Carl Fink contributes this. “OK, why would the rhino have holes in its cardigan? Its own horn wouldn’t be poking it. Is it a joke about how anthropomorphic animals arms and legs don’t let it move on all fours without its chest scraping the ground, unlike the actual animal? I don’t get it.”
[start of rant] To your editor, this seems roughly like the comic strip analogy to the uncanny valley: “as the appearance of a robot is made more human, some observers’ emotional response to the robot becomes increasingly positive and empathetic, until it becomes almost human, at which point the response quickly becomes strong revulsion. However, as the robot’s appearance continues to become less distinguishable from that of a human being, the emotional response becomes positive once again and approaches human-to-human empathy levels”.
As we move animal characters from being animals acting mostly naturally (the cat Ludwig in Arlo and Janis, for example) to animals not acting much like actual animals at all (Pearls Before Swine) there’s a spot where the jokes just don’t work. There’s so many human characteristics put into the characters that we don’t accept the remaining animal characteristics needed to make the joke work.
Here’s a case where, in my opinion, the use of animals actually gets in the way of the joke. Hippos don’t need sunscreen and don’t sit upright on the sand. But the joke doesn’t have much to do with hippos at all: it’s that there’s a tiny bottle of sunscreen that’s too small for one of them, but the second is complaining there’s none left for them. The joke would be clearer with two normal sized people and a tiny bottle of sunscreen. [end of rant]
Comics I Don't Understand 
It’s not a cardigan, it’s a pullover. When he put it on (by pulling it over his head), his horn ripped it.
For starters, the rhino pokes holes in its cardigan while pulling it on over its head. So, kinda funny.
I had thought I read somewhere that hippos can sunburn, thus spending time in the water and mud. While double checking my memory, it turns out to be even weirder. They secrete their own sunscreen. So apparently, if you are a zoologists, the joke falls flat. I am not a zoologist, I laughed.
[fake rant] It’s not a cardigan!! [/fake rant]
I agree with guero @2 and disagree with the conclusion of the hippo rant: the gag depends on the fact that hippos have an enormous amount of skin area, and (presumably) would empty any bottle, no matter what size.
P.S. I had an unpleasant encounter with the “uncanny valley” after purchasing a DVD of “Mars Needs Moms“, one of the worst box office bombs ever produced (by Disney or anyone else).
I wanted to see it because it was (loosely) based on a delightful book by Berkeley Breathed (better known for Bloom County and Opus). Deviations from the book were a minor problem compared to the motion capture animation, which was truly hideous.
I’m with Darren on this! AFAIK the key characteristic of something being a cardigan, and not a jumper or just a sweater, is that it is fully button-thru. And thus does not require pulling over one’s head.
Followers of The Comics Curmudgeon may be familiar with his version of the anthropomorphism rant, particularly for Pluggers and the one with the newspaper editor bird.
@ Mitch – Both “Pluggers” and “Shoe” (the “newspaper editor bird”) were created by Jeff MacNelly, who was also a gifted editorial cartoonist.
Okay, comic solved and I agree with the consensus.
So, a sidetrack. This cartoon made me think of the video “Its not about the nail” on youtube. If you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend it. It is about 3 minutes long. The rhino poking holes in the sweater made me think about it.
Sigh, I just spent several minutes relegating today’s Day by Dave, about “Slurpee Day”, to a post-in-waiting collecting “there is no joke here” comics, with the observation that it was sort of a brand promotion for 7-Eleven.
And then ran across this Edison Lee, which doesn’t fall into the same thing actually, by virtue of foregrounding the question. (OK, I’m making too much of it.)
Frank is the only one who didn’t come to the party nekkid. What in the world is he doing in *any* kind of sweater at all?
If the last comic were just “two normal sized people and a tiny bottle of sunscreen,” it wouldn’t be funny at all. It would just be some dope complaining because he didn’t bring enough sunscreen.
Making them hippos adds a little bit of silliness. Hippos are very big, so of course one of them would use up a whole bottle of sunscreen. The idea that two of them would even try to share a tiny bottle is absurd. It’s not laugh-out-loud funny but it’s slightly amusing.
To make the same comic with people, you’d need to invoke a similar absurd contrast of sizes, which means you would have to make the people very big. If you drew them as literal giants then you would have to put other objects in the background to demonstrate their scale, which would clutter the comic and obscure the point. On the other hand if you drew them as fat people, it would just be a rude comic about fat people.
Any of those options would be even less funny than it already is.
I’m reminded of Gary Larsen’s comment that he gets plenty of complaints like “It’s the FEMALE mosquito that goes out and bites people” but very little that mosquitos don’t wear clothes, live in houses or speak English.
Right, pullover. I apologize on behalf of my brain.
I thought he was wearing a starry necklace. If those are holes, why are two of them not in the fabric?
@tedD, thank you for the recommendation. I hadn’t come across that one before.
If those are holes, why are two of them not in the fabric?
I see what you mean, Ed. But the odd displacement should just be written off as frayed bits of the fabric from the edges of the holes.