Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for May 01, 2010

Nothing beats a cardboard box!

Fun! Fun! Fun!…..

G´morning! Calvin seems to be having the dissapointment of his life…

Cardboard boxes are more fun than what comes in ‘em anyway!

Imagination is always superior to advertised hype.

Have fun you two!

Always looked forward to a “new” cardboard box as a kid!

The beanie seemed to fly after Calvin kicked it.

An empty box makes an instant fort…a battleship…tank…spaceship…and anything else imaginable!—except an empty box.

For a 6-year old who seems so savvy, Calvin occasionally seems so …. unsavvy.

The only thing that beats a box… A BIG one and yer pal to play with… Or at least that was the case when I was a child… Kinda hard to play alone

I always dreamed of playing with an empty box!

I’m wondering, what Calvin will do with the box…

A new time machine? Transmogrifyer?

I wonder what he did with the cereal boxes !!!

‘What is the point of a propellor beanie if you can’t even fly when you wear it ?’

I am reminded of another cartoon in which Lucy asks Charlie Brown ‘What is the use of binoculars if you can’t see the future with it ?’

GOOD morning everyone,

good morning to montanalady, to yukoner ,to lone wolf, to marg, to vibjyor and everybody else, your comments have entertained me as good as Calvin and hobbes (for days before my first comment - this one)

noicely said yukoner,..about imagination

the box is always fun…is this the start of transmognifier ??

Transmogrifier in the making???

How does one teach a cat not to get his head stuck in a box?

Think outside the box. It will never fly, it won’t even get off the ground. What someone said to the Wright Bros..

Boxes make the BEST toys for kids and cats!!

Welcome, rojo84! I’m glad you decided to start posting…we do tend to lurk in the beginning, don’t we? ;-D

Good morning, everyone!

He will convert the box into flying machine!

Good morning Marg! Morning Fran and Shepmuttmux!

I wonder if anyone timed how long it takes a kid to get disinterested in an over hyper toy in favor of the box that is actually full of imagination?

Good observation Hobbes. Stylish it is not.

“all stylishness is lost.”

just like Christmas.

Calvin, that propellor on the beanie was there to cool your head when you start throwing tantrums like this. Now look what you have done Mister !

Reminds me of that Spongebob episode where they buy the TV only for the box

A refrigerator sized box is mega-fun.

‘Morning Loki Mutt and Mike Firesmith. Welcome rojo84.

sjoujke, pretty savvy observation.

Lewreader…one time I heard an awful racket in my kitchen, only to find my cat, Gator, had got a Coke carton stuck on his head - he was going around backwards and banging into everything. I was laughing too hard and could not help him at all….

awwwwwwwwww……. fun with cardboard

Good morning to ALL! I remember getting so much fun out of boxes. And truthfully, for a kid like Calvin, it’s an imagination amplifier! Who knows what he’ll make of this one! You see, he REALLY expected that hat to fly (he doesn’t know about things like Bernoulli’s principle and Newton’s 2nd law yet) and so he set himself up for disappointment. But the box… that’s a horse of a different color! He KNOWS it doesn’t actually do anything so ALL things are possible! You see Calvin, you didn’t get totally gipped. And it built character!

Ah yes, I remember it well. When I was Calvin’s “age” and we lived overseas, it was the annual Sears Toy Catalog that was the ticket. I became GREATLY enamored with a pair of spring shoes that I fondly imagined would enable me to leap boundless distances. Now in my more considered age, I can see that I too might have had Calvin’s “Great Disappointment” had I gotten this wish.

Sadly, folks, this is the end of this particular story arc. But wait until you see the one that follows it on Monday; it’s a hilarious one that shows the consequences of Calvin’s obsession with the beanie during the past six weeks!

Dogsniff Hello! ~ demon rubber ducky

I remember having a box big enuf to lie in in college. Only your head would stick out. My friends would take turns pushing each one of us down the stairs! (Physics Dept.) If that ain’t Calvinesque, I don’t know what is! No beers, either!

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!

If only it was a little bigger, Calvin could make a Transmorgifyer.

Cats and cardboard boxes. No wonder they were so impatient.

Calvin has grown up to be a political commentator. He drives between FOX and MSNBC making comments for each side. Hey, it’s a living.

Carmy, I always wanted a refrigerator box when I was a lot younger. Imagine my disappointment when I found out that it did not come off the contents in one piece!.

wonderful stuff and great comments today. the whole “thinking outside the box” thing may well have originated right here.

anyway, every day this strip shows why it’s my favorite all-time strip.

so illustrious panel of experts what are your top five all-timers? Mine are C&H, Pogo, Lio, Far Side, Bloom County and Zippy (tied for fifth).

I must admit that, while I still enjoy this strip, I find that I like Cul de Sac much better. I’m so glad taht I discovered that strip.

Today’s Cul de Sac features a box too:

http://www.gocomics.com/culdesac/2010/05/01/

I remember a washing machine box delivered to the house. Played with that thing till it was scraps. The clothes I got dirty playing with the box helped break in the washer.

We once built a maze of appliance boxes for a children’s event. It covered maybe 1000-1500 sq feet and even ran up one stairway. The adults and teens who built it probably had more fun than the kids! (There were “escape hatches” manned by workers to help with darkness issues for the kids.)

Calvin should get a kick out of the beanie instead of kicking it, (especially after Dad was kind and considerate enough to fix it for him). Calvin’s kicking (complaining) doesn’t fly either. A beanie for Santa wouldn’t fly; he’s too chubby. I wonder whether he has been eating chocolate-frosted sugar bombs all his life. That gets him high and takes a load off the reindeer. Some of the posted puns ‘sleigh’ me.

Helped the neighbour assemble a plastic slide for her kids before we got the instructions read and applied the kids were playing with the boxes and keeping the whole neighbourhood entertained.

Maizing, Cul de Sac is my favorite too!

The infinite possibilities of a cardboard box! Calvin’s moving on.

It would be funny if the beanie flew up off of his head, leaving him behind.

My Mom had a cardboard box (about 2x2x3 feet) in which she had put all kinds of various junk, purses, empty thread spools, some spoons, blocks of wood, twine, crayons, other small boxes, small clothing articles, etc. etc. There wasn’t a single toy in the box, yet that was the first thing her grandchildren went for when we visited. Mom and Dad are gone now, but there will be a big broohaha about who gets it someday when our kids and their cousins find out I still have that box. LOL She was very adamant that they put everything away before sitting down to eat or go engage in another activity.

I remember getting a new refrigerator (about age 6) and playing with the box until it fell apart. The next best thing was when we had the rugs cleaned and got those 8 foot long bamboo poles to play with (in the days before wall-to-wall carpet).

Spiff the spaceman is going to have to show up here at any moment to save the day, methinks…..

CALVIN can’t even admit he’s a dork for wanting a beanie in the first place, I love how HOBBEs’ puts stuff in perspective. Release you’re inner dorkness CALVIN!!

Now see, the basic concept is sound, all he needs is some help with the application. First we replace the beanie with a nice sturdy helmet with an extra heavy-duty chin strap. Then we replace the battery powered motor with a WWII surplus aircraft drone engine and a 6ft diameter prop…

I’m coming in late, but again, the problem is that Calvin failed to use his imagination with the toy. He thought it would really make him fly and got hoist by his own petard.

Of course, I’d also have used the box had it been good enough.

if life gives you lemons, play with the box that came with them…

I remember the early-to-mid 1980s in Brooklyn NY, when any large cardboard box was a treasure much competed for … because, flattened, it allowed for all kinds of breaking moves (never called break ‘dancing’ on the Brooklyn streets!!) such as moonwalk, headspins, etc. Nobody wanted to break, or even pop, on the pitted cement or hot sticky asphalt, especially since the expensive Adidas, the knit fabric of the name brand polo shirts (anything but Ralph Lauren, in Bklyn), and the fancy seam piping on the elastic-waist pants were so prone to get ruined that way.

I still think, however, that Calvin ought to be able to rescue his beanie function. Couldn’t enough chocolate frosted sugar bombs fuel his energy level enough to make the beanie fly - or hype up his mind enough so he’d believe that it had? And if the rotor would spin him out of control for lack of a tail rotor, mightn’t chocolate frosted sugar bombs cause him to emit a few tail bombs of his own to fulfill the need?

The story of my life…

Calvin went through all that cereal, waiting, and breaking and what happens? he hates it cause it can’t make you fly.

EPIC FAIL!