It’s really hard to make anything with an etch a sketch, even their own r&d can’t do it.

I visit my local food pantry regularly, so I think I have some perspective.

There’s a state run mobile food pantry that makes up boxes of shelf stable foods to give out. It’s wonderful, but it’s always pretty much the same things every time-- canned corn, peas, tuna, fruit, spaghetti sauce, beans. They are clearly buying staples in bulk to give out, which makes sense for their process.

When I go to my local pantry, which gets a lot of direct donations, I can find a much wider variety of products. Canned chicken, nice soups, ravioli, artichokes, diced tomatoes, etc. It makes for a more varied and interesting diet.

Donating money is great and versatile, but donating canned goods can be valuable too.

Missing man formation

The military is making WMDs but can’t get the slides presented properly.

Because “Indians” used to bury people this way as a form of torture, or test of bravery–only they probably didn’t really, at least not as much as movies might have suggested. Here’s a clip from the movie “Jeremiah Johnson” (1972), which was very well known at the time and probably inspired this strip: https://youtu.be/pYhlVR9GzjA?si=klSXoYG0m3ynJzE4

I believe it’s referring to a barn dance They were popular at the time of the strip, except in this case, the band booked a barn dance with actual barn animals. I think the drawing style looks different because this is an early one, 1981.

In 1982, it would have been unheard of for a pet store to be selling snakes in a window like this. Puppies, bunnies, guinea pigs, sure, but not snakes. Maybe they would have one or two in the back of the store, but it wasn’t common. That makes this scenario unlikely and somewhat absurd. Plus, Larson loves snakes and probably this would have been a wish fulfillment for him.

Glade. “A small area of grass without trees in a forest.”

I’m American and I said atchoo. It’s probably regional.

It’s a very old nursery rhyme dating from 1744. There are variations, but it’s basically this:

Ladybug! Ladybug! Fly away home. Your house is on fire. And your children all gone.

All except one, And that’s little Ann, For she crept under The frying pan.

For more context, see the show’s opening credits:

https://youtu.be/p9lf76xOA5k?si=9wVkhjeVnN78K_Li

Very popular show, even into the 70s.

Another great choice is The King Henry Tapes by Richard Raley. It’s a take on HP, but the magical kid from a dysfunctional family is a juvenile delinquent with a foul mouth. One of my favorite series.

Yeah, I think that’s a problem with quite a few of Larson’s comics. A lot of it was based on tropes and stereotypes that were more accepted at the time. I’m gen x, so I get the humor, and found it funny back then, but with hindsight some of them were questionable if not outright offensive. In this case, however, he is ridiculing the cavalry for their hubris, when they should have had a better plan against the combined native forces. Custer screwed up and died as a result. If anything, it’s saying the natives were much smarter.

They won the Battle of Little Bighorn, also known as Custer’s Last Stand, yes.

They’re saying “Neener Neener, you can’t catch me,” and from what we know about history, the Natives accepted the challenge and won. I’m not sure how else to explain it. You might not find it funny, and that’s okay, but it’s clearly a reference to that battle.

Look up Custer’s Last Stand. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Bighorn

Larson did a few referencing this. Basically, Custer and his cavalry were soundly defeated by the combined native tribes.

No gnus is good gnus.

Families would take a car trip. Once upon a time, there were no electronics available to keep kids occupied. We literally had nothing to do in the car except sit still for hours. Kids being kids would get antsy, and frequently would start teasing, fighting, roughhousing, pinching, poking, etc. The driver, usually Dad, would yell at the kids to stop. “Don’t make me stop this car,” and other similar warnings. This panel uses that common (at the time) setting but with the absurd twist of an actual torture device.

Larson’s drawing skills are not the greatest, and this forced perspective is difficult to achieve in the single panel, I think. The kids are in the back, either on the back seat or maybe in the cargo area with the seats down. Yeah, the proportions are off. It’s about the absurd situation more than the artwork.

Tom Bombadil