Not being a reader of the Commercial Appeal’s print edition, I’m not often subjected to the comic genius of embattled editorial cartoonist Bill Day. Finding one of his archived cartoons is a burdensome multiple-click scavenger hunt without even the promise of a comedic payoff. Therefore, I typically only see Day cartoons that happen to be referenced in a letter to the editor, several days after they run.

A Day strip the CA published on Friday the 13th lives up to the occasion. This is Bill Day’s reaction to the Don Imus thing, and it’s so wonderful that you must behold it with your own eyes.

In the first panel, Day introduces an obese, balding white man wearing an unbuttoned, red-and-white checkered flanel shirt (a subtle Lamar Alexander reference?), an undershirt with the word “BIGOTRY” written across the front, a belt buckle, and holding a crowbar.

Caption: My talk radio hero ain’t no apologizing wimp like Don Imus… NoOoOo… My hero once told a black listener to ‘take that bone outta his nose’! Ha! Ha!

Obese Bigotry Man (OBM) tells us that his “talk radio hero” would not apologize like Don Imus did, followed by what we are to presume is an example of something his “talk radio hero” said and didn’t apologize for.

Unfortunately for Day, this anecdote is neither recent nor exactly true. According to Snopes.com, Mr. “Talk Radio Hero” was quoted by Newsday in October 1990 as “admitting he felt guity” about the remark, which was made “back in the early 1970s” as a Top 40 disk jockey, long before his current talk radio program.

So apparently OBM’s “talk radio hero” actually is an “apologizing wimp like Don Imus.” But even if he weren’t, the incident took place prior to the talk radio hero’s talk radio program, meaning OBM wouldn’t have been exposed to the episode in the first place.

In the second panel, OBM presumably offers further examples of insensitive, Don Imus-like comments uttered by the “talk radio hero.”

Caption: My hero calls uppity women ‘feminazis’, he hates all tree-huggin’ liberal perverts, and he never gets in trouble for saying it! Ha! Ha! Ha!

If OBM’s “talk radio hero” really says he “hates” people, even perverts, that’s news to me.

But what’s all this about heroes and getting in trouble? What are we, third graders?

Meanwhile, our editorial cartoonist hero calls talk radio listeners ‘bigots,’ he hates all gas-guzzlin’ conservative puritans, and he never gets in trouble for saying it! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Panel three is rather incoherent and redundant.

Caption: In fact, it makes him even MORE popular. Why, the Vice-President was on his show! My hero ain’t Howard Stern or Don Imus… Lemme whisper it…

So the height of popularity is having the Vice-President on your show? That’s news to Wolf Blitzer.

I like how Day forgets that OBM had already established the fact that his “hero” was not Don Imus in the first panel and repeats it here.

The fourth panel offers the big, comedic reveal. We’re so excited we’re wetting ourselves, leaning on the edge of our seats waiting for the hilarious punchline.

Who, oh who, could OBM’s “talk radio hero” be? Oh, the suspense…

Caption: My hero is RUSH LIMBAUGH!

Lord, have mercy, we never saw that one coming.

Ah, ha.

Ah, ha ha ha ha.

Ha!

Ha! Ha ha ha!

Hah!

Hehhehh.

Oh, heh. Hem. Hm.

That is too, too funny.

The best part, though, is how Bill Day imagines Rush Limbaugh listeners as fat, white, balding, old, baby-talking, blue-collar, crowbar-wielding thugs, all while trying to make a point about… what, insensitivity? Hatred of stereotypes?

It’s not exactly the most effective presentation on the subject, you must admit.

But at least it’s a laugh riot, I’ll tell you that.

If you accidentally wet yourself while reading it, feel free to put down the crowbar for a minute and go change your 184” waist pants. And brush your tooth, you bald-headed hoser.