Tag / Jef Mallett

by Kilby

Germification

CIDU frequently presents holiday-based material, but virtually all of the holidays we have ever celebrated so far have been American, even if a few of them (such as New Year’s Eve and Halloween) are also celebrated outside of North America. The following collection is presented in recognition of German Unification Day, which just happened to land on October 3rd (in 1990), and has been celebrated on that day ever since.

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Coverly put a “T” in front of the first “CH”, but neglected to do the same for the second, which would have made the pronunciation clearer, but it might have annoyed the syndicate’s censors.

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During my first stay in Germany (over 35 years ago), once I had begun to understand and speak a little of the language, I was frequently astonished (and/or embarrassed) by the linguistic abilities of German toddlers, which were often better than my own.

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Here’s a classic riddle for students beginning to learn the language:
Q – “What does a German parakeet say?“
A – (in a deep voice): “Billig! Billig!” (meaning “cheap”, of course)

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As unlikely as it may seem, Hogan’s Heroes wasn’t just translated into German, they actually did it twice, because the first version didn’t get good enough ratings. The scriptwriters for the newer version invented details and even (unseen) characters not found in the original shows, and the dialog (of the “Germans”) was changed from standard (“Hochdeutsch“) pronunciation to more comical (Bavarian and Saxon) dialects.

The American characters speak normal German in the translation, except for “Newkirk” (Richard Dawson’s character), who was changed from British to being a stutterer, which was both unnecessary and is absolutely unwatchable (at least for anyone who is familiar with the original show). I don’t remember whether LeBeau was synchronized into German with a French accent.

P.S. Keith Knight has drawn at least a dozen strips based on interactions with his (German) wife; there are simply too many of them to include them all here. Perhaps later, in a separate “linguistic” post.

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, September 08th, 2024

Okay, so exposing and satirizing clickbait and spam is not entirely an original idea. But what excellent execution there is in the deflating domain names!

Possibly inspired by the number of people who refer to a pickleball racquet, rather than paddle. Oar maybe not.

Typically when we’ve dealt with a long-form Cat and Girl, the cartoon has seemed to need some explaining, and we shoehorn it into a CIDU option of some kind. So what a pleasure it is to see them straightforwardly taking on some “complaint observational humor” (well, with exaggeration, but that’s to be expected).

by zbicyclist

It’s the 4th of July!

[2024-07-04 note: This post was originally from last year, 2023, but now bumped up as a republish. One or two strips added to the post proper as of the 2024 republish. Previous comments are retained, and current readers are encouraged to continue the comments thread!]

July 4th is zbicyclist’s wife’s birthday. She had to age a few years before she realized the fireworks weren’t for her.

But that’s not all of the story: On July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams also died. His last words included an acknowledgement of his longtime friend and rival: “Thomas Jefferson survives.” Adams was unaware that Jefferson had died several hours before. At 90, Adams was the longest-lived U.S. president until Ronald Reagan surpassed him in 2001. (and now Jimmy Carter, born October 1, 1924) Source: Wikipedia.

[This Mutts strip added for 2024. It was just too sweet to resist.]

[This Peanuts is from 1964]

by EditorM

No, it’s just wrong!

No, when it comes to the first panel, I can’t even!

A word I was more likely looking for was “elliptical”.

Well, I’m going to call this a colorist’s error (leading to an interpretive crux) …

… with me thinking it should be green like the delivery bag, but squirrel-shaped, to show that McKenzie (the delivery person, a main character of the strip) succeeded in trapping the critter inside. And she is then giving the customer a live animal, plus whatever part of the order remains unconsumed in the bag, plus (uh-oh!) food already eaten by the animal.

But on further look, I was wrong. It is meant to be the squirrel, with face details clearly shown. And a large satisfied tummy. (Where is the bag? Did he eat that too?) Is her comment to the customer meant to imply the customer could force regurgitation (or slice the animal open!?!) and treat the semi-digested food as still good for human consumption? Well, she doesn’t simply think this will fly — some of the patches in the sky are not clouds but anxiety-sweat beads — so I guess she conveys a just-kidding with that. But who knows?

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, February 25th, 2024

This Bizarro was about a 10-minute CIDU for your editors.

But a week later, this one could be seen as retroactively helpful:

There was a study of corporate annual reports some years ago. It found that when things were going well for a company, active voice was used, e.g. “We increased our sales over X% …”. When things were going poorly, passive voice was used, e.g. “Sales were negatively impacted by …”

I never order these in a restaurant. I assume they have a similar constitution to the McDonald’s McRib, which is just restructured shredded pork with fake grill marks. Am I wrong?

by multipleciduers

Saturday Morning OYs – February 24th, 2024

Sorry to say our neighborhood Office Despot has closed. They were good for emergency computer cables.

The NUFFNI-DON is close enough to NUFFIN-DOIN to work as an utterance.

CIDU QUEUE REMINDER

As always — but it needs saying explicitly again now and then — we like to think of this as a reader-participation site, and not just for your invaluable (or anyhow amusing) comments, but for suggestions of comics to run and discuss.

Please share your specific suggestions of panels or strips, in CIDU, LOL, and OY categories, either by direct email to

(that’s “CIDU dot Submissions” at gmail dot com) or by using the handy-dandy Suggest A CIDU form page!

by multipleciduers

Saturday Morning OYs – February 10th, 2024

An Awww:

Ooops, accidental repeat! This was already here in the OY list, when the Lard came along and triggered the Thursday quasi-synchronicity post. And we forgot to delete this occurrence.

There was a “Save the Naugas” movement! (Was that the Car Talk bros? Um, no, they were doing “Save the Skeets”.)

Here in the mid-South Side neighborhood around the University of Chicago, we think of this fabled pair as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde-Park.

Thanks to Chemgal for sending in this Frazz, a good combo OY/LOL.

For what happens if you mix probiotics and antibiotics, see https://xkcd.com/2177/

Hey, what an interesting odd combo of meta and straight-up OY!

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, January 14th, 2024

Zippy feeling just a bit meta.

And a semi-CIDU for this same couple:

The question being: Is the guy just pushing his point by selecting a random term meant to be absurd, or else do they maybe have something (like a remote, or an ashtray, …) which is actually crafted to look like a Stegosaurus?

Why not start off Sunday with a bit of math? Roughly how old is she?

This is Frazz’s Sunday intro panel for January 7th. Mallett posts these on Facebook. Otherwise, I’d never see them because GoComics doesn’t use the intro panels, for reasons I don’t understand.

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, December 10th, 2023

Yep, that’s what I thought she meant too! Did anyone here not think that first?

Such a nice use of expressive objects.

BTW, if you are looking for a great read, try The Wager. There’s also a long excerpt in The New Yorker a few months back.