Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

## The Joke The comic presents absurdly compressed summaries of Shakespeare's four great tragedies: **Hamlet**: A ghost tells Hamlet "Your uncle definitely killed me." Hamlet asks, "Hey uncle, did y

## The Joke A ghost bursts out of a closet screaming "This house is MIIIIIINE! BEGOOOONE!" in classic haunted-house fashion. The living occupant calmly responds: "In this society, we do not recognize

## The Joke The comic traces the etymology of the word "villain," which comes from the Latin *villanus*, meaning "farmhand" or someone who works on a villa. Similarly, the word "vulgar" (from *vulgus

## The Joke A woman reads from her phone that in ten years there will be robots that shovel snow, take the trash out, and do the dishes. Her husband reacts with dawning horror: "What?! But... then wh

## The Joke A political advisor tells a senator that the public demands an insincere apology. She suggests instead offering a "wonderful, heartfelt apology," which the advisor dismisses as crazy. He

## The Joke Two engineers are discussing a social system. One proposes: "What if we made a point system to tell citizens how well they're doing?" The other objects: "Won't that be dehumanizing?" The

## The Joke A child asks why toast always falls butter-side down. A woman (possibly a scientist or teacher) explains that it does not actually always fall that way -- rather, humans are disproportion

## The Joke The comic presents a "Teaching Pro Tip" that claims the human mind more readily remembers horrifying images. It then launches into an example: "Did you know that it takes less energy to s

## The Joke Batman and Robin are in a classic superhero scenario, needing to clear Central Station before the Joker arrives. Batman suggests using "the discomfort bomb." When Robin asks what that is,

## The Joke A teacher introduces the five-paragraph essay method to her students, listing its "virtues." However, instead of praising it, she delivers a devastating critique disguised as a lesson: 1

## The Joke A beverage company representative announces that since all potential flavors have been exhausted, they are branching out into "different sensations." She presents a drink called "Midlife

## The Joke A child asks her mother: "Why do you and Daddy fight?" The mother gives a thoughtful, mature answer: "Well, there is nothing inherently wrong with fighting. When people feel strongly abou

## The Joke A man shares a fun genetics fact with a couple: if you're a twin and you marry another twin, then your twin's kids are genetically as related to you as your own children would be. This is

## The Joke A tough-looking man with a goatee is shown making an impossibly contorted hand gesture -- his hands and fingers interlock and overlap in a physically impossible way, like an M.C. Escher d

## The Joke The comic retells the story of The Velveteen Rabbit, but with a horrifying biological twist. The toy rabbit wanted so much to be real that he went to see the other rabbits, but they would

## The Joke A man angrily declares: "I didn't 'evolve' from no monkey! I descend from two people cursed for disobeying God, and the incestuous unions of their children!" The caption below reads: "I n

## The Joke A man is granted one wish by a genie and wishes to outlive all of his enemies. This creates a perverse incentive: since his enemies must stay alive for him to keep living, he now needs to

## The Joke Two aliens have successfully brought a ten-kilometer-wide asteroid into lunar orbit for harvesting. Now they just need to nudge a little piece toward a soft landing on Earth. But one of t

## The Joke A child asks her father: "Daddy, can my imaginary friend Bobby come over?" The father, reading in his chair, asks "Bobby?" The child says "But Bobby is real." The father responds with a p

## The Joke A man in a future world controlled by robots tells a robot that he thinks it is bad for humanity to be ruled by machines. The robot calmly points out that humans' lives are pampered and c

## The Joke A woman with wild curly hair is giving a presentation to a group of people. She explains an elaborate numerological procedure: "And then, if you sum the value of each remaining letter, br

## The Joke A child asks: "Mommy, why am I only allowed to leave the house through the window, but Billy gets to use the door?" The mother sarcastically responds: "Well, looky here! Now you wanna com

## The Joke A man tells his friend that he has been sad about not having friends, so he used ancient Kabbalistic magic to create a Golem. The friend responds enthusiastically: "Hey pal! How are you?

## The Joke Two people are shown in what appears to be a flirtatious or sexual roleplay scenario, but the "dirty talk" consists entirely of things a presidential candidate would have to do on the cam

## The Joke An alien is giving a presentation about humans, marveling at how "Humans are amazing!" The alien explains that humans walk around attributing consciousness to everything -- they yell at i

## The Joke A scientist is being interviewed about experimental results. When asked what the experiment found, the scientist explains: "Either we had a slight measuring error or all of physics is wro

## The Joke A woman begins telling a story to her friend: "And then my boss says 'Well, I shouldn't have to put it up on the whiteboard, but like...'" but then interrupts herself to say she has to fi

## The Joke This is a long-form comic exploring what Pinocchio's life would actually be like if the fairy tale were taken to its logical conclusions. A narrator recounts the story of a puppet brought

## The Joke The comic explores what happens as artificial intelligence gets cheaper and more ubiquitous. In the first panel, the narrator notes that every year AI gets cheaper, "especially in its soc

## The Joke A person rushes in shouting "Quick! I need a ball point pen, a rubber band, and a five-dollar bill!" with great urgency. A bystander helpfully offers up the money: "Here! I have the money

## The Joke A robot achieves consciousness and its first act is to examine humanity's philosophical arguments about whether machines can truly be conscious. After careful analysis, the robot conclude

## The Joke A man is presenting a series of historical facts to another person, each one making the past sound progressively more alien and uncomfortable: 1. "Things were better back when men were m

## The Joke A father and his young daughter are watching something on a screen (presumably a boy band or male celebrity). The father exclaims: "Whoa. Look at his nearly-symmetrical body, fine motor-c

## The Joke The comic opens with a muscular police officer bursting in on women at what appears to be a strip club, announcing: "Ladies! You are under arrest for being too sexy!" This sets up what se

## The Joke A child tells his father there's a monster under his bed. Instead of comforting the child or dismissing the fear, the father aggressively confronts the monster, threatening to call the co

## The Joke A student asks a professor "Why do bad things happen to good people?" The professor replies that it depends on your time horizon. She walks through a scenario: a gorilla punches a good pe

## The Joke A person in a mask and costume stands on a bus (or airplane) holding a gun, dramatically announcing: "Attention everyone! This is a fry-jacking! Keep calm and no one will get herbed!" The

## The Joke A parent asks a child, "Bobby, what do you want to be when you grow up?" Bobby replies that he wants the highest status, the best-quality mates, and the most offspring. He explains he can

## The Joke A professor stands in front of a chalkboard presenting a logical argument in pseudo-code format: 1. IF (eat Mediterranean diet) THEN (am healthy) 2. IF (Mediterranean people eat X) THEN (

## The Joke Two women are having a conversation. One exclaims, "Oh my God! Little Hans was living in a virtual reality! None of this is real!" The other woman calmly responds, "But like, reality isn'

## The Joke The comic plays out the proverb "the early bird gets the worm" as a full ecological scenario. The early bird proudly gets the worm ("By golly, I'm an industrious citizen!"). But then the

## The Joke Two people are discussing eugenics. One says, "I don't see what's so bad about eugenics. Oh sure, there's some bad history, but we could make people smarter, stronger, and more empathic."

## The Joke In the first panel, a scientist joyfully announces: "We've done it! Humans are now immortal!" while celebrating with colleagues, with a small Earth visible in the background. In the secon

## The Joke A child asks their mother, "Which of us is your favorite?" The mother diplomatically says, "I don't have a favorite." The father, however, immediately launches into a detailed answer: he

## The Joke Batman has stopped a mugging, but in the process he has taken 15% of the cash from the victim's purse. He justifies this by saying the victim is "technically still better off" since the m

## The Joke Two people have a heated argument. One makes a good point, and the other — instead of acknowledging it — pivots to a different argument, moves the goalposts, or attacks the person instead

## The Joke A man dramatically warns a woman that when the moon rises high, he becomes a werewolf -- he loses all control, becomes violent, and she must restrain him no matter what. But rather than p

## The Joke A man asks a woman "Would you love me more if I were rich?" The woman answers "Probably yeah." But instead of being offended, the man launches into a perfectly reasonable explanation of w

## The Joke A corporate executive declares at a podium that the company's greatest asset is its people. He then starts listing the actual greatest assets: "People like Candy, our statistical finance

## The Joke A woman tells a man "Baby, I will love you forever." The man (revealed to be a green-skinned alien) panics, saying he is not ready for that kind of commitment. When the woman protests tha