Oh, poor, poor Dinkle. He can’t find the free pizza, so his breakfast was cheese and candy. I may just burst into tears over this development.
Three days of this crap and Becky hasn’t had a single line. Looks like she was in the middle of a conversation when Dinkle just roared in and shut her down. Of course; Dinkle has to be the center of attention at all times.
And Batiuk’s really going out of his way to deny her any dialogue. You’d think she’d be the one talking about Dinkle’s Deficiencies, but no, it has to be some random passerby. Which makes sense in this world–after all, Dinkle is known and beloved by the entire high school band community, past, present and future, so of course they’re all up on his current state. I hear there’s even a newsletter, with a circulation of several hundred thousand.
What’s really surprising is that no one has taken him in hand and led him to the pizza table. But…I guess that might imply that there’s someone wiser than he, who knows where the pizza is, and Batiuk cannot have that. So, I further guess this means that no one has been able to find the pizza table. Because there can’t be anyone better than Dinkle in anything. Why, he even schools them in how to whine like a baby!
PS: The “Rand Curdy?” in the masthead made me think of Monty Python’s “Lemon Curry?” So there’s an extra laugh.
Son of Stuck Funky 
“It’s sad to see a band director . . .” Yeah, but he’s not a damn band director. Also, how hard can it be to find pizza? Every conference or convention I’ve been to has a map, and usually the food is all in one area.
Also, walking up to a one-armed person and griping about losing your touch seems like a gray area, at best.
This can’t be a huge conference with hundreds of exhibitors. How hard can it be?
LOSING HIS PIZZA SENSE???? OH NO!!!! If his comic book sense goes he’ll be exiled from Westview forever. And that’d be unfortunate.
Batiuk is actually doing pizza gags during a band director arc, which can only mean one thing…he’s finally out of band director gags. Why, soon he’ll have to resort to recycling old band director gags, which is (chortle) simply unheard of in the Funkyverse.
I sure hope he loses his CANCER SENSE!
Every Westiviewian loses their last shred of dignity at birth when the umbilical cord is severed.
I don’t think Dinkle is losing his touch so much as the pizza people have gotten wise enough to run and hide from him, just as I wish we readers could do.
Just as loud music has destroyed his hearing, eating the horrible sludge Funky misnames pizza has destroyed his ability to find the genuine article.
Band Directors and pizza? Ugh, ok. Cute gag. That’s the best you could do. Those band directors attending the OMEA conference thought they were getting extra days out of the classroom, but the joke is on them, schools have been closed here due to the cold weather.
Did you know Dinkle has a daughter who is also an Ohio Music Educator?
Batiuk drew some strips featuring “Halle Dinkle” for the website of the National Association for Music Education. She even showed up in FW for the Dinkle’s anniversary. You would think he’d maybe run into her at one of these things.
Named after the locally famous Halle Brothers Dept store in Cleveland. I do have fond memories of that store. Not because I liked to shop, but because I liked to ride the old elevators there. The old annunciator panel was still there and you could watch the lights as the cars moved up and down. Agh….now it’s all high end condos for urban hipsters that think that living downtown is cool.
We here at SoSF do love feedback from real Buckeyes! TB couldn’t name Dinkle’s daughter “Harriet” because he’d already used the name for Harry’s wife (Harry marries Harriet, what are the odds, right?) Outside of Hollywood, “Halle” is not the most common girl’s name, so the Cleveland connection makes sense!
I’ve been reading FW for six years and I’ve never heard of her. Another offspring flushed down the memory hole.
Like a few years back when Bull brought out his field goal kicking daughter Mickey. I had no idea she even existed. I don’t remember Dinkle’s daughter either, but Act II featured a veritable shitload of obscure long-missing characters, like that guy who ran the OTHER comic book store and, of course, Crazy Harry’s family.
Didn’t he drag his wife along, as well as Becky, one of these past years so they could both silently listen to him sputter?
You are correct, sir!
Ha, he showed her. Why she always gotta be cutting him down?
Rather than pay registration fees and travel to Cleveland, couldn’t he just wander around his local warehouse store scarfing free samples and save himself the trouble?
Cleveland is probably closer to Westview than the nearest non-comic book retailer.
Query why we have never seem Dinkle in Montoni’s then.
Well, if he really has a “PIZZA sense,” he probably wouldn’t pick up Montoni’s.