Bizarro is brought to you today by a Terrible Mime.
Good day, Jazz Pickles. There have been countless cartoons done about mimes but I’m very proud of this one because it seems to me to be a new angle and we cartoonists love coming up with a new angle on a common cartoon cliche. It also has the added benefit of being one of those cartoons that you don’t get immediately until you look closely. I love that kind of humor and my Jazz Pickles tell me they do, too.
Let me know if you enjoy having to figure out a joke or if you prefer the kind that are self explanatory in an instant and the drawing doesn’t really matter. I do plenty of those kinds of gags, too, of course.
Waldo is another character that is used a lot in cartoons, though not as often as mimes, in spite of his striped shirt. I’ve done a few Waldo gags myself, here is my favorite from the late 1900s.
In this one, he is some kind of perp. We don’t know what kind exactly, as he is only described as an “assailant,” so I’ll leave that to your imagination. Maybe he only stole the old lady’s red and white stocking cap.
Next up today we drop into the conversation of a young therapy patient who is evidently obsessed with water slides. Surely that can’t be the only reason she sees a shrink, though. Again, I’ll leave it to your own fertile imaginations.
When I was a kid, all we had were Slip’n'Slides. Which, if you’re too young to know, was a long strip of plastic you laid down in your yard (hopefully on a hill) with a garden hose hooked to the top. You ran as fast as you could, flung yourself onto it and slid. It was a lot like a birth canal in that when you landed on the ground at the end of it, you frequently needed the wind knocked back into you.
Our final cartoon today is about the way many elderly people drive. Not ALL elderly people, of course. My own parents are in their 70s and I’m certain they drive as well as they ever did. The fact that my mother sits on a stack of phone books to see over the steering wheel has hardly affected her abilities at all. In fact, my father teaches a defensive driving course so he takes great pride in not being a road hazard. Good for you, Dad! (Although he does incessantly point out the faults and mistakes of every other driver on the road so a trip to the store with him is like a defensive driving course all by itself.) Love you, Dad!
i left a note on your page and came back to my home page to find this…but i got to tell you i still don’t unstand it…maybe because i do not know who waldo was/is…i assume that he stole a cane because he is holding on or i thought he was and her response went way over my head…sorry it is me not you…
Doug, sometimes you astound me. :o) Go to the Google and enter “Where’s Waldo?” You’ll find a longstanding series of children’s game books with elaborate illustrations, the point of which is find the Waldo character among the chaos.
I enjoy having to figure out a cartoon. I love the “ah ha” moment.
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cool fro, yo!
I think the pallbearers in the mime cartoon should have been mimes as well. They would have no problem carrying an invisible box.
I thought of that but their outfits seemed like it might have been overkill. I like the subtlety of only Marceau being the mime, even though he is dead.
I love the Marcel Marceau panel. Innovative yet subtle.
I wasn’t sure if Marcel was actually dead though, so I looked up his bio (yes he is dead). I was intrigued to discover that in WWII, Marcel and his brother joined the French Resistance in Limoges where they saved numerous children from the race laws and concentration camps. Marcel started miming as a way of keeping children quiet as they were escaping to neutral Switzerland.
Who knew?
Your parents must be a lot of fun to be around with! They look like very humorous people :-)
A radio station in Toronto, AM740, senior music radio, gives speed trap warnings when the police are out enforcing minimum speeds.
How funny.
Minimum speeds? Really?
Oh yah, minimum speeds. “Enforce them!” say autocross racing friends.
Put me down for “figure it out” cartoons but not like obtuse, NewYorkery stuff. Your work is mainstream, with a weird, but mostly refrigerator-friendly bent.
Thanks for bringing the funny.
Keep up the great work !!
I love the ones you need to think about.
Bizarro is a MUST read on my iPad every morning.
Reminds me of the Gary Larson days.
We love your strip!!
Gary and Mary E. Morgan
I love the “Road Signs for Seniors” Comic. It’s funny because it’s true. My parents aren’t old enough to exhibit all of these traits, but the Grandkids Photo area would ring loud and clear to them. Love it
My thought at seeing the waterslide cartoon was “brilliant!” It pulls in context from several levels, so, like the best pickled peppers, you get repeated pleasure.
Google for videos of MFFY driving.
I do think your parents get better looking as they age — I hope I do the same. Your dad’s quite the hipster nowadays!
I was driving the other day on the motorway near Lisbon, when all of a sudden I go past a Bizarro truck
http://www.bizarro.com.pt/
Yes, there is a Bizarro truck company in Portugal, and their logo is, of course, funny:
http://www.bizarro.com.pt/Logotipoinicial.jpg
How wonderful and hilarious! Thanks so much for the links!
1st, Thank you for sharing your humor. The Line Up one is great! It gave me that sense of shock…”I found Waldo!” I reminds me of the one you did with the little girl in the Park “Look Mommy A Sky Diver!”, and he is coming fast – 3 feet above the ground! Cracks me up. Thanks again!
The only joke I can consistently remember goes like this:
Q:What is the difference between an onion and a mime?
A: no one cries when you cut up a mime.
haha
Mimes. Have you ever seen Bobcat Goldthwaite in “Shakes the Clown”?
Not sure if I’ve seen the movie (I have a terrible memory for some things) but I love Bobcat.