Finally! Dinkle and the alumni band show up in today’s strip… though Jerome T. Bushka A&L Automotive Stadium looks suspiciously like St. Sprires church and the alumni band doesn’t have any instruments (though they all look to be about the age I would expect). Weird.
After the throwaway panels, you almost could have convinced me that a computer wrote this. Former marching band director plays music from famous composer. You could generate this gag, such as it is, with a UNIVAC… though I think the UNIVAC would spit out dialogue with a little more flair.
And with that, I’m out. Tackling tomorrow’s tantalizing strip and taking to task the next two weeks will be the incomparable Spaceman Spiff.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Folks, we have reached peak wryness. There isn’t even really a gag here, it’s more of a weak and very stupid observation that exists to remind the reader that Dinkle did in fact direct a marching band, a fact that really didn’t need to be reiterated. Was anyone actually clamoring for a St. Spires choir update? And if so, who and why?
Yeah, John Williams totally owes everything to this guy. Is there any wonder that hatred for Tom Batiulk continues to rise to unprecedented levels?
Just… how?
Wow, he managed to offend church goers and Star Wars fans with on strip. Well played Batty.
SHIT!
That feeling of relief: “At least the pointless Holly the abused Stockholm-Syndromed burn victim ankle cracking for no good reason arc is over” didn’t last long, did it? When will I ever learn? However unbearable the last arc was, the next one will be so much worse. Always and forever. Steel boot stamping on human face forever stuff. (I think it’s the smirks that push me over the edge.)
Well, the “Homecoming Holly” arc threatened to bombard readers with a lot of Dinkle but only featured him in four panels, so I suppose we can tolerate today’s one-off appearance…lacking in humor though it is.
“Indulge me”; Panel Two Harry’s smirk makes it seem as though he thinks he’s putting one over on the St. Spires congregation with his “Star Wars” riffs (reminiscent of that “Simpsons” episode when Bart slipped “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” into the church organist’s sheet music). Has it ever been established that Dinkle is an actual St. Spires member or at least holds to the denomination’s tenets, which I would think some churches would insist on?
Hail, I. Ron Butterfly!
When the “Will Harry Get the Coveted Role of Church Organist? Yes, Obviously, He Gets Everything He Wants” arc was in progress, I looked up ads for church organists, out of curiosity. Interestingly, many of them did not specify that the organist had to be of the same denomination. Some churches seem to look on it as simply a paid position, like a carpenter or facilities maintenance person. That might reflect on the market; is there a shortage of capable organists who will accept a relatively low salary? If so, perhaps the churches can’t afford to be fussy about the organist’s beliefs.
As a side note, isn’t it interesting that time and time again the SoSF’ers go off on research tangents and end up learning interesting things, while Tommy can’t even do literally 10 seconds of research? Yes, 10 seconds. That’s how long it took me to find out that, for example, choir robes can easily be had for about $20 each.
(My personal pet peeve is the gardening arcs in Crankshaft. He’s made obsessive gardening a personality feature of Crankshaft’s, but he consistently gets every aspect of gardening wrong, from the names and functions of gardening tools to the broad strokes of planting seasons. I’m sure he’s surrounded with gardeners out there in NE Ohio. But he can’t talk to an actual gardener; he can’t do basic research online, or take a basic gardening book out of the library; no, First Thought Best Thought. The Great Tom Batiuk is never wrong, beady-eyed nitpickers be damned!)
Sure church organists get paid and don’t have to be congregants. Didn’tya ever see Carnival of Souls?
It’s been mentioned before but the answer lies in one of his blog posts, one of a few which I believe serve as the Rosetta Stone to his mentality.
https://funkywinkerbean.com/wpblog/batom-comics-the-untold-history-part-11/
As is agonizingly made clear with this post as with so many others day after day, none of the inaccuracies matter. He writes whatever burps out of his cranium and pockets the money.
Another such of a Rosetta stone post substantiating the mentality is found here:
https://funkywinkerbean.com/wpblog/batom-comics-the-untold-history-part-9-2/
He repeatedly says it in the text there. It’s all made up anyway, so who fucking cares. Nobody who’s giving him a paycheck seems to mind, and that’s all that matters.
However, if you take offense with or get angered by his mentality or the duplicity between that and how he describes his work – as if his work, which he freely admits is fully imagined and irrelevant, simultaneously has such merit and relevance that it elevates himself above others within the medium – well, that’s your fault.
When the “Will Harry Get the Coveted Role of Church Organist? Yes, Obviously, He Gets Everything He Wants” arc was in progress, I looked up ads for church organists, out of curiosity. Interestingly, many of them did not specify that the organist had to be of the same denomination. Some churches seem to look on it as simply a paid position, like a carpenter or facilities maintenance person. That might reflect on the market; is there a shortage of capable organists who will accept a relatively low salary? If so, perhaps the churches can’t afford to be fussy about the organist’s beliefs.
As a side note, isn’t it interesting that time and time again the SoSF’ers go off on research tangents and end up learning interesting things, while Tommy can’t even do literally 10 seconds of research? Yes, 10 seconds. That’s how long it took me to find out that, for example, choir robes can easily be had for about $20 each.
(My personal pet peeve is the gardening arcs in Crankshaft. He’s made obsessive gardening a personality feature of Crankshaft’s, but he consistently gets every aspect of gardening wrong, from the names and functions of gardening tools to the broad strokes of planting seasons. I’m sure he’s surrounded with gardeners out there in NE Ohio. But he can’t talk to an actual gardener; he can’t do basic research online, or take a basic gardening book out of the library; no, First Thought Best Thought. The Great Tom Batiuk is never wrong, beady-eyed nitpickers be damned!)
Apologies for the double-post. WordPress seems to have it in for me lately.
Wow, talk about awkward dialogue! Why on earth would the minister preface his question with “Indulge me”, as if he didn’t have a perfect right to ask?
And the strip shows Dinkle playing from sheet music. How would he end up going off and unconsciously improvising a riff from “Star Wars” during the service? Is Mort’s dementia transferring to him?
I’ll stand up for opening with ‘Indulge me’. It does the same work as ‘May I ask’ or ‘I was wondering’, but suggests the minister speaks more floridly than the average person. That’s not much characterization, but it’s one day’s strip. Plus anything that marks a person as not being Les Moore is good characterization.
Once again, Dinkle’s head is grossly out of proportion to the rest of his body in panel #1. Is Harry somehow related to H.R. Pufnstuf or Mayor McCheese?
Barker: Ladies and gentlemen, please come to the Westview Freak Show and see the man with the giant head.
I guess it’s only fitting to have Harry’s head size match his ego.
_______________
It’s somewhat nice to see St. Spires actually has a religious leader. I figured Dinkle had taken over that role too.
Rev. Dinkle: No need to pass the collection plate. Band candy will be available for purchase after the service. Today’s sermon is ‘Claude Barlow: Madman or Genius’.
What is the priest’s or ministers’ name? Reverend Flathead? Reverend Flattop? How many planes does your head carry?
_____________
I’m sure somewhere out there a reader is thinking “Squee! We played the Star Wars theme in my high school marching band! Yay, Funky Winkerbean! Hooray for Dinkle!”
I tagged him as Reverend Flattop, but Reverend Flathead works as well.
Given that he’s asking Dinkle for an indulgence, it would seem he believes that Dinkle’s authority is level with the Pope’s.
Actually, I prefer Reverend Flattop too. The guy’s hair reminds me of the villain Flattop Jones from Dick Tracy. That reminded me of Flattop being portrayed as a dangerous criminal in the Looney Toon The Great Piggy Bank Robbery. Daffy Duck is Duck Twacy. Flattop is featured with miniature airplanes launching from the top of his head.
Reverend Flattop knows who runs
BartertownSt. Spires.Flattop was good, but the best Duck Twacy villain was Rubberhead, who “rrrrrrrrubs” people out with his pencil eraser noggin. As Duck himself says, “Fantastic! And, furthermore, it’s unbelieva…bull!”
The inimitable Mel Blanc.
My little brother has always been a huge Daffy Duck fan. He painted a portrait of Daffy for a high school art class. It’s hanging in his guest room now.
Neon Noodle!
Hey, Dinkle’s finally playing that organ he was hired to play! And it only took, what, six months?
Yeah, because Star Wars comes right after the Book of Revelations, so…church.
Dinkle playing Star Wars during a church organ performance is the sound of one hand clapping. Hear me out on this:
The “sound of one hand clapping” riddle is a theoretical construct, intended to make you consider a deeper question. What’s going on in this comic strip is also a theoretical construct. It’s a sound that can’t exist, for a variety of reasons: it’s too recognizable; it would be too jarring a shift from church organ music; it could offend churchgoers; it’s a complex piece that would take a lot of practice to learn, and so on.
Tom Batiuk wants us to answer the question like Bart Simpson did:
He wants us to try and imagine the actual sound, because it’s the only way this joke works. We have to find a literal answer. Which of course we can’t do, so we dismiss the strip as nonsensical. And Batiuk continues to wonder why he doesn’t win writing awards.
But there’s no deeper question here either. There isn’t a different way to look at the problem. It can’t be answered literally or figuratively. Funky Winkerbean is full of this kind of closed-ended self-contradiction. We saw it this week: Holly’s majorette shows were always rained out, but she always set herself on fire during them. These can’t both be true, at least not without further explanation. You could pass this off as the old “I had to walk to school uphill both ways” humorous exaggeration bit. But Funky Winkerbean is very literal, and its author constantly writes that we should take it seriously. And there are even more problems with today’s strip I could go into.
A story can have contradictions, but they still have make sense on some level. The famous comic strip example is the nature of Hobbes. Bill Watterson invited you to let Hobbes be whatever you think he is. He could be a stuffed animal, a living creature, or the manifestation of Calvin’s superego. And the stories still worked. Funky Winkerbean is the opposite. It’s very rigid and rote. The strip will plainly tell you what’s happening, what the correct resolution is, and how you’re supposed to feel about it. There is no room for alternate interpretations, not even from different characters within the story. Tom Batiuk only gives you one answer. And it’s always wrong.
I think I follow your argument and see your point, and it certainly explains the issues in the Sunday strip. (Your analysis has also given me a framework to reconcile my decades-long struggle with the final episode of St. Elsewhere.)
Great moments in marketing: “You know who we could name our line of high school band shoes after?”
I guess someone forgot to pay the bill over at the Comics Kingdom. The site is up and running, but there are no 10/03/2021 comic strips.
That’s two weeks in a row. I’m not renewing unless they get their shit together. I want to read the Sunday comics on Sunday morning. Is that too much to ask? What the hell am I paying for?
At least I can count on Son of Stuck Funky to have FW available to view (with snark).
And Crankshaft, if you’re interested:
https://safr.kingfeatures.com/api/img.php?e=gif&s=c&file=Q3JhbmtzaGFmdC8yMDIxLzEwL0NyYW5rc2hhZnRfaHQuMjAyMTEwMDNfMTUzNi5naWY=
Batty loves having rooms above garages (ripped off from Happy Days), and rooms above pizzerias.
She can’t afford to rent a storefront in the Westview Arts and Entertainment District in the up and coming SoM neighborhood. (South of Montoni’s)
PS: great commentary here today, thanks for all the great links!
Maybe Lillian’s next book will be Murder At The Virtual Book Fair
Thank you.
You’re paying for the privilege of having innocuous words censored. “Mort looks like he had a stroke” — CENSORED. “Dinkle played the organ” — CENSORED. “Lisa had breast cancer” — CENSORED. Even without those “offensive” words, I can’t count the times when the most innocuous post has been put into perma-moderation. I’ll go over every word, rewrite, repost, and it still gets rejected. It’s infuriating.
Naw, I’m allegedly paying for the convenience of reading all of my “favorite” titles on one webpage and receiving a daily email of the same. The Comics Kingdom has failed to deliver on both counts today.
Yeah, I know what you’re grumbling about. I just want to post a comment, not make a major project out of it. I’ve only written three comments on CK since early August. I simply lost interest in commenting there. I really only commented on Funky Winkerbean anyway.
I can’t bring myself to pay for access to a web site that, if it was handed in as a first year web design project, would receive an F. Seriously, why is it so hard to keep comicskingdom.com working properly? All it does is basically serve up jpg’s
I also subscribe to GoComics. Heck, I’ve been subscribing to that site before it was even GoComics (MyComicsPage took over Comics.com and became GoComics). GoComics has a lot more titles, and the annual subscription is cheaper (for me). I can’t recall GoComics ever being down in almost 20 years!
I’ve only been a Comics Kingdom subscriber since April. Comics Kingdom forced the Toronto Star to utilize their crappy new web interface.
I wrote a program in Java to pull a lot of my favorite webcomics and display them on a single webpage. If I can do it…
The Comics Kingdom website appears to be functional at this time.
It’s apparently only functional if you’re a premium member. And if I access the comics via seattlepi.com, I get Saturdays.
Williams himself has famously “borrowed” from other composers, such as Holst, Elgar, Bartók, and Dvořák, among others. It would have been dryly amusing if Dinkle had been playing, say, a sacred music piece by Elgar, and the passage in question had been recognized because it had been borrowed by Williams.
But instead, we have this nonsense, wherein Dinkle somehow improvises while leading a chorus, and somehow inserts movie soundtracks into the worship service to the approval and amusement of the pastor. Example #4,507 of Dinkle obnoxiously overstepping his boundaries and being even more successful and beloved for it.
To your point regarding church music that has secular connections, the “Jupiter” Movement of Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” contains a theme later adapted by him under the title “Thaxted”. The melody has been used for a number of Christian hymns and secular songs. It was played at Sen. John McCain’s funeral. (To be clear, so far as I know, that theme hasn’t been quoted by Williams.)
What did Dinkless do? Play the Star Wars- The Imperial March (Darth Vader’s Theme) while the Rev walked down the aisle?
Nope, he’s playing the Main Theme. The notes in the staff actually match it pretty closely.
I wondered if the notes actually meant something, but I was never good at sight-reading and I was too lazy to work it out otherwise. Thanks for doing the heavy lifting, so to speak.
no matter what Dinkle played it will never hold a candle to this:
“My high school marching bands played a lot of John Williams.”
No, Harry, they did not. Did they play either of the themes he wrote for “Lost in Space”? The themes he wrote for “Time Tunnel” and “Land of the Giants”? How about the soundtracks he wrote for “Towering Inferno,” “Poseidon Adventure,” and “Earthquake”? Or the music he wrote for Alfred Hitchcock’s “Family Plot”?
Did your high school bands play any of those pieces, or for that matter anything from Williams’s extensive body of work other than the music he wrote for “Star Wars”?
I thought not.
It’s a minor thing, perhaps, but I get the strong suspicion that neither Harry nor his creator have the slightest idea that Williams wrote a wide and varied body of work. In the pointy bald head, John Williams = “Star Wars,” and that’s the whole story.
The moment I read your comment, Hannibal’s Lectern, I could hear the second “Lost in Space” theme in my head being played by a marching band. I searched it up and yes — thankfully, someone had the bright idea to arrange it for marching band! And perform it at the Rose Parade, no less!
Forgive me if this link shows up weird, I’ve never tried embedding a video before…..
Marching band plays "Lost In Space" season 3 theme at Pasadena, CA Rose Parade • Jan 1, 2015 from Brad Rushing on Vimeo.
You did it right, it just looks a privacy setting doesn’t allow remote embedding.
Actually, that one struck me as plausible. John Williams wrote so many famous TV and movie themes (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Jaws, Superman, Gilligan’s Island) that I can imagine most scholastic bands have learned multiple ones. Especially if your school’s athletic nickname ties into one of those themes.
Definitely plausible. If you’ve been in any sort of band within the past 40 years, you’ve most likely have played a Star Wars piece (the Main Theme and Imperial March being the biggest ones). Between my daughter and me during our band days, we’ve performed both of those, along with Raiders of the Lost Ark, Fiddler on the Roof and various Harry Potter themes. Still not a good reason to insert it into the middle of a church service, but you know, it’s Dinkle.
Well, this reminded me of a video I haven’t thought of in a while…
Here is a guy doing a four-part lip sync to an a cappella song about Star Wars, where the tune of the song is a medley of Williams’s most famous non-Star Wars themes:
That’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Indiana Jones, Superman, E.T., Jaws, Jurassic Park, and then Indiana Jones again. (In hindsight, I’m surprised they didn’t slip the Harry Potter theme in there too.)
Wow! What an amazing creative performance! The contributors to this site are amazing. Come to vent snarky criticism about a troubling comic strip and stay to be entertained and informed!
This is such great a online community, from the hosts to the posters that it makes me hope that TomBa’s Funky Winkerbean runs for another twenty years so that SOSF stays active.
For my part, I don’t think recalling a random YouTube video makes me an “amazing contributor”. But I’m glad I was able to brighten your day.
Batty is still out of it as far as COVID-19 is concerned. That’s quite a packed house, with nobody wearing a mask or maintaining a safe social distance.
How silly of me. Of course, it’s a packed house. Drop whatever you’re doing! Dinkle is playing! Let’s go listen to God’s gift to music! 🙄
Since this Spring, my church has had one indoor service at 9:30 AM. Proper mask-wearing and social distancing are required when inside. Chairs are set in groups so that people can sit by the household. There is an option to listen to the service on the radio from the parking lot. At 10:45, there’s a Drive-In Service in the rear parking lot. We can bring a lawn chair and sit near our cars when the weather is nice.
Ouch. Look at all those downvotes. Message received. No more COVID-19 church posts. Sorry.
Believe it or not, someone has actually written an article about spiritual and religious aspects of John Williams’ music.
https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/full/10.3138/jrpc.2017-0014
Much as I hate to defend the Batiuk, this isn’t unusual. I have a friend who is a professional organist. He enjoys sneaking a snippet of music into the offertory or postlude just to see if anyone is listening. For example, the feast of St Wenceslaus was celebrated in the Catholic church this last Tuesday. So he improvised a little fugue on the first few notes of “Good King Wenceslaus” during the postlude.
But again, he’s a professional organist with a degree in improvisation. Not a half-deaf (supposedly) former marching band director.
Certainly interpolations or musical “quotes” are common in more improvisatory genres like jazz, or to a lesser extent, rock. I can even see slipping a “Good King Wenceslaus” quote into a worship service since it’s already a Christian song and clearly relevant to the holiday. “Star Wars” themes seem secular and out of place, but hey, maybe it’s some ultra-liberal church that incorporates Jedi wisdom in its doctrine.
“May the Force be with you.” “And also with you.”
Our former choir director/organist had a wonderful boogie-woogie arrangement of Go Tell It On the Mountain that I remember her playing only twice: once as part of a concert and once as post-service music. Lutherans generally don’t boogie-woogie in the sanctuary so it was a quite a departure from the usual majestic postludes. She’s a wonderful musician, so it sounded fabulous-she actually got applause and cheers when she was done.
Have they tried turning it off and on again?
At least one of the choir ladies seem to be taking advantage of Harry’s noodling to have a nap.