Among the best picnics, adult or otherwise, A Picnic in the Woods sets an example of optimistic picnic fun.  It begins with the usual refrain: “It’s a beautiful day for a picnic!” as Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, and Mickey’s nephews Ferdy and Morty cram into the blue convertible for a day in the country. Soon, […] read more

Donald Duck’s beach picnic makes a joke of expectations. Intending a pleasant day at the beach, Donald is upset and bedeviled with turmoil. Especially the ants, dressed in war paint like “Native Americans,” steal Donald’s picnic. The idea is meant to be comic. Ants at a picnic are always fun, but in this instance, masquerading […] read more

Sergio Aragonés’s comic imagination upends a happy picnic. Featured Image: Sergio Aragonés’s “Crime Scene Picnic.” 3, 2018. read more

Hanna and Barbera celebrate the adventures of Yogi Bear, living in Jellystone Park, who loves to steal “pic-a-nic” baskets. Yogi’s accomplice BooBoo, a bear cub, helps loot baskets from tourists. Yogi and BooBoo love sandwiches, sausages, cakes, chips, and fruits. In particular, Yogi prefers a layer cake glopped with pink and white icing. Ranger Smith […] read more

Charles Addams. “Goodness, Murray, it wouldn’t be a picnic without ants.”  The New Yorker (June 11, 1949)   read more

Another picnic ruined, etc., etc. See George Cruikshank. The Gipseying Party Alarm’d at the Uninvited Guest (1827), engraving. London: John Fairburn, 1827. http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1647192&partId=1&people=124892&peoA=124892-2-23&page=1 Also Cruikshank’s “Pic Nic Disturbed by a Swarm of Bees.”   read more

Knowing that any picnic might dissolve in chaos when attacked by a flying critter, readers of Punch, Britain’s premier satirical magazine, laughed at Leech’s mock tragedy. They might have also smiled patronizingly at the verbal pun “wopps,” the Cockney pronunciation of wasp. Only a small circle of friends might have known that Dickens was the […] read more

At first, Donald Duck’s beach picnic is a pleasant outing. Donald and Pluto set up on the beach for a perfect day. Donald plants an umbrella for shade and spreads a blanket for food. Expectations are high. It doesn’t last, as usual. The picnic turmoil is classic. Featured Image: The surf is calm, but Donald […] read more

Five couples picnicking on the grass are upset by a swarm of bees. Their table is in disarray as people run helter-skelter; hats fly, tempers flare, and a dog barks. A man pours water on a fainting woman that misses her mouth but not her breasts. Round up the usual suspects! See George Cruikshank. Pic Nic […] read more

Even after zeppelin attacks on London in May and June, Brits are undeterred and cannot refrain from picnicking even under the threat of being gassed. Acid satire by F.H. Townsend. Featured Image: Even under threat of attack, Upper-class Brits cannot refrain from picnicking even under threat of being gassed. See Frederick Henry Townsend. “A Zeppelin Picnic.” Punch, no. […] read more

The humor of Smith’s picnic fiasco “Slicing the Wasps” is obvious. The legend reads: “Suitable for both sexes, young and old. Fascinating, amusing, skillful exciting, and with that element of danger.” It’s also an allusion to John Leech’s Punch cartoon “The Awful Appearance of Wasps” posted elsewhere on PicnicWit. Featured Image: A.T. Smith. “A New […] read more

The zany humor of “Just a Picnic at Whipsnade” is Heath Robinson’s trademark. Of the two picnics here, the lion has got the better deal. It also helps to know that Whipsnade is England’s biggest zoo, near Luton, an hour and twenty minutes north of London. Featured Image: “Just a Picnic at Whipsnade.” See Heath […] read more

The London Stock Exchange’s reaction to a current financial panic is the butt of John Leech’s “The Currency Question, or The Exchange Out for a Day.” Leech implies picnicking in troubled times is laughable when buying and selling stocks is as much a gamble as horse racing. The cartoon’s legend is an exchange between Jones […] read more

Worrall’s “Taking and Being Taken” depicts a buffalo unsetting a photographer’s picnic. It’s a topsy-turvy moment in which the Buffalo, then being exterminated on the American Great Plains, gets even (momentarily) by disrupting a hapless photographer. Worrall’s satire is roughly contemporary with Kansan Brewster Higely, who wrote the pastoral poem “Oh, Give me a Home […] read more

Betty Boop, a pretty, silly woman with a sense of humor, was created by Max Fleischer but drawn by Bud Counihan. Among the cartoon strip episodes is a picnic poking self-deprecating fun at Betty’s career as a movie star, “And I’m to ride in this ‘Indian raid” scene, huh?”.  The strip shows Betty working hard […] read more

Several Popeye stories include picnics –all with spinach. There is one picnic in which Olive Oyl tries to shift Popeye from his tried-and-true diet. It’s Edward Knapp’s What! No Spinach, and at this picnic, Olive offers Popeye baskets packed with salami, fresh rye bread, pickles, root beer, and lemonade. Desperate for variety, Olive hopes he’ll […] read more

For whom a rainy day will not stop the picnic, Stoic Brits are the butt of Leech’s satiric humor. Visually, you see a group of umbrellas in an open field lashed by rain. The legend is, “What a nice damp place we have secured; and how very fortunate we are in the weather; it would have […] read more

Robert Seymour was an illustrator and cartoonist noted for his wit and humor. For his sketches, as opposed to political or social cartoons. His preference is to satirize the lower middle classes, trying to do their best but getting things wrong.  The caption reads: “O lawkes, there’s that nasty cow walking all over our dinner! […] read more