April Fools Review

This “Barney & Clyde” strip was submitted by Usual John:

I think the gag is that the strip itself does not have (and does not need) a gag, but I’m sure there are other possible explanations.

I went hunting to see if there were any other worthwhile April Fools’ strips, but was sorely disappointed. Almost all of the “standard” setups simply showed one character playing a typically lame practical joke on someone else. The best strips were those few that elevated the humor with some sort of “meta” component. Here are a few examples:



(I especially liked this “Thatababy” strip because this year, my daughter decided to rearrange the silverware drawer as an April Fools’ joke. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, because we all just assumed that she had forgotten the usual arrangement.)

The last two examples are from the great Comic Strip Switcheroo (1-Apr-1997):


P.S. Feel free to embed your own favorite April Fools’ comics in the comments!

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, April 7th, 2024

Keep doing variations on a theme, and sooner or later you’ll hit on one the fans don’t remember!


Have you seen the meme about the Welsh translation service?



Is the shell the choice spot for petting a tortoise?


Quite the wily allusion.


But only on condition they walk in together.


Geezer Alert!


This is the LOL-Weird entry for the week. Bizarro in more than name alone!


Thanks to Grawlix and Chemgal for suggesting this artist:


Here’s the LOL-Aww promised in the tags.


Saturday Morning OYs – March 30th, 2024

I mistook those candles in the background for cat-hair rollers!

And the pun factor is: how about some gin or vodka?



I’m a little dubious how “went on the wagon” works out here. But let it be noted, there are probably several cities with drinking establishments called Crow-Bar or Cro-Bar.




Sunday Funnies – LOLs, March 24th, 2024



A nice Thurber shout-out here. And do you agree the Bliss dogs bear a resemblance to Thurber dogs?

And for fun let’s compare the color version:

I’d say the color is nicer as a mild-humor comic, but the Thurber book identity is obscured.


But no, I can’t figure out what the pairings and lines are doing. It’s certainly not the standard March Madness sort of bracketting. Maybe if I had reread the book at some point in the last 50 years I would do better. … OK, here’s a help page. Wait, how can it fail to mention Dorothea’s nickname, “Dodo”?



Oh, oh, oh! I think I know!


A LOL-Ewww of questionable taste, from Lug Nuts

Saturday Morning OYs – March 23rd, 2024


Have you heard about the notorious guy who had secret families in multiple places on his travel schedule? By the time he was found out, he had fathered enough kids to be called in the tabloids The 21-Son Galoot.


And from that same Wayno plus his senior partner, Dan Piraro in Bizarro:



Sunday Funnies – LOLs, March 17th, 2024


At first sight, this was going to be a CIDU. Then it was agreed to be not that puzzling — still, it’s not perfectly clear if it’s just a funny situation idea.


Say, what actually was the reason for Cmdr. Bond’s preference? Do the components get more evenly mixed, or less? Does some air get incorporated? Does it bring out the flavoring of the vermouth? Or hide it?




A geezer theme for sure.


An interesting kind of Meta, that we are flatfootedly calling “LOL-Meta, alluding to an old joke, by forestalling it”. Possibly a CIDU for a few — if you don’t already know what the patient’s question had to have been, by all means venture an idea of it in comments.



Sunday Funnies – LOLs, March 10th, 2024



Okay, do you agree this belongs in the LOLs? Or would you put it in OY, because the patient’s mishearing error depended on a near-miss similarity of sound between urine and hearing?


Thanks to Chak for this LOL from the Chuckle Bros:






When the New Yorker website has an outage, you see this message.


Hey, just a minute there! Are you saying there’s something wrong with that? It strikes me as an eminently reasonable basis for a preference.


Here is a sampler from recent episodes of an Australian strip that is new on our radar, Insanity Streak by Tony Lopes.