Author: TFHackett

Court and Snark

Snifit
August 21, 2017 at 12:26 am
I like how Batiuk doesn’t bother actually showing where they are. The theater? Marriage License office? Swinger hotel? They’re here, guys. Just here.

“Here” turns out to be the courthouse, and there are so many questions. Are they picking up marriage licences, or are they going to be married by a judge, or maybe by Centerville’s mayor, Bill Clinton? Why then did the prospective grooms (separately!) reach out to Pete to find a minister?  Why all the secrecy about the wedding? And while it’s true that Starbuck Jones is what brought them together, does that somehow mandate that they must marry as soon as the movie comes out? Has the movie come out, and have we not been shown the gala Ohio premiere? What happened to the pink boutonniere that Cliff wore yesterday?

DOUBLE STARBUCK WEDDING

“Both Mason Jarre and Cliff Anger have separately asked me to find a minister for just after the premiere.” If you’re gonna “tell, not show,” Mr. Batiuk, couldn’t you at least do it using less unwieldy sentences? So assuming that Mason and Cliff don’t intend to marry each other, each man holds matrimony in enough esteem to require a minister to perform the ceremony. But neither man has a problem with delegating the task of finding a clergyman to Pete. Guess this falls under Pete’s “advance work” duties. But that’s not the gag here, folks: the gag is that John is shitting eggrolls over the news that the film’s male leads have (separately!) decided to wed their betrothed after the premiere.

Another Pizza My Heart

Another perpendicular panel and more of Pete and Mindy meeting cute. I can’t tell you “the age of that joke” (I’m guessing ancient) but I can tell you Batiuk last used it six months ago (in another sideways strip no less). I guess he forgot, just like he forgot that it was a Tweet, not a “coded Junior Spaceman message” that Jff sent to the director. Pete nurses a glass of coyote urine as he watches Mindy gorge on pizza and Italian bread. He’s either too cheap/broke to get a slice for himself, or perhaps he’s already grooming svelte Mindy to join the ranks of dumpy blonde Westview wives.

The Waitressing is the Hardest Part

“I waitressed for a while at Montoni’s“. Well that narrows it down, sister! Who in this strip hasn’t donned the Red Apron of Shame? Pictured at left in a detail from the former “cast picture” at the FW site are Khan, Cindy’s sis Sadie Summers, Rachel, and, sure enough, there is young Mindy.

Pete’s understanding of what constitutes “an amazing coincidence” is somewhat akin to Alanis Morrisette’s grasp of “irony“: “You were a waitress? That’s an amazing coincidence, because…I was going to ask you if…you wanted to someplace where waitresses work!” Of course, the “coincidence” is that the dinner that Pete has in mind is a quiet booth at Montoni’s, which is about as uncoincidental as it gets and yes, I peeked.