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Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for November 09, 2011
Transcript:
Goat: What are you doing? Rat: Trying to figure out how banjos can be used as part of our national defense. Goat: What are you talking about? Rat: Once your department's budget is tied to a weapons system, it's practically sacrosanct. Goat: How in the world can banjos be used as a weapon?! Rat: You ever heard one? Goat: I give up. Rat: If y'all don't wanna hear my banjy, come on outta yer caves, Talibanjy!
rayannina over 13 years ago
Better yet, use accordions.
margueritem over 13 years ago
Just might work Rat. Or you could try bagpipes…
Sherlock Watson over 13 years ago
There was an episode of DuckTales where Uncle Scrooge made the Beagle Boys surrender by playing the bagpipes.
LLABDDO over 13 years ago
Weapon? No.Torture device? Yes.
JohnoTeacher over 13 years ago
KillacowinWA: So? Guns have good and evil uses . . :)
naturally_easy over 13 years ago
Aww, comon! An occasional banjo diddy brightens up any day. Never have heard anything done on bagpipes that didn’t make my skin crawl, though.
SusanSunshine Premium Member over 13 years ago
I am Rat ♪ — I’ll hunt you down,
With the instruments ♫ ♪ of doom
No use gettin’ outta ♫ town
No use hidin’ ♪ in your ♫ room..
My accordion ♫ ♪ is loud
And my bagpipe even ♫ worse
I can knock out any ♪ crowd
With my ♪ awful rhyming verse
I play banjos ♫ in the grass ♪
I play bagpipes by the ♫ sea
If you wanna ♪ save your ass
Just surrender ♫♪ now to me.
Yeah, ♪ just surrender now to meeeee..♪ ♫..
Sisyphos over 13 years ago
Bagpipes are ever so much preferable to banjos! Banjos have a place only in good blue grass bands, and too many of them aren’t. Since Rat is so self-confident, let’s send him to Afghanistan as a private special ops contractor!
BlueRaven over 13 years ago
And bagpipes are amazing. Especially when played so as to echo off the hills. Or in the case of one busker I heard, the skyscrapers of the SF Financial District. Bliss.
Shooter918 over 13 years ago
After I learn to play guitar, I’m going to learn banjo.I’ll be playing all of the soon to be banjo classics.“Stairway to Heaven”“Take it Easy”“Crazy on You”“Highway to Hell”and the theme from “Gilligan’s Island”.
rshive over 13 years ago
Then there was the terrorist who kidnapped a busload of banjo players. He threatened to release them if his demands weren’t met.
Lbyers135 over 13 years ago
Just one word on the Banjo as a weapon “DELIVERANCE”!
w2lj over 13 years ago
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=beethoven+banjo&mid=76BC23B335E39556F85B76BC23B335E39556F85B&view=detail&FORM=VIRE2
chris_weaver over 13 years ago
Now we will know whom to thank for all those Banjos of Mass Destruction.
cdward over 13 years ago
Wouldn’t that be Afghanistanjy?
Matthew Davis over 13 years ago
Q: What’s perfect pitch?A: When you get the banjo in the dumpster without hitting the sides.
Packratjohn Premium Member over 13 years ago
The use of banjos in warfare was outlawd by the Geneva Convention many years ago.
Slam Dragon over 13 years ago
NO!
comic geek over 13 years ago
Weapon? No.Torture device? Yes.
fritzoid Premium Member over 13 years ago
You can’t tie down a banjo man.
hariseldon59 over 13 years ago
Any musical instrument played badly can be used as an instrument of torture. Including the human voice.
AnneWarren over 13 years ago
Time to open a department of “musical catastrophes”
bobdingus over 13 years ago
NOT FUNNY. Banjos are amazing, and it takes great skill to play one effectively. What’s your problem? Brain addled by too much Guitar Hero?
bmonk over 13 years ago
1. Bagpipes were already considered close enough to weapons of war (or culture?) that the English suppressed them in the 1700s after the Highland Revolt of Bonnie Prince Charlie.2. I agree with packratjohn: the use of any of these instruments of mass torture violates the Geneva Conventions on civilized warfare.
Popeyesforearm over 13 years ago
Run!Steve Martin just won Best Bluegrass Album of the year for his banjo work. And he has Happy Feet! Excuuuuuse Me!!
Phiol over 13 years ago
There is actually a case where a man killed his wife with two banjos: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-05-23/news/1991143074_1_benson-banjo-miami-county
amyhre2001 over 13 years ago
Just walk away, Goat. Walk away. Rat’s crazy.
Sherlock Watson over 13 years ago
The 3rd panel by itself could be on a T-shirt.
Keno21 over 13 years ago
If we really want to torture the Talibanji, just send Yoko Ono (Yucko oh-no) over to serenade (screech like Siamese cats in heat) them.
orinoco womble over 13 years ago
Well they used Die Valkirie in Viet Nam, and also on Noriega…banjo music might create more suicide bombers.
Number Three over 13 years ago
Oh… God.
LOL xxx
TheSpanishInquisition over 13 years ago
I OBJECT! Banjos are the best instrument, without a doubt in my mind.
Also…Bil Keane has died. RIP, Bill. You’ll be missed.
Blossoming over 13 years ago
Enough with banjos… Let’s go with recorders!!! (Don’t let your mind’s go to those places, no, no… bad, very bad…).
wishingonafallenstar17 over 13 years ago
Sorry rat, but I don’t think that the Taliban will fall for it. You’ll need something worse sounding… how about Justin Bieber??? Or Rebecca Black. Or even them together!!!
SusanSunshine Premium Member over 13 years ago
Aw, MadVirgo — thanks again.
Yeah, I write so much doggerel on this site that now, as you can see, people just roll their eyes and ignore it…..
“That? Oh, that’s just …..Susan.”
Just like in real life….. sigh…..
SusanSunshine Premium Member over 13 years ago
And Monkey — yes! Yes!
I’ve admired your songs too, but I tell you too late for you to see, I guess.
(And I just made an inadvertent rhyme, I confess. Aaaagh….)
I can’t write a tune to save my life.
That is, I THINK I can make one up, but I can’t write it down, sing it properly, or even tell whether it’s completely original.
Rhymes, I can do.Lyrics, I can do.Much better and more complicated ones than that one for Rat —
but I guess for now you’ll have to take my word for it. LOL
lattewoman over 13 years ago
Has any one else noticed that Rat in the last frame looks like Pastis? Does he do that deliberately?
SusanSunshine Premium Member over 13 years ago
Thanks No 6
doodoodle over 13 years ago
what a hillbilly
lizardlover2 over 13 years ago
I came to bluegrass late in life, and the banjo gave me a big welcome. It’s really fine, and opens up grandly in skilled hands.
waz_up_ over 13 years ago
haha there are 69 comments
fmasroor about 13 years ago
I heard Justin Bieber has a deadly weapon.
shaderonic almost 13 years ago
or you can use the banjo to smash it on someones head, rat.
Caedmon The Great about 4 years ago
Goat seems to “give up” quite often nowadays
Themanofoor54 almost 4 years ago
6oth comment
Themanofoor54 almost 4 years ago
lol
nathan.garner about 3 years ago
what is a “Talibanjy” rat and also airhorns are more of a menace to society
Darkknight55 5 months ago
Anything in Rat’s hands is a weapon.