2012-10-01
Original: 2012-10-01 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Title banner: LIFE TIP: PARENTHOOD IS THE WRONG WAY TO WORK OUT NEUROSES
Panel 1:
An older man in a green sweater-vest and tie sits holding the bare foot of an infant (the baby's large bald head is visible in the foreground). He recites the "This Little Piggy" rhyme, but warps it into a dark war story.
Man: "This little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed home. The piggy who stayed home had made an enemy back in the war who'd set a bomb in the piggies' car. A bomb meant for him, but indiscriminate in its death-dealing. Now, the piggy who stayed home lives with the ghost of happiness like an amputee lives with a phantom leg."
Votey:
A close-up of the same man's face, eyes closed, looking weary or anguished as he finishes the rhyme.
Man: "All for this little piggy's damned roast beef."
Panel 1:
An older man in a green sweater-vest and tie sits holding the bare foot of an infant (the baby's large bald head is visible in the foreground). He recites the "This Little Piggy" rhyme, but warps it into a dark war story.
Man: "This little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed home. The piggy who stayed home had made an enemy back in the war who'd set a bomb in the piggies' car. A bomb meant for him, but indiscriminate in its death-dealing. Now, the piggy who stayed home lives with the ghost of happiness like an amputee lives with a phantom leg."
Votey:
A close-up of the same man's face, eyes closed, looking weary or anguished as he finishes the rhyme.
Man: "All for this little piggy's damned roast beef."
Alt text
Title banner reads: LIFE TIP: PARENTHOOD IS THE WRONG WAY TO WORK OUT NEUROSES. In the single main panel, an older man in a green sweater-vest and tie sits holding the tiny bare foot of an infant; the baby's large bald head fills the lower-left foreground. He is playing the childhood toe-counting game 'This Little Piggy,' but his speech bubble twists it into a grim war narrative: 'This little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed home. The piggy who stayed home had made an enemy back in the war who'd set a bomb in the piggies' car. A bomb meant for him, but indiscriminate in its death-dealing. Now, the piggy who stayed home lives with the ghost of happiness like an amputee lives with a phantom leg.' In the votey (aftercomic), a close-up shows the man's face with eyes closed, looking weary and pained, finishing with: 'All for this little piggy's damned roast beef.' The joke: a parent projects deep, traumatic neuroses onto a harmless nursery rhyme played with his baby.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.