Apple Knocker

Bizarro is brought to you today by Those Darn Kids.

Our first cartoon today is another collaboration with my good buddy, Wayno. We're both fans of Magritte and although I've done a couple of takes on his famous "This is Not a Pipe" painting, I thought this one was original enough to use the theme again. I might get a small version of this tattoo myself, someday. Here's Wayno's description of the experience.

My caveman cartoon was dreamed up by a good friend Cliff's son, Emilio, so he got a byline. He and his dad were talking about knock knock jokes and surmised that cavemen wouldn't be good at it since they didn't have doors and would not know what a "knock" was. An odd idea and odd enough to inspire me to do a cartoon about it. Emilo's younger brother, Nicco, wrote a cartoon for me a while back, too.




Know a goth couple who just had a kid? This is the perfect gift for them! You can find it and tons of other useful products with jillions of Bizarro cartoons on them by clicking this.

Comes in other colors, too! Wow!

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Off With...

Bizarro is brought to you today by Signage.

After this published, I got a few emails from people asking if I knew I had misspelled "pumpkin." Even if I hadn't know it, my editor would have caught it, which she did and checked with me to make sure it was intentional. I told her what I'm telling you now – yes, it was intentional. I wanted to make it look like one of those hand-made signs in the country which you often see along American highways which, in my experience, are frequently misspelled, so I did this to add a touch of realixm.

Nonetheless, the actual joke is in the other sign so let's just drop it.

Got big deadlines today, so I'm cutting this short. Anyone see HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" last night night? It's getting gooooood.

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Bizarro Merch!

If you're on of those peoples who buys stuff during this time of year and gives it away, why not consider buying some nifty shwag with Bizarro cartoons on it? Oh yes you can! It happens here, each year listed has a variety of cartoons to choose from and about a moziglion products you can put them on.

http://www.cafepress.com/bizarrostuff/4171562


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Ape Love

(click on these cartoons for the biggest view you can get!)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Sexy Vegetables.

Today I offer you a couple of Sunday cartoons, one from last week and one from 2000. "Dave's Auto Repair" is one that my buddy Cliff and I dreamed up while we were tripping on Yak dung in the Himalayas. Once each year, Cliff and I pick some spot on the planet at random, buy a one-way ticket there, bring no money or luggage, then try to figure out a way to earn enough money to get home. We find that it is a real character-building experience. This year's trip involved eating Yak dung, but that's a story for another time.











I chose this old cartoon from the archives because I thought it was kooky and fun. If you know anything about "imprinting," you'll agree that if a human child was raised exclusively by apes in an environment devoid of humans, as Tarzan supposedly was, he would likely be sexually attracted to apes instead of humans. Mrrrow!

I enjoyed drawing these characters and the family photos on the wall, too. It's also worth noting that this cartoon is rife with "secret symbols." There are about 18 or 19 in this one, if you don't count the incomplete ones, like the bunny ears on the carpet that don't really make an entire bunny. I may have been tripping on Yak dung the day I drew this one, too. I can't remember. That's one of the regrettable side effects of Yak dung consumption.*

*Legal disclaimer: This post is in no way meant to encourage anyone to consume the dung of any animal. Or flesh or mammary secretions (dairy), either, for that matter.

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Watching

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Sudsy Feet.

After I published my previous post about the sort of TV shows I truly hate, many readers asked what shows I like. Some people are always trying to look on the bright side of things, declare the glass half full, pointing out the silver lining, filling the shoes with chocolate feet. (I made that last one up but I think it works.)

So here follows a list of shows I am addicted to, in no particular order. I watch TV every night, I fully admit. Some may say I watch TV too much, but I also read every night and exercise every day, so it all evens out. (If lifting a bottle of scotch can be considered exercise, and I am pretty certain it can. Especially when it's full.)

Comedy:
East Bound and Down (HBO) Kenny and Stevie rule!
Weeds (Showtime) Rent the first season, watch it from the beginning. So great.
Californication (Showtime) Great writing, acerbic humor.
Bored to Death (HBO) Not brilliant, but funny and anything with Zach Galifianakis is worth watching. Ted Danson is great in this, too. (Met Zach once and he was already a fan of Bizarro. I peed my pants a little.)
Community (NBC) Major network sit-com, but give it a chance from the first episode. Great comedy writing and characters. Senor Chang is classic.
Raising Hope (FOX) very strange characters, Cloris Leachman is brilliant, as is Garret Dillahunt as Burt.
Children's Hospital (Cartoon Network, Adult Swim) Rob Corddry created it and stars. So weird.
Louie (FX) Louie C.K.'s avant-garde sit-com.
Modern Family (ABC) One of the funniest sit-coms to come out of a major network in ages. Ty Burrell is brilliant.
30 Rock (NBC) Entire cast is brilliant, the writing is top notch.

Drama:
Dexter (Showtime) See the first season.
Mad Men (AMC) Watch from the beginning, truly top notch. (CHNW and I ran into John Hamm in a restaurant once, got to talking and had dinner with him. Super sweet guy. This was years before he was famous. Weird coincidence.)
Breaking Bad (AMC) Possibly the best drama on TV in ten years or more. My opinion, of course. Definitely watch it from the beginning, don't just drop in on it.
True Blood (HBO) A complete lark, a guilty pleasure. Not brilliant, but tons o' fun. Could be considered a comedy, too.
Damages (FX) First season is brilliant.
Rubicon (AMC) Fairly new show, I'm really digging it. Watch from beginning, very complex plot.
Boardwalk Empire (HBO) Terrific show with the sort of long term appeal of Sopranos.
Terriers (FX) A new show that I've really fallen in love with. Great characters and acting.
FlashForward (ABC) I was really hooked on this show but I'm told it got canceled. Damn.

I used to be hooked on Keith Oberman every night, but politics sicken me and I find that I'm much less agitated if I ignore them altogether. So many crazy, frightened people in the world. I can't look any more.

There are a few others I watch but those above make up my "must see" list. Of course, it goes without saying (then why am I saying it?) that anything with Ricky Gervais is a must see. Extras on HBO (I'm not sure if they're making that anymore), the original "The Office" from BBC or whoever (the America version is good, too, but I've never gotten hooked on it because I think it pales in comparison to the British one), any talk show, awards show, or guest appearance. No one funnier in the world. Russell Brand is always worth my time, too, as is Zach Galifianakis and a few others.

Feel free to suggest your favorites. Not that I have any room in my schedule, but you never know when something might get canceled.

This post is too long. It's verging on the stupidity of all those millions of Tweets that document utterly unimportant and self indulgent information. Ick.

Oh yeah, hope you enjoyed today's cartoons.

Not To Be Missed

The Grand Imperial Poobah of Uncategorizable Comedy is in Los Angeles this weekend. If you've never seen him, rush to get tickets. If you've seen him before, you're already rushing.

His words:
Will Franken's One-Man Holiday Show: "Texas Chainsaw Yuletide"
Friday, December 3rd (8pm) and Saturday, December 4th (10pm)
Theatre Asylum
6320 Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywood, CA
Only $15

Here's a link where you can score some tickets straightaway --

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/137563

If you want to see a reprise of my much-heralded twenty-five minute closer "Michael Caine Returns Home to the Village of Taliashire After Being Kicked in the Head By a Horse and Visited By The Ghost of Marlon Brando" as well as the new pieces, "Gay Raphael the Flaming Archangel" and "Vegetarian Dingo Testifies on His Own Behalf", this is the place to do it.

We Glorified Apes

Bizarro is brought to you today by The Blog.

I've heard that "Two and a Half Men" is America's most popular sit-com. As a person who would like very much to get into the TV business, this distresses me. I have only been able to watch a few minutes of a couple of episodes of this juggernaut before my brain ratcheted into survival mode and told my hand to change the channel. On each occasion, it took hours to shake off the willies.

I often find most extremely popular comedies to be utterly repugnant. This does not portend well for my chances in Hollywood. So I thought of this cartoon and I really like it. This would be a funnier premise for a sit-com, in my opinion.

My turtle penthouse gag is from a collaboration with my good friend and holder of one of the best pun names ever, Richard Cabeza. Since a tortoise's shell is his home, imagine what a high-rise apartment building of tortoises would look like. I don't even want to try to draw that.

Another popular TV show that makes me wonder if I am the same species as the millions of people who cannot live without it is "Dancing with the Stars." I wrote this gag weeks ago just because I hate the show, but when it ran in the papers last week, Bristles Palin's bid for top honors on that very show was in the news. A lucky coincidence. As many other people noted, how is this person a "star"? Becoming famous because you are the unwed pregnant teen of a megalomaniac hardly endows one with star quality.

But celebrity is often unearned, that is the nature of our human world. Humans are glorified apes who happened to evolve a very powerful brain. If any other species had been genetically gifted in this same way, they'd likely make just as big of fools of themselves as we do.

My apologies to any of my readers who are fans of the shows I've trashed here today. These are just my opinions, your results may vary wildly. As well they should. I'm just another random, glorified ape making a fool of myself on an hourly basis.

A parting gag: in reference to a blog a few days ago I accidentally referred to Ziggy as Zippy in a comment on Facebook. These characters with similar names could scarcely be at further ends of the cartoon scale but it gave me the idea to combine them. I present to you here, the yin/yang hero/villain, Zigpy the Pudhead, with apologies to Bill Griffith and Tom Wilson.