Hello Snarkers! SoFsDavidO here, takin’ over for a very competent TFHackett as we get up-to-date with Westview’s senior student, Owen Muffinhead and his goat-based shenanigans in today’s strip.
Ow, my ribs! They hurt… I’ve been laughing all day since seeing this strip! The flu! Goat costumes! Cheerleaders and the losing-est football team you’ll ever see!
Is Tombat fishing for a wacky movie deal somewhere here? It has all the makings of it, assuming we’re in 1976.
Son of Stuck Funky 
On one hand, I’ll give AuthorGuy some credit for doing something slightly different for once. But on the other hand, duh. Bull has ONE wide receiver on the roster? He’s going to play IN the mascot costume? Seems rather improbable and really, really stupid. But then again, that’s always to be expected.
The wide receiver suddenly came down with the flu? Meaning that the kid was widely receiving in his regular fashion, then all of a sudden came down with the flu, in the middle of a game, and is no longer able to widely receive? And they want the chullo wearing goat, who recently left his position as first trombone, or flute, or tuba or whatever the hell this kid has been playing for the past 8 years, who just gave up that prime band position to play scape goat, to suddenly be able to widely receive a football? Is this what is happening here?
I love Westview football!
This is all a dream, right? I mean, it’s a tired plot device but it’s the only one that makes sense right now.
I’m pretty sure the world doesn’t work this way. Are you sure this strip is “reality based”?
I don’t know about reality, but I hope Owen had plenty of Wheaties for dinosaur.
@beckoningchasm
There is a zeroth dimension which is too well known to man. It is a dimension as vast as a pizza place and as timeless as a comic book. It is the middle ground between suffering and death, between tired tropes and forced wordplay, and it lies between the pit of man’s boredom, and the lack of his knowledge. This is the dimension of lack of imagination. It is an area which we call … The Batiuk Zone.
With apologies to Rod Serling
Batiuk should have been honest and had Bull say “Owen, I need you to die futilely and anonymously so I can complain about your lack of moral fiber at your funeral.” Heh!! Bull’s the Field Marshall Haig of high school football.
The football buffoonery in this strip! Tragi-comic doesn’t begin to describe the width and breadth of absurdity in this compilation of unbelievable stories and characters. To specify, (1) Scapegoats are on offense, (2) Scapegoats are losing, (3) time is running out, (4) Bull sends in the demon Azazel from the Bible. I guess Lisa’s not available to suit up.
…I feel like there’s a strip missing in this sequence somewhere.
It’s actually fairly impressive that the ‘Goats are in position to win this game, given that if they need Owen to sub for an unavailable player then they have been playing with an 11-man roster of two-way players.
Closer to a 1,000 miles than 1/4″ removed from reality, but impressive nevertheless…
Very lame jokes this week as usual but at least the strip is actually bearable when it’s focusing on the combined stupidity of the students and staff. Also love the Gus reference, remember seeing that as a kid on one of the old “Wonderful World of Disney” syndicated runs where they’d re-run all their bizarre live action movies from the 70s.
Are we to assume that the Scapegoats only have 11 players on the team and that they are playing both ways? There is no penalty for having too few players on the field, is there? If they just need to run one play to run out the clock and win, just line up with 10 players.
BTW, is that 30 year old guy in the trench coat playing for them again this year?
So Bull’s strategy is basically to take losers from detention and put them into key positions on the football team with no prior practice, training, or conditioning. I’m guessing that Owen will catch the winning touchdown pass, become a hero, and engage in an orgy with the cheerleading squad if the trope plays out the way it normally would. But this being TB, it’s more likely that something tragic will happen instead.
“But this being TB, it’s more likely that something tragic will happen instead.”
Owen the Scapegoat falls on the field and breaks his leg. A senile and blind 90 year old veterinarian in the stands hears that the goat on the field has broken its leg. Thinking it’s a real goat, the vet shoots Owen to take him out of his misery.
The understudy takes over in an emergency & prevails! Wasn’t new in 1933 (“Morning Glory”, Katherine Hepburn) nor in 1950 (“All About Eve”, Bette Davis) but still a wonderful plot in the right hands. Which we don’t have here, of course.
@Apauled – or to put it in the vernacular of all those 1930’s Warner Brothers musicals, “Kid, you’re going out there as a mascot–and you’re coming back as a mangled heap of bones and organs!”