2014-04-18
Explanation
The Joke
An elderly man stands on his porch shaking his cane and yelling the classic grumpy old man line: "You damn kids! Get off my lawn!" In the next panel, he is seen inside his house watching through the window as the kids continue playing, and he clarifies: "I'm serious! I just sprayed that lawn with carbofuran!"
The Humor
The comic subverts the stereotypical "get off my lawn" gag. Normally, the old man yelling at kids is played as a cranky curmudgeon who is overreacting. The twist here is that his anger is not irrational crankiness but genuine concern -- he has just sprayed his lawn with carbofuran, an extremely toxic pesticide that is banned in the United States and European Union due to its danger to humans and wildlife. The kids playing on the freshly sprayed lawn are in real danger.
The humor comes from the reversal: what seemed like a tired cliche turns out to be a legitimate warning, and the old man is actually trying to protect the children. At the same time, there is a darker layer in that this elderly person casually admits to using an incredibly dangerous (and likely illegal) chemical on his lawn.
References
Carbofuran is a highly toxic carbamate pesticide. It is one of the most toxic pesticides used on field crops and has been banned or heavily restricted in many countries due to its extreme toxicity to birds, mammals, and humans. In the U.S., the EPA revoked its tolerances for food use in 2009.