# The least funny "comic strip" I have ever read
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-funny-comic-strip-i-have-ever-read/496148
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [May 12, 2009, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-funny-comic-strip-i-have-ever-read/496148 "2009-05-12T09:19:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2009, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-funny-comic-strip-i-have-ever-read/496148/61 "2009-05-13T03:19:54Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> Old farts also love “Family Circus.”
I remember an Andy Kaufman/performance art-type comic on Letterman back in the Eighties whose whole schtick was that he was the world’s biggest Family Circus fan. He made a return appearance where he showed off this Family Circus collection that Bil Keane sent him after seeing or hearing about his original appearance.
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### Author:  [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2009, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-funny-comic-strip-i-have-ever-read/496148/62 "2009-05-13T03:56:45Z")
OK, I did laugh at [this one](http://www.hagencartoons.com/cartoon13.gif) a little.
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### Author:  [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2009, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-funny-comic-strip-i-have-ever-read/496148/63 "2009-05-13T04:23:08Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> They do have Dilbert and Crankshaft, but that’s about all that’s consistently good (and Crankshaft works only because it often works as a continuity strip – the “playing baseball with Castro” storyline, for instance).
_Crankshaft_ is good? 😕
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2009, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-funny-comic-strip-i-have-ever-read/496148/64 "2009-05-13T05:33:54Z")
Crankshaft is good, but it’s not necessarily funny. It’s a story strip, not a joke strip.
The one I was wondering about there was Dilbert. It used to be good, but dried up a few years ago.
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### Author:  [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2009, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-funny-comic-strip-i-have-ever-read/496148/65 "2009-05-13T08:28:42Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> Our local newspaper has probably the weakest lineup of comic strips of any newspaper in the US. They include:
>
> The Middletons
> Nest Heads
> Pooch Cafe
> Arctic Circle
> Lio
> Baby Blues
> Tina’s Groove
>
> None of these is terrible (well, not counting the abysmal “Nest Heads”), but none ever rises above the level of mediocrity. They’re also running “Peanuts” reruns.
>
> They do have Dilbert and Crankshaft, but that’s about all that’s consistently good (and Crankshaft works only because it often works as a continuity strip – the “playing baseball with Castro” storyline, for instance).
> [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](#):
>
> Waitaminnut. You think “Lio” is mediocre, but “Crankshaft” is consistently good?
> Is this Bizarro World?
And the Castro storyline was an example of something that worked.:eek: I find Lio to be the far superior strip.
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### Author:  [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2009, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-funny-comic-strip-i-have-ever-read/496148/66 "2009-05-13T17:01:14Z")
The big problem with these crappy comic strip is that the creators (or in several cases, the son/daughter of the creator,) keep making them because they keep getting paid. They might have chosen to retire years ago, but the newspapers keep paying them. The newspapers keep paying them, because whenever they get rid of strips like “The Lockhorns,” “Family Circus,” or “Marmaduke,” and replace them with newer and FUNNY (or at the very least innovatibe,) comics, they get thousands upon thousands of letters from old ladies claiming that “The Lockhorns,” “Family Circus,” or “Marmaduke” was their FAVORITE strip, and how DARE they get rid of it for something that’s offensive, or humor they “just don’t get.” These are the kind of people that not once ever laughed at a Far Side and don’t get why “Pearls before Swine,” isn’t 100% animal jokes (cause it has ANIMALS in it.)
I agree with whoever said earlier that as you get old you lose the ability to have a complex sense of humor.
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2009, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-funny-comic-strip-i-have-ever-read/496148/67 "2009-05-13T18:05:36Z")
Unfortunately, those older people are the biggest demographic for daily papers. So when they talk, the publishers listen. And when the publishers talk, the syndicates listen.
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### Author:  [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2009, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-funny-comic-strip-i-have-ever-read/496148/68 "2009-05-13T18:19:09Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> Old farts also love “Family Circus.”
>
> People lose their sense of humour as they age, or most of them do, anyway. It’s not (entirely) that humour changes; the same mortician bait who loves “The Lockhorns” today probably would have found it boring 50 years ago. I’m convinced it’s actually that part of the brain atrophies, and only the simplest jokes can be understood.
My theory is that certain comic strips are simply stable touchstones - always the same, day after day, since they were young. Whether they are funny or not is irrelevant, the important thing is that when one opens the newspaper they are still there, exactly the same as always, even as everything else grows incomprehensible.
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### Author:  [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2009, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-funny-comic-strip-i-have-ever-read/496148/69 "2009-05-13T18:40:22Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#):
>
> All comics mentioned here are still better than “Mallard Fillmore”.
I don’t believe it’s meant to be funny. It’s like the Doonesbury of the right. Every now and then, they sneak in a joke, but otherwise it’s just the cartoonist preaching his personal politics. Family Circus is the same thing, but with God instead of politics. At least in B.C., there are a bunch of actual gag strips in between the proselytizing strips.
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2009, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-funny-comic-strip-i-have-ever-read/496148/70 "2009-05-13T19:06:20Z")
> [@InvisibleWombat](#):
>
> I don’t believe it’s meant to be funny. It’s like the Doonesbury of the right.
Hey, Doonesbury is still pretty damned funny. At least as far as modern strips go.
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### Author:  [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2009, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-funny-comic-strip-i-have-ever-read/496148/71 "2009-05-13T19:19:35Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> The comic strip in the OP’s main problem is that every single one is “X species of animal has Y characteristic”. Whenever you get pigeonholed into one very specific genre of jokes, you’re going to dry up the well pretty quickly: Even if you’re making new jokes, they’re still going to _feel_ old. The cartoonist would be well-advised to mix it up a bit: Include jokes about a dog at the office, or a giraffe’s family interactions, or whatever, that have nothing to do with the fact that it’s a dog or a giraffe.
Bill Holbrook has been coming up with new “animals doing human things” jokes for years now, in [**Kevin & Kell**](http://www.kevinandkell.com), so he proves at least that it _can_ be done…it’s just that most people don’t have the talent to come up with fresh, funny material.
(here’s [one of my favorites](http://www.kevinandkell.com/1995/kk1020.html) from the K&K archives)
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### Author:  [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2009, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-funny-comic-strip-i-have-ever-read/496148/72 "2009-05-13T19:51:45Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#):
>
> Hey, Doonesbury is still pretty damned funny. At least as far as modern strips go.
I agree it used to be funny, but nowadays he can go quite a while with no humor, no punchline, just slamming home his political points. Then he’ll get a funny story line for a while, but that’s happening less and less frequently.
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### Author:  [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2009, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-funny-comic-strip-i-have-ever-read/496148/73 "2009-05-14T04:09:19Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I think everyone’s thinking about Love Is.
Isn’t that Jean Teasdale’s favorite strip?
> [@](#):
>
> Old farts also love “Family Circus.”
As well as middle American housewives who collect Precious Moments and think Thomas Kinkaid is high art.
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