And there's where Gordy is afraid to go home because he's gonna get the snot beaten out of him. And the Pattersons do nothing about it, even though he's left his gloves at their house, in (what to me) is an excuse for them to go to his house and see/hear him getting beaten and saving him somehow. But instead the Pattersons make lame jokes (not unlike when Liz was attacked and the guys at the landscape place stood around and made lame jokes). And then we see that Michael knows that Gordy's story about falling off a ladder is a lie. But nothing is done. John and Elly make no attempt to check on Gordy.
And then when Michael's grounding is over, we see cheerful Gordy, who is more like this one Publication Date: 1987-10-24 "Nag, nag, nag. When are they going to treat me like an adult?"
And I'm sure that KAN would agree with Gordy's dad's punishment, including (doubtless) the one for not taking off his glasses before he was beaten so that they wouldn't get broken.
I know a guy (my age) who would run to tell his dad that he'd gotten in trouble at school "for defending some kid that bullies were picking on." If he could tell his dad that lie before the phone would ring, the phone conversation would go, "Mr. H, your son J. caused a problem at school..." "Already taken care of," the dad would say and immediately hang up the phone and that was the end of it. If the guy didn't get home before the school called, he got a beating. This was during the 60's. Lynn's strip ran in the 90's.