Well, Jff, I guess your tongue-tied nature might be explained by the fact that this is a huge surprise to you, unaccustomed as you are to public speaking…except that all of this was your idea in the first place. As Mason points out, the whole reason everyone is here because of you. Given the fact that this strip goes out of its way to praise its characters for the slightest reason, did you really think you’d sit in the back and be ignored? Sure, sure, that’s what we wished would happen, but that never counts.
I have to hand it to Tom Batiuk for his optimism–every time he brings in characters from Crankshaft, I imagine a mythical Funky Winkerbean reader saying, “Wait, there’s a whole other comic strip full of characters like these? Where can I find this magical realm!” And, since Mr. Batiuk never names “Crankshaft” in these cross-overs, said mythical reader is left saddened by the fact that he will never find this other strip. Why, it’s a two-for-one!
Son of Stuck Funky 
So this moron finally gets to tell his dopey Junior Spaceman story to a group of people who might actually care and…ahhh forget it. He’s just stalling for time here until it’s time for pizza and we all know it.
Considering how actually planning things out is so alien in the Batiukverse, I don’t want to imagine what Batiuk’s wedding was like.
So Mason just calls Jff (who’s wearing a tuxedo for some damn reason) up on the stage, with no warning to Jff, no advance planning, with no idea what he was going to say? I suppose doing it in any other fashion would break from the half-assedness that has defined this production since it was first introduced, so at least it has that going for it.
Although I suppose we should be glad that he didn’t have Jff deliver a manifesto about how he saw the Starbuck Jones serial there in 1953 or something and how he drank Ovaltine and decoded vague messages trying to sell him stuff with that stupid damn ring. And how Starbuck Jones saved his life since his mother was such a horrible person who stabbed his Starbuck Jones comic books when he didn’t take care of them or something, which is like the worst thing to ever happen to a person. After all, when Jff was first introduced in this stupid sequence, he wanted to regale his family with his stories about watching Starbuck Jones in the Valentine theater, which his family quite obviously wanted to avoid.
Either way, after this underwhelming appearance by the guy who was central to this whole disaster taking place, I suppose The Load is feeling like a complete asshole right now.
Jeff probably knows or at least recognizea everyone in the theater, so I don’t know why he’s nervous.
Because writing.
One day without Less.
Why does Jff have two sets of eyes in that last panel?
They just look droopy to me. Moreover, his morose continence suggests he’s an ancestor of Pete’s.
BC: I always wonder about the FW readers (LOL) who have no idea that “Crankshaft” exists. Do they assume the CS crossover characters are new characters? Or maybe that they’re old FW characters they just forgot about? It must make FW even more confusing to follow….assuming that there are any such FW readers, of course and that’s certainly not a given. I’ll believe it when I see it.
The fact that CS is FW’s lesser-known and lesser-followed companion strip just blows my mind. I wonder if any “just” Crankshaft fans exist? Like a die-hard Ed fan who just refuses to get all caught up in BanTom’s “other more serious” strip? I mean there’s probably at least one, right?
I’m kind of disappointed that Jff didn’t deliver a speech in code, so that only the fellow junior spacemen in the audience would understand it.
Anyway, it’s a pretty classy move to coerce a movie production to go to great expense to set up a world premier event at your son’s crappy theater and save him from bankruptcy and not even bother to utter the words “Thank you” when given the opportunity to express your gratitude in front of the people who made it all possible.
Class and Jeff Murdoch do NOT go together at all well. For anyone who might care, he seems to be where Batiuk parks his mommy issues.
This is supposed to be Jeff being humble and not wanting to hog the spotlight but, as mentioned, makes him look like a total nitwit. It’s like someone expecting people to follow his other strip while never actually bothering to name the main character.