Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for September 13, 2015

Calm down, Elvis.This should make you happy.

Stephan, you are truly the king.

I have to admit, that took some convoluted thinking.

Great, I’m going to have that stuck in my head all day.

A new low for Pastis.

Well done, Sir

Ooooh boy, that one was hairy convoluted!

A pun and Elvis, What more could you ask for?

Elvis has reentered the building.

Listen to the King, Cartoon-Boy Immolate yourself.

Now that was funny. His puns have become too stale of late, throwing out so many. But that was actually good.

When the blackbird in the spring, on the willow tree, Sat and rocked, I heard him sing, singing Aura LeaAura Lea, Aura Lea, maid of golden hair;Sunshine came along with thee, and swallows in the air.

Aura Lea, Aura Lea, maid of golden hair;Sunshine came along with thee, and swallows in the air.

In thy blush the rose was born, music when you spake,Through thine azure eye the morn, sparkling seemed to break.Aura Lea, Aura Lea, bird of crimson wing,Never song have sung to me, as in that sweet spring.

Aura Lea, Aura Lea, maid of golden hair;Sunshine came along with thee, and swallows in the air.

Aura Lea! The bird may flee, the willow’s golden hairSwing through winter fitfully, on the stormy air.Yet if thy blue eyes I see, gloom will soon depart;For to me, sweet Aura Lea is sunshine through the heart.

Aura Lea, Aura Lea, maid of golden hair;Sunshine came along with thee, and swallows in the air.

When the mistletoe was green, midst the winter’s snows,Sunshine in thy face was seen, kissing lips of rose.Aura Lea, Aura Lea, take my golden ring;Love and light return with thee, and swallows with the spring.

Considering one of his hits was to the tune of Aura Lea, I just had to go with this song. Know I’ve seen a version with the lyrics ending about getting married in the spring.

…these are a “form,” almost like a haiku or something.

I LOVE the pun strips! And in case you somehow don’t get it:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGJTaP6anOU

Two scientists doing research on porpoises decided that they could make them live forever by feeding them a substance that occurred naturally in newly hatched seagulls. They collected a sack full of the birds at the beach and returned to their lab only to find an escaped lion, the patriarch of the pride at the local zoo, asleep on the doorstep. They bravely leaped over the lion with their sack of birds, intending to feed them to the porpoises in the tank in the lab, but they were seen by a policeman who arrested them for violating the Mann Act. Get it?

now i hope that elvis reaaly is dead…

It’s a good thing I don’t have a gun,or else the TV which I’m using for a monitor might be toast right now…

That is some good, clean pun right there. Makes you wonder how long it took SP to think up the whole thing. Kudos.

I read once he does puns he starts with the line and works backward, creating the set up.

The best one yet. I’ll be groaning all day.

Good thing I read this on an empty stomach or I would have barfed! One pun is bad enough. Two in one panel is too much. Groans…

Ewwwe!

I got the “Hi can’t help” part, but had to look up the lyrics for the Weissman part to make sense. I guess I’d heard the song, but never really listened to the words.

An Elvis pun using one of my favorite songs of his on my birthday??? Thank you, Stephan!!!!

I’ll have what Pastis is smoking….thank-you, thank-you very much!

THAT pun took a lot of setting up!

Magnificent!

It took a lot of thought to come up with that one!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Another ‘shaggy dog’ story!

I almost figured it out before the last panel.

Sterling, Stephan! That was the biggest windup I’ve ever seen!

Using Hi from “Hi and Lois” was a stretch. There are several famous people named Hyman or Hy that he could have used instead and pulled off the same pun.

A rival to “Dunk rye for me, Arch and Tina.”

I agree that this is a new low for SP in the convolution of puns.

LOVE IT! The more convoluted, the better!

@sisyphos. It would take too long for Pastis to immolate. Look how long it took Brunhilde to go at the end of Gotterdammerung and she was going to The Gods. Pastis is not :)

Now we know what the Gordian Knot sounds like.

That has to be the longest pun I’ve ever seen – Take a bow, Cartoon Boy!

Bravo!

That one was so good Rat didn’t try to kill him for it.

Pastis has left the building!

The pun of the century! (Of course, the century is young yet……..)

Stephen must have indulged in some of Zonker’s weed.

You have to give Pastis credit, he must have worked really hard on that one.

Elvis has NOT left the building. Sadly for Pearls fans.

After working so hard to come up with this bit of brilliance (and I mean that sincerely, I love his shaggy dog stories), no wondering he’s seeing the ghost of Elvis. Or is Elvis still alive in the cartoon universe that Pastis lets us peer into once a day?

I am now inspired to pick a random song title or popular expression and try to build a shaggy dog story around it, just to see how challenging it is.

In a skeery turn of coincidence — as I read this in my paper this morning, Kissing Cousins was airing on TCM.

Elvis is never wrong.

I just realized that this is Stephan’s version of “The Aristocrats” – just how far out there will he go to make a bad pun?

My Mum is a huge fan of Elvis.

My Dad is not. He only likes the one song which is “Always On My Mind”

xxx

I knew it was a good idea to sharpen my pitchfork. and they said I was crazy…now where is my torch

Keep’em coming, sad little man. Don’t listen to the villagers with their pitchforks and torches.

slow clap

One of the most tortured language constructions I’ve ever seen. Glorious!

There MUST be a word for the feeling one has while exhibiting a straight mouth and closed eyes, shaking one’s head, and emitting a sound like “MMMMHHH.” Whatever that word is, today’s strip trips its trigger better than any pun I’ve experienced in my past. Amazing.

Wow! That was a lot of work setting it up. Nicely done.

That obviously took a lot of thinking, and was worth it! I loved it! :-D

Maybe, Elvis, but brilliant

My brain…

He actually sits there and thinks up this crap…(smh)

Yep. They were arrested for transporting young gulls across a staid lion for immortal porpoises.

That’s a LOOOOOOOOOG way to go for a bad pun. But I do it over and over and over again. I think I need therapy.

I found the over-the-top extravagant and convoluted setup for this joke to be even funnier than the punchline.

That one took some work!

[sigh]

clap

clap

clap…

He’s so cute, I just loooove him!

What does the first part say? I know the “I can’t help falling in love with you” part. The “Russian” part means, “rush in” (I think). But what about the first part?

At least his second Elvis pun (http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2015/9/13).

i love cant help falling in love with you

Episode 177