In 1982, it would have been unheard of for a pet store to be selling snakes in a window like this. Puppies, bunnies, guinea pigs, sure, but not snakes. Maybe they would have one or two in the back of the store, but it wasn’t common. That makes this scenario unlikely and somewhat absurd. Plus, Larson loves snakes and probably this would have been a wish fulfillment for him.

Glade. “A small area of grass without trees in a forest.”

I’m American and I said atchoo. It’s probably regional.

It’s a very old nursery rhyme dating from 1744. There are variations, but it’s basically this:

Ladybug! Ladybug! Fly away home. Your house is on fire. And your children all gone.

All except one, And that’s little Ann, For she crept under The frying pan.

For more context, see the show’s opening credits:

https://youtu.be/p9lf76xOA5k?si=9wVkhjeVnN78K_Li

Very popular show, even into the 70s.

Another great choice is The King Henry Tapes by Richard Raley. It’s a take on HP, but the magical kid from a dysfunctional family is a juvenile delinquent with a foul mouth. One of my favorite series.

Yeah, I think that’s a problem with quite a few of Larson’s comics. A lot of it was based on tropes and stereotypes that were more accepted at the time. I’m gen x, so I get the humor, and found it funny back then, but with hindsight some of them were questionable if not outright offensive. In this case, however, he is ridiculing the cavalry for their hubris, when they should have had a better plan against the combined native forces. Custer screwed up and died as a result. If anything, it’s saying the natives were much smarter.

They won the Battle of Little Bighorn, also known as Custer’s Last Stand, yes.

They’re saying “Neener Neener, you can’t catch me,” and from what we know about history, the Natives accepted the challenge and won. I’m not sure how else to explain it. You might not find it funny, and that’s okay, but it’s clearly a reference to that battle.

Look up Custer’s Last Stand. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Bighorn

Larson did a few referencing this. Basically, Custer and his cavalry were soundly defeated by the combined native tribes.

No gnus is good gnus.

Families would take a car trip. Once upon a time, there were no electronics available to keep kids occupied. We literally had nothing to do in the car except sit still for hours. Kids being kids would get antsy, and frequently would start teasing, fighting, roughhousing, pinching, poking, etc. The driver, usually Dad, would yell at the kids to stop. “Don’t make me stop this car,” and other similar warnings. This panel uses that common (at the time) setting but with the absurd twist of an actual torture device.

Larson’s drawing skills are not the greatest, and this forced perspective is difficult to achieve in the single panel, I think. The kids are in the back, either on the back seat or maybe in the cargo area with the seats down. Yeah, the proportions are off. It’s about the absurd situation more than the artwork.

Okay, I added a few links to my comment!

I homeschooled my kid k-12. When I started, I had no idea how many religious hs-ers there were. I used a secular curriculum, and never even thought about teaching anything regarding religion one way or another. Once I started looking around at all the creationist curricula out there–yikes.

Anyhoo, long story short, my son went on to a college degree (he actually started college classes online at 15–one of the perks of hs-ing for us), and he’s an atheist. Secular homeschoolers do exist!

ETA some links–these are a few secular homeschool curricula. There’s a lot more out there, but this is the majority of what I used through the years:

https://www.calverthomeschool.com/

https://www.oakmeadow.com/

https://www.keystoneschoolonline.com/

https://www.thinkwell.com/ (Primarily math–the professor that does most of the math instruction is wonderful.)

My high school English teachers are screaming in my head that it’s “My twin and me.”

The Sword in the Stone, perhaps.