FIVE characters and an astounding EIGHT word balloons in a two-paneler…just imagine if he’d have filled those word balloons with some actual content. This story might have been going places! Unfortunately though, this is FW and things just don’t work like that around here. More words = even less action in the Funkyverse.
Cindy’s descent into one-note trope hell is complete, as she’s ALREADY sexually threatened and seething with white-hot jealousy over seeing her husband interacting with a co-worker he’s known for years. That was fast. A little subtlety might have been applicable here, you know, like an eyeroll or something. But again, things don’t work like that around here. Funky is the fat one, Wally is the jittery one, Lisa is the dead one, Bull is the dead one and Cindy is the implacably jealous and insecure one and that’s just they way it is.
It’s really stupid, though and more than slightly, uh, reductive, I guess. Mason sees Cindy cozying up to Les and doesn’t give a damn, Cindy sees Mason chatting with a co-star and she’s boiling with hateful fury within seconds. Sure, I admit it, I notice when there’s cleavage in the strip but next to the guy who writes this thing I’m like freaking Gloria Allred. He took the most traditionally “successful” character (male or female) in the strip and turned her into an insecure teenager, strictly for laughs. Attempted laughs, that is.
Son of Stuck Funky 
One would think that Marianne being so excited that she can’t even tell us would cut this story arc down a little bit… but it’s only Tuesday.
*groan*
Batiuk needed EIGHT word balloons to explain how Marianne is unable to articulate how excited she is. He could have easily told MONTHS worth of story with those eight word balloons, but he filled them with this gibberish instead. And filling in the balloons is all he even DOES now.
Aren’t Cindy and Les a pair? She’s thrilled to the gills and he’s as fishy as ever.
Come on, Les, hurry up and suggest–sarcastically, of course–that Cindy could play Lisa just as well as Marianne Winters.
Marianne is delighted to see *both* Cassie Daycares? Somebody must have hit her extra-hard over the head this morning.
Wait, someone who fumes at the drop of a hat, screams at clouds, and thinks every soul on earth is out to ruin his life is telling someone to dial it back?
Now Les gets to act superior as though he’s not as jealous of Ghost Lisa as Cindy is of Mason.
Yeah really. Marianne Summers, the object of Les’ intense hatred, has entered the room, and he’s not even reacting. And the ridiculously jealous Cindy didn’t react yesterday to her kissing Mason.
This whole thing reads like an old “I Dream Of Jeannie” episode where Jeannie gets angry and jealous over her “master” going out on a date with some astronaut-chasing 1960s go-go chick. That was like all of them, right? Remember, when this part of the cancer movie mega-arc began Mason was more or less lecturing Cindy about not getting jealous and ruining the chemistry reads, just like how Major Nelson would order Jeannie to behave.
That makes Les the Major Healy of the episode, caught in the crossfire. Or maybe Les is the genie bottle, I dunno. Either way I just wish I could be a character in the strip for just one day so I could stab Les in the eye with a rusty railroad spike, roll him up in a carpet and throw him into Lake Erie.
1. God damnit Cindye, if she wanted to steal your dimwitted, marginally talented man (who despite being a multimillionaire celebrity, dresses like someone’s grandfather just back from the golf links) she probably would have done it during the first movie, y’know?
2. We were told years ago that Masone was the one who is “bi——————-polar” but nobody on the planet has mood swings as fast as Cindye…
3. Nice to see that after giving her husband and Les her personal assurance that she could keep her violent jealousy in check, Cindye didn’t even pretend to hold it together for 30 seconds…
4. I don’t care… If Cindye fucks this up, Masone should call security and his divorce attorney right then and there because three years is enough to indulge anybody’s neuroses, especially someone with near-infinite dating options like Masone. There was no way that Cindye’s storyline was ending up anywhere except for her returning to Westview broke, sadder and not wiser… And only then will TomBa have her looking and acting her real age…
5. As others have noted, I can’t figure out why Masone went through this charade with all the other women auditioning like Les would know the fuckin’ difference… All he had to say was he wanted Marianne and he was making a command decision…
6. As I noted before, if it was always going to be Marianne, why was she allowed to miss months of intense Lisa research? She didn’t take the New York tour? Hell, her ass has never even been to Westview, much less slept at the Moore house…
Because remember, Dick Facey was opposed to casting Marianne, so now they have to backdoor it by tricking Les into seeing how she’s perfect for the role. It’s all a big charade to work around Les Moore’s disagreeability.
But what the hell is his stake in trying to make Les happy versus actually finding the right actress for the job? Locking in on Marianne and auditioning a bunch of patsies instead of opening it up to real competition does a disservice to the studio, too…
Not to mention that it’s an enormous waste of money. It’s a small vanity project, not a superhero action blockbuster. BatBrain seems to think that “every” movie production is free to squander countless piles of money without a second thought.
I was about to say that Marianne had been to Westview for the Starbuck Jones premiere, but then remembered that took place in Centerville.
Remembering that just made me throw up in my mouth a little, and I normally love asinine minutiae.
Ugh, oh yeah, that stinky decrepit old movie house they all love so much. Blech.
Wait a minute. Does Les mean “Easy, girl” as a way to calm down Cindy and someone forgot the comma (one would think the Lord of Language would catch that), or is he in fact expressing his displeasure with Ms. Winters by saying she’s an “Easy girl,” the type of pleasure-seeking libertine that could never express the chaste virtues of Dead St. Lisa?
Also…”I knew from the minute I was putting this together”? Did Masonne just confess that he planned all along to hire Marianne, and this whole exercise was just a put-on to ease Whiny Complainwriter’s childlike tantrums over a mere mortal gurrl trying to fill Dead St. Lisa’s oversized ’70s hairdo?
And lastly, is it just me or does Cassidy’s panel two profile, from the crown of her scalp to the tip of her proboscis, form a perfectly smooth ski jump?
I think he means “easy, girl” like she’s a dog or a horse or something. And why the f*ck is Les calling Cindy “girl” in the first place? Just like how he never could forgive Bull, BatYam just can’t stop rubbing Cindy’s nose in it to make her pay for past high school transgressions…transgressions he himself wrote. It’s really pretty f*cked up if you ask me.
Crap crap and more crap. Damn, it’s Monday night and I’m already clocked. Unlike Les, I’ve got a day job. Man, it’s going to be a long day. But seeing Cindy getting pissed off, well that makes everything right. I’m pouring another one.
Dark lipstick and tousled hair signaling that Marianne has gone from fresh faced ingenue to Hollywood seasoned worldly woman.
And we’re in for four more days of Cindy acting way too high school. Yuck.
This has to be the first time in Hollywood history that anyone gave a damn what a high school teacher thinks. Yes, it’s as ridiculous as it sounds.
Well, they did listen to Frank McCourt, they’ll do that if you have a Pulitzer.
So, given the high school-centric concept underlying this strip, are we on track for an eventual “nerd gets prom queen” Les and Cindy matchup?
This is getting to be like the Joe Besser 3 Stooges: recycled shorts with Joe’s scenes edited in.
But without the talent.
Imagine being one of the actresses in this set. Your agent told you this might be a good role and lets you co-star with this hot action star. You get on the set on time, like the true pro you are. You then do your best performance with the shitty you’re saddled with, while a creepy man on the back keeps looking at you like a piece of meat and muttering about your looks. You’ve fucking aced the audition, you think.
And then this other actress strolls into the set late, and then the lead actor/executive producer starts gushing over the two of them having great chemistry together and that she was his pick for the role since the very beginning. Imagine finding out that you wasted your time and money over this farce of an audition.
There is so much stupid packed into this one.
“Marianne, you know our producer Cassidy Kerr…” No, she doesn’t! Why would she? They didn’t work together on Starbuck Jones or anything else. And if they do know each other, why are they talking and acting like they just met for the first time?
“I knew from the minute we were putting this together, you were our Lisa!” Mason, it’s bad enough that you want to transition from hell’s version of Star Wars to hell’s version of Love Story. But the only costar you can think of would have to make the same awkward move? There isn’t anyone else in Hollywood who can play a cancer wife, if only so Les’ precious masterpiece doesn’t become a de facto comic book sequel? What a horrific lack of imagination, both by Mason and by the strip’s writers.
Also… you’re supposed to be tricking Les into thinking this is a real audition, dumbass. When you loudly announce you wanted Marianne all along, you kind of give that away.
Fortunately, Les doesn’t notice, because he’s too busy trying to get into Cindy’s pants. Look at his third panel expression and tell me that isn’t his endgame. They already had that whole “ooh, I’m so mad you wouldn’t date me in high school, tee hee” conversation on the way over. It would also explain why Les’ apoplectic rage suddenly dissipated when Marianne, the only actress he has any reason to rage against, entered the room. Les saw an opportunity to check off the biggest box on his high school revenge checklist. You don’t seriously think his marriage to Cayla, or even Lisa, would be an obstacle to that, do you?
I’ll give Mason a point for this, though: if I was a young A-list movie star married to a useless, juvenile shrew 25 years older than me, I wouldn’t give a shit if she cheated on me either. That may be the most realistic thing in today’s strip. Can you imagine Cindy losing her Hollywood lifestyle because she cheated on her much younger movie star husband? With LES MOORE? She’d be an E! punchline for years. And a Westview punchline for the rest of her life.
And now, the next stupid thing in this scene… Marianne hasn’t even auditioned yet. Today’s strip clearly flows directly from yesterday’s: Marianne just walked in the door, and they’re already giving her the part. Seriously, you’re not even going to have her read it as a formality? When Mason just said “you owe me a hot table read”, Cassidy hasn’t seen her act in person, and this whole thing is, again, an effort to appease Les that a real audition is going on?
Which leads to: why is Cindy mad? They’re just talking. She should have been mad yesterday when they kissed. Does she not want Marianne to play Lisa either? Maybe not, but a different woman would just play Lisa instead and your insane jealousy would have the same problem. Idiot.
Finally, the absolutely worst line of them all.. “I love it… I think we’re ready then, yes?” WHAT??! You’re the fucking producer, Cassidy! You don’t ask permission! You decide! Or at least you appoint a director who decides… oh, wait, the director’s not even here! And… you didn’t even appoint the director! Mason did! Why do you even exist?
Meh. I’m going to wait for the Mark Trail movie to come out.