Running Gag/Newspaper Comics


 * Peanuts and its TV specials were fond of these, although always with some sort of variation. Lucy pulling the football away, Charlie Brown crashing his kite, etc.
 * Dagwood in Blondie: Always making his decuple-decker sandwiches, always running into the mailman on his hurried way out the door.
 * Beetle Bailey:
 * Whenever General Halftrack sends his officers a written instruction, it will always have one tiny spelling error that completely changes the meaning of the orders ("buns" instead of "guns", "gag masks" instead of "gas masks", etc.). Someone will point out what the general meant to say, but then someone else will - always, invariably - ask: "But who dares to tell the general that he's done a mistake?" Nobody dares, and in the end, the officers always do exactly what it says in the instruction, even though it makes no sense.
 * Often, General Halftrack is depicted witnessing the end results of his subordinates' interpreting his orders in some absurd way, or simply acting silly for another reason, and his reaction is always the same: "Now what?" often rolling his eyes in the process. Or, if Halftrack himself is the one acting silly, his wife is the one who says it.
 * In Pearls Before Swine, Stephan Pastis has made a habit of setting up puns that are beyond lame. As of late, this has been lampshaded almost every time with Rat demanding that Pastis quit cartooning.
 * Garfield:
 * Weird misfortunes happening to the protagonist on Mondays, like finding a land mine in his breakfast, a freak rainstorm inside the house, getting caught in the window blind, and so on.
 * The protagonist being attacked by "spluts", mysterious pies that come out of nowhere and hit him in the face. Often this overlaps with the Monday gags.
 * Diet Episode arcs; Jim Davis once claimed that when he goes on a diet, so does Garfield. Again, this also often overlaps with the Monday gags.
 * NAP ATTACK! Sometimes this is for Garfield's benefit - being lazy and taking naps at moment's notice - sometimes not, like when he has one at "full throttle" and crashes.
 * Kicking Odie off the table; even Garfield once complained that it was getting routine.