Mary and Me -- A Love Story

Never let it be said that I don't aim to please my public.

If you scroll back a couple of days and read the comments section for Monday's entry, you'll see that valued reader "Smokey" has requested a bit of a primer on the phenomenon that is Mary Worth.  And since job, freelance gig, and kids are all combining to make this week a doozy, and I haven't had so much as a second to think about what to write about, a Mary Worth primer it is.

There are plenty of good sources for the history of the Mary Worth strip, but this one sums it up pretty well I think. 

It seems as though the origins of the Mary Worth strip are a bit in dispute.  What we do know for sure is that during the depression, there was a strip called "Apple Mary," which was about an elderly lady named Mary who cared for her handicapped nephew by selling apples from a push cart.

In 1938, Apple Mary's creator retired, and the strip's publisher hustled out a replacement featuring our hero, Mary Worth.  The publisher insisted that Mary Worth was NOT Apple Mary, but I've seen a few of the very early Mary Worth's, and if they weren't the same person, then they were identical twins.

Ever since yours truly was a young lad, I've been a religious reader of the comics page.  I think I read every comic in the Pittsburgh Press comics section every day from third grade through, well, the day they ceased to publish the Pittsburgh Press. 

There were a lot of lesser lights in that collection.  Priscilla's Pop.  Tiger.  The Born Loser.  Tumbleweeds.  Frank n' Earnest, and many more.  I remember the debuts of Shoe, Drabble, Garfield, and a lot of other dreck -- along with the debuts of Far Side, Calvin & Hobbes, and a few other greats.

A few of those  strips have disappeared, but most continue to struggle on -- in spite of the fact that they wrung out their last laugh and last bit of creativity decades ago. 

But there was always one type of strip that I avoided.

The serials.

The Press, as far as I can remember, ran Mary Worth, Judge Parker, Rex Morgan, and Dondi.  For some reason, I read Dondi, which was horrid -- I remember the final series of strips, which was all about Dondi's friends making fun of some handicapped kid.  The negative backlash was so strong that Dondi's creator just said "fark it" and dropped the strip mid-storyline after forty years.

Anyhoo, for no apparent reason, I started reading Mary Worth about six or seven years ago.  I forget the first storyline, but I think it was about a female journalist who hooked up with some sleazebag tv news dude.  Totally forgettable.

But shortly thereafter, we were introduced to a fellow who would forever cement my love of Mary.

Silas "Smitty" Smedlap.

I won't go into the details of Smitty's storyline, other than to say that he was a cantankerous old bastard who hated "feesh."  (I wasn't the only one who took notice of Smitty's awesomeness -- this fellow saw fit to name Smedlap one of 2002's Entertainers of the Year.)

I just realized that I really haven't provided much of a primer on enjoying Mary Worth, but I HAVE succeeded in blabbing on a lot about myself, which is much more satisfying I must say.

Anyhoo, as the King Feature's Syndicate Web site is fond of saying, Mary Worth the comic strip really isn't ABOUT Mary Worth, so much as it's about the rotating cast of characters who flow into -- and out of (albeit not quickly enough in some cases...ANNA TIEG I'm looking your way here...) Mary's life.

Mary Worth, according to her publisher, is a 60-ish widow who lives in "Charterstone," which appears to be a snooty gated community in Santa Royale, California.  For whatever reason, the apartment next to hers always appears to be empty -- which is quite convenient, since it allows whatever new character who has entered Mary's life to have complete access to her 24-7 meddling.

Mary herself rarely gets a storyline, although we do know that she dates a horiffically dull fellow named Dr. Jeff Corey.  Now Dr. Jeff has proposed to Mary on about 437 different occasions, but she keeps putting him off.  As far as we know,they've never even shared more than a meal at "The Bum Boat," -- which, inexplicably, is the name of their favorite restaurant.

The current storyline involves a nasty drunk lady named Rita, who Mary has known for approximately 2 weeks in Mary Worth time (which has stretched on for about five months in "real" time.")  Mary attended the funeral of a co-worker who she barely knew, and somehow ended up befriending the deceased's worthless mother. 

About two days later, Rita shows up at Mary's door, looking for a place to stay.  After a drunken night out, Mary tried to console a drunken Rita by showing her her "shrine" to her late husband.  A shrine which consisted of two cheap-ass Dollar Store-quality ceramic swans.

Which brings us up to last Friday -- when in a drunken stupor, Rita knocked over the swans and smashed them to bits.

And that's where we stand.  Speculation over at The Comics Curmudgeon seems to be that the smashing of the swans may lead to Mary finally getting over her dead husband and committing to Dr. Jeff.

Which would be a sickening turn of events, but par for the course in the topsy-turvy, crappy world that is Mary Worth.

Comments

[Smokey]

This is great. Thank you. I read the info on the link you provided, but I think your primer was much more thorough than that site. You must be a Mary Worth expert.

See you around The Burgh!

p.s. Your kids are adorable.

[hrc]

I started reading Mary Worth, Judge Parker, Rex Morgan, Spidey and others in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in the mid 60's. I now read Mary online at the washingtonpost site as the Seattle papers don't carry many serials. Tant pis, because what they do carry for the most part, sucks.

But Mary has really gotten my goat of late. She is a classic enabler of this drunken sot of a woman. I was so delighted when Ian put it to her, in probably way to un p-c terms, that she should just let it go. I mean, this woman is a loser who will not turn it around until she hits rock bottom and even then it would be iffy.

But, I will bet you dollars to donuts there will be a handy deus ex machina ending and all will be back to happy land in Santa Royale.

btw did you ever see the Mad Magazine parody of Mary Worth, where she had gas and in almost every panel there was a small 'poot' strategically placed?

[Sheila]

Hi! In re: "the Bum Boat -- which, inexplicably, is the name of their favorite restaurant". I'm not sure on what level you meant that comment. Do you mean "what's a bum boat?" or "why give that name to a restaurant?" If the former, then be advised that a bum boat is "a boat that brings provisions and commodities for sale to larger ships in port or offshore" (def. from my on-line Merriam Webster). I first came across it in Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore, in which Buttercup is "a bum boat woman". So now you know! (If you didn't before :-)

[Thorprocco]

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