Finbarr Saunders

Finbarr Saunders is a comic strip in the British comic magazine Viz.

The strip is about a boy (Finbarr Hawtrey Saunders) who is always overhearing ambiguous conversations, usually between his divorced mother and their neighbour, Mr. Gimlet, with whom she always eventually ends up having sex. For the majority of the strip, Finbarr does nothing but laugh at the double entendres he hears, making noises such as "Fnarr! Fnarr!", "Warf! Warf!", "Tsssk Tsssk", "Chortle Chortle" and "K-Woo! K-Woo!". According to Viz Holiday Special 1988, Finbarr attends Talbot Rothwell High School, a reference to the script writer of the Carry On (film series).

A few examples of double entendres, all taken from issue 138 of Viz:

• When talking of his wife's antique camera, a man says; "I've spent many a hot afternoon with my face under her hood, flicking away at that button, trying to make those leathery old flaps open up."
• When talking of his photo enlarger he says; "I've got a small Johnson, but it can enlarge to nigh on a foot when it is turned on in a darkened room"
• When demonstrating how easy it is to take off the lens he says; "A few quick twists of the wrist and it comes off in a couple of seconds... Mind you I haven't had it off in ages, so it was very stiff this morning"
• When talking about taking pictures of people he passes on the street, he says; "I often startle passers-by when I suddenly pull it out of my trousers and it goes off in their eyes."

He is sometimes visited by his mother's Russian friend, Sergei whose English pronunciation is very bad, which results in his sentences being corrupted in often lewd ways (for instance, "Your mother wants me to fetch her aerosol" becomes "Your mother wants me to felch her arsehole"). He first appeared in 2002, having moved to the UK in order to improve his English; in more recent strips he appears to have achieved some level of success at this and accurately describes the sex acts he is carrying out, though the other characters continue to act as if he is mispronouncing innocent sentences.

Typically, the final frame of the cartoon features mother and friend going off to perform a sexual act. They even say what they are up to but this time Finbarr fails to laugh and comes up with an innocent explanation which he shares with the reader. For example, after a strip full of innuendo related to decoration and DIY Mr Gimlet is heard to say, "What a large crack, Mrs Saunders. Would you like me to fill it?" which Finbarr takes to refer to damage in the coving of his mother's bedroom. If she has sex with Sergei his bad English is reversed and he utters seemingly polite sentences to describe his sex acts (such as asking Mrs Saunders if she likes the taste of his "cake" as she fellates him).

In March 2011, the Oxford English Dictionary announced it had added an entry for "fnarr fnarr" as part of its regular update.