*(Pronounced “Too Lame”)
What’s with the “pronounced Tor” gag there in panel four? Another sly dig at Hollywood? In order for something to be an “inside joke” someone else needs to get it, so I don’t know.
So poor, poor Klabichnik is annoyed and frustrated by his sub-cretinous students…there’s a theme FW rarely touches upon. It might make more of an impact if it wasn’t the punchline of every single FW teacher/student gag, but then again probably not.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Isn’t Ish Kabibble the Ultimate Tool who wastes classroom time with his bad, labored puns?
And you may well look smug, Silverfish. At long last you’ve got a chick looking at you in something other than nausea.
Again writing so far in advance has betrayd him, as Ultima Thule was renamed to “486958 Arrokoth” in November.
And these teachers and students wonder why they can never pass a school levy…
It really is a terrible punchline. “New Horizons gets data back to earth faster than I get through to these darned modern kids!”…that’s terrible too but at least you can tie it into the premise. He wants to reconsider an early retirement buyout because of a minor malapropism? What town is HE from?
Gee, and here I’m wondering what kind of insufferable little feeb would be so self-satisfied after making reference to “the Thor movie,” regardless of pronunciation, since to date there have actually been three different Thor films, with the main antagonists to date being Loki, Malekith, and Hela, none of which sound like “Ultima Thule.”
Of course, we still have to wonder why a science teacher in 2020 is bringing up a satellite probe launched in 2006 with the express purpose of investigating Pluto (back when it was the ninth planet) and other trans-Neptunian bodies such as the aforementioned 486958 Arrokoth, which it did late last year. This seems oddly specific a detail for even a high school astronomy study. But, of course, nothing is as astronomical as the lengths to which Battyuk will go to to shoehorn in one of his “guaranteed-to-bring-down-the-house” puns.
You’re right, it was a long way to go to shoehorn in a pun, especially when you don’t have a punchline in mind. “I wish I could retire right now” is not a punchline.
It may not be a punchline, but I think it accurately reflects the sentiments of the author.
It’s got nothing to do with the Thor movie per se– lemme ‘splain.
Todd just had to call attention to his erudition by belaboring that HE knows that Thule, the northernmost USAF airbase in Greenland, is pronounced “Too-lay” by the Danes/Scandinavians. Whereas the Greeks pronounced Thule, their name for the farthest northern point they could name, as “Thoo-lay” because they spelled it with a fucking theta [Θ] instead of a tau [T]. The ancient Latin “Ultima Thule,” was presumably pronounced the same, so the Scandinavians are doing it wrong.
Hence the ponderous nanny-finger dig of “*pronounced Tor,” because the Lard of Langwidge is gonna admonish those those Scandi-dummies for not being consistent in how they pronounce words. Even though “Thor” is Old Norse, not Greek or Latin, and would only be pronounced “Tor” if you’re the sort of asshole who thinks “tunder” accompanies lightning.
Sorry, left off a vital /b.
I come for the snark but I stay for the deep dives into the Batiukian mind. Well done, sir.
Coming from you, that’s praise indeed! OTOH, the thought that I came up with that deep dive makes me feel like an FBI profiler who can mind-meld with serial killers – more than slightly nauseated and really wishing that I didn’t know what blood looks like in the moonlight.
I honestly can’t tell here whether Todd thinks we should all be pronouncing the god’s name as “Tor” to match the Danish “Thule” or whether he thinks the Danes are just assholes who shouldn’t be allowed near anything Greek or Latin.
I guess either way you slice it, Todd knows for a fact that someone’s doing it wrong and he’s going to make fun of them for it.
Batiuk thinks the Norse deity was named after Tor Johnson. “The Inspec-Tor is dead–murdered! And one thing’s certain–somebody did it! Valhalla, he is coming!”
Cow Thules.
You know what would stop this, Jim Shlabotnik… Kabitchnik… Hitbyabrick… Dumbshitdick… whatever the hell your name is:
“Bernie, that’ll be detention for wasting the class’s time.”
I mean, the only downside to that is that every student might think you’re a massive dick, but as we’ve seen, that’s something no faculty member at Westview High cares about.
The elephant in the classroom is that his year-long lag time means that he’d had no idea that there would be no beefwit students to torment Beardo The Weirdo in the first place.
Like Batiuk would let a mere epidemic interfere with a display of his “wit.”
It’s incredibly lazy. He could have scribbled out a replacement strip or run a “classic Funky”.
Westview High has three teachers and two janitors.
And by the looks of it, only the janitors do actual work.
The teachers are all bunch of dicks. One would have thought that old Mr K would have enjoyed that pun.
Also, by the looks of it, Funky is a janitor at WHS.
Wow, even Mary Worth is quoting Thomas Moore, thus soiling the memory of Lisa. Nice work Karen Moy!
Only 728 days to go.
I would have guessed a top-of-the-line ski rack.
Charles Schultz did this gag better… Jeff MacNelly in ‘Shoe’ did it MUCH better…
Anytime a teacher asks “what” instead of “why”, you know a lameassed setup is coming.
And this is what I personally think of when I see “Thule”: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02hbsyk