One of the other games on my arcade machine is Pac-Land. It’s a platforming game, starring the little yellow guy running and jumping and solving puzzles and doing other things that Mario is much better at. It’s a rare case where one screenshot will tell you everything that’s wrong with the game:
You see that red arrow that’s telling me to move to the right? Umm, excuse me, video game, I’m Pac-Man. Eating blue ghosts is what I do. Don’t tell me that arrow is pointing to something more important. Especially after these guys were just using their children as bombs:
As we discussed in the prior thread, Pac-Man doesn’t have much of a personality. So games like this need an Excuse Plot just to give him something to do. In this game, he’s got to rescue a fairy, or something like that. There’s 8 levels, and on Level 3 there are springboards Pac-Man has to use correctly to make a long jump over water. I can’t figure out how to do it, nor do I care enough to look it up on the Internet. Pac-Mania, an isometric version of the original game, is a much better application of the late 1980s’ improved processing power. It’s still worth a play occasionally. This, not so much.
But the second screenshot is where Pac-Land crosses the line from misguided into downright disconcerting. If you followed the Pac-Man expanded universe – and if you’re playing Pac-Land at an arcade in 1984, you absolutely did – then you know that Jr. Pac-Man is about the offspring of the the Pac-couple. And also of the ghosts. So we know they can reproduce, and that game’s main plot is a story of forbidden love. So why did this game repurposing these characters as munitions? Why couldn’t the ghosts just drop bombs on Pac-Man? They’re already in World War I vehicles, so just give them World War I weapons. It wouldn’t make any less sense.
This is also a huge problem in the Funkyverse, and one we saw repeat in the Comic-Con arc. On July 14, we got this moment:
Which they never got around to. Ten days later, on a Monday, we get this:
And right on cue:
It turns out we didn’t all know where this was going! The whole week was about NFTs, a topic perfectly outdated enough to fit Tom Batiuk’s 11-month lead time. Why the hell did he spend two strips setting up an comic book investment story, only to ignore it? The storytelling priorities of this world are just baffling. It’s bad enough that Batiuk makes everything about comic books; why does he also set up comic book stories and then not tell them? What purpose did those strips serve?
We established in the previous article that Jeff was compelled to sell his comic books by Crankshaft’s destructive behavior. Oddly, this still is the most pushback Ed’s ever gotten for his behavior, But, let’s look at what he did set up:
This story has nothing do with Jeff’s mommy issues, but look who gets blamed. Again. Batiuk is constantly re-telling this story, even though he had a whole other story cued up.
And he planned this four months in advance:
You know, Jeff, if you just now noticed your comic books are missing, maybe they weren’t that important to you. Maybe you’re not remembering correctly. Maybe it wasn’t the fault of your mother, who’s been dead for years now. Does your mom throw away your comic books from the afterlife? Is she related to Lisa? Sheesh, Jeff, get some help.
And now for something Jeff should be anxious about: the last time he went on one of these trips, he narrowly escaped burning to death.
But it’s never mentioned. These people dwell on incidents from high school and their childhood, but don’t remember the last time they went to California four years ago. On a trip where the whole Los Angeles metro area burned too.
Here are some other forgotten story points that were touched on this week:
Where is Pete and Mindy’s relationship? The engagement tiger incident was August 2019. We’ve had no update since then. They haven’t grown any closer, further apart, upgraded the ring, scheduled a date, or even told anyone other than the comatose Ed Crankshaft. But Funky Winkerbean had about 25 more weeks of comic book stories before it ended. And it spent three weeks marrying ninth-tier characters Cory and Rocky, because that loose end had to be tied, I guess. Again, just mind-boggling priorities.
Why is Mindy just now learning who Pete is? She expresses annoyance at Pete “damseling” her, because Tom Batiuk loves naming things that already have names. Even if this is before the engagement, their relationship must be pretty advanced, since they’re on a trip together and he invited her father. Comic Book Guy was being a lech, and Pete wasn’t out of line telling him to back off. If anything, it’s a big step up from his usual indifference.
Why are they cosplaying as siblings? As best as I understand it, they’re supposed to be Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, who are fraternal twins. It’s a bit squicky. And it’s not the first time. Remember Les and Lisa’s Batman and Robin costumes? For their wedding? Ewww.
Why does Atomik Komix have no presence at Comic-Con? They’re supposed to be a big, important publisher in this world. But every year, they just go as fans. And nobody ever questions this. Les Moore and Lillian McKenzie can’t walk down a street without having to do a book signing for a throng of groupies. Why don’t these comic book makers, who are constantly presented as rock stars in this world, get that treatment?
Son of Stuck Funky 
Pete to Mindy about her father: “Do you think he’d like to come along with our Atomik Komix crew to Comic-Con in San Diego?”
This was in the 7/10 ‘Shaft strip and helped set up the big SDCC arc that ended about 10 days later. And where, pray, was that “Atomik Komix crew” during all this? All we ever saw were Mopey and Min-dull standing around the convention floor as often miscolored Maximoff siblings. Was it too much trouble to draw Darwin, Jessica Darling (whose father…), Flash Freegood, The Late Phil Holt, the Movie Star, and the rest? Or to show an AK exhibit table? I guess so.
And just what did Big Jfff and Little Jfff do at this fanboy wonderland? Whine about the comics he owned and got rid of and then bought hardback omnibus collections of those same books, collections he could have purchased from any one of the dozens of comic book stores in Ohio or from a number of online retail sites. What exactly was the point of shlepping them (did they have to buy an extra seat for Inner Child) out West?
At least this past week gave us multiple “Ed says an incorrect word and Keesterman stars to correct him, only to be stopped by Ralph” jokes. That never wears thin.
Oh, and I have never owned a Pac-Man video game, arcade size or otherwise, but I do have a 1966 Gottleib “Cross Town” pinball machine in my dining room. Good Lord, I’m old.
Why does Atomik Komix have no presence at Comic-Con?
And how does Batiuk overlook or not even contemplate doing a story centered around this very subject? He LOVES Comic Con, and he LOVES fictional comic book companies. Yet it never occurs to him to bring those two things together. His complete dearth of imagination continues to amaze and baffle.
And Batiuk loves a third thing – writers getting their egos stroked. But he never grants this indulgence to Pete, who’s a lot more deserving of it than the ghouls Les and Lillian, or even Flash Freeman who is supposed to be Stan Lee. Pete, not Flash, is this world’s Stan Lee. And he wrote this world’s Star Wars to boot. But Batiuk can’t give a drop of respect to anyone too young to have written The Flash in 1979. Except Les, of course, because his wife died.
Probably because Tom Batiuk has written books, but has never written a comic book or a movie.
Writers of books get praise. Writers of books deserve praise. Writers of comic books and movies do not, unless and until Tom gets a comic book published and/or a movie made.
Yeah, Pete is yet another missed/botched comic book opportunity. He could have taken that character in all sorts of different comic book directions, but he more or less just let him wallow in the same tedious ennui that engulfs everything else in the strip. Which makes you wonder why he bothered creating a comic book author character at all.
Batiuk is blind to the fact that Pete is an accomplished comic book producer by this point. He makes him do that tired “young guy just starting out” shtick, and bow at the knee of his elders Flash, Phil, and Ruby Lith. (That “we’re not worthy” strip was especially appalling.) These people constantly insult Pete’s creative choices, but have nothing to offer but plagiarism of their real-life counterparts.
Which also goes against Pete’s characterization. Supposedly he told Marvel and DC to stuff it, but he takes abuse from these useless fossils? Only in the Funkyverse.
7/30 CS:
What
the living
FUCK
“What are you watching?”
“Me eating all my 1960s brown acid!”
It looks like he is staring at a bookshelf.
Scenes we’d like to see. How about a “Cranksh*tter” – Judge Parker crossover.
Does brown acid improve with age, like a fine wine?
I ask because there was a public service message warning people away from the brown acid at Woodstock.
I think it prevented “half a million strong” (Joni Mitchell strong) from reaching a full (and cool) million (old saying Nathanael West quotes in his third novel).
Feed your head, says the Dormouse.
Yet again, we have to be reminded that Batiuk’s true strength is gag-a-day strips. Extended arcs require an imagination he ain’t got.
Though today’s strip (July 30) doesn’t do much to help support the idea that he can do gag-a-day, either.
It does support the idea, however, that THC gummies may be involved in the Crankshaft creation process.
It’s like Tom said to Davis “Writing’s the important thing. The art is not. I could come up with a great strip no matter what you drew!” And Davis said “Here ya go, bucko. Knock yerself out.”
Jeff’s excursion to Moronia is probably another victim of Tom’s “elegant solution”. Did it happen? Has it not happened yet? Will it happen in the future? Who knows? No one, not even Tom himself, I’m guessing.
(Also, Jeff was “saved” from the fire because “there’s an opening at the other end of the cave which probably kept all the oxygen from being sucked out”. Uh, yeah. “An opening”. That’s because that cave is actually more of a tunnel. It’s why most shots of it in movies and TV shows are at an angle, because if you film it straight on, you can see through to the other side.) (Unless you put up some kind of backdrop, like in Robot Monster. But the backdrop becomes visible when they go to a negative image, which was probably the least of that movie’s flaws…)
(Ro-Man hanging around Bronson Canyon with his Billion Bubble Machine)
(Ro-Man when they use the negative effect to represent his Death Ray)
(Was this just an excuse to post pictures of the worst movie monster costume ever? Maybe…)
Anyhoo… so Rose took the opportunity to toss out SOME of Jeff’s comics, but not all of them? Uh… why, exactly? Did she go through them all and pick the best ones to toss? (Or did she sit there with a copy of Overstreet and pick the best ones to sell?) Why wouldn’t she just chuck all the boxes and be done with it? (Of course, then we’d probably be regaled by the tale of the time Skunky John went dumpster diving and found boxes of valuable comics, that only smelled a little of garbage.)
Obnoxious child in Robot Monster: “You look like a pooped-out pinwheel!”
Apply to Tom’s career as needed.
Greatest lesson from “Robot Monster”:
Play as much house with your little sister as you can.
It’s the difference between behaving like a hu-man and not a ro-man.
“I cannot, yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do ‘must’ and ‘cannot’ meet? Yet I must, but I cannot!”
Still makes more sense than “a science of behavioral-patterned algorithms that will one day allow us to recognize humanity as our nation”.
This sounds like an early draft for Samuel Beckett which finally became “I can’t go on, I’ll go on.”
Whether Beckett ever met a German girl who was going to school in France and danced in Mississippi at an Alpha Kappa dance I can’t say, but he was an Irishman who wrote in French, and the world first knew *Waiting for Godot* as *En attendant Godot.*
1. Allow me to be in the minority. I liked today’s Crankshaft. It had a clever ending. (especially when you compare it to ‘elude’) I guess I was hooked by the pretty colors.
2. I see that Be Ware of Eve Hill has a new avatar.
3. I have a question for you, Eve. On GoComics, when I type in, for example Get Fuzzy, it takes me to a page that says “Read Now”. Then I have to press that to get to my comic. WHY???? It is the only feature of GC that is inferior to Comics Kingdom.
4. Today is now a special day. It is officially “Easter in July”!
2. I loved ComicBookHarriet’s GoComic little girl featured on the blog, The Daily Grind. She gave me the official okey-dokey to steal her concept. My new avatar is an Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe print with GoComics face.
3. I’d love to help. What is your GoComics profile name?
No profile. I am just some random dude looking up the current ‘Get Fuzzy’ on the internet. It brings me to an intro screen, and shows a button that says: read now. I see no reason that it can’t take me directly to the comic. The way you answered, it must be different for subscribers.
I’m a FREE GoComics subscriber. The “Comics I Follow” procedure I mentioned the other day works well for me (64 titles today).
If you’re only reading a half-dozen or fewer titles. I’d just leave each one in an open browser tab. Just refresh the title’s “comics” page every day.
BTW, you can tell if a GoComics profile is a paid subscriber by the green “Premium Subscriber”, badge after their name. Comic strip creator (orange), and hated moderator (indigo) are the other colors I’ve seen.
Cheers.
Lately I’ve really gotten hooked on the ‘Goals, Stakes, Urgency’ maxim of stupid blockbuster screenwriting. And yeah, using it without finesse just gives you genertic action movie schlock where the goal is a glowing key to a skybeam, the stakes are THE ENTIRE WORLD, and the urgency is NAOW. But still, thinking to yourself, ‘What is my character’s goal? Why do they want it? And what will happen if they do or don’t get it?’ is such an easy way to turn a nonsense stream of Batiukian urges into a real story.
Goal, Jff has a list of comics Cranky wants him to buy.
Stakes, money and/or relationship with father-in-law. Getting the right price.
Urgency, before the end of Comic-Con.
But no. Instead Jff goes to comic con, looks at random comics he already owned, and then buys more comics he’s already read.
The story was limper than a thrice frozen celery stick.
Besides Easter Eggs, I really enjoy thrice frozen celery sticks for lunch. 🥗 🥙 🥪
Also: other characters have stakes in this “investment club.” So if Jeff blows off ths “comic book safari” – a safari his younger self was excited to go on – it hurts other people.
Or Jeff could tell Ed to go fornicate himself. “I had to sell my comic books because you keep setting up grow ops in my attic, and you expect me to spend my limited time in San Diego doing errands for you? I don’t think so, buddy. Here, enjoy my new collection: brochures for retirement homes! Oh, this one looks nice! Isn’t this the one where the a resident wandered off and died?”
“Oh! Oh, here’s a good one! ‘Bedside Madmanor’! You get discounts for involuntary organ transplants! You still got 2 kidneys and lungs, right? And it ain’t like you’re gonna use that prostate any more!”
Be Ware of Eve Hill,
1. As many men have said: Eve Hill, you are driving me crazy!
I just checked SOSF on Safari, and on JetPack, and on Crankshaft on ArcaMax, and on GC. Your new avatar has disappeared. I am now seeing your lovely kitty only.
Did I imagine it?
Am I crazy?
Was the CBH approved icon just a figment of my imagination?
Am I cuter when I am deranged?
You are toying with my fragile sense of reality.
2. My last tentative hope of coherence is anticipating a new Beckoning Chasm video.
My new avatar is GoComics only. My WordPress profile photo and Disqus avatar are still “be ware of eve hill” kitty.
I think my Comics Kingdom OpenWeb Profile Photo is “be ware of eve hill” kitty too, but I haven’t used that account in three months.
Was your comment on GC already deleted? I still miss the wispy brunette.
I didn’t even bother posting a comment. It would have been an exercise in futility.
Jack the ̷R̷i̷p̷p̷e̷r̷ Moderator struck again. Today’s “Crankshaft” features a whopping total of 9 comments. Earlier this afternoon there were 19.
I may have to add “Jack the ̷R̷i̷p̷p̷e̷r̷ Moderator” as a character in one of my stories.
Wow! You have a cornucopia of internet avatars!
What is it? Up to 4?
1. Cancel Crankshaft
2. CBH Happy Face—she did not last long
3. Wispy brunette—very European. Stylish. Bold. Certainly a ‘come hither thou’ quality.
4. Eve Hill Kitty—she definitely expresses a special aloofness. Elegant. Independent. Captures your inner being. My favorite.
I can’t wait to turn in tomorrow, and see your next avatar.
Joy! Rapture! Coherence achieved. I asked for a Beckoning Chasm post on “A Planet that has no Sky” and I just received it! Oh Joy! Oh Rapture Unforeseen!
[of course, BC, you realize my wish lined up with the Cosmos. I could have wished for $1,000,000 and it would have been fulfilled. Instead I wished for your post, and have been rewarded. What is money compared to a Robert the Cat picture?]
Here’s my comment on the 7/31 CS:
“OH THANK GOD COMICAL BOOKS!!! Also, “Komics Korner” said once and spelled out in 2 panels out of 3. Where’s this set again? Yes, Tom, I am as stupid as you clearly think all your readers are.”
Will this GC comment last? Who can say? Who the fuck cares, not me! They can stop me from commenting there, but they can’t stop me from making fun of this awful strip!
I knew that cranky old guy in the red cap and his geezer buddies were just placeholder characters and that this strip would return to its main focus: glorious, glorious COMIC BOOKS! Apparently SDCC wasn’t enough for Jfff, and now he needs to bring Pmm along so she can watch him spend their grandson’s college fund money on hardback collections of books he once had and then sold. And I say all this well aware that I spent Sunday morning at a comic book show in suburban Philly buying…well, you know.
By the by, Jfff’s Mr. Fantastic white sideburns appear to have returned, as well. Did he color them for his SoCal vacation?
Most of this I said in my Arcamax and GC comments. Let’s see who gets trolled and/or removed first, Bill or me. May the best man win, Bill.
“May the best man win, Bill.”
Gunslinger Bill turned and spit his tobaccy-juice: “May the WORSE man LOSE! It means the same, but mine sounds more bad-assery.” (walks into open manhole)
Newest comment from me:
“PERFUME, isn’t it? Like guys who shower on Easter and Christmas only because their moms scream at them! OH, BOY! Suck in the STENCH!”
Where’s the ban hammer, GC bitches? I’m right here; I ain’t goin’ nowhere.
Really? Comic books again? What a one-track mind. Gee, thanks, TB for a taking a whole week off between comic book arcs. He must have been Jonesing.
Man on the Street Interviewer: What is the greatest invention in the history of mankind?
Person #1: The wheel!
Person #2: The light bulb!
Person #3: Textiles!
Person #4: Vaccines!
Tom Batiuk: Comic books!
🤦♀️
Huh. Let’s see how long this comment lasts:
“Ted4th seismic-2 [approx 2AM EDT]
I won’t bother commenting on today’s strip, since I commented on every strip during the Comic-Con story arc and all but one of those comments were deleted by morning. Apparently some hyper-vigilant defender flags all comments that call into question the strip’s obsession with the utter wonderfulness of comic books (Hi, Tom!), and so those “offending” comments are stuffed down the memory hole. Maybe this one will be too, but just in case it isn’t, can I ask why Funky Winkerbean was discontinued and Crankshaft kept going, when their creator instead seems to be effectively replacing the latter with left-over characters and stories from the former?”
Amen!
Why doesn’t Bats just move to single-panel format at this point?
I don’t know how he does it, but with a three-panel strip he consistently manages to insert two panels of filler, paying off with a “punchline” that’s “limper than a thrice-frozen celery stick,” to quote The Great One.
Panel 1: Jff walks into Komix Korner with Pmm. The name of the store is clearly marked on a sign. Jff says, “Thanks for coming with me to the Komix Korner, Pmm!”
In advertising, this is called “labeling the elephant.”
In comic strip writing, this is called “not bothering to even look like you’re putting in an effort, just dashing off 2 minutes worth of tripe and collecting your paycheck.”
Also, is it “Komix Korner” or “The Komix Korner”?
Silly me, expecting TomBa to pay attention to whether or not the name of his Mecca takes a definite article. Silly me, expecting him to maintain consistency for a whole three-panel strip.
Compare the Simpsons. It’s “The Android’s Dungeon.” Always takes a definite article. Is it really that hard to keep track of, Tom?
The Komix Thoughts are the hard for the Tom Batiuk!
I think it’s well past time for Tom Batiuk to move to a zero-panel format.
Here’s an avatar I made a few years ago. It breaks a site rule, although I’m not sure if it is still enforced (I guess we’ll find out).
I’ll bet Tom has never seen my fave 80s cartoon. It played between Jem and the Ninja Turtles on my local station. Not like that dumb 60s Batman show!
One thing I’ve noticed here is the lack of “down” votes. Today I got a whole bunch in a row! All reprints of comments from GC, so literally downvotes on my comments about comments about their comments. I’m the only one here who got the downvotes. Like some one followed me here from GC just to be pissed off, like that guy who gives bad Yelp reviews on restaurants that haven’t opened yet.
Strangely, not one of the comments I quoted–including one that wasn’t even from me–got deleted on GC. And I was trying to be obnoxious! Here’s your problem, Eve Hill–you’re quite charming, and these people don’t get it.
8/1:
“It’s filthy and disgusting—Oh god, was that a rat?! OHIO SUCKS! I hate you, Jiffy!
“KOM…KORN? WHERE ARE WE?! You said we’d go to Komix Korner! Where are the Butter Brinkel books about Butter Brinkel, and Jessica Whose Father John Darling Something?! I’M SO CONFUSED!”
“Pam, hang on, my utterly unexplained child doppelganger will manifest its hideous form any second now!”
(the air bursts into flame. It stirs from within, gasping for air, grabbing for flesh)
“OH, BOY!” it cries. “COMICAL BOOKS!”
The Earth incinerates. Nothing is left besides Lisa’s Story.
So…..DSH doesn’t bother doing something to properly maintain his retail space and Pmmmmmm is the idiot? Typical Batiuk.
Well let’s be clear, Pmmm is an idiot too. She walks around asking her father what he is doing, when she can clearly see it.
But DSH is a bigger idiot, no wonder his shop never makes any money.
Like Les and Lisa, Jff and Pmm are a perfectly matched codependent couple. Jff is a ball of mommy issues, and Pmm is a ball of daddy issues.
She’s constantly deferring to her father Crankshaft, still asking him for things, still hiding her activities from him well into her 50s, and letting him live in their house no matter how much pointless destruction he causes. This should be a major source of conflict, but, you know, the Funkyverse.
I think it is Ed’s house. Pmm and Jffff can’t afford their own house what with Jffff buying the same silver age comics again and again.
I remember a “building a spare room on the house for Ed” arc that implies it wasn’t Ed’s house to begin with. But who knows, it’s probably as consistent as anything else in this world.
It does seem to be Ed’s house. Flashbacks seem to indicate this. The reason they don’t have their own space is that their town doesn’t have a second-tier pizzeria with a comic book shop in the basement.
Another day, another comic book strip with some low-key IP theft. Anyone willing to locate the source material for that particular Batman thing? I recall some good detective work posted here the last time a statuette was sourced in a strip.
No, see, it’s funny because Pmm’s a gurrll and silly ol’ gurrlls just can’t appreciate precious, precious COMIC BOOKS (Mindy doesn’t count because she’s become ensnared by Mopey Pete’s extraordinary personal magnetism)!
Interestingly, Pmm has the exact same rection inside Lillian’s bookstore. There, however, she recognizes the residue on the shelves isn’t dust, but dried skin that’s flaked off from the proprietress’s withering and desiccated body.
Batiuk just never passed age nine, did he? It’s amazing that he thinks “girls have cooties” is an acceptable way for adults to behave. And that it’s a relatable sentiment. Remember when John Howard was paralyzed in fear that the Pizza Box Monster might be female?
I thought that was the guy in the Mr. Monster costume they hired to thwart Our Lord And Savior Pizza Monster, not Skunky John. (Why it’s so difficult to outsmart a guy who walks around in a costume made entirely of pizza boxes shall likely remain forever a mystery.)
*Sigh* I miss the Pizza Monster. It was completely moronic, but it was the fun kind of moronic. (And it made the characters look like the brain-dead buffoons they are.)
Could the cardboard Pizza Monster be defeated with cardboard bullets from Les’ cardboard Maxim machine gun?
(somewhere, one of you plays D&D and is now frantically making stat sheets)
Can you imagine a Funky Winkerbean role-playing game? “John failed his saving throw against his mother. She throws out 1d6 + 4 of his comic books.”
“Ooh, that damage means I’ll have to roll on the limb loss table. Let’s see… 1d100, with 1-100 resulting in ‘left arm’…”
“Les Moore decides to…” (roll) “…do nothing.”
“I’ll use Magic Missile of Smug!”
1. To all of the SOSF naysayers about how bad Sunday’s strip was in Crankshaft, I will grant forgiveness to all who ask for it…🦗 🦗 🦗
2. Everyone of you must admit I am right. “Easter Egg Island” is light years ahead of ‘pledge’.
3. To Anonymous Sparrow:
I am about halfway through “We have Always Lived in the Castle”. Tense. Real. It is hard to believe that Merricat is 18 yrs old.
Plus this might interest you. I watched the Alfred Hitchcock Hour, January 1965. “Where the Woodbine Twineth”. Also tense. Real. Tight. Believable. Great acting by all. I have a a lingering question, if it wasn’t Jesse, whom did Suze tell to get the ham? (I always try to use correct grammar with you. [a little trick taught to me by BWOEH!])
I saw it back in 1965. I was 11. I never looked at dolls the same way again!
SP:
I envy you seeing “Where the Woodbine Twineth.” I haven’t, but I learned of it while listening to a program of Sondheim songs.
There were some selections (“I Remember Sky” and “Take Me to the World”) from his TV musical, *Evening Primrose,* and I told a gentleman next to me about John Collier’s eerie story (done superbly on the “Escape” show on radio) about sinister goings-on in a department story. He brought up “Where the Woodbine Twineth,” though he couldn’t remember the title, but his synopsis was solid enough for me to look online and learn more.
Fans, I gather, abbreviate it as “WTWT.”
I’m glad you’re enjoying *We Have Always Lived in the Castle.* So is Jonas (not a merry cat, though he serves Merricat Blackwood).
AS,
1. WTWT started out as a story by Davis Grubs. It takes place roughly between 1880 and 1910. My info comes from googling WTWT and finding a link to the Hitchcock Project-James Bridges Part Twelve. Then Hitchcock updates it to 1965.
2. You also may find this interesting. In the comments, there is quite the discussion over Hitchcock using 2 black actors as live-in employees to the house. The commenters are trying to make it racial. In my opinion, Hitchcock stayed with the story and told the story taking place in the South. It is not a comment on inter-racial politics. Both actors are superb, and really help to sell the story.
3. If I remember correctly, Jack Benny made a movie called “George Washington Slept Here.” He had a live-in black employee. She traveled with his family to the new home in the country. No questions asked. Then Jimmy Stewart and Lionel Barrymore made a film, “You Can’t Take it With You.” Tremendous cast. Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold(personal favorite), and 2 black actors Lillian Billie Yarbo and Eddie Anderson. (It is hard to mention Benny and not Rochester!) I don’t remember any particular scene to verify, but Ms. Yarbo must be a live-in employee. Whether it is breakfast or a late night dinner, she is there. How she was paid in that household, would surprise me.
4. A rabbit trail comes to mind: ST:DS9’s captain Cisco visited his father who ran a restaurant. No replicators. Lots of employees. Now in the ST universe, money is worthless. How does the owner get employees to cook and clean, or wash dishes? What is their motivation?
5. I have never had a live-in employee or actually ever had any employee. So I am not up on it’s practicality. But must accept its use to tell the story.
P. S. [I was told this yesterday in Italian:
Sono sicura che tutto andrà bene! io sono strega quindi fidati di me!
I replied: you do not hear that expression much in America. 🤩] (I suppose, strega, must lean more towards wise woman in Italy.)
SP:
To the point that we think of “Eddie Rochester Anderson,” it is indeed difficult to disassociate him from Mr. Benny. (Well, according to one episode, they do have a contract which takes Rochester “up to, including and beyond the Pearly Gates.” When guest host Orson Welles asks whether Rochester’s shown it to a lawyer, he says that he has and the lawyer’s response was “Mr. Lincoln ain’t gonna like this.”)
So there’s more to Davis Grubb than the source novel for Charles Laughton’s lone directorial effort “The Night of the Hunter”! Fascinating, as a Vulcan with a human mother would say.
Jack Benny did indeed appear in “George Washington Slept Here.” Strangely, in the original stage incarnation, Benny’s character was keen on the dilapidated property he acquired, while his wife was the skeptical one; it was reversed for the movie, and in some theatrical revivals, the switch is used.
(To stay with my Wilder notes of late — I’m back from seeing James Stewart as Charles Lindbergh, which I enjoyed more than I expected — it’s like the addition of Miss Plimsoll to “Witness for the Prosecution.” When it was remade for television, the script looked back to Agatha Christie’s original, but Deborah Kerr was on hand as Miss Plimsoll.)
I’m with you on the excellence of Edward Arnold, even if I do sometimes confuse him with Eugene Pallette. (Perhaps because Pallette appeared as a millionaire in “The Lady Eve,” which Preston Sturges wrote and directed and Sturges wrote “Easy Living,” in which Arnold played a millionaire.) Frank Capra used him to good effect in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and “Meet John Doe.” Strangely, “You Can’t Take It with You” has so far eluded me, though I’ve seen the other two films which won Academy Awards for Capra as Best Director (“It Happened One Night” and “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town”).
There may be some clues to getting work from people without money (A.K.A. “filthy lucre”) in socialist texts, but Edward Bellamy in *Looking Backward: 2000-1887* and Robert Tressell in *The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists* still seem to have that which the love of creates the root of all evil.
“All of them witches” is “tutte streghe” in Italian.
John Collier’s “Evening Primrose” may or may not have inspired “The After-Hours” on “The Twilight Zone,” but the series adapted his “Chaser.”
Mon ami, “adieu” et “au revoir” sont deux choses tres differents.
My absolute favorite Edward Arnold film is “Come and Get It, 1936.” Tremendous cast. Walter Brennen receives Best Actor in a Supporting Role. It has a young Joel McCrae. But one is just mesmerized by the looks and skill of Frances Farmer. So tragic, yet so powerful. So beautiful. Such ability. She sings the Civil War song, Aura Lea. As you know it is the basis for the Elvis song, Love Me Tender. Arnold captures the grief and loss, yet he added the hope for a second chance so well in this movie. Farmer is haunting. I did not realize until tonight that Howard Hawkes directed the film. Of course, he reunites with Brennen in the film, Rio Bravo. To me, it is a perfect Western.
ni au revoir ni adieu, mais bonne soirée.
SP:
Frances Farmer is indeed luminous as Lotta in “Come and Get It.” Superb as Barbara Stanwyck is in “Golden Boy,” it’s a shame that Farmer didn’t get to recreate her role as Lorna Moon (she was in the stage version the Group Theatre produced. So were John Garfield and Elia Kazan. Not to mention Lee J. Cobb!)
Walter Brennan won three Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor (the other two are for “Kentucky” and “The Westerner”)
Howard Hawks apparently liked the “Rio Bravo” template a lot, for he returned to it with John Wayne in “El Dorado” and “Rio Lobo.”
Your envoi makes me think of the Velvet Underground’s “I’m Waiting for the Man”: “until tomorrow, but that’s just some other time…”
And since Martha Wainwright’s mother was Kate McGarrigle, here are some words from a song she co-wrote with Philippe Tatarcheff:
Entre Lajeunesse et la sagesse
Il y a un arrêt de métro
Deux dépanneurs, un bricoleur
Une affiche de Brigitte Bardot
Entre Lajeunesse et la sagesse
3. That was the famed Hattie McDaniel as Hester, maid to Bill (Jack Benny) and Connie (Ann Sheridan) Fuller who joins them on a trek from NYC to remote Bucks Country, Pa. in “George Washington Slept Here.” A similar situation occurred six years later in “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House,” with Louise Beavers as the domestic who follows Cary Grant and Myrna Loy from Manhattan to suburban Connecticut. Beavers also comes up with a successful slogan for the Spam-like canned meat that ad man Grant has unable to come up with. Her reward? A $10 a week raise.
Thank you, JJ.
1. That was Hattie McDaniel? I will never forget her quote from GWTW: “I don’t know nothin’ about birthin’ no babies!”
I find that can be used in any situation.
2. Both Hattie McDaniel, Louise Beavers, plus Ethel Waters played the lead on the TV show, Beulah.
3. You enticed me , so I had to look it up: “If it ain’t Wham, it ain’t ham!” Thank you.
4. A $10 a week raise would have been huge money in the 1940’s. It’s an extra $126.60 a week in today’s money.
5. Keep fighting the fight over in Crankshaft, my friend!
SP:
Butterfly McQueen, as Prissy in “Gone with the Wind,” delivers the “birthin’ no babies” line, not Hattie McDaniel.
McDaniel plays Mammy in the movie and she’s one of the few people whose respect Rhett Butler actually wants. He secures it with a red petticoat, after which he is “Mistuh Rhett” for her and no longer “Cap’n Butler.”
Louise Beavers is the maid Delilah in the 1934 “Imitation of Life,” which was filmed a second time in 1959 with Juanita Moore as the maid Annie. (Daughter Peola in 1934 becomes daughter Sarah Jane in 1959.) Both versions are excellent, and allow you to amaze your friends with this trivia question:
What are the three John Stahl films which Douglas Sirk later remade?
(“The Magnificent Obsession,” “When Tomorrow Comes”* and “Imitation of Life”)
Scarlett O’Hara pronounces “chalet” as “shall-ett.”
*
Called “Interlude” in the remake.
Anonymous Sparrow,
Thank you for the correction.
1. From the 1930’s through the 1960’s, Black Cinema employed the best and the most little known examples of American talent. Then when you include the giants in the music industry from that same period that received little national attention, it makes you wonder, how have we come so far? Some people may only know Cab Calloway from “the Cincinnati Kid”, but not from “Stormy Weather”.
2. You made me research John Collier. I will get some of his books after I read up on Shirley Jackson. You will like this quote from him:
“I sometimes marvel that a third-rate writer like me has been able to palm himself off as a second-rate writer.”
(Obviously, we are our own worst critics!)
SP:
Thank you for taking the correction with such grace.
Prissy is the daughter of Dilcey, who is one of the few Black characters in Margaret Mitchell’s novels who is not presented as a pure stereotype. This is because Dilcey is part-Indian (and proud of it).
People may also know Calloway for his performance of “Minnie the Moocher” in “The Blues Brothers.”
It’s a shame that in certain markets musical films with Black performers were cut so that audiences couldn’t see, say, the jaw-dropping brilliance of the Nicholas brothers. (The films were so constructed that you could omit such sequences without disturbing the flow of the storyline.)
The aged actor who presents Eve Harrington with her award in “All About Eve” is Walter Hampden. When he died in 1955, commentator Harry Golden wrote a short tribute to him, mentioning that Hampden avoided Hollywood and the movies for as long as he could…but when he lost a lot of money in an endeavor, he had to go West, and Golden was cringing when he saw this great actor on screen as an Indian saying “ugh.”
“But I’ll never forget him as Cyrano,” the piece concludes, and it is nice to know that he also had that on his resume.
As John Collier might say, “it’s one way of refuting Beelzy…”
Just happened to peek at the comic strip now figuratively titled, “Crankshaft’s Comic Book Chronicles”. It’s not easy to give up snarking on ol’ Tom Batiuk. I felt compelled to leave one more comment.
How did everybody miss the low-hanging fruit?
I’d welcome a Dinkle story arc about now. Anything but the author Lillian McKenzie or frickin’ comic books.
The only comic shop I walk into (and infrequently at that) is Wonderland Comics in Putnam, CT. Maybe it’s because I go with my favorite germophobe friend on weekdays, but the place is spotless. I assume that in their downtime the employees run a feather duster over everything.
Now imagine a shop owned by a guy who’s worn the same Batman shirt for decades. You imagine it; I sure don’t want to.
I wouldn’t enter The Komix Korner in anything less than a hazmat suit with a respirator. Imagine the stench of Montoni’s pizza mixed with DSH John’s
muskstank.That Batman shirt is most likely biofused to DSH John’s spongy torso via osmosis. It would have to be surgically removed. Ewwwwww.
😝🤢🤮
Would a bathtub full of Goo Gone® allow DSH John to remove the Batman shirt?
Would a bathtub full of Goo Gone® allow DSH John to remove the Batman shirt
I think it would remove John and keep the shirt.
That kind of makes sense. DSH is a fat tub of goo. Goo Gone® would make him gone. YaY!
I’m on the road and didn’t get a look at today’s “Crankshat” until evening. I was amazed I could still comment to the effect that Batty apparently confuses Pledge with Febreze, a spray that would make a lot more sense in Komix Koroner.
Lysol disinfectant spray would be even better.
Since 7/31, this strip has had…8 smug smirks.
Not a lot, but 8 in 3 days is a kinda high ratio.
“8 smug smirks, FIIIIVE Golden RIIINGS”
oh like you didn’t think that.
Gotta say, this weeks strips are a potent comic-shop repellent. If I’d never been in a comic shop, I’d run from them after reading these. 7/2: So you have to know every character or face mockery? How are new people supposed to get into the hobby?
Oh, I get it. They’re not. It’s the “women-haters club” from the Little Rascals, populated by cranky old men. If you don’t know the password, you’re not allowed in.
Fortunately, this is a club that holds all the appeal of an extended IRS audit in an un-air-conditioned room.
As I mentioned in a soon-to-be-deleted GC comment, Jfff theoretically shouldn’t know Wade Wilson either. As has been drummed into our heads repeatedly this year, Jfff read (lovingly, of course) Silver Age comics from the ‘50s and ’60s as a child but stopped when he “grew up” and his shrew of a mother threw most of them out. Those Silver Age books were the ones he bought hardback collections of in San Diego. The character of Deadpool debuted in 1990 and gained his own title seven years later. We’ve never seen Jfff reading modern comics or mention going to see comics-related films, only “The Phantom Empire” (did he even see the “Starsux Jones” movies?). One might imagine the Murdochs watching one of the Ryan Reynolds movies on TV together, but no, Pmm’s a gurrl–a grown-up gurrl, if act–and thus could never appreciate the subtle joys of KOMIX!!!
Your Grease:
I think Calvin and Hobbes want to give you an honorary membership in G.R.O.S.S. (Get Rid Of Slimy GirlS!
7/2:
Panel 1.
“Say, is that CHARACTER #784 OF THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY© ℗®™?”
“No! That is CHARACTER #85 OF THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY© ℗®™!”
Panel 2.
“Heh, I’m an idiot X) *SMIRK*”
“Heh, she’s an idiot X) *SMIRK*”
“Heh, you’re both idiots X) *SMIRK*”
“Let’s see you make your own comic strip.”, they say, as if there is anything of creative or artistic merit here. Not one bit.
They kind of have a point, though. I mean, you can’t really criticize a film if you haven’t been a screenwriter, director, actor, and producer. You can’t criticize Putin if you haven’t been president of Russia. It’s only fair.
With today’s Crankshaft, just how much money is DSH John able to blow on life-size statues, especially with their varying level of notability. Deadpool and Iron Man is one thing, I’d bet comic shops might get enough discounts to sprinkle those out, but a C-tier notable Star Wars character (with respect to K-2SO, he is cool, and looking it up SW’s collector makers actually did make this product, suggesting Batiuk is “borrowing” from his IRL comic haunts somewhere) is a bit egregious for a hobby investment, and how the hell did he even find a life-size Miss Marple statue, of all things, for Lilian back in February?! Considering he’s in a building in an area that somehow lost* its 50+year star tenant and he infamously has troubles with rent as is, he’s seriously splurging even if he does get miracle rare comics every other year that can float him a small fortune off that zillionaire owning Atomik Komix who keeps camping every auction house.
*in spite of everything I’m starting to stubbornly refuse to accept the whole Monotoni’s closing plotline. Alongside the confusion of “new cars with new snow tires” during that final week, just seems egregious that the one big IRL-inspired mainstay of the strip should die while all the comic wish fufillment nonsense gets to live on.