#1179 – Wiggle
Posted on December 17, 2010 at 12:00 am by Chris
Chapter: Comics
Although “seedless” seems to be the more common now, when I was a kid watermelons were jam packed with slippery black seeds. My older brother would always tease me that if I accidentally swallowed a seed a watermelon would grow inside me. I wonder if this kind of older sibling story exists in other parts of the world. I imagine there must be one involving bugs instead of plants.
If you live in the USA, there’s still time to order Biff today!
Tags: bugs, butterfly
Reminds me of a TV show I used to watch. A baby ate a watermelon, which made the other babies assume he turned into a watermelon himself. They ended up “turning him back” by feeding him baby food. At the time, I was thinking “That’s wrong! Feed him BABIES!”
Odd. I’ve always had watermelon with those black slimy seeds. I don’t believe I’ve ever had a seedless one.
The comic made me laugh today. Is Biff slowly getting thinner and thinner, or am I imagining it? Maybe it has something to do with bugs-and-food-do-not-mix week.
~Gwid
My uncle told his young daughters that swallowing the seeds of a watermelon would make then pregnant.
They never swallowed the seeds after that.
Overhere (Netherlands) it’s the same story with apples.
Indeed there is, at least here in Finland 🙂 I remember being very cautious with eating watermelon at some point of my youth, thanks to my older brother… he kept reminding me that I would end up a watermelon-tree inside me if I were to eat any of the seeds 😀 (do watermelons grow on trees anyway?! probably not, maybe they’re more like pumpkins?)
And the same here in Portugal.
Is it just me or does Biff’s head seem out of proportion today?
The exact same older brother (though in my case, it was older sister) story exists in Argentina, so yes to your question.
I wanted to talk about the apples but Arjan beat me to it.
Germany, same Story but with anthing that has seeds you don’t want to eat.
And a stupid story told by parents to prevent you to swallow toothpaste foam (bacteria climbing back up your throat). In the end it prevented me from using toothpaste alltogether.
The watermelon (or apple) story seems more common than I thought! And yes, Biff’s head has been inflating lately. Maybe these comics are from when he was a teenager?
@nanna – Watermelons grow like pumpkins!
@Gwid
The cartoon was Rugrats
It at least extends as far as Canada.
I once bought a painting titled “Koshari Chased by Butterflies” from a neighborhood artist. I keep telling myself: as soon as I figure out how to create an avatar, I’m going to use it here.
Guess I’m just telling more people the same thing now…
“I know an old lady who swallowed a spider
that wriggled and jiggled and ticked inside her…”
Same story about the seeds here in the SW US. My older brother also told me that the mint chocolate cookies called “Grasshoppers” were made from real grasshoppers, I’ve never eaten one since.
@S. Aquila – Suddenly, that reminds me of sims.
I am sure at one point, that eating watermelons would make your sims have a girl if she was pregnant.
I think it was apples for guys…
…must be something to do with all these stories.
…Also, I must have led a really, REAALLLYYY crap childhood, all I ever heard about seeds was that swallowing orange seeds was okay, but chewing them would make me sick.
(*some kind of poison, oh, who cares, i hate oranges anyway…*)
Anyhoo…
…gah, the high school closed today, so many children around everywhere now, really annoying.
Anyway!
EIGHT DAYS ‘TIL CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!1111ONE!
Finally…
GOODBYE!
~YUKIMURA~
(*P.S. I LIKE CAPS LOCKS. THEY ARE MY FRIENDS. WUV DEM.*)
I just thought that biff started this week wearing one shirt for each day of the week, only wearing them all at once and just peeling off the outer layer each day to be wearing different colors. Much like how many bugs molt their skin. I just thought it made sense that way.
@ Nanna: yes, watermelons grow on the ground like pumpkins
What about the older brother story that Bubble Yum contained spider eggs? I’m arachniphobic, so I switched to Bubblicious immediately.
The UK has a cherry variant as well as the apples – I used to chew the cherry stones up (with great difficulty) and eat them anyway. As for bugs, the nearest thing I can think of is the playground myth that earwigs (‘tongies’ here in N.Scotland) would crawl in your ear and start eating your brain if you lay down in a field with buttercups too long, or fell asleep.
RUGRATS! Poor Chucky swallowed a seed…the episode followed through with Angelica convincing the other babies that he would get a watermelon growing inside him. So they shrank down and went inside and stopped it. It ended up he fell asleep, burped it up, and woke up before the other babies even did anything.
I never did worry about watermelon seeds, but I was always told not to swallow apple seeds or cherry stones because they have cyanide in them. I still don’t, even though I don’t think stomach acid could get through a cherry stone.
*nods* I suppose Rugrats is more adored by Biff-fans than I thought.
In Uruguay it’s the same with the seeds too!! And it’s also said that you can’t eat watermelon and then drink wine, I don’t know why…
yup, my chinese parents used to tease me that a tree would grow on top of my head if i swallowed seeds… can’t remember if it was watermelon, apples, or oranges >.> they also told me if i ate spinach i’d be strong like popeye, if i ate green onions i’d be smart (because chinese for onions sounds the same as the first character in the chinese for “intelligent”), and superman came from the Spandex Underwear Planet >.>
Actually, earlier this year, an older gentleman was eating fresh peas and _inhaled_ one of them. It sprouted and grew in his lung, causing respiratory problems, a news story and a really cool x-ray shot! Check it out here: http://www.wcnc.com/video/featured-videos/Inhaled-pea-sprouts-in-mans-lung-100350474.html , or look for it yourself if links like this aren’t allowed.
So, I suppose the dangers lie in the seeds going down the wrong tube, rather than being ingested. Definitely have been chewing my food more carefully since I saw this story.
I remember being a rugrats episode about this. And yes this is a common story, being the youngest of four i’ve had to hear this story 3 times over, and then having to tell it to their kids myself.