Beetle Bailey, 3/19/11
Six years ago when this panel ran the first (?) time, I was willing to let it pass as a goofy placeholder from a creative team that just sort of couldn’t think of anything to do that day. It may have been an abdication of creativity, but at least the numerous visual details represented more work than what goes into Beetle Bailey strips that actually contain jokes. And really, are Beetle Bailey jokes all they’re cracked up to be? Can we honestly say that we want more Beetle Bailey jokes out there in the world?
And yet now that I know that this is just the strip they pull out when they have nothing else to run, and that it’s gone out who knows how many times … well, I wouldn’t have thought I could have less respect for Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC, but I have been proven wrong. I don’t know which possibility is worse: that some strip was submitted that, due to its complete lack of even vague entertainment value, was rejected by the syndicate, resulting in this stopgap being reprinted, or that someone over at W-BAHI LLC suddenly had the realization at deadline that “oh, crap, we have to do a Saturday strip too? Damn it, I need to start writing this stuff down.”
Apartment 3-G, 3/19/11
Ha ha, Dan, you’re not going to disabuse Iris of the notion that you’re some kind of hobo tramp bum drifter homeless person if you keep using that old-timey slang. But all questions about his archaic socioeconomic status seem a lot less important now that we know that Iris has a ringtone that can briefly obliterate all of existence.
Archie, 3/19/11
Hot Dog’s ears are lifted in shock in the final panel, which must mean that none of Jughead’s interpretation of his inner thoughts are correct. I’m guessing he’s thinking “Wait, I have fleas? And you’re not doing anything about them? Christ, you really are the laziest pet owner alive.”
This entry was posted on Sunday, March 20, 2011 at 08:47 pm and is filed under Apartment 3-G, Archie, Beetle Bailey. | 60 responses to “” HaroldMarch 20th, 2011 at 8:54 pm [Reply]
I’m thinking that the Beetle Bailey placeholder is just intended to serve as a transition to the new creative team of Dick Locher and Jim Brozman.
Steve LMarch 20th, 2011 at 8:57 pm [Reply]
It’s 9:00 on Sunday and you’re only now posting Saturday’s strips? Christ, you really are the laziest comics blogger alive.
MuffinMarch 20th, 2011 at 8:59 pm [Reply]
Watch Dan’s hands in this Apartment 3-G. Always at his mouth. He is trying to PRETEND to be considering everything he says, but it’s more likely that he’s desperately trying to hold on his beard without breaking, like a host in a mid-90’s SNL sketch. Between today’s and tomorrow’s strip we can hope someone will have rushed over with some spirit gum, but nothing can stop him from reading from the cue cards in that awkward, stilted rhythm.
SwordsmithMarch 20th, 2011 at 9:09 pm [Reply]
Beet: I like how they took the time to put 3/19 and copyright 2011 on their strip from 4/15 2005. Also, the bandages on the cloud have been colored, suggesting they handed the altered black-and-white copy over to their colorists and made them do the whole job over.
DesotoMarch 20th, 2011 at 9:11 pm [Reply]
Hotdog doesn’t look too freaked to me, and for that matter, Jughead seems OK sharing his bed with blood-sucking insects.
Sarah MarieMarch 20th, 2011 at 9:14 pm [Reply]
What exactly is Miss Buckley doing flailing around naked behind the sign?
LisaMarch 20th, 2011 at 9:14 pm [Reply]
Not only that, but Fred Bassett seems to have wandered away as well….
boojumMarch 20th, 2011 at 9:17 pm [Reply]
BB: Well I, for one, am deeply moved by Greg and Mort Walker’s Guernica. I found its passionate brutalism even more powerful before the philistines at King Features Syndicate censored, with a crudely inserted banner, the unspeakable atrocities being committed on a naked and terrified Miss Buxley — to say nothing of Sarge and Otto. War is not pretty, my friends.
RustyMarch 20th, 2011 at 9:19 pm [Reply]
I have long suspected the BB tanks were inflatable.
Écureuil ÉcumantMarch 20th, 2011 at 9:20 pm [Reply]
BB: How topical of the creators to work in the earthquake, tsunami, and an air attack all into the same strip. Nuclear meltdown? Not depicted, but evidently already occurred. To the creators.
CharterstonedMarch 20th, 2011 at 9:22 pm [Reply]
A3G – All those blue people crowding towards the exit in today’s strip must be as ready for this insufferable storyline to be done with as I am. Ironically, they’re in the strip, but they get to leave.
Poor ThompsonMarch 20th, 2011 at 9:23 pm [Reply]
Yeah, there’s something creepy about that Beetle Bailey panel. It makes me think of an eerie electronic tone-accompanied “Please stand by” test pattern you would see on a character’s television screen in a post-apocalyptic-themed horror movie, where you know everyone at the TV station was eaten by zombies before they could switch the signal off. On the plus side, I think its funny that the cloud in the background is wearing a bandage.
Spotts1701March 20th, 2011 at 9:23 pm [Reply]
@Rusty (#9):
Well, they had to do something with all those leftover dummy tanks from WWII…
Écureuil ÉcumantMarch 20th, 2011 at 9:24 pm [Reply]
A3G: Ishmael swears it’s the cut o’ her jib, but methinks it’s really the jingle o’ her boombooms.
word-doctorMarch 20th, 2011 at 9:26 pm [Reply]
After reading the Sunday “Curtis,” I shudder to think what Marvin hit the pastor with during his baptism.
Peanut GalleryMarch 20th, 2011 at 9:26 pm [Reply]
BB – At least the caption in this version makes it clearer that it’s intended in the spirit of a “technical difficulties” card.
boojumMarch 20th, 2011 at 9:28 pm [Reply]
A3G: I love the coolly appraising look that iris is raking over Dan as she learns her date is a no-show. “Hmmm. I wasn’t really looking for Jesus, but I’ll be god-damned if I sit through an off-Broadway hit without some man-candy at my side.”
PatrickMarch 20th, 2011 at 9:31 pm [Reply]
I’m ashamed at how much time I’ve taken to try to figure out what song “Jingle, Boom, Boom, Jingle, Boom, Boom” is.
Uncle LumpyMarch 20th, 2011 at 9:33 pm [Reply]
Apartment 3-G is a trench war between the writer and the artist. The artist won the months-long “makeover” battle as the girls slid back to their old styles — except for Tommie, maybe, whom nobody looks at? I’m not sure. Anyway, here, the writer specifies a beard and long hair so Diller won’t look like Trey, Paul, Martin, Alan, Detective Collins, Jack, Ted, Blaze, the Dalai Lama, Ray, Officer Random, and every other guy in the strip. The artist responds by having Aristotle Papagoras put on a wig hat and hold a beard to his face.
The Not So Great Old OneMarch 20th, 2011 at 9:34 pm [Reply]
Iris apparently has the drum-n-bass version of Jingle Bells as a ring-tone, much to the bemusement of the old sea dog, ‘Devil’ Dan Tiller.
boojumMarch 20th, 2011 at 9:39 pm [Reply]
@Charterstoned (#11): Ah, the eternal optimist. I myself got a distinctly “Dante’s Inferno” vibe from that first panel. Slowly, line upon line, the shades of those undone by death drag themselves through the terrible doorway: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”
But then, I was imagining them about to endure two hours of show tunes written and performed by Tommie.
boojumMarch 20th, 2011 at 9:41 pm [Reply]
@Patrick (#18): Try “Shake Your Pom-Poms, Shake Your Pom-Poms.” Now try to un-imagine Iris having that ringtone.
sakMarch 20th, 2011 at 9:47 pm [Reply]
To attract the attention of the distracted female, the male moves his left hand away from his lower lip, and cups his bearded chin with his right hand. This is extraordinary display of the mating behavior of hobous trampis.
Now if only I could get David Attenborough to say that.
LorneMarch 20th, 2011 at 9:54 pm [Reply]
“Jingle, Boom, Boom, Jingle, Boom, Boom” is just her ringtone?
I thought for sure that whole-panel caption indicated a cutaway for disgusting jingly old people boom-boom sex.
March 20th, 2011 at 9:55 pm [Reply]
Saturday’s Beetle Bailey is the comic strip equivalent of this:
http://www.edwardsamuels.com/illustratedstory/chapter%208/hindenburg.jpg
MellifluousMarch 20th, 2011 at 10:00 pm [Reply]
I don’t read Beetle Bailey for the astounding intellect and far-ranging scope of its humour. I read it for the gay subtext. Honestly, it’s way better as an angsty, tortured tale of forbidden army queerness than it is as a joke-a-day strip.
Filthy AssistantMarch 20th, 2011 at 10:13 pm [Reply]
Jughead in that second panel seems to be looking at Archie with a very “Just like SOMEONE ELSE I KNOW” expression.
OneManMarch 20th, 2011 at 10:20 pm [Reply]
I think the unexploded shell on the roof of the building is a nice touch
AndieMarch 20th, 2011 at 10:26 pm [Reply]
Wow.. Iris is puttin’ the moves on the old hobo guy. See how she distinctly eyes him when she says “In bed” and he’s all “that’s what i’m talkin’ about”. She might as well just straddle him right there. Then I’ll just kill myself.
gallantroseMarch 20th, 2011 at 10:54 pm [Reply]
“The Rime of Dan Diller”
It is an ancient hobo tramp,
And he stoppeth by one of 3-G.
`By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
There’s a bench over here by me–
The theater’s doors are opened wide,
And I shall soon go in;
In buckets the rain is coming down
Mayst hear the merry din.’
He turns to her, the shabby man,
“Many thanks,” quoth he.
“I’m just waiting for a friend.”
‘Me too, we’re going to see Big City.’
He holds her with his glittering eye –
Aunt Iris stands still,
And listens like a three years’ child:
The hobo tramp hath his will.
Aunt Iris sat on a bench:
She cannot choose but hear;
Jingle-Boom-Boom, Jingle-Boom-Boom,
Her cell phone loud and clear.
March 20th, 2011 at 10:56 pm [Reply]
I’m pretty sure Miss Buxley is nude behind that sign.
TiakoMarch 20th, 2011 at 11:11 pm [Reply]
That Beetle Bailey placeholder is probably for when WB makes a joke that is made offensive by world events. So I’m guessing that the strip originally said “How do you get a Japanese person into the ocean?”
firedmyassMarch 20th, 2011 at 11:12 pm [Reply]
Based on the random musical notes and repetitive child-like lyrics, I’m guessing that Iris’s ringtone is something by the Black Eyed Peas.
TruckasaurusMarch 20th, 2011 at 11:18 pm [Reply]
MC Jingle Boomboom would actually be a slick name for a DJ. Or a deranged hobo/drifter, for that matter.
OavisMarch 20th, 2011 at 11:18 pm [Reply]
Her cell phone may have the power to obliterate all of existence, but that becomes less impressive when you consider the particular existence being obliterated. The inter-character dynamics of Apartment 3G, not to mention the reason this trio of quasi-sophisticated urban professionals all live together in the eponymous dwelling, are so vague that I’m still not sure if it’s a stodgy proto-Sex In The City set-up or a cutting-edge lesbian comic.
Francisco ArrowrootMarch 20th, 2011 at 11:48 pm [Reply]
I take it that the separation of Iris’ speech bubbles is meant to tell us that the first part of her line is directed to the phone she just answered, and the second part is directed to the person she’s eyeing like a beardy piece of meat.
SDL No More!March 20th, 2011 at 11:58 pm [Reply]
Maybe Saturday’s Beetle Bailey was about how funny tsunamis are or something.
SDL No More!March 21st, 2011 at 12:01 am [Reply]
@Sarah Marie (#6):
Based on the disembodied legs near her, perhaps being orally serviced by General Halftrack (which could set up a great “where are my dentures” strip) or sliding around in the blood gushing from Sgt. Snorkel’s now-empty hip sockets.
bartcowMarch 21st, 2011 at 12:08 am [Reply]
Is Iris the on-call person for the Fortune Cookie Hotline? Reminding people to add “in bed” is just one of the many services the FCH provides.
Archie DemonMarch 21st, 2011 at 12:11 am [Reply]
I can’t get over the second panel in Archie: breaking the fourth wall and blacking out all but a halo around the speaker makes the sentence seem more significant somehow. It’s as though Jughead has suddenly skipped genres into a Film Noir, and is pining away for an emotionally and physically unavailable Beau-hunk. I like it, but why the heck did they do that?
bats :[March 21st, 2011 at 12:21 am [Reply]
@Rocky Stoneaxe (#25): or even this.
TriteonMarch 21st, 2011 at 12:39 am [Reply]
BB: Just how long are Sarge’s legs? It’s like they put him on the rack or something.
JustMeMarch 21st, 2011 at 1:14 am [Reply]
A3G: Mr. Mallory just doesn’t get the Fortune Cookie joke. He tries to do it at the most inopportune times.
Amanda KateMarch 21st, 2011 at 1:36 am [Reply]
Is it just me, or does Iris have a Vengaboys song as her ringtoneÉ
Oh, and question- I must have hit something on my keyboard because instead of making a question mark I now make an accented E. Can anybody help me with thisÉ
March 21st, 2011 at 3:41 am [Reply]
I really don’t know what to say other than that today’s Apt 3-G’s three panels are the most absurdly crazy juxtaposition of pictures and text I’ve ever seen — and I grew up in the era of underground comix. I like the cut of its jib!
fi-side premiumMarch 21st, 2011 at 4:09 am [Reply]
Thank you for your post it is nice
Rocky StoneaxeMarch 21st, 2011 at 8:15 am [Reply]
@fi-side premium (#46): I thought this was a no-fi zone! (SPAM)
boojumMarch 21st, 2011 at 8:41 am [Reply]
@fi-side premium (#46): That’s what your MOTHER said! [Ba-dum-TISH]
Brian MMarch 21st, 2011 at 9:00 am [Reply]
Holy crap! Her ringtone is my favorite song. I love Jingle Boom Boom Jingle Boom Boom.
KarmynMarch 21st, 2011 at 11:23 am [Reply]
@word-doctor (#15):
Well, there is a story I remember from history class about a prince who pooped during baptism.
But I doubt Marvin is baptised. He’s obviously the evil twin of Rosemary’s Baby.
March 21st, 2011 at 11:32 am [Reply]
Apartment 3G-”Cut of your jib”? Who talks like that anymore?
CrankenstankMarch 21st, 2011 at 11:59 am [Reply]
Are we sure it’s the strip’s authors that are at fault for the Beetle Bailey outage, and not the collected editors of the nation’s papers, outraged at the cutting edge “Do Ask, Do Tell” theme in today’s strip, where all the sublimated aggression that is the Sarge-Beetle relationship finally blossoms into its beautiful and inevitable conclusion? If you look at the panel there’s a plausible case to be made that the ‘closed for repairs’ sign was slapped on to cover up the depicted aftermath of the Mother of All Orgies. It has all the elements for Rick Santorum’s worst nightmare, right down to the anthropomorphic dog.
Dennis JimenezMarch 21st, 2011 at 1:55 pm [Reply]
BB – Camp Swampy is doing it’s best to avoid deployment to Libya….
A3G – I’m guessing this is some sort thing Jebus does from time to time – sort of like when the Lone Ranger would put a little flour in his hair and take go undercover as the grizzled ol’ prospector….
Archie – I’ve always wondered what the pins on Jug’s crown say – I rode the twister at 6 flags? Prolife and Proud? Dole in ‘96?
Adios Amigos. DJ
The ElfMarch 21st, 2011 at 2:41 pm [Reply]
BB: It’s like they didn’t know that Saturday was coming up after Friday so they should have a strip ready. If only they had a song that could tell them.
Original EmilyMarch 21st, 2011 at 3:19 pm [Reply]
Is it just me, or does anyone else see that Iris’s new friend Dan is the guy who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart? Don’t let him take you shopping for white veils, Iris! It’s a trap!
RixterMarch 21st, 2011 at 9:51 pm [Reply]
A3G: I’ve lost track – was Ari convicted and sent to jail? Is DD some sort of Ari avatar?
HazelMarch 22nd, 2011 at 4:04 am [Reply]
For someone so bland, I’m surprised that Iris’ ringtone is the sound of Santa getting shot out of the sky. Turns out she has a dark side.
LisaMarch 22nd, 2011 at 2:28 pm [Reply]
I am surprised that no one mentioned that Beetle Bailey’s “Closed for Repairs” is a direct rip-off of Gary Larson’s The Far Side “Out of Order”.
corinthianMarch 22nd, 2011 at 9:49 pm [Reply]
Let’s hope this is the last time we can associate the phrase “jingle boom boom in bed” with the comics page
Read em and LafMarch 23rd, 2011 at 12:56 am [Reply]
Beetle Bailey is true comic book superhero;
I’d hate to have Sarge visit me.
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