Things that made me go hmmmm

Today's Big Nate is part of a story arc on the topic of Prank Day, which I guess is a thing. Not only is it featured in a syndicated comic strip -- which is my definition of when something becomes a thing -- but I remember about 15 years ago when kids swiped a real estate sign and put it in front of their high school, touching off rumors that the local paper had to quash.

It's like when kids say, "There's Mother's Day and Father's Day, but when is Kids' Day?" and the answer is "Every day is Kids' Day," but I guess we can't have a casual system in which every day is Prank Day. 

We used to prank our teachers early on, and some of them would shake their heads and chuckle and we'd get back to work, and others would freak out and so we'd double-down on them because the pranking was more entertaining than the curriculum.

I shudder at how much some of that got out of hand, but most of our pranks were harmless fun.

My all-time favorite came when my little brother, then a junior, and a few of his buddies constructed a giant snow sculpture of a hand on the one-story wing of our school at night, flipping the bird to a particular room on the two-story main wing.

Some teachers drew the blinds next day, but enough left them open that the kids got to watch the head janitor go up there with a shovel and start the dismantling with a swing at the offending finger, only to discover that it was both iced and built around a 4x4, whereupon he did a credible imitation of Wiley Coyote going KA-WHAAAANG!

By comparison, a few years ago the staff at our same alma mater showed up on "Prank Day" to discover a rooster running around the halls, so they called the State Troopers. Seriously.

Leaving open the question of whether you put the cuffs on its wings or on its tiny little feet?

Also the question of how much society has descended into a police state over the years, but we don't have an official day for that yet.

Every day is "How Much Has Society Descended into a Police State? Day."

 

On the semi-related topic of how things change, Vintage Thimble Theater is starting a new adventure at Comics Kingdom, and recently leapt forward from 1931 to 1935 without explanation. Presumably a lack of complete archives, but what strikes me is that several ancillary characters have since entered the feature, specifically Wimpy, Sea Hag and Alice the Goon.

I notice that Segar has also become more adept at drawing the characters over the years, his line in the above being smoother than in this one, taken from 1931.

I also note some parallel lines, suggesting that they are shooting from scratched microfilm. Back in the 90s, when I was doing one of those 25, 50, 75, 100 Years Ago features, I realized that we could use our Leaf Desk that scanned negatives to scan microfilm from the local college library.

The hard part being convincing librarians to let me take reels of microfilm out of the building, particularly since, at the time, my firstborn child was serving in the Navy in Japan and not available as collateral.

In any case, about the time we went to digital cameras and ditched the Leaf Desk, the library bought printers that could read microfilm.

So technology moves ever forward, hampered only by the damage done by old technology, specifically those aforementioned scratches ...

...which make the current King of the Royal Mounted pretty difficult to read, though that isn't why I am featuring this one, which is from January 4, 1943, and features a girl named "Tammie."

I didn't realize anyone was named "Tammie" or "Tammy" until Debbie Reynolds doubled up a hit movie with a Top Ten record back in 1957. The first Tammy I knew was born about then and was a Labrador retriever, but many more followed, mostly with two legs.

However, upon further review, I learn that it is a diminutive of Tamar, a perfectly good if a little uncommon Old Testament name.

Not nearly as surprising as learning that Tiffany is a diminutive of Theophania and was popular among Crusaders, who would also bring back flasks of water from the Jordan River with which to baptize their sons, whom they then named Jordan.

However, I think about as many people choose Tiffany and Jordan as baby names for those reasons as name their little boys after Scottish physicists.

As for the Tammy I knew as a lad, she brings us to our ...

 

Juxtaposition of the Day

(Dog Eat Doug)

(Arlo and Janis)

This being a day full of things that made me go hmmm, I don't have to come up with anything particularly profound about this, except that I was surprised at the juxtaposition.

Anyway, I've already noted that it strikes me as odd that dogs who can smell things in parts-per-trillion need to stick their noses right up against each other's butts, to which I'll add that cats eat things I can smell from across the room and wouldn't.

My own conclusion is that being them must be like being on acid all the time, a theory which explains a lot of their other behavior as well, but is particularly apt given that people on acid, at least in my day, would purposely expose themselves to music and art that greatly enhanced their enhancement when, in fact, just about anything -- as depicted in today's Bliss -- would seem irresistibly amazing and compelling.

 

And, finally, I was impressed in today's Candorville by Lemont's ethical resistance towards picking up a bonus paycheck for work he's already done.

Like hell I was.

Yes, it's boring to have someone regurgitate a newspaper article on TV, but take the damn money. 

If it makes you feel bad, go distribute it among the journalists who aren't wealthy.

 

Now scratch that ear worm ...

Comments

[Denny Lien]

The BIG NATE strip is also a rerun, apparently from either 2000 or 2006 (I can't quite make out the last number of the copyright, even under magnification), so you'll need to push back your definition of when appearance in a syndicated comic strip made Prank Day become a "thing."

[Kevin]

They have Senior prank day at the local high school BUT the prank has to be approved by the principal. You would think that would take the fun out of it but the kids seem to still enjoy it.

[Mike Peterson]

Kevin, that's more depressing than knowing there IS a prank day. We need to tie them down and force them to watch Ferris Beuller.

[Robert G.]

Prank Day has been a "Big Nate" thing for a number of years. His pranks are always way over the top--I seem to recall a flock of geese in the teacher's lounge--and he's always squeaky clean and never gets caught.