Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for January 21, 2012

Luddy looks cute – but I didn’t get the drift… :(

Me too. What’s Ludwig actually DOING?

It’s pretty huge, but I think the red device is the electric blanket controller.

It’s set on 3 for Luddy, and he comes and complains to Arlo every 8 hours when it shuts off automatically.

Thanks SusanSunshine! I love A&J but sometimes it can be a little obtuse Your explanation is right on!

I just put out a heating pad set on low for my cat. Stays on forever and uses less heat since it heats a smaller area. My home was built in 1938 and has no insulation nor can insulation be added easily or cheaply. Bentley would die without his miracle bed in the winter.

Ha- I was wrong. I assumed Luddy was complaining that it had been a whole hour since he was last fed.

I didn’t get it, either, but an electric blanket makes perfect sense. My cat, though, would head for the next warm spot, my lap.

I guess you can divide the comments into two, those who have an electric blanket who got the joke straight away, and those who don’t, who didn’t. My wife’s electric blanket (two zones, as I don’t need it) would run for 10 hours before switching off. I’m surprised they can’t make them for up to twelve hours, save Arlo one trip a day!!

I sure appreciate the interpretation on some of these. Never having seen a red electric blanket control, I thought it was an alarm clock and a glass of milk and Ludwig was announcing he was due for a meal. I must work on my sleuth skills.

Okay I wondered why a clock radio came on every eight hours.

I don’t believe the blanket is set for 3 hours for Ludwig— it is just set for its normal, default 8-hour period and counts down. When it gets to zero, it shuts off. That’s why Arlo asks, “Do we have to go through this every 8 hours?”

Thanks Sunshine. Another obtuse strip. Unfortunately jimmy Johnson doesn’t answer emails when a strip makes no sense.

Still waiting for someone to explain the Friday the 13th one. Why did Ludwig change into a featureless blur?

…well if arlo would just get on the ball, he WOULDN’T have to listen to Ludwig’s complaints – arlo just has to set his phone or email to remind him to go reset the blanket before it turns off! Problem solved!

Smokey Joe takes care of that for me…I’m very grateful that he lets me reside with him in his house!!! (At least he assumes it’s his)

We have a waterbed, and our cats love it in the winter!

I thought Ludwig slept 8 hours then awoke to go out. Arlo is certainly in a bad mood. Did the onions get to him?

I tried to relate it to our dog who knows that she eats in the sixes, and you can set you watch by here coming into the bedroom in the morning at 5:57 and down to my office at 6:02 in the evening, (I hear her get off the sofa above my head at 5:57 she waits a bit to see if she can avoid the trek downstairs,

The blanket makes perfect sense—I should have though of it, since I spent much of last night trying to figure out how to deal with the facts that I was cold, and that my wife had once again reversed the which-control-controlls-which-side-of-the-bed situation.

i first thought it was a sort of alarm clock – meal time every 8 hours

Yes – I too thought it was an alarm clock of some sort. But I had a 5 cat night last night, so we don’t have an electric blanket. Thanks for helping me get it!

Thanks for explaining it, I was totally lost. Read it in the newspaper and came here to “figure” it out!

Thanks Susan Sunshine, haven’t had an electric blanket in over 40 years and didn’t even think of that. Willard, I hope Bentley’s heating pad is waterproof.

My first impression was that Sir Ludwig of Kat is on an eight hour chow schedule, day or night.

I’m in a fourth category — I don’t think I’ve ever had an electric blanket, but I somehow got it.

JavaJim nobody said it was set to turn off in 3 hours for Luddy.

It stays on for 8 hours, but it’s set on 3, which is a moderate temperature setting

Ad Gokie I looked at that Bizarro…

I thought maybe he only looks at the bus when it’s far away so he thinks it’s small….. but why wouldn’t he see how big it is when it stops?

So maybe (?) cos it’s a cartoon bus, Pirarro is playing with our assumption of perspective.

We think it’s only small cos it’s far away, but it wasn’t any bigger when it stopped.

But if THAT’s the joke it would have been funnier had it arrived small.

I wish Bizarro were a Universal comic so we could have it here. It supposedly has a forum on ArcaMax but nobody comments.