Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for August 28, 2024

Sometimes I miss Al Bundy.

We all do. Well, half of us do, anyway.

More proof Pastis takes shots at lots of different groups.

Can animals bring emotional support humans?

John Wayne did keep his speeches short in Rio Bravo.

I agree, Rat. I miss John Wayne as well.

“You got that right, Pilgrim”!

Gender reveal party: for flashers and exhibitionists.

Well said, Rat!

I thought there was no way to know gender…? Oh, never mind.

It’s impressive that Mr Yellow Beard even thinks he can accommodate everyone’s dietary needs. Any group larger than 6, I give up. Vegan, gluten-free, Paleo, allergies out the ying, low sodium, Keto.

John Wayne, the man who had some of the greatest performances (The Searchers, The Shootist, Red River) and some of the worst (The Conqueror, Jet Pilot, The Green Berets).

I miss Richard Boone in “Have gun will travel”

My favorite John Wayne movie was The Quiet Man.

John Wayne, given name Marion

John Wayne… Oh… you mean Marion Robert Morrison…

If John Wayne had the chance, would he serve his country, if asked again? Or would he dodge the draft again?

Full Metal Jacket …. Is That You John Wayne

It’s interesting how some people use any and every opportunity to take political pot shots…

seems since people cannot comment on the political comics they are going to bring it here…this is a comic people. don’t get your panties in a bunch

I thought Rat was an emotional support animal.

Oh just take a baseball bat.

1) Gender reveal parties are stupid.

2) Letting pets come – emotional support or not – sounds nice if you can manage it, but probably really hard to pull off.

3) Of COURSE people’s different dietary needs to be accommodated if they’re invited to a party. You don’t invite people to a party and make them go hungry.

Homophobe! How can they have a gender reveal party if the fetus has yet to decide what gender it wants to be? Or even what species?

I wish people would remember that John Wayne was an ACTOR. He spoke words that someone else wrote. In adventure movies that were completely unrealistic and that were intentionally unrealistic.

just something funny, but true

We all miss The Duke.

Why would Rat and Pig need emotional support animals? They’re already animals. It’s in their names for God’s sake.

I’d love to bring a dog with me. A perfect excuse to not interact with anyone.

Without John Ford there is only Marion Robert Morrison.

How did humanity survive?

The whole tough manly cowboy shtick worked well for Marion, because ignorant people actually thought the old west was the way the movies portrayed it to be. The spaghetti westerns had the same appeal, but IMO, we’re much more entertaining. I like some of the John Wayne movies, but the overstated masculinity of them has led many men in our society to falsely think that toxic masculinity is good. Like one of the other posters stated. They are movies, made for entertainment. If you think they are a depiction of real life, you might want to check your reality.

LOL, great way to sum up a whole load of thoughts and emotions.

Never a fan of Wayne. I can remember having to go with my parents to his movies and always falling asleep curled up in the cramped theatre seat. This was his later movies, late sixties

I don’t get it.

I miss the old days when people pumped out a brat, then sent the announcement…..and friends & family had to guess the gender from the kid’s name.

Especially their entitled animals…

How does a ‘save the date’ differ from an ‘invitation’? Is this like ‘you may be a winner’?

Anyone who misses John Wayne should read his Playboy interview from 1971. Specifically the bits about how he believed in white supremacy. And please don’t yammer at me about context – it was 1971.

I don’t miss the “rugged man” image. For starters, it was never a real thing. It was all Hollywood. Why do you think he went by John Wayne instead of Marion Morrison? Somebody thought the former sounded more “manly”. It’s all fake. Real men give a hoot about other people and do what’s necessary to be good people. There’s no such thing as an “alpha male”.

“John Wayne” is a mirage. The closest he came to serving his country was on a movie set while making propaganda films like “The Green Berets”. What he did do was “out” many of his contemporaries, like screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who did serve in WW II, during the red scare McCarthy hearings. Watch the movie “Trumbo” , starring Bryan Cranston, to dispel any myths about John Wayne.

I Hear J.W. was a real racist! So, I don’t miss him.

Wow! Trolls to the left of me, trolls to the right . . .

John is looking down at present-day humanity and saying, “Pilgrim, I am so glad I’m not there now.”

He forgot the trigger warnings. Ban him!

That’s one party where the ratio of cost to fun will be very high

These days, anyone can have a gender reveal party. Any excuse for a party.

Nope, Randolph Scott for me.

Do like JW, but just enjoy RS a bit more. His movies the bad guy/gal never get away with it.

In an interview with Kirk Douglas, Douglas said Wayne could not understand why Douglas did roles (like Van Gogh) so out of manly character. I take from that Wayne wasn’t so much an actor playing a role, as someone who wanted to be the characters he played.

Truly amazing how this got twisted into another political fight

I don’t. Back in the 1990s, my father in law died. Good riddance to a horrible person. He loved John Wayne and my husband had given him a drawing on suede or something. It was only one of two things he wanted back. That got relegated to the garage wall behind a cabinet so I don’t have to see it unless I look for it.

Everybody’s up for ridicule.

I miss John a lot these days!

Here’s the problem: you take some sensible ideas, you let them grow like viruses, and you end up losing the election.

From the other end of the spectrum, MDC John Wayne was a Na@i His personal lifewasn’t that clean

Thank God Pastis has a sense of humor!

John Wayne was quite boring. That’s my own personal opinion, I realize others would disagree.

And we’ll give you name tags for your preferred pronoun.

John Wayne acted to portray a heroic man, a man of integrity, intelligence, and a man one could love and look up to. In real life, he was not a good person and an unmitigated jerk.

Ugh, how bourgeois.

Sex reveal party. Words have gender; people have sex.

I only eat Cavalier. And will bring my Tasmanian Devil for emotional support.

Personally, I prefer either hot babes or gerund reveal parties.

And for the gender reveal … it’s … it’s a … it’s a Pilgrim!

More candy as$ California stuff.

John Wayne supported McCarthyism, the Vietnam War, and white supremacy. (See Wikipedia article for details.)

Can my emotional support animal be Rat with his huge mallet?

To counter the usual calumny about Wayne dodging the draft – he was 34 with a family and qualified of a deferment. And, here’s the rest of the story (from Wikipedia):

America’s entry into World War II resulted in a deluge of support for the war effort from all sectors of society, and Hollywood was no exception. Wayne was exempted from service due to his age (34 at the time of Pearl Harbor) and family status (classified as 3-A – family deferment). Wayne repeatedly wrote to John Ford saying he wanted to enlist, on one occasion inquiring whether he could get into Ford’s military unit.39 Wayne did not attempt to prevent his reclassification as 1-A (draft eligible), but Republic Studios was emphatically resistant to losing him, since he was their only A-list actor under contract. Herbert J. Yates, president of Republic, threatened Wayne with a lawsuit if he walked away from his contract,40 and Republic Pictures intervened in the Selective Service process, requesting Wayne’s further deferment.41

U.S. National Archives records indicate that Wayne, in fact, did make an application42 to serve in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), precursor to the modern CIA, but his bid was ultimately unsuccessful. Wayne toured U.S. bases and hospitals in the South Pacific for three months in 1943 and 1944,43 with the USO.444546 During this trip, he carried out a request from William J. Donovan, head of the OSS, to assess whether General Douglas MacArthur, commander of the South West Pacific Area, or his staff were hindering the work of the OSS.21: 88  Donovan later issued Wayne an OSS Certificate of Service to memorialize Wayne’s contribution to the OSS mission.21: 88 47

By many accounts, his failure to serve in the military later became the most painful part of his life.39 His widow later suggested that his patriotism in later decades sprang from guilt, writing: “He would become a ‘superpatriot’ for the rest of his life trying to atone for staying home.”48

Chance of snowflakes??

Me too.

Rat, often the lonely voice of reason.

Pig would make a great emotional support animal…(See last Sunday)

In TRUE GRIT,The Duke shot a rat

That’s about a no-(kidd)er, right there.

As in Gacy?

John Wayne said “I never met a man I didn’t like” These days, he would meet so many types of men, he couldn’t keep track of them.

Sometimes? I’m going to pull up a movie right now.

It is FINE for comedians/comic strip artists to take shots at everybody. If you can’t laugh at yourself, go hibernate in a cave somewhere. I love Mel Brooks’ film, BLazing Saddles. He took shots at EVERYBODY!

John who???

RIP Duke

What makes that guy think Rat would want to be there?

I can think those parties are stupid without ever missing John Wayne

maybe the emotional support animals will be used to fufill someone’s special dietary needs…

I find that gender-reveal parties are pointless and insulting to the child. What if the baby is born a girl, but feels like they need to be a boy or nonbinary later on?

John Wayne, whose birth name was Marion Morrison. But Pastis did a good job picking a two-syllable phrase for a joke that would make a point true to Rat’s personality.

Rat IS an emotional support animal, just not any of the positive ones.

I’ll be bringing my emotional support diet. Candy bars and pizza.