Hooray For Crusader Rabbit

Reading a blog today,

by a mathematician called Joseph Nebus

who writes about, among other things,


especially cartoons about math,

my wheels suddenly started rotating.

And not the kind you have to have weighted and balanced at a garage.

No, this was one of those sudden deja vu things.


the fact that

mathematicians are usually the life of the party-

(always invite at least five, and you never get bored guests)

at least until someone finds out they are mathematicians

and starts the stories


“I flunked high school geometry. Hey, it just ain’t logical, man.”

Somehow, you expect them,

like the party stories m.d.s  tell,

where a normally sane person suddenly starts taking off their shirt

and expects them to look at a wart on their back,

to suddenly take out a piece of chalk and start a discussion on why their high school math teacher was wrong.

(It actually happened to us. Not once, but twice,

and with a felt tip-

in public,

and on those paper doilie coasters, thank heaven,

but when someone with a skewed look,

and a felt tip comes at you….)

so this is probably why mathematicians like math cartoons so much.

Actually, my husband Harald has one on his office door,

probably a far side,

of a muscle man at the beach

being ignored by a horde of gorgeous young women in bikinis,

all sitting in a circle around a blackboard

and drooling over a somewhat skinny




And that’s just the beginning.

But actually, the topic today,

since I sometimes get the feeling,

as a musician in a world of math geeks,

great people,

but math geeks,

I’m Penny on Big Bang Theory,

and the others are looking for someone to read the theorem, or lemma, or corollary,

of the day to…

So anyway,

yes, I do love cartoons.

Especially far side.

(My favorite is a lobster being held over a pot of boiling water,

and trying to click its ruby slippers

as it intones “there’s  no place like home, there’s no place like home.”

And again, hmmm…

As to the ones on tv,

I haven’t really watched for years.

Although, embarrassing as this is,

we actually went to see the  relatively recent film version of Mr  Peabody and Sherman.

Which were my favorite as a kid.

This wasn’t.

Maybe it’s because cartoons were basically forbidden in our “education first” house,

except for Peabody, and Crusader Rabbit,

who taught us history.

(Maybe that’s why I find history so funny today)

Or, of course Rocky and Bullwinkle,

who I used to sneak off to watch, only to find my Dad standing in the doorway laughing too.

And if you can find a better joke than a university called whadzamadda U*, let me know.

I actually thought for a while as a kid that when I grew up, I wanted to go there.

Little did I know I would grow up to be a P’can- University of the Pacific-

(Aka whazammada U? Bullwinkle would be proud)

copyright Dunnasead.co 2016


*it’s actually wossamotta- see comment below.


2 thoughts on “Hooray For Crusader Rabbit

  1. So that’s why I couldn’t find it to apply. written not like us midwesterners, but, of course wossamotta, because they’re from moosylvania. thanks for the hint, Bun. Ps love the fight song on youtube.


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