Frustratingly, I can’t recover the memory of something I wanted to pair this with, a recent comic strip or perhaps video clip of another misconstrual of the point of this traditional story. Any good ideas? Pearls Before Swine? SNL? After Life? Father Ted?
When I was growing up, and my dad and uncles were into car repair, front-wheel-drive was relatively rare, and most American cars had front engine and rear drive wheels. There was a very important part called the “differential” which sat at the rear end of the drive shaft and connected also to both sides of a rear axle and the drive wheels. The informal term used for the differential was “rear end”.
Since “rear end” was also an informal substitute for “butt”, there was occasion for many a scene just like the one in this cartoon.
This is inflation on count-to-ten.
Jane: I once went on holiday and pretended to be twins. It was amazing fun. I invented this mad, glamorous sister and went around really annoying everybody. And d’you know, I could get away with anything when I was my crazy twin Jane.
Sally: But you’re Jane.
Jane: Kinda stuck. It’s a long story.
And there was a sequel:
Clippy was discontinued long enough ago that this may require the geezers category!
Eats, shoots, and leaves.
These are comics that somebody thought were pretty good, or even full LOL, and not baffling but a little hard to pin down. Like, you can think of a rather plausible explanation of the chuckle — or maybe two! — but there’s nothing that clinches the case that *this* or *that* just has to be the key to what’s going on.
For example, with something like this Andertoons, we might think of the minor mystery as expressed in terms of providing the missing caption. Is it about the odd feeling you’re being watched? Or more like “Oh, where did I set down my glasses?”. It could be either, do you agree?
A Minor Mystery from Darren, who says “I can’t tell if Watson’s jarns need to be interpreted as a specific term. I’m flummoxed. Apparently the squirrel is as well?”
Okay, the joke here is that the threatened punishment will involve a cannister vacuum cleaner (in what seems to be a photo clip?) rather than a conventional physical beating or the like. But it’s an unanswerable mystery just what the threat is. Torture by exposure to noisy motor, like a household pet? Being inhaled altogether? Having some portion of his body inhaled?
A near-synchronicity noticed by Bob Ball. The theme in common might be phrased as “knowing who you should be listening to”, or we can leave it up to the gang to better describe it.
First up, Andréa was struck by the treatment of the old Goofy/Pluto problem, in Pearls Before Swine and Strange Brew:
Next up, Jerry found the focus on Feng Shui in Bizarro and Pickles:
Finally, BillR was seeing jigsaw puzzles all over the place, or at least in F-Minus and Rhymes With Orange:
Boise Ed sends this in and asks if there is supposed to be something psychedelic about marinara sauce. We suppose that might just be a matter of spicy food leading to disturbed sleep; but there is still an issue of how to tell whose dream it is from within the dream. Or: who is the butterfly and who is the emperor?
Getting some ZZZZs is an ongoing theme with Horace; but this seemed an amusing example!
It’s charming that the other guy also seems to be there to work on his poetry.
From dollarbill.
Okay, so it’s kinda obvious … yet somehow surprising!
From dollarbill, who always appreciates a novel twist on an established trope:
And F-Minus provides the Sad-LOL you noticed in the Tags and wondered about …
Comics I Don't Understand 