We managed to keep these cartoons safe from burglars.
285. This cartoon was the follow up to the supposedly stolen cartoons. The text in the second panel was a shout out to Martina, the friend of my roommate who first let him know that some cartoons were reported stolen. The text in the third panel is a reference to some of the phrases used by our architecture professors in Rome. The final panel has a reference to our class’s habit of “doing the hucklebuck” wherever we went in Europe. It is a long story better told over alcoholic beverages, but to simplify: there was a multi-panel New Yorker cartoon that in one panel featured the office characters doing the hucklebuck as inspired by the old Honeymooners TV show.
286. This Observer featured a long opinion piece about Notre Dame and Title IX. It was an inscrutable piece with references to Amazons and Sipylus and Heracles. It is a fine example of what happens when English majors go bad. The weekend before Notre Dame had announced how it would comply with Title IX, which included upgrading women’s basketball, downgrading men’s hockey and, for the first time in history, charging Notre Dame students for their football tickets to help build a athletic endowment. (Students would only have to pay $6 per ticket instead of the normal $12.)
287. This series of three cartoons featured the fabricated and faceless Administration Tribunal. The Tribunal was not reprised until the 5th year of cartoons when Jim, Chuck, Mitch and Dion appeared before it to determine their on-campus fate. The cover story in this Observer cited the University’s plan to raise tuition room and board from $5,630 annually to $6,490… a 15% increase. The University blamed it on inflation (which in 1980 was 13.58% ) and a generous salary package for employees.
288. The On-Campus Events listed in this Observer include: 2 p.m. meeting in O’Shag 204 for the Sailing Club; 4:15 p.m. Judeo-Christian Vision and the Corporation Symposium at the Library; 7:30 p.m. The Epiphamic Mode in Wordsworth and Modern Literature at the Stapleton Lounge; and playing in the Engineering Auditorium at 7, 9, and 11 the movie “Animal House.”
289. The Observer featured cover articles with President Carter demanding the U.S. Olympic Committee boycott the Moscow Olympics because of the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan and an announcement of Ronald Reagan making a campaign appearance at Saint Mary’s campus in anticipation of the Indiana primary in three weeks. His next appearance (I believe) in the ND-SMC community would be at Commencement 1981 — his first public appearance after being shot in March the same year.
See the first five classic strips. Check back monthly for more classic Molarity strips. Molarity Redux, the updated, continuing adventures of Jim Mole and friends, also is posted monthly. For those new strips, check out the cartoon archives.