Mary: I regret to inform you, my dear readers, that I love Mr. Boop. I didn’t want to love it, and I resisted for a long, long time, but eventually I became enamored with his creepy smile, absurdist humor, and undying commitment to his wife, Betty Boop. Yes, that Betty Boop. You know, the one from the old cartoons.
Mr. Boop is a daily (or almost daily) comic strip by cartoonist Alec Robbins. The premise is pretty simple; Alec Robbins (the character styled after the author himself) is married to Betty Boop, cartoon star. That’s the joke. His wife is Betty Boop.
Todd: He loves his wife, Betty Boop!
Mary: He does! And...things only get weirder from there. Read on if you want spoilers for Mr. Boop, I guess?
Todd: A legitimate question: can you spoil something that is at once nonsense and also seems like it has a loose grasp on its own canon? This is all said as a kind of compliment. The comic is as meta as they come, with Alec the character frequently being shown writing/drawing the comic strip and characters speaking directly to the audience.
Mary: The meta-nature of the comic is most of the joke, I think. The premise that Alec Robbins is married to Betty Boop (and his insistence that he is married to Betty Boop, repeatedly, throughout the comic) is most of what makes the story so absurd. All Alec Robbins (the character) wants is to be married to Betty Boop and have lots of sex with her (and other famous intellectual properties, it turns out).
He loves his wife, Betty Boop.
Todd: And is this maybe where we mention that the comic involves lots of orgies with other famous characters you might have heard of? Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Goku, Sonic the Hedgehog, Peter Griffin, to name a few, all want to have sex with Betty Boop, the wife of Alec Robbins, and in-world this is accepted as a basic fact. Even Betty’s therapist (who is also everyone else’s therapist) is not shocked that Betty’s husband, Alec Robbins, is terrified of sleeping with her, because she is so hot.
Mary: To me, the story has three main arcs so far: Alec being scared to have sex with Betty Boop (because she’s so hot), Alec and Betty exploring their sexuality (through a ton of IP orgies), and Alec’s divorce from Betty Boop (not by choice! He still loves his wife, Betty Boop). While I cannot believe I am talking about this comic like it has an actual story, it kind of does in its own way. I’m not going to go too far and say that I’m particularly invested in these characters because I’m not sure that they have the emotional depth I’d need to feel that way. That being said, I don’t think this comic is about emotional depth, and that is absolutely a good thing right now. As we’ve mentioned before on the podcast and the blog, the world is kind of nuts right now, and processing any more taxing information than necessary seems like a burden. The media I take in needs to make me happy, and happy can mean different things. Sometimes I want to veg out and watch an hour long documentary about a cult/MLM (coming soon to a blog near you!), but other times I want silliness.
Mr. Boop is the perfect moment of absurdity during the day, for me. It usually appears on Instagram (where I read it, personally) during my work day, and it always gives me a nice 20 second or so break to see the comic, laugh to myself, then continue on. It’s a tiny, tiny moment in my day, but it seems significant. It’s so NOT what’s going on in the world right now, and that makes me happy. Todd, why do you like it? You are, after all, the one who got me to read it, after a lot of wheedling.
Todd: That is true! Honestly, it makes me laugh! And it does feel like the exact level of chaotic-good absurdity that is needed to counterbalance all of the chaotic-bad absurdity that is the world right now. For a few moments, nothing is going wrong, and I can just laugh at these characters who are pretty flimsy as characters—seriously, at one point someone suggests that Alec move on from his wife and he instead takes that as a sign for him to propose to her again—without having to think too hard. Mr. Boop scratches a particular kind of itch that is similar to other absurdist/anti-comedy things that I enjoy, like Comedy Bang Bang! (the TV show or the podcast) or even something like the works of Tim Robinson, which we have both enjoyed together.
Sometimes, it is so soothing to just turn off your brain and allow yourself to sink into a world that is a little crazier than your own, but also a world that is somehow kinder? Like, not to get too deep about a comic strip where Mickey Mouse is embarrassed to tell Walt Disney he had an orgy with Goku (from Dragon Ball Z), but there can be some tenderness to the whole thing as well. Ultimately, this is just one comic strip, standing in front of an audience, asking that audience to love him—and his wife, Betty Boop.
Also, Alec if you’re reading, you should definitely include Renee Zellweger and Tom Cruise in the Mr. Boop-verse!
Mary: Really, everyone is welcome in the Mr. Boop-verse, aren’t they? I do agree that the characters seem somewhat kinder and more chill than anyone I’ve ever met in real life. And the comic strip in question where Goku confronts Mickey Mouse in a grocery store (which seems insane to even type for the world to see) really is strangely touching. Goku isn’t mad that Mickey Mouse won’t acknowledge their intimate history, and he even understands that Mickey probably doesn’t want Papa Walt to know he’s been seeing other IPs. It’s all just very reasonable. I cannot believe I’m talking about this stupid little webcomic like this, but I have to admit: I love Mr. Boop and I don’t care who knows it.
I don’t really know how far the Mr. Boop rabbit hole goes. There’s even a point and click video game. Currently, Mr. Boop is experiencing an Avengers: Endgame-like event where different characters are disappearing—including characters we’ve never seen before, like the casts of Homestuck and The Sopranos.
Todd: It is all truly wild, and I am not sure where it will go, but I am rooting for those crazy kids, Alec Boop neé Robbins and his wife, cartoon character Betty Boop.
Also Sonic is there and he shoots Alec, but don’t worry, everyone is okay.