Here we have a fairly harmless strip from late October 2002 in which April and Friends cruise the mall and check out the Halloween goodies.
I like Becky’s wig in panel three. Very anime-ish (I'm sure that was an accident on Lynn's part.). However what interests April is Wacky Teeth! Realistic! Secure Fit! And Guaranteed Ugly! Our Tween heroes find them hilarious, because Bad Teeth Equals Funny. Right Amanda Bynes?
Panel six has April spotting a nearby Muppet and going to show off her choppers, only to be blasted when the woman is not amused.
Lynn chose to make this a silent strip, which while not a bad thing, makes April’s actions a tad hard to read. Did she notice Muppet Lady’s bad teeth before going over to her? It’s kind of hard to miss, so let’s assume she did. That makes her seem insensitive and pretty dumb. And just what did she say to warrant such a negative reaction? Did she simply smile and point, or was it more along the lines of, “Hiya Seabiscuit! Think you can recommend me an orthodontist?”
While looking for this strip in the website’s catalog so I wouldn’t have to scan it out of the book, the site’s summary helped cleared up why April thought it was a good idea to go over there:
“April shows her weird fake teeth to a woman who has a huge overbite and is embarrassed that the woman's bad teeth are real.”
Okay, so she naively assumed the woman was wearing Wacky Teeth too. I’m not sure why she thought a middle aged woman would be wearing fake teeth while drinking. Wouldn’t you take them out? Oh well, she’s a kid. We all did dumb things as kids.
I think this would have worked better if the set up had been that April decided to wear the teeth to order her food, not seeing beforehand that the cashier has bad teeth, then getting yelled at. Makes a bit more sense.
Finally I’d make a comment about April being Lynn’s Butt Monkey yet again, but at this point in the strip’s history the joke wouldn’t work with anybody else. Both Mike and Liz were too old for this set up so the gag falls to April.