It's All Fairgood

Annie Wilkes, um, I mean Ann Fairgood is getting hubby Fred settled into his very own private hell when the world’s most emphatic doorbell rings: “Ding! Dong!” “Jinx? What are you doing here?” Nope, it’s not Jinx, nor even Harry Potter: seems ol’ Fred helped with another delivery about which we’re yet to be told…

41 thoughts on “It's All Fairgood”

  1. I have no idea if this is in an actual character who was represented at some point in this history of the strip. More likely, I’m thinking that Batiuk is retconning history once again so that Fred’s junk actually worked that one time. Crossing my fingers that it happened in some kind of wheeled vehicle.

  2. When you visit Batom Inc. World HQ out there in soggy, leaf-strewn mid-central Ohio and you press the buzzer at the front door, do you think a big word balloon pops out and goes “BZZZZZZ”? I’d really like to think so.

    Soooo, lame-o Fred, the guy who dragged poor, poor Annie into her shameful pit of underachieving suburban mediocrity, was busy boning half of Westview before he settled for Annie, eh? Interesting. Actually, no…”stupid” would be more apt. So now Boy Lisa has yet another half-sister of sorts. Good for him (yawn).

    But the big question is: how will Lisa tie in with all of this? Will Fred be retconned into a sleazy student-molesting creep who, many years ago, took advantage of poor, poor curly-headed Lisa in his “private office”? Will it turn out that the Fairgoods originally tried to adopt this woman before Darvon but missed out and decided to settle for Lisa’s second, dumber child? The mind reels.

  4. Will we find out the timing on Fred’s spawn? Was this before or during his marriage to Annie? And how does one say “Remember that night I stayed after the strike meeting to help paint signs? Well…” in stroke talk?

  5. I suppose it’s just a case of <Funkywinkerbeanism, but I look upon the introduction of this new character in much the way that I, retrospectively, looked upon the introduction of Madeline Ferguson.

    A character to provide a few red herrings, a couple of misdirections, a fresh infusion of blood (figuratively), and a final infusion of blood (literally) as she is brutally killed.

    The difference is that I still remember Madeline Ferguson. This new character will be remembered, at best, as “that girl I thought was Chien but, as it turned out, not.”

  6. Wait… why does daughter Failgood wait until after her dad has had a stroke to come find him? Was she even curious about him before this happened? ‘Cause… good luck getting your questions answered.

  7. Watch Fred suddenly and conveniently not be able to regain his speech abilities despite attempts at rehab in order to not have to explain this result of a passionate tryst ages ago. Nice timing.

  9. Also, wouldn’t it be cool if the doorbell said “Ding! Dong!” and someone said, “Who is it?” and a voice answered, “Uh Clem”?

  10. Lame: a retcon in which teenage Lisa was carrying two babies, and this girl was Darin’s twin.

    Could be interesting: his IDENTICAL twin.

  11. “I’m here to see Fred Fairgood. I’m his daughter… that he didn’t know about… and thus that he couldn’t tell his family about… and thus I’m dropping this enormous emotional bombshell as casually on you as I might if I were the dreaded UPS guy delivering a package.”

    That’s one way to rip the band-aid off, I suppose.

    But Jesus, try to imagine someone preparing to lay a revelation like this on someone. Who on earth would do it like this?

    “I know! I’ll go to his front door and THAT will be the first sentence out of my mouth to whoever answers the door!”

  12. “Ding! Dong!” Batiuk must be bucking for an award from the Tourette’s Syndrome Foundation too,

  13. Okay, so the stroke didn’t take him out…the heart attack he’s about to have oughtta do the trick…

  14. The same causualness as when Wally came marching home.

    Looks like we will be in for a story from the “Lighthouse”.
    OR
    TB will return to that madcap aventure: High School Madness with George Leroy Tirebitter as Porgy

  15. So obviously BatHack drew this woman(?) to kind of resemble Fishstick. And by resemble, I mean the kind girls basketball coach Annie, not the evil, you ruined my life you freakin’ vegetable Annie. Did Fred and Annie give up a child for adoption, only to adopt Durwood years later? OOOHH, how provocative! No, just ridiculous as usual.

  16. “Ding dong!”

    “You could’ve knocked or rung the doorbell. You didn’t have to say ding dong.”

    “I don’t have a name, but I’m Fred’s 20 year old daughter. Over the next week, I’ll appear to be anywhere from 15 to 60 years old, but don’t let THAT confuse you.”

    I guess we’re supposed to conclude she showed up because Fred was on death’s door. But how did she find out about the stroke? Presumably she’s been out of his life for years. Nobody knew about her. Was it in the paper, in the obit section under “watch this space for exciting new developments?”

    Brace yourself for something incredibly stupid and contrived. In other words, business as usual in Batyuckland.

  18. I’m glad you didn’t end that sentence in a preposition, TFH, or Les would have to get after you.

  19. Beckoning: “Twin Peaks” reference! Funny, as I am right now re-watching the series yet again and I’m nearly up to Maddy’s….uh, unfortunate demise. Back to Missoula indeed. Too bad Bob never visited Westview, that herd could use some culling.

  20. Unrelated to this story, when was the last time in WASN’T snowing in Westview? Every strip with a window to the outdoors shows a winter wonderland. That must be the coldest place on this globally warming earth.

  21. And Batiuk angst retcon continues. Life in Westview is miserable, it has always been miserable, and they’ve always been at war with Eurasia.

  23. So- Fred is now decrepit and incapacitated, his marriage of however many (time traveling) decades is a sham, and he’s about to meet his long lost, long forgotten illegitimate daughter (who no doubt has the cancer…)!

    The denizens of Westview call this “A Good Week”.

  24. OK, then. So Fred and Lisa had the giggety in some van, an unholy congress that produced “his daughter” and this daughter chick was raised by Les in his basement? Or what?

  25. Young Woman: “Hello, I’m Retconnie Retroactive! I’m Fred’s illegitimate daughter! Hi! How ya doin? Is my illegitimate Dad here? Is he? Hmmm?”

    Darin: “….*….”

    **SLAM**

    Ann: “Gracious! Could you keep it down, Darin? I’m getting ready to give your worthless father my speech therapy, based on my many years of teaching girls sports, which is the EXACT SAME THING as helping stroke victims!”

    Darin: “…it’s just the wind, mother.”

    ************************

    Outside-

    Retconnie: “Gee. I hope I did not disturb the family of my illegitimate father! Welp, nothing to do but camp out here on the porch in the show, wearing nothing but a thin jacket until they let me in! I’ve got to destroy any remaining shreds of hope for happiness and healing, then it’s off to my new job at Westview High! Woo!’

  26. Seriously, though, girl…PHONE AHEAD.

    (…oh. Right. Westview. Nobody uses phones, unless it’s to prove Technology is Evil or to inform of disaster.)

  27. A bit of clarification on the Westview P.O. bombing arc:

    I’d stated that Lisa “gets a job offer, teaching English to embassy staff kids in France,” which elicited a great, funny comment from Beckoning Chasm. Upon reviewing the strips, the job is “tutoring the children of American families in France.” Not too far off from what I recalled, but I am nothing if not thorough, and have updated the page accordingly.

  30. Back in Act I, Fred was a divorcee. He had a previous marriage. Batiuk apparently forgot that and did a series of strips where Fred and Ann take Darin around to show where they lived as a young struggling couple. Now, Batiuk remembered and last week we had Ann remembering that they met as teachers during the strike at Westview, and had no ‘young’ past.

    This is obviously the daughter from Fred’s first marriage, which Fred never told Ann about. What you wonder is how Fred was approved to adopt Darin in the first place when he was already by that time a deadbeat dad!

    Now Fred’s at death’s door and his past is catching up with him. The daughter he abandoned and never told anybody about has come back to wait for Fred to die and fight Ann for his estate!

  31. Darin has ZERO blood relation to this woman, who is his step-half-sister.
    Hopefully I can work this into my “Westview Family Tree”, which involves such things as Funky being far more of a “Casanova” than anyone thought (actual father of Darin, Owen, etc.)

  32. The Dreamer: Thanks for filling in the blanks re: Wrong Said Fred. I must have slept on his Act I appearance (unless there was more than one). As I mentioned during the week, it’s incredible that such a long-running comic has so, so many obscure and utterly forgotten characters, each with their own obscure and utterly forgotten back story.

  33. Funky’s great grandfather had several wives at once, most of whom were nieces and cousins. They all had children who married people related to themselves or who were all related to each other. Dominant traits in their comingled DNA include enhanced nasal growth, the ability to smile only from one side of the face, and a disease which makes them age rapidly and gain incredible amounts of weight. Dead Lisa is Freds third cousin twice removed, and also the niece 4 times removed of the lady Fred banged. Therefore if this lady was indeed spawned from Freddie’s genitalia, then she is blood related to Durwood, since Westview is a town of inbreds.

  34. Actually Fred’s long lost daughter looks a lot like Les Moore, Maybe it turns out that Fred is Les’s biological father, that he had a fling with Les’s mother, that she never told Les’s dad about.

    This would make Darrin not only Les’s stepson, but also his step-brother. As Westview turns!

  36. Are we sure this is his daughter? Maybe old Fred phoned in an outcall for a dominatrix.

  37. @TheDiva, you’re wrong we’ve always been at war with Oceania. Perhaps a visit to Room 101 (aka Westview) will refresh your memory.

  38. U not allowed to cmmoent on this unless u leik it! r u a syndicated cartoonist? eye thnik not!

    u r mkaing fun of sick pepole, trolls!

    it’s called wring!

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