Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

## The Joke A man discovers mold on his salami and wonders if he can scrape it off and eat it. Three internal voices weigh in. "Emotion" (depicted as a glowing sun) says it is probably fine and he sh

## The Joke A man tells his friend about reading the poetry of William Vaughn Moody, quoting a beautiful passage about Pandora: "I heard her once, and once upon the peaks, a little after, thunder tor

## The Joke Someone argues that the moon landing was faked. An actual astronaut or NASA engineer is present and, instead of arguing about evidence, simply breaks down crying at the idea that their li

## The Joke A gothic, aristocratic father demands that his son abandon his "creative ambitions" and go into the "family business" -- which turns out to be "dramatically throwing goblets of brandy int

## The Joke A child asks his father why George Washington had false teeth. The father spins an absurd explanation: the false teeth were "decoy teeth" used as a combat strategy against the British. A

## The Joke A villain has captured a calculus teacher and is torturing them by squeezing them between two giant physical versions of the Greek letters delta and epsilon. The villain announces, "And n

## The Joke The comic addresses the universal social anxiety of accidentally saying "you too" when someone says "have a good trip" (or "enjoy your meal," etc.) -- a response that does not make sense

## The Joke A magician in a top hat offers a volunteer a thousand dollars to simply agree that the card they are holding is the four of clubs. The volunteer readily agrees. The caption reads: "Say wh

## The Joke An elderly man on his deathbed tells his children his final wishes. He begins by saying he does not want a fancy grave or a big funeral. This sounds humble at first, but his real plan qui

## The Joke A classic "damsel in distress" scenario is set up: a villain has tied a woman to train tracks and is cackling. The woman declares she does not care about dying because "Bruce has forsaken

## The Joke A little girl announces she wants to be a marine biologist when she grows up. Her father says he happens to know a marine biologist, and they go visit her. The marine biologist describes

## The Joke A man named Hank is hosting a hot dog roast and makes an uncomfortable confession: the idea for the cookout came to him while he was visualizing the human sex act. He then reassures his g

## The Joke A daughter approaches her mother and says it is time they had "the sex talk." This immediately sets up the expectation of the classic awkward parent-to-child birds-and-bees conversation.

## The Joke The comic presents a variation on the famous Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment. In the original, a cat is placed in a sealed chamber with a radioactive source that may or may not trigg

## The Joke A man calls a phone sex line and is immediately mocked by the operator for still using a landline telephone. The operator asks if he has heard of the internet, implying that phone sex is

## The Joke A woman is making a political argument about taxes, dismissing opponents of higher taxes as stupid. She uses a rhetorical question to illustrate how absurd she thinks their position is: "

## The Joke The comic follows a woman who develops an algorithmic model to determine the best method for picking stocks, which she discovers involves counting the total number of wiener dogs passing

## The Joke The comic is a single panel showing a man standing in front of a bookshelf, ruffling through a red book. The caption, written in the style of a nature documentary narrator, reads: "As par

## The Joke A meeting of the "Anti Status Quo Society" is called to order to discuss their lack of progress. Immediately, everything devolves into meta-arguments about process. A member objects that

## The Joke A parent is explaining to a child what it is like being an adult. The parent describes the common adult experience of having to deal with complex, tedious, and often humiliating bureaucra

## The Joke A scientist (wearing a lab coat) proudly explains to a visitor their method of "ethical animal consumption." The scientist describes raising a fish by showing it videos of heroic, law-abi

## The Joke A business meeting is taking place where an executive enthusiastically announces that "gamifying work has been a huge success" and that they need to find the next big thing. A colleague w

## The Joke A woman describes her husband's approach to life: instead of trying to be good at sex, he tries to be good at everything. She explains that he uses a "greedy searching algorithm" to pursu

## The Joke A politician proposes a new tax system called the "Stochastic Tax." Instead of the current complex tax code, every possible action would be taxed down to the smallest possible unit, with

## The Joke A woman confesses to a man named Ted that she only slept with him because she has a fetish for humiliation. Ted is confused and replies, "But we didn't do anything humiliating." The woman

## The Joke A man pitches a movie idea called "Bayesian Vampire" to someone. The concept involves a man who is bitten by a vampire and also becomes one. The twist is that the movie explores the actua

## The Joke The comic opens with a parent telling their child: "You could be the chosen one! One day you will stand really good and tall, and through you, our society will gain glory." The child asks

## The Joke This is a crossover comic between SMBC and PhD Comics ("Piled Higher and Deeper" by Jorge Cham). The comic features characters from both strips discussing dark matter. A PhD Comics-style

## The Joke A woman at a strip club window is told "Why aren't you wearing sexy clothing?" She responds that she is an "emotional stripper" -- for five dollars, she will bare her feelings instead of

## The Joke The comic presents a fake historical document styled as a formal announcement, titled "Send Me Your Money and Profit Thereby!" It parodies Pascal's Wager -- the famous philosophical argum

## The Joke A woman is telling a man about her stage fright. She explains that she is nervous about going on stage to read from her book because she always feels like nobody actually wants to be ther

## The Joke A man approaches a wise sage-like figure on a mountaintop, explaining a workplace dilemma. He has decided to stay in his job even though he finds it draining, and asks the sage if he coul

## The Joke A person is talking to Jesus (depicted with a halo) and is surprised to learn that when Jesus bleeds, his blood turns into alcohol. Jesus sheepishly confirms this. The person then immedia

## The Joke A father is presenting his daughter with a "purity ring," explaining that it signifies she will remain a virgin until marriage. The daughter asks a pointed question: "That applies strictl

## The Joke A woman calls in to work sick, but despite clearly being ill (coughing), she goes through an elaborate performance of guilt and self-sacrifice. She says she would love to come in but worr

## The Joke A photographer is trying to take a portrait of a scientist for what appears to be a press photo or profile. The photographer notes that for many scientists, their most "sciency" photograp

## The Joke A couple is having an argument. The man is making a pedantic, overly logical case: "Okay, but admit that I was technically right, that what I said is a fact, and that it follows from my b

## The Joke A couple is on a date and the woman suggests they go back to her place to play some "sexy games." The man eagerly agrees. However, when they arrive, it turns out she only owns Atari games

## The Joke A woman at what appears to be a bachelorette party or similar event excitedly calls out that a "sexy construction worker" has arrived. The scene shows a muscular man dressed in a stereoty

## The Joke The comic depicts a job interview where the interviewer asks the classic question, "So, tell me why you want to work for this company?" The interviewee, an older woman with glasses, turns

## The Joke The comic opens with one character asking why people are becoming less and less likely to participate in local community groups. The other character, wearing glasses, launches into a seri

## The Joke A mother catches her child saying what sounds like a swear word. The child immediately launches into an overly intellectual defense: "Calm down! I said 'feck' as in 'that which one who is

## The Joke A father decides to create a reward system for household chores by inventing a currency called "Dadbucks," which can be exchanged for ice cream, theme park outings, toys, candy, and so on

## The Joke The comic shows a bedtime scene where a parent (who appears to be a physicist, given the glasses and general SMBC nerd archetype) is reading a story to a child. The parent is saying: "And

## The Joke A group of fantasy adventurers are exploring a dungeon when one of them -- a hooded, fire-wielding mage -- makes an observation: as they go deeper into the dungeon, there are fewer creatu

## The Joke The comic shows a stage magician dressed in classic Victorian-era formal attire -- top hat, cape, bow tie -- performing the classic rabbit-from-a-hat trick. But instead of the normal patt

## The Joke A father catches his son and asks, "Son! Have you been touching yourself?" -- a setup that sounds like the beginning of an awkward puberty talk. But instead, the father warns that the boy

## The Joke The comic is presented as a step-by-step instructional guide titled "How to Have Sex When You Have Young Children." It follows a couple through nine increasingly depressing steps. Step 1:

## The Joke One character poses the classic philosophical thought experiment: "You ever worry we see different colors? Like, when you see green, how do you know you are not seeing what I call red?" T

## The Joke The comic presents itself as a classic puzzle page, with the header "PUZZLE TIME!" and a number sequence: 0, 1, 4, -13, -133, 52, 53, -155... The reader is asked "What is the pattern of t