If Funky’s been fortunate at all, it’s when it comes to servicing his business needs for cheap or even free. He got the multitalented Darin to singlehandedly develop a bespoke Montoni’s app. Adeela provides architectural services for a server’s wages (minus tips!), and who needs a sign painter when you’ve got Wally? When finally he is forced to pay an actual professional, the job turns out to be a prolonged nightmare.
What Funky really needs to hire (or take unpaid advantage of) is a hospitality designer, an interior decorator for restaurants. Just look at the tablecloth in today’s strip. That acid green, buffalo plaid tablecloth that looks like it’s made out of the traveling green shirt. That green does not tie in with the green stripes on the Italian tricolor awning, nor with that grimy, red velour cafe curtain in the window. Behind which sits those late 80’s “dusty rose” colored walls. On second thought: instead of that hospitality designer, I’d think I’d like to see chef Michael Irvine give the pizzeria the Restaurant Impossible treatment.
P&PB&J
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Son of Stuck Funky 
Clicking on the link to today’s strip doesn’t work. I’m sure that’s a good thing, but I’m the sort of guy who’d check out the dark, cluttered basement in a horror movie, so what do I know?
The link to today’s strip isn’t working.
Thanks, fixed.
Uh yeah, like he hasn’t been living on pizza since he was in high school. Nice try, Tom. I mean did he forget that Funky owns a restaurant or what?
Yeah, this is worse than that time Garfield had only lasagna to eat!
I have a complaint, TFHackett: The link to today’s strip works.
Yeah, Funky? How long did you survive on that diet before rigor mortis set in?
I would pay real cash dollars to commission a ‘Kitchen Nightmares’ fan comic arc for this strip. The idea of Gordon Ramsay screaming at Funky, “THIS SAUCE IS DOGSHIT!”
FUCKIN’ RAW!! IT’S RAW!!! LOOOOOOOOOOOOK!!
PUSH THE WHOPPER BUTTON!!! Oh, wrong context.
SUPERMAN DESTROYED BUSINESSES! SUPERMAN DESTROYED LIVES!
He wouldn’t fare much better with Robert Irvine (not Michael, if i may kindly mention). He would rip up any outdated decor and throw it in the dumpster with no mercy, not to mention possibly taking out a wall with a Thor-like hammer. And that’s not including what he might do to the menu.
I would pay real money to watch any Funkyverse character be held to any realistic standard of behavior or performance.
STOP ME IF YOU’VE HEARD THIS BEFORE: Two or more Montoni’s employees are shooting the breeze, slurping their free bottomless cup of coffee or Pepsi or playing grabass while there isn’t a customer to be seen in 50 miles.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present your Chairman for the Westview County Chamber of Commerce… How’s he supposed to spur local businesses when his is always empty?
“Winter-long”? So they were working through the pandemic? Except the reno started before anyone mentioned the pandemic, which means they must have been working for over a year, except it’s only been a few months, which means…oh no, I’ve gone cross-eyed.
It’s a good thing Funky hired Wally as a manager. There’s no way Rachel could have handled this…
Wally’s Missing Panel Three Word Balloon: “Oh, yeah? What place are you ordering pizza from?”
No wonder Funky’s such a poor mozzarella dealer. He’s getting high on his own supply.
So we can add “home renovation” to the long list of things TomBa finds annoying. I wonder if he ranks it better or worse than “playlist suggestions”?
This strip actually works a lot better if you change the order of the panels:
The only other change was to remove “no… that” from Wally’s word balloon, since the rest of it is no longer the answer to a question.
Another example of why Batty really needs an editor.
But I am enjoying Crankshaft. It’s nice to see idiocy being punished for a change. You have no idea how to run a movie theater, you select movies that only Batty would like, you deserve to fail. Idiots!
As a bonus, they ruined property values in the neighborhood so much that an adult entertainment venue is looking to move in. Lisa would be proud!
I’m surprised they didn’t try to hold a special showing of “Birth of a Nation” for the local NAACP and Urban League…
(Ironically, although the movie’s subject matter is indisputably vile, it was a quantum leap in completely changing what the public and artists thought could be possible in the scary new medium of moving pictures… And it has more cultural/historic significance than “Radio Ranch” or any other cheesy bullshit on Batiuk’s top 10 list…
And there’s reason to believe that DW Griffith’s techniques were inspired by watching the earlier Italian film “Cabiria.”
At least Crankshaft is interesting today:
https://safr.kingfeatures.com/api/img.php?e=gif&s=c&file=Q3JhbmtzaGFmdC8yMDIxLzA1L0NyYW5rc2hhZnQuMjAyMTA1MjFfMTUzNi5naWY=
Frankly, this sounds like a much better use of the theater space.
Better chance of making money, for sure. How TomBa can lionize effing “Phantom Empire”/”Radio Ranch” and disdain Adam West’s Batman at the same time, I will never understand.
And it wouldn’t be so bad if these two losers were at least were clever enough to have some fun with this cheese by hosting “MST3K” – style parties or something (or God forbid, actually showing some of the GOOD films from that era)… But no, we’ve got to build a shrine for ‘serious’ lovers of 1930s dreck.
I’m starting to think Batiuk’s dad or uncle or some other relative was a producer or writer of “Phantom Empire”/”Radio Ranch” back in the day
It’s not even a shrine for 1930s dreck! It’s a shrine for The Phantom Empire and nothing else!
Doh, all I had to do was scroll down one more post to find yours. Sorry for the duplicate topic.
It’s funny because they’ve been spending all week lovingly remembering all the times they did it in the theater along with their son being born in it… It’s almost like the Valentine Theater was the “third person” in their sexual three-way along with being a midwife.
OH, BUT NOW THAT SOMEONE MENTIONED “TITTIE BAR” THEY WANT TO TURN THEIR NOSES UP AND GET ALL PRUDISH AND MORALIZING…
*takes a long drag off of a crumpled cigarette, chases it with a lukewarm fountain Diet Pepsi, then stares directly into the sun* I wonder what Les is up to…
Oh, please, please, please let that be the plot. Tom Batiuk railing against titty bars, and then defeating them with the power of Radio Ranch, would be the best unintentional comedy in years.
It’s probably an ex football player from Big Walnut Tech that is looking to buy the Valentine and convert it into a strip club.
Jocks are like that. They would love to ruin an old theater.
Maybe it’ll be Frankie again.
STOP SAYING “RENO” NOBODY SAYS “RENO” UNLESS THEY’RE GOING TO NEVADA TO SHOOT A MAN STOP PLEASE I AM BEGGING
Six Chix actually had a “reno” joke on Wednesday.
Shouldn’t that really say it all?
Owner/operator of an Italian restaurant does not know how to cook. I am perplexed as to why the NYC Montoni’s failed.
I think the joke (“joke?”) is that he hasn’t been able to use his kitchen, not that he doesn’t know how to, although that is probably also true.
Judging by that beak he’s sporting in panel 3, it looks like Funky is getting ready to migrate to the strip “Shoe”…
Nothing to do with today’s strrip but I just paid a visit to Batiuk’s Funky Blog. He’s talking about a forty-two year old issue of THE FLASH.
Discussing the cover Batiuk says, “The Grand Comics Database wasn’t able to tell me who was responsible for this gem so I’ll make an educated guess and say Ross Andru pushing the pencil and Dick Giordano splashing the ink.”
I went to the GCD, looked up the issue and found,
“The Flash / cover / 1 page
Pencils
Dick Giordano
Inks
Dick Giordano”
Apparently the GCD is something else Batiuk does not understand.
At least he guessed the inker correctly.
Not only that, it’s right on the front page! You don’t even have to scroll down! The website search takes you right to it! How the hell did he not find it?
“Patience” and “Fortitude” are the names of the large marble lion sculptures that flank the broad steps of the NY Public Library main branch at 42nd St and 5th Ave.
When I saw the words in the SOSF header at the beginning of the week, I assumed that was what Batiuk would be referring to, since he has such an hard-on for New York’s landmarks. I half think Funky’s words were actually a reference to the lions, but if it were, I don’t think Tom could let it pass without spelling it out to impress us with his “cultural knowledge.”
Yeah, I bet you are correct. Batty loves those kind of Easter eggs in his strip.
I just read the “bespoke Montoni’s app” strip for the first time. Darrin.. that’s not how that works. That’s not how any of that works. At all.
Flunky & Wallaby look like they are sipping turds in a cup,