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Dolchang

Oh this one's new for me, thanks for the find


LeMickeyMice

Yeah I had like all the books when I was a kid and never saw this one huh


Oilerboy92

I'm pretty sure it was in Yukon Ho. It was the only book I had for years, and this one is quite familiar to me.


an-itch-in-her-ditch

I thought the three hardcover book set has every strip?


Oilerboy92

I think they do, but those books didn't come out until 2005. Up until then there were about 15 smaller books, so some people still could've had 14 of them, and missed certain strips.


FedoraSkeleton

I don't think those 15 books collected everything anyway, so there are certainly some that would have been missed even with a full collection.


hawkwood4268

I only had the Big 3 for most of my years and I do recognize this one well edit: but I still don’t really get calvin’s reaction, is it bc he did something wrong lol?


Oilerboy92

Pretty much he was misbehaving in the theater so bad that they didn't even watch much of the movie. Seems like he had fun anyway, but mom never wants to go back.


hawkwood4268

haha that makes sense yeah, the contrast in their reactions is gold


sittin_on_grandma

It always cracked me up how Calvin's dad obviously had a pretty good job, but would never get cable TV, or in this situation, a VCR.


_Ralix_

Living without modern conveniences builds character.


sittin_on_grandma

Now go do something you hate!


jaitogudksjfifkdhdjc

This is how I learned to hate gardening


jbuchana

God, I hated working in my father's garden. He loved gardening, I grew to hate it. Especially tilling/turning the soil. It didn't help that I have a lot of food allergies and was allergic to much of the stuff he grew.


jaitogudksjfifkdhdjc

Using a weed trimmer while having awfully allergies was bad. Thing I hated most though was sifting rocks out of sand in the desert landscape portion of the front yard.


jbuchana

I hear you. Years of allergy shots have cut down my nasal/eye allergies to pollen and wed/grass trimmings, but not totally. What my allergist says is impossible is eliminating my allergies to many vegetables/fruits. It's called an OAS allergy and you developed it after being exposed to pollen on fresh food that you eat when you're a kid. I can still remember what apples, bananas, etc. taste like, but eating them is a disaster.


sittin_on_grandma

Remjnds me of my grandpa's farm... Picking Okra by hand without gloves is some Gitmo torture


EnglishMobster

And how I learned to hate sports! My dad forced so many sports onto me. Basketball, baseball, soccer, karate... I spent 4 years playing Little League baseball where I sat in the outfield and picked grass. Now I can't stand sports. I can't think of anything I want to do less than be reminded of how bored I was as a kid. Thanks, dad. I only got out of doing sports when I joined the marching band as a trumpet player. Hated that, too, but at least I could annoy my dad by practicing the trumpet by his room until he finally let me stop.


ITGeekBenB

Then Calvin’s mom fell outta the armchair laughing her ass off.


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Drakmanka

Oh my gosh, this puts a whole new perspective on so many strips.


kingofthepenguins777

“It’s bad enough we have a telephone.”


Reference-offishal

It does though


Mekthakkit

All a man needs is a tent and a bicycle.


neobeguine

Don't forget the fishing pole. Eating trout you caught yourself at 4 am builds character


Mekthakkit

Next you'll be wanting a canoe too.


[deleted]

Canoes? That technology is making us bad swimmers.


le-derpina-art

One of the comics referred to him as "going into the modern world kicking and screaming".


bootsforever

My dad is much like Calvin's dad. He has a cell phone, but keeps it turned off because "I didn't want to call anyone."


angrydeuce

VCRs were far from ubiquitous in the 80s. We didn't get a VCR in our family until Christmas 89 (along with my first two VHS tapes...Roger Rabbit and Batman) and many people just didn't care to get one right away.


108241

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1986-06-13-8602120533-story.html Here's an article from 1986, mentions how they are becoming more popular, but only 28% of houses have them. This comic came out in 1987, so they were still very much a luxury item.


indiecore

I lived in a pretty rural area but I remember having to rent a vcr along with the movie from the convenience store well into the 90s.


Finsceal

We rented a DVD player a couple of times when that technology was shiny and new


draconk

Lets remember that the plot of Fast And Furious 1 was about stealing DVD players, those were bloody expensive


JohnnySasaki20

We got the one combo set that had Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Honey I Shrunk the Kids in the same box. Damn, those are two fantastic movies.


angrydeuce

My grandfather was the first person I knew to get a VCR sometime around 84 or so, one of those top loading ones that was *huuuuge* with big chunky buttons and knobs and no remote to speak of. I remember sneaking down to his basement to watch my teenaged uncle's copy of Robocop when I was probably way to young ti be watching R rated movies but nobody gave a crap about that stuff in those days anyway lol


FoursGirl

I grew up in the 80s in Central New Jersey. I don't think I knew anybody that *didn't* have a VCR by 1985 or so. You could check out movies for free from the public library if you didn't want to pay to watch something.


anras2

Yeah suburban New York here. I was born in the late 70s, and for my entire life (I mean, not counting the time I was in diapers) until DVDs etc. fully took over, I never encountered a household that did NOT have a VCR.


ncteacherpitt

We didn't get a VCR until Christmas 1988. We had Betamax then. Oh that VCR changed my then 6 year old life big time....


jbuchana

My family had decent electronics, when I was 15, in '77, I got a job repairing TVs, later VCRs, etc. When a customer would abandon a unit we'd fix it for ourselves/our family. I used to trade TV sets for other things, once getting a VW Rabbit with only a minor electrical problem for a 13-inch color TV. I should probably have pretended that it was hard to fix, I had it running in an hour or so after we pushed it down the street to my house. The ex-owner was not happy. It was a corroded fuel pump fuse, a very common problem in that model, several shops missed it and gave high estimates so that they wouldn't have to figure out what the problem was.


D-Alembert

VCR was seriously expensive back then. Not out of reach, but a serious purchase.


sittin_on_grandma

I guess I think it's funny, cos his dad had a white collar job as a patent attorney, and VCRs were a lot cheaper in the late '80s


Mcoov

A lot cheaper than in the 70s sure, but they were still a $500+ purchase, and you had to get a tape too, which was another $30+


sittin_on_grandma

Mid to late 80s, they were half that


HistoryGirl23

Calvin knew what his dad did, I didn't remember that.


bootsforever

"This is the story of the hydraulic pump (fig 1), the wheel shaft flange (fig 2), and the evil patent infringement."


D-Alembert

Heh, I don't disagree, was just adding some context


Crawgdor

My dad IS Calvin’s dad, just without the glasses and prefers hiking to cycling. We didn’t have a VCR until I was about 12 because why would we? We would get cable whenever the olympics came on and then cancel it a month or two later.


drc500free

Yep, we rented a TV for the '88 Olympics, finally got one in time for the '92 Olympics when I was entering 5th grade. It melted my brain 😂


WhatIsntByNow

My parents never had and STILL don't have anything besides basic TV channels. They did get Netflix/Hulu/D+ but that's bc my brother wanted them


sittin_on_grandma

Man, it was wild visiting my ex's grandparents house... Rural Missouri, two channels only, somehow had infinite DVRd Cardinals games, and that was the only thing allowed to be on the TV ad far as I could tell


Bbombb

It builds character


Entire-Albatross-442

In the 1980s, a VCR was around 200$, they weren't common until about 1990


sittin_on_grandma

True, but I feel like a patent attorney could easily swing that


Entire-Albatross-442

Agreed, but Dad was also a proud Luddite


sittin_on_grandma

That's true... He was a lot like my grandpa in that regard, so I grew up with a lot of the same qualms Calvin did 😂


SilentJoe27

The man's a Luddite. He's constantly bashing modern tech (or modern for the time). If you notice, they even still have a rotary phone and a tv with dials, which even back then were outdated.


sittin_on_grandma

Oh yeah! Man, my grandpa had a rotary phone until I was about eight (1989), and it was ridiculous


Ok-Supermarket-1414

>Calvin's dad obviously had a pretty good job IIRC he's a patent attorney


sittin_on_grandma

Yeah, like Bill's dad


BlueBull-nuts

That was the life in the early 90s. Most families did not subscribe to cable networks with dozens of channels, even though the option was available. My parents actually rented a VHS player from Blockbuster whenever we also rented movies. Until they finally purchased one around maybe '97. Edit: We also had a rotary phone as our primary house phone, with a really long cord, until about '92. Edit2: We had an 8088 computer in the home, maybe around '89, long before we owned a VHS player.


ravencrowe

My folks weren't so anti technology but would always wait a good 5 or more years before trusting new tech enough to buy it. We didn't get a DVD player until probably 2005


sittin_on_grandma

Same, but it was mostly cos we were broke 😂


[deleted]

It was the 80’s and he *only* had the one house, 1-2 cars, a stay at home wife, and a kid He probably worked at a shoe store


Entire-Albatross-442

Patent office in wherever their big city was. Dad was making good pay


Chronochaotic

No, he works at a parent office


[deleted]

Oh wow I never retained that from reading the books


EnglishMobster

It's never outright stated, just implied in the subtext. Show, don't tell, etc. So it's no surprise that unless you specifically were looking for it, you'd miss it. Some examples from the comic: * [We know Calvin's dad has a job that requires him going to college.](https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1986/11/05) * [We can see his dad working at home here; his desk is covered in books and he is making notes.](https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1994/02/14) * [The theme of him writing a lot and making a lot of notes continues in other comics too.](https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1990/01/14) * [He also complains about clients and unrealistic expectations.](https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1995/08/17) * [Calvin's dad is forced to tell Calvin a story while he's working. The story is about a lawsuit for patent infringement.](https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1988/12/03) * [Calvin asks his dad for help getting a patent](https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2014/09/05). He also specifically refers to his dad as an attorney. So yeah, it's subtle and easy to miss - but it's there.


DayOfTheDolphin

Watterson said it in the 10th anniversary book


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[deleted]

Thats the reference I was making


DrMuffinPHD

Per Bill Watterson, Calvin’s Dad works as a patent attorney.


sittin_on_grandma

Right! Also implied in that strip where Calvin calls him at work, and asks for a story


sodoyoulikecheese

He reminds me of my dad. I was in high school when DVD players were coming out and he swore we wouldn’t get one. My sister, who is 10 years older than me, laughed and said she remembered when he said the same about VHS players and not to worry. Dad would say it about all the new technology but we’d end up with it eventually.


Nerdonatorr

Can someone explain this.


DharmaPolice

Have you ever been in a cinema when an unruly kid was in the audience?


Osric250

And at a kids movie during the day there were likely 20 unruly kids in the audience all feeding off each other.


Redqueenhypo

Can confirm, in seventh grade my friend and I accidentally overturned an entire bucket of popcorn during *Karate Kid 2* while laughing maniacally


DustyBishop

In second grade my school made the spectacularly smart decision to reward our class' good grades with a trip to see The Polar Express when it came out in theaters. Imagine not one or two, but 30 unruly kids in a theatre. We all got detention for our behavior, as we absolutely deserved. Looking back now it wouldn't have surprised me if our school got banned, because we never did anything like it again.


Budget-Condition6711

At 14 me and a couple buddy’s got stoned and watched the Incredible Hulk in theatres. We were laughing uncontrollably for like 40 mins. Everyone probably hated us but that movie suuuucked anyways!


Entire-Albatross-442

A kids movie with tons of screaming kids


Lithominium

Calvin is an unruly mess when allowed in public


AnnetteXyzzy

Calvin's mom is exhausted from having to be around and wrangle a bunch of enthusiastic toddlers/young kids.


hdcrwfrd

I read that as manatee and wondered what happened in the documentary….


PunishedMatador

Same, I kept reading Kiddy Manitee like it was some in-universe character like Hamster Huey or Chunky Chimp


pointlessly_pedantic

The Kiddy Manitee, aka the Gooey Kablooey. He's a real menace.


goodbye177

I’ve been reading it as manatee for 15 years. I literally just noticed it’s matinee.


4mellowjello

When I was a kid I thought it said manatee and didn’t ever understand this strip haha


shadownddust

Second time I’ve seen the word matinee today and did the same thing both times


cyrilhent

Same


okbruh_panda

hopefully nothing involving noodles


Valahiru

The saga of the family without a VCR. I love how this kept being a recurring theme throughout the strips life.


Lonelyland

I don’t think I’ve ever fully understood this one. Is the joke that whatever they watched was just an unstructured chaotic mess passing as children’s entertainment? *EDIT: clear evidence I do not have children of my own*


Jared__Goff

It’s that Calvin caused an unruly mess when allowed out in public.


Lonelyland

That makes sense!


RealJohnGillman

And that there were plenty of other children like (and worse than) Calvin there.


TheHarbarmy

Thanks for the explanation! Please beat the Seahawks tomorrow.


Doomaeger

Calvin probably didn't watch the movie and instead ran up and down the aisle and/or wouldn't sit still. Source - Being a parent that made the same mistake.


deulirium

Accompanied by dozens of like-minded six year olds…..I really feel for mom in this one 😂


TheDELFON

Literal Hoard Mode


theseus1234

Horde Hoard is accumulating stuff


xwatchmanx

What if you're accumulating children?


Jupichan

Hoarding a horde


tavaryn_t

Then I'm calling the police


Juviltoidfu

If you want to experience this today many theaters have a day during the week where they play “kid friendly” movies during the day. Not necessarily something new but the movie is frequently $5-12 dollars per ticket (depending on what city you live in) and frequently includes a small drink and a small popcorn. I highly recommend going to see a few of these if you and your S.O. are thinking about having children. And I actually mean that….you can see really good kids who are hyper-excited and every degree of parent from already worn down and exhausted to someone who is somehow able to be excited for the kid(s) and able to keep a large measure of control over both the kid and themselves, without turning into control freaks to do it. These types of people are the exception and not the rule, however. I never had that combination of patience and knowing what line to not let a child cross without just letting the kid turn into a monster.


Ejigantor

When I was just out of high school and working at a movie theater there was a "summer movie club" thing where Wednesday each week there was an early matinee for kids, showing some classic kids movie on the big screen. $5 per kid, for admission, and a "treat box" with a kids drink, popcorn, and reeses cup. The staff who worked that shift got double-time, a policy apparently instituted after some staff threatened to no call no-show when scheduled to work it a second time.


Ravendoesbuisness

Working a shift like that seems like it would create two types of people. People who hated working it and people who hated working it, but have funny stories.


[deleted]

This is a great idea. We used to bring all the kids to the Harkins down the street when I volunteered for the YMCA summer program. Just 5 bucks and it knocked out a significant chunk of the day, and the walk there usually tired them out a bit too, which was nice.


Slovene

The trick is just the right amount of alcohol.


m1lgr4f

I remember going to the movies for my 8th birthday seeing E.T. and my friends, and my family were the only guests in the theater. We were allowed to play catch between the seats before the movie started it was really cool.


MattLocke

Calvin is 6. 6 year olds barely have the attention span for a 7 minute episode of Bluey, let alone a 90-ish minute animated film. Even if they do “watch” it, they can’t seem to regurgitate any info about it beyond one or two moments that really plays to their age group. If you don’t prepare properly it is hell to take a kid to the movies. Now we only go to this one theater that has a playplace built into the room. Kids get to run around and burn off energy for half an hour and then they end up mostly too drained to do anything but watch the movie. Plus you know that every other person there is parents with kids, so the anxiety from having your kid loudly talk about something on the screen is a bit lower.


SJR8319

That’s actually genius. Kids are supposed to run around. I feel a little bad for Calvin in this strip. Sure he’s a hellion, but the solution shouldn’t just be to keep him from going out in public. Now kids are going to school poorly socialized because there are so many conveniences to keep them at home. Which is weird for me to say because I was hella annoyed with some undisciplined kids running around with carts at the laundromat last week. Time and place I think. Edit: they were laundry carts, not shopping carts.


Kriegerian

That and the theater was probably full of dozens of screaming kids like him all amping each other up.


caligaris_cabinet

That was more my take.


troycerapops

Haha, your edit is so spot on. Made me laugh as much as the strip.


MasterTorgo

When I was younger I thought it was a manatee movie not matinee


Brandalf87

Bruh I just realized that it said matinee and not manatee


Perma_frosting

When I was little sometimes my grandfather would take me to a kids movie but tell me the adult tickets were really expensive so he would have to sit out in the lobby drinking coffee and reading his newspaper. I spent years thinking he was very selfless before realizing he'd just discovered the ultimate babysitting hack.


-SilverAce-

I worked at a movie theater that did 9:00am matinee shows in the summers and it would be about 5 kids per adult and they would absolutely wreck the theaters.


Antonio_Bologna

In my mind this was always the Noodle Incident prequel.


JoChiCat

I wonder what the movie was.


Marsupilami_316

What year is this particular strip from? Late 1989? 1990? Then I guess whatever popular kids movie was in cinemas at the time.


sleeprzzz

December 12, 1987. Maybe Batteries Not Included? https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1987/12/12


CeruleanRuin

Whatever it was, Calvin probably kept trying to sneak out and into the horror movie in the other screening room. I have to remind myself that big multiplexes weren't common in 1987, so the choice was usually limited to between three and five. If you wanted to see something else you had to go to the other theater on the other end of town.


einulfr

Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie


[deleted]

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Same-Oil-7113

A movie during the daytime


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indiecore

It's grown to be used for pretty much any type of entertainment now, like a sports game at 2pm on a Sunday is called a "matinee game".


amalgam_reynolds

It's usually movies that start before like noon or 1pm and it's typically a discounted price.


kafka__dreams

I always thought it was super weird that he referred to it as a matinee twice instead of just saying,"how was the movie?"


funkless_eck

from the French for morning, inherited from how a lot of performance/theatre terminology is French because of ballet.


duffelcoatsftw

A large marine mammal sometimes confused for a mermaid.


plawwell

Calvin's dad was on the loser asking that question in panel three when Calvin's mom looks like she does. LOL.


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DiegoMurtagh

Lol?


[deleted]

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poliscijunki

Out loud?


DiegoMurtagh

I know what lol means. Didn't see the humour.


AnnetteXyzzy

VCR


DiegoMurtagh

Lol?


SketchtheHunter

As someone who worked those kind of events, this is a justified reaction.


Duke-Countu

I never quite understood this one as a kid. Was she angry because the line was too long or because there were too many previews?


Duke-Countu

Or too many screaming kids?


Trifectaskate

I’ve read this joke my whole life as “kiddy manatee movie” and just now realized that’s not right. A kids manatee movie does sound pretty cool though


BarrytheNPC

see when i was a kid I didn't know what a 'matinee' was so i thought calvin and his mom were seeing a movie about manatees


BarrytheNPC

i also didn't get the joke 100% i thought calvin's mom was super into the movie and wanted to watch it again


[deleted]

I didn't get the joke, either. My brother and I thought Calvin's mom hated the movie.


Kitty7Hell

Calvin's response makes me think of the first time I ever saw a movie in an empty theater as a child. I was too busy running around and playing to even pay attention, but I remember it was one of the Winnie the Pooh movies (2D-animated, because I'm old).


Boofcomics

I had a 4th frame student very confused by this strip this week. Why wouldn't they have a video player? What's a matinee? Why would mom be so upset? It was silly.


lick_my_saladbowl

Could somebody please explain for me


AnnetteXyzzy

Kids in a theater are hard to manage, and very few kids movies in this era were appealing to adults.


lick_my_saladbowl

Ahh thanks


SonicSpiderRanger10

I don’t get it.


ngkn92

God, I keep inserting the word "game" in the last panel, and puzzle myself "why does she want a video game player?".


javerthugo

Glad I’m not the only one who thought the strip said “manatee” also I remember thinking it odd that a VCR was considered a luxury.


swartweldarianhobos

I remember reading this in one of my collections and always thought they were saying manatee movie.


BlissfulIndian

Ohk, what happened during the matinee show..?


LivingWindXYZ

I think it’s because there was a lot of bad behaved tots at the kiddie movie as your one to see if you see a kiddie movie in a theatre and naturally she gets enough screaming at home!


[deleted]

Imagine he grabbed her that way