All this stuff about conservative reformers – the lack thereof – is right up my alley! But I’m too busy. But here’s something. I was thinking back to good old ‘and a pony‘ days. Almost 10 years on, it’s time for a new pony joke.
Conservative reformers are such Charlie Brown figures. Lucy and the ball and all that. But that’s a bit too obvious. And it lacks ponies:
I suppose Charlie Brown is David Frum and Josh Barro and co., and Snoopy is the Republican Party, and the Little Red-Haired Girl is America. If you chop off the final panel, then Charlie Brown is Ross Douthat and David Brooks. Admittedly, the joke needs a bit of explaining – always a bad sign. Fortunately for all of us, I don’t have the time.
I’ve been reading a lot of Peanuts lately (so maybe I was lying about not having time, but it felt like I was telling the truth.) My 9-year old daughter just loves it, and the 11-year old likes it, too, which makes me so happy. (Blessed is the parent whose children actually like the old pop culture things he wants them to like, thereby feeding his adult nostalgia craving for childhood to be a certain way. You are supposed to read Peanuts! They like those old Rankin Bass holiday specials, too. Belle doesn’t really like them.) We check the fat, Fantagraphics volumes out of the library. We’re in 1967-1970
{ 32 comments }
Uncle Kvetch 06.02.13 at 4:48 pm
We’re in 1967-1970 now. I think that was a particularly good period for the strip.
Indeed. I ready it daily on gocomics.com, and they’re up to 1966 now. Having amassed several dozen Peanuts paperbacks during my childhood, I think of the mid-to-late 60s as the golden age.
Glen Tomkins 06.02.13 at 6:06 pm
I don’t know…
I’ve been told that I’m half a pony. Well, the southern half of a northbound horse, anyway.
Bloix 06.02.13 at 7:14 pm
By the late 60’s, the depression and misanthropy of the original strip had dissipated.
Davis X. Machina 06.02.13 at 8:07 pm
“By the late 60′s, the depression and misanthropy of the original strip had dissipated.”
This came as a disappointment to a lot of depressed and misanthropic children, like myself. But then, we were used to disappointment….
Antonio Conselheiro 06.02.13 at 8:28 pm
EVERYONE is like Charley Brown. Reality is like Lucy.
Walt 06.02.13 at 9:29 pm
I’m like Lucy. Now all those times you were wondering who took your ball — it was me. Every time.
ben w 06.02.13 at 10:21 pm
Your younger daughter is 9?! Jesus.
mud man 06.03.13 at 12:06 am
Blessed is the parent whose two children like the same thing, whatever it is.
John Holbo 06.03.13 at 12:34 am
“By the late 60′s, the depression and misanthropy of the original strip had dissipated.”
It’s still there, although the harsh edges have been smoothed just a bit. One thing that’s good about this period are a number of the storylines. Like Linus patting birds on the head and Lucy getting upset about it because people keep telling her ‘your brother pats birds on the head’. The mellowing of the strip means something is lost, but there’s a fresh subtlety to the absurdity.
zbs 06.03.13 at 12:36 am
Alas, you will soon run out of the golden period and things will start to get rather more self-repeating and anodyne; but the kids may still enjoy it.
Antti Nannimus 06.03.13 at 1:56 am
Hey Holbo!
“Snoopy is the Republican Party”, you say! I’m SO disappointed in you now. Perhaps there is no saving you anymore. I’m really having a hard time holding back on my Eff U this time. For your information, Snoopy, if anything, is an anarchist of the 1st order, just like me.
If it isn’t too late, there is a “The Complete Calvin and Hobbes” collection available. You obviously need to start there to save your immortal soul. After that you might be up for “Peanuts”.
Republican Party, indeed.
Have a nice day,
Antti
John Holbo 06.03.13 at 9:53 am
We already read all the Calvin and Hobbes there is. As to Snoopy, I see your point. But you have to concede that Snoopy spends a lot of time living in a fantasy world of military glory.
John Quiggin 06.03.13 at 12:52 pm
I was just saying to Dan that it would be great if Bill Watterson would do something new, maybe under a pseudonym. But there’s nothing out there that leads me to suspect this might be true.
David J. Littleboy 06.03.13 at 3:23 pm
“We already read all the Calvin and Hobbes there is.”
Perhaps it’s time for Pogo? “How do porcupines hug? – Carefully.”
John Holbo 06.03.13 at 3:31 pm
We’ve read some Pogo, too, although they don’t seem to like it so well. To Belle’s disappointment. Because Pogo is her nostalgia thing. “Tastes like rusty old campaign buttons. Good, though.”
L 06.03.13 at 3:39 pm
“If you chop off the final panel, then Charlie Brown is Ross Douthat and David Brooks.”
Yes, they’re the big idea men, for sure. If you dream it, you can live it!
Once you’ve gone through Peanuts, let me suggest Mad Magazine, Bloome County and Doonesbury. You won’t believe the political history/pop culture questions you’ll get and I get the feeling your kids like mine will somehow get most of the jokes without the context.
bigcitylib 06.03.13 at 5:39 pm
I think Peanuts has a good run from about the mid 60s up until the 80s, when the mellowness gradually became banality. Also, Snoopy is too charismatic to be the GOP. Think one of the Kennedys.
Matt McIrvin 06.03.13 at 6:44 pm
Sam never did like Peanuts; the pathos of it just depresses her and she doesn’t find it funny. I identified extremely heavily with Charlie Brown, like about half of the kids of my generation. It occurs to me in hindsight that the other Charlie Browns probably saw me as more of a Linus.
UserGoogol 06.03.13 at 7:10 pm
Well, Snoopy has been tied with the insurance industry for decades.
Also, root beer, which might be even more nefarious.
mpower69 06.03.13 at 8:11 pm
Funny, I thought Dems were taking their turn at governing… so what’s with all the attention on (and misinterpretation of) conservatives?
Before we bash the minority with our preconcieved notions of conservitive reform, perhaps Dem apologists could attempt to establish some ‘reform’ high road from which they can justifiably whine about the minority party on the road below? But no, that would be too honest, and too difficult… it’s much easier to justify one’s own, immoral positions by claiming the other guy’s positions are a little more immoral… you know, the old lesser of two evils canard.
Guantanamo – still open for business.
Wall St. – still unreformed and unregulated.
Foreign Policy – death from above – just as stupid, just as expensive, just as many servicepersons and contractors in theater and in harms way… still zero results.
Civil Rights – due process and individual rights thrown out the window. Drone surveillence, detention w/o charges… apparently liberals love martial law and zero privacy – who knew!
Terrorism – we were told the bad guys would love this new guy… guess not.
Economics – punish the job-creators… great strategy. Still looking for that shovel-ready stimulus from 2009-10… four+ years isn’t enough time to judge poor policy and pathetic execution? oh wait, another bridge just collapsed… Bush’s fault!
Domestic Policy – still coddling corporations and wealthy farmers.
Governance – lobbyists-in-charge, backroom deals, zero transparency, and now politically-driven tax treatment.
Education – yet another gov’t initiated debt bubble. Terrible achievement record but record-high budgets & costs… no need for reform here!
So much to brag about!! How do you find time to harass conservatives?
MPAVictoria 06.03.13 at 8:16 pm
So did you mean to post the same comment in both threads mpower69? Or was it an accident?
mpower69 06.03.13 at 9:27 pm
an accident, but it actually works as both articles can be summed-up as “pot calling kettle black”, i.e. self-styled liberals criticizing the state of ‘conservative reform’ while their own team shreds the rule of law and doubles-down on the worst of the worst policies left behind by the previous administration. The hypocrisy is so thick that perhaps a double post was required to break the surface…
Walt 06.03.13 at 9:54 pm
The very fact that you think we’re “on a team” is your central pathology, mpower. I’m a life-long liberal, and I hate Obama. Obama on the other hand, could give a shit what I think. We are not a team.
Ogden Wernstrom 06.04.13 at 1:48 am
Somehow, none of this makes me wish I had voted for some other candidate in the general election.
Plus, as Walt points out, Obama is not following any sort of left-of-center agenda.
zbs 06.04.13 at 4:05 pm
Another vote for Bloom County. Which, I guess, is a vote for The National Radical Meadow Party ?
Shawn 06.04.13 at 7:12 pm
Once you get to 72 or so, dropPeanurs if the kids will let you and turn to Bloom County. That’s how we handled it in our house. Then read Series of Unfortunate Events with them. By the time that’s done they be too old to want read with you anymore, but you can watch old Simpsons with them as long as their friends aren’t over. And before you blink they’ll be teenagers and you can watch Breaking Bad with them. The circle of life or some such.
ajay 06.05.13 at 1:00 pm
So did you mean to post the same comment in both threads mpower69?
One of the problems with living under a bridge is that there tends to be quite an echo.
Dave Maier 06.05.13 at 1:54 pm
My all-time favorite book of any genre is Ten Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Years With Pogo, so I’m with Belle on this. “Cease that beastly drumming, Jerome!”
Also, happy birthday, Belle!
JimV 06.05.13 at 7:08 pm
“… tastes like rusty old campaign buttons …” is also my favorite. Second place would be “Funny how a good-lookin’ man look good no matter what he throw on his back!”
Third might be “It can’t be Sunday, or why ain’t I in Sunday School!” “You prolly hooked out!” Or maybe, speaking of dates, “Bald Tuesday! The day my uncle was strick hairless!”
Or, “Is it possible a [sic] infernal triangle has reared its ugly head?”
(I’m prolly forgetting a lot of good ones.) (Used to be able to think in Pogo-speak.)
Dave Maier 06.05.13 at 10:10 pm
“It don’t pay to tinker for ever with chance ha ha like the fella says.”
“Romeo wasn’t bilked in a day.”
“He can’t pull MY wool over the ice!”
Dave Maier 06.05.13 at 10:15 pm
“This time, my little cabbage, the bomb will work or my name ain’t Boris Morris Be-Gorry Horrorski Ugh-Ugh O’Toole.”
Okay, I’ll stop now.
Jeffrey Davis 06.06.13 at 6:31 pm
I recommend “Cul de Sac” although there’s even less of it than there is of “Calvin and Hobbes.”
I can’t second anything to do with “Bloom County”. It always seemed like someone self-consciously wearing a lampshade.
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