Sunday morning toons: Predictions

I predicted that Obama's beige suit would be a frequently-hit target this week, but while there were a handful of attempts, most came off as bland as the POTUS's suit (and its predecessors, going back through four all of the last five administrations). I also predicted, with some anread, that the horrifying incident of the 9-year-old girl with the Uzi would get a lot more play. Perhaps cooler heads prevailed.

I also predicted that there would be more Labor Day cartoons out there, but perhaps artists are taking the holiday weekend off. As has been discussed here before, Labor Day (along with Memorial Day and Fourth of July) is not necessarily a holiday that inspires editorial cartoonists to their most creative moments anyway, so. . . .

Perhaps the only theme I successfully predicted was the Burger-King-moving-to-Canada story, which did better for itself in quantity than quality.

One good thing I would not have predicted: The shooting of Michael Brown by Ferguson, Missouri, police has not gone away. In fact, it's split into two stories, both of which deserve attention: The death of Brown, and the nationwide militarization of local police and their consequent alienation from the citizens they're supposed to protect and serve.

Today's toons were selected by a complex system involving average presidential vacation days as a function of the total number of bullets in the clip of a Uzi, expressed as the natural logarithm of the week's offerings at McClatchy DC, Cartoon Movement, Go Comics, Politico's Cartoon Gallery, Daryl Cagle's Political Cartoons, About.com, and other fine sources of toony goodness.

p3 Picks of the week: Mike Luckovich, Joel Pett, Ted Rall, Ben Sargent, Tom Toles, Nick Anderson, Pat Bagley, R. J. Matson, Bob Englehart, David Fitzsimmons, Matt Wuerker, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: Lalo Alcaraz.

p3 Legion of Merit: Jeff Danziger.

p3 Same Premise/Opposite Conclusions Award: Signe Wilkinson and Rick McKee.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium: Darrin Bell.

p3 World Toon Review: Payam Boromand (Iran) and Tomas (Italy).

Ann Telnaes creates an image that's at once cute and chilling. By the way, there is an easily locatable video clip of the child and her "instructor" on YouTube, although mercifully it stops just moments before things go from idiotic to horrific. But it seems to me that the video could only have come from one of two places: Somebody – The folks at Bullets and Burgers where this happened? The parents who thought this was a good idea and will now have to endow a trust fund to pay for their daughter's psychotherapy for the rest of her life? -- thought it was a good idea to record this special moment so it could be shared with Facebook friends later. We are a sick sad country.

Mark Fiore updates an old military standard.

Tom Tomorrow draws five lessons from Ferguson.

Keith Knight keeps not getting what he hopes and prays for, so he figures he might as well run with it.

Tom the Dancing Bug enlists God-Man (the superhero with omnipotent powers) to demonstrate the concept of proportionate response in law enforcement.

Red Meat's Johnny Lemonhead may need to move up to the next level of health care insurance coverage.

The Comic Strip Curmudgeon uncovers an ancient and nameless horror. In Beetle Bailey.

Comic Strip of the Day tees off with a reference to one of my favorite moments from the Golden Age of Television, moves from there to the Matt Wuerker and Lalo Alcaraz toons I also took a liking to, from there to Pat Buchanan's cojones (an image that I fear may be burned into my retina for a few days), and then hits cruising altitude over a problem that I was surprised to see get so much media play this week (although I'm flying coach later this week and inadvertently egged the story along in my small way – but my ace in the hole is that even if I get miraculously upgraded to first class and arrive at my destination on time, I've already placed myself into the hands of the domestic airline industry with the assumption that my day will be ruined so why worry).

Ain't you the one? "Swing Shift Cinderella" was directed in 1945 by Tex Avery, and it includes most of his signature bits: Extreme-driven animation, plentiful sight gags and visual puns, and the recurring character of of the red-headed bombshell with Katharine Hepburn's trademark Mid-Atlantic accent. (Hint: The MGM/Avery animated short before this was "Red Hot Riding Hood," and the next in the series was "Little Red Riding Hood.") Uncredited talent: Sarah Berner (Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks, and Fairy Godmother), Frank Graham (Wolf), and Imogene Lynn (Goldilocks' singing voice). Musical director Scott Bradley lifted from "Frankie and Johnny," "You're in the Army Now," and "Clang Clang Clang Went the Trolly," and probably wrote the stage number "Oh, Wolfie!" World War II in-jokes abound: Gas rationing stickers, women working as night-shift welders at defense plants, and more.

YouTube doesn't have a copy of SSC, so you're invited to watch it here at DailyMotion.

The p3 Sunday Comics Read-Along: Pearls Before Swine, Doonesbury, Rhymes with Orange, Zits, Adam @ Home, Mutts, Over the Hedge, Get Fuzzy, Prince Valiant, Blondie, Bizarro, Mother Goose & Grimm, Rose is Rose, Luann, Hagar the Horrible, Pickles, Rubes, Grand Avenue, Freshly Squeezed, The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee, and Jumble.

The Big, And Getting Bigger Since We Began Cheating Shamelessly By Welcoming Back The Departed, Oregon Toon Block:

Ex-Oregonian Jack Ohman has an Obama/golf panel that rises above what's been the run of things for the last month. Not too sympathetic, but not disdainful either.

Possibly Ex-Oregonian Jen Sorensen has a nice if-only this week.

Matt Bors takes note of the most ill-timed movie release since Foul Play in 1978.

Jesse Springer looks at the latest unpromising turn of the Cover Oregon debacle. And now weapons are being drawn.

Test your toon captioning mojo at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.) And you can browse The New Yorker's cartoon gallery here.