Band class is in session, and no doubt Becky feels energized and inspired after following the Dinkles around the music educators’ conference. That energy is short-lived, however, as she must deal with OwenandCody’s attempt to waste everyone’s valuable class time.
23 thoughts on “Fool's Overture”
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Son of Stuck Funky 
Good Lord, check out that pinned-up sleeve today. It’s dangling there like a salami in a deli for crying out loud. Isn’t there any alternative to just clumsily pinning it up like that? I mean the sleeve has appeared hundreds of times in the past but man, there’s something about today’s rendition that’s just really creeping me out. It almost looks like it’s alive. Much like with the word balloons, it’s like he drew the pinned-up sleeve first and the rest of the strip around it. Gak.
Another week of pitifully bad band gags featuring punchlines delivered by the two imbeciles? Great, I’ve always argued that FW needs more shitty music puns. Sigh.
Batiuk’s really missing a golden opportunity by not clipping Becky’s faculty badge to the edge of her dangling sleeve. I bet it would be the funniest running gag in the strip since the days of those talking leaves.
Heh, heh. Check it out Beavis. Her arm is like, gone and stuff!
Hyooo yeah. Cool! Like, it was ripped off or something, Butthead!
Hyeah! She’s, like, flaunting her stump.
Yeah. I like’d to flaunt my stump, Butthead.
Shut up, Beavis! Her thtudenths are like, saying thtupid thtuff, and thtuff.
Yeah. You know, that’s something I’ve , like, noticed, Butthead. These students are, like, even stupider than we are.
That’th right, Beavis. That’th right.
Cool. Let’s, like, take a dump somewhere where we’re not supposed to!
Funky looks pretty happy in the masthead. I guess he’s going to have a stroke.
Funky looks pretty happy in the masthead. I guess he’s going to have a stroke.
But with his shading, he appears to have been beaten about the face and neck.
I’m just stunned by that damn sleeve. Does Batiuk think that if he doesn’t draw it, we’ll forget that Becky is missing an arm? Did he even consider how much of a hassle doing that would be with every single long sleeved garment she owns (which appears to be most of them)? Especially one-handed? Or is John supposed to be responsible for this tiresome endeavor (it’s why she married him!)? And then, at the end of each day, she must undo all the sleeves because you can’t launder the damn thing with safety pins in it.
I guess we know why she feels so cranky and put-upon all the time. If I had to waste that much of my time on such a pointless thing, I might get a little annoyed myself.
That’s a good question, Cowen! (You are one character to me.) You see, it comes from the old French overt, meaning “open”! -ure, of course, is the suffix–
Oh. Wait. Pun. Never mind, carry on.
Becky’s sleeve reminds me of Dilbert’s tie. Scott Adams has said that Dilbert’s upward-pointing tie shows the character’s lack of power over his environment. I think the sleeve shows that just Batiuk can’t draw.
Praying to Jesus H. Christ in heaven that Drecky – oh, excuse the shit outta me – “MS” Howard loses a leg so she can run around with pinned up pantyhose. You could even pin a tiny shoe to the pinned up pantyhose. Any chance Wally could pick her up after school to take a drive to talk about old times, he panics, and rolls his BatTickmobile into a ditch? That should do it.
A week as second string to an old dried up dinkleberry and then assine antics from these 2 pimple-heads.
Batyuck continues with not allowing anyone a happy existence….Really Tom?
I mean if it would be a soulful character once in a while okay.
But every single Westview resident?
Here’s a thought… have you sought professional help to overcome your anger issues?
I don’t quite get the motivation for stalling during band class. Are they afraid of being called upon to peform something they haven’t practiced? Geez, it’s not like they’re in English class or something. Band class is supposed to be a class you look forward to.
Tomorrow: a dissertation on why we park on driveways and drive on parkways.
Today is National Marching Band Day, I’m surprised we didn’t get a reference to that. Also, I strongly suspect in Chullo’s backpack we would find a can of spraypaint and a sock. He is a huffer.
This may be the beginning of a very special story arc on anorexia.
Earlier this morning, I thought it was just my newspaper squishing the strip so they can fit it on their increasingly narrow pages… but now I see it online and Lefty is still making Manute Bol look husky.
Kids these days. Amiright?
@Charles: If I had to waste that much of my time on such a pointless thing, I might get a little annoyed myself.
Are you talking about:
a) Becky’s sleeve
b) DSH John
c) This comic strip?
Too bad Funky wouldn’t get anorexia.
I’m sick of these band strips. I’m hoping that when the school levy doesn’t go through in the spring, that the band program gets cut and Becky gets laid off. Of course the real world doesn’t interfere with Westview High where in thirty years there’s never been a teacher laid off.
You know.. I would think Band Practice would be one of those classes that you would WANT to attend. It’s not like there being bored to death by Algebra or facing the physical and mental humiliation of gym class. I mean all you have to do is play your instrument and hang around other people of your miserable ilk. I guess in the Funky universe pleasure is something that must be taken in small doses.
While Act II Becky was likable, my cold, cold heart would like to see nothing more than to see the new band director become no more than a torso and a head.
It fascinates me that Becky clips her employee ID badge onto the side without the arm. As if trying to ensure the eyes of all her fellow Westview staff members will be drawn there.
Would I be considered a Beady Eyed Nitpicker if I pointed out that the bass clef in panel 1 is backwards, and lacks the two dots on the “F” line? Or would I be right in suggesting BatBand learn something – anything – about one of the topics he’s been beating to death lately?
“And hey, fellow 60-somethings, how about these kids today? Disrespectfully wearing a smelly chullo in class, wasting teacher’s time with deliberately moronic questions, counting the seconds until the end of class… I’d give ’em a good HORSEWHIPPIN’ if I weren’t a spindly old out of touch ‘cartoonist’ living in his mom’s attic, who would likely get his block knocked off in three seconds.”
You know, I have a sort of bored fascination wondering how Tom Batiuk is going to stretch today’s situation–two morons wasting the time of a third–into a three week arc.
Like, tomorrow one of them will ask why symphonies have “movements” and yet you get yelled at if you leave to go the bathroom in the middle.
The kids seem to hate it, the instructor appears to be dead-eyed and frustrated by the whole thing, so I have to ask: why does WHS even have a band anymore? Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, BatNard needs to squeeze in a few Dinkle jokes every year and without the band there’s no excuse to shoehorn him into anything.