Puerorumque Canis Cano

In the first panel of this repetitive rendition of JOHNSON FOLLIES, Snoopy the derivative dog starts to furtively fume about "these people." Sheesh. Why didn't he just come out and say "you people"? Apparently Snoopy is a raging anti-Johnsonite. He probably thinks they all look alike too.



In the Aeneid, which involves Rome, there's a scene where the Wind God Dude is promised sexual favors in return for him throwing his "spear" into the soft, wet mountain where all the winds are shackled under heavy boulders. He hesitates, knowing that Chaos will be unleashed if the winds get out and make a mess of everything, but... you know, sex. So out come the winds to "wreck" Aeneas' "fleet." The irony is that they are Trojans.

The connection is clear: As The Aeneid, so THE JOHNSON FOLLIES. Both take place in the long-ago past--one a world of anthropomorphic deities, the other a world of landlines and "Barney Miller."

Once loosed, our racist doggie makes like a klansman for a bedding sale at JC Penney, causing all sorts of hilarious havoc to the faces and tongues of the surrounding humans.

 

At the end, we see Greg straddle his fallen foe as did Aeneas the Rutulian chieftain, King Turnus. He gazes to the gods while ignoring the nonsensical line "I never was very observant," though the word order and structure fits perfectly within a dactylic hexameter line with a proteron hystersis caesura....

 

 

Okay, I need to get out more. How's that for observant?

 

Next week: The Johnson brothers Veni, Vidi, Vici the local bowling alley, if you know what I mean.