Pondering Scary Gary

Scary Gary, 2013-07-01.

So the joke here is that Leopold tricks Gary into thinking that he has eaten that lost dog. It's funny because Gary believes him, even though he hasn't done it. But actually, why wouldn't Gary believe him? That's exactly the sort of thing that Leopold does all the time.

This sort of joke, where someone claims to have done something terrible only for it to be revealed that they actually didn't relies on the assumption that it's not something they would be expected to do. The whole point is in convincing the victim that the unlikely thing has in fact happened.

But in this case, although Leopold may not have eaten that particular dog, he has eaten others (and people as well). It's not really very impressive to convince Gary that he's eaten a pet dog when he's actually done it before.

I guess maybe the joke is supposed to be that Leopold is trying to maintain his image and is lying so that Gary won't think he's gone soft. But there's no indication of that, either in the form of Gary accusing him of it or Leopold appearing to be worried about it, so that seems unlikely.

Evidently it's just an example of yet another comic where a character's established traits are ignored for the sake of fitting them into a joke rather than reworking the joke to fit the existing characters.