Jean Shepherd - "Andy Capp"

What's it all for? Andy Capp; Light Brigade; retired, why work? This is a WBJC syndicated replay from March 21, 1975, the original WOR airdate was January 21, 1975. Special thanks to Jim Clavin of FlickLives.com for preserving this program. [Audio is public domain. Photo © by Fred W. McDarrah, used with permission.]

[@cmans79tr7]

I love this. Shep mentioned Charles Schultz's "social commentary/philosophy" in his comics and dismissed Schultz's as not being deep. I'll forever thank my 7th grade teacher, Mr. "Mac" for opening our (my) eyes one day in his class to the thinly-veiled politicking in Schultz Peanuts cartoons, which until Mr. Mac pointed it out, I had been blissfully ignorant. Some I agreed with, others, not. And now Shep explained Andy Capp's name, and after all the decades i had read Andy Capp, now I know why such a large quantity of those comics involved horse racing.

[@cmans79tr7]

And i think Shep missed the real point the man was driving at about the final fruits of the ant doing all that work. The story of the ant and grasshopper supposedly meant that hard work provided fruits for the future, but (the lazy) Andy Capp implied that hard work was worthless. The man saying he was flogging a dead horse i think implied that trying to make a 'point' regarding 'work' to a perennially unemployed Andy was a waste of time.