Cow, Chicken, I M Weasel, and I R Baboon from that lousy Cow and Chicken cartoon on the Cartoon Network.
While we’re at it let’s get rid of the Family Circus. Exactly how many times do I have to look at 1/3 of a page full of a looping dotted line and a small frame of a kid saying “I came right home” - this is funny? Well, maybe it was the first 4,000 times he drew it, but, put a fork in it - it’s done. Speaking of done - let’s off that kid from I think it’s Hi and Lois, that baby with her favorite sunbeam. I’m sick of her and her friggin’ sunbeam.
I hate “Cathy”. So it’s recycled old themes until they’re greasy spots on the sidewalk. So do a lot of other strips.
But this thing is wretchedly conceived and executed ineptly. I hate, hate, hate the relentless pummeling on the same stale themes. Comics, when they work, point out human foibles with wit and lightness. This leaden mess has dissected diets, shopping, trendy neurosis and feral parenting for years already.
Also, “Mallard Fillmore”. It isn’t the political content, it’s the ballpeen hammer across the front teeth approach. Hey, as far as “Doones” goes, it was a bit precious and twee even in the 60’s; Yalie liberals doing the rarified political thing. But at least Trudeau grew a bit and expanded into social satire.
Maybe “Mallard” can evolve, but so far it’s just too heavyhanded to be anything but offputting.
Actually, “Peanuts” has gotten a little rancid in it’s last 6000 or so years. It seems some of the old ones were ok, and the TV specials are fun, but Charles M. Schulz is really doing himself a favor by retiring.
Who makes the decision to keep or nix cartoons anyway?
The ‘Dysfunctional Family Circus’ is no more!! I loved that page! I was going to direct all you fellow Family Circus haters over that way, but Bil Keane had it shut down!!
For those who never got a chance to see it, the webmaster would post a Family Circus cartoon, and allow folks to e-mail in new captions, usually weighing heavily in the pedophelia and/or scatological realms of humor.
Sick and wrong, to be sure, but always funnier than the original.
Oh well. First my buddy Catherine takes down www.suck-my-big.org, and now this. All the good web content is declining, but I’m sure there are 8*10^34 new ‘naked Britney Spears’ sites every day. Sigh.
Another vote for Garfield. His owner Jon must truly be an imbecile not to have tortured that greedy selfish arrogant bastard to death years ago.
On Cathy: I don’t quite feel she deserves death. I do think she should be kidnapped into S&M slavery where she’ll get tied up, beaten and raped every day. This would probably actually make her happy, since this would fullfill her neurotic desire for abuse. (Maybe Ally McBeal should be her cellmate?)
I cast another vote, “Rilchiam”, for April Patterson, For Better or Worse. I hate the little creep with a Family Circus-sized passion. To make matters worse I have a friend who has an April of her very own, the spitting image, from widdle button nose to bowl haircut. A vile undisciplined obnoxious little shit, constantly interrupting every conversation, I truly would love to pick her up by the ears and drop kick her to the moon. I often feel I should get an academy award after spending an afternoon at their house.
I probably shouldn’t bother, since the topic seems to have been well covered, but Family Circus is the lamest piece of feebly attempted humour that could possibly be conceived. I can just picture Bill Keane sitting at his drawing board, unable to remember how many 1000000s of times he has used a certain concept. Retiring the strip isn’t enough. Bill should be locked up in a padded room so he can’t cause any more damage. Get rid of all the other cutsie kiddie strips too: Hi & Lois, For better or for worse, etc.
While we’re at it, we should destroy all strips with animals as their central characters (eg. Marmaduke, Fred Basset, Garfield).
Anyway, the newspaper editors, of course, decide what comics get in. Although, according to a buddy of mine who worked at the local daily for a while, they tend to delegate it to whoever wants to take the trouble. This paper actually holds a survey about once a year to make their decision for them. Unfortunately, the people who respond have terrible taste, so we still have the stupid kids and dogs. We did get rid of Cathy, however. (Woohoo!)
The best comic strip I’ve seen is Red Meat, at www.redmeat.com although I guess its not for everyone…
I think my point has been missed here. The characters I mentioned were definitely poisonous, anti-social or grossly bellicose–the kind which, in the real world, would deserve 20 years in a state penitentiary. Granted I don’t care much for the Simpsons, or Cathy, or some others; but I get the idea that some of the postings mentioned characters which would get the axe solely because the poster considers the character to be a nuisance–a boil on his/her backside!
TennHippie actually my post was entirely tongue in cheek, and considering all the “I love the Simpsons” threads that have appeared over time here, along with my waxing poetic about my love for it, it would have brought up much conversation. No luck however, so sad.
Amen, Salinqmind! Did you see this morning’s strip? She’s almost nine, and she still believes in Santa? Puh-leeze! And I agree: enough with the bowl haircut!
Remember, I’m pulling for you; we’re all in this together.
—Red Green
That’s strange because the reprehensible ones are usually the funniest, which is kinda the point. And I really don’t think Family Circus encourages anything positive. It’s just 100% stupid.
And if you are looking for socially irresponsible cartoons, the worst are any that feature a nuclear family with a stay-at-home mom and 2.2 kids.
And how about B.C.–it was never that funny before, but now that Jonny Hart has become a born-again . . yikes! As Daria’s dad once said, “If B.C’s a caveman, how can he celebrate Good Friday???”
Its time for Mary Worth to rest happily upstairs. She really annoys me. However, Blondie has been around at least as long as Mary and I think she’s as cute as she was 40 yrs ago.
For some reason, my wife finds Cathy to her liking. Must be a girl-thing, because I can’t even bear to wallow through all the verbosity just to get to a punch line that I can’t even identify with or find the humor in.
“Calvin and Hobbes” creator Bill Watterson lamented the fact that comic strips are smaller and more static than they were a few decades ago, and that is what drives me nuts about a lot of strips these days, e.g. Dilbert, Foxtrot. But with these others, at least there’s something savvy and funny about the observations made. Cathy has the double negative of being static and totally devoid of humor that I find relevant.
Plus it looks like it’s drawn by a sixth grader. Hey, Cathy! Want a man? Grow some freakin’ hooters! Who wants to date a rugby ball with legs?
The Dave-Guy
“since my daughter’s only half-Jewish, can she go in up to her knees?” J.H. Marx
Cathy Guisewite is a feminist. Where some male-slant cartoonists–such as Bill Ward, Vargas, Sokol, and Bill Elder might draw a woman with a huge bosom, Ms. Guisewite draws Cathy with a heart on her top–which probably conveys a message more feminist ( :)) and less sexist than that of Ward and the others.
I can’t believe I forgot to mention that I’d love to see a massacre of the whole sorry bunch from “Mutts.” I mean, I fail to see how even pet owners support this strip. Aside from the preachy stuff he throws in way too often, here’s what one cartton consisted of:
Panel 1: A closed garbage can.
Panel 2: Mooch the cat poking head out of garbage can.
Panel 3: A closed garbage can.
That week, there were about three or four variations on that theme. Did anyone laugh at it?
OK, I really wish one of Bluto’s evil tricks to get Popeye out of the way would back-fire on him and do him in.
(And if Popeye, Olive Oyl, Pappy, Sweet Pea, Papeye, Poopeye, and the rest of the “nephews,” Eugene the Jeep, the Sea Hag and Alice the Goon, Wimpy, and the rest of the occupants of the Popeye universe and the Fleisher Folio were standing within range, I would not shed a tear.)
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy