You Mooooove Me

53 thoughts on “You Mooooove Me”

1. ComicBookHarriet,
   I gladly accept the photo!
   I little white calf. Beautiful!
   I must tell you this. Apparently, I sensed your gift of the photo. Last night I was dreaming that I was in a comic store. I planned on selling my comics. Then I turned to my right. There you were. I said, “I can’t sell these comics. I must give them away to ComicBookHarriet.
   So I did!
   What a pleasant dream!
   So my cattle family thanks you! My friends on SOSF thank you, and most assuredly, I thank you!
   💖🩵💝🫂🌺💐🌹

2. Also, Batiuk has no timing any more.

   Case in point: it took six days for Ed to throw Jeff under the bus this week.

   1. If I were going to throw Jeff under a bus, I would want to savor it for an entire week too.

      1. And if he were to be killed off, his obituary should play up the lingering angle.

   2. Pam should be a lot less annoyed that her husband buys VHS tapes of his childhood media faves, and a lot more annoyed that his trip to Bronson Canyon to see where they filmed The Phantom Empire nearly got him killed. And she should be cataclysmically angry that he brought her a rock as a souvenir.

      1. But she’s what Batiuk thinks a woman is: a slow-thinking executioner of boyhood.

3. Today’s Crankshaft

   Day 6 of the Crankshaft Overspends on Bean’s End Crap (2025 Edition)

   Ha ha it’s funny because Ol’ Cranky is a snitch

   1. While it irritates me that Pam is once again put in thr role of mothering grown men, I have to admit the Huckleberry Hound gave me a chuckle.

      1. I thought Dangerous Dan went above and beyond the call of duty today, finding clip art in which Huckleberry Hound is indeed going down the river, just like Jff.

         And, now that I think of it, Eugene…

      2. Yeah, Huckleberry Hound after Richie Rich a couple weeks ago both amused me. Has TB decided to mine the Gen X nostalgia vein? If so, slow clap, seems to be working

         1. He’s definitely mining the “use other people’s intellectual property in a non-fair use situation” vein. And the “use other people’s beloved characters in lieu of creating any myself or even writing any jokes” veins.

   2. “Vintage television videos” is some insipid non-specificity on par with the best/worst such bits in Herb & Jamaal.

4. Today’s Past Batiukverse Storyline: Cindy Gets A Speeding Ticket

   

   and then she immediately breaks the law and goes 50 over the speed limit and gets pulled over by a cop

   

   Funky: (maniacal laughter) SERVES YA RIGHT FOR TRYING TO RUIN MY LIFE, BITCH!

   

   

   

   

   Cindy:…..$50,000! I’M FUCKIN’ BROKE! (sob)

   Carrie: That’s nowhere close to being broke, Cynthia!

   

   

   

   

   

   here’s something to know about me: I despise the sounds of crying babies

   

   I have no idea if Cindy means the diaper or the baby

   I hope it’s not the latter

   1. I like how Les was the first to recognize Cindy’s car, even though she won’t give him the time of day. No, he’s not a creepy stalker at all.

   2. In hindsight, there used to be a real nastiness there, particularly with the “one-note” old characters, like Bull, or as we see above, Cindy. Her, uh, not-niceness, let’s call it, is pretty much the entire gag. Materialistic, vapid, cynical, irresponsible…she really had it all. I’ve always been fascinated by how BatYam sometimes seems to really loathe his own creations.

      1. Yeah, that was the point: high school IS nasty. Act I did a good job of depicting the high school world realistically, but in a fun and exaggerated way, like the movie Better Off Dead. In Act III and even Act II, the classic characters still act like high schoolers, even though they have ostensibly become adults and graduated from <s>college</s> Kent State. Nobody in this world has ever experienced anything after age senior year. Most of us grow up a lot between 18 and 21; not these people.

         1. It’s like an old Abbott and Costello routine…

            “Where’d you go to college?”

            “Kent State.”

            “Why can’t you state?”

            “No, KENT State.”

            “OK, OK, no need to get so pissy about it.”

            1. Much like the name Beverly Hills is a stand-in for a high-end suburb, Kent State is a perfect stand-in for “big, crappy state university.” Which makes it work perfectly in jokes like this, even though the university’s reputation isn’t important to this joke.

               And Tom Batiuk seems to have no clue of this. His constant use of Kent State in his work doesn’t build off this perception, but doesn’t fight it either. Everyone in his world banally chooses to go there instead of Akron, Cleveland State, Ohio University, Toledo, Wright State, or literally anywhere else.

               As much as The Funkyverse celebrates Kent State, it backhandledly insults the school just as much. Bull Bushka, who was an accomplished football player, was routed to “EMU” aka Totally Not Ohio State University (tNOSU), even though there was never any narrative reason for this. The NFL will find good prospects wherever they play, such as Dri Archer, whom Batiuk once made some Heisman Trophy promotional art for. The Funkyverse also made a big show out of Mindy being accepted to Kent State, despite her being extremely dumb.

            2. Neil Young can tell us how it got the rep it has…..FOUR DEAD IN O-HI-OOOOOOOO……….

5. Today’s Crankshaft

   Day 7 of the Crankshaft Overspends on Bean’s End Crap (2025 Edition)

   WHY DID CRANKSHAFT GET EXPLOSIVE ROCKETS AS WELL AS ALL THE SHIT HE ORDERED AT BEAN’S END WHAT IS GOING ON

6. The other four men in that photo are Lee Smith, Andre Dawson, Billy Williams and Fergie Jenkins.

   1. My Dad is a lifelong admirer of Fergie Jenkins. I asked him when Hank Aaron died who his favorite baseball player was, and that was what he instantly said.

      1. Jenkins, Williams, and Smith are in the Hall of Fame mostly because they played for the Yankees, Dodgers, Cubs, or Red Sox. Even if those teams weren’t any good at the time. (SEE ALSO: Santo, Ron; Mattingly, Don, continued candidacy of.) Nothing against any of them, and they were all certainly excellent players, but I find their Cooperstown credentials a little thin considering how quickly they were enshrined.

         Show me a HoFer who took a long time to get inducted, for non-steroid reasons, and I’ll show you someone who would have been in two years earlier if they played for any of those teams. Carlos Beltran, Andruw Jones, Billy Wagner, Dick Allen, Chase Utley, and Dave Parker all come to mind.

7. When I finished my draft of the fake newsletter, I read it first to my roommate and she was skeptical that I had gone too over the top. 

   I didn’t actually read the newsletter until well after I realized it was an April Fools joke since it was minimized and impossible to read initially. But I will say that using entries from the Batiuktionary in order for your writing to seem more like Batiuk’s tends to give the joke away. I don’t think that most of the things in the Batiuktionary are parts of his standard lexicon. I think that he’s writing and he wants to use a mundane or cliched phrase or idiom and decides to “punch it up”, which he does badly and results in a truly weird piece of dialogue.

   For example, I think he doesn’t believe that teenagers would use the term “vending machines”, and he wants to punch up that dialogue. But he doesn’t know how teenagers talk, so he comes up with “vendos” and decides that’s sufficient. I doubt he’s ever used “vendos” in casual conversation with another person. Grandpa Google is another one.

   So when I saw “killer shark issues” in the newsletter, that really stood out as something that Batiuk wouldn’t have written. His use of it was a one-off when he was trying to punch up the dialogue to avoid a cliche or an awkward phrase. But it is something a person with intimate familiarity with the Batiuktionary would use when trying to write like Batiuk.

   Also, while Batiuk’s ear is, as we’ve all noted, truly dreadful, I think he would have noticed how bad subtitling “Jeff’s Story” “The Last Wipe” would be. My response when I first saw that was “so we’re commemorating the last time Jeff gets to wipe his ass?”

   But anyway.

   1. I thought “killer shark issues” was something Funky said when he realized he was getting old and decrepit.

8. I can’t let this stand.

   In the context of the original article, it is abundantly and thoroughly clear that “Jeff’s Story: The Last Wipe” is NOT Batiuk’s title.  BJr6K makes an unmistakable reference to this being his own parody title before he introduces the cover, when he writes “I designed a book cover for the inevitable forthcoming book series from Kent State University Press…”

   As for the remarkable assertion that “I don’t think that most of the things in the Batiuktionary are parts of his standard lexicon.”  Well…that’s perhaps what you think.  It isn’t reality.

    In Batiuk’s blog posts – i.e., his written material that’s designed to be chatty, casual, conversational glimpses into the mind of the writer – you’ll find a plethora of Batiukionary items like “climate damage”, “Grandpa Google”, or “I stand in line”.  As for any Batiukionary items that are missing from his blogs?  Well, there’s no reason to believe that, for instance, the phrase “book launch party” wouldn’t make it into his real-life writing … if Batiuk ever held a book launch where anyone actually showed up.  Lack of opportunity is the culprit here, not any misunderstanding of Batiuk’s voice on the part of CBH.  In other words, whenever Batiuk gets around to actually writing in real-life about vending machines or his music listening preferences or difficult problems, it’s completely plausible we’ll be reading about ‘vendos’ or ‘lean-back listening lists’ or ‘killer-shark issues’.

   To sum up: you totally shanked this. Mega!

   1. Oh, I left far more obvious clues than that.

9. I think we need to add “enter the transfer portal” to the Batiuktionary because of its unnecessary and inapplicable overuse.

   1. Also, Batiuk’s misuse of the term. The transfer portal was created when the NCAA was finally defeated in court over its restrictive, exploitative practices. They controlled movement and forced amateurism for so long, they had to create mechanisms for student-athletes to change schools freely and get paid for their labor. For Batiuk to call something this as a joke, in reference to people whose movement and ability to get paid were never restricted, betrays his ignorance of the subject. It’s also in pretty bad taste. Especially when I start thinking about how there might be a union subtext.

      1. We’re not dealing with a deep thinker. We’re dealing with someone who just likes the phrase because it intrigues him and also feels cool to say.

         1. True, but we’re also dealing with someone who thinks he deserves writing awards.

            1. He used to…..then he ended up in the Byrne ward.

   2. I suppose TB thinks we’re supposed to laugh because “transfer portal” is a hot topic of conversation that has been roiling college athletics over the past few years, regardless of whether he’s built a joke around the term or not (he hasn’t). At least he timed this one right, as the NCAA basketball tournaments are ending and players are announcing their transfers en masse.

      I know it’s a lot to ask, but couldn’t TB at least try to out-write a Dr Pepper commercial?

      1. A 15-month-old Dr. Pepper commercial.

         1. Well, yeah — but because of his self-imposed schedule, we’re also looking at a 12-month-old Crankshaft.

            1. I think I was trying to say “this commercial is old enough that he could have just stolen it and gotten a better result.”

               Also, those Dr. Pepper “Fanville” commercials are pretty good. They poke fun at college football fandoms in very believable ways.

            2. A 12-month-old Crankshaft would fit right in on Marvin.

      2. I think we found his muse.

10. Today’s Crankshaft

    WAIT WHAT DID ROCKY BECOME EVIL

    HE SWITCHED FROM CENTERVILLE TO BIG WALNUT TECH

    1. Are school bus drivers even assigned to a school? I thought bus drivers worked for the school district, and could convey students to different schools, if only elementary/junior/high schools in the same town. In a metropolitan/suburban area, which the Funkyverse is implied to be, it makes even less sense for every individual school to hire its own drivers like this. And it makes even less sense to do this at a time of a bus driver shortage! Nothing in this “quarter inch from reality” world is ever consistent with anything else.

       1. It appears to differ state to state, county to county, city to…you get the idea. Some districts hire their bus drivers directly, some use private bus companies. Either a company or a school wooing one driver over simply so they can win a bus rodeo, of course, is ridiculous. Wouldn’t Rocky have had to give notice? Wouldn’t he have mentioned it to his fellow drivers and bowling buddies? And now that I mention it, why don’t rival bowling teams try to hire the best bowlers?

          By the by, does anyone know if Big Walnut Tech is in Centerville, Westview, or some Ohio town called Big Walnut? Even moderately sized cities have more than one high school, especially if one is academic and one is technical.

          1. I think that Big Walnut Tech High would be near Westview

11. Today’s Crankshaft

    Ha ha it’s funny because Lena’s cooking is still awful

12. ComicBookHarriet, Epicus Doomus,
    I am making a post regarding my voting in an extremely minor election in my home town. It will not be about politics, but if you feel it crosses the line, I accept the cancellation. I always appreciate you.
    I went up to the election table to sign in. At the edge of the table was a John Deere cap from one of the election board members. I commented that if John Deere recommends this election board, it is high praise indeed. There was nobody else voting at the time, so we had a few minutes to visit.
    The other gentleman asked if Allis Chalmers still existed. I did not know. Mrs. SP’s family farmed, and had Allis Chalmers, Massey-Ferguson, International, and one Ford tractor. My father-in-law ALWAYS spoke reverently about John Deere, but did not own one. 18 years later, Mrs. SP told me he was only being facetious. I couldn’t tell. I was just glad that he was speaking to me!
    Flash facts: (sorry. That should get me cancelled right away!)
    1. Allis Chalmers went out of business in 1999.
    2. Massey-Ferguson is only as old as I am. Two companies combined to form MF. (Sorry, Be Ware of Eve Hill. Not that one.) They are the largest agricultural machine company in the world.
    3. The best thing about tractors 🚜 is their logos. They are spectacular. Look them up.
    4. CBH, what types of machinery does your farm use?

    1. Heya SP,

       Our family is rather anti-green when it comes to farm equipment. John Deere is kinda the ‘Apple’ of farm equipment. More expensive than it needs to be, and not very consumer friendly if you wanna get it repaired yourself.

       Our combine is an International, though we use a John Deere corn head which gives our combine an interesting red body, green snouts look. In our tractor fleet is an elderly International, a barely running Massey, a small New Holland (blue), three Challengers which are yellow tractors made by CAT, and the newest tractor, a red Case.

       1. ComicBookHarriet,
          I believe I have mentioned this before. My all-time favorite tractor was the International. I think it was front wheel drive and it turned and swiveled from the middle of the machine. Big. Beautiful. Red. I loved it!
          I am guessing you have already eaten the April lettuce? 🥬🌺🌹

       2. I once had an IT role that was adjacent to the farming industry, which occasionally brought me into contact with machinery dealers. And, holy cow, tractors and combines are EXPENSIVE. Easily six figures apiece. To help you produce a commodity that might go for $5 a bushel if you’re lucky (depending on what you’re growing).

          John Deere is kinda the ‘Apple’ of farm equipment. More expensive than it needs to be, and not very consumer friendly if you wanna get it repaired yourself.

          And if one of your devices is John Deere, they all have to be John Deere if you want to use all the features? And all the experts are insufferable patchouli-smelling 52-year-old men with gross beards and backpacks?

13. Be Ware of Eve Hill, Anonymous Sparrow,
    TL/DR. If you don’t, I will not blame you. It’s a marathon! Yet it does give examples of how the kindness I find at SOSF rubs off on me.

    Eve, people like you and Anonymous Sparrow represent the best of SOSF. Everyone here makes this place special. It goes from those posting, the editors, and to our commenters.
    Believe it or not: You all are a good spiritual influence on me!

    I voted yesterday. I spoke with the guys at the election board longer than it took me to vote. 
    I went to Burger King for lunch in my home town.
    I always get an original chicken and a large sweet tea light ice. 
    As I finished, 2 black MoDot drivers came in and sat near the trash receptacle that I often use. They were obviously coworkers from their uniforms. They sat on a bench, but not a table. They sat in line, but not next to each other. They did not face each other. (Why mention their race? I was raised to leave people alone and not make eye contact. That makes it very difficult to meet people.) I threw my trash away and asked the closest driver to me, “Who paid? You or him?” I pointed at the other fellow. The first answered, “Nah, we both paid for our own.” I smiled and handed him a $20 bill, and said, “Here. Split this with the other fellow.” They smiled and both said thank you. I left saying, “God bless both of you.” Then I spoke to the 2nd guy, and as I was laughing, I said, “Make sure he splits it with you!” He laughed also. 

    God has blessed me. If you doubt that, just look in your mirror🪞. He has blessed me with you.
    I enjoy blessing others.
    It is always a good day to bless others!

    But there is more to my testimony that I will share with you. We cannot minister or serve or be kind without having a clean conscience.

    I got my comeuppance the night before.
    Last week, My wife LaDonna, and I got 3 important letters. I looked at them, and set them on LaDonna’s recliner in the kitchen. A couple of days later, I asked her about them. One letter was from our county assessor. Another one was about our insurance. I don’t remember the third one. She told me, she had no memory of reading the letters. Boy, did I yell at her. “I put them on your chair so you can read them!” Etc. Etc…the rant went on. I checked the trash can. Nope. Then I checked the recycle can. Nada. She went through all the items by her chair. Nothing. That was last week.
    So the night before, I am sitting in my chair in the living room. I took off my glasses to read. Next to me is a stand, and on it are 3 envelopes. I check them out.
    Yep! They are the 3 missing letters. They have been next to me the entire time. So I holler at my girl to come into the Living Room. She comes in. I show her the 3 letters. Immediately I tell her,
    “I was wrong.”
    “I misjudged you.”
    “I blamed you.”
    “It was 100% my fault.”
    “I was 100% wrong.”
    “Will you forgive me?”
    She said yes and told me, thank you. Then she went back to the kitchen to read the letters.
    The most important one I thought, was the county assessing our wrecked Chevy Cruz, which we no longer own due to the wreck in December.
    If I had not cleared my sin with LaDonna, there would not have been a testimony at Burger 🍔 King 👑.
    All you guys at SOSF are loved for putting up with me for so many years. Your kindness to each other has rubbed off on me.

    1. SP:

       This is overdue,

       I took your advice and watched “Cover Up” recently.

       Much as I’d like to say, as Virginia Woolf did of Thomas Hardy’s *Two on a Tower,* that I’m surprised it’s not more talked of, I can’t.

       Film noir for me is about high stakes — a “dingus” like the Maltese Falcon, worth a fortune, a double indemnity pay-off (mentioned in “Cover Up,” Walter. I love you, too, Keyes), the inexorable workings of fate (in which the postman always rings twice) or an attempt to solve your own murder, as in “D.O.A.” — and here they were absent. Sam Donovan comes to investigate the death of Roger Phillips and finds an uncooperative town (my favorite moment: Sam’s complaint that the silent deputy “talks too much”) and pursues the truth, while falling in love with Anita Weatherby, the banker’s daughter and falling in love with the town.

       There’s a hint at something high stakes when Sheriff Best (William Bendix, who grew on me, much like Ian Wolfe does as the Justice of the Peace in “They Live By Night”) confronts Sam and starts to tell a story about an older crime. (it made me think of the generational murders in a Ross Macdonald novel featuring Lew Archer, whose first entry, *The Moving Target,* also came out in 1949). But the denouement hits high gear a moment later and the sheriff never finishes his story. When the movie ends, we know the truth, but we know that it’ll never come out: in part because it’s Christmas, in part because the unseen Mr. Phillips was a creep and the people who know the truth are good people who do good unto others.

       And because we had a couple of phone conversations with Sam and his boss, I thought of “The Killers” from 1946, in which Edmond O’Brien’s Jim Reardon sets out to investigate the death of Swede Anderson and learns that while he found the truth, it won’t have much of an effect:

       • [last lines]
       • [after Reardon has wrapped up the investigation, Kenyon congratulates him]
       • R.S. Kenyon: Owing to your splendid efforts the basic rate of The Atlantic Casualty Company – as of 1947 – will probably drop one-tenth of a cent.
       • [he shakes Reardon’s hand]
       • R.S. Kenyon: Congratulations, Mr. Reardon.
       • Jim Reardon: I’d rather have a night’s sleep.
       • R.S. Kenyon: Why don’t you take a good rest. I must say you’ve earned it.
       • [Reardon starts to leave]
       • R.S. Kenyon: This is Friday… don’t come in ’til Monday.
       • Jim Reardon: Thanks

       But in “The Killers,” there’s a greater sense of urgency and bigger pay-off. I can’t deny that I enjoyed “Cover Up” a great deal, but I can’t say I’d ever recommend it as one of the great noirs, not even for Dennis O’Keefe (whom I think is better in “T-Men”) or for Barbara Britton’s Anita (no relation to Pamela Britton, who was in “D.O.A.”)…or even for Doro Merande’s sourpuss Hilda (who reminded me of C.S. Lewis’s Puddleglum. Perhaps she’s part Marsh-wiggle?).

       A funny thing to conclude:

       “The Killers” was remade in 1964, this time with the killers themselves investigating why their target didn’t resist (Ronald Reagan, in one of his last roles, is the villain). That’s not unknown with noirs: “High Sierra” resurfaced as “I Died a Thousand Times,” for instance, and “The Big Clock” became “Police Python 357” and “No Way Out,” while “Nightmare Alley” has two versions seventy-four years apart, with the creators proud of the fact that they didn’t have to dilute the source material as much as the first version did.

       Perhaps someone would like to remake “Cover Up,” but I can’t see it getting out of development hell. It struck me as “a good little movie,” a term I first saw applied to “Pretty Poison” (well worth watching), and which fit it to a tee. An Australian correspondent of mine brought up Gilbert & Sullivan recently, reminding me of the peers’s proud boast in *Iolanthe*:

       When Wellington thrashed Bonaparte,
       As every child can tell,
       The House of Peers, throughout the war,
       Did nothing in particular,
       And did it very well;
       Yet Britain set the world ablaze
       In good King George’s glorious days!

       “Cover Up” does what it does very well, but not so well that it goes beyond it.

       Thank you for your time, and, please, don’t feel that you should never again recommend a movie to me!

       (*Two on a Tower* came out in 1882, between *A Laodicean* and *The Mayor of Casterbridge,* if you’re wondering)

       1. Anonymous Sparrow,
          I appreciate you so much. *Cover Up* is just what it is. Pleasant story. Good actors. Strong writing. I am glad that the Maltese Falcon and Casablanca has few competitors.
          Don’t worry. I going to recommend 2 TV shows both starring Timothy Olyphant. The first is *Justified* 2010. I have seen every episode. Strong. Strong. Costars. Plus Walton Goggins.
          Then *Deadwood*. 2004. I don’t think any of the characters are likable, but they are believable. I just finished the first season.
          I very much enjoyed your discussion of progressive music with Be Ware of Eve Hill.
          I enjoy our discussions.

          “Anonymous Sparrow”, c’est une joie de converser avec vous !

14. Today’s Crankshaft

    Day 3 of Rocky Rhodes’s Villain Arc

    Looks like Crankshaft’s team is screwed

    1. Every Crankshaft this week:

       Panel 1: “Transfer portal transfer portal transfer portal.”
       Panel 2: “Transfer portal?”
       Panel 3: “Transfer portal transfer portal transfer portal transfer portal!”

       1. Makes a change from “Comic books comic books comic books!” “Comic books?” “Comic books comic books COMIC BOOKS COOOOMIIIIC BOOOOOOOOOOKS!!!!”

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