# Explain the comic strip Nancy to me **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 5, 2006, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597 "2006-01-05T17:51:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2006, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597/41 "2006-01-08T04:05:46Z")
I used to know a guy who would play this elaborate practical joke on his girlfirend. Every week they would get the Sunday papers and read the comics. And every week he would laugh uproariously when he read _Prince Valiant_. And naturally his girlfriend would never see what was so funny. So he would “explain” to her again that _Prince Valiant_ was the funniest comic strip in history and he was continuously amazed that she didn’t “get” it. So she’d keep trying to figure out the joke week after week. I’m starting to wonder if perhaps Denis Kitchen is playing a similar joke on all of the rest of us. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2006, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597/42 "2006-01-08T04:32:14Z")
I always thought of Nancy and Family Circus as being primarily for kids. **Johanna** , it’s a freaking comic strip. Those speech balloons are less tiny, and considering the output a cartoonist with a daily strip puts out, they aren’t going to be perfectly accurate when it comes to foreign speech. That’s hardly racism. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Random](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/57b2e6/32.png) [@Random](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Random)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2006, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597/43 "2006-01-08T05:04:08Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > I used to know a guy who would play this elaborate practical joke on his girlfirend. Every week they would get the Sunday papers and read the comics. And every week he would laugh uproariously when he read _Prince Valiant_. And naturally his girlfriend would never see what was so funny. So he would “explain” to her again that _Prince Valiant_ was the funniest comic strip in history and he was continuously amazed that she didn’t “get” it. So she’d keep trying to figure out the joke week after week. This had me laughing for a good long time. I’m going to use some variant on this. (Yes, this is probably a Bad Idea. Yes, it probably makes me a jerk. It’s worth it.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2006, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597/44 "2006-01-08T20:19:49Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > I always thought of Nancy and Family Circus as being primarily for kids. Actually, I think _The Family Circus_ is primarily for **parents.** “Ha-ha, yeah, my kids act just like that!” ---
**Author:** ![vl\_mungo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc8723/32.png) [@vl\_mungo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vl_mungo)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2006, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597/45 "2006-01-08T20:52:20Z")
I have to admit that I find Nancy more entertaining than either [Henry](http://www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/henry/about.htm) or [Pud](http://static.flickr.com/34/73505287_32d0be393e_o.jpg)… but that’s just me. ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597/46 "2006-01-09T16:42:40Z")
Nancy was one I always read because it had an element of the surreal to it. I also find something very interesting visually about the strip. For example, [this one](http://photos1.blogger.com/img/149/1105/1024/Nancy450120.jpg) is just supremely odd in my opinion. And I love it. > [@GuanoLad](#): > > Denis Kitchen sounds like an A-Grade dickhead, judging by that interview. You really think so? I thought he was hilarious. And I always thought you had a sense of humor… ---
**Author:** ![Hombre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecb155/32.png) [@Hombre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hombre)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597/47 "2006-01-09T17:45:02Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > I’m appalled at the casually racist cultural ignorance that once used to be accepted as normal. Ernie Bushmiller was too lazy to drag his fat butt to the library or bookstore and find some examples of real Japanese writing? Cartooning is a stark medium. It’s all about the intended joke without much time to get to it. If the Japanese had been real, people (who understood Japanese) would be trying to figure out how it related to the intended joke. It’s not racism, it’s American comic convention like question marks coming off of a head or $&%@! for curse words. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597/48 "2006-01-09T21:14:13Z")
Nancy and Sluggo go to the zoo. They go the gnu pen, but it’s empty. The zookeeper tells them the gnus got too wild and had to be sent away. Sluggo says “No GNUS is good GNUS.” That was so stupid it burned into my memory for 30 years. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597/49 "2006-01-09T21:28:22Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I liked it when I was younger, and as I recall Fritzi didn’t speak in the older strips. Fritzi always spoke in the Bushmiller strips. It was her comic first, after all. ---
**Author:** ![Biotop](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biotop/32/321_2.png) [@Biotop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biotop)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597/50 "2006-01-09T23:05:25Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > Fritzi always spoke in the Bushmiller strips. It was her comic first, after all. Fritzi was actually a wannabe thespian. In one memorable strip, she is the understudy for a famous actress. They are filming a scene on top of a tall building in which a dummy of a man is wrestled with and thrown off the roof. The director tries to send the famous actress down to the street to retrieve the dummy for a re-shoot. But no SHE is too important to do that. Send the understudy down to get the dummy! So Fritzi has to walk down the flights of stairs to get the dummy. However, when she gets to the street below, she finds the dummy lying on the sidewalk with its hat upturned. The hat is full of money as people have mistaken the fallen dummy for a hapless drunken beggar. Fritzi wins. ---
**Author:** ![Ty\_Cobb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ee59a6/32.png) [@Ty\_Cobb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ty_Cobb)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597/51 "2006-01-10T01:09:41Z")
It’s much better right now. Take this one. Please. [http://www.comics.com//comics/nancy/archive/images/nancy27326860060109.gif](http://www.comics.com//comics/nancy/archive/images/nancy27326860060109.gif) ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597/52 "2006-01-10T02:31:20Z")
So, you want pictures of Fritzi in a thespian scene? ---
**Author:** ![Nickrz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bbce88/32.png) [@Nickrz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nickrz)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597/53 "2006-01-10T14:41:47Z")
Perhaps off-topic: Fritzi Ritz and Blondie both featured prominently in my childhood masturbatory fantasies. Who could resist Blondie with her night strap half-off her shoulder or Fritzi’s titties? Hubba-hubba. Imho, Irwin Hasen’s _Dondi_ took the cake for sick, twisted irrelevance and surrealism. Nancy was emminently ignorable, but one could not not read Dondi. It was like picking at a scab. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597/54 "2006-01-10T15:14:25Z")
> [@Nickrz](#): > > Perhaps off-topic: Fritzi Ritz and Blondie both featured prominently in my childhood masturbatory fantasies. Who could resist Blondie with her night strap half-off her shoulder or Fritzi’s titties? Hubba-hubba. At least you’re not Robert Crumb. He had a thing for Bugs Bunny. ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2006, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597/55 "2006-01-13T15:57:17Z")
> [@Cliffy](#): > > Hmm. I wonder what those Mutt & Jeffs were like. Because I’ve seen a lot of their full-page gags from the '40’s, and It hink they’re pretty good. Markstein [says](http://www.toonopedia.com/muttjeff.htm) that Al Smith was the cartoonist on the strip from the '30’s to 1980, so presumably the same guy I thought so funny from back in the War years was borng you to tears 30 years later. > > –Cliffy Mutt and Jeff ran in my paper as a child. It was gentle, trite, much like Nancy is. Nothing special. A good strip for young kids, one to be swiftly outgrown. God help me for not clinging onto this book into my adult years, but I had a book as a kid, The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics or some such, that ranged from The Yellow Kid through early 1970s Peanuts. Astounding, it was, with examples of just about everything that appeared widely, and whole storylines from the serialized strips. They had several strips from back when the comic was called A. Mutt. That strip was much edgier, with Mutt constantly in search of a gambling fix, if I recall. He liked the ponies and cards, if memory serves me. Jeff was a minor player at best. So yeah, it changed quite a bit over time. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2006, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597/56 "2006-01-13T16:01:57Z")
> [@Nickrz](#): > > Perhaps off-topic: Fritzi Ritz and Blondie both featured prominently in my childhood masturbatory fantasies. Who could resist Blondie with her night strap half-off her shoulder or Fritzi’s titties? Blondie had, unquestionably, the best rack in teh dailies. I wish I could drop a lot of acid and have hallucinations about a Roman-style orgy with Blondie, Fritzi, the mother from Family Circus, and Bugs Bunny. ---
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2006, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597/57 "2006-01-13T17:08:59Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > Blondie had, unquestionably, the best rack in teh dailies. I wish I could drop a lot of acid and have hallucinations about a Roman-style orgy with Blondie, Fritzi, the mother from Family Circus, and Bugs Bunny. I’d throw in Daisy Mae from Li’l Abner too. She might have even been hotter than Blondie or Blondie’s grown up daughter. ---
**Author:** ![Rube\_E.Tewesday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f0a364/32.png) [@Rube\_E.Tewesday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rube_E.Tewesday)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2006, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597/58 "2006-01-13T17:59:09Z")
> [@BMax](#): > > I’d throw in Daisy Mae from Li’l Abner too. She might have even been hotter than Blondie or Blondie’s grown up daughter. And add Moonbeam McSwine, after you got the others to give her a good, long, soapy bath. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2006, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597/59 "2006-01-13T18:05:40Z")
and the paternal grandmother from **Family Circus**. With a garter belt and some fishnets and such, she’d be getting some serious mature woman mojo going. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2006, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597/60 "2006-01-13T18:40:50Z")
Can’t seem to put my hands on it, but _The Harvard Lampoon Big Book of College Life_ ([http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385134460/qid=1137176128/sr=8-3/ref=sr\_8\_xs\_ap\_i3\_xgl14/002-2924742-0975232?n=507846&s=books&v=glance](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385134460/qid=1137176128/sr=8-3/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i3_xgl14/002-2924742-0975232?n=507846&s=books&v=glance)) includes a hilarious (all right, not hilarious; more of wry chuckle-inducing level of humor, just slightly funner than a _New Yorker_ cartoon) faux-academic lecture, “Nancy and Nihilism.” Wish I could find it . . . [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-comic-strip-nancy-to-me/338597.md?page=4)