First of all, though many of you had criticisms of the few Crankshaft strips, I’ve been stunned that the last three (THREE) strips each at least got a smile outta me. From Granny J showing a bit of ankle, to Sunday’s supremely tolerable goose call, I can’t remember the last time I was able to give my stamp of “So Okay It’s Average!” to Crankshaft three days in a row. YMMV, of course, but I’m not gonna lie and say I didn’t find it amusing.
However, of note this week was this little exchange,
Was this strip funny? No, not really.
But it was a call back to a 35-year-old running gag, from the very beginning of the strip. Except it wasn’t the mother chasing the bus, it was the poor little tyke herself.
How do I know? Well I shelled out to get the first couple Crankshaft paperbacks a few months ago. I even had to buy the first one twice, because it shipped to my parents’ house. I noticed my parents’ laughing over it a few weeks later, and it’s disappeared into their stack of bathroom reading materials. I guess there’s no accounting for taste.
Because I’m genuinely wondering. Are these funny? Are they cruel? Are they somewhere in between? I am interested to hear your thoughts.
Son of Stuck Funky 
I think the strips with Crankshaft being a dick to the little Johnson girl are just mean spirited
The pure Funky Act 1 energy of early Crankshaft is clear; simple gags leaning towards Loony Tune-tier cartoon (il)logic, but regular enough to be serialized with various running gags, twists and escalations. It’s definitely a cruel kind of humor, but the extremes of gag-tier comedy it goes for loops around and makes it worth inoffensive chuckles. Considering Ed’s spinoff is built on the sheer hilarity his trope of being a grumpy bus driver who apparently misses kids’ pickups on purpose, it can only be expected of the strip that this was the sort of humor it was built on.
And it seems to track here that Tom doesn’t have the full details straight with the gag anymore, assuming the mother was more involved in its prime. This is what happens when your strip isn’t big enough to have a throughout fan-run wiki page like the bigwigs, I guess. (At this rate we could start our own, but we’d lean more towards Uncyclopedia than Wikipedia as far as neutrality goes)
These. Are. Horrifying. An old man is taking genuine joy in f’ing with a grade school student. Day after day after day. Specifically, by refusing to do his job in the most physically hostile way possible, when she is only trying to get to SCHOOL.And then, passing along this perverse behavior to a new trainee.
These are from the earliest days of the strip? What syndicate would pick this up? In 19-blanking-87? I’ve never read any of the early Crankshaft strips before and I’m appalled. This genuinely makes me think worse of Mr. Batiuk as a human being, if he thought this was funny. Were there any strips where the kids/parents were counter-plotting? Did Mr. ‘Shaft ever get one-upped? Or did he always win? I think I know the answer.
I know that for millions of Americans (myself included – 1970s) the daily school bus pickup was often a colossal pain – a source of stress and hurry before your mom had even finished her first cup of coffee. And I can see how that *might* seem like a good basis for a comic strip. But even if there are other gags/runs/plotlines, THIS is the foundation of the comic. The guy’s a sociopath.
I have further thoughts but since they start to bring in the question of humor during the Third Reich, I should shut up.
A Pulitzer nominated sociopath.
Certainly riding the bus was traumatic for some kids, but this strip and act 1 FW always featured over the top humor and exaggeration and so I do not take it seriously.
The joke would have worked much better if the little Johnson girl was seen foiling Crankshaft’s efforts from time to time.
Wow. Imagine the elevator pitch for this strip. “Our hero is a cruel sociopath who delights in humiliating little girls! Think ‘SAW’ but less funny! The jokes just write themselv–” (Tom swerves the car he’s driving to try and run over a toddler) “WOW! Did you see the terror on her dumb face?! Now THAT’S comedy! Now, back to my other strip: Les pouts for a week because he didn’t get his way when Starbucks made his drink wrong, it’s so sad. Like in Hemingway, who I basically am.”
At least he drew Crank as he really is. Hideous, demonic, repellent, evil. Good call. Just give him a few blackheads and call it a job done.
Some day, this strip will be gone. I think it might be sooner than Tom thinks it’ll be, but I ain’t named Davis.
Jeff M, I don’t know why you brought Nazis into this, because looking at Crank’s first appearance, there’s nothi-
My god. All he needs are rat whiskers, and this could’ve run in the Volkischer Beobachter. I called his look “Hideous, demonic, repellent, evil” and didn’t catch it.
When did Crank stop looking like…that, and become the fat-nosed, black-headed-riddled, third stage of syphilis trash that we all know and vaguely tolerate?
Thanks, it’s 3AM here, I’ll sleep well tonight.
All he needs are rat whiskers, and this could’ve run in the Volkischer Beobachter.
Or just change “Johnson” to “Goldstein.”
Then there’s the “tragic”, “doomed” romance predicted on everyone involved having rancid tapioca pudding for brains. We have Lillian Lizard channeling Angry Idiot Suicide Girl because she acts like Batiuk’s idea of what a woman is. We have her long-suffering sister who had a nervous breakdown and a lobotomy. We have the swain too passive and stupid to fight for his love. We have Pmmmmm not calling everyone involved a pea-brain.
This is the foundation on which everything else is built: an angry and selfish old man who wants to punish the world because it’s ‘not fair’ that his stupidity and arrogance have consequences he doesn’t like. He refused to go to school not because his family needed him to work but just out of wanting to be a big dick and it killed his wife, his son and his baseball career and he wants to get back at the children of the world because he won’t admit that he done fucked up once too often.
Those strips changed my mind about Ed. I thought he was an affable halfwit who tries to kill children at random, like it is in every neighborhood, and instead he’s…this?
“American Psycho: The Comic” could’ve been funnier. “Garfield: He hates Mondays, and is in the Gestapo!” might be funnier.
And he got a syndicate deal that’s still going on (although I bet not as long as he thinks it will).
Again, when did this phase of CS end? Other elevator pitch: “It’s like Pluggers, except only for the readers with bodies in their deep freezers!”
“But not my mother! She’s not in there! Even after she wouldn’t let me go to the WALGREENS SPINNER RACK!” (reaches in) “Chicken finger?” (munches)
Wasn’t Ed unable to read at this time? Shouldn’t the strip have gone something like this?
Fellow Driver: What’s that paper, Ed?
Crankshaft: Oh, something the little Johnson girl gave me.
Fellow Driver: Hey, it’s a Burger Barn Gift Certificate!
Crankshaft: It is? Wow, that’s always useful.
Fellow Driver: It won’t do you much good, Ed.
Crankshaft: Why not?
Fellow Driver: It’s only good in Helena, Montana! You ready to leave the Buckeye State for Big Sky Country any time soon?
“Human beings can be awful cruel to one another,” wrote Mark Twain, and here we have someone who wants to be the most awful and the most cruel in the name of laughter.
“‘T’ain’t funny, McGee…”
These Little Johnson Girl strips are spread out over the first three or so years of Cranky, and he started to learn to read in year two.
Having him be illiterate up till his sixties just doesn’t make that much sense. Maybe functionally illiterate, where he can’t read anything longer than a few short words.
Very early in Crankshaft he’s the ‘oldest man in Centerville,’ but that is retconned pretty quick so that he’s in his sixties. Which gives him a birthdate in the late 20’s. So barring TimeMop shenanigans he’s pushing 100.
Wait Crankshaft was supposed to be about 60 when the strip started? You mean i’m that close to being Crankshaft‘s age?
Sweet Christmas! That wizened old man in the first strips — the one that makes Steve Ditko’s original Vulture look like a preschooler — is the same age as me?!
Wow, I look good in comparison!
CBH:
Thank you for taking the time to explain the situation. I should have realized for myself that the Burger Barn certificate strip came after Ed had learned to read.
(Time and I are not as elegantly affiliated as Time and Harley Davidson.)
W. Somerset Maugham wrote a short story called “The Verger,” in which Albert Edward Foreman, the title character, is illiterate and will lose the job he loves so much if he can’t learn to read and write. He winds up starting a business, becomes very rich and basically only knows how to sign his name. Here’s the ending:
The manager stared at him as though he were a prehistoric
monster.
“And do you mean to say that you’ve built up this important
business and amassed a fortune of thirty thousand pounds
without being able to read or write? Good God, man, what would
you be now if you had been able to?”
“I can tell you that sir,” said Mr. Foreman, a little smile on his
still aristocratic features. “I’d be verger of St. Peter’s, Neville
Square.”
Had Ed known how to read and write when he was playing baseball, would he have gone on to become one of the all-time greats?
Somehow, I doubt it.
Had Ed known how to read and write when he was playing baseball, would he have gone on to become one of the all-time greats?
It sure is implied, though. “Oh boo hoo hoo, I missed my shot at the major leagues because I couldn’t read and some mean teammate played a prank on me.” It’s such a Funkyverse attempt at drama; he acts like this tiny random event ruined his life, when the character’s own lack of effort is clearly to blame. Same thing with Lisa. Same thing with Eugene.
There is not just a lack of effort that makes him an ass. There is also the belief that he’s a victim that drives him. He thinks that everyone in the world is trying to humiliate him so he has to defend himself by counterattacking. He’s Mike Freaking Patterson from For Better Or For Worse.
CBH, your post today neatly illustrates exactly why I loathe “Crankshaft” so much. In FW, every member of the WHS faculty quietly despises the students, as shown via the eye rolls, deadpan reaction shots and so on. Crankshaft is that hatred, in its purest, most distilled form. Free from the burden of being an “educator”, Ed is free to openly mock and scorn the children, something Batiuk obviously felt he needed to create an entire new comic strip to do.
I had no idea Crankshaft was (sigh) illiterate, too. I’m moderately surprised that (as far as I know) he never went blind, or lost his clutch leg or something. This BatYam guy is one sick f*ck, you know?
People like Ed Crankshaft, Les Moore, and Linda Bushka are filled with self-loathing. But they’re too egotistical to actually hate themselves, so they project. They can’t face their own failures in life, so they delight in calling everyone else failures. Especially the children it’s their job to educate! To put it mildly, Westview is a virulent social environment.
But there’s no resistance, or even a reaction to it. No kids act out, to the point of being serious problems. No kids get involved with substances – something that would be a widespread problem in a bleak, dying rust belt town in the 2020s. No parents ever pull their kids out of the school, demand improvement, or refuse to let Dinkle and Crankshaft mistreat their children. No one ever suggests, even in private, that this isn’t the best place to live. They all just take it, because they have to.
Westview is like a small Soviet town. I know I make that comparison a lot, but it’s so fitting. All dialogue is about the idealized version of their lives. The community’s real problems – incompetence, lack of opportunity, and poor planning – are never even acknowledged to exist.
“Those dumb kids” are just one of many straw men Westview employs to maintain control. For what huge failures these kids supposedly are, have you noticed you never actually see them failing? Dinkle/Becky’s latest concert is always a hit. Whether the children’s actual failure is concealed, or whether they’re adequately skilled and the constant abuse is unwarranted, I leave as an exercise for the reader.
You could almost go back and re-tell Funky Winkerbean as a totally different story, just by shining a light on what Tom Batiuk tries to conceal by never addressing it on camera. Most of these idiot teachers were the idiot students not so long ago. Most of the “tragedy” is self-inflicted, or a function of the characters’ own passive, inept laziness. Most of the main characters are severely broken people. And what happens to the people who leave? They’re never talked about again. Probably because they found a better life, and that doesn’t square with the desired narrative.
I take a different angle; why don’t we get to see any of this? This is like listening to Mr. Bean on the radio. Crankshaft just sits in his driver’s seat, and verbally describes these slapstick events. And not even very well. The artist should have been instructed to draw every single one of these things.
I think there are a couple of things contributing to this. First and foremost, TB has leaned on the whole “tell don’t show” philosophy even back to beginning of FW. It’s what he knows how to do, and to some extent it is a valid artistic choice. By placing the focus on Ed, we get the best view of his comically exaggerated monstrosity. We spend the strip inside his warped mind. On some level, that does work.
I also expect that the shrinking newspaper page sizes of the 1980s may also have played a role in the decision to spend most of the panels on Ed’s face. Comics were being given less space than ever before at the time and syndicates had taken a shine to new strips with more spartan artwork (see Dilbert or US Acres) while creators like Watterson, Breathed, and Trudeau were publicly fighting to retain column inches for their strips.
All that said, the best “little Johnson girl” strips above are absolutely the ones where she can be seen as a garbage bag with legs.
Watterson, Breathed, Trudeau, and also Gary Larson found ways to succeed despite those limitations. Batiuk never even tried. Yes, there are times when it’s funnier not to show the action. But when you look all the Crankshaft strips next to each other you can see how pervasive it is.
Watterson, Breathed, and Trudeau also won their fights for extra space (on Sundays), at least for a time, and did so because they were fighting for their existing and popular strips to retain it. While TB was well into his career at that point, Crankshaft was being launched into this environment and I’m sure he was being told to work with the same syndicate guidelines other strips being launched around that time were dealing with.
I’m not suggesting he worked well within those limitations, just that they may have influenced him to lean even further on what was already a habit of his from Funky Winkerbean.
A sociopathic bus driver who literally puts the life of an innocent child in danger every day, just for kicks? Day after day after day after day?
Not funny in the least.
I agree with Rusty Shackleford that the whole thing would be much more fun if the little Johnson girl was seen outwitting Crankshaft in the end. Perhaps Roadrunner vs Coyote style. THAT could have worked!
Wow. These are just….horrible. Intentionally forcing kids to miss the bus? Trying to lose them when they’re running in the street and can’t see? Delighting in the fact that they ran face first into a mailbox/tree?
Overall it’s a little darker than i prefer but they’re recognizably jokes. Over the top, outrageous jokes. He’s purposely trying to screw over the rider, the rider responds with various disguises and shenanigans, i don’t know that either one ‘wins’ but the fight continues. Yes that pretty much is a Roadrunner vs Coyote.
Folks complain when Crankshafthas no punchline, complain when it does–kind of confusing. Although he does beat that “french horn” line a little hard here (i can’t tell how many were published in one week here).
Yes, I do agree that they are at least recognizably jokes, and to be fair, many of them are quite well-written.
But the consistent mean-spiritedness sucks the humor out of them.
There were ways in which this could have been addressed. Letting the kid win at least part of the time — preferably all the time — would have taken it out of the realm of realism and put it squarely in Chuck Jones territory. This bully-always-loses battle of wits was the staple of the aforementioned Road Runner cartoons, but also Tweety and Sylvester, Bugs and Elmer, etc. Nobody cries for Sylvester — who, after all, is just doing what cats are compelled to do — because it’s so far outside the realm of reality that there aren’t any stakes.
What we see in these early strips is the equivalent of seeing a realistic housecat chasing a realistic mouse and having a realistic anvil fall on its head. Really not the least bit funny.
I dunno, there’s one with a little girl about to get peed on by a dog; it would take a heart of stone not to laugh.
I do like the effort that went into this once upon a time. I don’t know if TB has been losing his fastball without even realizing it, but it’s the lack of effort more than lack of creativity that i’ve had a problem with for the last however many years. Maybe aiming for a big 50 years won’t work if everyone thinks you peaked before 40.
This is true. Batty should have retired years ago, but he just can’t get off the stage already. By the way he writes his blog posts, you would have expected him to have created a beautiful farewell arc for FW and Crankshaft and then retire to create his own comic books a la Watterson who now spends his time painting. But Tom knows that once he retires, he his forgotten, therefore, he must keep going.
Also, they stop paying you if you retire.
it’s so far outside the realm of reality that there aren’t any stakes
That is the most concise description of the man’s oeuvre I’ve read. He tries to play out these “heartbreaking” scenarios that are so far from reality that they become unintentional jokes.
Once again, Puff Batty is violating a rule of humor: Punching down is not funny. Humiliation, even bordering on sadism, can be funny if it’s bringing down a bad guy, or humbling the high-and-mighty.
Adults in positions of power systematically torturing young children they’re responsible for: Not funny. Pretty much the diametric opposite of funny, actually.
These strips are yucky, plain and simple. They made me squirm uncomfortably, and then they made me sad, because they reminded me of mean adults I remember from my childhood.
But as for Bill the Splut’s assertion that Crankshaft is drawn as a caricature that could have appeared in the Völkischer Beobachter, let’s be real — it’s ridiculous.
The art clearly would have been more at home in Der Stürmer, accompanied by the phrase “Krankschaft ist unser Unglück!” (Crankshaft is our misfortune!)
When I first read those old Crankies, I thought “He’s drawn like a medieval cathedral’s gargoyle.” But in the back of my head…Huh. Something else. What am I remembering? And a comment about the Third Reich?
Then there was something …the Beobachter! My first exposure to that was I believe a link from 20 years ago, to their “Comics Page.”
I assume you can still find it. I don’t really recommend finding it.
I typed “Völkischer Beobachter” into my internet machine from memory, and found that I’d only gotten 1 letter wrong. Which is weird, as my German is limited to “Vos ist los scheisse?” This translates as “I’m not a fan of the way that goose is stepping”.
Waaaait…Weren’t there gooses stepping in this strip yesterday? Maybe tomorrow, the world? Ehh, there’s TV to watch!
Funny. The Völkischer Beobachter’s history begins in the beer hall putsch era of the 1920s (according to MAD magazine, it was called that because everyone was putsching and tschoving), but publication suddenly ended in April 45. Wonder what happened?
ADMINS: Get ready for some very unpleasant search results. I speak from personal experience.
I wonder if strips like these were an actual factor into why the Crankshaft movie never was approved. Someone, somewhere, took the time to see what this so called Crankshaft was all about, found a book that had these strips and said “Y’know what… no.”
The other comments here saying that this falls under the Looney Tunes mentality is insightful. Roadrunner V Coyote, indeed; only it’s the Coyote who is winning and the only thing we see is the Coyote laughing about the slapstick which is only described by the Coyote and goes unseen.
Slapstick comedy is a fine line to tread. Three Stooges pulls it off with the understanding that the Stooges are Stooges, so they “deserve it”. Simpsons has had a long debate about it since the gorge jump, and there’s plenty of scenes where people are depicted to be badly injured or in car wrecks or the like, but usually the show managed to depict it all in an effective manner – perhaps because we both see the physical harm itself but also immediately see the victim not suffer lingering damage from it (i.e., Barney immolating himself after lighting a cigarette when rescued from the tar pit. He just says “ow” rather plainly and keeps walking away at the same pace).
I think that may be the difference in how TB handles it versus others. Roadrunner shorts would be received very differently if Coyote “won” all the time and gloated about it. Sometimes people ask about why it is that Tom Cat “never wins” in Tom & Jerry, but just imagine if an entire short was Tom simply torturing Jerry the whole time. Simpsons – Lisa tears up a check, Homer suffers a heart attack from seeing it, Homer is seen in the hospital, and that didn’t strike me as offensive. Meanwhile, in FW, Holly suffers slapstick damage from flaming baton tricks, she is put in crutches from it, but there’s other factors around it which I found distasteful (Melinda pushing her into it, Holly not saying ‘no’, Bull’s helmet).
I’m not sure if there’s a single sentence which explains how TBs treatment of slapstick doesn’t feel like it works the same way as others, but it seems apparent to me that TB just doesn’t land it in the same way.
Some of the early Tom and Jerry cartoons had a more realistic looking Tom, who made realistic cat noises instead of having a human voice. Watching Tom get hurt was very off-putting; it was like watching a real cat get hurt. Making the proceedings less realistic softened the tone and made the slapstick a lot more fun. But, you know, “a quarter inch from reality!”
Alas, they won’t let “The Krusty the Clown Show” run “Burning Down the Mouse” in which Scratchy gets back at Itchy again in a million years.
Giant Rats of Sumatra, rejoice!
Oh how timely, today’s Crankshaft shows that the youngest Johnson is being implored by her mastermind-all-along grandmother to use her mother’s old bush disguise trick, as shown in the vintage strips CBH shared. Not only suggesting we’re in for a whole week of “classic” gags, but begging the question of why we’re trying to revive this pseudo-loony-tunes dynamic of driver vs kid when the last week had Cranky legit being cordial with the two already with no sign he was tormenting them (particularly if other kids are getting rides by their parents instead). Classic Funkyverse “logic”.
I think it’s simply TB once again trying to go back to the same ol’ well, never realizing that it’s been dry for decades.
And I think he sees this revisiting of old gags as some kind of fanservice for the hârdçore ‘sháftheáds he imagines are out there somewhere in newspaper-land.
We saw a lot of VERY obscure references to earlier plots and strips toward the end of FW. You know he was thinking, “Yes — this’ll thrill the thousands of OG Funksters out there, wondering what happened to Susan when she stood on that bridge! Way to tie it all together, Tom ol’ boy! Ya did it again! Gimme five!” [high-fives his left hand with his right hand]
Tom’s spirit animal is Family Guy‘s Brian Griffin, the talentless failed novelist/failed playwright who continually puffs up his own flagging ego with egregious self-deception.
Brian, on the sofa with his laptop:
Good call.
And the latest “Annotated Funky” deserves nothing more than a reply to my own comment. Having shot early to “helpfully” explain the references as far as each noticeable book on the library shelf last time, this time ALL we get is pointing out Elemental Force and how it’s an Atomix Komix title, doncha know.
fuck this, I’m going to go read some of the essay-tier annotations David Morgan Mar writes for his Irregular Webcomic series.
More thought and creativity went into the text on the back of my shampoo bottle than the latest ‘Annotated Funky’.
It’s so empty it’s almost insulting. “Oh, you want more ‘secret sauce’, do you? Well, the fake comic book cover on the post-revolution bookshelf is the same fake comic book cover I’ve already written 12 blog posts about, despite it being completely irrelevant to both stories. That good enough for you?”
It’s absolute madness. It’s literally the ancient joke: “Why did the chicken cross the road?” “To get to the other side.”
It’s as if a history student asked, “Why did the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor?” and the answer given was, “Because they wanted to blow up the ships in Pearl Harbor. And now you know.”
Does he just not get how baffling, how question-provoking the whole thing was? Is he taunting us? Does he think there are fans out there who are eagerly consuming this info? “Ah, yes, right! Of course! That’s the comic book he already wrote about and highlighted about a hundred times! YES! Finally I understand! Well played, Batiuk. Well played.“
Does he just not get how baffling, how question-provoking the whole thing was?
He might not. The man has been actively shutting out feedback since his last editor died. So his actual thought process feels like a strawman argument, because it’s based on nothing but his own twisted ideas of who his critics are and their motivations. Like that “internet users are stunted individuals standing on the back of celebrities writing on the bathroom stall” drivelpuke that pisses me off every time it’s in the random banner.
He created a robot-assisted post-apocalyptic book store, and he’s explaining the book titles, because that’s what he thinks his readers want to know. And because everybody loves the silver age comic book cover creation process, amirite?
Your Grease:
You remind me of the “Degrassi” variation on the chicken joke.
“Why did the turtle cross the road?”
“It was the chicken’s day off!”
It’s Ryan’s Planet, we just live on it.
I’m not going to vouch for today’s batch of old strips on the whole, but there are two key things that work about them that TB has not seemed to remember in the last 15-20 years.
– One, Ed’s sadistic jerkery is genuinely over-the-top. TB knew how to exaggerate for attempted comedic effect at one time! It’s hard to believe.
– Two, the little Johnson girl is a character that fits this kind of attempted comedy pretty well, even unseen. Her tireless determination (pretty liberally cribbed from Charlie Brown, to be fair) makes Ed’s monstrous behavior work to at least some humorous effect, it is the ONLY thing that makes it work. TB has us rooting for her and against Ed (presumably that was intended). Her near-successes feel earned because she keeps enduring the wild failures, and the failures don’t hit as cruelly as they are written because her determination is superhuman.
Yes, it is punching down… and not in the apparent service of some greater message about determination, doing what is right, or facing the impossible odds stacked against the underprivileged… but it is the kind of punching down that seems to at least understand that it is doing so. Contrast that to most anything TB has written this century. Characters are either slapped down by life and stay there wallowing in self-pity… or they are handed life on a silver platter and still find something to complain about.
I can’t help but think newspaper comics are extremely out of line with generational values. People are a lot more tolerant of others, and a lot less abusive to each other, than they used to be. And I think it’s a major reason young people want nothing to do with newspaper comics. Who the hell wants to read Dustin, which does nothing but tell young people how inferior they are?
Who the hell wants to live in a world where your grandmother has to prostitute herself, and you have to disguise yourself like a bush, to get a bus ride to school? That kind of behavior from school employees stopped being tolerated decades ago. Even if you ignore the cruelty angle, the joke still doesn’t work because it’s not from a world anyone born after 1975 ever lived in.
I’m rooting for the burnings. If there’s any place where some people need to be lined up against the wall, it’s Westview. What a useless bunch of adults these poor children have to answer to. When they’re not abusive and incompetent, they’re enabling those people by teaching you never to stand up to anything.
Some great commentary today, with interesting takes on certain aspects of the whole matter, but I think I could still go with my initial impressions:
These old Crankshaft strips are cruel, not funny. And seeing a bunch of them all at once just emphasizes how one-note and threadbare the whole concept is. And lazily presented, with little depiction of the action, just panel after panel of Crankshaft describing things. And illogical to boot, because even if the little girl “catches” the bus, he doesn’t have to open the door, and can just drive away again.
Just another total Batiuk failure.
I keep going back to Dinkle. Dinkle’s Act I cruelty worked because it was a side effect of his well-defined character. He didn’t torture people just because he liked to. He was an egomaniac first and foremost, and simply didn’t care how much anyone had to suffer for his art.
Why does Crankshaft blow off passengers? Is he lazy? No. Does he hate kids? No. Does he hate his job? No. Does he miss passengers by mistake? No. Is he leveraging his position to get things from people? No. Is he trying to win a contest? No. Why does Crankshaft do wacky things? Because he’s the guy who does wacky things. It’s his entire personality.
It’s a tired running gag that refuses to acknowledge how tedious it’s become, or even vary its execution in the slightest. South Park could make a joke out of not killing Kenny. Or killing someone else. Or juxtaposing a serious death with Kenny’s silly ones. Batiuk can’t even do that, because that would be “injecting himself into the story” or some nonsense.
Like the vast, vast majority of BatHack’s work, these strips are most definitely not funny.
I just realized that one of the things that’s so creepy about these strips is that it’s a repulsive sixtysomething man relentlessly tormenting a little girl who is forced to tolerate him.
That just adds a thick, viscous layer of squick to an already off-putting scenario.
If it were a boy he was torturing, it would be less nasty somehow. It might have a vague undertone of “Dennis the Menace vs Mr Wilson.” (Of course, in that eternal battle, Dennis is usually the unintentional aggressor.
Which brings me to: Wouldn’t this whole scenario have worked better if the Johnson girl had been shown to be a bit of a brat, maybe someone who on some level deserved some kind of comeuppance? Like a Lucy Van Pelt type?)
Anyway, creepy old man leers as he torments first-grade girl trying to get to school — in my book, it’s weird and gross, not funny.
I don’t know. Despite being a mother and grandmother, I don’t seem to get as worked up as most of you about those strips. Perhaps I need to take a Voight-Kampff test to prove I’m still human.
Surprising to see in a newspaper comic? Sure. Better suited for an underground or web comic?
Perhaps it’s because I don’t have a face to associate with “the little Johnson girl.” By the way, is it just me, or does “the little Johnson girl” not seem so little standing against the police car?
I confess the strip with the trash bag, holding a French horn, and chased by the police car made me chuckle.
Perhaps my lack of sympathy is due to personal experiences.
Getting caught behind a school bus was death when I lived in Missouri. We had two-lane country roads with solid yellow lines. There was not a passing zone to be found. The school bus would seemingly stop every 100 feet and wait for the little darlings to saunter out of their homes an eternity after the bus driver honked their horn. The kids would take their sweet time getting to the bus. Sometimes, the kids would be accompanied by their mothers. Mothers who just had to have a conversation with the bus driver. Drivers in the cars behind the bus would honk their horns, and the mother would hold up a finger (not the middle one, but the one indicating “Give me another minute”). Then the school bus would drive for a few seconds and the whole ordeal would start over again. Getting caught behind a school bus would mean the difference between arriving at work ten minutes early or ten minutes late.
When did school buses start picking kids in front of their houses? I wish I had that service. I grew up in a housing development that had over 150 homes. There was ONE bus stop in the entire neighborhood. My fanily resided in the back of the development, which meant brothers and I had to walk three-tenths of a mile just to reach the bus stop. If we missed the bus, we had to ride our bikes (weather permitting) or walk. Dad drove the only family car and he had already left for work. The elementary school was a little over a mile away from home. The middle school was just under two miles away. The high school was about two and a half miles away from home. Ask me how I remember.
Of course, when I was an upperclassman in high school, I’d rather walk home than be seen riding the bus. By my junior year, we were a four-car family. I was allowed to drive the old family automobile, a 1973 Impala station wagon. I took a lot of ribbing. People would joke, “Why don’t you put down the rear seat and put a mattress back here? Maybe some curtains? Turn it into a f*ckwagon.” *sigh* High school could be brutal.
FWIW, newspaper comic strips were more violent in the 1980s. Mr. Dithers would hang Dagwood out of a multi-story window by his ankles. Hagar the Horrible would be turned into a human pin cushion from a volley of arrows. Sergeant Snorkle regularly pulped Beetle Baily. In B.C., Thor often clubbed Grace (the cute chick) and dragged her back to his cave. Also, Jane (the fat broad) flattened the innocent snake with her club. How many anthropomorphized ants did the eatanter consume? Garfield frequently beat both up John and Odie. How often did Hobbes, or Moe, or little Susie Derkins beat up Calvin? How often did bad guys meet an early demise in Dick Tracy?
newspaper comic strips were more violent in the 1980s.
The world was a lot meaner in the 1980s. Institutions can’t treat people like this anymore, even if you allow for comic tone. Which is why Batiuk revisiting all his 80s gags doesn’t work. It isn’t the 1980s anymore, and it’s never going to be. Movies like Better Off Dead and Dazed And Confused are period pieces now. Before you know it, Mean Girls and The Hangover will be.
Funny you should bring up Better Off Dead. Was it just a coincidence?
*** S P O I L E R S *** (for an almost 40-year-old movie)
There’s a parallel between the ‘Little Johnson Girl’ and ‘The Paperboy’. They were both relentless in pursuing something they wanted. Even if it meant bodily harm.
I WANT MY TWO DOLLARS!!
I saw Better Off Dead in a theater during its initial run in the mid-1980s. It was a typical date movie. A harmless PG comedy.
During the scenes with the paperboy, I felt it would be best to just pay the money. I was shocked when he went over the cliff but felt relieved to see him survive in the snow drift. There was also the scene when the paperboy held onto the car’s roof, and Lane used a car wash to remove him.
Although the paperboy was just a child, the cliff scene and the car wash scene never made me angry. I found the whole two-dollar situation quite silly. A few months ago, I watched the film again on TCM. I still think the scenes are silly.
Silly, like the little Johnson girl strips above. I’m not outraged by them. I guess I’m still stuck in the 1980s.
Nowadays, when people watch Better Off Dead for the first time, do they dislike Lane for not paying the paperboy? Do they hate the writer and director Savage Steve Holland for including those scenes?
As for TB revisiting his 80s gags. Could they be any worse than Lillian’s book club from hell or Ed’s lame-o malapropism of the day? Or, God forbid, Jeff’s incredibly dull adventures in comic book land?
B Kliban sticks his foot in the door…
Hey BWOEH!
Welcome to the downvote club. Some sensitive soul must have wondered over from the GoComics comments and caught your missive.
Like you, Crankshaft antics do not upset me. I grew up in the 60’s. Li’l Abner had Fearless Fosdick shooting bullet holes into nearby citizens. Some were even criminals. He outdid Dick Tracy. Alley Oop clobbered critters and enemies over the head with his axe. Even Charlie Brown had his pants and shirt blown off by line drives. I haven’t even mentioned Bugs Bunny or Hanna-Barbera.
The most praise for Crankshaft that I can give is that it outlived TB’s two better written comic strips. It was pretty well inoffensive back in the day. It aspires to a lower level now that Tom is 76. I hope that I am still creative when I turn 76 in six years.
A quote from soon to be published (in a GRRM sort of way) “Dachshund Family Mysteries”:
“Jason said, “I agree. I read ‘That Mom’ book. She says it best, ‘That Mom swears by and often at talking pigs.’ It must sound better in the original French.”
Debi answered, “Most things do.”
*Cette maman ne jure que par et souvent par les cochons qui parlent.*
[Heavenly! Simply heavenly. But it won’t make much more sense in context.]
It’s only one downvote, and I wasn’t the first to receive one. Debbie Downvoter seems to have paid a visit.
Hey, you brought your own downvote with you. 😂 (I upvoted)
I almost mentioned Peanuts for the line drives. Peanuts also featured Lucy pulling away the football and slugging people. I didn’t think to include cartoons.
My sister-in-law used to speak in a humorous mock French that always made us laugh, for example, “Drive-a-vous le car.” Ironically, she was actually fluent in French.
OMG! I did get a Debbie Downvote. I am surprised that Debbie stays up this late from Go Comics. You would think she needed her sleep.
French is such a beautiful language. Your sister-in-law could curse me out in French, and I would thank her afterwards.
Be Ware of Eve Hill, vos pensées sont puissantes et vos paroles sont gracieuses!
BAH! One downvote?! Once, I had THREE on one post! And I noticed that also Jeff M., Paul Jones, and the redoutable BJr6K have lately received the Pinky Swear of Shame.
But, man! I had a nemesis! I was being arched like the Monarch vs Rusty Venture! She hated me because I traumatized her with a comment that was so bad she will never forget it, and which also she’s totally forgotten every detail about. (because she’s lying!)
Apparently this warded her off:
Her: “I bet you are not married…and I can see why. lol”
Me: “DawnQuinn1 is right…I was only married once. To DAWNQUINN1. She took everything in the divorce, except the house, because she set it on fire, and I had to run in and save all of the snakes—Oh, wait. That’s Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure I’m remembering. Sorry. DawnQuinn1 has a very loose relationship to the truth, and I guess it’s catching. Our last meeting was sad. She said she hated sand, but I had the high ground, and she killed all the younglings…WAIT, that’s a Star War movie. One of the good ones; it had the Binks guy. DawnQuinn1! How could you forget we were on the Titanic together, and there was no room on the floaty door? …Oh, wait…”
I’ve been online so long that my first account was a free Compuserve trial in 95. There’s a certain type of angry liar that you can defeat with absurdity. They love anger, but Theatre of the Absurd they can’t handle. Well, if they could stand humor they wouldn’t be reading Tom.
Too bad she’s gone. I can keep that up all day.
(eagerly awaits next downvote)
Our own Bill the Splut,
I can’t even picture Debbie Downvote coming after you. 😎 You are so calm and reasonable. 😉 You are really holding the fort down on GoComics. JJ O’Malley must have been on vacation. Since it is Crankshaft, I don’t blame anyone from taking a break from those commenters. There was one guy a day or so ago that was reasonable and sincere in his answer why he liked Crankshaft. I respected him.
I think over 70% are on GoComics to stop you and JJ and get you both deleted. There is no creativity in their replies. I bet over half do not even read the comic.
As always, you are a joy to read. (Oh, wait, isn’t that Reading Rain…
♥️💖❤️🫂🌺💐🌹
Pourquoi, merci. Vous me flattez!
When I was in the ninth grade, we had the option of taking a foreign language. The choices were Latin, Spanish, and French. I chose French and took two years of classes.
A good investment. College had a general studies requirement of at least two years of a foreign language. Fortunately, I was able to test out of it. Saved some time and money.
Considering where I live now, I wish I had selected Spanish. Both French and Spanish are Romance languages, so el Español has been somewhat easier to pick up. I can hold a conversation, if they speak slow (Más lentamente, por favor). Having a work buddy who is first generation American from Mexican parents helps. Ditto my next door neighbor.
My Spanish taught me, “Mas despacio, por favor.”
I enjoyed Spanish. I could pick up the reading pretty quick, and I could translate my thoughts. But I didn’t have the ears to carry on a conversation.
“¡Es una maldición! Ser tan guapo y al mismo tiempo tan incoherente.”
♥️💖❤️🫂🌺💐🌹
My friends and I used to say “Let’s va” when we were ready to go someplace.
Le Franglais, c’est fou, n’est-ce pas?
Vive le roi sans gabelle!
To my dear BWOEH
To dear Anonymous Sparrow
I thought of you both as I watched “Midnight in Paris” last night. Almost mystical. Woody Allen weaves present and past together into glorious union. Most of the historical figures are merely cameos, yet they come across as people possessing depth and insight, such as Brunel and Man Ray. It makes the actual characters stand out even more, such as Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. I was hungry to see more of Alice B Toklas.
One aspect grabbed me. Most of the historical characters lived during my lifetime. Had I had the means, mentors, and where with all, I could have met most of them. Such a small world. Thanks to TB and SOSF, I’ve met and enjoyed both of you.
Nos chemins se sont croisés d’une manière si inhabituelle. Cela m’a changé.
Desde que los conocí a ambos, mi comprensión es más profunda, mi educación es más amplia y mi alegría de vivir es ilimitada.
SP:
Thank you for the kind words and for the examination of “Midnight in Paris.” (When it’s midnight in Manhattan, it’s no time to get cute, according to Bruce Springsteen. As Paris is the City of Lights, you should be safe.)
The last time I tried watching a Woody Allen movie was with “Match Point,” which left a bad taste in my mouth. I should seek out “Midnight in Paris” and see whether it clears my palate.
(Cayla’s enthusiasm for Allen’s work made her a keeper.)
During my Junior Year Abroad, I lived on the rue Madame, which isn’t that far from 27, rue de Fleurus, where Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas lived from 1903 until 1938. As I’d read Ernest Hemingway’s *Moveable Feast* the preceding summer, in which he remembers the time when he was young and poor and very happy (highly recommended), I felt very privileged indeed.
Also recommended, if only for the account of the meeting of Marcel Proust (say, maybe Lillian’s book club would like to take a crack at *In Search of Lost Time,* assuming they can get past why it’s no longer called *Remembrance of Things Past* in English*) and James Joyce: Ford Madox Ford’s *It Was the Nightingale.*
Alice B. Toklas did not actually write her *Autobiography* (stay away from her brownies as you would from the brown acid at Woodstock), but she did write a memoir called *What Is Remembered* several years after Stein’s death.
The “B.” stood for “Babette,” believe it or not.
*
Proust’s first English translator, C.K. Scott Moncrieff, took the title from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30:
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unus’d to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,
And moan th’ expense of many a vanish’d sight;
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor’d, and sorrows end.
“In Search of Lost Time” is a literal translation of “A la recherche du temps perdu.”
I have placed on hold at Mid-Continent Library “Moveable Feast.” That should dovetail nicely with Midnight in Paris.
I also like reading about WW1, so I am checking out “Parade’s Inn” by Ford Madox Ford.
Should you be inclined, google the artwork called “Youth Mourning” 1916 by George Clausen. To me that painting sums up the horror of WW1.
I hope your weekend meets your wishes.
I especially enjoyed your quotation:
“But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restor’d, and sorrows end.”
SP:
Ford Madox Ford appears in a chapter of *A Moveable Feast.* I’ll have to see if I can learn what Hemingway thought of *Parade’s End.* (I hope he was kinder to the work than he was to the man, but his slam at Sherwood Anderson in *The Torrents of Spring* suggests that he wasn’t.)
When I was catching up on “University Challenges” episodes from the late 2010s, I noticed that a lot of the questions dealt with poetry written during “the Great War.” Eventually, it hit me: 2014-18 represented the centennial of World War I.
It was only dulce et decorum that the questions reflected that.
*Rilla of Ingleside,* the final volume of L.M. Montgomery’s “Anne of Green Gables” series, looks at the War’s effect on the home front in Canada.
If you don’t know it, you might want to explore Pat Barker’s World War I trilogy: *Regeneration,* *The Eye in the Door* and *The Ghost Road.*
The ghost of Roger Casement was beating on the door for W.B. Yeats. After checking out your recommendation of “Youth Mourning,” I am offering “Anthem for Doomed Youth” to keep away Wilfred Owen:
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
— Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
If that doesn’t work, then the poetry isn’t in the pity.
I’m mapping out my weekend just now. I know it includes a play about Prometheus, but aside from that, I’m still making up my mind.
Thank you for your good wishes. I send mine back at you.
I followed “Anthem for Doomed Youth” with its companion, “Dulce et Decorum.” I taught an education group for the Adolescents at my mental health inpatient hospital. From 2014 through 2017, I focused on WW1 and it’s famous people. I highly recommend “A World Undone” by G. J. Meyer. Thick paperback, yet short chapters filled with info. Gripping, pleasant reading. For WW1 and its aftermath, pursue “Charlotte Sometimes” 1969 by Penelope Farmer. The Cure entitled a song taken from that title. It is a unique time travel story. Charlotte has been sent to a boarding school and each night exchanges places with a girl named Clare living in 1918. At times very sad. Do not read the revised 1985 edition. The author edits out the best parts of the book, yet considers them minor changes.
For a post WW1 view, watch again the DVD Jeeves and Wooster based on P. G. Woodhouse’s books. Spectacular! Bertie is definitely an idle rich member of the Drones Club. Hilarity ensues.
It is now noon on Friday, so I leave you with a man who knew the true horror of WW1:
“Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.”
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
SP:
Your envoi reminds me that it is nearing the time to listen to the BBC Radio adaptation of *The Lord of the Rings* and hear Michael Hordern as Gandalf utter those beautiful words. (And muse again on why Tom Bombadil gets left out of things, save in the *Harvard Lampoon* parody, where he appears as Tim Benzedrine.)
While cognizant of P.G. Wodehouse (he was a lyricist of no mean ability, and Oscar Hammerstein II insisted that he receive a credit when he reworked “Bill” for *Show Boat*) and even able to answer the question “what is Jeeves’s first name?,” I’ve never dipped into the stories of Bertie Wooster and his friends beyond enjoying the L.A. Theatre Works adaptations of *The Code of the Woosters* and *Thank You, Jeeves.* Clearly, I need to do so, if only to learn whether Roderick Spode crossed paths with someone resembling Lady Mosley (nee Mitford).
*Charlotte Sometimes* (not to be confused with Tom Wolfe’s *Charlotte Simmons,* who yam what she yam an’ tha’s all she yam) sounds intriguing. I admit to a partiality to time slip scenarios, perhaps because of Marvel’s *Dark Phoenix Saga* (which uses the phrase in Mastermind’s manipulation of the Phoenix) and the “you’re into the time slip” verse of “Time Warp” from *Rocky Horror.*
While setting up the comment to which you replied, I considered saying something about Siegfried Sassoon (who wrote about his own war experiences before Pat Barker did), but it didn’t seem right. After reading your response, I’m glad that I didn’t: someone who knows Owen so well would surely know Sassoon and his alter ego George Sherston! I might have sounded like Les Moore in class or Tom Batiuk in blog.
Which would be worse?
Like Faramir for Sam, SP, your quality is the highest.
And, like Sam for Faramir, the praise from the praiseworthy is above all reward.
Sing your last song, Bilbo, you silly hobbit:
Day is ended, dim my eyes,
But journey long before me lies.
Farewell, friends! I hear the call.
The ship’s beside the stony wall.
Foam is white and waves are grey;
beyond the sunset leads my way.
Foam is salt, the wind is free;
I hear the rising of the sea.
Farewell, friends! The sails are set,
the wind is east, the moorings fret.
Shadows long before me lie,
beneath the ever-bending sky,
but islands lie behind the Sun
that I shall raise ere all is done;
lands there are to west of West,
where night is quiet and sleep is rest.
Guided by the Lonely Star,
beyond the utmost harbour-bar,
I’ll find the heavens fair and free,
and beaches of the Starlit Sea.
Ship my ship! I seek the West,
and fields and mountains ever blest.
Farewell to Middle-earth at last.
I see the star above my mast!
You, my friend, are loved and respected.
To the inimitable Sorial Promise
Thank you for your kind words. While I have seen most of Woody Allen’s movies, I must admit I have never seen Midnight in Paris. I have an aversion to movies starring Owen Wilson. IMHO, he lacks the versatility that defines a decent actor and tends to play every role in the same monotonous way. I find him more annoying than funny or charming. His presence alone would make me skip the movie. Owen, get your nose fixed. It’s distracting.
The storyline of Midnight in Paris is somewhat intriguing. Perhaps I should check out the film if it has the official Sorial Promise seal of approval.
FWIW, I have seen I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! . A romance/comedy starring Peter Sellers. As BJr6K would say, it’s now a period piece.
The SoSF community is unique. It’s the only discussion page I’ve witnessed where people actively avoid offending others.
Cheers. 👍
Our Be Ware of Eve Hill,
MinP does have my absolute seal of approval. Yet truth be told, Owen is fully Owen in this picture. You have described him perfectly. However, he is the perfect actor to play Gil. His acting ability is similar to a sponge absorbing this perfect time travel in stride.
Also truth in telling, it just hits me in my sweet spot, making an historical period just magic to the viewer. I say: give it a shot. If it hasn’t grabbed you by the first visit to the 1920’s, then dump it as a wash.
I like Peter Sellars. I will check out, “I love you, Alice B Toklas.”
Finally, SOSF is unique. It does bring about a hundred commenters together that actually do like each other and respect their opinions.
Not many places can say that. I would match our record against the GoComics message board any day!
When I saw a special screening of “Carol” some years back, one of the filmmakers on hand said that they hadn’t wanted to make a period piece.
Yet as the source novel was published in 1952 and was a contemporary novel, and as the movie was made in 2015, it couldn’t help but be one.
I became a devotee of “The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries” recently and was intrigued to find that while the stories weren’t set in the present, several were set in a period after the original publication date. Perhaps some periods are better for pieces than others.
“A Haunting in Venice,” the current Poirot movie is set in 1947; however, the material which inspired it came out in 1969.
I will not appeal to Timemop for help. Anyone who can’t keep a tighter hold on his time-travel helmet isn’t someone I trust with paradoxes which would send Kang, Rama-Tut and Dr. Doom running to Immortus for asylum.
If I Crankshaft was/is my bus driver, I would repeatedly kick Crankshaft in the balls for trying to make me late to school
Just wondering. What do you folks think of the Monty Python skit Sam Peckinpah’s “Salad Days”? Do you find it funny, or in bad taste?
If you’ve ever seen a Sam Peckinpah film, you know what they were spoofing.
I still think it’s hilarious! It sure was shocking to see that in the early 70s, but so over the top that it became ridiculous. How did that guy get a piano keyboard impaled in this tum-tum?
But it was clear what the joke was. I’m not sure if I was expected to laugh with or at Crankshaft’s bitter cruelty. And it’s a LOT less funny to see a child tormented than some smarmy, self-important and very sniffy film critic get his. (Which he doesn’t; he wanders around after like 80 squibs have exploded)
Some of their skits are problematic now. Is the awful yellowface of “Erizabeth Lex” so over the top that it’s funny, or just offensive? I think that a show that ran the game show skit “Prejudice” (“miserable fat Belgian bastards!”) and clearly had a pro-LGBTQ content in a very homophobic time tells me they were mocking bigots, not being them.
Thanks for the response. That skit was so over the top violent, I wondered what people thought of it.
I’ll never forget it. More spilled red paint than a Jackson Pollock painting. The woman was impaled on Lionel’s (Michael Palin) tennis racket just from him casually tossing it aside when he was struck in the head with the tossed tennis ball.
There are a couple big differences. People object to seeing little girls being harmed. It’s not as offensive when it’s upper class English twits. We expect Monty Python to be funny. We are pleasantly surprised when Tom Batiuk is funny.
Wow! You have an incredible memory for Monty Python skits. Most of the episodes I saw were on the local PBS station.
I barely remembered the “Elizabeth L” skit. I haven’t seen it in over forty years. Saw it on a rented “best of” video. Found the skit online here.
I don’t remember the “Prejudice” skit at all, but I found it online.
I saw Breakfast at Tiffany’s last year. How about that Mickey Rooney character, Mr. Yunioshi? Holeee sheeet!!
I put off watching that movie for decades because I knew that was in there. Mickey Rooney’s about as Japanese as a guy drinking Guinness while eating a potato. (I’m half-Irish, I can make that joke) And he’s in for 5 nonconsecutive minutes? His entire role could be replaced by Audrey saying “I guess one of my neighbors called the cops again!” When your character can be replaced with 10 words, why’s he in there? It’s like some anti-Chekov’s Gun.
About 10 years ago I ripped a DVD of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” expressly to cut out Mickey Rooney entirely. It took maybe 90 minutes to do (including, luckily, his individual title card) and though there were a couple of rough edits, since I didn’t have access to any extra footage for fades/dissolves, it still worked just fine of course. I sent out copies as Christmas cards.
Monty Python could do tasteless. There as an episode called something like The Royal Episode where the Queen is supposed to tune into the show at some point. Of course, it’s loaded with their most tasteless skits, ending in a faux studio riot.
A lot of stuff from the 1970s is problematic now. I’ve been watching Taxi, and one of the first things Reverend Jim does is slip a tranquilizer into Louie DePalma’s coffee. Very unacceptable nowadays.
It’s fine, because it has a clear over-the-top comedic tone. Same with Better Off Dead. The Funkyverse doesn’t, which makes strips like this off-putting.
If I still have a comment in the chute, please delete it. I could’ve written that much betterly.
That comment made it through. Groovy.
I shouldn’t have named names. Not with these people stalking us.
And I believe I may be taking a break from commenting there. The “Crank sucks” comments are funny and imaginative. Pretty much every pro-Cranky comment has no humor, no insight, not even a thought. Just “I’m commenting on how much I hate the comments that are so hateful, I can only hate them in my comment! Also, that’s the entirety of the contents of my brainpan.”
It gets old quick. As they love to scream at us, “GET A LIFE!” Gee, I will, once you get a mirror.
(also, I realized that maybe commenting at 1:10AM is part of the reason for my insomnia)
Well, today’s Crankshaft takes the already boring plotline of “Grandma tries to be sé𝗑y to lure bus driver, then little girl tells bus driver not to compliment her grandma” and ratchets it down several levels with some prolix word zeppelins.
Grandma and little Cindy watch as the bus approaches. Grandma is once again dressed in a robe and fuzzy slippers. (Is she mentally impaired? Who hangs around outside like this?) She thinks,
“I spent years trying to make sure my daughter amy caught Crankshaft’s bus… and now here I am trying to catch the bus with my granddaughter! It’s the %@#& circle of life!”
Now I miss Dinkle. I miss anything that would provoke a reaction other than heavy eyelids and my head nodding forward as I doze off.
Today’s Crankshaft: “Yep, I sure do help a child chase the school bus. Mmm-hmm, that’s still a thing. Yesterday I had her put on a funny costume, and we all know what comes after that: restate the premise again! Don’t miss tomorrow’s strip, where I help a child chase the school bus! I’ll be helping a child chase the school bus!”
A school bus that, in last week’s strips, stopped at least twice for that same child. He stopped to pick her up in the rain, then spent most of the week conversing with Granny (while the poor kid stood outside the bus; yeah, Granny had the umbrella, but couldn’t little Cindy have gotten on the bus while they talked?). We can’t say if the “flashing some leg” trick worked, but Ed definitely stopped in the Saturday strip. So why is all this subterfuge necessary NOW? Couldn’t we see all of Granny’s attempts to get Ed to stop FIRST, maybe culminating in Ed stopping in the rain (because even he can occasionally not be a bastard), talking to Granny, and then ending with him voluntarily picking up little Cindy and the “don’t hit on my grandma” strip?
(And I mean… I don’t even hate those old “Ed is a monster” strips. But if you’re going back to that well, don’t start with him NOT being cruel, and THEN do the shtick. Lead up to him stopping voluntarily, so it looks like there’s some character growth or something, even if it will be forgotten after the following story. This shouldn’t be so difficult for someone who’s been writing for over 50 years to get right…)
I read an article about Rolling Stone magazine’s Jan Wenner, which said.
“You can try to stay young and keep on rolling and you go on to the new thing — you gather no moss. Or you grow up. And he didn’t do either. He’s in this weird purgatory of not embracing anything new and not growing up. He’s trapped in amber in some very weird ways.”
Sounds like someone we know, too.