nabokov always was a tireless promoter of simple, conventional romantic relationships.
This comic artist is being a “rebel” and trying on his bad boy outfit for the Arlo Award. Kind of like tearing those “Do Not Remove” labels from your mattress!
A more pertinent question arises from this: for Texas Uncle Carl to be considered the biological uncle of the little halfling longhorn in the first place, he must be the brother of one of the black and white cattlebeings (most likely the bull, but – with a bit more ewwww – conceivably the mother cow is his sister). So if he is supposed to the bio brother of one of them, why does he look so different from his sibling, whichever one it is? (Unless he is simply an honorific “uncle”, in fact just a family friend.)
As to why “crazy” Uncle Carl – maybe the possibility of the child inheriting Mad Cow Madness is now an extra worry for the family on top of an adulterous affair with progeny.
@narmitaj I’m pretty sure he is meant to be, as you do consider at one point, “simply an honorific ‘uncle’, in fact just a family friend” — though we might suppose more particularly the mother’s friend.
So it’s just an adultery-offspring joke, not an incest-offspring joke.
Narmitaj makes a good point about Carl not looking anything like the bull who is supposedly his brother. Perhaps this is one of those cases where the term “Uncle” is used as a title of affection or respect. I have seen times when kids referred to friends of their parents as Uncle despite no biological connection.
Mitch4 was faster typing than me.
Speaking of ‘complicated relationships’ . . .
https://www.gocomics.com/rubes/2019/01/15
She couldn’t resist. He’s a real stud. (or is that term only used for horses?)
I can only guess that the cartoonist originally just had the two parent cows on the couch with the long-horn on the floor but thought the “stray cow” aspect had to be explicitly spelled out. So he added the the Crazy Uncle Carl, the real father. Except he added him in the least natural most inexplicable way.
Assuming the joke is that Crazy Uncle Carl must be the calf’s father because they look similar… if Carl actually IS Daddy Cow’s brother, the kid might just look like him! I am pretty much a clone of my dad’s sister, but she is definitely not one of my parents.
I suspect the ‘crazy’ was just added as an excuse to give him googly eyes.
I’m kind of confused by the impossibility of the situation. Being an Okie, I have always understood there are only steers in Texas!
Uncle Carl *can’t* be either the father or the mother’s brother. They are Wisconson dairy cows and he is a Texas Longhorn.
Possibly the joke is in the older versions of these illicit offspring stories the actual parent tends to be on the periphery being called an “uncle” (or often “aunt”) while never being allowed to be part of the family but never forced completely out either via an agreed arrangement or fear of threatened exposure.
Anyway, this joke simply isn’t well or clearly told.
If it’s just the fact that Junior looks like his “uncle,” how does this differ from the 637 other “baby doesn’t look like his ‘father'” comics we’ve seen here (other than not having any real point)?
“how does this differ from the 637 other “baby doesn’t look like his ‘father’” comics we’ve seen here”
Originality? In a single panel Far Side clone?
Is that a new standard? Did I miss the memo?
Why does Crazy Uncle Carl have to be a biological uncle? Why can’t he be married to a biological Aunt? Our kids have 4 uncles and 5 aunts, but they have 3 biological uncles and 2 biological aunts.
Ah yes good point. Wonder if they had kids and what they looked like.
I have these wonderful conversations with my son regarding so-call “unrealistic” parts of the video games we play. Y’all are debating the family tree’s realism, and completely ignoring a) Talking cows and steers; b) Steers that can transport themselves form Texas; c) Cows/steers that can stand on their hind legs; and d) Sofas with enough support to hold two grown bovines. But the patrilineal puzzle has caught the eye :^)
” Steers that can transport themselves form Texas;”
You never heard of cattle driving?
You’ve already forgotten this one??
https://godaddyandthesquirrelmustbothdie.wordpress.com/2018/12/21/okay-i-dont-even-know-where-to-start-asking-about-this-one/
ah – I missed the “Cattle Drive” comic over the holiday break! So at least the transportation issue is settled :^)
You’re welcome . . . and don’t you love it when things come together like this?
If the crazy uncle is a steer, then paternity isn’t much of an issue (no pun intended).
“If the crazy uncle is a steer, then paternity isn’t much of an issue”
It throws the underlying question open even wider. If Crazy Uncle isn’t the baby daddy, then who is? It still doesn’t look like it was that fellow on the couch.
This discussion about crazy uncles keeps reminding me of this Peter Cook & Dudley Moore routine.
“and completely ignoring a) Talking cows and steers; b) Steers that can transport themselves form Texas; c) Cows/steers that can stand on their hind legs; and d) Sofas with enough support to hold two grown bovines. But the patrilineal puzzle has caught the eye :^)”
You are making the common error of confusing “(un)realistic” with “(lack of)rationale”. No one expects comics to be realistic. But we do expect a comic to have a rationale. “Crazy” Uncle Carl showing up when discussing the son’s parentage *should* have a rationale. But it doesn’t.
Same joke, now done better with no words and inanimate objects!
https://www.gocomics.com/offthemark/2019/01/18
Signed, Boring Uncle Carl
@woozy “No one expects comics to be realistic. But we do expect a comic to have a rationale.”
Yeah, there is that, internal consistency. Which is why it’s maddening when Superman could spin the Earth backwards to travel back in time, change the future… but only ever did it once (that we know of!) Great thread.
Berber: Also, he only did it to save one particular woman that he liked. Apparently if Lois hadn’t died in that earthquake, all the other people killed would have been out of luck.
OTOH, according to this highly canonical source, he’s turned back time quite often: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgyClkr4IjM&ab_channel=HowItShouldHaveEnded
” Which is why it’s maddening when Superman could spin the Earth backwards to travel back in time, change the future… but only ever did it once”
There’s the opposite.. Star Trek decided that time travel was possible, so in three different episodes that featured time travel, they used three different methods for doing it. Then, when one of the films had time travel as a major theme…(By contrast, the episode of the animated series that is generally regarded as the best, they needed to time travel… so they use the Guardian of Forever.)
Berber – I live in a house with no children and all of our teddy bears, dolls and the like “talk”.
Right now the young teddy bears have started one of their “if we should have a day off due to the bad weather on Monday and did not as it was a holiday, the school owes a day off”.
Yes, we are crazy, fun people in this house who don’t have children or pets (I am like you Bill about pets).