I love my very intelligent and curious 4th grader, but sometimes he comes to some pretty stupid conclusions.
Of course I’d never use those words. That would be bad parenting.
It’s not so much a joke as it is a catharsis. Cf:
That is the joke. Imagine if a girl asked her father if there was a Santa Claus and he berated here for being stupid. Ha Ha?
It’s also a comment an how we’re apathetic these days. We don’t care to bolster a young childs faith and believe in goodness (or whatever garbage Santa Claus is supposed to represent) that we figure simple crushing and berating is how life is now and that’s all we want.
It’s an Andertoons. He thinks it’s enough. It isn’t.
I think it would have worked just fine without “Don’t be stupid.” Maybe funnier. Just dad matter-of-factly setting her straight. With the last line, it turns mean.
Near and dear to my heart, as five-year-old SingaporeBilly came home from school, where a big kid had told me there was no Santa Claus. So I asked my dad “Is Santa Claus real?” and he said “No.” I had to get to the bottom of things. “What about the Easter Bunny? And the Tooth Fairy?” I asked. That was the day dreams died.
“Yes, Virginia. There is a Santa Claus.” — That is, or was, a very familiar line. It comes from a newspaper editorial, famously written in response to a little girl who sent an anxious letter after being told by older kids Santa wasn’t real:
The joke is the negative reply to Virginia. It’s like having the boy George Washington say “Cherry Tree? I didn’t cut down any cherry tree!” Ot having Tiny Tim say, “God bless me, and to hell with everybody else!” A funnier take would be a strip that appeared to dramatize the story, but ended with her reading a newspaper headline “NO VIRGINIA! THERE IS NO SANTA CLAUS!” with the subhead “Editor Tells Off Local Idiot Child”.
Virginia wrote to the New York Sun as her father said that if is something is in the Sun it is true, per her letter – it was the authority on truth in her mind.
As opposed to our local regional paper which just found out about discrimination in housing and steering over the last 60 years plus and did an expose on it.
Comics I Don't Understand 
I love my very intelligent and curious 4th grader, but sometimes he comes to some pretty stupid conclusions.
Of course I’d never use those words. That would be bad parenting.
It’s not so much a joke as it is a catharsis. Cf:
That is the joke. Imagine if a girl asked her father if there was a Santa Claus and he berated here for being stupid. Ha Ha?
It’s also a comment an how we’re apathetic these days. We don’t care to bolster a young childs faith and believe in goodness (or whatever garbage Santa Claus is supposed to represent) that we figure simple crushing and berating is how life is now and that’s all we want.
It’s an Andertoons. He thinks it’s enough. It isn’t.
I think it would have worked just fine without “Don’t be stupid.” Maybe funnier. Just dad matter-of-factly setting her straight. With the last line, it turns mean.
Near and dear to my heart, as five-year-old SingaporeBilly came home from school, where a big kid had told me there was no Santa Claus. So I asked my dad “Is Santa Claus real?” and he said “No.” I had to get to the bottom of things. “What about the Easter Bunny? And the Tooth Fairy?” I asked. That was the day dreams died.
“Yes, Virginia. There is a Santa Claus.” — That is, or was, a very familiar line. It comes from a newspaper editorial, famously written in response to a little girl who sent an anxious letter after being told by older kids Santa wasn’t real:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_Virginia,_there_is_a_Santa_Claus#Legacy
The joke is the negative reply to Virginia. It’s like having the boy George Washington say “Cherry Tree? I didn’t cut down any cherry tree!” Ot having Tiny Tim say, “God bless me, and to hell with everybody else!” A funnier take would be a strip that appeared to dramatize the story, but ended with her reading a newspaper headline “NO VIRGINIA! THERE IS NO SANTA CLAUS!” with the subhead “Editor Tells Off Local Idiot Child”.
Virginia wrote to the New York Sun as her father said that if is something is in the Sun it is true, per her letter – it was the authority on truth in her mind.
As opposed to our local regional paper which just found out about discrimination in housing and steering over the last 60 years plus and did an expose on it.