Wait a sec, does this mean that yesterday’s exchange wasn’t just a pointless nostalgia trip for Wally and Dinkle? Oh no, it totally was, but in today’s strip we learn there is a purpose to their likely use of a week’s worth TB’s valuable printed panels, Dinkle has formed a little band at Bedside Manor.
For those that do not remember, Bedside Manor is Westview’s local assisted-living facility, the residence of Funky’s father, and possibly the deathbed of Act III-era Crankshaft. Whether this band deal came about because Dinkle started hanging around Bedside Manor spouting band directing advice after Lefty finally changed the locks or because some of the nursing home staff saw him talking to his wife one day and reasonably assumed Dinkle was an AWOL resident will likely be left to our imaginations. We may, however, find out how little Dinkle’s band is. Small enough to fit in the band box, perhaps?
Son of Stuck Funky 
So now Dinkle is actually stealing WHS property, eh? I’ll be SO disappointed if the cops don’t show up and beat Dinkle to a pulp.
I guess the (sigh) “joke” here is that (just like high school band students) putting together a senior citizen band will be nothing but trouble for ol’ Harry. Har har har, let me catch my breath. And it was mentioned yesterday, but where the f*ck is Buddy? He’s the only likeable character in the strip, don’t write HIM out!
“Are you out of your mind? Thinking seniors could play in a band! Why that’s as ludicrous as a deaf man conducting one!”
I’d say the majority of folks in nursing homes are in seriously bad heath, and aren’t really in any condition to play the trumpet. Guitar, or psaltery, or something like that? Maybe, and it might be a good focus for them. But, you know, never let facts or research get in the way of a lousy joke.
Dinkle’s already in today’s strip, and I guess Batom® has a “one dog limit.”
Dinkle: “I appreciate you doing this, Wally. Then again, it’s not as if you actually had anything else going on. Just your return to college, your life as part of a newly blended family, your PTSD and service dog….what’s that compared to dropping everything to help me, the guy you kind of, sort of knew and loathed for a few years during high school as your insane band teacher? NOTHING, that’s WHAT!”
Wally: “College? New family? PTSD? ….*….it’s almost as if the only reason I’m here is as a flimsy, transparent attempt to prove the strip hasn’t completely abandoned any character below age 59.”
Dinkle: “Toot toot. Toot toot. What beautiful noises I will make.”
Dammit Batiuk, wasn’lt being a POW twice, almost blown up by a land mine, dismembered his girlfriend and too PTSD to go outside without a dog enough indignity, you have to resort to male pattern baldness too?
I make a living driving to assisted living facilities here in Richmond, Va. Help folks get back on their feet.
Nobody I meet at any of these residences would appreciate Harry Dinkle-types visiting, not at all! Maybe Funkywallygaypromdate would be welcome, but not this blowhard.
When Dinkle shows up, everyone would act all interested in Thepriceisrightyoungandtherestlessellenjudgejudy.
Huh, circa-2015 Chevy Chase make a dementia joke is somehow worse than I originally imagined it would be…
Batiuk is part of a sandwich generation–he feels contempt for young people and seniors at the same time.
“Bedside Manor”…jeez. Why does this particular dumbass pun always bug me in particular? Maybe it’s the close association with one of Batiuk’s favorite subjects: old people wasting away. He never hesitates to remind us that it is a place which exists.
This should be good. Crankshaft lives there and he hates Dinkle like poison for being the only person more reckless and stupid than he is.
If he wants hints at arcs that might have some relevancy depicting contemporary issues affecting young adults in a thought-provoking and sensitive manner…………………….
he might want to look at the latest arc in uh………………………………..Luann
So what are they going to name this band? “Coots with Toots”? “The Bedside Mannerisms”? “The Last Breaths”?
–I’ll be SO disappointed if the cops don’t show up and beat Dinkle to a pulp.–
Is there even a police department in Westview? I can’t recall seeing a single policeman in Westviews since Dick Tracy wandered in. I just assume that the town is run under Funky’s greasy fat iron fist.
“The John Philip Snoozas”?
@$$$WESTVIEW ONCOLOGIST$$$:
Wasn’t Corey arrested or apprehended once? Other than that, there’s never been a realistic police presence. Staton and Curtis had to make it all up in that failed Dick Tracy crossover arc when they realized just how unmarketable and unlikable the characters in Funky Winkerbean really are.
After all, the post office bombing arc was never solved (it was solely an exploitation arc that abused St. Lisa the Cancer Chew Toy), and St. Les the Righteous Smirker effectively apprehended Pete “Plantman” Moss, who killed off My Father John Darling Who Was Murdered.
@bobanero: Knowing that Batty has a penchant for truly offensive names, “The Last Breaths” may be pretty close to the mark.
yes indeed nothing like hearing the Stars and Stripes forever to perk the old ones up. The hell?
I don’t know why it bugs me so much that Dinkle no longer deaf, but it does.
Hairlines, noses, character names- it’s all too, too much for BanTom® to keep track of…
“f he wants hints at arcs that might have some relevancy…he might want to look at the latest arc in uh………………………………..Luann”
Dear God, no. If that happened, Antonio Gonzalez would somehow be able to circumvent his ban here, come in and graphically insist, in his trademark smarm, that Mallory and Cody are totally having sex because she smirked at his stupid pun.
Just as he’s doing on eighteen other comics sites at the moment.
A week without Les is like a week without a migraine