![[0816] The Divine Comedy, Page 14](/comics/2016-08-29-0816-the-divine-comedy-page-14.png "[0816] The Divine Comedy, Page 14")
They’re talking about Fred Rogers from the TV show Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.
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- Larisa: What’s heaven like?
- The Devil: Oh, it’s not much different from hell, just with more harps and ambrosia.
- Larisa: But don’t the truly pure and innocent deserve something better than that?
- The Devil: Haha! There’s no such thing as a “truly pure and innocent” human!
- Larisa: But, but…! Then what about Mr. Rogers?
- The Devil: Don’t ever talk about the “anomaly” again!
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Hilarious!
Wait. Buck Rogers or Steve Rogers?
@ AndiJN:
Nope, it’s probably Fred Rogers.
Kind of sad that the fictional characters are more popular …
This is probably one of the best webcomic jokes I’ve ever come across.
AndiJN wrote:
Mr Rogers refers only to Fred Rogers. Even Wikipedia redirects from “Mister Rogers” to him directly, you don’t even get to disambiguation page.
@ Trimutius:
Thanks, I noticed that too. I checked this after writing the first comment (it did seem a bit odd), and since I can’t edit my comments here, I had to add another one instead.
Well, I did make a mistake there, but at least I learned something important from that.
I imagine the entire room turned dark red in that last panel.
The Devil has interesting trigger words, doesn’t he!
P.S. Congrats to everyone who did art! They are wonderful. 😀
“The” anomaly?!?!? Oh no no no! We are not forgetting Mr. Dressup and The Friendly Giant! Or perhaps the Devil can only bring himself to mention Mr. Rogers. To mention Mr. Dressup and The Friendly Giant would be too much for him to endure – – which makes sense.
@ AndiJN:
YES.
With every mention of Mr. Rogers, I always have to link the speech he gave to the senate, defending PBS and his show. It’s always remarkable and heartwarming to see the change in the speaker’s demeanor towards Fred – from dismissiveness, to interest, to outright support – in the span of just a few minutes. If you haven’t seen it, prepare to smile and maybe cry for the next few minutes.
Plus, there’s the diktat: “Thou shalt not harm the innocent!” Satan’s hands were always completely tied where Mr. Rogers was concerned, and he is still unhappy about it.
Novil, does Fred Rogers have the same universal recognition in Germany as he does in the U.S.?
This is how “pure” Mr. Rogers was: His car was stolen. The thieves discovered who’s car it was and brought it back with an apology note.
What does the devil have against Roy Rogers? That he was always catching rustlers on his ranch?
Heaven must be really empty…
@ CSJTFJ:
I would guess not.
I live in Germany (and have done so all my life) and had never heard of him until about five minutes ago. (Then again, maybe I’m an anomaly here.)
I absolutely love the devil’s expression in the third panel.
I had to look up ‘ambrosia’. Food of the Gods, basically.
Also, I’m seconding CSJTFJ’s question.
“The champion rose, the rest saw the better: Mister Rogers in a bloodstained sweater.”
Part of me was really hoping you’d take that angle, Novil.
(For those who don’t know, it’s a quote from The Ultimate Showdown, a song that can be found on the youtubes)
Freezer wrote:
As cool as that story is, my understanding is that it’s apocryphal.
Not to worry, though – there’s plenty of confirmed great stories about Mister Rogers. His speech to the Senate, the way his Emmy acceptance speech went…
Proud to be in the same fraternity as the “Anomaly.”
Freezer wrote:
That never happened. It’s a common urban myth but it’s just that; a myth.
CSJTFJ wrote:
Unfortunately not. That’s why I was confused …
@ Demarion:
I grew up with The Friendly Giant! 🙂
(And was mildly traumatized when the First Evil used its theme song as Spike’s trigger.)
I don’t think I ever knew mr. Rogers first name but I instantly knew who Larissa was talking about. And I don’t know but even as an adult calling Mister Rogers Fred seems like it would be a little disrespectful.
Well, I’m sorry if I offended anyone. But I still find it quite interesting that there are two heroes in fiction with the same last name, who both appeared in comics before he became popular.
On the other hand, I also don’t know how common the name ‘Rogers’ actually is, so …
… after looking it up, it seems to be quite common.
AndiJN wrote:
Fun fact: Shaggy form Scooby Doo also has that surname.
‘from’, not ‘form’ … again, since I can’t edit my comments, I’ll just add any corrections in a new one.
He was a saint!
AndiJN wrote:
So… You can’t edit even though you’re a Patron? Ohh well, too bad! 😛
We see wat u do.
Be the person Mr. Rogers thought you could be.
The last panel is absolutely perfect! Exactly what he’d say.
Devil is playing Chess versus Larisa to pass the time.
I wonder if he plays a fair game… 😉
@ TvTropesgotmehooked:
Fair game or not, he has a better chance against her than his normal partner, Death (the undertaker who guides your soul to the after life in some beliefs).
I wish I had a link to an old clip from an old comedy show called “Mother’s Little Network,” but it’s one of those things that was pre-massive-public-videotaping and seems gone for good.
Anyway, they had a sketch where a surrogate for Mister Rogers came in, starting singing his song, and then went on to remove *all* his clothes…I’ve never been able to look at Mister Rogers since without thinking of that…
“Mr. Rogers projected an air of genuine, unwavering, almost saintly pure-hearted decency. But when you look deeper, at the person behind the image… that’s exactly what you find there, too. He’s exactly what he appears to be.” (XKCD 767 alt text)
I love how expressive The Devil is 😀
HA! Nice!
@ sun tzu:
He read and answered every fan letter he received, his strongest curse word was “Mercy!”, and when he got angry he’d play the piano. When a guy in a wheelchair showed up at one of his award acceptances that had once been interviewed as a kid on the show, he instantly recognized him and was delighted to see him.
if you have to explain a joke, dont use it
“Innocent?” Dude was former special forces…
Pony-kour wrote:
This might explain why he is such an ass.
@ JediRanger:
Mr. Rogers was never special forces or even remotely in the military.
There reasons why we never speak that name here. And we shouldn’t never speak about it again until the end times.
@ JediRanger: According to who?
So here’s a question how did God and the Devil deal with Mr. Rogers?
Omg I’m rofl. Mr Rogers was, and always will be, the best X,D
So Larissa is playing Checkers with the devil, to pass the time until she can save Sandra to become a Succubus?
Well, wieder stuff has happened.
Demarion wrote:
And interestingly enough, you can thank the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for both of them.
Fred Rogers first got his own show on CBC, with CBC crew developing many of the sets and props he used for the rest of his career. Ernie Coombs (Mr. Dressup) was a friend and understudy, and they went on to work together at the CBC for some years. Rogers purchased the rights to Misterogers, the CBC show, and took it back to US public television in 1968.