This, right here, is why everyone hates getting a Dinkle arc. Dinkle and/or band directing just grinds this already glacially-paced strip to a dead, still halt. As astoundingly bad as last week was, you had Makeover Summer gawking around, Boy Lisa being in the wedding for some reason, a possible love triangle, technology gags, comic books AND pizza. But this week? Total Dinkle flatline. I’m not even sure what the gag here is supposed to be. I really hate it when he shamelessly panders to band directors like this.
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Son of Stuck Funky · The web's premiere source for Funky Winkerbean snark
Son of Stuck Funky 
“Some of my band students have schedule conflicts with band.” Brilliant writing, there.
It hurts to side with Dinkle, but schedule conflicts are not going to improve by waiting. Really, he should have objected before the first day.
If he’s pandering to band directors … that would imply that for some reason band directors like this? “Ha ha, yes, we’re psychotic screaming jerkasses who can’t understand the simplest realities of scheduling or of human interaction … boy howdy, that lovable scamp Batiuk sure has got our number!”
Yeah, I mean, I’m assuming that this gag is aimed squarely at band directors, regarding “everything they put up with” and so forth. Which means absolutely nothing to anyone else. Sure, it must be frustrating when your band students have scheduling conflicts, I guess. But honestly, it seems like a bit of an overreaction to me. All the WHS students I’ve ever seen hated being in the band anyway.
Perhaps America’s real-life band directors figure they’ll let Batiuk write whatever he wants, and then politely chuckle at a comic no-one actually reads — just so long as they can keep playing Batiuk for an absolute sucker by getting him to fork out plenty of sponsorship $$$ for invisible banners at their Rose Bowl float (and no on-air acknowledgement of him or his cartoon whatsoever.)
I think all America;s Band Directors ever wanted from Tom Batiuk was a logo. He injected himself into the project and acted like his role was far larger than it actually was. They had a huge, elaborate float and a real marching band, and not one scrap of either was devoted to Funky Winkerbean. Even his dumb banners seemed very tacked-on.
It was truly one of the saddest sights I’ve ever witnessed. I think Batiuk built it up in his own addled mind that his little banner contribution (which, again, he would have had to have paid for) would somehow be a centerpiece of not just the float but of the entire Rose Bowl Parade. And after building it up for MONTHS on his blog, the small, indistinct banners — which were kept a considerable distance behind the float and band — weren’t even visible on TV, and neither Batiuk nor H. Dinkle nor Batiuk’s comic strip were ever mentioned or shown in any context whatsoever.
You know the ending of “Waiting For Guffman” where these hopelessly naive and untalented performers have worked themselves into a frenzy and somehow convinced themselves that their terrible small-town play will be headed for Broadway if noted critic “Guffman” just shows up and reviews it? And then (SPOILER ALERT) Guffman doesn’t show?
It reminded me of that. Except not as funny and endearing.
Yes, Dinkle, scream at someone who probably has nothing to do with school policies and scheduling arrangements. And, uh, doesn’t Worstview have some arrangement where the students can attend band practice after regular school hours?
That’s how band was when I was in high school. And if they don’t have that, then shouldn’t it just be a course you select and enroll in, like every other?
Also, since when does Dinkle have any problem with keeping kids after school?
Since the price of barbed wire went up.
“You had to learn to pick your moments.” Or, as everyone else would say, “pick your battles.” Does Batdick think he’s being wry by slightly, infuriatingly, altering common phrases on a constant basis?
Anyway, it’s a week of semi-retired bandos whining about this and that.
I’ve wondered this for years. Does he butcher common phrases on purpose just to be clever? Or does he just not know? Is it some odd Ohioian local dialect thing? It’s been very consistent over the years, too.
I’d guess most of the time it’s unintentional: Batiuk has a combination of a tin ear, a poor memory, a very limited sense of how communication is structured, and a pathological aversion to actual research. So butchering simple phrases comes naturally to him.
However, I’d also say that at least some of the time (“vendos”, “unification display”) he’s trying to be clever. But, of course, he misses badly…because he has a combination of a tin ear, a poor memory, a very limited sense of how communication is structured, and a pathological aversion to actual research.
“When” he was a band director?! Literally the last time there was a story arc with Andy Clark it was about Dinkle convincing him not to retire.
This is the one I vaguely remembered. The last thing FW needs is another freaking band director. There are already two too many.
1. Is this kind of psychotic behavior supposed to be funny?
1a. Hey Dink, there isn’t a single person on the planet who likes or appreciates this oh so cliche “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!” -flex or thinks it’s cool…
1b. I guess it’s funny because in circa 1975, a new front desk receptionist working her first day probably WAS the only person the Big Dink could yell at in this manner and not get fired on the spot… Because we all know his ballsack isn’t big enough to come at the Vice Principal this way. But yeah you crack that whip, Drill Sergeant Dink… Show her how much “pull” you have around that place and let her know how important you are… I’m sure she’ll go out of her way to help you for however long she chooses to work at Westview…
1c. It’s funny because if The Big Dink treats his fellow employees this way, how are we to presume he treats his students??
Good question. I don’t know what Batiuk is aiming at with Dinkle anymore. Dinkle worked in Act I, because he was a comically exaggerated character in a comically exaggerated world. Without the Act I context, he’s just an abusive jackass.
And what Dinkle satirized – the pompous, obsessive, demanding nature of band directors – just isn’t funny anymore. Incidents like the ones at Ohio State and Florida A&M have revealed a lot of cultural problems in marching bands, led by tin-pot dictators with massive egos and zero concern for any young lives that get chewed up in the process.
Dinkle is a characterization band directors should want to distance themselves from. Which I think they do. That marching band in the Rose Parade treated those Dinkle banners like radioactive waste. That whole shitshow was just Tom Batiuk glomming onto anything that would pay him a shred of attention, and acting like his role was far more important than it really was.
Batiuk tries to have it both ways with Dinkle. He’s both a pompous egotistical jackass but also literally the World’s Greatest Band Director. Somehow we’re supposed to think that he’s the greatest there ever was at his job, and over the top ridiculous about it. It doesn’t work like that.
It would be kind of like if The Office had decided to portray Michael Scott as the greatest and wisest manager ever, without changing a thing about his character.
Tell me about it… I work at a university and the stories I hear about the band would make your hair stand up…
The second panel looks like one of those Hitler-in-the-bunker parodies from a decade ago, except that somebody forgot to drop Hitler’s words for a parody.
You wouldn’t believe how much lore that has.
https://hitlerparody.fandom.com/wiki/Downfall
FYI, in yesterday’s knee-slapper Dinkleberg and Unnamed Band Director Colleague Who Kinda Resembles an Elderly Stan Freberg were seated at the table to the right of Montoni’s front door. Today they’re apparently sitting at the table on the left side of the entrance.
Hey, in the absence of actual humor I’ve got to find some way to amuse myself.
Apropos of nothing, did y’all see how, at Monday’s Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island, perennial champion and eventual winner Joey Chestnut had to fend off a trespasser who was wearing a Darth Vader mask? I was half expecting the stage jumper to take off his disguise and reveal himself to be The Last Phil Holt.
I’d pay good money to watch Phil Holt get tackled by a sweaty guy in the middle of attempting to eat 70+ hot dogs and a short old guy wearing a straw boater. I’d pay good money to watch this happen to about any FW character, actually.
J.K. Simmons must have channeled Dinkle for his Whiplash performance.
This just seems like a really awkward and unnatural conversation for these two guys to be having. Have they really never talked about what things were like when they were band directors?
It is amazing how practically the only things FW characters do when they get together to reminisce is to complain about how bad things were.
Stay tuned tomorrow when one-track-mind Tom Batiuk undoubtedly inserts comic books into the story.
After finishing their drinks, Dinkle and Andy Clark venture upstairs to the Komix Korner. An outraged Dinkle demands a cowering DeadSkunkHead tell him why there aren’t any band director-related superhero comics. Flash Freeman’s ears are burning, and he magically pops up from behind a spinner rack.
Flash: Wow, Harry, that’s one helluva great idea. The Mighty BandDirector Man! I feel like a fool for not coming up with it myself. It’s no wonder why you are ‘The World’s Greatest Band Director’!
Dinkle: (boisterously) Ha ha! No band director-related comic books? Outrageous!
Flash: Say, Harry, I think it’s only fitting that ‘The World’s Greatest Band Director’ writes ‘The Mighty BandDirector Man.’ Why don’t you stop by the Atomik Komix offices tomorrow?
Dinkle: Oh no! Not another job!
Smirks all around.
My phone lies in pieces after being thrown against a wall.
Wait till you see the special Sunday Cover Page of “World’s Greatest Band Director #1: The Band Director vs. The Elementals Force!”
Remember — in the showdown between the Elements and the World’s Greatest Band Director, there can be only one winner!
Ugh. 😫
In the showdown between The Elementals Force and the World’s Greatest Band Director, nobody wins except Batty, who continues to get paid for this schlock.
Everyone else loses, especially the readers.
I’m sort of rooting for a cover promising “AND NEITHER SHALL SURVIVE!” myself.
I wasn’t even in my high school band, but I knew that band class was every day, the class period before lunchtime. I can’t speak for everyone’s high school experience, but for me, this comic strip defies logic and common sense:
1.) The entire band attends band class all at once. It’s not divided by instrument groups.
2.) Band class occurs in a large-purpose room specifically built for band and choir practices. The room is usually called the ‘band room’ or the ‘music room.’
3.) Band class would have one of the largest student attendance. Several dozen students or more.
4.) With the entire band in attendance and in one specific classroom, there’s no need to schedule the class more than once per day.
5.) Band class would have one of the highest student-to-teacher ratios. The faculty would likely consist of several teachers per department (math, English, history, etc.), but only one band director.
6.) A class with the attributes listed in points 1 through 5 would logically be placed in the class schedule first.
7.) Band would be the same class period year after year. Why change it?
8.) It would be easier to schedule these other class subjects around the band class because they have smaller enrollments, differing class periods and can most likely be held in any classroom with few exceptions (i.e., chemistry, home economics).
A student has a class schedule that keeps them out of band? Not very likely. This strip fails on so many levels.
Fail #1
It would be much easier for the student to resolve the schedule conflict by rescheduling the other class subject.
Fail #2
Why is Dinkle involved? If the student wants to be in the band, they’ll be the one to resolve the conflict. If the student doesn’t resolve the conflict, they prefer the other class over band. Get over it, Harry.
Fail #3
I can’t see any faculty member acting like Dinkle in panel #2. If a student can’t be in their class, I doubt they’d lose any sleep over it. Oh well, sucks to be you. It’s up to you to find a way if you want to be in my class. The class will go on without you.
Fail #4
I don’t remember any class schedule conflicts whatsoever during my entire city school academic career.
Fail #5
Andy said “When we were band directors, we not only had to deal with students and parents… but we had to reckon with school administrations and school boards!” Isn’t a student’s class scheduling conflict a STUDENT problem? How is that a problem for the school administration and school board? Dinkle’s trip into la la land doesn’t even match what Andy is talking about.
Fail #6
Wouldn’t a typical band director conflict with administration and the school board involve something like getting permission to take students out of classes to compete in an out-of-state band contest? How about trying to get the school board to provide the means to fundraise a trip to the Rose Bowl parade? How about getting the school board to provide adequate transportation for away football games? How about getting the administration and school board to maintain the football field and provide adequate band practice fields? How about getting the administration and school board to upgrade the instruments owned by the music department? How about getting the administration and school board to improve conditions in the band room (i.e., provide a real ‘Band Room’ sign and not one handwritten and ineptly taped to the door)? A student’s class schedule conflict is too insignificant an issue for the school administration and school board.
Once again, Batty alters reality to put forth his “joke.” Batty’s writing philosophy appears to be “first thought, best thought.” Whether the joke is funny or even makes sense is totally irrelevant.
Sad and pathetic. Batty SUX