2024 Comics Fun Advent Calendar, Day 16: SQUAWK! SQUAWK!

We now enter the 9th Circus of Hell.

Just like Jim Davis' Garfield, Bil Keane's Family Circus is one of those long-running newspaper comic strips that has inspired dozens and dozens of parodies already. I've certainly done my share. Above is just one example. There's something about Family Circus that invites parody. It's so wholesome and old-fashioned and corny that, if you're a cynical person like me, you feel almost honor-bound to subvert it in some way. You want to drag it through the mud. That's what I'm doing here, turning a typical FC panel into some kind of mini horror movie.

 Here's another example, this one a bit more melancholy.

All dads must feel like this sometimes. Including yours. And mine.

And one last one before I go.

Out of the mouths of babes, huh?

Podcast Tuesday: "We Can't We Be Friends?"

Tom Bosley and Ron Howard on Happy Days.

Something very unusual happened to me when I screened the March 1980 Happy Days episode "Father and Son" recently: I cried. In three and a half years of reviewing this sitcom for our podcast, no Happy Days episode had ever moved me to tears, but this one did. And it's not a sad episode at all. It's as goofy as most of the installments of this lighthearted series. Much of it is devoted to childish pranks and novelty store gimmicks like whoopee cushions and chattering teeth. But a particular aspect of this story hit too close to home.

The plot has middle-aged hardware salesman Howard Cunningham (Tom Bosley) trying to bond with his college-aged son Richie (Ron Howard). He misses the days when they were "buddies" and wants to spend quality time with the lad before Richie moves away and starts living his own life. So he guilts Richie into attending a convention of the Leopard Lodge in Chicago with him. Richie had planned on spending the weekend with his own friends, Ralph (Don Most) and Potsie (Anson Williams), but he dutifully attends the convention with his father. Once at the convention, Richie ditches his dad to cozy up to Margo (guest star Nyla Rogers), a woman who jumps out of cakes for a living.

My dad was never a member of any fraternal organization like the Leopard Lodge, and neither he nor I ever attended a cornball convention like the one depicted in this episode. I've never even met anyone who jumps out of cakes at parties. But I do know what it's like when your dad wants to spend quality time with you and you'd rather do something else. When my father died in 2018, I was wracked with guilt because I had not spent enough time with him in his final years. He'd want to go to some concert or event with me, and I'd give him some excuse. Then, suddenly, he was dead, and I felt like I'd made a terrible mistake that could not be corrected.

All these awful feelings came flooding back when I screened "Father and Son." I was a wreck by the end of it. I didn't even know if I could review it for the podcast. But I did, and the results can be heard in the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast.

What is the deal with Father's Day cards? Am I right, people?

Today, there would be sarcastic quotes around the "dear" part.

NOTE: This is a, um, "golden classic" from the vast Dead 2 Rights archives. In other words, it's a rerun from 2011. But since it's Father's Day, I figured I'd try to get some extra mileage out of it. The sentiments it expresses are as true today as they were four years ago.

If you wish to meditate upon our society's ambiguous and sometimes troubling attitudes towards fatherhood, you have an EXCITING opportunity to do so this weekend! Yep, just truck on down to your local grocery store, card shop, or pharmacy and spend some time browsing through their selection of Father's Day cards. Prepare to be astonished and possibly horrified by what you find. Now, of course, you can always go the sappy, sentimental route or the religious route. That's true of virtually every holiday or major observance. But if you want to go the "lightly humorous" route, Father's Day offers its own unique challenges. I'm sure I was not the only person who spent many minutes trying to find a card that I would not be completely mortified to send to my father and have him actually read. The card I wound up choosing this year had the following legend on its cover:

You Made Me the Person I Am Today! 

And on the inside, it read:

How Can You Sleep at Night? 

Followed, of course, by the cheerful tagline:

Happy Father's Day!

In retrospect, this seemingly-innocent little witticism is actually quite barbed and nasty. The implication is, "I am a neurotic and messed-up adult, Dad, and I blame you entirely. I am baffled by the fact that you can sleep while in possession of this horrible knowledge. Any creature capable of emotion would be tortured to the point of sleeplessness over this, but you apparently are a bloodless and unfeeling monster. Still in all, I hope you enjoy this holiday dedicated to you and your tyrranical kind." Kind of harsh, right? But believe me, it was the best one I could find. To peruse the Father's Day cards at the local store is to navigate an emotional minefield, I tell you.

The basic themes of "humorous" Father's Day cards are these:

1. Dad, you are an alcoholic who cherishes beer more than your own children.
2. You are a repellent and disgusting troll whose primary modes of self-expression are belching and flatulence.
3. You are also a perverted old lecher who lusts after younger women.
4. You use golf, television, and home improvement projects as excuses for avoiding contact with your own family.
5. At home, you are merely a useless figurehead who serves no real purpose. Knowing this, you choose to spend your time parked in a recliner in front of the television.
6. Your true importance to the family unit is as a provider of income. Money and work define you. In fact, I would like to use this very card as an opportunity to borrow money from you.

It's a pretty bleak picture, I know. But that's the basic message I get from Father's Day cards. I'm not the only one who's picked up on this. Here's a 2008 article from the Grand Rapids Press on the very same topic. I think the underlying issue with these cards is that we really do have an ambiguous attitude towards fatherhood in this country. The post-Industrial-Revolution male has no well-defined role within his own home. Women are still expected to be the ones who do the actual day-to-day raising of children. Maybe as traditional gender roles break down and new paradigms for family life are established, the public's nebulous opinion of this thing called "fatherhood" will evolve. For a check-up on how we're doing as a society on this matter, I'd suggest keeping an eye on the greeting card department!