Why You Don’t Let Toddlers in the Bathroom by Themselves
With today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse, Lynn Johnston has jumped from the daily strips of January 15, 1981, which she reprinted on Saturday to a strip originally printed on January 22, 1981. Looking at the strips she skipped, her reasoning does appear to be sound.
The January 19, 1981 strip features Elly back at school talking about how can still sleep with her eyes wide open. Lynn has been trying to establish that this time Elly likes school and wants to complete her class, as opposed to how Elly lost interest in her class last time.
The January 20, 1981 strip features Elly and Annie talking about Connie and Phil. Elly clearly says that nothing happened between Phil and Connie and now Connie is wandering about imagining a relationship with a man she hardly knows. This a stark contrast from the Connie and Phil who have been communicating together for over a year, where Phil is leading Connie on. Lynn has to scratch this one.
The January 21, 1981 strip shows Connie trying to find out Phil’s address in Montreal so she can return his pipe to him, without have to ask Elly for it. Naturally this strip also does not work with a couple who have been corresponding to each other over the last years. Connie would be very aware of Phil’s address.
That brings us to January 22, 1981, a strip now 11 days out-of-synch with today’s day. In other words, Lynn will need at least 11 new-runs in order to synchronize her 1981 daily strips with the 2010 daily strips so she can go to straight reprints.
With today’s reprint, we see Elly use the phrase “Help!” as the punchline for the joke. In order to enjoy this strip, first you will have to take a giant step past the safety issues with Elly letting little Elizabeth play in a bathroom without supervision. Lynn has used the “Help!” punchline before in this strip when Michael was in his graduation tuxedo. Although the punchline is the same, the meaning is entirely different. Michael wanted to escape from being in the tuxedo, whereas Elly appears to be on the verge of collapse because her daughter made a mess.
Today’s strip joke is much more similar to this strip. The basic premise is that little Lizzie has the capacity to make a huge mess with very little effort and each time she does this, Elly becomes overwhelmed. Let me tell you Elly Patterson, until you deal with explosive poopie flying across the room or projectile vomiting with your young daughter, these little bathroom messes are nothing.
The January 19, 1981 strip features Elly back at school talking about how can still sleep with her eyes wide open. Lynn has been trying to establish that this time Elly likes school and wants to complete her class, as opposed to how Elly lost interest in her class last time.
The January 20, 1981 strip features Elly and Annie talking about Connie and Phil. Elly clearly says that nothing happened between Phil and Connie and now Connie is wandering about imagining a relationship with a man she hardly knows. This a stark contrast from the Connie and Phil who have been communicating together for over a year, where Phil is leading Connie on. Lynn has to scratch this one.
The January 21, 1981 strip shows Connie trying to find out Phil’s address in Montreal so she can return his pipe to him, without have to ask Elly for it. Naturally this strip also does not work with a couple who have been corresponding to each other over the last years. Connie would be very aware of Phil’s address.
That brings us to January 22, 1981, a strip now 11 days out-of-synch with today’s day. In other words, Lynn will need at least 11 new-runs in order to synchronize her 1981 daily strips with the 2010 daily strips so she can go to straight reprints.
With today’s reprint, we see Elly use the phrase “Help!” as the punchline for the joke. In order to enjoy this strip, first you will have to take a giant step past the safety issues with Elly letting little Elizabeth play in a bathroom without supervision. Lynn has used the “Help!” punchline before in this strip when Michael was in his graduation tuxedo. Although the punchline is the same, the meaning is entirely different. Michael wanted to escape from being in the tuxedo, whereas Elly appears to be on the verge of collapse because her daughter made a mess.
Today’s strip joke is much more similar to this strip. The basic premise is that little Lizzie has the capacity to make a huge mess with very little effort and each time she does this, Elly becomes overwhelmed. Let me tell you Elly Patterson, until you deal with explosive poopie flying across the room or projectile vomiting with your young daughter, these little bathroom messes are nothing.
posted by howard at 9:08 PM
4 Comments:
What bothered a lot of people on the Foobiverse about today's strip is that we are not meant to fear for Lizzie, who might have drowned in the toilet; we are meant to pity poor, put-upon Elly who will spend hours curled up in a ball because she had another reminder that unsupervised children tend to make messes. Any reminder that taking the five minutes needed to do things right would have spared her the hours of clean-up would earn the fool that said so the right to dodge a coffee cup.
I have seen this also in the early strips. I remember the one where Lizzie fell down the stairs, crawled back up the stairs and then began crying. The joke was supposed to be that she wasn't really hurt by the fall, and she was just crying to get attention; but the I was horrified by the fact Lizzie could get to stairs she could fall down.
When you consider how the adults of this strip do not take the injury or potential injury of the kids very seriously, it adds a whole new depth to the moment we have coming up with Lawrence breaking his leg.
I was thinking that this was another artifact of the "Lynn-stole-from-everyone" period when she was getting started.
She stole the facial expressions and the muppet-mouth laughs/screams from Sparky, she stole Annie from Cathy, and she stole pretty much all the "kid komedy" from the gag-a-day family strips like "Family Circus" and "Dennis the Menace" (and others, which I've mercifully forgotten).
The "joke" of the child-whirlwind-of-destruction is pretty much a stock gag for the family strips. Lynn just couldn't figure out how to set it up so it didn't look like she'd let her toddler lock herself in the bathroom.
Fail, yes, but pretty much in keeping with a lot of the other "Elly's-bad-parenting-skillset" strips from the early years...
Thank you
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