Medical school in Baltimore. I’d also been reading National Lampoon for 12 years at that time. Learned almost as much from Nat Lamp as I did from Med School.
Exactly. Another example of this type of joke.
But some people just don’t get it. They want to figure out an escape plan that would use potato salad, a wooden alpaca, and a leprechaun suit. They think if they could figure out what the plan is they’d get the joke.
No. That’s not how the joke works. And the fact you think you need to “solve” the joke means you will never understand the joke. Or jokes in general. It probably means you have no genuine sense of humor and you’re just faking it.
It was the 80s so I vote for Q-bert. #@$!*&
In fact, that’s the name of the trope.
That was just a distraction. The real plan involved the skis, case of soap and the basketball. 
BD is reacting that way because he doesn’t want her to even hint at things he’s promised a higher-paying publication an exclusive for. He’s not shocked at the action she’s describing. He’s mad that she’s kind of breaking the lucrative exclusivity clause he has with People.
Another version that got 15 minutes of fame was Gary Larson’s “Cow Tools” in The Far Side.
Apparently Queef is a Scottish slang term and is at least 200 years old.
I’m quite sad that Trudeau has stopped doing the daily strip.
Yeah.
It WAS supposed to be unknowable and from a clue that would lead nowhere. Boopsie kind of got that and said what she did thinking there was nothing that could possibly match “Q” and “shallow end of a pool”.
BD, being more worldly, knew that there WAS a word that started with Q (queefing) that could happen in a pool and tried to stop her, but it was too late.
My first thought was that it was just a nonsense joke, and Trudeau is having fun with us.
My next thought was that Boopsie is so dumb, she thinks cunnilingus begins with a Q.
For those reading in the future, here’s the strip in question. For future reference OP (and others reading), it’s not all that hard to hit “previous” or “next” or something, and suss out how to format the URL to avoid confusion regarding a “today’s strip”.
Boopsie is incredibly naive. I don’t think she was actually referring to anything seriously off-color at all. Probably something quite tame.
At least they didn’t use the ‘Y’ word.
Like maybe one of those mudslides that occur in SoCal during their rainy season? Because the fires burn off the vegetation that would hold the topsoil together during the rains? A predictable local disaster, true, but nothing people in the other 49 states really care about?
That’s how you know it is a total McGuffin. Trudeau re-used the joke years later. Paraphrasing, someone is reading off a list of forbidden swear words: “No F word, no S word, no N word, no B word, none of the M words, no C word, no R word…”
Just so everybody would go nuts trying to figure out what swear word begins with “R.”
Ranger Jeff, please don’t tell me you think she’s actually doing a charity benefit video.
But she thinks she is.
("'Cause she’s a blonde…")
I don’t, but I think the joke would have been a lot better if it were a double entendre. Instead, the joke is just that, if she knew what a “Malibu mud slide” was, she’d know the statement was nonsensical.
I’m still not sure I’m being clear, so I’ll give a (lame) example. What if she’d said it was as benefit for “victims of male impotency”? Obviously, that probably wouldn’t make it in the comic, but it’s an example of the type of joke I want.
Just like I think it would have been funnier if the previous comic’s Q word had actually referred to something. Having it just be nonsensical makes the joke seem half-assed.
Probably he doesn’t think she is. But he DOES (apparently) think that the strip ftg is referring to is Saturday’s, and not Friday’s.
psssssst. Ranger Jeff, this thread is about the strip that ran on Friday, July 24. The charity thing didn’t get mentioned until the Saturday strip.
Speaking of which, I think that Boopsie IS referring to an actual charity event (in-universe, not IRL). Just another joke about certain “Hollywood types” and the low bar they set for themselves wrt empathy for the misfortunes of others and “giving back.”
Of course, that’s the punchline to one of the Dirty Ernie jokes.
[spoiler]
The teacher is asking the class for words that begin with each letter of the alphabet.
She asks, "Now class, who can tell me a word that begins with the letter “A”?
Dirty Ernie is raising his hand and jumping up and down in his seat. But the teacher knows he’s going to say “asshole.” So she calls on Susie.
Teacher: Susie, do you know a word that begins with “A”?
Susie: Apple!
Teacher: Very good, Susie!
Teacher: Ok, who knows a word that begins with “B”?
Again Ernie is jumping up and down in his seat and raising his hand. But the teacher knows he’s going to say “bitch” or “balls” or “bastard,” so she calls on Betsy.
Teacher: Betsy, do you know a word that begins with “B”?
Betsy: Balloon!
Teacher: Very good, Betsy!
The teacher works her way through the alphabet, and on every word Ernie is raising his hand, and she avoids calling on him. Finally she gets to the letter “R,” and nobody else is raising their hand. Ernie is yelling out, “Call on me, teach, call on me!” The teacher thinks, “Well, I can’t think of a single dirty word that begins with “R.” Maybe I can risk calling on Ernie.”
Teacher: Ok, Ernie. Can you tell me a word that begins with “R.”
Ernie jumps out of his seat in great excitement and shouts “RAT! A big fuckin’ rat with a prick this long!”[/spoiler]