Well, I figured last week’s light-hearted, rather positive view wouldn’t last. Still, it was fun while it lasted. It may never happen again, but the fact that it did means that it might.
Today, the joke has been done before and better in this same strip. I think it was done just a couple of months ago, though the “better” didn’t come into play then.
I’m not sure what else there is to say; the only personality these students have tends to be somewhat loathsome, so I can’t really sympathize with their plight. If there’s anyone in whose corner I find myself, it’s the lunch-lady, once again having to deal with these cement-heads.
I thought Glasses (I can’t remember who’s who) was supposed to be the smarter of the two, so I’m puzzled by his use of the word “landed.” Is there a food fight going on, with various flying objects zizzing around? Does he think erasers are self-propelled, or that they’re manned by a tiny crew of aliens? What the heck is a “cheese square” anyway–does the cafeteria just drop a brick of cheese onto a plate and say “There you go”? Actually, I imagine that’s exactly what they do in the cafeteria since they hate these kids. Everyone hates these kids.
Well, my time in the torture chamber is over and done, so please welcome David O as your new dungeon master, starting tomorrow!
Son of Stuck Funky 
A: Cheese squares.
Q: What are the individual panels in a FW Sunday strip referred to as?
I initially though it said “boron gravy”, then “bioken gravy”. Then I stopped caring and gave up. Turns out I missed nothing. I wonder if those two mush-heads will ever graduate? There is no way they’re only in their fourth year at WHS.
@Beckoningchasm, ” I think it was done just a couple of moths ago …”
Hmmm, a Freudian slip perhaps about the usual plot holes in the strip I imagine.
Be fair, with airlines no longer serving meals and hospitals being co-opted by the Serious Drama arcs, cafeterias are the only place left for “industrial mass-processed food sucks!” jokes.
Goth Middle-Aged Girl needs a new agent; no dialogue in the script for her once again. Since Batiuk hasn’t invested enough time in her to give us a hint of any personality trait (assuming constipated doesn’t qualify), I have no idea how she feels about cafeteria food or is even listening to these dopes.
Thanks to the Act III recap, yes, Cody & Owen started in fall 2009 and are at this point fifth-year seniors.
This would at least lend itself to some better gags about scoping out the freshman girls. “They keep getting older and we just stay the same age alright alright alright…”
Nobody ever calls a piece of cheese a “cheese square!” And nobody ever mistakes things that have accidentally landed on a lunch tray as erasers. Erasers don’t fly, and people don’t generally throw erasers around, but it’s high school hi jinks, so who knows? It’s all 20th century classroom technology, anyway. As well as 20th century cafeteria jokes. And that goth girl is definitely from the 20th century!
When are these lumps going to graduate? They’ve been in school for five years. Mr. “Quarter-Inch Away from Reality” strikes again.
DOlz–I read it as “months,” so unless someone stealth-edited me…still, I like the idea of “moths” being a unit of time in the Funkyverse. “Moths” being a bit slower than Langoliers….
Only 2009? Seems so much longer than that for some reason. Rare to see Cody get “top billing” too. At one time it appeared as if he was the “top dog” and Cory was his dimwitted hapless sidekick, but over the last few years it’s gone the other way around. Owen’s developed a whole “look” for himself, he has that twenty-six year old girlfriend he sneaks into the school and he courageously finked on Wedgeman that time. Compared to Cody, he’s downright cool.
Owen & Cody are oddball characters in that they have no connection to anyone else or any part of FW “history”, so to speak, at least as far as I know. Owen isn’t anyone’s wayward nephew or stepson and Cody doesn’t have a cryptic set of bio-parents or anything. It’s hard to think of any other regularly featured characters you can say that about.
Maybe the reason that they haven’t graduated is that they’re characters in a book Les is trying to write based on his own experiences. After all, he and his set did spend twenty years in high school as well…..
I suppose that terrible school food does qualify as a contemporary issue affecting young adults.
@Beckoningchasm, yep you were stealth-edited. With my amazing typing skills (cough) I copy and paste whenever possible. I suspect TB, after all why allow organic word play to exist when we know the best word play is torturously and painfully brought into existence by the most convoluted means available.
I don’t know how many of us here also read the Comics Curmudgeon, but I suspect it’s quite a few. For those of you who don’t (and you really should, FW isn’t the only strip that deserves snarking), Droopy Says had a comment that also belongs here. “Phantom: If the Phantoms really do fight piracy, cruelty and injustice, when are they going to battle the tip of Batiuk’s felt pen?”
dolz2014 = DOlz.
Owen: “Pardon me, but the food in he
Owen: “Pardon me, but the food in here is terrible! And it comes in such small portions!”
Lunch Lady: “Wow. One of the jokes that killed Vaudeville. And you, a 21st century high school student, are using it without a hint of irony or awareness.”
Cody: “It’s kind of a pity, really. In the hands of a Jerry Juhl or a Carl Reiner, this is exactly the lame sort of joke that could be made golden again with a bit of creativity and timing.”
Lunch Lady: “The God of Westview has neither. Now take your %^^&**-in’ cup of cherry crisp and GO.”
Alex: “…*….why do I keep having lunch here? I’m 46 years old!”
Everyone is forty six. Even Durwood and Barbie’s kid is forty six.