Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Mary Worth 1,186

"Plus, I'm cold. I could use a sweater. I wonder if there's a decent diner close by where I can get a warm meal and a free sweater."

Today's Full Strip

56 comments:

Elaine said...

Well, something is making that guy crabby! I wonder how he's going to look in Mary's sweater... That should cheer him up. If only Gina were still working there, he could get excellent non-service.

Chester the Dog said...

Good gosh, I hope he has a big glass of prune juice at DINER!

jmernl said...

Where are Santa Royale's finest when we need them? In Santa Royale, you CAN judge a book by its cover. This guy is unkempt and in need of a shave and who knows what else. Thus, he must be bad. The Santa Royale Police could cut crime dramatically by rounding up all people who are similarly attired and shipping them to Bigcityville ASAP. Crime rates will drop precipitously and the restaurants and diners will again be safe for dangling purses and forgotten sweaters.

tuffenuf said...

I can see it now...

Mary will say:

"EMILY?EMILY SMITH?!!!"

And then we will dub her: "E?ES!?"

WV: 'foretpla'

(and I thought this was a family friendly website!)

Brick said...

Emily? You think that kid is Emily?! The missing girl from the poster? Could be... but the hair STYLE is all wrong and hair STYLE is all we have to go on when identifying characters in this strip. Invalidate my identification method and I have nothing.

Nope. Not Emily.

Elaine said...

@Brick - but the eyes...I think they're a match! Who else in SR would have blue eyes??

Amanda Kate said...

"Since I've kidnapped you, I'll just go through the drive thru. Haha, just kidding. That would make too much sense. Come on, let's go inside this diner where everyone can see you."

meg said...

Stop the presses! Mary Worth has its first trans-gendered character. The dark-haired nurse has a bun hairstyle- and a mustache and soul patch.

speedy said...

I guess it's too much to hope for that Mary and that Cro-Magnon kidnapper will duke it out at Diner. I swear, Moy makes one great straightman.

Charlie said...

"I've seen this girl.
Emily Smith is ten years
old, blond hair, blue
eyes."

birdie said...

Oh dear!

Mary will be sitting at the diner for hours doodling and making up songs and interactive games. Everyone there will simply assume she is senile but harmless.

She will spot Emily, but nobody will listen to her. They'll think it's just another of her interactive games.

Poor Mary! Poor Emily Smith!

birdie said...

Mary will then go back to the original poster, take out a Sharpie, and, in her finest handwriting, write "Yes" at the bottom.

She will then smugly feel that she has done her duty.

James in North Dakota said...

A-ha! The plot thickens!!!! Now, if Surly Kidnapper was somehow connected to "Sonny and Cher," everything will come full circle.

Anonymous said...

He must be the kidnapper because he is grungy, needs a shave and has a broken nose. And the girl has blonde hair so she must be the missing girl. What we have here is Mary obscessing over a poster of a missing girl, kidnapper and girl on the way to diner, Mary on the way to diner....a perfectly sophomoric Moy plot.

Captain Peabody said...

Kidnapper Jones is terribly perplexed as he stares at his detached hands hanging off the steering wheel. "I should get some dinner!" he thinks, "I'm starting to see things." But just then, his head bursts through the windshield and he realizes that his entire body is growing more and more out of proportion with his surroundings. And there's suddenly some weird little kid in the front seat of his car! Help me, Mary! You're my only hope!

Chester the Dog said...

The kidnapper must have stopped at Super Cuts to give Emily a perky new bob.

Anonymous said...

There's too much going on! I can't keep up! I CAN'T KEEP UP!

kathyo said...

Child abductors always buckle up for safety, and insist that their victims do likewise.

meg said...

This is the third orange-haired character introduced in recent weeks: Alison the waitress, Amy the suffering but not complaining neighbor of Mary, and now, Thuggy McThuggerson.

Coincidence, my dear Watson? I think not.
The Orange-Headed League comes to mind, Holmes.

duckduckgoose said...

In a way, Emily's parents are lucky too. They'll get their stolen daughter replaced because they, like Mary, prepared a detailed list to have on hand in case of a crime. Eye color, hair color, age, every parent should all have these facts on hand. In a perfect world, such a list would not be necessary. Prudence will prevent further damage.

I for one have already learned from this story. If the groceries I bought yesterday are stolen, I'm prepared.

Dave in Parma said...

@Elaine: Blue hair maybe, but never blue eyes.

The driver can't be a bad guy. Bad guys always have cauliflower ears.

tuffenuf said...

@meg 10:24

Don't jump to conclusions, Meg - half of the men in the "hipster" town I live in wear their hair in an odd bun like pull-back.

GREAT COMMENTS ALL! Keep up the good work! The laughter is nonstop!

Ice T said...

I guess it was too much to hope that in her newfound fear of society, Mary would take up krav maga.

But NO. We're leading down an inevitable path of Mary "being the hero." AGAIN.

Hopefully she'll be too self-absorbed in her thoughts of the poster and how she's such a good person by being so self-absorbed in the thoughts of the poster that she'll totally miss seeing kidnapper and Carey Mulligan stroll into Diner.

heydave said...

This has become a very bumpy, strange ride.

Anonymous said...

Mary's wallet was stolen right under her nose and she forgot her sweater at the diner. In the real world she has already forgotten the face on the poster. But I can't wait for the kidnapper's reaction as he and Emily walk past it.

Elaine said...

Has anyone else noticed that the nurse's waving hand in panel one is unusually long? She has some kind of flipper thing going on there.

meg said...

tuffenuf: You're right, I was jumping to conclusions. Therefore:

Stop the presses! Mary Worth has its first hipster character.

Thorpnotized said...

Maybe this guy will run Mary down in the crosswalk, as she returns to Diner. But of course, she would survive...

katyb said...

Birdie @10:47 a.m.
Thank you! Hilarious.
Did anyone else notice the transparent seat belt holding in Emily/or NotEmily?
What could that mean!?
I'm on pins. But not needles.

birdie said...

I think Moy should have lots of people headed to the diner at the same time, for different reasons. Dr Jeff, Toby and Chinbeard, Wilbur, Adrian, and all the others should happen to arrive simultaneously.

Mary would look up from her 30th cup of coffee, see all of them coming in and greeting her, and she'd say, "Do I know you?"

Vicki said...

Sheesh...can Mary not pick up her rotary dial phone and CALL Diner to see if perhaps anyone has found her sweater? And could they please put it under the counter until she can retrieve it???
My goodness Diner is getting quite the reputation for crime and drama, and somehow Mary is always right in the middle of it. "Dodging a bullet" indeed!

tuffenuf said...

Comeon! Really?

Thuggy McThuggerson tugs on Emily's arm and her hair grows???

Even in the Worthiverse, that is a stretch.

I wonder if Mary will have to dust off her Kung Fu skills in order to rescue Emily.

Can't wait to see Wanders' take on this.

Mary said...

I love love love the way Mr. Thug Man is glowering at that poster.

As one who is trying to grow out her hair, I'd like to know Emily's secret. It got longer between panels.

birdie said...

Emily uses the same Magic Bun device that Mary has. The device is implanted inside your skull and allows you to wind up extra hair inside it. Thus, your hair can instantaneously be set to any length you wish.

Thuggy is relying heavily upon the apathy of everyone around him, or he wouldn't have the nerve to abuse the child right in front of the poster and within arm's reach of other people.

I suppose this is a special Santa Royale form of apathy, born of the assumption that Mary Worth will take care of everything. Either that or they're so sick of her blathering about how deeply she cares about everybody that they are determined not to be like her.

heydave said...

Does Thuggy realize that he appears to have kidnapped Joan of Arc? That can't be a good move.

duckduckgoose said...

Thuggy is tugging
Emily's simile
toward the diner.
She's a whiner.

Coast is clear
at the poster here.
Let's getter to the sweater...

Vicki said...

great one duckduckgoose, LOL!!

meg said...

Emily, we know things have been difficult since the kidnaping, but could you refuse to complain? Others have it worse. Why can't you be like Amy?

Maude Findlay said...

When I was a kid, I had a doll that had a retractable ponytail, where you could make her hair long, medium or short, just by tugging or pushing it in or out. Maybe that's what's going on with Emily's head?

Punky said...

Can we all chip in and buy Joe G. some continuity classes for Christmas? If this is our beloved Diner, it sure has changed a lot, as have the surrounding buildings, since we last saw it in June. Have a look:

http://tinyurl.com/c7xppqh

I admit to being mildly curious about how Mary will put Emily and her poster together. I figure this is the "feel-good" end-of-year plot, as Mary gets to reunite Emily with the Family Smiths, and gets to put a cap on another well-spent year of do-gooding, Let the self-congratulation begin!

Petunia said...

Could be another shootout at SantaRoyaleCostMartDiner! Will Mr. Dr. Adrian finally return from his honeymoon to deal with it?

More importantly, are salmon squares on the menu at Diner?

--Beagle Vet

KitKat said...

Wanders is at Diner, hoping to snag Mary's sweater before she arrives. Goodness, will he recognize Emily??

Anonymous said...

Just walk past the poster while tugging on the arm of the girl you kidnapped. Yep, that's the ticket. No one will recognize her with shorter hair.....except Mary, of course.

Anonymous said...

Maybe DINER was renovated during the last six months. Of course in Worthiverse, that would only be several weeks...

BaHa said...

@Maud Findlay: Tressie? I had one, too!
WV: Kelly. Wrong strip! Over in Mark Trail, Kelly Welly and the tame bear are being chased by wolves.

Mary said...

@ Maude and Baha,

I think we had a beautiful Chrissy doll with retractable hair. Apparently I, at age 4 or so, tied the doll's hair in knots and sprayed it with my mother's hair spray. I have no recollection of this, but my older sister reminds me of if often. It was her doll.

heydave said...

Thickening plot!
Confrontation nearby!

Save us Mary!

KitKat said...

Minus the orange hair, thug kidnapper reminds me of --- NY Blazes' Team Manager! Now that would be a thickening plot indeed. Alas, I think Giella just has a small supply of facial artwork.

kathyo said...

Apparently Thuggy never read "Kidnapping for Dummies."

tuffenuf said...

TMcT bears an uncanny resemblance to "Mr. Yuk", the green-faced, Poison Control mascot.

Robert said...

How is Mary going to recognize Emily, since we know that Giella is hardly ever able to make any two drawings of the same person look the same.

Dave in Parma said...

I'm getting concerned--should we start posting missing "Wanders" posters?

kathyo said...

Giella: There's no dialog here for Friday's second panel.
Moy: "No matter."

heydave said...

Have you seen Mr. Wanders?
Middle aged, lives in Maryland, distracted by shiny things,has other odd habits, presumably has a daytime job.

Ice T said...

Shouldn't the kidnapper have at least put a nice demi-permanent color in Emily's hair to disguise her? Or barring that, at least drawn on a Sharpie mustache?

meg said...

Something very strange is happening. On this blog, and at seattlepi.com, TMcT has orange hair (not that there's anything wrong with that).
But at the Washington Post, his hair is brown.