Monday, November 05, 2007

Jokes Charles Schulz Wouldn’t Do

Today’s For Better or For Worse had one. The closest Peanuts got to sex was when Rerun van Pelt or Sally Brown showed up out of nowhere.

Today’s For Better or For Worse joke falls into the category of “Ask dad an embarrassing question, and then when he tries to answer it, let him know the real answer is a simple number joke, so he was getting embarrassed for nothing.” My kids do ones like, “Why was 6 afraid of 7? Because 7, 8, 9 (seven ate nine).” Of course they do those jokes at ages 8 – 12. If my kids did a joke like “What’s sex?” to me at age 4, I would look around for the older kid who conned them into doing it. In Michael’s case, there is no older sibling, so a neighbourhood kid would be more likely, possibly Molly or Gayle Thomas, except they weren’t in the strip by 1980.

This is not the conclusion to which John Patterson heads. Instead he wonders if his kid at age 4 really knows enough about sex and a parents’ discomfort in discussing the subject with their children, to be able to understand the prank he just played on him. I find it a little difficult to believe John Patterson could be so ignorant about the thought processes of 4-year-olds, but For Better or For Worse is notorious for turning people into idiots in order to make a joke, particularly John.

I talked yesterday about the possibility that Lynn Johnston might start dragging out “embarrassing John Patterson” strips in order to vent her anger over her divorce, and this could be one of them to follow the sequence of the one we had yesterday. Of course this is only two strips in a row. I would have to see more than this to be convinced it was a pattern. At least, we don’t have to hear that it was little Michael’s smartness and inquisitive nature which caused him to ask this question.

My practice as a parent is to try to answer the kids’ questions when they ask them, and then to give them truthful answers, and hope they don’t ask them while we are in a very public place (which is what they did). So, unlike John Patterson, when my son asked me, “What’s sex?” I had a different answer than his dodge about plants and animals being divided into male and female. This is obviously a difficult question for the Pattersons, because some years later I remember Elly taught April about the birds and bees by leaving a book in a bookshelf where she could find it. Then of course, there was the humourous strip where John looks in the same book to learn some things too. I don’t have a copy of all the collections, so I don’t know if there ever was a moment where John or Elly had “the talk” with their kids. My guess is they did not. After all, there are jokes Lynn Johnston won’t do either.

14 Comments:

Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

Oh, dear. Maike used to love watching his folks change coloe at that age. He probably noticed that there was one word that was guaranteed to make his Mom and Dad uncomfortable and ran with it. Either we're in for a week of making John look bad or baffled parents. Either way, he only looks smart in comparison to his dense-as-titanium parents.

10:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

C'mon, this is a cute strip!

Anon NYC

10:20 PM  
Blogger howard said...

Anon NYC,

Sometimes for something to be cute or funny, you have to suspend your disbelief in the events which set up the cuteness or the humour. My kids are 9 and 12 and they don't do sex jokes, even with numerical sequences involved. The strip may be cute, but I find I am unable to suspend my disbelief long enough to find it cute. Sorry. I must be getting cranky in my old age.

10:27 PM  
Blogger April Patterson said...

FYI, this strip appears in the collection right before the "Why did I hafta get born first" one. It would have run in 1979 and Mike is five (and in kindergarten).

But being five instead of four doesn't make the scenario especially plausible, either. :)

3:43 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

April Patterson:


So, even back then she didn't really understand children too well or sympathize with them that much. Just as she didn't get that Mike wanted to be born second because of Aaron's real-to everyone-but-her's emotional needs, she had them display age-inappropriate behavior because she thought children should behave that way.

3:59 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Of course Elizabeth has never had The Talk. I mean, she's almost 30 and the Golden Vajayjay is still untouched, isn't it? She still appears to think that getting hoisted into the air by one's ass is "going all the way."

Whereas Mike knew just enough about sex to get tricked into fatherhood by his wife.

7:30 AM  
Blogger howard said...

aprilp_katje

I forgot Mike is 5 in 1979, even though his birthday is in 1976. It’s odd this strip was before "Why did I hafta get born first", since the born first topic was related to things going on with Lizzie. This means that what we are also getting is a retcon of the strip order so that the sequence makes more sense than it was originally presented.

9:35 AM  
Blogger howard said...

DreadedCandiru2,

In the early strips, Lynn made a big deal about taking her real-life experiences and putting them into a strip. As I said, I could see a 5-year-old kid doing this joke, if he had been put up to it by an older kid, or even seen an older kid do it and was imitating it. Aaron might have done this to Rod Johnston, but the element missing for explanation was where he got his information. As for Lynn Johnston, she may have taken the incident just as she observed it, without questioning how it came about.

9:37 AM  
Blogger howard said...

dlauthor,

I am pretty sure virginity at old ages is not a sign of not getting “the talk.” As I recollect, Lynn Johnston’s unspoken implication is that Elizabeth lost her virginity in university when she was living with Eric Chamberlain.

9:37 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

She meshes well with her fanbase then. One of the worst things in the world to the people on Coffee Talk and the Yahoo group is to have to think about what's going on in front of them. Their idea of paradise is to sit there like idiots and let crap wash over them.

10:14 AM  
Blogger howard said...

dreadedcandiru2

Their idea of paradise is to sit there like idiots and let crap wash over them.

Not necessarily. I think the Coffee Talk people have a good memory for what they like, and they enjoy what they can out of what they get.

I remember Scott Adams talking about the appeal of certain comic strips like Dilbert, where the strip would fall into categories of :

a. That’s something just like what I do.
b. That’s a joke I understand and find amusing.
c. This is a great story.
d. What fantastic art.

Naturally, Dilbert scores on (a) and (b) and is the reason why it is successful. The Coffee Talk crowd is the crowd who appreciates For Better or For Worse for no other reason than (a). There are constant comments about how this son or this daughter is the same as some Patterson kid, and because the comic strip characters have aged along with the son and daughter, then they are bonded to the strip. For Better or For Worse has never fallen into (d), although thanks to the hybrid I have a greater appreciation for the art. When I think of (d), I think of Hal Foster or Milton Caniff, but I may be too picky. There are no strips in newspapers today which can match them.

When For Better or For Worse has really been cranking, it scored on (a), (b), and (c). That is the reason why the strip is almost always one of the top 10 most popular strips. Most other strips do good simply to get 2 of those categories.

Most of what we have a difficulty with these days, as snarkers, is that (c) and (b) have fallen by the wayside compared to For Better or For Worse in the 1990s and (a) is perilously close to heading the same direction. After all, you don’t ever see anyone in the Coffee Talk say, “I got $25K as an advance for my first book after submitting it to only one publisher, just like Michael.” Or “I got my job teaching because someone got divorced, after having spent no time actually looking for a job, just like Elizabeth.” Or “I decided to drop my boyfriend because he was in a garage band I also decided to drop, just like April.” If a Coffee Talk (a) reference goes to a current storyline, we are talking Grandpa Jim’s stroke, or Shannon Lake’s special needs-liness. Lynn Johnston took the time to make these stories reasonably authentic and the Coffee Talk readers know it. In the meantime, they like Michael, Elizabeth, and April for no other reason than they have relatives the same age. For some readers, that’s all they need. Obviously, you and I are not a part of that group.

11:07 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

That, of course, means that most of the people who act as if Lynn has their houses wired for sound are engaged in hyperbole. They realize that Lynn is damn good at depicting stuff that happens to almost everyone. They also remember the glory days and simply think she's going through a slump. What bugs me is that some people confuse trying to analyze what makes things funny is a cynical attempt to kill the humor.

12:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sorry. I must be getting cranky in my old age.

Don’t be too harsh with yourself because in all probability it’s not your fault. I think your symptoms indicate early stages of "excessive analysis." This is a psychological condition that, if left unchecked, escalates rapidly. Regretfully, there is no cure for this ailment. However, looking into a mirror while making weird faces and uttering strange sounds frequently alleviates EA.

Anon NYC

5:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Funny you should mention Charlie Brown. I remember seeing a Peanuts years ago where Charlie Brown and another character talk about where kids come from .. people get married and kids just collect like old magazines.

7:16 PM  

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