So, one of the reasons Bull wanted to enter the world of higher education was so he could continue the great tradition of being a huge dick to the students. That seems rather humble, doesn’t it? I mean, all the teachers are huge dicks to the students; it must be the first instruction in the first paragraph of the Westview High School’s So You Want to be a Teacher pamphlet. Being a huge dick just means you’re earning your paycheck. I guess I can’t really blame anyone in the Funkyverse for setting his sights low; ambition is typically rewarded with a cosmic swatting. Still, it’s interesting to see such a naked lack of ambition.
By the way, I went to high school and I don’t recall any teachers taking advantage like this. Everyone, teacher, student and administrator, got in line and stayed in line. Of course, there’s nothing funny about playing by the rules…just like there’s nothing funny about Funky Winkerbean. Hey wait a minute–how can Bull “get cuts” in line, when lunch itself has been cut? Is Bull fantasizing? This…this is what he daydreams about? Yeah…that’s some ambition all right.
I see that the “smart-pad” has already been dropped (by Les, into the swimming pool). Someone from Apple must have hrmm-hrmm’d at Tom Batiuk’s lawyers, and the change from “iPad” to “Smart-Pad” probably didn’t mollify anyone. Well…perhaps Mr. Batiuk has learned a bit of humility from the experience, and the next time someone uses a bit of the old Funky Winkerbean magic, he’ll…oh, okay I can’t really keep up the pretense. My sense is that Mr. Batiuk will continue taking the advice from the So You Want to be a Nationally Syndicated Cartoonist pamphlet very seriously indeed.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Hmmm. I thought Bull became a teacher at WHS because the guy who writes this strip is lazy and unimaginative. But he says it was just to be a dick and stuff his fat face, which is totally believable. Now I don’t know WHAT to think!
TB’s all out of smart-pad material, so it’s off to the grab-bag for a big ol’ handful of retcon corner-thingies, lame gags and ancient, pointless old grudges. Just you wait until that Pulitzer committee gets a gander at the way TomBat is tackling this latest “hot-button” issue facing our youth…the horrible scourge of cafeteria line-cutting in our public schools. That Batom, never afraid to embrace controversy, always hitting the issues of today head-on.
Speaking of lunch at WHS, wasn’t it eliminated in the latest round of budget cuts? You know, the ones from last week? And seriously, was it really necessary to cram Les in there today? Insult to injury IMO.
“You hear that back there, you stupid teenagers? The only reason I put up with you at all is so I can abuse my authority over you! Say, why haven’t you joined the football team? You think you’re too good to pay for the privilege of listening to me insult you some more?”
Teachers at my high school were frequently injured trying to break up student fights. They would have gotten beat down cutting in line.
And Bull didn’t look like that in high school, he was significantly taller than he is drawn today. i hate this strip.
Wow, it’s not just Bull being a dick–it’s the entire faculty behind him forming a secondary, all-cuts line. Unbelievable–and yet one of the few times when they’re completely in character.
Damn… and I had “How can a Smart-Pad make me feel so DUMB?” for Thursday in the Punchline Pool. And don’t try telling me not even Batiuk would sink that low for a gag.
And not only is Bull a dick for cutting in line, but it looks like he’s also using Les’s Smart-Pad as a lunch tray. Actually, I’ll applaud him that one.
I don’t remember a single one of my teachers in public or private school buying lunch from the cafeteria. If they did I assume it was after the students.
The Westview teachers are so poorly paid… that the school counts them as students on the Federal Lunch program reports.
Bull and company actually want to eat that slop?
Way to portray modern day teachers in sensitive & thought provoking manner.
So Bull mainly became a teacher so he could “get cuts” in line. This misplacement of “mainly” raises the question of what else he secondarily became so he could get those ever-lovin’ cuts (I can guess what – an even bigger dick than he was in high school). Batboy’s so-called “writing” usually results in about 4-6 sentences per day. Today there are three sentences and two are identical two-word phrases. How hard would it have been to ….oh, never mind, it’s hopeless, but he did pass up an opportunity to use “in the main,” so I suppose there’s a bright side.
In a way I’m relieved. I was worried that we were going to have a week or two of dull old people figuring out computers gags that aren’t really bad and aren’t really good, they’re just dull. Fortunately we’re getting more bad quality to enjoy criticizing.
Getting “cuts in line” is one of the very few perks of being a teacher at Westview HS:
Lastly: Meet Akron’s Chuck Ayers, Illustrator of the comic strip Crankshaft!
The school nurse must be working overtime, what with the deluge of students coming in with sprained middle fingers.
Cripes, I think it’s a city ordinance that everybody in Westview behaves like a troll. Well, at least we have a cameo by Fred before his stroke. Of course, TB negates something from a previous strip. Just when I can’t believe this strip can’t get any worse, it does. Congratulations TB!
Reserving the world’s largest lunch tray for the principal must be another one of Westview’s weird perks.
Imagine living in Arkron, where your local celebrities are Batiuk and Ayres. The story hints that he has some role in FW still, but doesn’t say what (other than obligatory story line meetings at Montoni’s every 2 weeks). They probably have to kick Batiuk out of that place at closing time.
Hah, in that strip TF provided it looks like varsity jacket dude is having a “soap in shower” movement with Black Lenny over there!
OT : Guys, I’m considering starting a Crankshaft Blog..any suggestions on what I should call it? My better half suggested Cranking the Shaft!
‘Shaft Cranks.
I don’t get the joke in the strip that tfhackett posted (not just that it isn’t funny, because that’s to be expected with FW). Is it me? Probably not…..
@apauled – I think the joke is that, since menus are online, the students can see beforehand what kind of frightening gruel is being served. Since they don’t want to eat this, they allow the teachers and staff to go first so the cafeteria will run out of food before they have to eat it. I guess. The joke isn’t very well set up or delivered.
I bet the cafeteria person handing people their trays also says “You got served!” and then smirks.
Thanks, beckoningchasm — that’s pretty much what I thought.
When I was in high school, the food was so bad that the staff never ate in the cafeteria & the few students who did certainly weren’t fighting to cut in line. Menus were posted on a bulletin board in the hall & we all knew from sad experience that “Friday Minestrone” would be a pot full of soggy vegetables rejected during the past week, swimming in watered-down spaghetti sauce left over from Thursday (with the meat strained out, because most students were Catholic & this was prior to Vatican II).
TB & I are the same age. He could be funny about it if he tried.
What is noticeable is just how big a dick every teacher cutting in line is about it. Look at Fred’s smirk as he pushes his students out of the way to get to the trough first, and look at how pleased Bull is that he gets to screw the students as well.
It’s one of those weird, nasty things about FW, that when confronted with a dick move, the characters, rather than treating each other better to counter the dick move, wait for a time when they too can make a dick move and screw somebody. It’s like one of those times when you know you’ve made it in Westview, when you stop being the guy who has to bend over and become the guy who bends the other guy over.
Also, look at how diminutive Bull is, and consider that TB has the temerity to claim he was a pro football prospect, playing on the line. Looking at his size, even a wuss like Les could push him the hell over.
Young Bull looks disturbingly like a young Roberta Blackburn.