Tag / Ernie Bushmiller

by Kilby

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!

by Kilby

How Much Ground…

…could a groundhog hog, if a groundhog could hog ground?

…unless of course Phil beats the believers to the punch:

Here are four different approaches to affecting the prediction:

by zbicyclist

Comics That Haven’t Aged Well

Syndicate sites like GoComics and ComicsKingdom have a variety of reruns (or, if you prefer, vintage comics). But some of them don’t age well.

These are all old comics which are being repeated. There are certainly a number of old comics that we wouldn’t expect to see now (e.g. the drunken domestic violence played for laughs in old Andy Capp), but I’m limiting this to ones that I’ve currently found being repeated.

Here’s a few examples:

A fire at an asbestos factory (and there are still some) would likely be a major disaster, putting all those asbestos fibers into the air.

Mitch sent in this one, dated 1991.  George Burns was indeed long-lived, and continued performing into his very senior years — which is sort of the joke here, saying he might go on into the distant future.  But then he did die, in 1996 (at age 100).  

Concussions aren’t funny any more.

Hair tonics have historically been marketed as a way to make hair grow faster, but without much evidence. In recent years, there has been a shift towards more evidence-based approaches to hair care, with a focus on products that are supported by scientific research, such as medications like minoxidil and finasteride, which are approved by the FDA for the treatment of hair loss.

by zbicyclist

Double Geezer Alert

So, what holiday is Nancy refusing to appear on, on February 22, 1950?

Some choices:

  1. My parents welcomed me into the world. I’m sure it felt like a holiday to my Mom, after a 3 day labor. As I am now a Geezer, that’s Geezer Alert #1. Bushmiller was probably unaware of this.
  2. It was also Ash Wednesday, which it is also is today. That’s more of a holy day (but not a Holy Day of Obligation) than a holiday, though.
  3. February 22 was then the national holiday of Washington’s Birthday, until that was moved to the third Monday in February in 1971. That’s over 50 years ago, so that’s Geezer Alert #2. And, while the national holiday is officially Washington’s Birthday, it’s more commonly known now as Presidents’ Day.
  4. Lastly, if we were asking a ten year old George Washington what day he was born, he would have said February 11, 1731, not February 22, 1732. The British Calendar Act of 1751 to adopt the Gregorian calendar was applied retroactively to some dates, changing both the day and the year. Therefore, the fact that this was rerun on January 31, 2023 seems appropriate.
    • Why would they have changed George’s birthday? The answer may lie in this passage from the British Calendar Act of 1751: “no Person or Persons whatsoever shall be deemed or taken to have attained the said Age of one and twenty Years, or any other such Age as aforesaid, or to have completed the Time of such Service as aforesaid, until the full Number of Years and Days shall be elapsed on which such Person or Persons respectively would have attained such Age, or would have completed the Time of such Service as aforesaid, in case this Act had not been made”. To make the proper calculation of when young George would turn 21, his birthday had to move.

That’s your (over)dose of trivia for today.

by EditorM

Obligatory topic

Okay, it’s Resolutions…

Luann


“This year we’ll turn it around” counts as a resolution in my book!

Crabgrass
Adam@Home Comic
Half Full
Mike Du Jour
Wallace the Brave

Maybe IDU that one?

Nancy: still looking for loopholes after all these years (and cartoonists!)

by CIDU Bill

We will control the vertical…

vertical

I guess this doesn’t really deserve the Geezer tag because, while GoComics ran this today, it was drawn almost 70 years ago.

It’s probably a CIDU for many people without an AARP card, though, so for the sake of you youngsters, television sets used to require frequent manual adjustments to things like the vertical hold.

But that’s not what we’re here to discuss:

Do you think anybody, outside of comics and cartoons, has actually ever been crushed by a falling safe or piano? And if so, would you say safes and pianos are more or less dangerous than banana peels?

And is anybody starting to think my cabin fever as already begun setting in?