Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for December 21, 1988

Your discomfort is half the fun, Dad!

That’s the problem with doing something with full effort once around a kid. . . . .

My advice to Calvin’s Dad: sir, why not read him The Witches (1983), by Roald Dahl? Calvin has provided ample evidence that he’s looked at it once or twice in the library, and that it’s something that he’d enjoy. According to Dahl’s interpretation of “real” witches, they have extra-large nostrils, so to them, a clean child smells like dogs’ droppings (and something tells me that when Calvin’s clean, that’s how he smells to Hobbes), which is why witches are determined to use their magic to get rid of children. Clean children emit “stink-waves” that only witches can smell, so can you imagine what Dahl would have said if he’d known about Hobbes? “Apparently, the Grand High Witch has concocted a formula that enables American witches to bring toy animals (and the occasional bike) to life. Why else would Hobbes come to life when only he and Calvin are together, and why else would he believe that ‘little boys don’t smell so good’?”. Calvin’s aversion to baths is an indication that he believes in real witches. Also, American witches can turn children into hot dogs, and when Calvin wanted Hobbes to use the transmogrifier gun to turn him into a Pteranodon (he ambiguously says ‘Pterodactyl’), and Hobbes turned him into a chicken instead because it was almost lunchtime, Calvin was “GLAD HE WASN’T HUNGRY FOR A HOT DOG!”. Calvin used the expression “…you should have seen the sparks fly…” when discussing with Hobbes a conflict that he’d had at school with Susie. In The Witches, when the English witches (who are masquerading as the so-called RSPCC, or “Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children”) have their meeting at a hotel, the Grand High Witch, who is Norwegian, sends white-hot sparks flying from her eyes to kill a witch who argues with her.