Bill’s headline indicates that he understands the comic perfectly; perhaps he tagged it CIDU because he wasn’t sure whether there was anything else going on. The answer is no, there isn’t: Mr. & Mrs. Balloon are taking their little one out for a Sunday cruise, and daddy made a little mistake. That’s all there is. The problem is that the characters in the car are not drawn convincingly enough to be immediately recognizable as balloons, and too much of the dad is outside the panel.
Ah, thanks. I didn’t see yellow Daddy floating up there until you explained him. I thought the one in the passenger seat must be Daddy, talking of himself in the third person.
Kilby forgot the fact that Mrs. Balloon keeps her eyes closed rather than glance at the driver’s seat.
(And how old do you have to be to remember bench seats in the fronts of convertibles?)
I sat on a bench seat when I drove the Venerable Bronco to the library this evening. Where an empty parking lot reminded me that it’s closed on MLK Day.
Of course, it’s only a convertible in theory. The tops are really discouraged from being removed even you can.
Kilby, understanding what’s literally happening very often isn’t the issue: it’s not understanding what the joke is supposed to be.
Until I read Mitch’s comment, I didn’t see the yellow balloon floating away. I was distracted by the two-door car with front and back seats.
I really don’t get Brian’s 1:58 AM comment about the tops being discouraged.
This does not encourage me to add Rubes to my list.
@ Boise Ed – Rubes is normally much better than this one example. Besides the fundamental silliness of “balloons driving cars” and chopping off over half of “Dad”, Leigh’s “foldover” design for the seat benches is very confusing. Vertical stitch lines would have made it easier to comprehend. However, the primary defect is in the coloring: choosing pink for the car, the seats, and the kid was simply idiotic, and making the “Mom” orange compounded that error.
Although Leigh is not directly responsible for the colors (as far as I know, he still delivers black & white outlines, and the syndicate has some underpaid troll that does the coloring), this shows the inadaquacy of this kind of delegation.
P.S. @ CIDU Bill – I find it reassuring that you don’t accept the standard “laughing at someone else’s misfortune” as an acceptable premise for a joke. That’s all there is in this one.
Boise Ed: you’ve never seen a coupe? Admittedly they’re a vanishing breed, but hardly rare.
Wow, that sounded kinda hostile. Sorry, didn’t mean it that way, just…surprised.
Phil, Iq
Hubby did the same – go to the [closed for MLK Day] Library.
Mitch4: Iq? This must be a Monday, I don’t understand anything today!
It’s a Ragtop Day . . . in Wrigley Field, no less . . .
Sorry, cat/keyboard interference.
Phil, I didn’t think your question was put rudely. In any case, I wasn’t sure what Boise Ed was questioning, but I was also going to mention that 2-door cars with front and back are not that rare. You just have to have the doors go back far enough, and let the front seatbacks tilt forward, enough to let back seat passengers get in or out. There was some difference of models determining whether the front right passenger would need to get out too just to let the back people ave access.
Another issue with this car, that was touched on but I don’t think resolved, is that it’s a hardtop.convertible. At one time I thought there was a body type distinction between hardtop and sedan that did not mean the hardtop was a convertible — this was a matter of whether there were posts between the front and rear doors (sedan) or not (hardtop). With a hardtop, if you rolled down the front and back window on either side, it would leave one large opening; with a sedan, there would be two separated window openings.
But reflect on the term ‘hardtop’ . What does it contrast with? Clearly, soft top, or ‘ragtop’. So these were different kinds of convertibles. With a ragtop, you release various latches and fold up a cloth-covered frame, ending up with a folded roof sitting on the back deck, still probably attached at a side swivel. With a hardtop convertible, you unfasten it, then lift it off entirely, and leave it behind. The car pictured is a hardtop convertible, as Brian in STL was alluding to.
Hubby’s ’93 Vette is hardtop convertible. He also has a clearhardtop for it. They are stowed in the trunk, and if rain is imminent (not snow – it only came out of doors in WI clement weather), we’d have to stop someplace and take it out and then latch it. BEFORE the rains came, if we were lucky.
Now that we’re in Fl and could use it all year ’round, it’s not seen the light of day for almost five years.
Anyone interested in a PackerVette? ‘-)
Maybe the joke is that Mrs. Balloon is an airhead? And that it might be time for both of them to undo their seat belts, before the car crashes.
I really don’t get Brian’s 1:58 AM comment about the tops being discouraged.
It’s the removal of the top that is discouraged these days. Part of it is the center brake light. Ford mounted that on the top in the back. The rear seatbelts also attach to it. The other is the gasket, and concern that it will lose integrity if the top is removed. To be fair, the guys on the Full-Sized Bronco forum think it’s just fine to take the tops off.
All this talk about “taking the top off” makes me think we’re in a bar on Saturday night.
Ha. I was listening to a podcast with Grace Helbig and Mamrie Hart as I was reading this. They were talking birds in the neighborhood pooping everywhere. Mamrie mentioned that she had the top off on her Bronco, so “it” got all over the seats.
Now, I happen to know that she has an “Early Bronco”, 1977 or earlier, that was meant to be a competitor for the Jeep. It’s smaller and designed for top removal, as the tops connect to the edge of the windshield instead of the cab roof.
I had paused the podcast, then I found out that she did have a car cover over it. That lead to a tale of going to the laundromat to wash that. BTW, those Early Broncos are very expensive. I almost bought one that was in rough shape that the guy wanted $2000 for.
“. . . the guys on the Full-Sized Bronco forum think it’s just fine to take the tops off.”
Well, sure; they’re all men. If a woman did this, she’d get arrested.
“That lead to a tale of going to the laundromat to wash that.”
Yep, that’s what Hubby does. The devotion to a car he never drives is amazing. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, just amused. He did, however, volunteer to take along and wash the Christmas bedspreads this past week, saving a bit of $$ and a trip to the dry cleaners.
Scott made a good point about “airheads”, but that car doesn’t appear to have any seatbelts. However, that doesn’t matter: if they had an ounce of sense, they would have tied their strings to a door handle, or steering wheel, or whatever.
Phil, you’re right, and no, I didn’t take offense. It has been decades since I’ve seen a coupe, or even thought about that word (which I know primarily via crossword puzzles), but yes, I have.
Mitch, most Miatas (at least) have a ragtop as a permanent part of the car, working as you described, and the optional hard top fastens on, also as you described (with the soft top folded down, of course). My Miata has only a retractable hard top, which takes about 10 seconds to fold down and in like a ragtop. The car in the comic doesn’t appear to have any room for any kind of top to fold back.
Andréa, I’ve never seen the clearhardtop you mentioned, but Google Images shows ’em. Cool!
beckoningchasm, I knew someone in Idaho with license plate TOPLESS.
FWIW: Convertibles came in various forms, depending on make, model and era. Some had flexible clear side curtains instead of glass, others had roll-up windows. Somewhat less common, there were also four-door convertibles. Mid-20th century brought about convertibles with steel roofs that hinged to fold into their stowage area. Small, sporty convertibles could accommodate two people, while larger ones could seat four or five, though sometimes not very comfortably in the back. Sometimes the rear seat was quite cramped.
In the early ’60s, hardtops, meanwhile, evolved to feature fixed painted steel roofs with character lines stamped in to suggest a convertible roof in the upright closed position. Window frames rolled down with the side windows. There were also four-door hardtops.
While the coupe bodystyle may apparently be vanishing, remember the humble two-door sedan, popular among cheapskates. Those models haven’t been offered in a generation or so. These used the same body and roof as the standard four-door. Coupes had a different body and roof. Hardtops often had a roofline lower than the sedan’s, for a sportier look.
Had?
“I’ve never seen the clearhardtop you mentioned, but Google Images shows ’em.”
Having a convertible in WI is really not practical, but putting a clear top on it let us enjoy it earlier in spring and later in autumn, getting the ‘openess’ of the convertible, while still keeping warm.
“I knew someone in Idaho with license plate TOPLESS.”
Hubby applied for that one, but someone in WI already had it.
Andréa, I had (and loved) my first Miata throughout my eight years in Idaho. But yeah, the top rarely came down in the wintertime.
My buddy in early days had a 57 Ford hardtop convertible. The top lifted off on it’s own, the trunk lid opened frontwards, and the top disappeared into the opening which then closed & latched. You could do it while moving (at slow speeds.) Early Bronco’s were great, if prone to roll-over cornering at speed. I had one for years, you could almost climb trees in 4/low and yet drive highway in 2/high. A useful vehicle for the Appalachian county with more unpaved roads than paved.
Speaking of “hardtop”, notice in this retro Buz Sawyer how the pair of spies, who have a truck and a car, refer to the latter not as “the car” but as “the hardtop”.
I can’t say for sure from the drawing whether it’s a hardtop convertible, but at any rate it does show the body style that distinguishes a hardtop from a sedan: no middle door posts.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Bill’s headline indicates that he understands the comic perfectly; perhaps he tagged it CIDU because he wasn’t sure whether there was anything else going on. The answer is no, there isn’t: Mr. & Mrs. Balloon are taking their little one out for a Sunday cruise, and daddy made a little mistake. That’s all there is. The problem is that the characters in the car are not drawn convincingly enough to be immediately recognizable as balloons, and too much of the dad is outside the panel.
Ah, thanks. I didn’t see yellow Daddy floating up there until you explained him. I thought the one in the passenger seat must be Daddy, talking of himself in the third person.
Kilby forgot the fact that Mrs. Balloon keeps her eyes closed rather than glance at the driver’s seat.
(And how old do you have to be to remember bench seats in the fronts of convertibles?)
I sat on a bench seat when I drove the Venerable Bronco to the library this evening. Where an empty parking lot reminded me that it’s closed on MLK Day.
Of course, it’s only a convertible in theory. The tops are really discouraged from being removed even you can.
Kilby, understanding what’s literally happening very often isn’t the issue: it’s not understanding what the joke is supposed to be.
Until I read Mitch’s comment, I didn’t see the yellow balloon floating away. I was distracted by the two-door car with front and back seats.
I really don’t get Brian’s 1:58 AM comment about the tops being discouraged.
This does not encourage me to add Rubes to my list.
@ Boise Ed – Rubes is normally much better than this one example. Besides the fundamental silliness of “balloons driving cars” and chopping off over half of “Dad”, Leigh’s “foldover” design for the seat benches is very confusing. Vertical stitch lines would have made it easier to comprehend. However, the primary defect is in the coloring: choosing pink for the car, the seats, and the kid was simply idiotic, and making the “Mom” orange compounded that error.
Although Leigh is not directly responsible for the colors (as far as I know, he still delivers black & white outlines, and the syndicate has some underpaid troll that does the coloring), this shows the inadaquacy of this kind of delegation.
P.S. @ CIDU Bill – I find it reassuring that you don’t accept the standard “laughing at someone else’s misfortune” as an acceptable premise for a joke. That’s all there is in this one.
Boise Ed: you’ve never seen a coupe? Admittedly they’re a vanishing breed, but hardly rare.
Wow, that sounded kinda hostile. Sorry, didn’t mean it that way, just…surprised.
Phil, Iq
Hubby did the same – go to the [closed for MLK Day] Library.
Mitch4: Iq? This must be a Monday, I don’t understand anything today!
It’s a Ragtop Day . . . in Wrigley Field, no less . . .
Sorry, cat/keyboard interference.
Phil, I didn’t think your question was put rudely. In any case, I wasn’t sure what Boise Ed was questioning, but I was also going to mention that 2-door cars with front and back are not that rare. You just have to have the doors go back far enough, and let the front seatbacks tilt forward, enough to let back seat passengers get in or out. There was some difference of models determining whether the front right passenger would need to get out too just to let the back people ave access.
Another issue with this car, that was touched on but I don’t think resolved, is that it’s a hardtop.convertible. At one time I thought there was a body type distinction between hardtop and sedan that did not mean the hardtop was a convertible — this was a matter of whether there were posts between the front and rear doors (sedan) or not (hardtop). With a hardtop, if you rolled down the front and back window on either side, it would leave one large opening; with a sedan, there would be two separated window openings.
But reflect on the term ‘hardtop’ . What does it contrast with? Clearly, soft top, or ‘ragtop’. So these were different kinds of convertibles. With a ragtop, you release various latches and fold up a cloth-covered frame, ending up with a folded roof sitting on the back deck, still probably attached at a side swivel. With a hardtop convertible, you unfasten it, then lift it off entirely, and leave it behind. The car pictured is a hardtop convertible, as Brian in STL was alluding to.
Hubby’s ’93 Vette is hardtop convertible. He also has a clearhardtop for it. They are stowed in the trunk, and if rain is imminent (not snow – it only came out of doors in WI clement weather), we’d have to stop someplace and take it out and then latch it. BEFORE the rains came, if we were lucky.
Now that we’re in Fl and could use it all year ’round, it’s not seen the light of day for almost five years.
Anyone interested in a PackerVette? ‘-)
Maybe the joke is that Mrs. Balloon is an airhead? And that it might be time for both of them to undo their seat belts, before the car crashes.
I really don’t get Brian’s 1:58 AM comment about the tops being discouraged.
It’s the removal of the top that is discouraged these days. Part of it is the center brake light. Ford mounted that on the top in the back. The rear seatbelts also attach to it. The other is the gasket, and concern that it will lose integrity if the top is removed. To be fair, the guys on the Full-Sized Bronco forum think it’s just fine to take the tops off.
All this talk about “taking the top off” makes me think we’re in a bar on Saturday night.
Ha. I was listening to a podcast with Grace Helbig and Mamrie Hart as I was reading this. They were talking birds in the neighborhood pooping everywhere. Mamrie mentioned that she had the top off on her Bronco, so “it” got all over the seats.
Now, I happen to know that she has an “Early Bronco”, 1977 or earlier, that was meant to be a competitor for the Jeep. It’s smaller and designed for top removal, as the tops connect to the edge of the windshield instead of the cab roof.
I had paused the podcast, then I found out that she did have a car cover over it. That lead to a tale of going to the laundromat to wash that. BTW, those Early Broncos are very expensive. I almost bought one that was in rough shape that the guy wanted $2000 for.
“. . . the guys on the Full-Sized Bronco forum think it’s just fine to take the tops off.”
Well, sure; they’re all men. If a woman did this, she’d get arrested.
“That lead to a tale of going to the laundromat to wash that.”
Yep, that’s what Hubby does. The devotion to a car he never drives is amazing. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, just amused. He did, however, volunteer to take along and wash the Christmas bedspreads this past week, saving a bit of $$ and a trip to the dry cleaners.
Scott made a good point about “airheads”, but that car doesn’t appear to have any seatbelts. However, that doesn’t matter: if they had an ounce of sense, they would have tied their strings to a door handle, or steering wheel, or whatever.
Phil, you’re right, and no, I didn’t take offense. It has been decades since I’ve seen a coupe, or even thought about that word (which I know primarily via crossword puzzles), but yes, I have.
Mitch, most Miatas (at least) have a ragtop as a permanent part of the car, working as you described, and the optional hard top fastens on, also as you described (with the soft top folded down, of course). My Miata has only a retractable hard top, which takes about 10 seconds to fold down and in like a ragtop. The car in the comic doesn’t appear to have any room for any kind of top to fold back.
Andréa, I’ve never seen the clearhardtop you mentioned, but Google Images shows ’em. Cool!
beckoningchasm, I knew someone in Idaho with license plate TOPLESS.
FWIW: Convertibles came in various forms, depending on make, model and era. Some had flexible clear side curtains instead of glass, others had roll-up windows. Somewhat less common, there were also four-door convertibles. Mid-20th century brought about convertibles with steel roofs that hinged to fold into their stowage area. Small, sporty convertibles could accommodate two people, while larger ones could seat four or five, though sometimes not very comfortably in the back. Sometimes the rear seat was quite cramped.
In the early ’60s, hardtops, meanwhile, evolved to feature fixed painted steel roofs with character lines stamped in to suggest a convertible roof in the upright closed position. Window frames rolled down with the side windows. There were also four-door hardtops.
While the coupe bodystyle may apparently be vanishing, remember the humble two-door sedan, popular among cheapskates. Those models haven’t been offered in a generation or so. These used the same body and roof as the standard four-door. Coupes had a different body and roof. Hardtops often had a roofline lower than the sedan’s, for a sportier look.
Had?
“I’ve never seen the clearhardtop you mentioned, but Google Images shows ’em.”
Having a convertible in WI is really not practical, but putting a clear top on it let us enjoy it earlier in spring and later in autumn, getting the ‘openess’ of the convertible, while still keeping warm.
“I knew someone in Idaho with license plate TOPLESS.”
Hubby applied for that one, but someone in WI already had it.
Andréa, I had (and loved) my first Miata throughout my eight years in Idaho. But yeah, the top rarely came down in the wintertime.
My buddy in early days had a 57 Ford hardtop convertible. The top lifted off on it’s own, the trunk lid opened frontwards, and the top disappeared into the opening which then closed & latched. You could do it while moving (at slow speeds.) Early Bronco’s were great, if prone to roll-over cornering at speed. I had one for years, you could almost climb trees in 4/low and yet drive highway in 2/high. A useful vehicle for the Appalachian county with more unpaved roads than paved.
Speaking of “hardtop”, notice in this retro Buz Sawyer how the pair of spies, who have a truck and a car, refer to the latter not as “the car” but as “the hardtop”.
I can’t say for sure from the drawing whether it’s a hardtop convertible, but at any rate it does show the body style that distinguishes a hardtop from a sedan: no middle door posts.
https://www.comicskingdom.com/buz-sawyer/2020-02-06