Greetings all my beautiful nitters! I’d love to have a really in depth post up for you guys, but we are in the heart of harvest right now. For the last couple weeks I’ve done nothing but check cows, move augers, and hook up to wagons. One night we were even chopping and bagging corn silage by the light of a harvest moon.
So instead of another deep analysis, how bout a quick walk down Cranky lane.
Crankshaft this last week was the seasonal ‘fall leaves’ arc, that Batiuk does in October more often than not, and it got me thinking of a personal favorite Crankshaft arc. It was the last fall leaves arc that Ayers ever drew back in 2016. Yeah, not every strip is a winner, but as a whole I think it’s a prime example of how Crankshaft maintained a certain level of quality as a gag strip even as recently as seven years ago.
A few Sunday strips (Including the Finale) are pulled from elsewhere because F%&K YOU GO COMICS.
Lemme know what you all think. Is CBH being a cringy Crankshaft stan again? Or are these actually good?
Son of Stuck Funky 
His latest (and probably last) trick is to cut down the tree….and have it crash on his house. This is nuts because he’ll have nothing to shimmy up when The Burnings take place.
Crankshaft just signed his own death warrent so when the burnings happen, he’s absolutely fucked
Jeff: You’re dead, Ed.
(Crankshaft notices his charred corpse in the Village Booksmith and then notices a bunch of screaming ghosts on fire, and Crankshaft tries to run away)
Crankshaft: NO PLEASE NO DONT PLEASE DONT DO THIS!
(Crank’s pleas fall on deaf ears, and the ghosts drag Crankshaft away into hell)
Crankshaft: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!
You SHOULD be right. Any series of events that ended with something called The Burnings, and bookstores having to go underground, hints at some very serious things.
And there’s a lot of interesting things you could do in the Funkyverse with the notion of people wanting to control access to books they find harmful. (Lisa’s Story, I’m looking at you.) But Batiuk can’t write serious issues; he can only write “serious issues.” He also can’t subject any of his pet characters to the tiniest bit of scrutiny.
So I think it will go one of two ways:
1. One of Crankshaft’s generic barbecue mishaps will turn into “oops, I accidentally ended society!” with no further exploration.
2. The entire thing will be about fucking comic books. I can already see a character named Rederick Fwertham coming to town, and finally bringing Roberta Blackburn down from the bandstand to do battle with John’s comic book store. It’ll be yet another installment of Tom Batiuk’s lifelong war with his mother over his comic books. Coming to a newspaper near you, because newspaper editors are schmucks.
I think 2 is less likely, though, because we know the book burners have to win.
Rederick Fwertham wrote *The Violence of Shows* (a study of television violence, whose analysis of “Breaking Bad” is brilliant in its erroneousness) and is best known for *Induction of the Sinocent,* which sees comic-books as a leading cause of juvenile delinquency and drinking beer (a favorite “Saturday Night Live” memory).
The idea of another comic-book trial fairly begs to be called “With No Lisa Beside Him” as we bite our nails over the arguments of the astonishing Amicus Breef.
Yes, CBH, this is actually … not bad! As usual with Batiuk, it’s padded and probably could have been effectively shortened: 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 13 can go, and 10 & 11 can be rewritten into one comic (keep panel 1 from comic 10, and panels 2 and 3 from comic 11). Now you’ve got a strong one-week sequence, instead of a not-bad padded two-weeker. But there’s some still good, funny work in here; if only Batiuk had an actual editor to enforce some standards!
Especially great job by Ayers on the final Sunday strip!
I actually like 13, but maybe it could’ve been added in as a 3rd panel to number 12.
Yup, that could work!
Thank you, CBH,
I have such little expectation, and experience with Crankshaft, (I don’t think I read it daily until 2022). It is nice to see it written and drawn with quality and humor. I really liked the last strip where the fershinluggener leaf blows into the gutter. That is a perfect climax.
TB seemed to be at his best writing BBQ gags, and jokes about leaf extraction. Even into the 2020’s that seemed to be his bailiwick. Then starting in 2023, he began one strip fits all (meaning comic books, and BWOEH’s favorite, Lillian Lizard.
CBH, I do not have much experience with crop harvesting with the exception seeing my father in law harvest corn, and get docked for moisture. I did bail milo round bails one year. We also had poor corn production one year, and turned that into silage. The crop that I had the most experience with, was harvesting tobacco, and then strip it when it came into case.
As always you are a joy
I have a long history of disliking the Loathsome Lizard Lillian. Most folks mention the purloined love letter incident. That’s reason enough, but what bothers me the most about Lillian is when Batiuk decided to make Lillian his Crankshaft author avatar several years ago. Funky Winkerbean had author avatar Less Moore and Batton Thomas. Crankshaft has the craggy gargoyle, Lillian McKenzie.
Stuff like this may be interesting to a writer such as yourself, but it became insufferably annoying to me. In about 2018 or thereabouts, Batiuk had multiple not so exciting story arcs featuring the authoring adventures of Lillian.
— Out of left field, Lillian decides she loves books.
— Lillian opens The Village Booksmith bookstore.
— Lillian decides to become an author.
— Lillian converts the Lucy’s bedroom/guest room into a writing room.
— Lillian buys a laptop to write.
— Lillian gets help from the twins setting up her laptop.
— Lillian goes to a book fair and receives writing advice from a pre-beared-dick Les Moore. This was back in the days when there was a time difference between Batiuk’s two strips.
— Lillian chooses to write mysteries.
— Lillian struggles with writer’s block, starting with the book’s title.
— Lillian gets past her writer’s block. If I remember correctly, Pam gets the blame for helping her get through it.
— Lillian finishes writing her book.
— Lillian attends an authors’ convention in New York City in search of a publisher. (Batiuk loves him some NYC).
— Lillian meets Apple Annie, a former homeless person, to be her agent.
— Lillian finds a publisher. Thanks a heap, Apple Annie.
— Lillian writes a bestseller.
— Lillian attends the Ohioana Book Festival, where nobody knows who she is or wants to buy a signed copy her book. (Huh?)
This stuff went on for months. Lillian took over the Crankshaft comic strip. Weeks would pass, with Ed Crankshaft making cameo appearances on occasional Sundays. In the comments, I started calling the strip ‘Crankshaft without Crankshaft’ and had a daily counter tallying the number of days since Ed’s last appearance. I also frequently wrote of my intense dislike of Lillian in the comments. Non-ironic fans told me to stop being a hater and seek help.
As I said, as an author, you might have enjoyed it. OTOH, experts usually tear Batiuk’s story arcs like these to shreds.
Expert: *groan* That’s not the way things work in real life. Add (fill in the blank) to the list of things Batiuk knows nothing about.
Be Ware of Eve Hill,
First off, that was a wonderful summary of Crankshaft’s use of Lillian. As mentioned, I come late to the Crankshaft table. I was not aware of her background. Truth told, my only contact with Lillian was when Mort Winkerbean was attempting to rape her in the van. Yet, I could tell by the SOSF comments (probably some of yours), that I should not waste sympathy on this horrible creature. Now in my response up above, I referred to Lillian as your favorite. That should have been in italics. You have made it clear that Lillian is far from your standard as likable.
I didn’t really know about her sister. I hope CBH does a posting on that history. Though it seems that getting old strips of Crankshaft is more difficult than getting FW strips.
Rest at ease, there is nothing about how TB treats first time authors that I admire. Too much fairy dust sprinkled over the books. It must require little effort to write, if you already know the outcome is already awards and top sales. It reminds me of an old Twilight Zone, where a gambler meets Sebastian Cabot in the afterlife and wins at everything. I won’t spoil the ending for someone hoping I give away the 60 year old ending.
But again, BWOEH, I love reading you. Your summary of Lillian will probably be the comment of the week on SOSF.
I knew you were being sarcastic when you said Lillian was my favorite. You’re a person who’s new to Crankshaft. I wanted to justify my dislike of Lillian.
Lillian had always been portrayed as the neighbor who constantly endured Crankshaft’s mischievous acts, similar to Mr. Wilson in the Dennis the Menace comic strip. That was fine. Then the gag-a-day format no longer satisfied Batiuk, and he believed he could craft compelling dramas.
I read an article (Screenrant) about the top ten best twist endings of the original Twilight Zone episodes. The episode you mentioned, featuring Sebastian Cabot as Mr. Pip, made the list. I saw that episode. It was bizarre seeing the kindly “Mr. French” in that role.
I was aiming at ironic, but bulls-eyed sarcastic. In my stories I use many words, but rarely the way Webster intended. ( By the way, that is Noah, not Daniel.) For example: he builifonted his way to greatness, but in the end, he was just scabbered. Even the French could not have said it better.
(Oui!)
My favorite episodes of Twilight Zone are:
1. A little girl gets lost under a bed, and the next door neighbor chalks out the gateway to another dimension on her wall.
2. US Army tank soldiers find relics of Custer’s Last Stand.
3. A boy and a girl follow an old woman through a hole in their swimming pool
4. An old man and a dog join the afterlife hunting a raccoon.
I hope you have more joy than Mr. Bwoeh can count shells!
Any fan of TZ should check out “Twilight-Tober Zone” on YouTube. It reviews an episode a day every day in October, in order. And this is its fourth year, so it just started Season 4 today. And it gives you spoiler warnings, so you can cut out if you don’t want to know the twist ending.
@sorialpromise
Too many good episodes to list. We like just about all the original TZ episodes, but agree that the hour-long episodes in the final season weren’t as good.
Some of the best episodes after a cursory glance at IMDB are:
Time Enough at Last starring Burgess Meredith. “It’s not fair! It’s not fair at all!”
Eye Of The Beholder Elly May Clampett gets facial reconstruction surgery because she’s “hideously disfigured.
To Serve Man Featuring Richard Kiel as an alien.
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet Featuring William Shatner.
The Invaders Frontier woman Agnes Morehead battles a miniature UFO.
We recently recorded all 20 episodes of the most recent TZ series, hosted by Jordan Peele. We’ve watched just three episodes. The series is just not as good.
I wish we could find episodes of “The Night Gallery” or “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” to watch.
We watch Alfred Hitchcock Presents I Kansas City on channel ME TV.
I don’t know if you get that channel. It’s on at 12 and 1230 our time. That may be too late for you. 😎
@Banana Jr. 6000
Ooooh! Thanks! I need things to watch. I almost started to read a book. /s
Not a fan of reality TV. The Hollywood strike has pretty much limited my options.
I seem to watch more on our computer than the television nowadays. (Anymore?)
Sorialpromise’s episode #4 is “The Hunt.” I recognize the others but don’t know their titles.
My personal favorites are: “Time Enough At Last” (the most famous episode, but it really is that good), “Walking Distance” (which I’ve discussed here previously and which Tom Batiuk desperately needs to watch), “The 16 Millimeter Shrine” (ditto), “The Obsolete Man” (another fantastic Burgess Meredith performance), “Nick of Time” (William Shatner’s less-known other appearance on the show), “Number 12 Looks Just Like You”, “What You Need”, “Monsters Are Due On Maple Street”, “Nervous Man In A Four Dollar Room”, “Long Live Walter Jameson” and “Living Doll.”
Most episodes are great though. Much like The Far Side cartoons, they’re almost all great, but we kind all have our own favorites that speak to us personally,
BJ6000,
I will list 2 of my favorites that I did not mention before. S1.25 “People are Alike All Over”, starring the superb Roddy McDowall. As always a great twist. Then there was S1.16 “The Hitch-Hiker”. To me that was terrifying. No blood, no violence, just pure suspense.
Maybe you can educate me, but I find no suspense in TB. 1) Wasn’t the killer of John Darling, who was murdered, revealed years later?
2) Crazy’s Defender nemesis that was shockingly (sarcasm) revealed to be a girl, wasn’t that also a years later retcon? I also do not remember hearing of fans demanding a solution to these questions.
“The Hitch-Hiker” was written by Lucile Fletcher, who was married to Bernard Herrmann, who wrote the theme for “The Twilight Zone.”
This is why I enjoy SOSF. I get information that I would never get anywhere else. Thank you, BeckoningChasm. The same thing happened yesterday with Be Ware of Eve Hill. She mentioned Ralph Meckler, and could not remember him. On the process of looking him up, I came across some info on Ed Crankshaft that I did not know, but all of you do. Apparently, Ed had a son! He has a second, older daughter! If it wasn’t for SOSF, I wouldn’t know this. A thousand references to comic books, but no stories about Ed’s expanded family. Thanks, TB.
I think they both were long-after retcons. In the case of John Darling, I don’t think Batiuk ever decided who his killer was at the time; the whole point was to petulantly kill off the comic strip so the syndicate couldn’t have it. Years later, he felt a need to flesh it out, so Les could write a book about it. More characters being a prop in Les Moore’s journey to self-actualization. Often at the expense of their own lives.
Something else bothered me about that whole John Darling story. He was supposedly an egotistical blowhard, but everyone else at that TV station was just as bad.
@sorialpromise
Ralph Meckler’s bad fortune includes his son (Timmy?), who was killed in Viet Nam. His wife, Helen, who died from complications of Alzheimer’s. Ralph lost his Centerville mayoral bid by one vote because his moronic campaign manager, one Ed Crankshaft, forgot to vote. Not to mention his many health issues that have been featured in the strip.
Ralph sold the Valentine Theater to Crankshaft’s grandson Max. I forget whether Ralph wanted to close the theater due to his age or lack of business.
There was a several week story arc where Ralph was attracted to a young car hop (Sandy?). He thought she was interested in his jazz recordings. She was just being nice for tips. Ralph made several strips to the drive-in just to see Sandy. During the final week, Ralph got all dressed up and was going to show Sandy his trumpet. When Ralph asked for Sandy, a coworker lied and said she no longer worked there. The last strip of the story arc ended with Ralph sitting dejectedly on his front porch. It was an odd sequence that had a lot of the readers wondering “Is that it? What the hell was that all about?”
Kind of a coincidence, I mentioned Max Axelrod, Crankshaft’s bus driving arch rival, the other day and there he is in Crankshaft today. I doubt Max Axelrod has appeared in the strip for three or four years. Speak of the devil, you’ll smell brimstone every time.
@sorialpromise part deux
What good news. We do have a MeTV channel. Alfred Hitchcock Presents airs at 12:05 AM and 12:35 AM. The station’s transmitter is about 20 miles away.
What bad news. That’s too late for me. I get up at 6:00 AM.
What good news. We have an old rabbit ears antenna, a digital to analog converter, and a still functioning VCR or two.
What bad news. Our VCR looks like crap on our contemporary large screen HD televisions.
What good news. A co-worker informed me that we can stream episodes of AHP on Peacock.
Like with the comic books, the focus of the writing stories is on Batiuk’s particular interests. Getting paid, getting famous, getting an agent, getting mainstream success, getting his ego stroked by fans he looks down his nose at, whining about his struggles with writer’s block, and of course, being handed awards left and right. After he already did all this with Les!
I think Lillian is less a case of “that’s not how this really works” and more a case of “dude, get over yourself.”
It’s odd how Batiuk showers certain characters with nothing but good fortune (Les, Dinkle, Lillian, Crankshaft) while dumping nothing but bad luck on others (Lisa, Wally, Lucy, Ralph Meckler).
As you, and others, have written, Lisa dying turned out to be a good thing for Les.
Batiuk showers his Mary Sue characters with all the things he wants, while every other character’s life is just a means to that end of giving himself those things. None of those last four characters ever get a moment of humanity. Not even Dead Lisa, who treats dying of cancer like a 9-to-5 job as Les’ writing secretary. It’s downright sociopathic.
“Hartford’s in Connecticut, so pretty in the fall,
and the INSURANCE CAPITOL OF THE WORLD, BITCHES!
Minnesota has Saint Paul!” BURN to the MIDWEST!
Actually, all the leaves here are still on the trees, and will be until Veteran’s Day. Maybe longer, given “climate damage.” So why you’d run this in the first week of October, Tom? I lived in Oberlin, Ohio for a year. Up the dang road from KSU. The leaves didn’t fall that quickly back then.
Oh right, source:
There’s a hilarious Robot Chicken spoof of the Animaniacs listing songs. I won’t post it here or even hint at its contents, because, you know, it’s Robot Chicken. That show is where your childhood goes to die.
Santa Fe, New Mexico. YaY!
When I was little, my family used to drive from Ohio to Massachusetts/New Hampshire to visit relatives. One route took us through Hartford, Connecticut. My parents always griped that Hartford had the worst drivers. Turn signals were a warning rather than a request, they decried.
Dad had a cousin who lived in Vernon, Connecticut. Oddly, she agreed when Dad told her Connecticut had the worst drivers. She seemed proud. “Yup, we sure do!”
In the early days of trips to New England, Dad used to insist on travelling the almost 700 miles in one day, stopping only for fuel. We packed a picnic basket instead of stopping at restaurants. One time when one of my brothers wanted to stop for a bathroom break shortly after getting gas, Dad growled, “tie a not in it.” 😂
In the latter days, when there were five drivers in the family, we drove in two-hour shifts. Oddly, in those days, we stopped at a hotel halfway through. Dad always controlled the radio. Ah, good times, good times.
The state nickname of New Mexico is “the Land of Enchantment.”
The first time I saw it, I was sure that it was “the Land of Enrichment.”
The love of money is the root of all evil.
I’ve never heard a CT person brag about being a bad driver. Of course, I have no idea when this happened. Did Dad’s car have an in-dash cigarette lighter and multiple ashtrays? I once rode in a ’68 El Dorado that had those in every armrest.
CT drivers mainly yell about “Massholes”, because driving on The Pike or in Boston is like you’re LARPing Mad Max. Although saying “the Mixmaster” to a CT native–meaning that bizarre meeting of 2 highways in Hartford–and they will involuntarily cringe.
Recently, the Worst Road in the USA was voted “I95 South through New Haven.” Third worst was “I95 North through New Haven.” I know you kids today are into the song stylings of The Meat-Loaf, but sometimes 2 out of 3 isbad.
Oh, Dad’s cousin wasn’t bragging about being a bad driver. She was agreeing that every OTHER Connecticut driver was lousy. She too groused about Massachusetts drivers. Hartford was the only major city we drove through so there was no other city for comparision.
Dad’s anger at the Hartford drivers was most likely due to the fact that he rarely had to do any highway driving. His daily commute to work took about ten minutes on one lane suburban roads and he encountered five traffic lights, at most. He bought our house with his work commute in mind. That was back in the days when people could count on working for the same company for 35 or 40 years.
This was back in the late 1960s, so Dad’s car would have been the behemoth 1967 Pontiac Executive sedan. Large block V8 and bench front seat. The car was almost as long as the garage and had the distinctive Pontiac “beak.” Dad ran into the front wall of the garage several times and beak penetrated the drywall. The adjoining family room wall was warped. Yes, he started doing the ball on a string bit to know when to stop the car. What I remember most about that car is getting into the car on hot summer days. You’d stick to the vinyl seats and the metal seat belt buckles would be 600 degrees. The backseats had so much room you could hold a square dance. You could fit three kids and a full size cooler/picnic basket. Oh, and yes, every armrest had an ashtray. The doors had faux wood panel inserts.
In the 1970s, we started travelling though New York state to New England. Mom complained that I-80 through Pennsylvannia was too boring.
What was the second worst road in the USA? What was the criteria for being worst? Please keep in mind that I used to drive in LA. Some of my friends had a fifteen mile commute that took an hour.
When my “niblings” began driving, I warned them “Just because only the biggest moron in the world would cut in front of you right now–that doesn’t mean you’re not on the same road as the world’s biggest moron.” Key to CT/MA driving: lots of braking space.
I mean, you’ll get hit anyway, but the police report looks better. My 2011 Fit is mainly made of dents.
After I posted, I realized that I should’ve pointed out that every armrest in the ’68 El Dorado had a an ashtray AND a plug-in cig lighter. Ehh, those kids back there will get bored and need something to play with that will give them 3rd degree thumb burns!
It’s first name was Karen Carr’s Car because–well, that’s what it was. I think it’s later name was just “…I know it’s January in north Ohio, but can’t we just walk?” It required 2 people to start. K with the key, and some guy in this supposedly smart school would spark the plugs with a screwdriver. I did it twice, and realized that if anyone on campus was going in a police report as “electrocuted; freshman extra crispy, super dumb” it’d be me.
We were not allowed to use the cig lighters in the armrests. They drained the batteries in minutes.
I also once rode in a ’72 Dorado. It had the ashtrays, but not the lighters, because I guess they needed that to power the most advanced tech 1972 had to offer, after the USA built the H-Bomb and landed on the Moon, the fucking 8-track player. This was inherited by my GF from her Dad, who was a millionaire but grew up during the Depression and had 2 full drawers of unused garbage bag twist ties. He’s not throwing out a perfectly good obsolescent junker car from 20 years ago!
It had a top speed of 32MPH. We once got angrily honked at on a 1-lane road while passing a silo.
I wish I’d kept that Worst Road link so I could give you details on the survey. Second worst was I-Something, that Atlanta one. I have a nephew who drove on it to work. It was 1.5 miles. Most commutes took him 1.5 hours. “Why don’t you just walk?!” “The bridge has no passenger lanes. Walk and you could die before they arrest you.”
“El Dorado” really sounds like something you’d read on a Cracked listicle called “20 Worst Taco Bell Meals”.
Hello, BeckoningChasm is asleep. I am the cat here, Robert.
I find this Crankshaft entity interesting, as it appears that he is able to torment everyone, create intolerable scenarios, and is never punished! This is remarkable and I am taking notes. Thank you for this interesting content, I will be sure to subscribe and follow.
Yeah, I can’t really hate a comic strip where Crankshaft throws his hat on the ground in frustration… it’d be hypocritical. I built such a reputation as a college student and young adult for throwing my hat when my alma mater’s football team did something bad that I still get texts from my mother asking if I’ve thrown my hat when we are losing a game.
This arc is really funny. And old man obsessed by and defeated by a single leaf that refuses to fall is something that Don Martin could have written.
The story is missing something. And here’s what it’s missing:
Nobody ever reacts to anything in the Funkyverse! And when they do, they quickly turn away from it and don’t get involved:
Wouldn’t Pam trying to catch Ed in the act be a lot more fun here? The fear of getting caught is a fundamental driver of comedy, and Batiuk never uses it. It’s like he’s editing around the funny parts. And wouldn’t this be a good way to talk to Ed about controlling his more extreme impulses – something he desperately needs to hear?
The Funkyverse runs on Unusually Uninteresting Sight. Nobody bats an eye at any of the strangeness around them. Which isn’t a good thing in comedy. John Cleese said a comedic character is more powerful when a normal characters can see and react to the crazy person. And if you watch Fawlty Towers , this *always* happens. Every time Basil has a meltdown, it’s in front of some hapless hotel guest who has no idea what’s going on. This helps “sell” it.
Tom Batiuk would have Basil Fawlty goose-stepping in an empty room, where he hid the dead body that was never at risk of being seen, and the betting winnings Sybil didn’t care about.
Yeah – although this could have been seriously tightened up, there are some good gags here – #5 is just quick setup, punchline. Thing is – for some reason TB thinks that Crankshaft’s annual autumn battle with leaves needs to be an annual event. Problem is – there are only so many funny jokes to be made about trees losing their leaves. In these strips, at least it builds from “cranky old man” to surrealism (fireman with an acetylene torch trying to get that last leaf)…but at some point you have to retire those old gags and recognize that your readers aren’t anticipating “Crankshaft vs. leaves” any more than that band convention whose name I forget and don’t care to look up. There is a good one-week run in here – but nobody bothered to edit out the junk.
And in today’s Crankshaft, we learn that Ed has three balls.
(I would say I’m sorry for this post, but I’m really not.)
Nothing summarizes the Funnkyverse’s roots and lapses back into Loony tunes logic than an old man clinging for his life on an autumn leaf that then even the fire department can’t pull off. it’s funny that back then the strip could still swerve into Very Special Episodes about literacy and Alzheimers while still doing these kind of gags. Westview could’ve benefitted from more of that for more funny whiplash if nothing else (hence my advocacy for Holtron’s sentience)
but Westview was too lazer focused on Comic Books, Dead Saint Lisa and Dick Facey to even get into the Loony Toons logic
And this week’s arc is predicated on another insistent annoyance: the contrast between Lena being utterly incompetent at doing something mundane like bowling and Lena threatening to punish people for suggesting that her blank-witted incompetence is what ruins things for everyone.
Are we supposed to side with Crankshaft and the bus drivers, because Lena is too incompetent to do her job? Are we supposed to side with Lena, because she’s basically a decent person who’s routinely abused by these sociopaths? Why should we care about their stupid bowling league when they routinely abandon children at bus stops, and cause traffic problems for sport?
If you ask me, this bunch of narcissists all deserve each other. Crankshaft could be a good Sadist Show if it had any remotely interesting qualities.
CBH, thanks for providing evidence that Crankshaft can be a decent comic strip when Batty is a good boy. Now, when I say, Crankshaft used to be a good comic strip, people won’t think I’m crazy.
I, too, hate the years of missing Crankshaft Sunday comics on GoComics. What bothers me more is the advanced search for Crankshaft is totally useless. I was looking forward to using the search to locate certain story arcs.
Check out what happens when I search for “Lillian” in the Crankshaft archive.
What if… Lillian never appeared in Crankshaft?
(bwoeh stares off into space with a satisfied grin on her face)
Love the photos, too. On the way home from work, one of the roads we use travels due east. The harvest moon was directly over the road. We followed that supermoon for several miles. Is that a UFO (UAP)?
The tractor’s exhaust pipe reminds me of a roman candle.
Cheers. 🤟
I think Crankshaft without Lillian means that Crank would try to find someone else to make their lives miserable
Today’s comic on Mutts.com has a different take on the last leaf left on the tree.
“Twilight Zone” stuff:
“The Hitch-Hiker” was also done on radio in the 1940s. Orson Welles played Ronald Adams. (Atlas stole it for a comic-book story called “Going My Way?” in 1950. The artist is Bernard Krigstein.)
Fletcher’s most famous radio script is “Sorry, Wrong Number” which went from radio to television in 1948. (Agnes Moorehead, star of “The Invaders,” did it seven times for “Suspense.” Barbara Stanwyck is in the film.)
I envy those who have seen the hour-long episodes of the fourth season (1962-63), even if they’re not very good. The only one I’ve seen is “Miniature” with Robert Duvall in an anniversary special in the 1980s. I’d like to notch off the fourth episodes for Burgess Meredith (“Printer’s Devil”) and Jack Klugman (“Death Ship”), but probably never will.
An episode I cherish which doesn’t seem to have many fans is “The Trouble with Templeton,” in part because it’s one of the better episodes in which someone goes through the Zone and comes out of it better for the experience. It stars Brian Aherne in the title role, who was also in the film which made Katharine Hepburn “box office poison” (1935’s “Sylvia Scarlett”).
The 1980s series offers its own version of “A Game of Pool” (originally featuring Jack Klugman and Jonathan Winters) and has a different ending.
The romantic in me adores “A Message from Charity” from the first revival series and wouldn’t have known “The Cold Equations” until much later without it.
The Museum of Moving Image’s gift shop offers for sale little action figures from the original series: “To Serve Man’s” Kanamit, the “Eye of the Beholder’s” doctor and nurse, “Living Doll’s” Talky Tina, “The Invaders’s Invader and “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet’s” gremlin.
Brewster Rockit and Monty both start arcs that begin on Tuesday or later, and then end before Saturday. Because they know when they have no more jokes to make. How many funny Python skits ended when someone said “Yeah, we’re done.” No one said “Too Silly!” and meant it.
Okay, that was supposed to be a reply to John M. from 10/9, but I doubt anyone got too confused.
In yet another sign of just how much Batiuk cares about the quality of his work, in today’s Crankshaft, Rocky’s bowling shirt has Andy’s name on it. (Andy himself is angled such that we can’t see whose name is on his shirt, though.)
Not even Batiuk cares enough to keep all these characters straight, it seems.
Well, clearly Rocky spilled nachos on his own shirt just before the game started, and Andy is fastidious enough that he always has an extra one hanging in his car.
Hey, wouldn’t it be hilarious is tomorrow’s night featured just this plot point, with Andy delivering the knee-slapper punchline, “Here, Rocky, take my spare!” (get it?).
I shouldn’t be giving Baituk ideas, should I?