Banana = Monkey = Michael

My first thought seeing today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse is “choking hazard”. The second thought was to remember this strip where, once again, a banana was associated with a kid making funny noises. My third thought was, “Why is it that I can’t find any references to monkeys or bananas using AMU reprints searching the strips back to 1996, but we have 2 new-runs in the last year using a monkey and banana theme?”

I think the answer this question comes in this strip, where John imitates a monkey while he is at a zoo with Michael. Not only does it prove Elly’s point that this sort of behaviour comes from John’s side of the family, but it is probably the source of the idea for the new-runs. When Lynn Johnston reprinted the zoo strip she must have done something she does not ordinarily do, i.e. read the strip. I think she became so enamored of monkey-oriented humour, she had Lizzie make monkey noises and now Michael. However, the situation has gotten progressively worse with each additional new-run. First Lizzie is just making regular baby noises and Michael hands her a banana. With today’s trip Michael not only associates a banana with monkey noises, but somehow he is gotten it into his head that monkeys put banana peels on their head and dance around. You know the next step is for Elly to put a banana in a casserole while making monkey noises.