- Calvin is frantically asking his pediatrician whether or not his instruments hurt. The first couple times, the doctor tries to reassure him. The last two panels feature the doctor claiming his ear scope is a cattle prod and that "(i)t hurts a little less than a branding iron", causing Calvin to faint and the doctor to complain about children lacking a sense of humor.
- Calvin having to get a shot (offscreen).
Calvin: Is that a shot? Are you going to...
AUUGHH! IT WENT CLEAR THROUGH MY ARM!! OW OW OW OW!!!!
(Mom hides her face in embarrassment.) I'M DYING! I HOPE YOU'VE PAID YOUR MALPRACTICE INSURANCE, YOU QUACK!!
WHERE'S MY MOM!? - 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."
- Calvin insists to Susie that he did not get a frowny face sticker on his assignment.
Calvin: (thinking to himself) I didn't even know they made barfing face stickers.
- Any time Calvin outsmarts Moe.
- Calvin's little poem about spiderwebs:
- 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.
"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."
- Made funnier by the panel break before the last sentence, causing a Beat when reading.
- The follow-up strip reveals the note also included a ransom photo of Susie's doll tied to a chair. Her over-the-top Freak Out about it is glorious.
- 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: (grabbing yearbook) Give me thaaaaaat!
- Watterson's comment on this strip: "Yearbook photos should come with statutes of limitations."
- Also:
Calvin: Who's the bimbo with you in this old prom picture?
Dad: THAT "BIMBO" IS YOUR MOTHER!
Mom: (offscreen) WHO'S A BIMBO?!
Calvin: Pretty funky hairdo, Mom!
- The last panel when Dad tries to put a stop to the polling by pointing out that he doesn't care about approval points:
- In another strip, Dad points out that being a father is not an elected position and he doesn't need to listen to public approval. Calvin is aghast.
- Another time, Calvin says that there have been talks about voting Dad out of office and making Mom the new Dad. Dad has a sneaking suspicion about who's behind that idea.
- A filler panel in one of the book collections had Calvin making a "Dad performance" graph with the approval rating going so low that he had to tape new extensions to the graph to show how bad it was, while Dad just gives an exaggerated Aside Glance.
- In a one-shot strip where Calvin's dad can't find his glasses, Calvin is revealed as the "thief" in the most hilarious way. The last panel really sells it.
Dad: Honey, have you seen my glasses? I can't find them anywhere.
Mom: I haven't seen them.
(Enter Calvin, with glasses and slicked-down hair.)Calvin: Calvin, go do something you hate!
Being miserable builds character!(Mom has literally fallen out of her chair laughing hysterically.)Dad: (glaring at his wife) OK, the voice was
a little funny, but that's still one darn sarcastic kid we're raising.
- The beginning of G.R.O.S.S. Calvin wants to call their new club something cool and mysterious. Hobbes wants to call it "The Hobbes Fan Club", much to Calvin's displeasure.
- Calvin's poem about 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?
(Calvin walks off as Hobbes looks irritated.)
Hobbes: I wonder when school starts?
- In one strip, Dad ducks out of having to have "The Talk" with his six-year-old son. Also one of his funniest gadfly moments.
- Calvin's Oh, Crap! moment one day when his dad takes the day off work and just happens to read the classified section...
"New dad wanted. Frequent traveler preferred. Liberal views on discipline a must. Ask for Calvin during normal work hours."
- "Yukon Ho!" has a picture with Calvin riding in his parents' car holding up a sign in the rear window saying: "Help! I've been kidnapped! Call the police!"
- Another one showing Calvin watching TV with Hobbes with a zombiefied, hypnotized look in his eyes.
- "Tyrannosaurs in F-14S!!"
Calvin: This is
so cool!
Hobbes: This is
so stupid.
- Calvin jumps on a makeshift springboard, which is weighed down by a giant snowball. Predictably, the snowball gets launched into his face.
- 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?!
- One of the insults Calvin says to Susie upon first meeting her is, "I HOPE YOU SUFFER A DEBILITATING BRAIN ANEURYSM, YOU FREAK!"
Calvin: Go away.
- 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.
Student: Miss Wormwood, shouldn't he be in some special school or something?
- This part of the Mercury report arc:
Susie: (to Calvin) Look, bird brain, you wasted this entire week in the library. (grabbing Calvin's collar) 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...over a croquet game.
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'd say it takes one to know one, bozo! Why don't you go play in the food processor!
Mom: (off-panel as the roughed-up duo stop fighting) It's getting dark, Calvin. C'mon inside!
Calvin: Aw Mom, we're right in the middle of a croquet game! - A game of Capture the Flag between Calvin and Hobbes led to a Big Ball of Violence, with insults such as "Strudel-Brain!" and "Oatmeal-Face!" around it.
Calvin: (completely dirty from the fight) Mom says we should take up
Monopoly.
Hobbes: (in the washer) No way, buster. I know all about those "interest-free bank loans" to yourself!
- On a road trip, Calvin annoys his dad into buying him a hamburger by singing, "TEN MILLION BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL, TEN MILLION BOTTLES OF BEER..."
Dad: OK! OK! Here's a hamburger joint! ARE YOU HAPPY?!
- 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.
- A snowman being beheaded by a giant snow-chicken. He says, "Oh yeah?! Define 'well-adjusted!'" to his mother.
- When Susie builds a snow woman with visible boobs, the next panel has Calvin's mother saying, "I don't care. We're not having an anatomically correct snowman in the front yard." Calvin's snowman is only seen from the back, but the clear implication is that Calvin gave it a penis.
- The snow monster Calvin builds that makes his dad think, "I don't think the schools assign enough homework." Doubles as a Moment of Awesome—seriously, how did he make that?!
- Another strip has one snowman enjoying a snowcone. Another snowman can be seen facedown on the ground with an ice cream scoop in his back with three scoops taken out of him already. Calvin just says, "It's a sordid story."
- "Ready... Aim..."
- "You don't like my Snowman House of Horror, do you?" This is what Calvin says when his mother pulls a face at some snowmen Calvin built: one is being impaled by a tree, one is being run over by a sled, one has two noses and three eyes, one is buried to his head, and one is holding his disembodied head.
- One strip has Calvin saying, "Mom and Dad don't value originality and hard work as much as they say they do." as he and Hobbes are building snowmen doing grisly things while playing sports.
- "First she says go out. Now she says come in," says Calvin after building some bowling snowmen—with one snowman using another snowman's head as the ball.
- Calvin saying, "For the townsfolk below, the day began like any other day..." as he prepares to squash some mini-snowmen on his sled.
- Calvin making a bunch of Easter Island heads out of snow and saying to his dad, "What's wrong with Easter Island? I like Easter Island."
- There's a strip where three melting snowmen holding signs predicting doom because spring is coming.
- The strip where Calvin's dad comes home to an army of snowmen lined up and saluting him, much to his chagrin.
Dad: He knows I hate this.
- On that note, the one where he comes home to snowmen picketing him with signs such as "Calvin's Dad Unfair" and "Egad! Bad dad!"
Dad: No one else at the office talks about this kind of thing.
- This New Years' strip involving snowmen.
Calvin: (as the two approach a snowman looking on) This snowman represents the spirit of the new year. Looking ahead, he strives forward with confidence and determination! He challenges! He imagines! He invents! He calls forth the best qualities of human drive and ingenuity!
Hobbes: Very inspiring. [...] (sees several other snowman laugh at the first snowman, lying in the shade, etc.) ...And over here is the real world?
Calvin: Right. This is why we're always glad when the old year is over.
- One strip has Calvin using Forced Perspective to freak out his dad (he 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).
- "I call it, 'The Torment of Existence Weighed Against the Horror of Nonbeing.'" (with "it" being a snowman screaming with a comically horrified expression).
- Upon seeing Calvin's hideous snowman which he's treating like a work of art, Hobbes congratulates him on putting artistic integrity before marketability. After hearing this, Calvin immediately makes a normal happy-looking snowman.
- The strip where Calvin built a crowd of snowmen crossing the driveway, complete with a "Snowmen Crossing" sign.
Dad: CALVIN, I'M LATE FOR WORK!!
- The strip where Calvin and Hobbes build a snow fort, then cover it with water to encase it in ice so that it will "be here until July." The final panel reveals he has built it across the driveway.
Dad: (standing next to the car) WHERE'S THAT KID!!?
- Mom and Dad are out for a walk through the neighborhood and are casually admiring all of the snowmen in people's yards. They then come across a two-headed snowman.
Dad: You can always tell when we get to our house.
- On the topic of snowmen, the definite crowner is the "Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons" arc. Calvin is trying to bring a snowman to life, in which he succeeds, but the snowman lacks any obedience to his master and proceeds to chase Calvin. Then it finds out where Calvin lives, causing the latter to recruit Hobbes to help him take down the snowman.
- In one strip, Miss Wormwood takes Calvin to the Principal's office—while Calvin is imagining himself as Spaceman Spiff.
- Pretty much any time 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 wheedle out of a school assignment (write and illustrate a story), by going forward in time with Hobbes from 6:30 to 8:30, when he will have already written the paper — only to find his 8:30 self had had the same idea and not actually written the report. 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 Mêlée à Trois.note Or would have, but the 7:30 Calvin pointed out that, since they're all the same Calvin, the 6:30 and 8:30 Calvins would suffer anything they did to him. 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. What makes this funny? At the end, Calvin is furious at Hobbes' prank, only to discover that the report was great, earning an A+, 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 career as an author.
- The fact that Calvin didn't bother reading the story before the presentation, meaning he's taken by complete surprise by the content.
- One strip has Calvin whiff a snowball throw at Susie, leading him to chase her with a shovel full of snow instead.
- Another one has Calvin toss a snowball down a hill. There's a pause before he begins cheering, and we see Susie at the bottom of the hill having been plowed over by a massive snowball.
- Calvin watches a commercial and wonders why Dad doesn't have a cool sports car like the guy on TV, and then asks how Mom doesn't dress like the babe he's with.
Dad: Yeah, why don't you dress like that?
- This strip from the last camping arc.
Dad: Ta da! We're here!
Calvin: Good ol' "Itchy Island". Home of the nuclear mosquitoes.
Dad: Bug bites build character.
Calvin: Yeah, and last year you said diarrhea builds character.
Dad: So, think what a fine young man you're growing up to be.
Calvin: ...If all this character doesn't kill me first.
Dad: That reminds me, open the duffel bag and get out the spam.
Calvin: If the canoe isn't here in the morning, it means Hobbes and I struck out for home.
- When Calvin's gum bubble explodes all over his face, he says, "Good heavens, I think I blew my face inside-out!"
- Calvin and Hobbes get ready to turn in while camping, but when one of them asks, "Do you believe in ghosts?" they end up staying up all night trembling and holding a bat.
- This strip. Calvin gets excited when his dad mentions that this moment is a "very special time." Guess what it is?
Dad: IT'S YOUR BATH TIME! OH BOY!!
Calvin: (to Hobbes) You know how older people always write to Dear Abby, complaining that their kids never write, call or visit? Those letters really crack me up.
- 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.note This also marks the very first appearance of the "Tracer Bullet" persona, in which Hobbes makes him cover it up with one of Dad's fedoras.
- On a later strip in the arc, after his mom finds out, Calvin chews Hobbes out for the whole dilemma, ending it with, "I hope you're happy." Hobbes shoots back with "Happy?! You stiffed me! Where's my eight bucks?!" Enraged, Calvin then runs after Hobbes, who has a huge smile on his face.
- A strip has Miss Wormwood tell Calvin off, saying, "Our first president was NOT Chef Boy-Ar-Dee, and you ought to be ashamed to have turned in such preposterous answers!"
- The strips where Calvin and Susie play house and Calvin just phones it in the whole time. Of course, Susie has some pretty ridiculous ideas too. What really makes it work is that it's all drawn in the style of a serious, soap opera comic.
- A woman representing Susie goes home to her cynical husband who represents Calvin. She claims to have had a baby, but it's a rabbit. The husband calls her out for her "idiocy".
- There's also one of them playing doctor which leads to Susie kicking Calvin in the shins.
- When Susie ropes Calvin into one of her games where they're married and she's the President of the United States, he quickly ruins it by saying the dinner he made for her is dog food and that she's the "President of Deluded Fruitcakes Anonymous." When she protests, he quickly pulls a Screw This, I'm Outta Here, strips down to his underwear, declares himself "Wonga-Taa, King of the Jungle!" and leaves to go play with Hobbes. But the best part? Nearly the entire strip is drawn in a serious, realistic style, so from the reader's point of view, it looks like a grown man arguing with his wife before he suddenly strips down to his underwear and inexplicably swings off on a vine into the distance.
- 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:
- Calvin claims to his dad that his face really has frozen, and he comes to the dinner table looking like that. After failing to explain why his face can't return to normal, he throws on a sheet with eye-holes proclaiming "See? Elephant Man!"
- Then right afterward, he and Hobbes make the face to Susie, and through her point-of-view, you just see Calvin standing there saying, "Hi, Susie" with Hobbes as a stuffed tiger sitting next to him. She, inevitably, says his "frozen" face is an improvement,
- Calvin randomly decides to abandon another homework assignment by pretending to be a zombie, as "the living dead don't need to solve word problems."
- This exchange:
Calvin: Cigars are all the rage, Dad. You should smoke cigars!
Mom: Flatulence could be all the rage, but it would still be disgusting.
- "So if we subtract 5 from..." "OUR FEARLESS HERO ESCAPES!!!" This leads to another Spaceman Spiff daydream.
- The last panel has Calvin already at home and his mother on the phone, saying, "Hello, speaking... HE WHAT?!"
- 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.
- In one Sunday strip, Calvin and Hobbes are outside walking through the snow;
Calvin: I asked Dad if he wanted to see some New Year's resolutions I wrote. He said he'd be glad to, and he was pleased to see I was taking an interest in self-improvement. I told him the resolutions weren't for me, they were for him. That's why we're outside now.
Hobbes: I wondered what the rush was.
- An entire Sunday comic is devoted to Calvin's dinner reciting the "To be or not to be" soliloquy from Hamlet to him. It then, after a short pause, begins singing "Feelings" by Morris Albert. Calvin eats it before it can do anything else. In the last panel, his mom remarks happily about how quickly he finished eating, and with a look of supreme disgust, Calvin says, "Let's not have this ever again."
- When Calvin tells his mom he DOES have common sense when he's told he lacks it, he turns to the reader and says happily, "I just choose to ignore it."
- In one arc, both Calvin and Susie have been sent to the principal's office (Susie was passing notes, and Calvin basically announced it for all the world to hear). They become worried that they may be spanked, and when Mr. Spittle comes to talk to them, they start freaking out, culminating in, "WAAHHHH!! I WISH WE WERE DEAD!!"
Mr. Spittle: (thinking, giving Aside Glance) I hate this job.
- Beforehand, Susie says that they can't paddle her because she's a girl. Calvin wonders what that has to do with it, and Susie replies with "Girls have more delicate heinies."
- One in a multitude of strips where Hobbes and Calvin fight. In the middle of it, Susie walks in.
Susie: I'm not sure what's weirder—that you're fighting a stuffed animal, or that you seem to be losing.
Calvin: I'M NOT LOSING! HOBBES CHEATS! Quit it, you! Ow! Stop it!
- Before this, Calvin says that he'd throw a snowball at Susie if he had one. He then realizes Santa must've heard him and immediately apologizes. The following exchange:
Hobbes: You'd better say you
like Susie.
Calvin: What?! Never! That's going too darn far!
Hobbes: (teasingly) You'd better say you'd like to give her
muchas smooches!
Calvin: (with a hilariously shocked expression) MUCHAS SMOOCHES?! (cue fight)
- Calvin's attempt to hit Susie with a pine cone, only for her to throw it back at him with her lacrosse stick.
- Susie and Calvin discuss their roles in the school play, which is about food groups.
Calvin: I'm still learning [my lines]. Being an onion is difficult, you know. What are you?
Susie: I'm "fat."
Calvin: No, I mean in the play.(next panel shows Calvin dazed on his back)Susie: (standing in a dominant posture) ANYONE ELSE WANT TO SAY IT?!Calvin: Aack! Understudy! Understudy!
- Before that, when his mom has him don his costume for the first time and asks for his opinion on it...
- Calvin tries to reassure his mom on her costume skills by informing her that at least he's not the kid who has to play an amino acid.
- The Duplicate(s) arc.
- When Calvin creates the first duplicate to clean his room and do his homework for him, the clone inevitably runs away to goof off, just as Calvin was planning to do:
Hobbes: He's a duplicate of
you, alright.
Calvin: What do you mean?!
This guy's a
total jerk!
- Calvin and the multiple duplicates agree to split up going to school. When Duplicate #5 is asked to demonstrate a problem assigned the previous day, he insists he wasn't there.
Miss Wormwood: Yes, you were, Calvin. Didn't you do your problem?
Duplicate #5: I'm not Calvin. I'm Duplicate Number Five. Duplicate Two was here yesterday, not me. We're all taking turns. Number Two will be back next week, and you can ask him then.
(later in Mr. Spittle's office)
Duplicate #5: Look, I don't see what's so hard about this!
- And the worst part of the whole thing for Calvin? Not only is he getting framed by his own doubles, but he's upset that he doesn't even get to have the fun of doing the stuff he's getting blamed for.
- The retelling of Calvin's favorite book, Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie as told by Calvin's dad, frustrated over having to read it night after night. While we never get to hear the story, we see Calvin and Hobbes lying in bed afterwards with their eyes as big as dinner plates.
- Pretty much the entire bat report arc. Even funnier in the Anniversary edition, where Watterson mentions that, after that arc, he learned far more about bats than he'd ever cared to know. You can start it here.
Calvin: How am I supposed to write a report on a subject I know nothing about?! It's impossible!
Hobbes: I suppose research is out of the question.
Calvin: Oh, like I'm going to learn about bats and then write a report?! Give me a break!
- It all culminates to when Calvin has to give his report.
Calvin: "Dusk! With a creepy, tingling sensation, you hear the fluttering of leather wings! Bats! With glowing red eyes and glistening fangs, these unspeakable giant bugs drop onto..."
All the students but Calvin: BATS AREN'T BUGS!!
- After Calvin gives Susie her Valentine ("Susie, I hate you. Drop dead."), she's furious.
Susie: CALVIN, YOU BALONEY BRAIN! You sent me a hate-mail Valentine and a crummy bunch of dead flowers! So here's a Valentine for
you, you insensitive clod!!
(nails him point blank
with a snowball and walks away, smiling and thinking) A Valentine and flowers!
He likes me!
Calvin, buried in the snow: (thinks) She noticed! She
likes me!
- Mom & Dad have just put Calvin to bed on Christmas Eve and are quietly snuggling on the couch before the lit fireplace and musing about Christmas and them as a couple... when Calvin appears with a fire extinguisher and ruins the mood.
Calvin: WHAT'S THIS?! SANTA FLAMBÉ?!
- The entire exchange about Calvin being called "Boy of Destiny."
Miss Wormwood: Here is your paper, Susie. Very good. Here is yours, Calvin. By the way, you can stop signing your paper "Calvin, Boy of Destiny," and I think your time would be better spent studying than drawing "official notary seals" at the bottom.
[...]
Susie: Everyone
I know thinks your destiny is a private cage in the primate house.
Calvin: Your destiny is to have
a smile that's all gums.
- When Calvin secedes from his family to go to the Yukon, he changes his mind after roughly a morning spent in the woods, leaving Hobbes behind in his rush to get back home. His parents go out there after dark to look, and his Mom actually calls out Hobbes' name. The sheepish look on her face coupled with his dad's reaction seals it.
Dad: I may be crazy, but I'm not as crazy as you.
- One where Calvin notices a door that he had never seen before in the hallway. He opens it, to find a gigantic Muppet-like version of his mom offering oatmeal. Calvin immediately panics, knowing this to be off, while "Mom" keeps trying to offer the oatmeal. Even funnier when you realize it's a reference to when scientists use a bird puppet to feed baby birds.
Calvin: What's going on?! This isn't my house and you're not my mom! (
two panels later) Auugh! I'm trapped in a lab and they're trying to make me imprint on my species before releasing me back to the wild!
(Cue outside shot of a large scale model of Calvin's house in a cage, and two aliens in lab coats, one with the Mom Muppet.)Alien with Muppet: He's onto us Wayne.
Wayne: There goes our funding.
(Calvin wakes up, heads to the table, where Mom is bringing him a bowl of oatmeal, wearing the same outfit.)Mom: Morning. Here's your breakfast. What's wrong?
Calvin: ...Prove you're my Mom... - This strip is probably one of Susie's finest moments of snark:
- Calvin and Hobbes are walking through the snow when Calvin begins ranting. Keep in mind that everything Calvin says here, except for his last line, is spread over three panels before Hobbes finally gets a word in.
- Even funnier is that Word of God is that this was inspired by his wife making a similar comment.
- One story where Calvin and Hobbes are playing with a Ouija board. Calvin decides to ask it if he will grow up to be President. The Ouija board's reply? "G-O-D-F-O-R-B-I-D."
Calvin: When I want an editorial, I'll ask for it, you stupid board!
- In one strip, Calvin bemoans how cold it is and asks why they can't turn up the heat. His dad explains that it would cost too much money and waste valuable energy.
- In an early Rosalyn story arc, Rosalyn puts Calvin and Hobbes to bed early, as usual. Calvin and Hobbes decide to make a lot of noise to annoy her.
Rosalyn: Calvin, I just wanted to remind you that sleeping in a bed is a privilege. The basement is sure to be a lot less cozy.
Hobbes: (whispering) What did she mean, "the basement"?
Calvin: SHHH!
- Calvin's feud with his bicycle is good for a few laughs. One strip has the bike jump Calvin, who returns with a lasso and ties the bike to a tree.
Calvin's Dad: Sheesh, you buy the kid a good, expensive lock, and look.
- Calvin has a perfect retort for the stock "Do you have enough for everyone" question about chewing gum in class:
Miss Wormwood: Calvin, are you chewing gum in class?
Calvin: Yeth.
Miss Wormwood: Do you have enough to share with everybody?
Calvin: (pulls a giant glob of gum out of his mouth) Probably, but do you really think they'd want it??
(cut to Calvin in the principal's office)
Calvin: It was her idea...
- Yet another of Calvin's attempts to get out of answering a question in class:
Miss Wormwood: OK, you've all read the chapter, so let's review. Calvin, where was the Byzantine empire?
(
Calvin makes a face of shock, then ponders.)
Calvin: I'll take "Outer Planets" for $100.
- Calvin walks by Mom, proclaiming himself to be her "big accomplishment in life." Cut to her on the couch, talking to Dad.
Mom: (sadly) I'm depressed.
- Calvin refuses to show what he brought for Show and Tell or say anything about it. He then says, "It's the Show and Tell that was never shown or told! Ha ha ha! AH HA HA HA HA!" Then he gets sent to the principal's office.
Calvin: Everyone wants the same old thing.
- Throughout the first camping arc a constant downpour followed Calvin's family. When Dad decides to pack it up, it stops raining. He slaps his forehead in frustration, and in the last panel we go to Calvin and Hobbes planning on looking up whatever he said in the dictionary.
- The first three panels of following day's strip has Dad trying to apologize for the Horrible Camping Trip. The fourth panel:
- Calvin comes up with a technically correct answer to another question in class:
(
Calvin imagining himself as a pterosaur, flying over the sea.)
Plesiosaur (
lunging out of the ocean):
CALVIN, PAY ATTENTION!!Ms. Wormwood (
back in reality): We're studying
Geography! Now what state do you live in?
Calvin: Denial.Ms. Wormwood: Sighhhh... I don't suppose I can argue with
that... (
walks away)
(
The pterosaur flies on.)
- Watterson based this exchange on an exaggeration of his wife's occasional Cloud Cuckoolander non-sequiturs.
Calvin: Do you know why birds don't write their memoirs? Because birds don't lead epic lives, that's why! Who wants to read about what a bird does? Nobody!
Hobbes: (stares wordlessly)
Calvin: This is changing the subject, but have you ever noticed how somebody can say something totally loony and not even be aware of it? What are you supposed to do, just let it slide?
Hobbes: Sometimes if you let him, he'll top himself.
Calvin: I say punch 'em then and there!
- Two strips have Hobbes engaging in Stealth Puns with various objects.
- One strip has the duo playing pirate and Hobbes hands Calvin a shoe declaring it their "booty." Calvin is not amused.
- In another strip, the two are playing cowboy. Calvin is "shot" and Hobbes gives the boy a maraca. When asked what it's for, Hobbes explains that it's Calvin's "Death rattle."
- Calvin randomly runs out of class shouting, "WHAT ON EARTH AM I DOING HERE ON THIS BEAUTIFUL DAY?! THIS IS THE ONLY LIFE I'VE GOT!! AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
Miss Wormwood: (carrying Calvin back to class) Next time, take a drink of water and a few deep breaths.
- Dad reading a bedtime story to Calvin about a disembodied hand. He puts one hand up his shirt and pretends to strangle himself, making Calvin faint. He then says, "I should have thought of that years ago."
- Calvin calls his dad at work, begging to read him a story.
Dad: Right, right. This is the story of the hydraulic pump (Fig. 1), the wheel shaft flange (Fig. 2), and the evil patent infringement.
Calvin: I want a good story.
- Watterson explained he made Calvin's dad, like his own dad, a patent attorney because "specific things are funnier than generalities".
- Calvin points out to Hobbes how, when you're a kid, you accept everything your parents do as normal regardless of what they do. Then Calvin's dad bursts in.
Dad: Ahh, what a day! Up at 6:00, a ten-mile run in the sleet, and now a big bowl of plain oatmeal! How I love the crazy hedonism of weekends!
Calvin: Okay, maybe "normal" is too strong a word.
Hobbes: I think we'd know normal if we saw it.
- In one of their baseball games, Hobbes hits the ball so far out that he can make a home run long before Calvin ever gets the chance to tag him out. To make the loss even more humiliating, Hobbes purposely stalls himself while taunting Calvin, and makes a home run just before Calvin, running with all his might, tries to tag him. Calvin's facial expression in the second-to-last panel as he desperately tries to tag Hobbes is just hilarious.
- The cherry on top is the last panel with Calvin's mom patching up him and Hobbes after the game and (presumably) the off-screen fight that followed it:
Mom: (putting bandages on Calvin) Stitches for Hobbes, bandages for you...how on Earth did you do this to yourself?
Calvin: Don't feel sorry for him! He—ow—deserved it!
- This classic strip:
Dad: I cleaned and oiled your bicycle, Calvin. What do you say I take some time and help you learn how to ride it?
(the next panel, which is twice the length of a regular panel, is just Calvin running away from his dad and screaming "NO-O-O-O-O-O!" in huge font)Dad: (with an "I don't get paid enough for this" look on his face) You're welcome.
Calvin: (off-panel) Mom! Mom! Dad
hates me!
- By far one of the best bike-themed strips (and one of the last ones at that) had Calvin answer a knock on the door... only for the bike to burst in, chasing him all over the house, with Calvin barely managing to escape to the roof outside his room and locking the window behind him. Unfortunately, there's a good deal of collateral damage...
Mom: AUGH!!! BIKE TRACKS ON THE FLOOR!! OIL ON THE COUCH!!
Dad: WHERE'S THAT KID?!!
Calvin: One day, our neighbors are going to look outside and wonder why there's a grown man in kids clothes sitting on our roof.
- One storyline turned out to be a prank on the reader. Calvin orders a copter beanie from the back of a cereal box, convinced it can actually fly. Several days of Calvin obsessing over the beanie ensue. Then it finally arrives, and the readers undoubtedly expect the obvious disappointment... but it requires assembly and Calvin breaks a part, seemingly derailing the entire plot. Readers had to wait two whole days to find out that it was just the battery casing and it could be fixed.
- Add in that while Calvin is super happy that his dad fixed it for him, he is so amazed he shouts it out like he's announcing the Second Coming. His mom's amazement at it just seals the deal and leaves his dad exasperated at their response.
- A Sunday Strip has a song sparrow perched on a tree branch, preparing to "burst forth in rapturous melody". The sparrow then starts screaming the words to "On Top of Spaghetti". The last panel has Calvin's mom throwing him out of the house.
- Mom asks Calvin why he's hiding in the bushes and he tells her to go away because he's going to throw some crab apples at Susie. Mom tells him not to do this because crab apples are hard and he could hurt someone. Calvin grudgingly agrees not to. In the last panel, Susie asks Calvin why he's hiding in the bushes and he tells her to go away because he's going to throw a squishy old tomato at Mom.
- Dad, once again, as The Gadfly who Lies to Children:
Calvin: Dad, how come old photographs are always black and white? Didn't they have color film back then?
Dad: Sure they did. In fact, those old photographs are in color. It's just the world was black and white then. [...] The world didn't turn color until sometime in the 1930s, and it was pretty grainy color for a while, too.
- In the baseball story arc, Calvin and Hobbes are in bed after Calvin got hit by the grounder. This exchange occurs.
- Mom yells at Calvin to quit running around the house. Calvin keeps running, crashes into a table, and knocks over a lamp.
- In one G.R.O.S.S. meeting that degenerates into a power struggle between its Supreme Dictator-for-Life and President-and-First-Tiger, Hobbes holds up the official club notebook showing a page on which he just wrote "HOBS = GRAT" (Hobbes equals great) and says, "Now it's a law!"
- When Calvin wants the "snow demons" to make it snow, his dad says, "I don't know whether your grasp of theology or meteorology is more appalling."
- Calvin asks Hobbes to draw a dinosaur whose skeleton they made out of assorted junk. Since they used a soda bottle for the head, it comes out looking like Birdo.
Calvin: What's it doing? Whistling?
Hobbes: You tell me... Maybe it's puckering up.
- "I didn't know bones came in decorator colors, did you?"
- In one arc, after accidentally breaking his dad's binoculars, Calvin decides to replace them. He and Hobbes pool their money and find they have about four dollars. Then Calvin calls the store.
Calvin: (on the phone) Hello? I'd like to know how much a good pair of binoculars costs. ...ONE TO SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS?! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT MY DAD'S GOING TO DO TO ME?!?
- In one strip, Calvin's in a bad mood, but Mom ain't having it. Calvin angrily grumbles that his biological mother would try to cheer him up. To which Mom gets on her knees and tells Calvin this;
Mom: Kid, anyone but your biological mother would've left you to the wolves long ago.
Calvin: Yeah, right. Really, how much did you pay for me?
- One strip has Susie telling Calvin about their new substitute teacher Mr. Kneecapper. Calvin is horrified, and tells Susie about how he (supposedly) killed a kid last year.
- For "Show and Tell", Calvin hasn't brought anything, and instead just tells everyone that his mother goes out to fight crime when he's at school. The teacher sends a note home, and while Mom's exasperated as usual, Dad's just interested in seeing her in that outfit.
- In the introduction to the collection The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, Watterson described his former job doing ad layouts with the following:
Watterson: I learned a bit about design doing this job, but one might charitably say the boss had rage issues, so the office environment was dreary and oppressive, except when enlivened with episodes of fire-breathing insanity.
- In one arc, Calvin loses Hobbes when a big dog grabs the tiger and runs off. Susie finds Hobbes and decides to take him home. When Calvin sees Hobbes (in his "person" form usually reserved for their private moments) at Susie's tea party, he thanks her and kisses her hand, much to her confusion.
Susie: Well! Wasn't Mr. Calvin a gentleman! I do hope... HEY! WHO TOOK ALL THE COOKIES!?
- One Rosalyn arc begins with Calvin yelling in the last panel of the first strip, and continues yelling through all four panels of the next day's strip. The last panel of that strip has mom telling him "For goodness sake, Calvin! Take a breath before you pass out on the floor!"
- One Christmas strip has Calvin writing a letter to Santa about how good he's been all year. Hobbes reads over it and can't control his laughter, much to Calvin's annoyance.
Calvin: Perhaps you need a drink of water.
Hobbes: (still laughing) I think I do.
- In one arc, Calvin and his parents leave the house to go to a wedding for the weekend, but they leave Hobbes behind. In one strip, Calvin tells his mom that he can't sleep because he's used to Hobbes' breathing.
Mom: Well, you can listen to your dad snoring.
Calvin: That's Dad? I thought those were trucks downshifting on the highway.
- Calvin's occasional From the Mouths of Babes moments, especially one early strip where he asks his father why he lives in a house married to Mom instead of an apartment with several scantily clad female roommates. The look on Dad's face in the third panel especially takes the cake, as does the ending, where he grumbles about how he got his TV privileges revoked.
- Calvin's over-the-top reaction to Hobbes saying that girls are good for smooching.
Calvin: OOOG! AAACK! I GOT THE DRY HEAVES!! YOU'RE DEMOTED FROM FIRST TIGER TO TIGER BULK RATE!
- And this leads into yet ANOTHER fight. The fight gets resolved by Hobbes pointing out Mom is a girl.
- During the arc where Calvin forgets about his insect collection, Miss Wormwood sends Susie to the front of class away from Calvin. Calvin then passes a note to Susie with the following:
"Hey Susie,
Roses Are Red,
A deep crimson hue,
When you got in trouble,
You sure were too!
Ha! Ha!
Calvin"
- Hobbes' pounces on Calvin when he comes home from school have always been funny. In one strip, Calvin attempts to get proof of Hobbes in the act to prove to his parents of Hobbes actions by using an instant camera. He succeeds in snapping a picture before getting tackled by Hobbes, but the actual picture shows Hobbes in stuffed animal form seemingly jumping at the camera.
Calvin: (shows his dad said picture) See!? See!? That's what he does every time I come home!
(the following panel)
Hobbes: He thinks you tossed me in the air!? Well, I've never been so insulted in my life!
Calvin: I've got to get a video camera.
- In another strip, the main plot is funny enough (Calvin tries to wait Hobbes out until he's asleep, tries to sneak in, but Hobbes wakes up from the cat nap and pounces anyway). But in the first four panels, we see Calvin eagerly running home, while Hobbes looks just as eagerly at him through the window, like an overjoyed puppy. Then in the fourth panel, he's suddenly primed to pounce, all predatory.
- A Spaceman Spiff fantasy has him try to use a smoke bomb to fend off scum beings that are chasing him. The next panel reveals that Calvin was clapping the erasers, much to Miss Wormwood's chagrin.
Calvin: Heh heh...just, uh, clapping the erasers, heh heh... (cough)
- In one strip, Calvin gives his mom an impromptu lecture on how gravity works in space. He then caps this off with, "Speaking of gravity, I dropped a pitcher of lemonade in the kitchen when my roller skates slipped." The final panel has Mom mopping the floor with an ugly expression.
Mom: How can kids know so much and still be so dumb?
- Calvin loves to give speeches about how deadly the various hills they sled down are, but when Hobbes says he isn't ready to go down Suicide Slope, Calvin seemingly tries to sway him by continuing his speech.
Hobbes: This isn't helping.
- During the arc where Calvin fakes amnesia, he gets sent to his room by his dad. Calvin winks at Hobbes, and...
Calvin: AAUUGHH! Mister, there's a tiger in this room!
- One strip has Calvin's oatmeal come to life and make a break for freedom, valiantly pursued by Calvin. The funniest part are the onomatopeias as it splorts around the kitchen that might actually be part of its speech.
Oatmeal: Gagpth! I'm free! blaugh blork! ick oog
Calvin: YAAH! DEATH TO OATMEAL!
Oatmeal: agh bloop org
Calvin: YOU'LL NEVER ESCAPE, VILE GLOP! DIE! DIE!
Oatmeal: ig ork gook
- The entire arc about Calvin dressing as Stupendous Man to answer questions on his quiz is hilarious from start to finish.
- When Miss Wormwood goes out into the hallway to find Calvin, she repeats this Survival Mantra to herself:
Miss Wormwood: Five years until retirement, five years until retirement...
- As she drags Calvin back, she has this to say.
- Then there's Susie's reaction to seeing Miss Wormwood chase Calvin around the classroom after he "returns" as Calvin.
[In a thought bubble] When Mom asks me how my day at school was, I always just say "fine" and change the subject.
- When Calvin is asked what important event took place on December 16, 1773note The Boston Tea Party:
"I do not believe in linear time. There is no past and future: all is one, and existence in the temporal sense is illusory. This question, therefore, is meaningless and impossible to answer."
Calvin: (looking at the reader) When in doubt, deny all terms and definitions.
- In one storyline, Calvin has the bright idea of pushing his mom's car out of the garage instead of asking her to move it. As Hobbes predicts, it goes horribly wrong.
Calvin: (staring dead-eyed at the car in the ditch) My life is flashing before my eyes.
Hobbes: Yeah, I doubt your parents figured you'd wreck their car before you were 16.
- In the final strip of the arc, Calvin and Hobbes are in bed talking about how Calvin didn't get in trouble over the car, just a lecture on asking permission.
- In one strip, Miss Wormwood asks Calvin to demonstrate a math problem on the chalkboard. Calvin responds in a robotic voice, "Yes, Miss Worm-wood. I would be hap-py to do an-y-thing you ask. I have been suc-cess-ful-ly pro-grammed to obey all di-rect-tives. I have no will of my own... my own... my own... my own..." Which, naturally results in Calvin getting sent to the principal's office.. Miss Wormwood's exasperated expression in the third panel really sells it.
Calvin: Doesn't anybody appreciate theater?!
- One of the final Sunday strips has Calvin rushing to the bus stop only to forget his lunch. Calvin runs back to retrieve it, unaware that his mother ran out with the bag. This results in Calvin missing the bus so his mom has to drive him to school. While walking to class, Calvin realizes he forgot something else... and the last panel has his mother screaming because he left a stack of books at home. Panels of this strip provide the page image for Silence Is Golden.
- In another Sunday strip, Calvin and Hobbes go fishing, but Calvin gets bored of waiting for a bite and gets the idea to throw a giant rock into the water to blast the fish out. Predictably, they both get extremely wet, with Hobbes glaring at Calvin, who has an apologetic/nervous smile. The last panel:
Calvin: (as Hobbes is about to hurl him into the water) OK, it was a bad idea! But I got wet too, right?
Hobbes: No, no, your idea was fine! We just didn't throw in a big enough object!
- This:
Calvin: (after hearing a loud thump) Did you hear that?
Hobbes: It's him! It's Santa! Shhh! He's saying something!
Mom: Quiet, dear! Calvin will hear you!
- The following day's strip. Calvin and Hobbes celebrate because they see presents under the tree. The last panel:
Dad: Oh, no... it's not morning already?
Mom: (looking at her alarm clock) Well, technically, yes...
- When Calvin is asked what year the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock:
Calvin: 1620
Calvin: As you can see, I've memorized this utterly useless fact long enough to pass a test question. I now intend to forget it forever. You've taught me nothing except how to cynically manipulate the system. Congratulations.
Calvin: (looking at the reader) They say the satisfaction of teaching makes up for the lousy pay.
- A slightly darker one, Calvin and Hobbes are having an in depth discussion about why we have a sense of humor, and tend to laugh at absurdity. Hobbes concludes that if we didn't laugh at things that don't make sense, we wouldn't be able to react to a lot in life. As he walks away, Calvin is left to mull that over before finally saying, "I can't tell if that's funny, or really scary."
- Calvin imagines himself as a dinosaur terrorizing his school playground during recess. In the final panel, Miss Wormwood wonders where he is since she and the other teachers lined up the other children to come inside. One of his classmates tells her that he's "out by the swings and he's yelling or something!"
- This strip where Calvin catches his dad morally off-guard;
Calvin: Do you support the free expressions of ideas in our society?
Dad: Sure. That's first on our Bill of Rights.
Calvin: So you would be against censorship and the suppression of ideas you found distasteful.
Dad: Right. You've got to take the bad with the good.
Calvin: So you wouldn't object to me being exposed to art, movies or music that some people think is offensive and shocking?
(Dad gets an "Uh-oh, what did I walk into?" expression)Dad: OK, first let me explain about our responsibility to be culturally educated and able to make critical distinctions about...
Calvin: YOU'RE STALLLLING!
- In one Sunday Strip, Calvin runs around his home with everything inside distorted due to the laws of perspective not working anymore. In the next to last panel, his mother yells at him after he knocks over a stand and breaks a lamp.
Mom: CALVIN, QUIT RUNNING AROUND AND CRASHING INTO THINGS, OR I'LL SELL YOU TO THE MONKEY HOUSE!
Calvin: And now she's lost perspective.
- The Calvinball strips.
- The "Very Sorry Song". In a game whose rules are mostly made up on the spot, who's to say that penalties can't be made into musical entertainment?
Calvin: I blew it! I knew it! I'm very very sorry that I took your precious flaaggg!
Hobbes: He's sorry! So sorry! Just don't do it any more, you scurvy scalawaaggg!
- The "Pernicious Poem Place", which Calvin falls afoul of and ends up having to ask Susie to soak him with water, causing hand-rubbing and a Slasher Smile. Calvin promises Hobbes will regret this when he touches the spot.
"This is a poem! Please do what you're told!
And here is a bucket of water, ice-cold!
Please take this water, and dump it on me!
Don't hesitate! Do it A.S.A.P.!"
- The Running Gag of Calvin grossing out Susie at lunchtime to the point where she's unable to finish her lunch.
- One strip has Calvin bemoan that his mother gave him a slice of pie in his lunch, as he doesn't like the flavor. When Susie asks what kind it is, he replies "Cow pie."
- In another strip:
Calvin: Curiosity is the essence of the scientific mind. For instance, you know how milk comes out your nose if you laugh while drinking? [sticks milk straws in his nose] Well, I'm going to see what happens when I inhale milk into my nose and laugh!
Susie: [priceless grossed-out facial expression, as she walks away] Idiocy is the essence of the male mind.
Calvin: I'm guessing it will shoot out my ears. Don't you want to see??
- Another time, he falsely reassures Susie that he won't talk about whatever nasty stuff he brought with him because he went with the cafeteria lunch. Then we get this:
Calvin: It appears to be cigar butts in a gallstone sauce.
Susie: THAT'S BEANY-WEENIES!
Calvin: Really? Oh, gross.
- One Sunday strip has a throwaway gag where Calvin claims he has "a cross-section of a dachshund" as part of his lunch, only for Susie to protest that it's bologna. The strip proper has Calvin get attacked by his own lunch bag and beat it up with his Thermos as Susie watches on.
Susie: No wonder this seat wasn't taken.
- In another strip, Calvin complains how artificial modern food is, pointing out things like the synthetic skin on the bologna or the waxy cover on an apple, then happily devours a Twinkie, one of the most processed foods in the modern age.
Susie: And Mom always wonders why I'm always so hungry after school.
- Calvin gets school lunch one day and pours the manicotti down his shirt, then pretends it's his guts spilling out to scare Susie away. The last panel has him wondering if he can use the trick to get out of math class.
- Calvin takes Hobbes to the fridge while discussing how at his age experiences are more intense. He then demonstrates by sticking his nose in a jar of mustard and snorting the fumes, which sends him flying through the air as his sinuses melt down.
- A 1990 Sunday strip: It's a gorgeous summer day, and Dad decides to take the day off from his job to enjoy it. Just as he's thinking about what a lovely day it will be, Calvin runs past...
Calvin: Hi Dad. Bye Dad.
Mom: [off-panel] AAAAUGHHH!
[chases Calvin into the kitchen, dripping wet and clad only in a Modesty Towel] YOU GET BACK HERE AND PICK EVERY ONE OF THOSE DEAD BUGS OUT OF MY SHAMPOO!! I MEAN
NOW!(last panel shows Dad in the office, working on paperwork and whistling a cheerful tune) - Calvin hides in the car, trying to make his dad think he's run away. However, the father plays along and pretends that the mother will be glad that she no longer has a little brat to look after.
Calvin: Mom won't be happy at all, you sicko! Sorry to spoil your getaway!
Dad: What? You're here?? Oh rats... I mean, good!
- In one arc, Calvin decides to start reading horoscopes, thinking that perhaps the planets and stars might have some good fortune for him. After his first horoscope is a bust (Calvin thought the wording meant he'd have his way that day and skip his bath, homework, and bedtime), he tries again only to freak out when it says he'll draw attention from the opposite sex. This leads him to believe Susie that is going to make a pass at him, and he refuses to go to school. His mother then chases him while his father just watches from his newspaper. When she gets a hold of Calvin...
Mom: Dear, I got him! Grab his feet while I pry his fingers loose!
Dad: I wonder how much it would cost to rent a place in town.
- Calvin makes a bunch of paper "feathers" and tells Hobbes to throw him off a ledge so he can test them. Hobbes first clarifies that he will not be responsible for the results (which Calvin misinterprets as referring to patenting the invention). When the inevitable happens, the tiger calls Calvin "Orville" and quips that he shouldn't give up the bike shop.
- Calvin walks up to his dad and remarks, with no particular expression, that you can buy squid at the grocery store. "They're really gross." "Mm, I'll bet." As soon as he leaves, his dad's eyes bug out, and he turns around and screams, "CALVIN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
- In the arc where Calvin tries to fix the bathroom sink, his parents overhear him singing about looking for buckets. They grow increasingly worried about his intentions over the first three panels.
Calvin:
(offscreen, while Mom and Dad are reading on the couch) ♪ La da dee dee da, I think I'll get a bucket...dum de doo... ♬
(Mom and Dad start to look worried) ♩♩ Nothing's wrong...da dee do ba...I just want a bucket to hold some...stuff. Ta tum ta tum... ♪
(Mom has an Oh, Crap! expression while Dad facepalms) Let's see, how many buckets do we have? Dum de doo ♪
No cause for alarm...no need to panic...I just want a few buckets. La la.
Mom and Dad:
(simultaneously, while pointing at each other) YOUR turn.
- The two strips where Calvin disguises himself as "the world's most powerful computer" and requests a question.
- The first time, Hobbes asks him why the world's most powerful computer wears little red sneakers. An enraged Calvin lifts the box off him to chase Hobbes.
- The second time, he has this conversation with his mother:
- The arc where Calvin has to get his picture taken for Christmas cards. His mother says it's so that people can see what he looks like now.
- Calvin's "smile" in this comic. For context, his father asks him to smile for the camera and he makes a weird, gaping grin.
Dad: (
facepalming)
CALVIN!Calvin: That was a smile! I smiled!
- The final strip of the arc has a series of photographs showing Calvin puckering up, rapidly shaking his head, looking straight up, and rotating his head to face behind him. His father gripes that they can't use the photos for cards because "people will think it's sacrilegious", but his mother comments that with the exception of the combed hair, the pictures are a pretty accurate representation of their son.
- Calvin boasts about a new record he bought from a band that promotes violence, sex and drug abuse. Hobbes looks at the cover.
- The G.R.O.S.S. arc where the duo get into yet another feud due to Hobbes singing the "G.R.O.S.S. Anthem" against as scheduled. After Calvin demotes Hobbes to "Club Mascot", Hobbes declares to quit the club and start his own, called C.A.D. (Calvin's a Dope). Calvin renames his own club as "Hobbes Is A Mangy Flea-Ridden Furball" in retaliation, leading to the two declaring war on each other.
Hobbes: Wait till you see my cunning strategies! I'll have maps and secret codes!
Calvin: I'll have strategies! I'll have maps! I'll have codes! They'll all be better than yours!
Hobbes: I'm going to write myself a message in code right now! It says, "Calvin smells like a baboon"!
Calvin: Ha! I broke your code already! And I do NOT!
- During the "Mom's sick" arc, Hobbes suggests that Mom's going to have a baby. The final strip has Calvin giving this report;
Calvin: I asked dad if mom was going to have a baby, and he said not that he knew of. Dad said we'd know if mom was having a kid because she'd look like a hippopotamus with a gland problem. (Makes swinging motion) ...That's when mom creamed him with her pillow. Dad says she must be feeling better.
Hobbes: You have weird parents.
- When Dad can't find his glasses, he recalls that he put them down, went to get his book, and told Calvin to shovel the sidewalk. He says, "Where could they be??" Cut to a snowman outside wearing Dad's glasses and holding a whip, towering over a very sad, Calvin-shaped snowman carrying a snow shovel.
- Calvin and Hobbes dance through an entire Sunday strip. The final panel depicts his parents trying to sleep.
Mom: Either he's playing classical music at 78 RPM, or I'm still dreaming.
Dad: First thing tomorrow, morning I'm calling the orphanage.
- In one strip, Calvin is seen hiding behind a wall in his house and saying "Incredibly, people never expect to get hit with a snowball inside the house" as he's preparing snowballs to throw at his parents. Hobbes simply walks away saying "I'll see you in your room momentarily."
