Pluggers: You're a plugger if your beard is whiter than your teeth.

And so pluggers have poor dental hygiene.

This is not surprising.

Family Circus: But we thought you'd say yes.

This cartoon is hilarious because Thel is so angry that her shoulders have grown to the size of a linebacker's.

Funky Winkerbean: How do we know for sure that clams are happy?

This comic is hilarious because the guy with the beard has misunderstood the origin of the phrase "happy as a clam" to be about the clam's feelings, when it is in fact about the clam's appearance.

Dennis the Menace: Grandpa, tell me one of those stories you've told me hundreds of times.

The Family Circus is not the only cartoon that indulges the fantasies of old people.

Brevity: Hey, where's my dog.

Single-panel cartoons work well for imminent death gags.

Born Loser: My wife talks my ear off--she talks from the moment she gets up untile she goest to bed at night!

This comic is hilarious because women suck.

Pluggers: Pluggers mainly use their cell phones to locate each other while shopping.

Look, try to justify it anyway you want, Brookins, but this embrace of technology remains deeply unsettling.

Mallard Fillmore: I'm burning Al Gore's books because I'm FREEZING...

Every time a bird gets cold, global warming gets more and more debunked.

True story.

Family Circus: Here's my report card. I'll be in my room practicin' being grounded.

This cartoon is hilarious because Billy will, understandably, do just about anything to get away from his family.

Crankshaft: Gas store?

The wordplay* in this comic is so hilarious that we had to hear it twice.

*Not that "gas store" necessarily counts as wordplay.

Cathy: I am not jealous of my husband's relationship with his smartphone.

This comic is hilarious because Cathy is attempting to break her husband of his porn addiction.

Arlo and Janis: I knocked over the tomato sauce!!

The coloring is annoying and distracting, but this is very funny, if for no other reason than Janis' eyeballs.

Speaking of Arlo and Janis, I was a bit too hard on it before. It's a very solid comic strip.

Marmaduke: We have to talk about your timing.

We generally have to turn to the corpse of Johnny Hart to get our daily dose of inappropriate human-animal relationships, but today's Marmaduke reveals yet another sordid comics section affair.

Red and Rover: The real reason dogs sleep a lot during the day is they watch over us whie we sleep at night.

This cartoon is hilarious because it's actually much more creepy than it is comforting.

Herb & Jamaal: Argh! I have nothing to wear.

This comic is hilarious because women are overly emotional and wasteful.

Family Circus: Was Robin Hood the daddy of Red Riding Hood?

Aw, look at Dolly being all silly, trying to reconcile the various strands of folklore in her culture into one overarching narrative. Nothing good ever came from that, let me tell you.

Cow and Boy: I've baited it with Bengay and hard candy.

This is how I caught myself a grandfather.

Marmaduke: Where do you find these never-ending New Year's parties?

Having finally been pushed to his breaking point, Phil has laid a brilliant trap for his drunken Great Dane in the form of a spiraling void of death just inside the door that will carry Marmaduke back down to the hell from whence he came.

Hagar the Horrible: Don't sit on that bar stool...

This comic is hilarious because Hagar's fat.

Family Circus: What part of your face hasn't been kissed yet?

I was going to list off the ten most disgusting things in the world, but it would have proven redundant, as Jeffy kisses actually fill all ten slots.

Lola: So, you want funny, filthy or Fonzie?

This comic is hilarious because all of those words in the third panel begin with the letter F.

Family Circus: I just got off the bus and there it was.

This cartoon is hilarious because Grandma Keane asks poorly worded questions, but we're supposed to think that Billy's the stupid one.

Candorville: Do you know where you are, Buffy?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer definitely falls under the Vonnegut Axiom as a cultural reference that will always result in an appearance on this blog.

Mallard Fillmore: I don't know what circles Jimmy and Harry hang out in...

This cartoon is hilarious because liberals are the real racists, while people/ducks like Mallard are, like, totally color blind and shit.

Born Loser: Guess what, Mindy--Jane was just talking to me about you...

This comic is hilarious because women sure do have big mouths, don't they?

Cow and Boy: It looks just like Wolverine!

I would watch that movie.

Family Circus: Mommy, will you tell Billy to come closer? I can't hit him with my snowball from there.

Jeez, Jeffy, I suppose you need your Mommy's help with your serial killing too?

Family Circus: It's APPARENT you're A PARENT...

First of all, when you start your comic with a rhyme, the whole thing should be in rhyme. That it's not is very disappointing. Secondly, I assume that the focus on the parents here is what's supposed to justify the setting apart of these cartoons into a single Sunday comic, but there's no real reason these couldn't have worked as daily cartoons. So it's kind of lazy in that way, too.

As for the individual cartoons themselves: the first one is hilarious because Bill and Thel evidently sleep in separate beds;* the second one is hilarious because nobody would ever actually say this; and the third one is hilarious because "peanut butter" is clearly a euphemism for "baby shit."

*This is not surprising.

Doonesbury: Whoa--constarch!

This might not work as a method of picking up women, but it is nonetheless pretty cool.