Midwife
Cidu Bill on Feb 24th 2009
She had a midwife when she gave birth. And “midwife” sounds like “midlife” if you’re Elmer Fudd. I still don’t get the joke, though.
Filed in Bill Bickel, CIDU, One Big Happy, comic strips, comics, humor | 37 responses so far
Paul Feb 24th 2009 at 01:15 am 1
I think the idea is that she is often frazzled. 18 months prior she was having some sort of problem with her midwife and now her kid is running around naked.
She is calling the earlier problem a “midwife crisis” as a pun on midlife crisis.
rain Feb 24th 2009 at 01:44 am 2
Yup, it’s a pun.
Humor died a little today. Move along. Nothing to see here.
LostInTarnation Feb 24th 2009 at 03:23 am 3
This is what you get for naming your kid Creighton. You can’t have a midwife named Jane or Jen or Sarah. Must be a Kayleigh or a MacKenzeigh or something like that — these kids today develop such a sense of entitlement.
Okay, it’s really just a simple pun. Cute, though.
Chuck Feb 24th 2009 at 03:42 am 4
I thought it was cute.
Elliott Feb 24th 2009 at 07:06 am 5
I bet you had to be there.
Powers Feb 24th 2009 at 07:21 am 6
No first name should ever end with “ton”; it automatically sounds pretentious.
Kyle Feb 24th 2009 at 08:56 am 7
^
There goes my original idea of naming my kid Photon.
Nicole Feb 24th 2009 at 09:00 am 8
I think the pun ‘midwife crisis’ refers to the pain of child birth,no she is experiencing the ‘pain’ of child rearing
Mark in Boston Feb 24th 2009 at 12:25 pm 9
What’s pretentious is having a last name for a first name.
I have a nephew who has a last name for a first name and a last name for a middle name (imagine for example Washington Tyler Smith or Carnegie Gates Jones). His parents have destined him for prep school.
Lihtox Feb 24th 2009 at 12:42 pm 10
I think the cartoonist thought of the pun first and wrote the comic around it. Good pun, but the execution could’ve been better maybe.
The Ploughman Feb 24th 2009 at 01:48 pm 11
The line “Is that how old Creighton is?” seems to indicate that the character within the strip isn’t sure about the joke either.
Adam! Feb 24th 2009 at 02:11 pm 12
You see, a pun is a form of word play that deliberately exploits ambiguity between similar-sounding words for humorous or rhetorical effect.
Pinny Feb 24th 2009 at 02:23 pm 13
Re: 9 (Mark in Boston)
“What’s pretentious is having a last name for a first name.”
Remember Roosevelt Franklin on Sesame Street?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roosevelt_Franklin
Mark Jones Feb 24th 2009 at 02:35 pm 14
OT, but something I’ve always wondered…why is every post on this site tagged (or categorized?) as “Bill Bickel”? We know this is your site, Bill, and I don’t really see the point of having a category with *every* post in it.
Bullhistle Feb 24th 2009 at 02:44 pm 15
Re: 9 (Mark in Boston)
“What’s pretentious is having a last name for a first name.”
Hmm, I pretentiously gave my son 3 last names. He’s named after his great grandfather who was named after presidents. Naming kids after cities is what gives me the creeps.
Cidu Bill Feb 24th 2009 at 02:51 pm 16
That’s the default tag, Mark. Feel free to set up your own blog any way you’d like.
Cidu Bill Feb 24th 2009 at 02:53 pm 17
Adam, nobody’s questioning the “similar-sounding words” aspect, but rather what the “humorous or rhetorical effect” is supposed to be. By your own definition, a pun requires both parts.
fuzzmaster Feb 24th 2009 at 03:43 pm 18
I would presume, Mark, that CIDU Bill would like to make sure that searches for Bill Bickel bring people to his blog posts.
Mark Jones Feb 24th 2009 at 03:56 pm 19
@fuzzmaster - I hadn’t considered that, but it makes sense.
As far as the comic goes, I don’t think there really is any more to it than “similar-sounding words”. The cartoonist probably thought of the phrase “midwife crisis”, thought it was funny, and decided to build a strip around it.
heather Feb 24th 2009 at 04:24 pm 20
If they wanted a better gag around that, the state of midwifery in North America — banned in many areas, not covered under health care in others, not allowed to handle home births in some places, just plain none to be found in your area — would constitute a much more meaningful “midwife crisis”.
But, uh, yeah, not really funny I guess.
Daniel J. Drazen Feb 24th 2009 at 04:46 pm 21
Could be worse; Creighton’s last name could be “Barrel.” Now THERE’S a kid you should feel sorry for.
Mark Jones Feb 24th 2009 at 10:12 pm 22
@heather - Aside from how funny/unfunny it would be, I think it would be kinda hard to build a joke around that in One Big Happy. Maybe someone should implement that Cartoonist’s Joke Exchange that Bill suggested back in September.
Ben Feb 24th 2009 at 11:03 pm 23
A 1 1/2 year old outrunning a grown adult? What is he Baby Flash?
rain Feb 25th 2009 at 12:19 am 24
> Baby Flash?
Well, he *is* kinda nekkid.
Adam! Feb 25th 2009 at 12:25 am 25
“By your own definition, a pun requires both parts.”
Not quite. While some puns have a deeper humour (a great example is Mercutio’s last words) it isn’t a prerequisite: lots of puns, usually the real groaners (eg: Tales From The Crypt, most Bond puns), rely on the wordplay alone to illicit a laugh. That was my interpretation of this comic: the familiar phrase being ‘midlife crisis’, the pun being ‘midWIFE crisis’, and the recognition of the wordplay being the source of the ‘humour’.
Needless to say, not my cup of tea.
Ooten Aboot Feb 25th 2009 at 06:56 am 26
They that abhor corny puns shall abstain from reading “One Big Happy”, yea, even unto the reruns, for they shall be ruthless.
Jack Feb 25th 2009 at 08:51 am 27
Did you hear about the guy in Alaska who got stabbed with an icicle?
We died of cold cuts.
Jack Feb 25th 2009 at 08:51 am 28
Punchline should read: He died of cold cuts.
Matthew Feb 25th 2009 at 10:01 am 29
No, Jack, you got it right the first time. That joke could kill and not in a good way.
Sorry. That I’m here shows that I have a bit of a no-life crisis.
Powers Feb 25th 2009 at 11:55 am 30
Ooten: not reading 1BH would not have saved me from *your* corny pun, would it?
Patrick Feb 25th 2009 at 03:53 pm 31
Bullhistle said “Naming kids after cities is what gives me the creeps.”
Does that mean you are creeped out by people named Gary, Elizabeth, Warren, Eugene, Irving, Gilbert, Orlando and Charlotte?
tpjim Feb 25th 2009 at 08:13 pm 32
@Daniel - Creighton’s last name actually _is_ Barrel, if memory serves.
Matthew Feb 25th 2009 at 10:40 pm 33
People named Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Seattle, & St. Paul (Wait! There was a guy named that! Well, he was creepy, too) creep me out the most.
David N Feb 26th 2009 at 02:09 am 34
Seattle the guy came first, then came the city named for him. But naming a kid something like Albuquerque is just asking for trouble. Naming him Oshkosh would be just downright mean.
Fandango Feb 26th 2009 at 07:05 am 35
Yeah, Paris Hilton is creepy.
Ooten Aboot Feb 26th 2009 at 10:29 am 36
#30 Powers: If not reading 1BH meant you wouldn’t care whether Bill understood it or not, I think the answer would be yes. You wouldn’t have looked at this thread.
Andrew Feb 28th 2009 at 10:20 pm 37
On Mark’s orignal topic, some names I consider perfectly normal serve well as both surnames and forenames - Gordon, Lindsay, Graham and Cameron to name but a few. Indeed, I was quite surprised at how recently Gordon made the transition to being a given name. If Wikipedia’s to be believed, it happened in the 19th century, in honour of General Gordon.