Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Mary Worth 361


Huh? Would somebody please explain to me what the heck Frank is talking about? Except for another comic, Mary Worth is very old.

FrankGriffin.com

Today's Full Strip

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

dinner! today's iron worth ingredient : TANG!

Anonymous said...

"Yes, and after the next event which follows this event but is after the current event, we will get to the final event." No doubt about Moy's drunken stupor now. Even poor Giella seems to have lost his enthusiasm.

Anonymous said...

I think he means, "Yes, the Regionals are very important. The only event that is more important is US Nationals, which comes soon after."

Or perhaps, "Yes, the Regionals are important and the results thereof have a close correlation with the only event of higher importance, US Nationals."

Geez, I just wish they'd talk like normal humans.

Anonymous said...

I believe a comma was misplaced. What was probably meant:
Yes, except for another event they lead very closely to--the U.S. Nationals.
Love your blog, Wanders!

Anonymous said...

Except for Frank's bizarre syntax, what confuses me most is that Frank directly contradicted Mary a couple of days ago yet he is still alive?

Mollie said...

Isn't he the skating coach that was touted on TV?

But seriously... Aloe vera and Anonymous 2 are probably right. That hadn't occurred to me (probably because, you know, that's not how you use "except"). I figured the sentence was originally, "Yes, they lead directly to U.S. Nationals!" But right before going to press, Moy found out somehow that this isn't exactly true, so she tried to adjust the sentence just enough so that it wouldn't get her lots of angry letters from skating enthusiasts.

Barbara L. Hanson said...

Regionals to sectionals to nationals. And why can't MW say "are the regionals important?" instead of the incredibly stilted "are the regionals an important event?"
And Lynn wouldn't be expected to "place first" but to "take gold."

Barbara L. Hanson said...

Wait a sec...Mary has no cutlery and appears to be serving herself with her hands. Perhaps this is a cleverly disguised asylum with a strong skating program.

Maggie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Maggie said...

Does anyone else think Mary Worth is looking a little emaciated here in panel one? Or maybe a little... alien? Part of it is probably that she's serving herself without utensils (good pick up, baha). She's either unaware of American customs or she's just so so hungry for that bowl of potato flakes.

Anonymous said...

What? No mention of Lynn's bizarre second-panel remark? "That may be true for this event, Father, but you're not always right, you know." It's at least equally awkward, makes no sense -- and sounds like it was penned in the late eighteenth century.

I believe I have, however, figured this whole thing out. Today's strip was cribbed verbatim from the translation exercise of a French I textbook.

"Are the regionals an important event?"
"Where is the pencil of my aunt who is dead?"
"Why does the daughter of the coach of skating have no joy of life?"

Anonymous said...

boojum: I need my French I textbook back! LOL!

Anonymous said...

Actually, Lynn's second-panel remark, "...Father...you're not always right..." is really not that bizarre for those of us who know Lynn's true history, which can read on yesterday's blog. Elsewhere, Lynn was known as the sassy maverick Vera.

Anonymous said...

You can be certain, no matter what the story line, that Moy will do a minimum of research to familiarize herself with the topic at hand. This becomes obvious as Lynn prepares to compete for first place in the game of figure skating which will take place at the regionals which are an important event except for another event which lead very closely to the U.S. Nationals. Her preparation, as explained by a coach who is touted on television, requires, first and foremost, that she point her toes, show expression, form and posture and keep it tight, all in the pursuit of the speed, jumps and drama which put Mary Worth in awe when she watches figure skating competitions on TV.

Anonymous said...

This script reads like Moy ran it through the Babelfish language translator a dozen times -- each time into an entirely different language and then back to English again -- before sending the results off to poor befuddled Joe Giella to draw.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous the Last: Remember the recurring SNL skit "The Teeny-Tiny Cafe," whose chanteuse (Nora Dunn) would sing "songs translated from English into French... and then back into English again"? The effect was remarkably similar, with one major difference: the songs were meant to be funny.

Anonymous said...

"Lynn looks four, except she is eighteen"

"I'll have more peas, except the table is slanted and the Tang may slide off, except like my cutlery did"

Oh, apparently Mary cooked dinner as we all can see. How did her Ann Page green mush get through airport security?

ethel mertz said...

Been side-lined with the flu for almost a week. I've tried to read MW thru my icky haze but it wasn't easy. Y'know, every time I read MW faithfully for months, its time becomes a slug that slinks slowly, leaving the slimy trail that is MW. However, after only a few days away, that skater has had several different heads, most of them looking like Mary in some peculiar age/face/form. I need aspirin, don't I? Please say yes.

Anonymous said...

ethel mertz: Yes! By all means, take the aspirin, but do not drink the Kool-Aid.

Hope you're feeling better.

Barbara L. Hanson said...

Ethel, maybe it's my flu talking, but I think Lynn's competitor (the one in the most peculiar skating togs I've ever seen) is a dead ringer for Mary.

Anonymous said...

Are you talking about that skater dressed as Laura Ingalls? The one doing the "Pink Schoolmarm" routine so popular with the judges these days?

Barbara L. Hanson said...

That would be the one.

Barbara L. Hanson said...

Do you think that a large glass of Mary-prepared Tang would help with my Wanders withdrawal? I'm not doing at all well...

ethel mertz said...

Oh yeah, the skater in the Tyroleon Waitress outfit. Absolutely! But I can't shake the feeling that I saw Lynn's face, always during her less-than-tight spins, morphing into Mary at many stages of her life: young, middle-aged, Mr. Potato Head, a chimp's first scrawl with a pen. My health teacher in 1972 warned us about "flash-backs". Do I need to call someone to talk me down?

Anonymous said...

Hope you're OK, Wanders. I'm missing my daily dose!

Is it just me, or is this storyline proceeding at breakneck pace? Either the competition was the day after Mary arrived, or Mary's been there about a month.

I agree Maggie, Mary looks extremely slender in the panel you mentioned! Maybe she *has* been there for a month and they're not feeding her, or the lack of cutlery is foiling her attempts to eat.

Barbara L. Hanson said...

The funny thing about Frank's explosion is that finishing second in the short is considered just fine, no big deal. And why is he dressed like he coached Tenley Albright?

Anonymous said...

Baha: As I said, Moy does no research. You're right, a finish near the top of the short program is just where you want to be. And that limited knowledge about figure skating is not even coming from a fan.