Boy, those leaves are sure zipping around! They look like they’re having the time of their lives. Of course, that has to be a pretty strong wind, so I bet some trees will come down and people will be without power.
But who cares! We have old people to celebrate. They, in fact, are all going to celebrate another old person who recently stopped aging, if you know what I mean and I think you do!
Bonus–here are my original notes for today’s strip: Dinkle Cell Phone Bedside Manorisms Terrible melting faces.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Those leaves are zipping around like suicidally-depressed kamikaze pilots on meth.
How long has it been since the Bedsore Manners took that road trip? Two years? When you see enough elderly nursing-home residents, you realize that they don’t improve with age. If their last road-trip didn’t leave them exhausted, this one won’t be any easier.
Westview to Centerville is a shorter trip than Westview to Memphis, but I’m still not convinced that Oxygen-Tube Guy (a.k.a. Carl) will survive the trip. He looks like the Ghost of Crankshaft Future.
The way he’s totally forgotten and/or ignored Morton’s Alzheimer’s is probably one of Act III’s most baffling and incongruous developments. It’s even more astonishing than Cory returning home from the army as a ramrod-straight model citizen, as at least that could be slightly believable. Morty’s Alzheimer’s kick-started a whole lengthy sequence of events that forever altered Act III history, then it was just completely forgotten like it never happened, with no explanation.
And yeah, Bedside Manor is one of those rare nursing homes just chock-full of delightful, peppy, active, zany old coots who are always up for another spur-of-the-moment adventure. In Westview you have childhood, young adulthood, old adulthood, decrepitidity, then second childhood aka “the Zany Years”, roughly defined as eighty-five through a hundred and thirty.
And when did The Manor turn into this huge complex of tall buildings?
My thought exactly. How in heck would they evacuate the bed and wheelchair-bound occupants in case of fire?
Unbelievable as it may be, there are actually elder care facilities like that. A couple of years ago, I had to move my dad out of his assisted living facility because they weren’t staffed to handle residents with Alzheimer’s. One of the memory care facilities I toured actually placed the memory care residents on the third floor (of three). There were about thirty rooms. The main access to that floor was by elevator, but there were a couple of emergency exits. If there was a fire, can you imagine the staff trying to herd residents with all forms of dementia into the emergency exits to evacuate them? I hope they had good insurance.
That was one of the reasons why I did not place Dad there.
It looks like the Scientology Celebrity Center in Los Angeles.
Not the “Cocoon” re-make I was expecting.
Mort Winkerbean’s Alzheimer’s was cured the moment Batty realized he needed a trombone player.
If these people are so desperate to play, why don’t they perform for the other residents?
Administrator: We’re always looking for activities to entertain the residents. Would you be interested in giving a show? Lou Ann says she’d love to sing with you. We can serve refreshments and…
Mort: Sorry, we only play on special occasions.
I’ll be curious to see how Batty handles the story from here. For liability reasons, I’m sure Dinkle can’t just show up at the facility and lead the quartet away without the permission of the residents’ families. I know your mileage may vary, but the assisted living facility where my parents lived had rules. Even immediate family members were required to sign out the residents. If you were taking them out, you had to log the time, location, and purpose before you were allowed to leave the building.
OTOH, we’re talking about the World’s Greatest Band Director. The staff will probably be more than happy to kiss Harry’s… ring.
Let me make a correction. Mort should have said:
Mort: Sorry, we only play for Harry Dinkle.
“Dinkle Cell Phone Bedside Manorisms Terrible melting faces.”
That about sums up the strip.
Since he’s brining back old themes can we hope to see a return appearance by Zanzibar The Murder Chimp? (Probably too much to ask)
Panel 1: Ayers perfectly depicts Hatchetface Harry’s assholiness.
Panel 2: And then he demonstrates how little he cares about this strip. So shoddy. He had ample opportunity to show off his mastery of finely detailed brickwork, but instead he presents us with something a mediocre 3rd grader would produce. (Yes, including those rocket-powered leaves.)
Panel 3: You want old people, Batty? How’s this for old? Including the dork crooning a Willie Nelson tune.
“The band is willing to work with us”? Well, why the hell wouldn’t they be? They only know what you taught them, and they’re a bunch of old folks’ home shut-ins who’ve done nothing since the last time they were relevant to your story.
And once this storyline is over, back into oblivion they go!
Right? They’re like the Winter Soldier of bands. Defrost when needed.
Well, color me impressed. It’ll be four years next month since their Tennessee Waltz odyssey, and not a single member of the Bedside Manorisms has gone on to join that big whatever-kind-of-music-it-is-they-attempt-to-play band in the sky. And Mort Winkerbean has at least two or three new silver foxes he can rehearse his make out lines on (I for one look forward to watching Winklebean pere putting the moves on Lillian the Lizard).
Also, how convenient for the artist that the five band members are apparently the only residents of Bedside or spend all their time hanging out together, even when they’re not performing.
Any bets as to whether the actual “New Orleans-Style Jazz Funeral” will next in next week’s strips, or the week after that? If it’s the latter, that had better be a closed casket service, because the deceased will probably–like this storyline–stink to high Heaven.
I’ll be surprised if we ever see anything that resembles a funeral. We didn’t see Holly’s homecoming game, just her public humiliation and possible crippling.
I do think Funky’s dad will hit on Lillian, because “Funky’s dad is horny LOL” was a loathsome storyline, so we are sure to keep seeing references to it for years to come.
Imagine being so bored and so lonely that you actually look forward to being exploited by Harry Dinkle.
Morton screams at him over the phone. “I’m running this fogey farm now, Dinkle! And I want to know what the frak you’re doing with my time!”
Well, he gets points today for having a strip where nobody utters the phrase “traditional New Orleans Jazz-style funeral”.
So, the best case scenario is he’ll wrap this horrible arc with a one panel Sunday strip showing the choir and the Bedside Manorisms performing together for the traditional New Orleans Jazz-style funeral. The worst case scenario is that he extends the arc one (or more) week(s) to show the whole rehearsal process, with lots of “traditional New Orleans Jazz-style funeral” banter.
When is this funeral scheduled, anyway? The story looks like it’s going to take weeks to unfold. When a person dies, the funeral is usually within a few days. Not enough time to master an entirely new style of music, or improvise a complex musical collaboration.
The only thing I like about today’s strip is the dogfighting leaves. It appears as if Capt. Roy Brown (brown leaf) just shot down the Red Baron (red leaf).
I’ll show myself out.
Now, now, give credit where credit is due. According to the Royal Guardsmen, it was Snoopy that finally ended the spree of the bloody Red Baron of Germany, thanks to a new battle plan he received from the Great Pumpkin.
I don’t think anyone else has said as much yet and I believe that it needs to be noted:
Yet again, any kind of measurable tension is erased as soon as it addressed. The week opens with Mr. “I can play Star Wars bullshit in church service” Dingle seemingly baffled by the music request, and here we are now with a band booked.
Why even show him pulling the CD out of his ass?