Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for July 16, 2022

Comedian, director, writer, and actor Robert Townsend has a career because he spent his summer vacations watching the plays of Shakespeare on tv.

I would play along but NAY!

well, Calvin, don’t you have a time machine where you could go back to Shakespearean times and teach them “real” English?

Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

Cop shows? I thought Calvin was into vampire vixens or some such

Shh Calvin, don’t you know your mom is watching Days Of Our Lives?

A show where the musket fires 30 rounds before needing reloading?

That’s just how the Shakespeare Squad rolls, Calvin.

Think that’s bad? Try reading Old English texts. That’s a mouthful. Think that is a mouthful? Try drinking Olde English 800 malt liquor at a frat party! Been there, done that at UVa.

Ahh, to be watching The Court Jester

They speaketh a strange tongue.

Real people talk like that, don’t they?

This reminds me of one of those “Animal Cops” shows. One gentleman in particular could never say, “We’ve had this report, so we’ll go to the house and find out what’s going on.” No, “we’ll make the location and ascertain the activities taking place.” Make the location? Make it what?

And he went without Hobbes…….

Language is devolving. In earlier times [and not that long ago], language was rich and colorful. Now, much of it runs barely deeper than pond scum. And, thanks to emoji’s and artificial abbreviations, even that is shrinking.

Forsooth!

Mr. S.’s epithet ends: “Cursed he who steals my bones.”

Isn’t stealing his poetic style just as bad??

It’s unfortunate that most English speakers today have no clue how to use the former second person pronouns.

Great choice of dialogue for both characters! :D

Calvin doth protest too much, methinks.

“Villany?” What, the town in Hungary that is famous for its wine?

Now we know where Calvin gets his great vocabulary, or at least some of it, from and people say that TV makes you dumb.

The way Calvin and his mother are talking reminds me of the world famous classic, “Moby Dick”. I love the old English dialog!

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Arrgh, tarry ye ’til it be pirate bespoke day.

" Confusion now hath make his masterpiece."

“Pirate bespoke day”? You’re going to order a pirate made to measure? Cool! Calvin will love that!

Hey, “Capricious Zephyr” is my Zodiac sign!

When Calvin and Hobbes meet Shakespeare…

Alas and forsooth, ye Undersheriff Tootie. Hasten off, I say, to Ye Olde Donut Shoppe yon forthwith before all of the white frosted with coconut sprinkles have been absconded. Dilly! Dilly!

Oh ye scion of bureaucrat! Seek thee thy comfort in in the company of a companion of feline persuasion. May mirth and fair “toss and tumble” pursue.

I miss “Cops”.

Verily…

Well, phooey-th. I thought they were playing Dungeons and Dragons.

Must be an action movie, the TV is in mid-air.

Calvin is rocking that Shakespeare!

There’s been very few cop and medical shows which have any resemblance to reality.

Alas, Mom must be watching that subversive PBS again. /s

This might be the best non-Sunday, non-snowman one day in the whole series.

Words, words, words.

I just love this bantering! Mom has the situation sized up very well.

I didn’t understand Shakespeare at Calvin’s age, but I still loved the sound of it.

This strip puzzled me when I first read it in 1992. As I stated earlier, I thought that the last panel meant Calvin was complaining about unrealistic dialogue in cop shows rather than offering cop shops as an example of realism!

I have come to accept that Calvin’s mockery of Shakespearean English in his imagined dialogue with Mom is quite good. I particularly like Calvin’s description of himself as a “capricious zephyr”. He does indeed wander through life aimlessly and do things just for fun.

And yet, the TV still jumps around; must be a sword fight or something…

Calvin and Hobbes: King James Version

ahhh! Calvin is getting some culture poured into him. I watched Liberace piano music because the cartoons came on right after, I still like to listen to good piano players.

“Get thee to your roomery…”

Bill you are the best, I don’t know how you continuely come up with great Calvin and Hobbes comics.

Mom plays fantasy better than Calvin. Well, Hobbes is not there, ATM.

“To Be Guilty or To Not Be Guilty” – short-lived, 1973, Shakespearean Era precedural crime drama. Followed the adventures of Detective Inspector Hamlet, who feigned being marginally insane to throw off suspects. :)

“Get thee gone, wastrel.” Love it.

schlamoly. Hilarious!

1 Cor. 14:11

This is freaking brilliant. I love it.

Calvin is a very talented knave at which hour he becomes restless!

Excellent !

Methinks they talketh funny…

Can’t choose my favorite play, tossup between, Taming of the Shrew and that Scottish play.

How say you all? A favorite?

Have to nix Romeo and Juliet, too sad an end, methinks. I did have an Alfa Romeo, once

N.B.: A wastrel is “one who expends resources foolishly and self-indulgently.” The first syllable of wastrel rhymes with “paste”, not “past”. At least two American movies got that wrong. ::grumble grumble grumble:: :-)

“Methinks the most capricious zephyr hath more design than I” will always and forever be one of my favorite lines from Calvin

Bill had “The Complete Works of Shakespeare” under his pillow last night.

Bill Watterson got the idea for this strip after seeing a Shakespeare play on TV and having trouble understanding what they were saying! Definitely one of the funniest daily strips of 1992!

Prithee, sib, should thou seek to attack the speech of others, stay thy hand; adventure it not! You yourself do not utter the true King’s English.

Shhhhh Calvin. Mom’s trying to class up da joint.

“We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us”

William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Shakespeare: okay. But since this is Calvin I was thinking more like knights and knaves or maybe Robin Hood.

Calvin needs to watch “Blue Bloods”…..

“I am off.” Yet he is sitting right next to his Mom. Methinks he has been detained.

What did Calvin do to get stuck with that show? For COPS was cancelled, Live PD changed names going to pay channel.

I used to see Pauly Shore on tv and ask “can’t we watch something where they talk like real people?”

Methinks the lad protest too much.

OOPS! The third panel should be: Ay but hear THEE this,… The original THECK of the accusative disappeared in Old English.

One of my very favorite C & Hs! And so fun to read out loud.

Calvin seemed to be learning something.

Reminds the series , ‘Deadwood’, where between the average 43 incidences of expletive swearing, they’d converse in hyper formal prose that i found stangely refreshing..

verily

I love this one!

Now this is a FUNNY sketch!!