December 21, 1993
Things have gotten back to normal in the current Arlo & Janis offerings, but we’re still rehashing the past here, particularly older strips involving son Gene and a young and precocious Mary Lou. Above is the first in a little one-week series that ran at Christmas, 1993, the same year Mary Lou was introduced; that would have been the beach series that reran in newspapers and on GoComics last week. (Try to keep up, now.) I was winging it when I wrote this. I always wing it, but the story revealed itself. Mary Lou’s father had sunk a lot into a little beach-front motel and was consumed with making a go of it. That would be, of course, Gus, who would go on to play a huge role in the strip in later years. Mary Lou’s mother, well… had issues. Mary Lou and an older sister were left basically to supervise themselves. Both the mother and the sister would retire to that nebulous place where inconvenient comic-strip characters go to disappear.
12 responses to “The Christmas Caller”
Jimmy – Thanks for the backstory.
Merry Christmas…Is everyone having difficulty knowing what day it is? Strange year. Labor Day will be here before you know it and college football will…..TBD
I have to admit that baseball is lasting longer than I expected. But I do worry about Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations. It was easy to not do Easter because it was early in the shutdown, but I would guess that most will want to be together come November and December.
Mary Lou’s mother and sister… the red-shirted expendable crew members of the A&J world!
They are in the same place as Richie’s older brother from Happy Days.
And Jeremy’s big brother in Zits.
This is new on Gocomics, & has a certain sameness from strip to strip. Today’s is more insightful than some.
https://www.gocomics.com/meaningoflila/2020/08/18
Peace,
It goes back to the start of 2005 on Gocomics.
Whicb comic strip used to have a favorite beloved arm chair that was so ratty the wife kept slepping it out to curb for trssh and husband brought it back in? Was that Dagwood and Blondie?
Then there was Fraser’s dad in the TV show Frasier whose recliner was held together with Duck tape. And Archie Bunker whose armchair is in the Smithsonian.
An orb-weaver spider has spun a web on the front of the webcam. Out of focus, but spooky.
https://explore.org/livecams/birds/mississippi-river-flyway-cam
Peace,
Rats! GoComics only goes back to just a few months after this! Can’t see the surrounding strips! vSo, thank you, Jimmy, for posting at least this one. Just how *did* Marylou get the Days’ phone number?!
DJJG, I would guess that she peeked into her dad’s records of their reservation.
Oh, duh me—I should’ve figured. Thanks, TR! And now I see that Jimmy J. has posted the next day’s strip.