Monty by Jim Meddick for March 31, 2023

I suspect that Monty will end up being the first victim of an April Fool joke.

There you go an original to start the day off.

“Sending an unwitting fool on an absurd errand”

Well, there he goes.

“It’s not the journey, it’s the destination”. ©️

Go fetch the…. bucket of steam… rock bender…

Wow, this is gonna be good…

this will not end well.

But he could go back in time and met Robotman

Hey kids! Doesn’t that sound like it’ll end well? Like an episode of Tutor Turtle.

Maybe he’ll run into Marty &Doc Brown.

100’ of shoreline … 2 lbs of steam … the truck stretcher … striped paint … the glass mallet … blinker fluid … metric pipe wrench

The only limits, are Man’s imagination.

If I wake up tomorrow and this strip will suddenly refer to March Fool’s Day or something, I’ll know history has been changed.

It’s a fool’s errand when he doesn’t know where or when.

Wasn’t it about a thousand years ago when a disgruntled peasant left a flaming bag of dog poop outside the drawbridge in Camelot?

What could go wrong?

If a watchmaker sends the new guy for a “wheel stretcher”, it’s not a prank! There actually is such a tool. Believe it or else!

“Try Babylon. Ask them the way to ‘April’.”

Again professor, of ALL people to trust with time travel why do you keep giving it to THIS guy?

Snipe Hunt. :)

1 April is by no means a universal day for that kind of foolery, but I think all cultures have some day or other (28 December in Mexico—Based on a misinterpretation of a absurdly legendary passage in Luke).

What could go wrong?

What could possibly go wrong?

I think frame in two the professor says it all.

The unwitting “fool” is about to put the time travel watch on and depart!!!

Time was April 1st was new years day, since they figured the first month of Spring was a good time to call the beginning of the year, but it was changed to January 1st to be closer to the winter solstice, and those who kept celebrating April 1st as new years were mocked and had pranks pulled on them, thus establishing the April fools.

Oh, Professor! Taking advantage of Monty this way doesn’t seem like a fair fight. Something about his not being equipped for a battle of wits…

“In Scotland the first day of April is associated with a practice called the Hunting of the Gowk, a gowk being a cuckoo. The procedure for hunting the gowk is simple. The victim is given a letter which says, ‘This is the first of April—hunt the gowk another mile.’ He is told to deliver the letter to a person some distance away. That person, on reading the note, sends him along to another destination, and the joke continues until such time as the fool awakes to the fact that he is being gowked.

“In America, the sleeveless errand still flourishes. The victim is sent for a four-foot yardstick, a left-handed monkey wrench, the key to the oarlocks, or the key to the pitcher’s box. In the military at the present time new arrivals in camp are sent out to get the cannon report, or a biscuit gun for the mess sergeant, or the rubber flag (on a rainy day). Recruits in the air forces are dispatched for a bucket of prop wash, or a gallon of prop pitch, or a box of replacement RPMs.

“Printers are great ones for this sort of joke and a new boy around a printshop is shagged all over town for dotted ink, or paper-stretchers. …”

—H. Allen Smith, The Compleat Practical Joker, 1953

And, of course, there is the long-standing tradition of the snipe hunt.