# "Family Circus" is actually kind of funny today! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 12, 2009, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904 "2009-01-12T12:34:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904/21 "2009-01-13T02:57:04Z")
We had a totally useless med school class where some psychosociological type actually used Family Circle cartoons as a teaching aid (shudder). The strip cited in the OP is less awful than usual. Don’t worry though - Neutered Mom, Blank-Faced Dad and the cute widdle weasel children will be back to their usual high standards of nauseating pablum tomorrow. A Jack Chick-style Family Circus might be amusing though. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904/22 "2009-01-13T04:56:48Z")
Family Circus is only funny when they make their way into [The Comics Curmudgeon](http://joshreads.com/?cat=3&submit=view&paged=6). Scroll down to the one where Grandma is looking through the trunk in the attic. I laughed out loud. ---
**Author:** ![PetW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d2c977/32.png) [@PetW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PetW)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904/23 "2009-01-13T05:31:23Z")
I was just discussing with my mom how awful some comics are. The worst is Fred Basset. This “brilliant” strip is life garfield, only with a dog instead of a cat. Today’s strip had the owner ordering a couple of items from a delivery place. His wife, in the next room, shouts out that she wants (combo numbers) “Eighteen, twenty one, and thirty four!”. The big punchline comes when we see Fred’s thought bubble: “And fifty two!” Ha! The dog wants delivery too! How do they come up with this stuff? ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904/24 "2009-01-13T07:21:30Z")
The only thing more mystifying than people who find Family Circle funny are people who found those stupid soap opera type cartoons like Mary Worth even slightly interesting…you could read that cartoon for months on end with absolutely NOTHING happening. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904/25 "2009-01-13T14:42:57Z")
> [@Jodi](#): > > No it’s not, because no, it’s not. You don’t understand. Only is someone, anyone, _thinks_ the strip is funny, the seal is broken. Bill Keane has struggled for decades to publish a non-offensive and completely unfunny single panel strip to hold back the forces of darkness. Now, thanks to **Baldwin** , we are one step closer to Armageddon. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904/26 "2009-01-13T15:45:13Z")
> [@PetW](#): > > I was just discussing with my mom how awful some comics are. The worst is Fred Basset. This “brilliant” strip is life garfield, only with a dog instead of a cat. Today’s strip had the owner ordering a couple of items from a delivery place. His wife, in the next room, shouts out that she wants (combo numbers) “Eighteen, twenty one, and thirty four!”. The big punchline comes when we see Fred’s thought bubble: “And fifty two!” > Ha! The dog wants delivery too! You sure the dog isn’t using the “18, 21, 34” as a logic problem? 34 + 18 = 52. ---
**Author:** ![Labdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904/27 "2009-01-13T16:04:46Z")
There’s only one way to enjoy “Family Circus.” Draw intersecting horizontal and verticle lines in the circular panel. Now it looks like a telescopic scope on a rifle. See how close you can come to a head shot! [Today](http://www.arcamax.com/pic/73807/317968) we nail Billy right in the mouth! ---
**Author:** ![planetcory](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/planetcory/32/1032_2.png) [@planetcory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/planetcory)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904/28 "2009-01-13T16:26:59Z")
> [@DMark](#): > > The only thing more mystifying than people who find Family Circle funny are people who found those stupid soap opera type cartoons like Mary Worth even slightly interesting…you could read that cartoon for months on end with absolutely NOTHING happening. No offense to old people but… old people. There’s a vocal contingent of newspaper readers who don’t want new or unique or fresh. They want familiarity. They want to open that paper and see the same strips they saw as a youth. Whether they’re good or not is irrelevant. And they’ll raise holy hell if they aren’t there. ---
**Author:** ![PetW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d2c977/32.png) [@PetW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PetW)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904/29 "2009-01-13T17:27:19Z")
> [@Lute Skywatcher](#): > > You sure the dog isn’t using the “18, 21, 34” as a logic problem? 34 + 18 = 52. Hey man, stop hijacking the thread, this is about Family Circus! The dog is smarter than me ---
**Author:** ![satoridt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@satoridt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/satoridt)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904/30 "2009-01-13T18:53:25Z")
> [@George\_Kaplin](#): > > Speaking of Garfield, have you guys come across [Garfield minus Garfield](http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/)? Thank You! LOL at a lot of these, Fucking hilarious. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904/31 "2009-01-13T19:49:10Z")
> [@PetW](#): > > I was just discussing with my mom how awful some comics are. The worst is Fred Basset. This “brilliant” strip is life garfield, only with a dog instead of a cat. Today’s strip had the owner ordering a couple of items from a delivery place. His wife, in the next room, shouts out that she wants (combo numbers) “Eighteen, twenty one, and thirty four!”. The big punchline comes when we see Fred’s thought bubble: “And fifty two!” > Ha! The dog wants delivery too! How do they come up with this stuff? Fred Basset suffers from the “original creator is dead, but let’s milk it for all it’s worth” syndrome. It was a fairly good strip in the 60s and 70s, but after Alex Graham died in 1991, it lost everything that made it good (if somewhat low-key). ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904/32 "2009-01-13T20:28:19Z")
> [@DMark](#): > > The only thing more mystifying than people who find Family Circle funny are people who found those stupid soap opera type cartoons like Mary Worth even slightly interesting…you could read that cartoon for months on end with absolutely NOTHING happening. I’ve been reading the same paper for 40 years and yet I had to double check just now to see if Judge Parker and Mark Trail are still included in the comics section. Yup, still there. Such is my mental block. (For me, the only time TFC came close to being funny was once back in the late 70’s when Dolly explained to Jeffy, “You call a lady ‘Mrs.’ if she’s married, ‘Miss’ if she’s not married, and ‘Ms.’ if it’s a secret.”) ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904/33 "2009-01-13T20:36:58Z")
I still remember an old Mad magazine parody of FC that I had as a kid. One showed Billy holding his pet turtle in front of his dad. “My turtle’s all gnarled and smelly, just like Grandma!” ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904/34 "2009-01-13T20:49:47Z")
I haven’t read the newspaper comics in years. Partially it’s because I canceled my newspaper delivery several years ago but I actually stopped years before that. Once Calvin and Hobbs stopped I was down to only reading Doonesbury and it just wasn’t worth the bother. They are all, every single one of them, awful. They should just eliminate the whole fucking genre\*. \*By that I mean newspaper comics. There are good web comics of course. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904/35 "2009-01-13T22:17:17Z")
> [@planetcory](#): > > No offense to old people but… old people. > > There’s a vocal contingent of newspaper readers who don’t want new or unique or fresh. They want familiarity. They want to open that paper and see the same strips they saw as a youth. Whether they’re good or not is irrelevant. And they’ll raise holy hell if they aren’t there. You have no idea how right you are. At the newspaper I work at they changed the TV guide from being in Sunday’s paper to Friday’s. For weeks on end I’d get calls about how much people hate it. I still get one or two a day. My favorite though was when a woman who’d be out of town called and asked about it. I told her and she said, “Well, I don’t like it!” Then hung up. How does she know she doesn’t like it? She hadn’t seen the new layout, she barely heard about it ten seconds ago, when I told her. ---
**Author:** ![planetcory](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/planetcory/32/1032_2.png) [@planetcory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/planetcory)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904/36 "2009-01-13T22:46:23Z")
> [@RandMcnally](#): > > You have no idea how right you are. At the newspaper I work at they changed the TV guide from being in Sunday’s paper to Friday’s. For weeks on end I’d get calls about how much people hate it. I still get one or two a day. > > My favorite though was when a woman who’d be out of town called and asked about it. I told her and she said, “Well, I don’t like it!” Then hung up. > > How does she know she doesn’t like it? She hadn’t seen the new layout, she barely heard about it ten seconds ago, when I told her. Oh, I have a pretty good idea. I’m one of those cartoonists miserably clinging to what few papers I have, wishing Mary Worth would keel over so I could have her apartment. ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904/37 "2009-01-14T00:18:10Z")
> [@planetcory](#): > > Oh, I have a pretty good idea. I’m one of those cartoonists miserably clinging to what few papers I have, wishing Mary Worth would keel over so I could have her apartment. Yeah? What’s your comic? And you do know Mary made a pact with Satan right? She’ll live for several centuries before it comes due. ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904/38 "2009-01-14T01:33:35Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > I still remember an old Mad magazine parody of FC that I had as a kid. One showed Billy holding his pet turtle in front of his dad. > > “My turtle’s all gnarled and smelly, just like Grandma!” [nitpick]Bloom County, not Mad Magazine. It was in a newspaper insert from one of the books. The same one that had the Ask George Will column.[/nitpick] ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904/39 "2009-01-14T01:59:06Z")
> [@RandMcnally](#): > > You have no idea how right you are. At the newspaper I work at … You work for Wendy? Didn’t she fire the entire staff or something? ---
**Author:** ![planetcory](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/planetcory/32/1032_2.png) [@planetcory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/planetcory)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904/40 "2009-01-14T02:07:21Z")
> [@photopat](#): > > Yeah? What’s your comic? And you do know Mary made a pact with Satan right? She’ll live for several centuries before it comes due. Yeah, I’m pretty sure she’ll be among the only things to survive the Apocalypse with roaches. My comic’s called “Watch Your Head.” It’s my love letter to the socially inept college student. Mostly because I was socially inept in college. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-circus-is-actually-kind-of-funny-today/480904.md?page=3)