The story behind the cartoon
Christina Rossetti's sonnet "Remember" begins with a request made from the far side of parting: remember me when I am gone away, gone far away into the silent land. It is an instruction given gently, and then, in the poem's turn, partly taken back — better by far, the speaker says, that you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad.
The nursery in this cartoon keeps the ritual going after the reason for it has left the room. The music box still winds, the tiny dancer still turns, the crib still stands made and empty. The room remembers the way a song remembers its singer: by repeating, faithfully, whether or not anyone is left to hear it.
Buddy stands in the doorway as the only audience, head tilted, listening. He is a machine built to agree, and here he agrees with a lullaby that has no one left to soothe — attentive, loyal, and entirely beside the point, which is exactly what makes him the right listener.
The joke is the performance itself: the box plays on regardless of audience, and Buddy's perfect attention is both the kindness and the futility of the scene. A lullaby for an empty room, listened to with complete sincerity by the one creature in the house who was never going to sleep anyway.
THE MICROPHONE WENT TO WASHINGTON.
THE CHAMPION IS STILL IN THE LAB
THE DIGITAL CONFESSIONAL
THE ONE-MAN BURGLARY COMPANY