Yeah, you’ve seen this one before, but I thought I’d get things back on track and put us in a holiday mood. This A&J comic strip, from 1996, is the first in a series, and if you haven’t seen it or want to see it again click on the date above. Some readers at the time let me know they didn’t care for this series. It was one of my first forays into “whimsy,” let us call it. I think the detractors would have called it “weird.” However, it is a favorite of mine, and many readers did seem to appreciate it. As in so many endeavors, you can’t please everyone. This truth is particularly hard on cartoonists, because we’re generally very shy and insecure people who want everybody to love us. The age of the “comment” has toughened some of us up on the outside, but not on the inside. Not really.
Cartoonist’s note: if you do click all the way through the week of Nov. 25, 1996, you’ll be rewarded with a passable Sunday strip (December 1).
40 responses to “Turkey Days”
I believe this series ends with Arlo turning the turkey into a hand puppet and chases Janis around with it. One of my many favorites.
I love Gene’s reaction!!!!
The week of Dec 2-6, 1996 is really putting me into a holiday mood… doldrums. :/
This is one of my favorite sequences of the strip, Jimmy. Thanks for bringing it back.
Happy 245th Birthday, US Marine Corps. You don’t look a day over 240.
Semper Fidelis!
Seems to me the 10 Nov. Dustin is Arlo quality, but their lead characters are not all interchangeable.
https://www.arcamax.com/thefunnies/dustin/
Peace,
Today’s (Nov 11) Dustin is too. I accidently clicked on Dustin during this pandemic and it has been fun to read.
I love whimsy!
Thank you, Ghost.
Way back in the mid-70’s I had a job at a turkey plant doing pretty much what Arlo is dreading, except my turkeys were still warm. I only worked there 1/2 shift; at lunch break I just walked off, stuck my thumb out and moved on down the road.
I like your whimsey. 🙂
ok, I was clicking happily along, enjoying the whimsey and the art and the fun and then I came to this one. OK, somebody please let me know the answer? I only heard it discussed, never saw it ! https://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/1996/12/08 THANKS!
I’m not sure if Jimmy was a fan, or as confused as most adults. Both Arlo and his coworker are right; Ren is the rat/dog chihuahua, Stimpy is a Manx cat. No bets payable. Possibly more than you care to know here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren_and_Stimpy_(characters)
Woops, looked at comic again. I did not remember he punchline correctly. Both men are wrong, because Stimpy is the cat.
Re the 12-1-96 retro cartoon: As one who greatly treasures old photos of family members (as I type this, I am looking at a snapshot of my sister and me when we were five and three; and another of my Mom when she was 5, standing beside her grandmother), this cartoon struck me as being rather sad. I have several albums of family photos I inherited from my mother, spanning many years, and one of my retirement plans was to scan them and send digital copies to my first cousins. That hasn’t worked out, and I suppose someone will dispose of the originals when I pass, and it will be as though the individuals pictured in them had never existed.
Ghost, we used https://www.scanmyphotos.com/ to copy a “bunch” of my wife’s family slides and antique photos. For the quality and the service, the price is very reasonable.
My Janis always wants me to find the bag of giblets, too.
Invariably, I am tempted to put on examination gloves and put the turkey’s legs into little stirrups before I go exploring.
One year, I missed the bag, and it remained in the turkey. Fortunately, I was the one who found it after the dinner was over. To this day, I have not told her. I’m not all that bright, but I’m sure as heck not that stupid.
My ex and I bought a whole smoked turkey breast at a church fundraiser one year. When we started carving it up we found the giblet bag still inside. Wonder how many others that happened to that year?
Why would there be a giblet bag in a breast?
SOS! A very underrated meal. My mom made it a few times and frankly I wish that she was alive to tell me how she did it! I have gotten some thinly cut roast beef and made a rue with it. It came out pretty good, but I don’t remember my mom having sliced roast beef in the house. With 7 kids, it would have never lasted more than a few days.
Steve: My mom’s version used dried beef that came in a little glass jar, Armour I think. I’ve used that (soaking it a little to lose some of the salt) and mushroom soup with some grated cheddar and a splash of sherry. Not your traditional SOS but pretty tasty.
Yeah that sounds about right…I’ll have to look for that. Still would make my roux though as many of the canned creamed soups have a lot of sodium in them. I like to use parmesan as that gives it a salty flavor.
I would get up early for my commute down to McChord AFB for breakfast at the mess hall. SOS on top of a ham & cheese omelet with a stack of bacon on the side. If my wife wasn’t waiting for me on the outside I might have stayed in, just for that. Thanks for that great reminder of Veterans Day!
ps – USAF and Army use the same cookbook (I heard from a cook), and it calls for hamburger.
Yep. Dried beef in the little glass jar that then became a breakfast juice glass. We called it “dried beef gravy” at our house, and it was just one of Mom’s ways of making a small amount of meat be a meal for the four of us. Tuna cakes was another one.
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