Friday, June 8, 2018

Mary Worth 2903

I'm so glad Mountview Hospital included the walking trail on the grounds as part of their recent gazillion dollar expansion. Now Mary can take her victory lap without having to drive back to Charterstone and finding Toby. And what a victory lap this is! "Wilbur reached out to me when I found him at the top of the cliff and I prescribed a session of therapy and karaoke. He's going to be just fine now."

39 comments:

Nance said...

Today's Boldface Haiku is titled

"In Which Mary Risks A Broken Arm Whilst Patting Herself On The Back, Even Though She Did Not Take Her Own Advice And Silently Sold Muffins For Charity Instead".

Overwhelming, confusing.
Struggle, reach out, all around.
Yes. Us accept.
Are understanding.

Chester the Dog said...

Do Jeff and Mary ever speak TO each other, and not AT each other?

Mountview has quite a holodeck!

Anonymous said...


Now I get it. Mary and Jeff are playing a game. One says something banal and the other has to top it. They're both very good at this, so it could go on forever. Even if it doesn't, it will seem like forever. In fact, it already does.

-- Scottie McW.

fauxprof said...

In deference to Nance’s brilliant Boldface Haiku title, I think KM is also patting herself on the back. She thinks she’s presented a cutting-edge examination of depression and its treatment. She’s actually come up with poorly written drivel. I think she’s become one with her title character.

KitKat said...

The Artificial Unintelligence dialogue has dug in for another day and will likely descend to its nadir on Sunday. We have to steel ourselves for the Sunday quotation KM will foist on us .

As Nance points out in her pithy haiku title today, Mary didn’t take her own advice, substituting with a muffin frenzy and bake sale at a church that conveniently materialized and then disappeared. KM’s blather is particularly tone deaf in a week when the Centers for Dusease Control and Prevention reported that the U.S. suicide rate increased by 25.4 percent from 1999-2016, and when two prominent persons took their lives.

However, maybe a new plot awaits us on Monday: Mary flies to Singapore to serve Mary Muffins to two men with terrible hairstyles who just happen to be meeting there.

Regina Wolfe-Parks said...

LOL KitKat, now that would be funny. Their names will be Presidents Tonald Drump Jim Kong Nu.

The platitudes go on and on and will continue until Sunday when KM comes up with a banal quote taht has nothing to do with the plot. My suggestion "Life is a mystery. Everyone must stand alone. I hear you call my name and it feels like home."-Madonna

Regina Wolfe-Parks said...

Oh and KitKat, you are on the money about suicides. This week we had two suicides of famous people. I know KM wrote her "great" story before this, but like you said she had a tone deaf storyline that wrapped up neatly with it being solved by singing karaoke, going to Dr. Sweater Vest and having people tell you how great you are. Like I keep saying KM should go out in the real world and see how things work.

I wanted to mention yesterday about Mary blathering about Wilbur "seeing someone at the medical arts building to talk things out". Isn't telling Dr. Jeff a violation of HIPPA? Don't tell Mary anything. She'll put your business out there in a minute.

Tim said...

Burn this storyline. Burn it with fire.

Tim said...

Mary and Dr Jeff Corey will drone on, throwing banalities at each other until one of them passes. It's kind of like a drinking game except boring.

Maxwell Bacon said...

Have Mary and Jeff joined a cult? Or are they pod people, and their bodies have been snatched? Or are they Stepford robots? Or all of the above?

@Regina Wolfe-Parks: I'm diggin' the Madonna reference!

Anonymous said...

MK obviously attended the Mary Tyler Moore Show Theme Song School of Medicine and got her MPH (Master of Platitudes from Hell) there.

Again, she didn't attend long enough to notice that DOCTORS don't wear short coats.

But I agree with everyone here, that the worst thing about all these tone- and culture-deaf plot lines and the INCONCEIVABLY LAME dialogue is that this both trivializes really serious issues and insults the reader's intelligence. Sadly it's a missed opportunity to work something intelligent on this topic into a plot line.

Thank God for all the excellent snark, here. I now read the strip in order to celebrate the snark.

Thanks, Wanders!

Grumpy Ole Doc

r u ok? said...

Dr. Jeff isn't trying to propose to Mary again in a roundabout way is he? Mary will just punish him again if he does, but not to the point that she doesn't receive free meals at the Bum Boat (or the hospital cafeteria).

Regina Wolfe-Parks said...

@Maxwell Bacon. Thanks! The song started going through my head when I started reading Mary and Dr. Jeff's endless platitudes. The first lyrics sound like something Mary would say.

Nance said...

@Regina Wolfe-Parks--By the time I got to the middle of the second line of your Quote Suggestion, I was laughing so hard, both cats left the room in high dudgeon. Stellar Work, my dear. STELLAR.

@KitKat--I have a sticky note on my laptop that says, "Strive For Pithy..."

@fauxprof--And the rest of the sticky note says, "...but Hope For Brilliance."

Sigh. I love this place.

Regina Wolfe-Parks said...

Coming from you Nance, that is the highest compliment I can get. I was snorting tea out of my nose with today's boldface haiku title. How you do it everyday, I wish I knew! You manage to outdo yourself everyday.

Mary and Jeff's nonsensical patter makes it even easier with us to come up with the snark.

doug said...

Thank you KitKat! I couldn't have said it better myself.

KitKat said...

SATURDAY
Hey Mary, this would be s good time to tell Jeff that his ol’ buddy Ted “what a character” Miller attempted to assault you in your home. Let the healing begin!

Anonymous said...

Here we are deep into the 15th overtime of the World Banality Championship, and neither contestant shows any signs of weakening. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a titanic steel-cage death match, and . . . uh, ladies and gentlemen, are you there? OMIGOD, you're all comatose! We need to stop this competition right n . . . zzzzzzzzzzz.

-- Scottie McW.

fauxprof said...

After a week of conversation between Mary and Jeff, I wonder what other confabs we might eavesdrop on. Hmmm....

In the editorial offices of the Santa Royal Free Penny Saver Shopper Weekly:

“Hey, I thought we dropped the Weston columns in favor of something entertaining?”
“We, did, but it turned out that the Syndicate wanted an arm and a leg for Sudoku and Jumble, but they were practically giving away the Weston garbage.”
“Really? But they must have spent a ton of money subsidizing him on that year-long junket for Survivor Stories.”
“Bet that’s what he thought, too. But they sent the contract as an e-mail attachment, and the poor sucker just clicked ‘agree’. No expense account! It’s all on him. Boy, when the credit card bills start coming in, Wilbur will be singing the blues!”

Which brings us to a partners’ meeting in the back room of Three Guys Burgers, Karaoke, and Fries:

“I think I’ve got two new investors on the hook, but they think we should drop the Karaoke feature.”
“That’s a pretty good idea. Karaoke is always pretty bad, but last night it was brutal. Some lump with a bad combover chose the theme from the Golden Girls. The whole darn thing!”
“Oh, no! What did the other customers do?”
“Cleared out, of course, except his posse—an old lady, a middle-aged woman who was attempting to Botox herself into Emma Watson, and a fat guy with a fake white beard.”
“Like Santa Claus?”
“No, more like a huge garden gnome. They were really hammered.”
“But we don’t sell booze?”
“They brought their own.”
“So, how’d you get him offstage?”
“I didn’t. He was set to go on with ‘MacArthur Park’ and ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’, so I took the batteries out of his mike. Nobody noticed.”

Segue to Ian and Toby’s condo:

“Little under the weather, Ian?”
“Oooocchhhh!”
“It’s that nasty scotch whiskey. You should fill your flask with vodka, like me!”
“Oooocchhhh!”

And, finally, Wilbur, in the office of Dr. Sweatervest, Therapist:

“I’m so much better! People love me! They love the way I sing! And most of all, they love my words. I have the best words!! Nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, the occasional conjunction and preposition, all strung together by my brilliant writing. Yes I am much loved, especially by my dear little daughter Diane—er, Dana? Donna? Dawn, that’s it , Dawn! She’s off visiting somewhere beautiful, maybe Croatia or the Canary Islands. Everyone loves me...except for those two hateful witches, Iris and Fabiana. But they’ll pay. Oh, yes, they will be truly sorry...”

Dr. Sweatervest says nothing. He is an android.

Peggy Olson said...

Saturday: I've been away for a week. Thanks to Wanders and this wonderful blog, I've quickly caught up on a week's worth of (not) exciting story.

Unfortunately, this week also brought news of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain's suicides. To read Mary and Jeff's cliche-ridden drivel about people in crisis - well, I can find no kind words. Karen Moy is irresponsible. She should be ashamed.

Anonymous said...


@fauxprof

Hilarious!

-- S.McW.

meg said...

fauxprof: !! “After a week with Jeff and Mary”, I’m gonna get hammered myself. I’ve been trying to think of a story to use this headline with:
Five Guys Throws Out Two Guys and Two Women. Now I don’t need to.

Maxwell Bacon said...

In panel 2, are these two waiting for the mother ship so they can beam up and return to their own planet?

Bonus question: are the two aliens secretly holding hands off-panel?

Robocall said...

@fauxprof: That was hilarious!
The only part I didn't understand was why the android therapist doesn't say anything. Being an android never stops anyone else in this strip from talking!

KitKat said...

@fauxprof, that was hilarious! Brava, brava! The description of Ian as a fat garden gnome made me laugh out loud because it’s so accurate. And the thought of Wilbur warbling MacArthur Park AND The Wreck of the Edmund FitzGerald had me rolling on the floor. “Someone left the (pink) cake out in the rain....”

Regina Wolfe-Parks said...

OMG fauxprof you win the battle of the Saturday snark!! Bravo!

Like I predicted, the banality continues. How these two don’t put each other to sleep is beyond me.

I had trouble getting into Seattlepi comics this morning. I think the banality put them to sleep.

Anonymous said...


BTW, it's bad enough that we're subjected to this banality-fest, but the heavy dose of self-congratulation is extra annoying. Blech.

-- S.McW.

Chester the Dog said...

Computer, end program, please!

Maxwell Bacon said...

SUNDAY
The "Tweedlebeedies" are back. YAY!

Nance said...

@fauxprof—Absolute perfection! The killer song titles were the coups de grace.

KitKat said...

SUNDAY
Mother and son Beedie never looked more interchangeable.

By “what an exciting personal life she leads!” Mary means, “She’s shackling up with a guy half her age who’s loaded! Isn’t that...something...”

fauxprof said...

So we’re going from a Wilbur storyline to a (groan) Tommy Beedie storyline. I’m torn—there should be ample opportunity for snark, but I’m sad that KM is proving to be creatively bankrupt. She apparently exhausted her powers of invention with Evil Entertainer Esme, with one dim spark in Ted Miller. Okay, Karen, bring on Tommy. I don’t have to say “do your worst”, because you undoubtedly will.

(Thanks to all for the kind words for my attempt at comedy yesterday. And, Nance, those are two songs that give me the creepy-crawly heebie-jeebies. Too late, I thought of one other number for Wilbur: the gag-worthy, and appropriate “Alone Again, Naturally”.)

lmjb1964 said...

When I read "Speaking of Tommy," I definitely heard a Dun Dun DUN!!! What fun and excitement are we in for now? I see Tommy is working at a pet store. Will he get hooked on some pet medication? Get involved in an exotic animal smuggling ring? Is he giving the eye to the woman working at the counter? The suspense is killing me!

Seriously, has everyone else moved out of Charterstone? Aren't there other residents Mary can meddle with? What about Mr. Allora? he must have some personal problems Mary can "help" him with.

*Sigh* Well, if it will keep Wilbore out of the picture for a while, I guess that's something.

Regina Wolfe-Parks said...

I thought to myself “ugh, not Iris again” but then we segue to Tommy. I think Tommy wants to get busy with the cashier and she’ll tell him to get lost like “Tina baby” did. I hope that KM hasn’t got a tone deaf storyline like the last two.

It’s nice to see Avacodo Aggie buying potatoes for her dog.

lmjb1964 said...

And it looks like a bottle of cologne in the other bag. I guess she doesn't want to wash her dog, and just figures she'll spray perfume all over him.

Maxwell Bacon said...

Is Tommy working at a pet store? I thought it was a supermarket. Either way, we're sure to see Tommy dippin' into the Special K!

The first two panels of today's strip sum up every day of the strip. "Acquiring wisdom" through "observation" = spying on your neighbours like a true busybody!

Anonymous said...


Don't we acquire wisdom through experience rather than observation?

Old saying:

I hear, I forget.

I see, I remember.

I do, I understand.

-- S.McW.

Anonymous said...

Oh God the fact that this blog celebrates banality at all gives me the strength to get up in the morning; the fact that this particular banality is Mary Worth gives me POWER TO DEFEAT WORLDS.

lmjb1964 said...

Ok, so I guess it is a grocery store rather than a pet food store. I figured pet food store since it has a whole section devoted to "cat food," but whatevs. And apparently Mr. Allora has his own line of canned apples? plums? Anyway, if Tommy wants this job to stick, he better stop staring at the cashier and pay attention to his work, or he's going to mis-selve the Allora canned peaches (?) with the Pasta.