Category / CIDU

by EditorM

“Papa Knows” at Obscurity of the Day

The estimable Allan Holtz, comic strip historian and proprietor of The Stripper’s Guide, has invited CIDU readers to join in trying to make sense of these example panels from the vintage series Papa Knows. He provides an historical deep-dive and some interpretive overview in last Friday’s blog column, in the Obscurity of the Day series, but leaves these four as examples where it seems no genuine attempt at a gag can be found. — What we like to call Comics I Don’t Understand!

(As Allan explains, “Obscurity of the Day is just posts about rare and overlooked newspaper comics; generally speaking if they’re hard to understand it’s because of the gulf between our time and theirs. Papa Knows, on the other hand, seems to be downright weird no matter when you might have read it!”)

by EditorM

Just Janis?

Janis is here without her Arlo, but the cartoon is heading for what we’d have to call Arlo territory in the CIDU sense!

I thought farmer’s daughter’s tan a clever play on the familiar farmer’s tan but wasn’t sure what the intended extended meaning was or whether it has anything to do with farmer’s daughter jokes. But I thought it might help to establish it was a nonce coinage by pointing to many standard dictionary entries for farmer’s tan and the absence of any for farmer’s daughter’s tan. But couldn’t find any of even the former! But at the last minute, at least Urban Dictionary turns up with an entry for farmers tan!

by EditorM

Bonus post: You know we’ll have a good time then

Charming vision for the remembering the song.

But forgive the intrusion of an I-don’t-understand element — is there something that makes Harry B recall and want to memorialize Harry C’s song, on this particular date and in this way? Or at any rate, is there meant to be something funny here? (Besides, of course, the normal cartoon non-realities of high-communication musical animals.)

And in case anyone needs a reminder of this song, here is a clip with some family memories followed by a live performance.

by zbicyclist

Snacking in Style?

travelgirl and Boise Ed and Mdbrownmd all sent this in.

“I suppose that Wayno is contrasting the formalwear with the casual floral shirts that TJ people wear at work. That’s the closest I can come to discerning a joke here.”

“Am i dense for an inability to understand the caption as it relates to the visual? the couple appear to be married, formally-dressed, watching TV while eating food “well-dressed” people probably aren’t going to order often, at least not while wearing gowns and tuxedos…

And why Trader Joe’s? please help enlighten someone who just woke up a few minutes ago :) “

“I just don’t get it, and I shop at Trader Joe’s all the time.”