Groo The Wanderer - Running Gags

Running Gags

Groo's adventures have resulted in these "running gags" that have become staples for years.

• Mendicant: Groo becomes violently angry whenever someone calls him a mendicant, even though he doesn't know what it means.
• Early Groo tales began with a poem. Almost every Groo story ends with a moral.
• The head of the minstrel's mandolin changes shape in every panel.
• Cheese Dip: Groo's favorite food. Whenever Groo comes across money, cheese dip is the first thing that comes to his mind.
• Mulch: This agricultural process is often mentioned in casual conversation. The Marvel/Epic Comics editions had a long-running gag in the letter column, in which fans would ask Mark Evanier to define "mulch" and he would oblige with the same dictionary definition in every issue. Later on, the gag evolved into Mark answering the question with: "We don't do that joke anymore."
• "Did I err?": Groo's understatement when he surveys the destruction he has caused, and the closest Groo usually ever gets to grasping just what his effect on the world around him is. (A letter from a fan once pointed out that since "to err is human", the constantly erring Groo must be the most human character ever created.)
• Groo can never remember whether he is friends with Taranto, or if Taranto wants to kill him. Groo likes Taranto, beyond his own memory capacity, and Taranto delights in attempting to manipulate Groo; hence their lopsided friendship renews near the beginning of each plot arc featuring them both. ("Taranto. I forget. Do I want to kill you right now?")
• "I am the Prince of Chichester.": Granny Groo once made Groo memorize this phrase (a Sisyphean ordeal) as part of one of her ill-fated scams. The con fell apart, but the phrase still sticks in Groo's head, and he says it from time to time when he cannot think of anything to say. (The in-joke here is that Daniel Chichester was editor of the comic book at the time.)
• "What do you mean, 'slow of mind'?": Groo is often called "slow of mind", but it is usually much later in the story when he finally responds to it. The most extreme example was when Granny Groo called young boy Groo "slow of mind" in a flashback, and adult Groo in the present asked her what she had meant.
• "I can plainly see that!": Groo's response to when somebody says "...as any fool can plainly see."
• "What pirates?": To raise the reward for Rufferto offered by its previous owner, a Queen, Pal once told her that the dog had been kidnapped by pirates, who were demanding a ransom. Drumm asked "what pirates?" (there were none, of course) in front of the King and the Queen, and later in the story he kept asking Pal that. From time to time, he still asks "(and) what pirates?", especially when he's trying to kill Pal (usually at the end of a story) because one of his plans failed again.
• The house Pal promised to buy Drumm. In a real estate scheme, Pal buys a house for Groo. Drumm wants one, too. Pal agrees, just to quiet him, but Drumm mentions the house quite often.
• "I can drink eight beers! Bring me eight beers!" This phrase appears several times in the comics and was first spoken in issue #1 of Pacific Comics by Taranto. It was next spoken in issue #23 Marvel/Epic by Drumm.
• Hidden Messages: Many of Groo's Marvel/Epic issues have a hidden message concealed in the artwork or the dialogue. The hidden message usually reads "This is the hidden message."
• The Sage's dog: During the Marvel/Epic run of Groo, the question of what the Sage named his dog became one of the most frequently asked questions in the comic's letters page. Eventually, Evanier and Aragones made an announcement that the name of the Sage's dog would be revealed in an upcoming issue, an event which was first postponed from its first scheduled publication either to further the "suspense" or mess with readers' minds. Eventually, after a storyline in which the Sage's dog had been kidnapped and Groo aided him in recovering the dog, the "secret" was revealed in a throw-away moment, with Groo asking in a "by-the-way" manner what the dog's name was, and the Sage replying with the nondescript name, "Mulch" (in itself a reference to another running gag in the Marvel/Epic run, see above).
• Creators: in every issue, one frame has the four creators somewhere among the people (travellers, soldiers, passers by)
• Issue #1: Because of its unusual publication history (see below) there have been at least three different issues of the comic book that were numbered as the "first" issue. Part of the reason for this is that first issues tend to have higher sales and each publisher took advantage of this by starting the numbering over again when they took over. Aragonés satirized this by proclaiming that every issue he wrote was #1.