billytheskink

Shout at the Dinkle

Today’s strip reaches a level of trippy surrealism that even Heathcliffe’s current descent into nonsensicality cannot match for madness. Admittedly, I am not much of a Mötley Crüe fan, so perhaps Nikki Sixx and Mick Mars both attempting to play and chew on the same guitar is their MO. However, what the third Google Images result for “Mötley Crüe” is doing next to an image of Franklin Roosevelt (with his trademark cigarette holder photoshopped out) boring Funky’s dad and a couple other octogenarians is beyond me.

Also, it’s another Throwback Thursday!
Guess what TB was publishing on this very date back in 1983?
If you guessed essentially the same “Ha! band kids don’t practice!” shtick he was doing on Monday, you win one of several internets.

Wednesday, May 20

Today’s strip was not available for preview. Instead of my usual trite attempts at strip-related snark, please enjoy this trite attempt at a tribute to a popular television personality who is leaving the air this very evening.

The Top Ten things you don’t want to hear at Montoni’s

10. We’re bring back the gazpacho pizza.
9. I’m sorry, no credit cards. We accept cash, check, and fair condition or above issues of Starbuck Jones.
8. Holly, can you go down to the storeroom and get some more napkins? Yeah, they’re between the Space Invaders machine and Maddie Klinghorn.
7. *Ring* Hello? What? The Band Box checked themselves out of rehab?
6. Darrin, did I see you changing Skyler on table 3?
5. Hey Tony, where is our list area? The health department said we need to get rid of it.
4. Huh, that plate of Pup-Peroni I laid out for Buddy was here a minute ago.
3. Crazy’s beard just DOES NOT wash out of these coffee mugs.
2. Let me tell you about Hollywood…

and the number one thing you don’t want to hear at Montoni’s

1. Eh, he’s no John Darling. Now that guy knew how to do a talk show finale.

Mind over Manor

Wait a sec, does this mean that yesterday’s exchange wasn’t just a pointless nostalgia trip for Wally and Dinkle? Oh no, it totally was, but in today’s strip we learn there is a purpose to their likely use of a week’s worth TB’s valuable printed panels, Dinkle has formed a little band at Bedside Manor.

For those that do not remember, Bedside Manor is Westview’s local assisted-living facility, the residence of Funky’s father, and possibly the deathbed of Act III-era Crankshaft. Whether this band deal came about because Dinkle started hanging around Bedside Manor spouting band directing advice after Lefty finally changed the locks or because some of the nursing home staff saw him talking to his wife one day and reasonably assumed Dinkle was an AWOL resident will likely be left to our imaginations. We may, however, find out how little Dinkle’s band is. Small enough to fit in the band box, perhaps?

Trombone Sortie

No.
No No No No No No No No No No No.
Not Dinkle. Please, not a whole week of Dinkle. Please.

So, with the bargaining stage of grief out of the way, today’s strip forehead exhibition involves Westview’s community band practice. Do you remember that Wally was in the community band? Do you remember that Dinkle conducts the community band?
You’re lying.

Interestingly, the circa-1994 music booklet that Wally found at home (inside the boxes Lefty presumably tossed on his porch one day) was put out by legendary New Jersey cover group ThatBand.

Formula Pun

Always looking for new ways to show his total disdain for his students, Jim Kablichnick takes a different approach in today’s strip. The resulting pun is not totally terrible, but, given the students’ reactions, appears to have had the desired effect.

So does this mean that students watch Cosmos in every class at Westview High except for Kablichnick’s science class? And how does Cody have the context to compare Kablichnick to an Australian magician and entertainer?