Full Service

In today's Dinette Set, we see the local gas station where:

• Burl and Joy, apparently, bring their 2-dimensional cut-out car and pretend to fill it up.
  
• The gas station attendants, witnessing this delusional charade, prove to be the only sensible people ever to appear in The Dinette Set.
• The reader must accept that the artist is wasting our time when all she really wants to do is complain about gas prices.
  

Unruly House Guests

In today's Dinette Set, Burl and Joy throw a party, leading the reader to think:

• Burl and Joy have that many friends? That many people would come to their house? That many people can fit into 15 square feet of the living room?
  
• Exactly what sort of anatomical issues does the woman in the middle suffer from?
• When you have no ability to render perspective, why exactly would you attempt to draw this panel?
  
• Joy's shirt? No. No, no, no, no, no, NO!

Beast and the Beast

In today's Dinette Set, Timmy is front and center leaving the reader to ponder:

• What in God's name is Timmy's shirt supposed to mean?
• Why must we always be subjected to images of anger and cruelty towards the Dinette Set's resident babe-in-the woods?
• Is Burl's shirt/pants ensemble a shout out to commenter Pinball and her his love of the screen door pants?
  

At the Buffet

In today's Dinette Set, the gang goes out to lunch while the reader:

• Is willing to stipulate to the fact that Burl does not consider salad to be food.
• Wonders what being gross has to do with knowing whether or not something happened.
• Has difficulty pronouncing Shannadigan's, causing them to puzzle over the misguided play on the terms shenanigans and Bennigan's.

Have You Seen This Child?

In today's Dinette Set, the disappearance of a child is the back story for:

• A joke, for reasons passing understanding.
• Further emphasizing that Burl and Joy are parochial to the point of narcissism, as if that needed to be re-emphasized.
• Some sort of commentary on the state of the local newspaper, which is obscured by the wrong-headed choice of subject matter.
  

Squirelly Squirrel

In today's Dinette Set, Burl fires up the grill while the reader:

• Can't puzzle out the panel at all. Why exactly did Burl hang corn on the cob from a tree branch? To cool it off?
• Wonders why the artist didn't finish drawing half the background; did she run out of time?
• Is a little worried by the Boo Radley reference. Is Dale protecting children from Burl, who is playing the neighborhood role of Bob Ewell?
• Can't figure out what the weird semi-circular indentation in the tree is supposed to be.
  

Chivalry as Phobia

Psychiatrist John makes a cameo in today's Dinette Set, which means:

• Burl goes out of his way to prove that he's both a neanderthal and an idiot.
• John wears a T-shirt whose slogan's applicability to the panel as a whole is cryptic, at best.
• A sign on the wall indicates that Burl has a door behind which he hides brains in a pile. The reasons for this are not obvious.
  

Hanks for the Memories

In today's Dinette Set, the family tries to decide what movie to watch while the reader:

• Desperately tries to recall even the barest details about the movie Splash, released more than 20 years ago.
• Is not sure that the mermaid in Splash was quite as fat as she appears to be on TV; wasn't she actually slender and kind of sexy, despite the fish tail?
• Can't understand why Tom Hanks is wearing a T-shirt that says "Hanks" (or, perhaps, "Honks") on it.
• Ponders the meta-question of why Patty even visits her parents.
  

Veggies Deluxe

In today's Dinette Set, Joy and Verl shop for vegetables, amazing the reader to find that:

• They know where the vegetable aisle is and would even consider ingesting a vegetable.
  
• The supermarket has better security, with 2-way mirrors, than most police stations.
• The cheese sauce is kept in the vegetable aisle.
  

Lion in Winter

In today's Dinette Set, Burl and Joy discuss a lion statue

• For reasons passing understanding.
• To illustrate that they don't understand the nature of solid objects.
• So the garden center employee can look askance at them.
• I got nothing here, I don't even understand what's supposed to be funny about this.