Booze
Posted on July 1, 2015 by David M Willis
2015-06-patreon1previewRobin won June's poll for the Patreon bonus strip!  If you're a Dumbing of Age patron, go check it out! Also I have a second webcomic again.  It's a small side project, updates irregularly, and it'll run no more than nine months.  It's called "It's Pregnancy!" and takes place in the Old Universe.  (As such, there may be a character pairing you might not be used to if you've only read Dumbing of Age.)  Take note of the navigation arrows!  There's a small backlog of strips there, reaching back into May.  I've been updating it in secret all this time. The new comic exists because Maggie and I are having twins. Yup.

309 thoughts on “Booze”

  1. Jen Aside

    where previously Billie had mistakenly tried giving him a screwdriver, hold the vodka

    …

    how do they even know about Animal House, *I* barely knew about it when I was in college

    (I think I mistook it for Animal Farm)

    ((and I thought THAT was strictly about farming))

    1. Stephen Bierce

      Some movies about frat life are more equal than others.

      1. Jones

        Four drinks good, two drinks bad.

        1. John

          Then the revolution matures and you realize: Four drinks good, two drinks better.

      2. Someone

        Ive always thought that animal house was a metaphor for communism. Also we need a scene in dumbing of age where Tony’s dad goes Freshmen!

        1. DeusExCeteri

          You’re thinking of Animal Farm.

        2. Someone

          I was being sarcastic.

        3. DeusExCeteri

          I was being condescending.

        4. Someone

          Yay, were both jerks!

        5. Rycan

          You meant to say “we’re” right there.

        6. Roborat

          Sorry, condescension was already taken, you have to take something else.

    2. Doctor_Who

      I actually watched it as preparation for college.

      It was less relevant to my college experiences than I expected.

      1. Jen Aside

        I’d say the same about Saved by the Bell, but that’d admit that I watched it

        wait oops

        1. Opus the Poet

          “Saved By The Bell” was about high school. The sequel was about college life and it bombed because it wasn’t written by David Willis…

        2. Jen Aside

          I watched both and learned NOTHING from EITHER

      2. itachi_0501

        Did that make you sad, glad, or indifferent? 😀

      3. Someone

        I read dumbing of age as preparation for college.

        1. Roborat

          Well, the first month anyway.

    3. Mindlink

      How do they know about it ?
      Probably the same way I know about, and Willis knows about it,
      it was made before I was born, and I’ve never seen it, but even in the latest
      movies, comics, and tv-series, they still talk about it, and enough to give
      me a general idea that the movie was a wacky comedy about college high-jinks.
      I don’t know where the idea that media exists in a vacuum, even if you are young, all the old stuff is referred to ALL THE TIME in modern media, because the modern media is made by the people who grew up with the old media, and they never stop putting references to it.

      1. Jen Aside

        Were you homeschooled by a Cubedad, too? I’m saying it seems strange for Becky in PARTICULAR to know about it…

        but then there was Seinfeld, so huh

    4. brionl

      Animal House came out when I was 17, so it was the first R rated movie I wanted to see. My friend & I went to see it, and we just loved it. The best part was a gaggle of nuns a couple of rows ahead of us, also watching it. I guess they were scoping out the enemy.

      1. N0083rP00F

        Don’t be so quick to cast judgement. I have met and gotten to know quite a few people “of the cloth” and they are just like us, only the vows they take for their particular orders is what constrain them and their activities.

      2. Roborat

        I was living in a work camp in northern Alberta when it was still new, with an American satellite feed hooked to the single t.v. in the common room. I saw Animal House about 20 times in a week, still loved it.

    5. AustKyzor

      I knew about it, but my parents are also super old….

  2. otusasio451

    Time period is immaterial. WATCH. ANIMAL. HOUSE.

    1. sps48

      There exist those who haven’t? Really?

      1. Plasma Mongoose

        I haven’t watched it since I saw it on Betamax.

        1. MeghanTheWorldEater

          Was betamax like an Australian thing?

          Cause I googled it and it looks sorta like a tiny vhs tape.

        2. JustCheetoDust

          I think it’s an 8 track with moving pictures.

        3. Plasma Mongoose

          Betamax was a smaller, better version of VHS but since VHS already had a big market by the time Betamax came out, it never became as popular and it died off by the early 1990s.

        4. Dean

          Videocassetes had two formats, VHS and Betamax, and VCRs could only play one or the other. VHS overtook and detroyed Betamax- by the early 80s, you could go into a video store and see one sad shelf of Beta tapes, and the rest of the place was VHS.

        5. MeghanTheWorldEater

          So it was sorta like when Blu-Ray murdered HDDVD then?

          This also means betamax had already lost before I was even born which kinda weirds me out but I dunno why.

        6. zoomer296

          Kind of. With the exception that Betamax had better video and audio quality than VHS, and Blu-Ray surpassed HDDVD because it was a superior format

        7. desolation0

          I thought it was more do with capacity, adoption by certain popular market segments, and eventual economies of scale in both generations. Competing on length eroded Beta’s quality advantage. Betamax actually was on the market before VHS.

        8. N0083rP00F

          Also Betamax lived a long life in the commercial sector with high end and commercial equipment. Most studios used Beta.

          The thing that killed it in the consumer market was content, or the lack thereof. VHS locked down a lot of popular films and series, porn included.

        9. Plasma Mongoose

          VHS was the older of the two formats, if Betamax were around when VHS was first released, maybe Betamax would have being the dominant format but then again, cheaper often sells more than better quality.

        10. showler

          Studio support killed beta. VHS locked in more studios to their format with exclusive deals. More movie choice brought in more VHS VCR owners, which led to more exclusive deals and so on.

        11. papaya

          actually, porn killed beta. they actually came out around the same time, but the porn industry took to VHS because it was cheaper to manufacture the tape. stores like blockbuster used to be pretty equal but have a huge store of VHS tapes in the back room… for porn… so VHS was more popular and betamax was just used significantly less until it died.

        12. AgentKeen

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjXjxUofZHc

          I never thought knowing about that clip would be relevant!

        13. MeghanTheWorldEater

          That clip made me feel old…and I just saw how betamax died before I was born…this is friggin whiplash!

        14. Michael Lanting

          Actually there were three formats. We had Video 2000 too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_2000
          Those were double sided like audio cassettes, so when you reached the end you could flip them over and record on the other side.

        15. Charlie Spencer

          And let’s not forget the 12″ LaserDisk format. The quality was superior to any of the tape formats, but the price of equipment and media was unholy. Still, it laid the groundwork for subsequent formats (CD, DVD, etc.).

        16. Opus the Poet

          And in the future finding a betamax is a quest… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPfAF-VTI0w

        17. Yet_One_More_Idiot

          I remember when I was really little (in the mid-80s), my grandparents had a Betamax set and video cassettes ‘cos they could afford it, while my parents bought cheaper VHS equipment. Score 1 for the younger generation in that case…my grandparents had to buy everything they had all over again a few years later as Betamax quickly died out.

          Needless to say, Animal House was before I was born too.

        18. Willoughby Chase

          A-hem.

          There were at least three tape formats. Phillips brought out their proprietary format, Phillips 2000, which had Double Sided Tape! How could it fail?

          Muggins here bought one, and the recorder kept developing mysterious problems like turning itself on and off.

        19. Yet_One_More_Idiot

          These days, we know from experience that propietary formats, while often cooler than more accessible and generic formats, are a thing to avoid. But back in the 80s, they seemed such a brilliant idea! 😀

          My family bought an Amstrad CPC in about 1988, which was awesome! Looking back now, I realise that the fact that everything about Amstrad was made in a proprietary format should’ve been a big warning sign…who ever knew back then that IBM Compatibility would be the way to go? xD

        20. N0083rP00F

          Oh god, the Amstrad. What a total pile of scrap parts. Doing out of warranty support on those things was a pain. Normally with the then new home computers, a mechanical part would fail so thing tape and floppy drives and printers but not Amstrad, it was monitors and power supplies and things that should never have failed.

        21. Roborat

          Well, Sony sort of shot themselves in the foot with their licensing rules to make the machines, which helped VHS dominate, which was too bad, as technically, beta was a better quality picture.

      2. Rutee

        I don’t try to watch bad movies.

        1. Doctor_Who

          So skip The Room. Watch Animal House instead.

      3. Tacos

        I’ve not seen it.

      4. maarvarq

        Afraid so. I’ve never seen it even though I could have when it first came out (yes, I’m old, damn you Willis!)

    2. Willoughby Chase

      I still have it somewhere. It’s aged badly.

      Animal House used to be a 1 beer movie. Now it takes three doubles before I don’t skip the embarrassing parts.

    3. Charlie Spencer

      Really. What has become of our common cultural standards?

    4. nothri

      What about 1355 BC? I don’t think they had invented a means to watch the movie back then. Also, there was no Animal House to watch.

    5. Halloween Jack

      No.

      Just, no.

      Look. I’m from the generation that came right after the one that produced Animal House, and the one that was probably the most strongly-influenced by it, as we saw it in high school and it very strongly influenced our belief about what college would be like (despite it being set a full two decades before I even graduated from high school). It turned John Belushi from just another one of the Not Ready for Prime-Time Players on SNL into a full-fledged cultural icon, especially in Chicago, where I went to high school. The only way to avoid seeing at least one person imitate Belushi’s mashed-potato stunt was to avoid the cafeteria entirely.

      And I don’t like it any more, and can’t enjoy it even through the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia, the way I can for, say, The Blues Brothers, which is really about a couple of white guys giving themselves permission to co-opt black culture (which they mitigate in part by featuring the black artists that gave them inspiration, who had already been passed up by mainstream culture, and may have helped revive their careers). Mostly for these two reasons:

      1) It’s part of rape culture. Pinto doesn’t actually have sex with the thirteen-year-old girl who’s passed out in his bed, but he has to debate with himself about it. Dean Wormer’s wife is arguably too drunk to consent. In the National Lampoon “First Lay” comic, which was the genesis of Animal House, the freshman character does rape the unconscious woman.

      2) Overall, it’s the kind of movie that you’d expect a bunch of well-off Harvard graduates to have written: children of privilege who decide that they’re too cool for school and much more interesting than those other yuppies.

      1. Mattie

        This is exactly how I feel about Animal House. Though, I am probably 1 or 2 generations after you. (Graduated h.s. in 2005.)

      2. otusasio451

        …Well, damn. You just ruined my nostalgia with your well-worded argument. DAMN YOUR LOGIC AND MODERN SENSIBILITIES! Seriously, though, I forgot about the rapey-ness of the movie. It’s been a LONG time since I’ve seen it.

        Admittedly, this is similar to the reasons I don’t like Revenge of the Nerds.

  3. Jen Aside

    oh hey newsbox:

    TWINS OH YOU’RE IN FOR IT

    unless one eats the other

    1. Knifleman

      Man, how shitty are you going to feel if that actually happens?

      1. Jen Aside

        =(

        [also, eh, ’cause I “know” two that did?]

        [[and am a horrible baby-not-lover]]

        1. Knifleman

          …Fair enough. Babies can be kind of awful.

        2. Screwball

          Eh, Daniel the Human seems rather proud of his Niece & Nephew, plus they seem OK to me (finally, Humans smaller than my Bot form…), so I don’t have any problems with them…

        3. Lurlock

          There goes my theory that Jen Aside is actually Willis’s wife. (You do seem to have the inside track on when the next strip is going to be posted though…)

        4. David M Willis

          It’s always one minute past midnight EST. Just look at the posting date on each and every strip, s’not so hard to figure out.

        5. Lurlock

          (Counting threads starting at exactly 12:01) There’s 4 of them on this strip, two of them started by Jen Aside, one of them actually rather long. Still sounds like she somehow had relevant posts already prepared ahead of time. Or she types really really fast…

    2. Dean

      This means you can race ’em!

      1. AgentKeen

        Or make ’em fight!

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1oz3-Qe4ss

        I’m all about relevant cartoon clips tonight, apparently.

        1. theheroesofcrash

          (I knew exactly what clip AgentKeen’s post had before I even clicked the link… 😀 Man, I love that show!)

          Anyway, many congrats, Willises!

          …Willisees…?

          …Willi…?

          Oh, whatever the plural term is for you guys, congratulations! 😀 I can’t help but wonder, though; now that David has kiddos on the way, will he make some G-Rated comics so he can show his work off to his children when they’re old enough to read?

        2. DSL

          Willi? (Pronounced “Will-eye”?)

    3. andmangrewproud

      Life almost imitated art there Willis. Robin and Leslie having triplets and now you are having twins. Congrats!

      1. Jen Aside

        or they could be Sal and Walky?

        1. saki

          That would break the It’s Pregnancy!-to-real-life continuity.

        2. MM

          Also, they’ll have to give the girl up because of the aliens.

        3. Jen Aside

          and trade for Beef!

  4. Opus the Poet

    I saw Animal House when it was first run

    1. Opus the Poet

      Yes, I’m OLD. Get over it.

      1. Opus the Poet

        I also saw “Blues Brothers” in a theater first run…

        1. Opus the Poet

          Awesome, I got an Ethan avvie. And condolences on having kids, you may now bid farewell to concepts like “personal space” and “free time”.

        2. brionl

          I was in the Navy when Blues Brothers came out. I watched it in Orlando, but most of the people there had come from the Great Lakes Navy Base, so we were more or less familiar with Chicago.

      2. Ancestral Hamster

        When Animal House was in the theaters, I was far more interested in a movie called “Star Wars”. My parents let me see Star Wars, but Animal House would have been out (assuming I’d had any interest in it in the first place).

  5. shadowcell

    that’s babies, man

    babies willis

    srsly congrats c:

    1. sps48

      Totes babies!

      1. Tacos

        Mayhaps even Babies McIntyre.

    2. Doctor_Who

      To early to suggest baby names?

      Hot Shot and Hot Dog Water go together nicely.

      1. Plasma Mongoose

        Only if Willis wants his children to be bullied.

        1. Doctor_Who

          Windblade and Whirl it is then. Together they’ll have many fans.

          (Dodges thrown tomatoes).

        2. JessWitt

          I’m sure these are fine options if Willis and/or Mrs. Willis are celebrities. Are they tho?

        3. MM

          Minor Internet celebrities. Middle names might be appropriate.

        4. fogel

          On the Convention Circuit!

        5. Tacos

          I’d go with Chromedome and Rewind myself.

        6. saki

          That would make their initials just one big WW zigzag. Kids love zigzags. 😀

        7. Karen Lynn

          What’s your AC with dodge? I get a +7 to thrown weapons. Go halflings!

        8. Gamaran Sepudomyn

          How about “Desmode”? Pronounced “Death Mode”.

      2. tim gueguen

        The kids will probably end up named Claire and Clinton. Or maybe Faye and Marten.

        1. Opus the Poet

          Hannelore and Winslow?

      3. Stephen Bierce

        Long ago, I’d suggested Hotspur Schott for one…

      4. Arianod

        Luke and Leia!

        1. Cybersnark

          Jacen and Jaina

          (They have to still exist somewhere.)

      5. Bicycle Bill

        Before we start tossing out names, maybe we should wait until Willis announces that they have determined the gender of the offspring.  At that point, then let the floodgates open.

        1. Screwball

          Or use non-gender-specific names? Alex? Sydney? something else along those lines?

          I need to meet more Humans…

        2. Screwball

          Congrats anyway Mr Willis. Almost forgot that bit… 😛

        3. tim gueguen

          Men have been called Claire.

    3. AgentKeen

      EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

      (Not QUITE as adorable from a Penny avatar instead of a Dina one.)

    4. Kennerly

      If your wife has babies, does that mean she’s babid?

      1. Opus the Poet

        [Zoidberg]Your jokes are bad and you should feel bad[/Zoidberg]

  6. Captain Batson

    Magic!

  7. Jude Deluca

    Oh yeah, that’s the one with Tim Curry as the butler right?

    1. Kennerly

      I think that’s Clue.

      1. John

        You mean cludo right?

        1. Kinoko

          Don’t start that! 😛
          Lol, whenever I tell my American friends about playing Cluedo, they tilt their heads and stare.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Cluedo
          Cluedo was the original, but nobody in the US seems to know.

        2. Li

          See the fact that there was a game called Ludo makes it all make more sense to me.

          I’m still bummed by the change from Reverend Green to Mr. Green, and Miss Scarlett would have had me less confused about how to spell Scarlett O’Hara’s name.

    2. Willoughby Chase

      That was the Rocky Horror Show.

  8. Plasma Mongoose

    If I recall correctly, I would have been legally old enough to watch it.

  9. newllend(henryvolt)

    The Fuck is Animal house?

    1. tim gueguen

      A 1978s movie, starring John Belushi, about a fraternity in 1962 that causes havoc at Faber College, and the attempts of the college dean to get rid of them. It also spawned a short lived TV spinoff, Delta House.

      1. tim gueguen

        We need a temporary edit function here, my post above being a good example why.

        1. Arianod

          Seconded.

      2. fogel

        Who’s John Belushi? ( 🙂 )

      3. fogel

        Plus, gratuitous Professor-sexes-Nancy-Allen & scary-African-Americans

    2. Plasma Mongoose

      A movie about frat guys back in 1978 starring John Belushi, famous for his zit impersonation.

    3. Cholma

      It’s all about Delta House being on Double Secret Probation, and the Germans bombing Pearl Harbor! ;P

      1. Screwball

        Behold, the combined power of Google & Wikipedia…

    4. Kennerly

      Its kind of like Revenge of the Nerds, only more like Revenge of the Drunken Fratboys.

    5. MM

      I relate to this strip, and yet this comment makes me sad.

  10. Stephen Bierce

    …What a wonderful world this would be.

  11. Fish

    Oh my gosh. Congratulations on the twins!!

  12. Kris

    Is it about animals in a house doing wacky animal things?

    1. Doctor_Who

      That is technically correct. The best kind of correct.

  13. TheLurkerAbove

    Twins! :O Congratulations indeed! Yay!

    1. newllend(henryvolt)

      Guess that’s what I get for not reading the announcements first. But ya congrats man.

  14. gkheyf

    becky made reference to their relative temporal position to our world! she did not read before posting! she’s such a rebel…

    1. Lord Stoneheart

      Well no matter how much the comics time scale shifts, the movie will have been made decades before any of them were born.

    2. Gangler

      Pop culture might be an exception? About a week ago Willis said that Jurassic Park came out five years before Dina was born.

      There might be some system in place where the exact year a movie was released in-universe is on a sliding timeline. So in the year 2020 Dina will still be 18 meaning Jurassic Park will have been released in 1997. Though that’s pure speculation on my part.

      1. David M Willis

        I said Jurassic Park came out four years before Dina was born, and that next year, Jurassic Park came out five years before Dina was born, and the year after that, Jurassic Park came out six years before Dina was born…

        1. Gangler

          Ah, that makes sense.

        2. Doctor_Who

          If you just say that the stars of Jurassic Park came out 65 million years before Dina was born, you’ll be correct well into her sophomore year.

        3. JetstreamGW

          But totally, totally buggered by the time he gets to Junior Year.

        4. Plasma Mongoose

          Theory: Scientists in the DoAverse go overboard with the leap seconds by adding new ones every few seconds.

        5. saki

          YES. XD

        6. fogel

          Boy, talk about time being relative to observational frames

        7. Someone

          At this point Willis should just add that to the FAQ on his tumblr.

        8. Random832

          So are we therefore going to have a flashback to Amber playing a portable game system newer than a DSi in high school?

      2. Lord Stoneheart

        Nobody said that in comic though. As of this posting Jurassic Park came out five years before Dina was born. In 2020 in comic it will have came out ten years before Dina was born. The release date of the movie will stay the same as it was in real life, everyone else’s birthdate moves forward because of comic book time. (Though it will probably remain the main pop culture point for dinos for a long time, so it’s pretty reasonable Dina is going to know about it. And its errors regarding dino facts)

        1. Lord Stoneheart

          And beaten to the punch by the author. Also I got the release date of the movie wrong (1993 not 1992). Whoops.

  15. Gangler

    Aw. How did Walky’s shoelaces come undone? Sleeping cutie with undone shoelaces.

    1. Bagge

      He kept trying to undress and Dorothy kept stopping him. The shoelaces were the last battleground before they fell asleep.

    2. Catullus

      His shoelaces never end up done in the first place— the only time I remember Walky having his shoes tied is when he had to borrow Danny’s.

  16. Plasma Mongoose

    How can today’s teenagers hope to relate to Animal House, people didn’t even have the internet or mobile phones back then.

    1. BenRG

      Drunken debauchery is technology level-agnostic.

  17. Bagge

    Yet again Billie tries but fails to be cool. Stupid nerd to ask follow up questions.

    Awww. Walky and Dorothy. I think you nailed that “relax” thing, Dotty.

    I love how Dina tries to follow the conversation.

  18. Cattleprod

    I’m fairly sure I’ve seen it reenacted line by line across the various homages on TV shows.

  19. Nonagon

    I’m barely able to keep up with most of the film references the internet makes, and I’m twenty-freaking-two. The list of movies we “have” to have seen, regardless of when they came out, gets longer every year. I can only imagine how confusing things must be for the actual teenagers these days; you practically have to have a degree in film history just to follow a conversation.

    1. Mindlink

      Not really. Most new series and movies make enough references to all the other movies and series that you can pretty easily gain a complete knowledge of media history since the beginning just by listening to what characters in a single sit-com or movie are saying.

  20. dailybrad

    Becky’s line in panel 2 is hilarious. Becky’s pretty witty at times.

    1. Kraken

      The power of alcohol was always inside Billie.

    2. Jen Aside

      “The BOOZE was inside you all along” amirite

      idk how it’d get into Walky from there w/o squicking Billie tho

      1. Plasma Mongoose

        Via spinal tap? 😛

        1. Opus the Poet

          And exploding drummers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW6W9iOjTKM

        2. fogel

          Do today’s young people know the Tap? When will they do a 50th Anni reunion/tour?

      2. John

        I still maintain that Billie is totally tsundere for Walky.

        1. Deanatay

          You can have an unrequited tsundere relationship. I treasure Ruth/Billie and Walky/Dotty too much for anything further.

        2. dailybrad

          I’d say it is too sibling-y, but she did drunkenly come onto Sal, so all bets are off.

    3. Bagge

      Not to mention and her come zback and defusion in the end. This is great smartassery.

  21. Romanticide

    OMG! twins XD

  22. Rutee

    Oh hey you’re having kids, awesome 😮

  23. CommunistCanada

    Anyone else worried about where joyce is going?

    1. Bagge

      Nah, she thanked Ruth last strip, now she keeps an eye on this little group of people while she mops up the rest of the party.

      Personally I think she’s looking to have a moment alone time with Sarah for a heartfelt apology.

      1. Liz

        Oh, good, I like that explanation. I was also worried, but maybe that’s how it’ll end up.

    2. BenRG

      It may or may not be significant; ‘worried’ is too strong a word for it right now.

      1. Bagge

        Yeah, all things considered the party was a success and I think Joyce is pretty content right now.

    3. Tacos

      Nah, to me that just looks like a, “Welp, party’s over. Time to clean up the mess we made.” type of expression.

  24. wynne

    CONGRATULATION!!!!

    1. wynne

      *S (so excited I forgot the ‘S’)

  25. L!ght!ning

    Twins, congrats! That’s so babies, in the best way!

  26. Someone

    I was sadly introduced to animal house throughout the Futurama parody

    1. MeghanTheWorldEater

      …That episode suddenly makes so much more sense to me xD

      1. Someone

        ROBOT HOUSE!

        1. andmangrewproud

          Dodecatuple secret probation!

        2. andmangrewproud

          Also, both avatars work scarily well for these particular comments

        3. Marc in MN

          Cheese-it!

  27. Norah

    Congratulations!

  28. Dave

    Congratulations on the twins!!!

    1. Deanatay

      What a tweest! Tweens!

  29. JessWitt

    Never saw Animal House, but I’ve read the book. Not really into George Orwell tbh.

    :-p

    1. Idon'tcarenomore

      Animal HOUSE, not Animal FARM 🙂

      1. Someone

        Those are quite different.

        1. Opus the Poet

          No, they are almost Identical (they are really nothing even close, there was an animated Animal Farm but “Animal House” was live action)

      2. JessWitt

        La-dee-lulz.

    2. DSL

      Why should you be, when Animal Planet has its own channel?

      (just to troll the literalist trolls a bit more)

    3. fogel

      JessWitt: LOL. 🙂
      My spouse too when she asked why I was laughing & I read it to her.
      Interestingly, your post is a palindrome (kind of):
      Have you read Animal Farm?
      No, but I’ve seen the movie. Not really into Belushi, tbh.

  30. Someone

    Yay twins!

  31. Mos

    Who needs Animal House when you got Futurama.
    “Curse you ROBOT HOUSE!”

    1. MM

      I doubt the homeschooler, the anti-geek, and…well, maybe Dina’s seen it, but I don’t think there are enough dinosaurs for her.

    2. Li

      I think a lot of Futurama would be criminally unfunny without knowledge of at least half the references it makes to other forms of pop culture. Joyce and Becky would be comfused. And… gosh, the next generation of kids might just be too young for the references D:

      Old people feels

      1. Amazi-Stool

        Joyce specifically wants to understand the references to “The Simpsons” and “Spongebob Squarepants”, but Ethan ethanned it up and showed her only Transformers.

      2. timemonkey

        Trust me, it’s still funny if you’ve never seen the originals.

  32. AgentKeen

    Does this mean one of the babies gets named McIntyre?

    1. Tenn

      They will both be given the surname McIntyre, so that they may be referred to as “the babies McIntyre”.

  33. Leorale

    Congratulations and congratulations on your baby and your baby!!

  34. Cactus Jacques

    I had an intelligent comment but it was replaced with BAAAABIEEES.

  35. Nena

    This comic made me feel old!

  36. Tacos

    Congratulations. Now get ready to say goodbye to the mere concept of sleep in nine months time.

  37. Idon'tcarenomore

    Twins!! Wow. Congratulations. Much happiness, along with the sleepless nights.

  38. Kennerly

    I used to have Animal House on DVD, but my jerk college roommate stole it, along with my TV and DVD player. I’m pretty sure he pawned them to buy cocaine.

    1. Amazi-Stool

      His name was Mike?

      He didn’t stole it, he gave it to some skateboarders outside to help them prop up their ramp!

  39. Kennerly

    The weirdest idea just popped into my head.

    Paint your wife’s belly like a pokeball. Just before the baby is born, yell, “(baby’s name), I choose you!”

    1. BenRG

      I believe that is called “grounds for divorce”. 😉

      1. Opus the Poet

        Or “Most awesome birth video ever”…

  40. someguywithakatana

    I’d joke you should name them David Junior and Sally since they’re twins, but I don’t think your children would forgive you for naming them after characters in your webcomic.

    1. David M Willis

      I don’t plan on naming them David and Sally, but frankly there’s very few names I ain’t used in my comics at this point…

      1. Someone

        Dad why did you name me after the girl who tries to blow up half the continent?

      2. someguywithakatana

        Melchizedek?

        1. someguywithakatana

          Also congratu-frickin-lations! You made people!

        2. Opus the Poet

          Not like it’s hard or anything http://www.itswalky.com/comic/and-then-the-sperm/ Joyce in the last panel…

      3. saki

        As long as you stay away from “Blaine”, “Ryan”, and “Head Alien”, you should be fine. XD

        1. Kennerly

          I nominate Dexter and Monkey Master.

        2. Doctor_Who

          Faz and Mary it is, then.

        3. Someone

          Penny and Dargon

        4. fogel

          Wiigii & Cheese!!!!!

        5. Darkoneko

          One twin’s Head, the other’s Alien !

      4. Ailorn

        Congratulations!

      5. Heavy E

        Congratulations!

      6. Bo Lindbergh

        Larry, Bob, Susan, and Venus, obviously.

      7. Bagge

        Our rule was no names that had previously been used for roleplaying game characters… which excluded quite a lot of our favorites (and in the end we ended up picking a name we used anyway. Oooops. At least it was a decent character).

        Congratulations so much!

        1. Bagge

          It’s Pregnancy is absolutely adorable.

          Do you get access to the Joyce & Walky archive at the Dumbing of Age patreon?

  41. saki

    Awww, Dotty and Walky falling asleep on each other. :3

    Congratulations on the twins! Are they identical twins? I hope they will be in good health! ^^

    1. Opus the Poet

      From the published ultrasound it appears they are fraternal rather than identical as there are separate amniotic sacs.

      1. Opus the Poet

        And I Am Not A Doctor, but I did write a pamphlet translating Doctor-speak to English titled “So You’re Having Twins”.

        1. Bagge

          The shared knowledge of any group of people – say the regular commentators of a webcomic – never fails to amaze me.

      2. saki

        I see. I did a presentation in class about twins once, but… well obviously I don’t remember much from it, haha. ^^” Thank you. 🙂

  42. brasca1

    Missed the premier by just 3 months. Congratulations on the twins!

  43. BenRG

    1) There is something inheritly cute about Walky and Dorothy here; they’re probably going to be the most uploaded image to students’image wall tonight!

    2) Actually, I have seen ‘National Lampoon’s Animal House’ and find it curious that Becky has even heard of it! Possibily a tale of wild parental youth!

    1. Bicycle Bill

      Some movies (like ‘Animal House’) were sometimes put out there by misguided parents as a cautionary tale or a warning — sort of a “See what could happen to you!” type of object lesson.

      And then there were the movies that were *MADE* to be an object lesson by the rest of ‘right-thinking society’.  Anybody here ever hear of or see a film called “Reefer Madness”?

      1. saki

        I’d heard Reefer Madness was bad (on MANY levels), but damn. If the trailer alone is like this, I don’t even want to imagine the full movie.

  44. acher4

    OMG! Congratulations!!! 😀 😀 😀
    And they are twins? Life imitates art for sure 😛

    1. juan

      come on sal and david

  45. Chaucer59

    Congratulations, Dave and Maggie! I just became a grandfather 3 months back. I hope your baby ‘s as happy and healthy as my awesome grandson.

  46. Chaucer59

    Oops, make that “babies are”

  47. Professor Fate

    Animal House bagged the most money of any comedy movie ever made; 141.6 million to date. It made John Belushi a star and launched several other young actors careers. There are clips of some of its best scenes on YouTube. Destroying the college Homecoming Parade is a classic.

    1. Deanatay

      “EAT ME”

  48. Jack

    Senator and Mr. Keener.

  49. Willoughby Chase

    With twins and a hectic comic schedule, you will no life Mr Willis!

    Congratulations!

  50. JA

    Animal House is also from before my time. But only a couple years though.

  51. Arian

    “pooping out a baby”? Make sure Maggie knows to use the right set of muscles, and the right external aperture. If she tries pooping, it’s not a baby (or two) you’ll get. 😛

    1. Bicycle Bill

      Never been there myself but I understand that when having a baby pooping is always involved anyway.

      1. Arian

        Not always. I’ll grant ‘sometimes’.

  52. Darkoneko

    Oh, I only expected Walky to be down there.

    quick, someone that isn’t Mike take a pic for safe keeping~

    1. Darkoneko

      Also wow, twins ? Congrats. Let’s not name them David & Sal ? lol.

  53. NotaGravatar

    Shoot…

    “Almost everybody I know and care for came to a party meant to help me get over a traumatic experience, and decided they had to drink to get through it.”

    Joyce’s face… :<

    1. chris73

      You mean Joyces face when she or Becky didn’t actually tell anyone what the point of the party was?

  54. m2iCodeJockey

    “It’s from before even I was born…”
    Yep. Now, I feel old…

  55. Sili

    Mazel tov!

    (And thanks. I’m still not used to the new pairings …)

  56. Arianod

    Wow. That is totally babies, man. Best of everything! 😀

  57. Arianod

    Also: yay low angle shot! 😀

  58. Gamaran Sepudomyn

    Congratulations!

  59. Jonathan Woodward

    The new comic exists because Maggie and I are having twins.

    Congratulations! Parenthood is awesome!

    1. Darkoneko

      …keep telling yourself that XD

  60. chris73

    Yeah how silly to think someone would watch a movie that came out before they were born

    1. fogel

      First movie I saw in college was Casablanca. That was a tradition in my first year dorm.

  61. SamBC

    Toga! Toga! Toga!

    (also, congrats on the impending parenthood)

  62. JessWitt

    Congratulations on the baby Willises-eses!

  63. Jimmy

    I’ve never seen Animal House either, but in terms of college comedy movies, I like PCU a lot.

    1. JustCheetoDust

      The first thing I always remember from that movie is Gutter misunderstanding a question about the campus.

  64. Liz

    Mazel tov!

  65. Deanatay

    A couple of things to consider:

    – Willis is now totally babies.
    – Damn You Willises!
    – THERE ARE MORE WILLII!! WIILLII!! (Pronounced ‘wee-lee’)

    1. Deanatay

      Oh, and congratulations. You have become the thing you once despised. This is called growing up.

    2. Gamaran Sepudomyn

      Grammatically speaking, wouldn’t it be “Willes”?

      1. Arian

        Only if ‘Willis’ was Latin. And the W at the start is a strong clue that it’s not. 😛

        1. Gamaran Sepudomyn

          But then why would it be Willi rather than Willises?

        2. Deanatay

          (Mostly because it’s similar to ‘Wiigii’, Walky’s old battle-cry.)

  66. Cybersnark

    Congratulations!!

    Your Transformer collection will never be safe again.

    1. saki

      He’ll have to invest in bullet-proof vitrines.

      1. Darkoneko

        It won’t be enough… don’t understimate babies.

        1. saki

          Moat and aligators it is then! 😀

  67. LordHaw

    Animal House?! Wow! Now you are making me feel old. Watched that when I was a teenager in the 80’s.

    And congrats on the twins!!!

  68. brionl

    How’s this for old? I actually used a slide-rule in High School for my AP Trig class. That was the last class to do it though. Then when I joined the Navy and got to Nukular Power School, I was in the first class where they allowed us to use calculators.

  69. brionl

    One more thing…
    For most of these kids, if their parents had them (the kids) while they (the parents) were in their 30’s, Animal House would have come out around the time their parents were being born.

    1. fogel

      !!!!

    2. John

      I think there’s something wrong with your math. Animal House came out in 1978, 37 years ago. Most of the cast is 18. A parent born the year Animal House came out would’ve been 19 when they had the kid.

      This is subject to change as the timeline slides, of course.

  70. NF

    Mazel tov!

    Also, the joke in today’s strip is excellent.

  71. Ben

    And now I’m sad…

  72. 6Qubed

    Dina is trying to come up with an awkward pose to leave them in while they sleep, but all she’s coming up with are neanderthal poses.

  73. Axel

    It seems like they got off the hook, but I hope they all drank water as well. Hydration is the key to avoiding a nasty hangover.

    Not to mention Dorothy might get a guilt-trip when she wakes up and that’s only worse hung over.

  74. Kelli217

    Since they exist in comic time, Windows 95 is older than most of the people there.

  75. Stewart

    Grats on the twins!

    And ha, love that Robin strip snippet. 🙂

  76. OnyxIdol

    Well then, grats Mr. and Mrs. Willis.

  77. pyrpyr

    Well Willis, give your past self a giant-ass hug and thank him for the comic buffer. Yer gunna need it probably.

    seriously though CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!

  78. fogel

    And yet, when I survey my classes on how much ancient history they know, they don’t know much, but they all say that they know about Bill and Monica, which gives me hope for America.

  79. fogel

    Oh, yes: we are only 4 years away from the first First Years born after 9/11 and only 6 from FY’s born after the start of George and Dick on The Road to Abu Ghraib.

    1. wynne

      It’s so strange to think of kids that were born post-9/11 becoming adults. I just can’t imagine NOT being able to remember it, and how different the world seemed afterwards.

      But that’s probably how everyone felt after Kennedy got shot. And WWII. And WWI. Time marches on.

      1. fogel

        “New ones coming as the old ones go”

  80. Siyajkak

    Sliding time scale: when (not if) they remake Animal House, this takes place decades in the future

  81. Edupoet81

    Congratulations to Willis on the twins! If DOA goes on long enough, the twins might eventually be college freshmen at the same time as these characters.

    Animal House came out before I was born also, but only by about three years. I never got around to seeing it. There are a whole bunch of movies that “everyone” is supposed to see that I never got around to seeing.

    I did see that episode of Futurama, though. It wasn’t one of my favorites. Maybe I would have liked it better if I’d seen the movie it was based on.

    Joyce looks sad and troubled in panel two. I’ve been wondering about the context of that panel ever since the preview panel was first posted. I wonder what’s going through her mind there? I can think of several possibilities.

    1. Jen Aside

      I wouldn’t worry too much about missing something “everyone” has to experience. There’s too much content being made at an exponential rate to take it ALL in (and, despite frothing Duncans, that’s a GOOD thing)

  82. Spencer

    Unrelated to today’s strip, but has everyone checked out this tumblr post up on DOA’s tumblr?

    http://dumbingofage.tumblr.com/post/122870042321/dumbing-of-age-disperse-amber-and-alcohol

    It’s a really interesting view on Amber’s perspective and how her issues with underaged drinking (and perhaps even just Danny in particular drinking) are a lot deeper than “it’s illegal.”

  83. Andy4Hire

    Congratulations, David (and Maggie, if you read these)! What wonderful news!

    That is all.

  84. Wanderer

    I feel old. It came out the year I was born.

  85. CJ

    Hey, “cisgender” just made it into the Oxford dictionary!
    ????

  86. themaskedpixie

    Congratulations! as the parent of two and a child development “expert” your in for a wonderful, horrible at least interesting ride!

  87. PaulW

    You Millenials are aware that there’s this thing called DVD, it allows you to watch movies made before 1985, especially ones with inappropriate sex jokes and cruelty to horses. And the best motivational speech of all time: “WAS IT OVER WHEN THE GERMANS BOMBED PEARL HARBOR? HELL NO!”
    …”The Germans?”
    “Forget it, he’s rolling.”

  88. Chrissy

    Wonderful news! As a twin: congratulations, and good luck 🙂

  89. fogel

    David and Maggie, congratulations.

  90. JustCheetoDust

    Almost forgot, cheers to your upcoming parenthood.

  91. Roborat

    Congrats on the having twins thing. Oh, and you know how you have a stupidly deep buffer? Well, double it.

  92. Jen Aside

    forgot to ask—after nine months, will “It’s Pregnancy!” turn into “It’s Totally Babies McIntyre!”?

  93. CamperWen

    Oh man, Joyce and Walky are back! It’s like I’ve come home! 😀

    AND CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR TWINS.

    1. Hinoron

      Congratulations!

  94. Ancient Mariner

    It was from long after I had left school, gotten married, gotten divorced, and then started a career that I’m about to retire from. A fun movie; y’all should see it.

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