The entirety of today’s strip is going be spent on that same “picture the audience naked” advice from the last strip? This is where the story arc has decided to stall during the requisite Funky Winkerbean storyline doldrum?
Heck, we skipped right over Marianne being presented her Oscar… I’m assuming this is because Rick Burchett isn’t around to draw Conan O’Brien. I’m torn on whether that is a good thing or not. On one hand, there could be some level of unintentional comedy in seeing the cowering, flop sweating trainwreck Marianne from today’s first panel struggle to not fumble the Oscar hand-off from Anthony Hopkins. On the other hand, such a scenario would probably wind up being an even more insufferable attempt at making Marianne endearing than today’s strip.
Cindy probably appreciates Marianne’s opening line, though.
Son of Stuck Funky 
If the rest of this speech is as good as the start, the Oscar statue is going to want to angle his sword the other way.
“You like Lisa! You really, really like Lisa!”
I wonder what the American Film Institute’s “100 Years, 100 Movie Quotes” must be like in the Funkyverse. “You had me at hello”… “Love means never having to say you’re sorry”… “We’ll always have Paris”… “I’m king of the world”… “The playground is closed for repairs.”
And of course Mason’s practical, fatherly advice worked out great for hapless, star-struck Marianne, as after all, he is a man and all. Those gals LOL, always so emotion-driven. I can’t recall the arc where Marianne was revealed to be a complete idiot, but obviously it must have happened.
I expected her to say something stupid, but not that stupid! Did Batiuk think it would be brilliant to turn a shaggy-dog joke into a Mexican-hairless dog?
Y’know what? Strictly on its own, as a one-shot comic strip, this is mildly amusing.
Not hilarious, mind you. I mean, it can’t carry the weight of the weeks and weeks of pointless phumphering it took to get to this one strip. And sure, you could argue — and convincingly — that the character has been unfairly ditzified over those weeks to get to this one single mildly amusing moment.
But in isolation? Away from everything else about this character, this situation, and this plot arc? This is … not terrible.
Which is probably the highlight of 2022 in the Funkyverse.
But it makes no sense in this context. Some actors are horribly shy, and if someone like that started their victory speech with “forgive me, I’m not good at public speaking,” that would get a chuckle. But Funky Winkerbean has no concept of characterization. Every character is whatever Batiuk needs them to be for today’s joke. Marianne went from home-wrecking hussy to suicidial waif to confident professional actress to the ubiquitous “young person start.” Which is where anyone under age 90 eventually ends up.
So FW shouldn’t attempt character-based jokes. And where it should – at the expense of well-defined but detestable characters like Les and Dinkle – it doesn’t.
I guess the rest of the week will be spent at the Chateau (“If you know, you know”) party, where the exclusively male guest list will read comic books (Silver Age “The Flash” preferred) while being served cookies and hot chocolate
To clarify – By “exclusively male” I’m not implying terms of sexual orientation. I’m thinking the of emotionally pre-pubescent “No yucky Gurls” characters that inhabit the FW universe.
Barry Allen’s first girlfriend, Daphne Dean, is a two-time Oscar winner.
Amazing how The Flash references seem to permeate his work.
Well, it’s the only thing he knows.
“Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t belong up here! I’m just some stupid girl, as you can tell by my stupid hair and my stupid quip about you all being naked! Let’s give it up for the real hero of the Oscars, Voldemoore!”
In 2005 when Chris Rock hosted the Oscars , he did a bit called “regular folk at the movies” where a bunch of random people were asked their favorite movies of the year. They mostly picked the popcorn flicks/comedies of that season. I’m not exactly sure where I’m going with this, but Lisa’s Story is neither art-house nor a crowd pleaser.
Basically….. get bent, Batiuk.
This really has to be some of Batiuk’s worst writing (which is really saying something). Marianne is acting like a week ago she was an understudy in Westview High drama class and she somehow fell into getting an Oscar without even realizing it. Which would be one thing, if this was remotely funny or entertaining, but it never is in this strip.
It’s like Batiuk is competing with the depiction of attempted cat killer Wilbur Weston for the worst portrayal of a human being in a comic strip award. Pity that isn’t an actual award, Batiuk would take it home every year.
Apparently, Marianne will forever be a “young kid just starting out”, as BatYam really seems to enjoy that particular trope. In the Funkyverse, you’re either tapping on Death’s door or you’re a young kid, just starting out. Look at Boy Lisa, for example, he’s been “just starting out” for twenty-five years now. Cliff and Vera are just starting out and they’re ninety-two years old. So you can “just start out” for a really long time and life experience doesn’t mean anything. Unless you write a book about it. A real book, not some self-published thing you hawk at band director conferences. After a hundred years, I’m finally grasping how this Funkyverse operates. Old and resigned to your grim fate or just starting out, it’s all there really is.
These are the “Special” Oscars, right?
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.
Gotta be honest: I fully expected today’s strip to be the announcement of the winner, with tomorrow’s showing Ms. Winters getting ready to walk up to the stage, only to be intercepted by THE REAL MARIANNE!!! You know, the posh, sophisticated A-list actress we saw in the 2017 strip billy so graciously linked in today’s into. I mean, just look at the two side by side and you can see they’re definitely not the same woman. I’m not sure if the substitution was made during the chaos of last year’s fires that obliterate Southern California off the map, or during the Lisa auditions, or maybe back on the “Starbuck Jones” set before those scandalous photos were released, but it’s the only logical explanation that doesn’t involved a heretofore undisclosed partial lobotomy. And besides, it makes as much sense as The Late Phil Holt’s SDCC resurrection.
No words… I got nothing.
Just fast-forward to the next storyline already.
I’m trying to imagine how opening an Oscars acceptance speech with that line would go over in real life.
If delivered right…since the trope of ‘imagine the audience naked’ is well known, it probably would be a good way to get a few chuckles and signify #relatable humility and nervousness.
If delivered wrong… we’re reaching level of cringe non-sequitur up there with Joaquin Phoenix ranting about cow rape.
But we know from yesterday’s strip that she’s dead serious about this. And doing this dumb stunt to seem relatable when you’ve just won Best Actress seems a lot more phony than all the Hollywood phonies the story is so contemptuous of.
Gretchen Gold has got to be thinking “I lost to this moron?”
Shock me! Marianne found the stage without Masone’s help?
Marianne has been portrayed as such a simpleton lately. I almost expected her to remove all of her clothing on the way to the podium.
Masone: No! Not you! The picture the audience naked!
At this point, I wish Batty would just tear off the band-aid and put us all out of our collective misery. Every passing day is just delaying the inevitable. The ears of He-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named must be absolutely on fire.
It’s like Batty is toying with us.
GET IT OVER WITH YOU HEARTLESS MONSTER! WE ALL KNOW WHAT’S COMING!
I’m impressed. You found a way to make this funny.
Out of curiosity, I went to the Funky Winkerbean archives to reread that Starbuck Jones/SDCC/Conan O’Brien story arc. That was some epically childish stuff that appears to have been written by a third-grader. There’s a cringe-worthy moment in every strip.
Observation #1:
In that story arc, Marianne doesn’t have any difficulty at all speaking in front of a large audience.
Observation #2:
I could swear Conan said the words “hubba hubba” to Marianne in the 7/12/2017 strip. It was so awful I felt sorry for the real-life Conan O’Brien. Oddly, the quote seems to have been replaced by “Personally, I thought you made ‘Slave Leia’ look like a boy! Rrrrrrrrr!.” The “Rrrrrrrrr!” replacing “Hubba hubba.”
Could the original 07/12/2017 strip have been changed after publication? Or do I suffer from some sort of Funky Winkerbean induced nightmares?
Weird.
FYI. @billytheskink posted a link to the 7/12/2017 Funky Winkerbean strip yesterday to prove Marianne had no problem speaking in public.
I distinctly remember the “Hubba hubba”. It’s one of those things that is so stupid, it’s permanently burned into memory. Perhaps it was a different strip. Has Conan appeared more than once in Funky Winkerbean?
Curse you, Batiuk!
Oh, how I hate looking back at those Rick Burchett strips.
Rick Burchett supposedly had the reputation of a well-known comic book artist. His efforts towards the end of his FW tenure always appeared sloppy and rushed.
I was always creeped out by those toothless grins, like Marianne’s in the 07/12/2017 strip.
I especially disliked the way Burchett drew Mindy. She had the appearance of a bargain store mannequin.
I still think this is a lead up to The most touching Oscar acceptance speech ever®. It has to be this way, you see. The speech wouldn’t be nearly as touching if she had prepared it. She’s got to be speaking from her heart. It will be a long winded tearful tribute to Les and the countless women’s lives who were saved by his book and movie – including hers. It will be such a great speech that the Academy will give her another Oscar statue just for the speech, and Marianne will hand deliver the statue to Les at the Taj-Moore-Hall, and everyone will celebrate with pizza and comic books.
Did Batnuts win a Pulitzer yet….. Les is up for a Noble Prize I heard
Because when you’ve just won a Best Actress Oscar for your portrayal of a beloved, beautiful woman who died in a heart wrenching manner of breast cancer, in a devastating story about loss without redemption, the first thing you do in your acceptance speech is tell a puerile joke.