The sassy vocab gag

Three inarguable silent penultimate panels today:

Betty by Delainey and Rasmussen
Momma by Mell Lazarus
Shoe by Chris Cassat and Gary Brookins

Overboard is off the SPP watch today, but it is on the clumsy lay-out watch. What's wrong with it?

In the third and fourth panels, there is no indication that the dog is starring at the grill. So, when the grill appears in fifth panel, there is no understanding of cause and effect. It's just confusing.


The "sassy vocab gag" is a time-honored tradition in the daily comics. It's been Johnny Hart's second savior for decades. They come in many forms--a bird-child taking a vocabulary test, a caveman reading a dictionary, a senile old man at the pharmacy, etc--but there is one certain constant to them all. They are never, ever funny.