According to panel two, it sure looks like Dolt McMoron has crapped his pants magnificently. I suspect he is either reacting badly to the horror he is witnessing on the field (what Bull calls “athletics”) or he’s making a sincere attempt to blend in on his Westview visit. I don’t know why he’s going on and on about elementary coaching…I thought he was the one interested in Bull’s abilities, but I guess no one in this strip really knows how to yield the floor once they get on a roll.
What I’m more concerned about is the pun used here. I’m not a user of puns by nature, but isn’t this cheating? I looked at that pun for a while and it didn’t click, because I was going, “Payton Mann? Payton Manners?” before I remembered that his actual name was Payton Manning.
So, punsters…can you do that? Base a pun on only half a name? I mean, it seems to me that it would be okay if Les was talking about German literature and he said, “There are a lot of Thomas Mannerisms,” or, conversely, if Dopey Pete said 80’s TV had a lot of “Michael Mannerisms.” Both of those name-puns look “okay” to me, as puns, because both of those use the full names. Terrible as they are, they sound “legit” (as much as any pun can).
But based on today’s terrible, terrible offering, it sure sounds like if I wanted to make a joke about sports on the Moon, and I said the number one event was “Neil Armwrestling,” that that’s just fine (as a pun, remember). Or say there’s a drawing of Funky tossing spices onto a pizza and saying “I call this my Barack Oregano.” Both of those sound like cheating to me.
So, I really feel there should be a penalty flag here. Of course, stepping back a bit from the pun edge, the content of this strip is so nothing that a penalty seems almost cruel, like getting a speeding ticket for going 31 in a 30 mile zone. (Or, perhaps better, going 29 in a 30 mile zone.)
In other words, another desperate attempt by yours truly to find something to say about this strip, four days into this dull arc, falls flat. Time to hand it over to the pros. Have at it, snarkers!
Son of Stuck Funky 
Now really, between the last Super Bowl and the ever-looming issue of retirement, hasn’t Peyton Manning suffered enough lately without this?
In the FW comic strip, TheAuthor will often use godawful puns and incredibly stupid bits of wordplay in lieu of using actual jokes. We call these “Tom Batiukisms”. I wonder how long this gag was sitting in the “someday” pile? Probably for years, right next to that DUI gag. Just imagine how bad the “outtakes” pile must be…(shudder).
Yes, Batiuk fancies himself a lover of clever wordplay and punning. Yet the examples he offers often fall short of being actual puns. Puns, BTW, are the fucking worst.
Some similar puns that would’ve been less of a cheat:
“The hurry up offense can be pretty hectic and crazy. We like to call it Cam Newtonian motion”.
“The hurry up really wears our guys out, and dirties up their uniforms. We have a guy to take care of that though. We like to call him “Tom Laundry”.
“The problem with practicing the hurry up is that our defense doesn’t get much time to rest. This can create some of what we like to call “Fran Tarken-tension”.
Or “Troy Aikmannerisms”.
Geez, @space… don’t give Bats any ideas!!
Honestly, it’s like he’s explaining football to somebody who just learned about what football is a couple days ago. Is Bull an amnesiac who hasn’t known how to play football since his senior year when that concussion happened? Was he forever crippled by amnesia and allowed to remain at the school indefinitely? Was he sent to a mental hospital which was the exact facsimile of his former school in his latter days? Has he been living a false life of coaching fellow mental patients, forever destined to continue until his most elderly days? WHY IS A GUY EXPLAINING BASIC FOOTBALL TO A FOOTBALL COACH?!
@HAnzMFG: The stupidest part of this all is that the guy who needs everything explained to him is the guy’s apparently up for a new job. It’s like if a librarian came to me and said she was interested in hiring me, and I immediately asked her to explain to me how a table of contents works.
Peyton Manning uses crazy amounts of dummy calls and audibles at the line. He made “OMAHA!” famous last year. But yeah, whatever, TB.
I hope DUI gives Kathy Ireland the place-kicking job.
Or would this all be more like Tom Batiwhatthefuckisms
We gotta throw the ball down the field really fast and hope that somebody catches it! And then runs all the way to the end zone! It’s called the “corn Dog with Mustard” play, or maybe the “400 Miles from Saskatchewan” play. He’ll, you can call it the “Hands Down your Pants” play. Just don’t look so stupid during our stupid interview, Bull!
By the way, where’s Jarod?
Oh, how wonderful fall can be in Westview! I see where this arc is going! Last year Captain Wedgie was kicked off the team for shaking down middle aged goth girl for her fiber supplements! Who knows what the repercussions will be now; will it affect Bull’s chances at coaching football at the refrigerator repair school known as DUI? Only ALOT of time will tell.
What’s really amusing is that this is all about the hurry-up offense. That’s because Batiuk is taking forever to tell a non-joke that offends by being extremely stupid and poorly executed.
Subjecting your audience to cringe-inducing puns in comic strips can often be done both successfully and hilariously. For excellent examples, see “Pearls Before Swine” by Stephen Pastis.
I’ve had the pleasure to attend one of Mr. Pastis’ book signings. On his national tour of bookstores and libraries across the country, he gives a presentation about becoming a cartoonist that is filled with groaning puns. His audiences love it. When Mr. Pastis signed my copy of PBS, he shook my hand. I met Stephen Pastis, the reigning king of bad puns. I should have bowed down before him.
Tom Batiuk, I know Stephen Pastis. You sir, are no Stephen Pastis.
The trick to using a pun correctly, as shown in Pearls Before Swine and The Far Side (I’m not sure which newspaper comic is better at this) is to play the pun with stone-faced seriousness. Batiukverse characters always have to break the fourth wall and telegraph the pun with walleyed stares of horror and/or schadenfreude smirks.
I mean, this is even before we get into the fact that the wordplay generally isn’t very clever or that the puns don’t smoothly fit into the narrative, other key elements to making a pun joke work correctly. Batiuk should stick to physical comedy, one of the few times in which I can unironically laugh at his comics. Too bad Funky Winkerbean is too ADULT and SERIOUS for the comedic stylings of Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, and Jackass.
Bull’s probably thinking “Yeah, I got a quarterback who knows only the hand gestures and signals necessary to hook up with a dime bag! Hand gestures. Scapegoats probably more familiar with hand jobs, but always good to try something new.
Offensive players are generally fixed in position at the line, and can’t turn to look at the quarterback’s hand gestures without risk of being called for a false start. Quarterbacks customarily rely on audibulls to convey the play call in the hurry up offense.
The disadvantage of working a year ahead… TB missed out on using a Cleveland QB in this not-quite-pun. Johnny Manzerisms is really just as good as Peyton Mannerisms.
There are no outtakes. There are no outtakes.
The only way this strip could’ve been save is if there’d been a third panel with a Batiuk at his drawing desk, and Bull telling him, “Kill yourself, please.”