What went wrong.

OK, not with the strip. We all know what's wrong there. No, this time with AT&T, the phone company that wants to know, what AT&T can do to make me and you satisfied customers? At the fundamental level, nothing. AT&T doesn't really want satisfied customers. It doesn't care whether its customers are satisfied or not. It just wants to keep milking them. Contented cows make better milk, but, really, AT&T just wants to line its customers up in darkened stalls and milk them. Barney could take lessons from AT&T on how to run a business. If someone complains, throw them a sop. But how about removing the sources of the complaint? Like, say, poor service and poor response to problems? How about doing that? No, of course not. It's just easier to clean up the mess afterwards, rather than have policies that mandate doing the job correctly. Sounds like BP, doesn't it? Yes, it's the universal business ethic nowadays. Scrape by with the least expense at the front end, and then make the least effort to correct the inevitable resulting messes.

First Second Sunday.

Yes, there really is a scientific study to back up the polka dot clown color scheme for Pillsbury's R&D Labs. The University of British Columbia found that red makes one more cautious and attentive to detail, while blue does, indeed, stimulate creative thinking. I would have gone with the red spiral on a blue background for panic-inducing vertigo, but that's just me.
Update: Note the subtle change in the by-line above the strip.

Potential Post Pulizter Pandering.

Father's Day article about how Dan & Gene were healed by the mirculous power of a comic strip. Father Damien should have been so lucky. Also, an obscure allusion to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Take my wife...

That will teach Barney to get married, not once, but twice. And even worse, to have a child!

The Dread Dream/Fantasy Strip.

The sequence that can make or break any story. Ta-pocketa. The Dread Dream/Fantasy episode. If you invert the strip and squint, you can see Clyde on water-skis jumping over a whale shark that has Barney's face. Ta-pocketa. c.f. Dred Scott v. Sanford., and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

Separated at birth?

Clyde and Queen Beatrix. The resemblance is uncanny. Clyde cannot be insane, because he is a living monarch, not a dead emperor.

Now Cut That Out!

Today's Jack Benny homage, brought to you by Canada Dry Ginger Ale and Jello, J-E-L-L-Oh!

Jack had many famous routines. He was an infamous miser. The trips to his vault, which had a series of man-traps, moats and other outlandish defenses, and which began as an extended sound-effects laden bit in radio, was a favorite skit on the TV show. Perhaps most famous of all the miserly bits, however, was based purely on Jack's impeccable timing. Jack was held up at gunpoint.

Thief: Your money or your life.

Long silence.

Thief: I said, your money or your life.

Jack: I'm thinking, I'm thinking.