Apparently Dinkle, who’s obviously spent way, way too much time hanging around that school, has no idea how actual tunnels work. And apparently TheAuthor, who’s spent way, way too much time re-visiting one of his old Act I stalwarts, has no idea how to make Dinkle funny without invoking his old, long-since dead and buried persona. Or even when he does, as aptly demonstrated today.
Of course the one glaringly obvious flaw in this “joke” (other than the aforementioned tunnel fail) is that Dinkle, who apparently NEVER leaves the school grounds except for infrequent sex romps and massages, must have seen the big inflatable football helmet before. But for the sake of his creepy fantasy, the reader has to pretend this is the first he’s heard of it. OK Tom, whatever. Like I always say, no point in having suddenly start making sense now.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Didn’t Dinkle appear with Becky in last year’s giant, inflatable football helmet strip? Even if he didn’t, he had to be close by just because it seems like he’s never more than an arm’s length from Becky at all times. And you just know Dinkle’s scheming to find a way he can work his big balloon head fantasy into his bedroom decor.
wasn’t there a strip about stupid big helmet a couple yrs back ??
I’m no big inflatable football helmet expert, but I’m pretty sure it only takes up a small portion of one endzone. And most high school bands can’t fill out a third of a football field.
Come on, Becky. I’ve seen winter percussion groups set up their show (including backdrops and props), play it, and take the whole thing down in eight minutes flat–surely you can find somebody to move an inflatable football helmet on and off the field without too much fuss.
On another note, panel two may be the most disturbing thing this strip has seen in a good long while.
I wonder what the band did at the end of the pregame show, yell, “SEIG HEIL!”
TheDiva: You mean the band exiting via Dinkle’s mouth or that gigantic smirking Dinkle head? Either way I agree.
And why would he imagine such a relatively small inflatable head? I mean they have to bend over just to exit the thing. If you’re gonna dream, dream big.
Such a deal: 2 giant, scary Dinkle Heads for the price of 1!
LOL.
Meanwhile the rest of us see Tom as using a different orafice other then Dinkle’s mouth
I just don’t understand this, at all. Do high school bands usually have weird inflatable giant opened mouthed heads spewing forth the band members? Maybe I was brought up in the wrong part of the country.
‘Cause I got Pac-Man fever
It’s drivin’ me crazy
I got Pac-Man fever
I’m goin’ out of my mind
Now we know which is Dinkle’s favorite Sean Connery movie.
“Dinkle speaks to you, his chosen ones. The trombone is good; the football is evil.”
As I recall, the giant inflatable football helmet went up in flames the first time they tried to use it, so I can’t very well imagine they would continue to try to use it. TB is desperately mining for comedy gold, which used to be the image of Harry Dinkle in his outrageous band costume, but that ship has sailed long ago. Time to work on some new tropes, Tom!!
Wow…Dinkle was fantasizing about having teenage band members in his mouth? Just when I think Tom Batyuck couldn’t possibly be any creepier…he goes and TOTALLY REDEEMS HIMSELF!
Giant mouth swallowing smiling band members whole…….cross promotion for new Linda Lovelace biopic???
“Funky Winkerbean is a reality-based comic strip that depicts contemporary issues affecting young adults in a thought-provoking and sensitive manner.”
TB should sell panel 2 as a poster, it would definitely outsell the old poster of Dinkle exclaiming “football fields are for band practice!”
Of course, the target market for this poster wouldn’t be high school band directors. Well, incarcerated former high school band directors maybe.
@Flummoxicated: and don’t you forget it!
Hey gang, news from the outer Funkiverse:
I am a retired educator, as are many of my friends, and while late summer often brings the “back to school” dream, it has never, to anyone’s recollection, brought a ” my giant head regurgitating students” dream.
We keep being told the school is desperately short of funds, so much so that actual teachers are being let go. Yet buying a giant inflatable head for the losing football team is a justifiable expense? Not to mention that the giant inflatable head was DESTROYED by the team’s cletes (on their shoes)…which means that this poor beleaguered school bought ANOTHER one. Come on, Tom, at least try to be either consistent or funny–one of them would be fine, two of them is beyond hope.
As for Harry’s fantasy about swallowing all the band members, I’m going to leave that to the psychoanalysts.
“Dammit, Betsy, in my day I could vomit a better band than this!”
+1 for the ZARDOZ reference. LOL at remembering Sean Connery wearing a diaper or a wedding dress for most of the film!
Do a GIS of “Sean Connery Zardoz” and you will agree with me that if former segregationist Alabama governor George C. Wallace and actor Burt Reynolds had a love child, it would be 1970s Sean Connery!
I know this has been brought up numerous times…but isn’t Harry Dinkle going deaf? If so, why is he risking serious damage to his tympanic membrane by hanging out in Band Practices…he isn’t even running???!!!
Dinkle: “Giant inflatable football helmet? Wasn’t that destroyed within days of it being purchased?”
Becky: “I have no idea what you’re talking about. By the way, how’s the Tragic Hearing Loss, Harry?”
Dinkle: “Never mind. Though, you’d think a school so perpetually short on cash since the evil, stupid voters rejected the levy wo-”
Becky: “What was THAT?”
Dinkle: “….nuthin.”
Am I the only one that finds the last panel kind of gross-looking?
Carrie: Nope.
Two words – Human Centipede.
I have no words for this creepy disturbing comic today.