Family Circus- Please Pull Down the Big Top

Kids mispronouncing words, "Not Me" creating mischief, and those friggin' dotted lines showing that Crazy Billy's escapades....

not funny.

I'm not sure they were funny to begin with. Maybe the folks from "Kids Say the Darndest Things" would chuckle, but that might even be pushing it. I used to think that if I had kids, I would think the strip funny. Now I look for ways that Stephan Pastis of "Pearls Before Swine" writes in the characters to mock them. There's a reason why things like "America's Funniest Videos" are shown in time slots that accommodate parents and the elderly.

I was at a convention where Bil Keane was signing autographs, and the line for him was immense (I thought it might be Stephan Pastis in disguise). But the demographics in the line was a testament to the level of humor: nuns and middle-aged female schoolteachers wearing appliqued sweaters with apples, rulers and hearts on them. We were at a religious education convention, but still. I was awe-struck. I watched them commiserate, exchanging favorite quips, strips, and facial tics. Some of them had brought (and some had bought) copies of Keane's collection for his autograph.

Ick.

Every once in a while, I would like to see some variations on the above themes. Some possibilities:

Maybe Dolly gets preggers and her "waffer" breaks (She MEANT to say WATER!).

Maybe Billy's escapades reveal his involvement in funding a huge drug and prostitution ring (how DOES he always end up scaling those fences and catching his "bling" on the tops?). He always steers clear of the liquor store with his dotted lines, but we know. Yes, we do.

Maybe PJ is pulled over at the airport for smuggling his parents' weed into the U.S. from Amsterdam in his diaper (and Dolly learns what the "red light" district means when she has to work to buy her parents' weed).

Maybe Barfy is actually the baddest-ass dog in the neighborhood because of his winning streak in dogfighting. His handle is BarfinUrAss. Whew.

Maybe "Not Me" is actually a hallucination of Jeffy's from too much X. That would explain dead grandparent balloons above his head, too.

Are these things funny? I think so. And I'm stone cold sober.

I realize that Family Circus is seen world-wide, and that newspapers will continue to carry it because people- some people- want to read it. My modifications will not be welcome to the loyal fans of Keane and son, nor will they be embraced by the men themselves.

I just had to say something. So many of us think this way. Please. We need to run this Circus out of town.