








This works, whether you pronounce these “blaw” and “law” or “blah” and “lah”. Mismatch those pairs, though, and it won’t work.





Now from the diseased mind of Stephen Pastis:

Darren submitted this same-day pair, commenting: “Two separate one-panels with a riff on mimes and the right to remain silent.” — they just don’t come more synchronous than this!


…
Darren added: “Although in the Loose Parts [on the left], I’m wondering what made him give in. Has the mime just been standing in one spot for over a week or something?“



Danny Boy – London Derriere sends this hair-raising one in. Might be a bit of a CIDU, or maybe a Geezer Alert, although Nair is still a brand.


“This one is probably flawed by the last panel, where it seems the cartoonist gave in to the feeling that readers would need help with the senses of pivot word “down”.”


Mitch4 sends in this recently rerun Tiger strip: “The pun turns on a structural ambiguity. “That’s what they call a punching bag” and “Good name for it” (because it has ‘punched’ back at the kid who was using it) . The gerund “punching” takes on two different roles. Similar to (tho not identical to) the classic “Visiting relatives can be tedious”.”

Well, no, we aren’t going to need a bigger website. But today we’re paying comic homage to that ad-libbed line from Jaws, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat”, which is #35 on the American Film Institute’s list of top movie quotes, right in between some other famous ones:




A definite call-out here, with the opposing team name being Sharks.




Robin Bickel provides this holiday update from the Bickel clan. For those of you who are newer readers, or may just want a refresher about Bill, who founded this site, can find it here.
I hope everyone at CIDU is doing well.
Here’s an update on the always entertaining Bickel clan.
Zak is now in charge of all the visual planning for the NY Times business section and does all the hiring and layout for all the business section features. He just got a dog (his girlfriend talked him into it!) so we’ll see what happens with that!
Aaron and Mary Cate are now the proud parents of Hildegard Willa. She’ll be turning 1 at the end of February and she’s already smart and feisty! I’ve included a few photos of their recent trip to Tuscany. (Hildy has already been to Montreal, Portland Oregon, Berkely, Tuscany, Orlando, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York! She is very well traveled and extremely good on airplanes.)
In between grandma time, I’ve been seeing a lot of theater in NYC – 30 pays this year and I’m already making plans for next year. In the spring, Aaron, Mary Cate, Hildy and I will be travelling to London and Scotland.
As always, I’d love to send everyone a holiday card, designed by that art director extraordinary, Zak! So send me your address and a card will wing it’s way to you [RobinBickel_AT_gmail.com]



Bill wasn’t fond of Dave Whamond‘s squirrel jokes in the corner of Reality Check, so I hope he would forgive me for posting this one. [editor, not Robin]
It’s difficult to say which caffeinated drink is more popular; it depends on who and where you are (in America the answer would probably be “cola”).










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I was once offered (hot) tea at a friend’s house (in high school); he dropped a tea bag into a mug of cold water, and put it all into the microwave for a minute or two. Just like Calvin’s attempt, it was a complete failure.

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For several years a German brand of hair care products called “Alpecin” advertised its overloaded caffeine content as “doping for the hair“. This caused a fair amount of controversy, especially when the company later started sponsoring a bicycle racing team.






Squirrel(s) have taken up residence in the attic of our condo building. Between the animal control fees, the carpentry repairs where they chewed through a dormer, and trimming the trees further away from the building, this will be an expensive endeavor. And, I have neighbors who scare away the red-tailed hawk who hangs around, so it won’t harm the squirrels. Seeing that squirrel in Whamond’s strip reminds me of a tagline of Bill’s: “GoDaddy and the Squirrel Must Both Die”.

Even in this very early Peanuts strip, Charlie Brown has found his signature style.
When you want to make sure nobody will send your comic in as a CIDU:



This is a combination Public Service Announcement and Christmas gift suggestion. My runner daughter started wearing a fiber-optic vest with chest light like Frazz is wearing a few years ago, and then got me one as a Christmas gift. They’re great for running, cycling, or walking at night. As a driver, I appreciate people who are lit up, so I can see them far ahead.

… and the less said about it, the better.













Finally, one bastion of sanity in a lunatic world:

P.S. All of the previous appearances of Pumpkin Spice at CIDU were posted by Bill in the Fall of 2019; three of these presented some fairly hideous pumpkin spice flavored products (some real, some fictitious); click on the link if you are interested in seeing them. (Please note that the whole “pumpkin spice” collection will be presented in reverse chronological order, so you will have to scroll down past this one to get to Bill’s “spicy” material.)
P.P.S. – Edit: both links have been corrected, thanks to deety!