Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for February 15, 2025

They do build character.

How about a good head-shrinker for Dad??

Calvin’s dad is such a dad. Today’s strip ended perfectly, with no punchline, just Dad’s utterly dry question.

Nothing better than a root canal to start your day

This guy’s the worst.

That sounds like the most tasteless breakfast ever.

Dry toast? Reminds me of Elwood Blues.

Start the day with a stale flat beer you left at room temperature to chase a hangover, That really was a thing. Don’t think it worked.

20 degrees? – then I remembered you guys use some stone age numbers and 20 degrees is not quite warm

Throw in a pack of flaming hemorroids.

I’ve heard that dried prunes are the favorite snack of oxymorons.

No prunes, but there’s a root canal in the back of the fridge somewhere.

Glances at my now empty bowl of Porridge and decides to say nothing.

I wonder if he’s friends with Nate’s dad. Except for the running part.

I’ll give you three miles on a treadmill in a gym.

Porridge is sublime with a little butter added (or a pinch of salt) and perhaps a little honey if you’ve a sweet tooth.

Add sliced banana for extra vitamins.

:o)

Oatmeal gotta have raisins.

Brings back fond memories of the gulag.

Dad’s routine is like what Mark Twain said about eating a live frog first thing in the morning.

I’m having non-gummy oatmeal and some homemade biscuits. No six mile run, though.

I cannot express the depth of my loathing for oatmeal

Calvin nailed it.

“Dried” prunes? Aren’t prunes dried plums? I believe the word dried makes it redundant.

Dad is living his life. Cal is living whatever ‘life’ comes to mind at any moment.

At least we know where Calvin gets his obliviousness to criticism from…

Now if Dad was a real diehard, he’d do his run wearing shorts and a T-shirt

Wise choice!!!!!

Just about anything!

The prunes are in the cupboard, Dad. The dentist doesn’t work on Saturday.

A big bowl of Sugar Bombs in Red Bull and watching a Bevis and Butthead marathon on TV. Or maybe some of those… special videos Mom and Dad hide in their closet for… special occasions… ; 9

Well 20 C is 68 F, so very nice running weather …

I wonder if dried prunes taste much different than raisins (dried grapes) do. Watterson sure sounds like he didn’t care much for oatmeal or exercise (running generates quite a bit of body heat, so 20 degrees would feel much less cold after awhile).

You are inordinately cheerful for a Saturday morning when you should be sleeping in, Dad!

I’ve seen this comic a number of times, before, but it just occurred to me that Dad isn’t taking his sweater off in the first panel. He’s putting it on. That means he wasn’t wearing it while he was out running in 20-degree weather, he just keeps the house so cold that he needs a sweater when he gets back. This guy gets more annoying the more you know about him.

If it worked in 1964 it should work now, right?

If your oatmeal is gummy, you are doing it wrong. I add dried cranberries while cooking and top with oat milk & cinnamon!

My habit has always been a 4 mile run, pre-dawn. 20 degrees, though— too severe.

Dried Prunes ? There goes my appetite

The 520 Club takes off exactly at 520 AM each Saturday at the corner of Harrison and Marconi in the 70124. Many different sub-groups, distances range from 6-whatever; paces 8-14, come on out.

Well, Worf did say prune juice was a warrior’s drink…

I’ve known guys like that. They usually don’t make it to 50.

These days, “gummy” oatmeal would mean something likely to get you high.

Dried Prunes… Isn’t that redundant?

Bad example, Calvin; for root canal they anesthetize you……

I don’t usually agree with Calvin, but this time he’s dead on

Some people do want to grow old. Or at least live a long time.

Calvin’s existence is evidence of his father’s masochistic tendencies.

If you eat a whole, live frog first thing in the morning, nothing worse can happen to you the rest of the day.

Try walking fifteen miles daily on an all foot mail route, as some mail carriers do five days a week in every type of weather. And that’s after standing for hours putting thousands of pieces of mail in delivery order. And the thing about that six mile run in 20 degrees is that you can quite whenever you want. Can’t do that on a mail route. You just keep trudging along until that last piece is delivered. And then you go home exhausted just to do it all over the next day.

Check out Dad’s sweater….

Oatmeal is boring but I doctor mine up, granola with the dark chocolates pieces and raspberries, I add fresh blueberries and top it off with Vanilla almond milk. I find it perfect for a late night snack too.

…..a total lobotomy??

Dad does enjoy messing with Calvin.

I’m with Calvin on this one

Does wearing the sweater full of holes also build character?

Gotta love Dad’s ratty, holey sweater…

If the prunes weren’t dry they’d be plums.

Not telling me it build charac… Oh greats. Someone already tolds that.

Through snow

Do I have to be the one to point out that “dried prunes” is redundant?

the training regiment needed to be Calvin’s dad is harder than becoming a Navy Seal.

Dad just scared me worse than Calvin ever did, and that’s saying a lot.

A Warrior’s breakfast.

Yay! Root canals!

Looks to me like burnt dry and gunky gummy oatmeal, toast burnt to cancer causing coal, prunes as old as the cockroaches that lie dead next to them (and look the same). House is freezing as Calvin’s dad will not turn up the heat as he is warm from his character building run though the snow and wind uphill (the whole way). I wonder if he is the one that needs character building and he is just revealing his own lack of character when he talked about character building. Calvin is the one with character, only Hobbes beats Calvin in the character stakes.

Prunes are underrated as an energy snack.

A root canal, part of this complete breakfast!

Properly cooked oatmeal is not gummy; Calvin’s Dad isn’t much of a cook. And while I can see him shrugging over the burnt toast and eating it anyway (not to be wasteful), I can’t see him choosing to make dry toast for breakfast. (For a great oatmeal experience, try Awesome Autumn Oatmeal! Add dry or fresh apples, walnuts, cinnamon…and cook it in apple cider instead of water! BLISS!)

it’s easy to laugh at him but you can’t fault him for wanting too much, Calvin’s Dad is happy and content and we could all be so lucky.

sigh

especially in these times…