The DVD version of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith has a 75-minute feature called Within A Minute. Its purpose is to illustrate how much work went into producing one minute of the finished movie. It starts with the statistics: 910 people put 70,441 man-hours into this one minute. Then it shows a huge, three-dimensional chart of the hierarchy of these people. It reminded me of the “code” scene in Wreck-It Ralph.
You meet George Lucas, Hayden Christiansen, and producer Rick McCallum. Then all the artists, designers, prop makers, set builders, hair and make-up people, costumers, stunt men, camera operators, lighting people, sound technicians, special effects people, computer graphics people, animators, editors, supervisors, managers, assistant directors, musicians, caterers, and a whole bunch of other specialists. It is absolutely staggering.
I bring this up because Mason Jarre apparently made his universe’s Star Wars Episode III in three weeks, completely by himself. While also knocking up his 68-year-old wife.
I complained on May 25 that the existence of Starbuck Jones III: The Rise Of Disney’s Legal Team was a signal of endless tedium to come. The production of the first such movie ran in Funky Winkerbean from January 2015 to September 2017 – as long as it takes to make a real Star Wars movie! The last we saw of this in Crankshaft was Mason meeting with Harry Dinkle, discussing the licensing details of using Claude Barlow’s music in the movie. And not resolving the issue, or even deciding if it was feasible.
Less than a month later, the whole movie is premiering at the Valentine theater. Really? I worried about years of pointless backstory. But I think Batiuk rushing through it might actually be worse. Why?
- A feeling of dread. The story is just kind of drifting aimlessly right now, doing more book signing jokes while we wait for the next affront to come down the highway. I feel like something big is on the horizon. And, given what he’s set up….
- …this is going to be a Dinkle/Valentine Theater story. Unlike all the details and subplots that went into the first Starbuck Jones movie, the only plot points in this story were putting Dinkle in charge of the music, and Max and Hannah in charge of prepping the theater for this big Hollywood premiere. We’re going to spend weeks congratulating these two. Especially Dinkle.
- The story trivializes itself. While it’s trying to convince us Starbuck Jones is the Star Wars of this world, rushing through its production (and giving Mason way too much control over it) makes the whole movie seem lazy. We spent months walking through every tedious detail of Lisa’s Story: The Movie, Take II, when that was a Lifetime Original Movie-grade production. This is supposed to be an epic space opera. It almost feels like a Rise of Skywalker joke. It was quickly apparent how rushed that movie was, compared to even Episodes 7 and 8. This feels like it’s setting up a failed sequel. I’m sure it won’t, though.
- The story blows off its own plot points. Pete was the writer of the first Starbuck Jones movie, but recently made the decision to run Montoni’s instead. Shouldn’t he have some wistfulness here? Shouldn’t the decision to premiere it at the Valentine, like the first movie did, have some in-universe weight? Like the first Mega Man game. It had atrocious cover art, but later versions kind of embraced it, and made it part of the game’s lore. It’s another ignored opportunity for lore-building, even as Batiuk shoves this franchise down our throats.
- It feels like another insult to Hollywood. Making a comic book cover in-universe is a week-long process, even though Atomik Komix is a small company that puts out a huge number of titles. Tom Batiuk brags about his 11-month lead time. The last Starbuck Jones movie took almost three years. But this $250 million space opera gets done in a month. Batiuk seems to think anything that’s not comic books or writing is buffoon work anybody can do. Like when he made Darrin a web developer, when a story needed him to be.
- It feels like the end of Funky Winkerbean did. The process of making Summer into the most important writer in history, and closing down Montoni’s, also seemed very rushed. We found out later this was because King Features Syndicate mercifully pulled the plug on Funky Winkerbean, which Batiuk denied. Does this development hint at the end of Crankshaft? We already know the strip will address The Burnings this year, which is an ending story by its nature. I’ve long speculated Crankshaft wouldn’t last much longer. Maybe Batiuk has already been told his days are numbered.
Son of Stuck Funky 
This Week of Funky Crankerbean feels like the biggest “fuck you” it’s own lore, which has never been consistent
Man, the feature-length documentaries they made for the prequel DVD releases were baller centerpieces of their release. Those alongside all the featurettes covering behind-the-scenes created a great picture of all the details that go into the filmmaking of the day, and I probably watched them more than the films themselves. While I’m not one to snark on the Disney-era handling too much, I will say that’s it’s a damn shame that Lucasfilm has been more reluctant to let out BTS coverage, be it to keep in-house secrets or allegedly cover up rough patches of production. Besides just not making as in-dept featurettes, they infamously cancelled the “making of” book planned for The Force Awakens (before there was even any major blowback to the sequel trilogy quality at that) that was penned by the late J. W. Rinzler, who made incredibly in-depth Making-Of books for Episode 3 and the original trilogy, among other films.
On topic to the Funkyverse, Starbucks Jones as a film franchise being forgotten about as a story topic seems to be just as much a symptom of Batiuk’s drifting focus and ideas on relevant story as much as it is a harbinger. With all the coverage he gave to the story of the first film, I think he may’ve thought in terms of narrative convention and that after the proven success of Starbuck (like an alternate universe where the John Carter reboot became a successful franchise), dedicating big stories to the sequels wasn’t necessary (Ignoring how sequels can have equally dramatic tales to their production; you can look up the highs and lows of Empire Strikes Back’s BTS for that). Plus of course he was itching to do the story of Lisa’s Story: The Movie done right, so we had to pivot from blockbusters to cancer drams. Who needs to know the Starbuck details, once is enough, amiright? Adding music is an easy in-post deal, wasn’t it?
But there’s a good point to be made that despite all the movie arcs and characters having their Bacon Numbers raised massively, Batiuk was too attached to keeping his characters “normal” and “grounded” as suburban Ohio people, to the point that they have way more separation from their brushes with Hollywood than they really should. Of course we all know mopey Pete went from supposedly the hot dog in the big-two comics and writing the hit new franchise’s script (rewrites) to shuffling around titles like “Amazing Mr. Sponge” and “Incredible Pulp”, supposedly having no better option but to run a two-person pizzaria to manage a family. But even take in the fact that posterboy for ridicule Les Moore signed off on and wrote a script based on his book about him and his dead wife, was dragged grumbling to production visits, personally approve of his dead wife’s actress by saving her from a wildfire and cancer too, fumble through a generous cameo, and have mixed feelings at the wrap party, and then just sat through its premiere and Oscar-winning ceremony at home in Westview. Didn’t he get invited to the Starbuck premiere; why wouldn’t he even come to the press for his own movie when he ultimately was given the honor of keeping its one trophy? Why was he never being approached to retroactively adapt the John Darling story or whatever his in-universe version of “Roses in December” is like if his work is even a smidge profitable enough?
Less to the movie point though, while this is a familiar tangent, the biggest case of the Funkyverse “quarter-inch from reality” syndrome skewing how he portrays moviemaking and the rest of media comes from how his Ohioian cast benefits being able to live quiet lives and not have the true ruthless wrath of the press and public attention coming after them. In countless one-off gags Westview and Centerville have been subject to media attention as their characters pull off antics. From Holtron organizing Star Trek cons with his sci-fi teleportation and network powers at the high school to Crankshaft freaking dooming the earth with a meteor and wildfire-scale smoke blowouts over his bad grilling skills, people have gotten noticed and famous, broken out into the wider world, and yet every time it retreats to a small-scale life that will treat a freaking church choir as the don’t-miss show on Christmas Eve. And yet no, Les can live in his home in piece as money and awards are fought over his movie, nobody acknowledges Wally’s record-making stint as a POW, and Montoni’s magazine-covered franchises puff into smoke after one out-of-state joint fails in the Big Apple. The Funkyverse makes the media only a nebulous, art-scoffing conglomerate of capitalism only when it needs to, and the story only important when it directly affects character’s personal affairs. Just like how being too old for mainstream news is only a problem until you settle into web reporting and marrying a movie star and then you’re the Wasp Woman in looks.
At the center of all this seems to be some kind of weirdly specific Batiukian fetish about how he thinks Hollywood should work. He seems to think Hollywood needs to put small-town Ohio people into decision-making roles, to save it from itself. You know, because Hollywood is making non-art, is too motivated by money, not telling stories “correctly”, not honoring Silver Age comic books enough, and all the usual stuff he bitches about.
Tom Batiuk and Hal P. Warren would have gotten along well. Hal P. Warren was a fertilizer salesman in El Paso, Texas in 1966. He made a bet with a screenwriter friend that he, an ordinary person with no training, could make a movie just like Hollywood can. And he was right: Warren successfully made a feature-length movie. He won his bet.
What he couldn’t do was make a GOOD feature-length movie. The movie in question was the infamous Manos: The Hands of Fate, brought to the world’s attention later by Mystery Science Theater 3000. It’s dreadful, off-putting, and full of elementary errors like beckoningchasm’s “forgot to put in the film score” suggestion below.
Manos is exactly what Starbuck Jones would be if anyone tried this in real life. The Manos premiere was a fiasco and the movie itself was panned. Because that’s what happens when you put incompetent people in charge of things. But because this is Tom Batiuk’s fantasy world, everything works *better* than if actual professionals had been calling the shots.
Please tell me the bus driver bowling team will consider replacing Lena with Torgo.
I’m going to disagree somewhat. Mason told Max and Hannah in May that the premiere of Starbuck Jones III would be in June.
That implied that the movie had largely been completed — it certainly would have to have been filmed, with much of the editing and visual effects already well under way. Adding the music to a film is generally part of post-production, albeit not realistically cut so close as Mason did. (I mean, he hadn’t even ascertained whether the music by the classical composer he wanted to use was copyrighted or public domain.)
So, no, we don’t know how long Starbuck Jones III took to be written and developed or filmed or whatever. We just came in a month before the end of the story of its production. Which is fine with me — I wouldn’t want to spend any longer on that story, because I certainly don’t give a rat’s rear end about Starbuck Jones.
I don’t want to see a three-year Starbuck Jones buildup either. But if he’s going to trot out Starbuck Jones at all, we need to feel like this is an actual AAA movie, not some student film Mason is making with his camcorder.
We saw Mason discussing with Dinkle what kind of music to use in the movie, who’s conducting that music, and whether they can even acquire the rights to it. And, he empowered two small-town (and in my view, incompetent) movie theater owners to decide every aspect of a major Hollywood premiere. These are not decisions you make 25 days before the opening of a 9-figure movie.
Nor are they made by one person. That Star Wars documentary goes into detail about how the various teams interact with each other, and with George Lucas and the others who are running the show overall. (Of course, editors are forbidden by law on Planet Batiuk.)
Exposition can been done over time. If Batiuk’s aim is to make Dinkle into the new John Williams (which it almost certainly is), Mason should have approached him months ago. Additional backstory could have been built through occasional mentions of the movie franchise, during one of the many weeks the characters spent standing around in comic book stores. Such a conversation wouldn’t have felt out of place, and would have filled in a strip here or there.
For as much as Tom Batiuk loves to brag about “characters aging realistically”, he’s really bad at managing time in his universe. And as much as he loves to bury you in exposition about his fantasy comic book world, he doesn’t do it when he actually should.
It’s middle fingers all the way down. Tomorrow, people who pay to see the film Batiuk can’t show get insulted.
It really is. There’s just so much directionless anger about the movie industry in general. Middle finger to Hollywood; middle finger to the production process; middle finger to the fans.
And his mouthpiece is Mason Jarre, of all people. He was once a symbol of Hollywood; a shallow, disinterested, talentless hack who couldn’t do the simplest acting until Les Moore and comic books showed him how. Now he’s another don in the Westview Mafia, handing out paychecks to do things Batiuk will take care of off-panel.
It’s almost like Batiuk is still bitter that nobody wanted to make George Kennedy’s Crankshaft movie. So he dives headfirst into his fantasy of Hollywood putting these unqualified small-town Ohio people in charge of everything. The money, praise, and awards come soon after. And then, as Andrew noted, they are relieved from any further duties or involvement in the process.
It’s Lisa’s Story: The Movie all over again. It’s also the most selfish, twisted, childish revenge fantasy this side of Sonichu.
He’s DEFINITELY bitter about the Crankshaft movie, and “Lisa’s Story” being ignored, too. It’s exactly what every single FW and Crankshaft “Hollywood” arc is built on…bitterness. If a Crankshaft movie was made and became a hit, Batiuk would be reveling in all things Hollywood. But it didn’t, so he blames “showbiz” and “executives”, just like with his weird vendettas against The Syndicate (the very same Syndicate that gave him THREE daily comic strips in his career). It’s never his fault, it’s “the system” (and/or the cold unfeeling Universe).
A great example was when “Lisa’s Story” (as opposed to “Lust For Lisa”) bombed at the box office (studio ineptitude), then took off via “word of mouth” (the common folk recognizing quality and integrity). Next thing you know, Les has a freaking Oscar. Batiuk hates Hollywood, but not on principle. He’s just mad at them.
Watching Les get his bowels in an uproar about the purity of his creative vision hints at why the movie fell through: they wanted Ed to have a heart of gold while Batty wanted the right bastard we have now. The Hollywood people would have been wrong if Lisa were the central character as they were in his chunk of libelous slander.
I don’t think there’s any evidence the Crankshaft movie ever reached the point of Batiuk being involved. As far as we know, George Kennedy wanted to make it, and that’s it.
We also know about the “shopping agreement” that happened in FW. And, that Tom Batiuk is so lazy he can’t tell a story about anything that didn’t happen to him personally. So it’s easy to piece together what happened: Kennedy convinced Batiuk to give him a shopping agreement for Crankshaft, and went around Hollywood trying to sell the movie. Nobody bought it.
Given his tendency to give ignorant troglodytes stuck in grade school a bad name, he thus peopled the entertainment industry with cardboard villains.
Today’s Funky Crankerbean: The Insulting
cs killbinds because of this strip’s stupidity, only to respawn a second later
I had to look up what “killbind” means.
Killbinding is a slang reffering to a TF2 player killing themselves in the game, which they do for very cheap laughs
Are the laughs cheap? Yes.
Is it still funny? YES.
What if…it turns out the film is incomplete, because they somehow struck a print without the music score? They’d have to hurry and get Dinkle and he’d have to recruit his Hateful Dead band to do live accompaniment.
I suppose that would be entertaining, so that strikes that idea.
That seems very on-brand for the Funkyverse. Hollywood screws something up, so Dinkle has to be the hero at the last minute. With Bedside Manor as his backup band and Lillian McKenzie as his vocalist. Ugggh.
Crankshaft doing comics and movie nerd obsessions always feels off. Crankshaft’s obsession was — and should be — baseball, which is so ingrained in the character that i didn’t even notice it when they did the ‘old man softball league’ a couple of weeks ago.
Even the Mud Hens, on whose mailing list i now find myself, would seem to present more available and more interesting venue for Crankshaft stories than this bizarre Hollywood as viewed through a complete outsider lens. Although the corollaries of small business owners (for Montoni’s and the Valentine) should also be pretty doable, having Daddy Schlockbucks parachute in once a month isn’t fun or funny.
Also, they could tag in Jamie Farr. He’s how they should be connected to the entertainment industry anyway.
That’s Batty for you, he just cannot get out of his own way.
The joke in today’s Shaft: Does TB seriously not realize he’s looking in the mirror much more than making fun of Hollywood?
Of course he doesn’t… but sometimes the lack of self-awareness is so unbelievable as to be inhuman.
Batiuk is defined by two simultaneous character traits: complete self-absorption AND utter lack of self-awareness. You’d think those two traits couldn’t possibly co-exist, but in a few select individuals, they do….
I’d argue there’s a third: his inability to let go of ANYTHING.
That’s a function of his self-absorption — he continually remembers, relives and recontextualizes every imagined slight.
Other real-life self-absorbed/non self aware people include Morrissey, Conrad Black, or Liz Truss. Though they are very different people, all of them have that mix of making it all about themselves, remembering EVERY perceived injustice, and not recognizing how ridiculous they appear to all but their most devoted followers.
Steven Seagal counts as well, he’s a self-absorbed fat asshole who takes himself way too seriously and gets pissed off when someone mildly insults him
he also makes shitty movies
I still can’t really see TB defecting to Russia.
Not even if he was given a Putin-ilitzer Prize?
That’s ’cause Batiuk doesn’t have multiple allegations of rape and sex trafficking against him such that he needs to flee to a country that doesn’t look so poorly on those things.
(Thankfully)
That description also fits Andrew Tate
As in that Andrew Tate is guilty of several accounts of sex trafficking
Reason number 576 why I greatly enjoy ignoring Crankshaft. We all know exactly why BatYam has a giant pissy chip on his shoulder re: “Hollywood”. They ignored his tedious masterpiece AND blew off Crankshaft, and Bats has never gotten over it. His endless blubbering about soulless money-grubbing profiteers and etc. is just plain sour grapes. He’d OWN that stupid pizza joint if he’d ever struck it big with a major Hollywood production, but instead he has to settle for just eating there six nights a week instead, and it irks him to this very day.
So let me get this straight: he’s actually shoehorning Claude f*cking Barlow into the Starbuck Jones universe? Oooof. I mean, why not just do a SJ sequel where SJ’s wife gets cancer and dies? Or where SJ gets CTE and flies his spaceship into an asteroid?
And you know what? Hollywood could have made a good movie out of Crankshaft. It fit the zeitgeist of that era, a silly, somewhat corny movie that would make a perfect late summer release as back to school looms near.
But you just know Batty F’d it all up with wild demands, being pissy and not playing the game.
No, the movie wouldn’t have made tons of money or won awards, but it would have made a little and had decent audience numbers.
And he would been more than a throwaway gag predicated on Marge Simpson being the dullest person on the planet.
Kids! Want to go see that Crankshaft movie?
BART: Lame!
If Leslie Nielsen had wanted to play Ed Crankshaft, that movie would have gotten made. His presence alone was worth millions in box office revenue. Even for the crap he was making by the 2000s.
And then the sequel:
“Crankshaft 2.4: The Fillings of Lena’s Brownies”
I want to see the “police siren goes through strange scenes” opening credits for that one.
Today is a reminder that Mason is big enough an egomaniac that he feels cheated that he can’t name his kids something that relates to his career. As far as I know, Downey ain’t all het up to name a kid Tony so……
Anyone can name a kid Tony. i bet you could name a kid Iron-Man if you wanted to. Didn’t Nicholas Cage name his kid Kal-El?
Depending on where you come in with “The Vicar of Dibley,” the title character’s full name is either “Boadicea Geraldine Granger” or “Geraldine Julie Andrews Dick van Dyke Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Chim-Chiminey Chim-Chiminey Chim-Chim-Cheree Granger.”
MacArthur in *Doonesbury* would think himself lucky, as would his sister Doug.
R.I.P., Richard M. Sherman.
His right name is Coppola and he took the name Cage from The House Of Ideas. He’s supposed to be an unchained freak.
Friday: hey, Cindy’s p2 face must have been copied from Rick Burchett’s tenure.
The Curious Case Of Cindy Summers
Actually it’s ripped off from the Byrne Act III Character sheets. Again. Whoever is clipping Cindy together these days has become obsessed with it. As Monday was Byrne ward art too.
Today’s Funky Crankerbean:
Reporter: What are you naming the kid?
Masone: If it’s a boy, either Thomas, Eric, Daniel, Stephan, Addison, Chester, Joseph, Frank, Nicholas, Terry, Lincoln, Brian, Richard, Charles, Gerry, or John. If it’s a girl, then Catherine, Heather, Olivia, Angel, Alexandria, Karen, June, Marianne, Holly or Jessica.
My reasons for the names in the above comment
So Cindy being pregnant wasn’t a joke. Not that I thought it was, but with this confirmation and the art swipes strating to dip into John Byrne’s vault of unholy wide mouths, I think Crankshaft is finally and officially in late stage Apartment 3-G territory.
Why the hell is Cindy being interviewed at a Starbuck Jones movie premiere anyway? She’s of no relevance to the movie. Her own media career has been dormant for decades, which she constantly bitches about. It gives away what week really is: a lame excuse for the main characters to talk in circles about themselves.
Batiuk’s lack of imagination is so great that he has to follow his progression even when it doesn’t make any sense.
Cindy expresses interest in Mason.
Cindy and Mason start dating.
Cindy and Mason get married.
Cindy and Mason have a child.
If he didn’t follow all of those steps, he wouldn’t be able to conceive of anything else for them to do. So the 70 year-old Cindy has to get pregnant, or her marriage to Mason effectively goes down the memory hole when it’s anything more than her hanging around when he does his usual stupid stuff.
I’m trying to figure out what Batiuk’s deal is with Cindy’s pregnancy. Some possibilities:
I pity the person who has to recap this week’s strips! Because, they’ll have to
Waitaminnit. Heck, I’ll do it now! “And then, nothing happened 6 times.”
Timemop Alert! This is not a drill, repeat, this is not a drill!
(and of course it’s all in the service of a cheap gag about being a “secret” time traveler. 100% undead Funky today, not a smidge of Crankshaft DNA to be seen)
The triumphant return of Timemop! Called it back in February … on Groundhog Day, no less.
I don’t know whether to be pleased or horrified by my grasp of Batiuk’s thought processes.
I am horrified. Batty really has lost his mind.
No one’s going to mention this unusual appearance in CC’s COTW?
“Amazing that Snuffy Smith first touched the third rail of comics art, the high price of comic books ($6/issue?), before comics-obsessed standby Crankshaft aka Funky Winkerbean II. You go get ’em, semi-anonymous clip art legacy comic producer!” –Bad wolf
Why is Josh ignoring this SECOND spectacular Crash&Burn of the Battyverse? Apartment 3G ain’t nothing compared to this.
Yeah, yeah, Wilbur’s fish. We will be dead in 50 years. Humans will be extinct. Only Mary Worth and Blondie shall exist. But, how will we recognize Humanity as a Nation, and a rock Jeff found in a canyon?
While all the Timemop discussion is hashed out, I think another topic that needs to be reviewed is how much Tom leans on public signings as an event that happens over and over and over again. Why does he lean on that crutch so very often? Why is that the focal point of so many of his own personal blog entries?
Also: this is supposed to be a movie premier, not a book signing!
Today’s Funky Crankerbean:
Mason: Timemop, where the hell is my wife?
(meanwhile in a abandoned workshop, Cindy is strapped to a chair, suddenly, Sonic.exe walks in with a drill)
2011 X: YOU’VE KEPT ME WAITING LONG ENOUGH. CYNTHIA. INSTEAD OF TAKING YOUR SOUL, I’M GOING TO KILL YOU RIGHT NOW
Cindy: SOMEONE! HELP! I DONT WANT TO DIE TO SOME ALIEN THAT WAS BORN TWELVE YEARS AGO!
(2011 X drills Cindy in the head, all the while Cindy continues to scream)
Saturday’s strip is a good indication that Tom Batiuk believes all his readers are just like him. According to him, every reader is going “Oh, goody! Timemop!”
When in fact I imagine the average Crankshaft reader is saying “Who is this guy supposed to be?”
Just to emphasize that, I made a comment about Batiuk deciding to change the timeline again using a “time-traveling janitor.” I made that comment yesterday.
And I didn’t recognize the time-traveling janitor when he showed up in today’s strip.
How is anyone who doesn’t remember the janitor being a timeline-changer going to recognize him in today’s strip?
I suppose that the average Crankshaft reader would answer the question “Who is this guy supposed to be?” with “Some loser comic strip fan who makes celebrities uncomfortable with his comments at autograph signing events.”
And that would be understandable — it’s a type of person we’ve seen in real life — albeit not particularly amusing.
And yet–Wait. What’s the name of the movie again?
Readers are expected to know EVERYTHING, except when they My Father Joh
The joke can’t be that Time Mop only looks like Loony Fan Who Creeps People Out if no one knows him from Adam. Batiuk thinks he’s being bullied when people lay this chunk of the bloody obvious on him.