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New Year! New Spreadsheet!

It’s a New Year, so you all know what that means right?

No, not CIA sponsored regime change in South America! That can happen any time! Just ask General Manuel Noriega of Panama who was deposed in 1990… in January…

Hmm…

Oh right! No politics! Only amazing fanart by New Commenter of the Year: Narshe!

Narshe, you have provided over the last months one of the most interesting and insightful journeys into the Funkyverse I’ve ever read. Thank you for finding us, and thank you for sharing!

But all the old school nitters still hanging around know that January means CBH spreadsheets! And…soon…awards season mayhaps?

So BEHOLD Recurring Named Crankshaft Characters by Number of Strips Appearing In for 2025!

As always flashbacks and people talking on TV count. Photographs do not.

Ed Crankshaft	240
Pam Murdoch	107
Jeff Murdoch	77
Lillian McKenzie	57
Batton Thomas	43
Skip Rawlings	41
Andy Clark	40
Ralph Meckler	28
Rocky Rhodes	25
George Keesterman	22
Emily Mathews Reynolds	21
Mindy Murdoch	21
Mary Marzipan Cummings	19
Lena	19
Harry Dinkle	16
Pizza Box Monster	15
Pete Reynolds Roberts	14
Amelia Mathews Reynolds	13
Angie	10
Chris Crankshaft	7
Pat (Choir)	7
Mary Jane (Choir)	6
Bonnie (Choir)	6
Lois (Choir)	5
Nancy (Choir)	5
Eugene	5
Pickles	5
Max Murdoch	4
Hannah Murdoch	4
Crazy Harry Klinghorn	4
Walt (BM)	4
Connie (BM)	4
DSH John Howard	3
Ricca (Choir)	3
Peggy And/Or Lee	2
Curt Cameron	2
Mitch Murdoch	2
Cindy Johnson	2
Lucy McKenzie	2
Nate Green	1
Mayor Bob Kane	1
Mrs. Johnson	1
Madam Marie	1
Max Axelrod	1
Bingo	1
Larry Dinkle	1
Mrs. Lee	1
Mary Crankshaft	1

This year was thin on Funky Winkerbean refugees. Last year we had Masone Jarre, Cindy Summers Jarre, CauCayla, Boy Lisa, Jess (whose father John Darling was murdered), Flash Freeman, Phil Holt, Funky Winkerbean himself, and who can forget HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED.

Heck even refugees that have earned permanent residency status, such as Dinkle, Mopey Pete, and the Komix Korner turned in significantly less appearances.

If I had to venture a guess, I’d say this was to balance out the multiple, multiple, interminable weeks of Batton and Skip blathering on.

This years entry in the, ‘WAIT HE HAS A NAME?” club included the black Channel 1 News Anchor.

He’s been around forever, but I hadn’t caught a name for him until this dumb strip.

An old Crankshaft regular appearing for the first time in few years was Mayor Bob Kane, the sleazy eternally elected parasite that in 2015 narrowly beat out challenger Ralph Meckler on a coin toss, and Ralph never ever tried again.

Mayor Kane was discussed by the Dale Evans crew for being a drunk driver for a few strips too, but mentions don’t equal appearances. Otherwise little Mitchy would have a couple more tallies in his column.

Appearing in flashback this year was Madam Marie, the county fair Fortune Teller and Hypnotist who has made appearances in both old Crankshaft baseball stories as well as Funky Winkerbean.

And if you’re wondering who the frick Mrs. Lee is, she’s this vaguely Asian looking school teacher.

Her biggest arc I can remember is getting snowed in at the Valentine with an entire schoolbus load of kids back in 2017.

But for some inexplicable reason (diversity?) she scored a seat in the grand finale Christmas panel, beating out characters like Harriet Dinkle and Ann and Fred Fairgood.

Stay tuned folks!

OH CHRISTMAS TREE!

Did Sunday’s strip ring a few recognition bells in long time Crankshaft readers?

Well, it should have.

The Crankshaft/Murdoch family has flip flopped on real vs artificial trees a few times over the last couple decades.

The late aughts were an era of live trees at great cost.

2007

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

Then…in 2014, an arc on an artificial tree.

This all ended with a strip with some VERY FAMILIAR artwork.

I guess a couple years later, in 2016, they’d reinvested in fake.

And early in the Davis era, in 2018, another new artificial tree. And Pam is the one who throws a fit over fakery, despite a few years earlier championing the idea. I’ll let the continuity error slide this time, as the jokes in the arc are at least smirk worthy.

But I guess nostalgia won out again by 2020.

I’ve gotten a real tree ever since I moved out on my own, usually white pine, though I’ve also paid top dollar for some frasier furs. My mom has a three piece artificial tree she’s used ever since my sister scored a husband allergic to pine.

How about your nitters? Real or fake.

Hold the Pickles

WHAT ABOUT THE BIRD, TOM?

We’re all waiting on tenterhooks to see if Ed Crankshaft presses fat lips to cold beak and puffs Pam’s Christmas Cardinal back to life, and Batiuk just shifts gears to Pam and Minty redecorating a Christmas tree that should have been well and truly decked as of Thursday afternoon when Pam strung lights under the watchful eye of her blood red companion.

And all so Batiuk can, once again, flash us that hysterical landmark, 425 West Avenue, Elyria, Ohio. The starter apartment of Pam and Jeff, Ann and Fred, and Batton and his nameless Cathy Clone.

While the bird’s fate is unknown, a surprising, long memory holed, friend has emerged from the reference sheets. Appearing for the first time in the Davis era, on Wednesday we saw a feline resembling Pickles the Tomcat. Last seen on December 23, 2016, during Ayers tenure.

Wherever Pickles has been the last nine years, I’m guessing it included a short stay in the Pet Sematary. Since the mangy old feline debuted in Crankshaft’s first couple years, while Max and Mindy were still young.

Back in the glory days when Crankshaft still had the personality of a lime-encrusted sea urchin.

Save the Cat and Pet the Dog are tropes as old as time. A quick shorthand to show the true empathy innate in a character. If you want to show your character is a slimy fake, you have a seemingly ‘nice’ person kick a dog.

If you want to show that the grumbles, grousing, and belly aching of a cantankerous old coot are just the timid farts of an emotionally constipated man, you have him get a cat.