So stressed is Harry over planning the Surprise Anniversary Party that he’s dramatically clutching his chest as he leaves Montoni’s. Kind of a shame that he and Harriet have no children who might take it upon themselves to arrange a celebration that they both could enjoy…what’s that you say? They have a daughter? You must mean Halle Dinkle! She’s the star of her own comic strip, created by TB for the National Association for Music Education website. A music educator like her celebrated Dad, no doubt Halle’s too busy enjoying having her summer off to plan her parents’ party.
22 thoughts on “Funky Say Relax”
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Son of Stuck Funky 
Idiots. Fly-over states idiots.
Ain’t no party like a Westview party. Even planning the simplest of gatherings becomes a wearying, tiresome, joyless chore in that wretched town. The same man who motivated many hundreds of high school students to march through monsoons is now a withered shell of his former self, completely beaten down as he grudgingly plans his dismal little anniversary party, complaining about it all the while. Meanwhile, Funky looks on bemusedly, his own many miseries temporarily forgotten as he basks in the old man’s suffering. Then it’s back to work for Funky, as he prepares to host the same old deadbeats yet again in the hopes that THIS time he’ll take home enough profit to scrape by for yet another day. Yep, that town sure knows how to party, I’ll tell you what.
I guess the only Dinkle trope left is rain, which I assume will be the Sunday gag. The only noteworthy thing about this arc is how my hatred for Dinkle seems to multiply each day as opposed to adding. The obvious joy Batom takes in drawing old people isn’t really helping Dinkle’s cause either here IMO, as my urge to punch him in the head grows with each “aren’t old folks inherently hilarious?” pose he strikes. And although I know it’s wrong to want to knock out an eighty year old man, I just can’t help it. He’s just that irritating.
What is damn tough about it? You call your friends and family, tell them to show up at the goddamm pizza place on Sunday and BOOM! There’s your surprise!
White people’s problems.
All bases covered? Let’s see:
Cake. Check.
Pizza. That’s a given.
Ice cream. Hopefully.
Music. More or less.
Montoni’s. Where else?
Mrs. Dinkle. Reluctantly.
Friends and Family. Uhhhhhhhhh…. Maybe you’re right to worry, Harry.
Bringing Halle Dinkle into the mix would require a degree of continuity from TB. Heck… most of the kids in Westview are seen more on milk cartons then within this strip.
Jinx & that Afgan daughter of Wally/Becky… Wally jr….all (3) of crazy Harry’s ….might as well all be in some sort of hitler youth indoctrination camp in West Virginia.
Okay, folks, place your bets:
Halle never appears at the anniversary party and is never mentioned: 2/1
Halle never appears, but her absence is acknowledged/explained in some fashion: 30/1
Halle is drawn in the background of a Sunday spread in a listless nod to continuity: 6/1
Halle is mentioned by name: 15/1
Halle gets a speaking line: 50/1
Halle has a significant conversation with another character: 100/1
The anniversary party is not trite or maudlin in any way, does not contain any weak attempts at music puns/humor, and is filled with people whose smiles look like actual expressions of happiness rather than grimaces of pain: 1,000,000,000,000/1
And the word anniversary raises its ugly head for the 4th day in a row. Keep spoonfeeding us, TB, we can’t keep up.
In panel 1, the part of Funky Winkerbean is being played by a particularly flabby proboscis monkey.
Clearly a strip that looks into the issues faced by teenagers.
Three panels of six completely different-looking men.
You know, if this was an illustrated version of a Ray Bradbury story–an early story, such as would appear in “The October Country”–it’d be kind of good for that.
“Come on, everyone, have a slice of cake! Everyone knows cake is better in the dark! The taste is a surprise, every bite is a mystery! Cake for all! Cake for all time!”
Then some idiot turned on the lights.
Are we even sure the Halle Dinkle strip exists at the same time as this? It may exist in a parallel universe set ten years before Crankshaft where Funky didn’t go back in time to tell himself to sell his “Starbuck Jones” thus creating a butterfly effect causing Wally’s death, wrecking havoc on the primortial soup and ensuring the earth’s inevitable destruction by a meteor.
Nope TB will probably just lazily retcon this one instead,but I wanted to say something above that would make about as much sense as the usual dialogue that appears in Funky Winkerbean.
I would assume that Dinkle’s kid is over at Citizen Khan’s, along with Crazy’s missing kids and that other comic book store guy, the short one.
“The October Game” is indeed a chilling masterpiece, Beckoning.
Meanwhile, I maintain my guess yesterday…this arc is somehow meant to invoke what happened when Tom had his RL anniversary at Luigi’s. Either Harriet’s response will be the one he wishes happened IRL, or she’ll be Taught a Lesson about Wifely Duties. Because no matter how insipid and worthless the husbands in this strip are, they are MEN and MUST be right.
They sure look like they’ve lost a lot of weight in their faces by panel three.
Maybe they should start selling the Montoni’s Diet.
But it would be one hell of a diet, it also seems to have shrunken their heads.
Gah! Loud Noses!
Little does Harry know, that the ANNIVERSARY CAKE IS A LIE!!!!!
Those Halle Dinkle comics are the pure essence of Batiuk. Turtle-faced humanoids saying phrases that fall short of being puns, or entertaining, or even infuriating. Just routine observations. He cranks out less than 6 a year, from what I could find on the website.
Rusty–did you see the one that he rewrote the dialog for and reused? Ouch.
bad wolf- I’m not sure, after hunting down about 4 of them I lost interest. do you mean the little kid in the class saying something “funny”?
Rusty–yeah. I mean, out of only 4-6 available, 2 are copies. Not exactly breaking his back doing charity work there, is he? Also lends credence to the “TB just draws ahead of time, fills in word balloons with last-minute filler” theory.