Calvin and Hobbes/Funny

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • In one strip, Calvin yells to his mom from across the house. She tells him to walk over to where she is. He does... and tells his mom "I stepped in dog doo. Where's the hose?"
    • Topped off in the Anthology edition as Watterson's comment is simply "Right lesson - wrong time."
  • Any time Calvin outsmarts Moe. For example:

Calvin: "Are your maladjusted antisocial tendencies the product of your berserk pituitary gland?"+
(Beat)
Moe: "What?"
Calvin: "Isn't he great, folks? Let's give him a big hand!"

    • Also:

Moe: "Hey, Twinky, gimme a quarter."
Calvin: "Your simian countenance suggests a heritage unusually rich in species diversity."
(Beat)
Moe: "What?"
Calvin: "Here." (Tosses Moe a quarter.) "That was worth 25 cents."

  • Calvin's little poem about spiderwebs:

"Like delicate lace,
So the threads intertwine,
Oh, gossamer web
Of wond'rous design!
Such beauty and grace
Wild nature produces...
Ughh, look at the spider
Suck out that bug's juices!"

  • At the beginning of the baseball arc, Calvin realizes he's the only boy on a playground full of girls, and starts freaking out about being in a "Cootie central." Susie retorts with "Relax. Stupidity produces antibodies."
  • Calvin's ransom note to Susie. "Dear Susie, If you want to see your doll again, leave $100 in this envelope by the tree out front. Do not call the police. You cannot trace us. You cannot find us. Sincerely, Calvin."
  • Most of the "Dad polls" strips. For example:

Calvin: (Looking at an old yearbook) "Is this you with the keg and the 'Party Naked' T-Shirt?"
Dad: "Give me thaaaaaat!"

    • Also:

Calvin: "Who's this bimbo with you in this old prom picture?"
Dad: "THAT 'BIMBO' IS YOUR MOTHER!"
Mom: "Who's a bimbo?"
Calvin: "Pretty funky hairdo, mom!"

  • One quick one shot strip:

Dad: "Have you seen my glasses anywhere?"
Enter Calvin, with glasses and slicked-down hair
Calvin: "Calvin, do something you hate! Being miserable builds character!"

    • The last panel really sells it: Dad isn't amused, but Mom is in hysterics.
  • Calvin's poem regarding Hobbes sleeping on the carpet:

Calvin: My tiger, it seems, is running 'round nude.
This fur coat must have made him perspire.
It lies on the floor- should this be construed
As a permanent change of attire?
Perhaps he considers its colors passé,
Or maybe it fit him too snug.
Will he want it back? Should I put it away?
Or use it right here as a rug?
Hobbes: (irritated) I wonder when school starts?

  • The strip where Calvin asks his dad where babies come from; Dad responds by saying that most people buy a kit at Sears. After Calvin screams "I came from SEARS?!?" the dad adds, "No, you were a blue light special at Kmart" which causes Calvin to scream louder.

Calvin's Mom (from another room): WHAT ARE YOU TELLING HIM NOW?!

  • "Tyrannosaurs in F-14S!!!"
  • "I meant to do that."
  • The strip in which Calvin employs Loophole Abuse to answer the question "Explain Newton's First Law of Motion in your own words." His answer? "Yakka foob mog. Grug pubbawup zink wattoom gazork. Chumble spuzz."
  • Calvin's little monologue about the weirdness of cow milk was hilarious enough, but it was even better in the 10th Anniversary Collection:

Calvin: Who was the first guy who looked at a cow and said "I think I'll drink whatever comes out of these things when I squeeze 'em!"?
Bill Watterson: It's sometimes frightening where my mind will go if I let it. Who was that guy?!

  • "I hope you suffer a debilitating brain aneurysm, you freak!"
  • Three panels of a hideous space alien contemptuously addressing a classroom and proceeding to demonstrate his planet's destructive technology, one panel of Calvin pulling a hideous face at the front of the classroom growling gibberish. "Miss Wormwood, shouldn't he be in some kind of special school?"
  • This part of the Mercury report arc:

Susie: (to Calvin) Look, bird brain, you wasted this entire week in the library. We have to give our report on Monday. You'd better bust your butt over the weekend, or I'm telling the teacher you didn't do any work. Got it? ...WELL, WHAT DO YOU SAY?! AM I GETTING THROUGH TO YOU?? THIS IS IMPORTANT!
(the next panel has Spaceman Spiff and an angry alien in place of Calvin and Susie)
Alien: Gronk! Gribble gok! Gak gork! Goonk!
Spaceman Spiff: Our hero regards the strange alien. ...It seems to be trying to communicate.

  • This argument between Calvin and Hobbes:

Calvin: (after Hobbes had called him a liar) ...Well, you're just a poop head! So there! THBPBPTHPT!
Hobbes: POTTY MOUTH! POTTY MOUTH! CALVIN IS A POTTY MOUTH!
Calvin: You're asking for a toothless mouth, buster!
Hobbes: Yeah? Says you and what army? You couldn't knock the teeth out of a mosquito!
Calvin: Ha! Mosquitoes don't have teeth! That shows how dumb you are!
Hobbes: Compared to you, I'm Einstein! Leggo my leg!
(the fight escalates into a Big Ball of Violence)
Calvin: Ow! Go stick your nose in a rubber hose, you walking flea condo!
Hobbes: I say it takes one to know one, bozo! Why don't you go play in the food processor!

  • "TEN MILLION BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL, TEN MILLION BOTTLES OF BEER..."
  • One strip, Calvin is pounding nails into the coffee table. Mom runs in screaming "CALVIN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THE COFFEE TABLE?!?" After a Beat Panel, he looks up and says, "Is this some sort of trick question, or what?"
  • Calvin's snowmen, especially "Oh yeah?! Define 'well-adjusted!'"
    • "I don't care. We're not having an anatomically correct snowman in the front yard."
    • "I don't think the schools assign enough homework." is also a Moment of Awesome! Seriously, how did he make THAT?! Or the snowman enjoying a snowcone for that matter. "It's a sordid story."
    • "Ready... Aim..."
    • "Mom and dad don't value originality and hard work as much as they say they do."
    • "First she says go out. Now she says come in."
    • "For the townsfolk below, the day began like any other day..."
    • Snowmen prophets of doom!
    • The strip where Calvin's dad comes home to an army of snowmen lined up and saluting him, much to his chagrin:

Calvin's Dad: He knows I hate this.

    • The strip where they talked about the new year in relation to the snowmen that Calvin made was both serious and funny.
    • And then there was this one strip where Calvin used Forced Perspective to freak out his dad (Calvin built half a giant face and fingers on a hill top so it looked like a giant snowman was peeking out from over the hill)
    • Not to mention the strip where Calvin built a crowd of snowmen crossing the road, complete with "Snowmen Crossing" sign. ("CALVIN, I'M LATE FOR WORK!!")
  • On the topic of snowmen, the definite crowner is the "Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons" arc, due to being a series of Hilarity Ensues and It Got Worse. Calvin is trying to bring a snowman to life and succeeds! Unfortunately, the snowman lacks any obedience to his master and proceeds to chase Calvin. Then it finds out where Calvin lives! Calvin recruits Hobbes to help him take down the snowman and try to do it with snowballs! It ends predictably and gives the snowman the idea to put more snow on itself to become bigger and stronger! Then it puts on another head and an extra arm! Then it begins to create more snowbeasts! Which are loyal to the creator! Calvin and Hobbes eventually defeat them by spraying them with the hose, freezing them all.
  • Pretty much anytime either parent finds Hobbes somewhere unusual in the house while Calvin's at school (usually so Hobbes can ambush Calvin).
  • In one arc, Calvin tries to weedle out of a school assignment by convincing Hobbes to write his paper for him, giving him specific (albeit poor) instructions. Hobbes agrees, but in true trickster spirit, completely ignores Calvin's instructions and writes the report on his own whims. What makes this funny? At the end, Calvin is furious at Hobbes' prank only to discover that the report was great, and got an A+. (possibly Calvin's only good grade ever), and the arc ends with Calvin still trying to be mad at Hobbes for the principle of the thing as Hobbes gets starry eyed over a possible journalism career.
    • To elaborate, the report was to write and illustrate a story. Calvin decides to get out of it by going forward in time with Hobbes from 6:30 to 8:30, when he will have already written the paper. When that doesn't work, Calvin teams up with the 8:30 Calvin and they both travel back to 7:30 in an attempt to force that Calvin to do the homework. To put it simply, things end up escalating into a Melee a Trois. Meanwhile, the 6:30 Hobbes and the 8:30 Hobbes write Calvin's story and give it to him when he returns, resolving the whole mess. What they don't mention is that the story was about how he tried to avoid doing the assignment.
  • One strip has Calvin throw a snowball at Susie, misses, then comes back with a shovel full of snow,and chases Susie.
  • Calvin's "smile" in this comic always cracks me up.
  • Susie's attempt to get Calvin to play house, including his refusal to accept her rabbit doll as their "baby." What really makes it work it that it's all drawn in the style of a serious, soap opera comic.
  • "Good heavens, I think I blew my face inside-out!" [dead link]
  • "Do you believe in ghosts?"
  • Anything with that damn cardboard box.
  • This strip. The look on Calvin's dad's face is priceless, as well as the last panel.
    • The rest of that story arc counts too. Calvin is sick of being a kid and wants to be a tiger instead, so he dresses up as a tiger and goes out into the forest with Hobbes. At one point he reads that tigers are "secretive". They get into an argument, then Hobbes promises to give Calvin a hint.

Calvin: Ok, shoot!
Hobbes: The flea market.
Calvin: THE FLEA MARKET?! WHAT KIND OF LOUSY HINT IS THAT?!
Hobbes: Do you know how your parents got you?
Calvin: I was...what? What are you saying?
Hobbes: No more hints.

  • Hobbes gives Calvin a haircut that quickly goes horribly wrong. Bill Watterson went on record saying that he rarely laughs when he draws, but drawing the results of Hobbes' work actually cracked him up.
  • "...Our first president was NOT Chef Boy-Ar-Dee, and you ought to be ashamed to have turned in such preposterous answers!"
  • At one point Calvin is told to stop making a particular face, as it will freeze that way if he does so. This kicks off a week of strips containing the following:

Panel 1: *Calvin walking about with zombie-grimace face*
Panel 2: *approaches Hobbes, who jumps in surprise at the sight*
Panel 3: *Beat panel as Hobbes considers Calvin*
Panel 4: *Hobbes adopts a similar expression and falls in with Calvin*
Hobbes: *thinking* "When in Rome..."

  • This exchange:

Calvin: Cigars are all the rage, Dad. You should smoke cigars!
Calvin's Mom: Flatulence could be all the rage, but it would still be disgusting.

  • Calvin and Hobbes are at Susie's birthday party, and the birthday girl is passing around paper plates. Calvin confides in Hobbes his hopes that the cake isn't something gross, like coconut. Hobbes assures him that it's chocolate.

Susie (Off-panel): HEY! WHO CUT A PIECE OF MY CAKE ALREADY?! I DIDN'T EVEN GET TO BLOW OUT THE CANDLES!!
Hobbes, while Calvin Face Palms: It's nice and moist, too.

  • After Calvin cheats at Monopoly by robbing the bank, Hobbes makes it so that Calvin owes him $250,000.
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