Category Archives: Son of Stuck Funky

by | March 29, 2021 · 10:30 pm

It’s Alright Church Lady, He’s Only Bleeding

Link To It

So biting himself until he draws blood is apparently how Dinkle reacts to new opportunities, which is a brand new character trait as far as I know. “Oh, yeah, Dinkle. He’s the guy who bites himself, right?”…nope, doesn’t ring a bell. I mean yeah, he bites all right, he bites big f*cking time, but until recently it was only metaphorically.

So obviously Dinkle will be “directing” the church choir, apparently WHILE he’s playing the organ, because Dinkle = music. Get ready for lots of hilarious scenarios, like making the church ladies sing in torrential downpours and forcing them to attend choir competitions chauffeured by the cranky old bus driver whose name escapes me at the moment. I think it’s “Dick Yank” or something along those lines.

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by | March 28, 2021 · 10:30 pm

No Choir Boy

Link To The One Today

Ugh, this certainly doesn’t bode well for the rest of the week. When did they suddenly begin talking about the choir? I thought this was about the organ. And there’s no joke here, other than how this happened to Dinkle before back in 1977 or whatever. And that ain’t funny.

Instead of a silly hat that always covers his eyes, I believe Act III Dinkle should wear a silly hat that obscures his entire body AND his word balloons too. He’d be way more palatable that way. He’d still suck, of course, but at least we wouldn’t keep seeing proof of it.

This arc should be more like the movie “Hustle And Flow”. Dinkle would sit down at the organ and start playing a hot riff, then the church ladies would jump in and lay down a tight beat and it’d end with Dinkle in jail for beating the hell out of Les after discovering that Les threw his sheet music in the WHS urinal after promising Dinkle he’d get it to his publisher. I’d buy that anthology AND stand in line to get it signed, too.

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by | March 27, 2021 · 10:30 pm

Sometimes Telling Is Preferable To Showing

Link To Today’s Strip

A: Eating pizza or having sex.

Q: What are the two things I’d least like to see the Dinkles doing?

Yuck. There’s some precedent here, as I seem to recall Dinkle making a lot of disgusting sexual innuendos during the infamous “Harry and Harriet go on their belated honeymoon” arc of whenever that was, maybe 2012 or thereabouts. It was their fiftieth anniversary and Dinkle blew off his own honeymoon for some imbecilic band thing, so they finally went to Niagara Falls and (zzzzzzzzz). I made it sound WAY more exciting than it was.

Coming next month: Wally’s new Dinkle-inspired marketing idea…sex pizza…doesn’t take off quite as well as breakfast pizza did back in the day. Wally finds himself embroiled in multiple lawsuits after Montoni’s customers badly burn themselves, but fortunately for Wally, Funky knows a guy.

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by | March 26, 2021 · 10:30 pm

The Great Gig In The (Sigh)

Link To Today’s Strip

You know how sometimes a rarely-seen FW character will suddenly re-appear and you’re all like “wow, long time since we’ve seen him/her!” and it seems all novel and fresh for half a second but then within a day or two (tops) you’re already violently sick and tired of that seldom-seen character? Yep, Harriet.

On the other hand, you have (ugh) Dinkle, who’s around way, way, way too frequently. Once every six or seven years would be plenty. Unfortunately for everyone else, BatYam feels otherwise. This arc is exactly like digging out your driveway after a heavy wet snow and watching the snowplow roar by as it buries your driveway once more. In some ways it’s even worse than that, as snow doesn’t typically cackle.

Coming next week: in keeping with Funkyverse tradition, Dinkle dies while playing the organ. Commenters on SoSF are ecstatic, at least until Ghost Dinkle visits Becky for the very first (but not last) time. “Harry’s Story…The Other Marching Shoe“.

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by | March 25, 2021 · 10:31 pm

Has Harry Ever Been Experienced? Well, Has He?

Link To The Thing

Now that you mention it I can’t recall ever seeing Dinkle actually playing a musical instrument. Surely he has and I’m just blotting it out for obvious reasons, but isn’t he really more of a conductor of sorts? Or am I just remembering his entire ten thousand year character arc all wrong?

Look how angry he is in panel two, as if these old biddies would know who the hell Harry Dinkle is. Where the hell did he learn how to play a big church organ anyhow? In the Army or something? It’s all so stupid and implausible. He couldn’t even create a backstory here, where we learn that Dinkle’s dad Hinkel used to play the organ at his old church and young Harry used to tag along or whatever. He’s just the “music guy” and BatHam’s go-to whenever “music” is somehow involved, like Les and smugness or Boy Lisa and blandness.

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by | March 24, 2021 · 10:34 pm

Total Organ Failure

Link To Today’s On Time Strip

No, she passed away while playing racquetball, you clod. This one is rather grim and depressing, even by FW standards. They just refuse to let that poor old dead organist rest. Oh well, at least her death resulted in a humorous anecdote for everyone else, so her hundred and twenty years on this planet were well worth it. Maybe next week the pastor will die during a funeral service, with hilarious consequences of course.

I get this reference, because G and C are music notes, right? Sigh. It’s not Batiuk’s worst gag ever, but still, the old lady dying sort of takes the edge off, for lack of a better term. In a FW context it’s nothing but to an outsider I suppose it’d seem rather dark, which is probably one reason why hardly anyone reads it.

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by | March 23, 2021 · 10:31 pm

Infernal Organs

Link To The Thing

Organ, organ, organ…it’s like he’s making sausage here or something. “Our current organist wants to stop playing the organ and the previous organist died.”

“Shhh! You’ll scare off the organist and we’ll still need someone to play the organ as our new organist!”

“So, Mr. Dinkle, will you take over as our organist and play organ music on the organ?”

The way he just consistently beats selected words or phrases into the ground just drives me nuts. It’s really hacky too, it reads like dialog a child would write just to pad the word count on a homework assignment. I’m sure my fellow SoSF contributors would agree, there are times when you just can’t believe you’re typing “band mattress” or “Xaxian” or “Lisa’s Story” again. By the end of this week I’ll be able to type “organist” in a millisecond, which will never, ever come in handy again.

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by | March 22, 2021 · 10:30 pm

Harry Dinkle – Male Organ Player

Link To Today’s Thing

Get ready for a shitload of organ puns, folks. I’ve been trying to work “skin flute” into a Dinkle arc post title for years. Maybe this is the one. Fingers crossed.

Anyhow, why the f*ck was that flashback necessary? It’s not like he’s applying for a real job here. And man, that’s some really crappy flashback art in panels one and two, that doesn’t look like Old Dinkle at all. It looks more like Ed McMahon trying to channel Elvis.

It’s already Tuesday and he still hasn’t even finished climbing the stairs. When I think of “most hated” FW characters I always overlook Dinkle for some reason, then he re-appears and I remember all too well that he’s right there, heroically battling for the place and show spot behind Les-retariat, who’s already lapped the field twice. I never really minded Old Dinkle but New Old Dinkle is like fingernails on a chalkboard, with his wry cackle and endless reserve of crappy band gags. He was better when he was a weird marching band fascist, as Act III Dinkle has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

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by | March 21, 2021 · 10:30 pm

Organ Grind

Link To Today’s Strip

Another week of Dinkle…how utterly demoralizing. It’s often difficult to tell if Dinkle is supposed to merely be all full of marching band swagger or if he’s just a huge insufferable dick. It didn’t annoy me as much back when he was a satirical one-note caricature, but it sure annoys the shit out of me now.

I saw the post on the official BatBlog explaining this arc and that Ayers guy definitely did a bang-up job drawing the church and those bricks, which are spectacular even by FW brick standards. But nonetheless, “Harry Dinkle becomes a church organist” is one of the strangest BatYam premises in a while. I can’t even begin to fathom who this premise would appeal to, other than the real-life guy he based it on, that is. Doing the strip for one person…that’s what it’s come to, folks.

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by | March 20, 2021 · 10:30 pm

This is the farmer sowing his corn

Link to today’s strip.

Good grief, look at that word zeppelin in panel one.

This the dolt who made the call
To schedule the audition
To fill the position
To be the organist
Down at the church that Tom built.

Presumably Harriet was right there the whole time and knows what was going on; of course, given the writing in this strip I’m surprised she didn’t repeat his words verbatim in her panel five frog-face. After all, she outlined all his other accomplishments and (of course) concluded that he was the best thing evar. In probably the fastest 180 I’ve ever seen.

The reason being, this entire episode is Tom Batiuk publicly patting himself on the back. “Look at this terrific character I created! Is this award-winning or what?”

As mentioned yesterday, unless this church has a single Sunday service, Dinkle will be spending a lot of time there. Most churches I’m familiar with have several Sunday services, a couple on Saturday and at least one every weekday. Let’s not even bring up holidays. That’s going to cut into a lot of Dinkle’s other activities. (Come to think, how does Lillian manage to run her bookstore? Answer: it’s magic. Dark magic.)

All of which promises what could be could be an interesting twist: what if Dinkle failed the audition? I think it would be the first time in the strip when he didn’t get everything he wanted. It might humble him and make for a rounder character.

And of course it will never happen. The strip is now total wish-fulfillment and trivial observations. Where every “hero” character is Superman.

And with that, I am out of here. Please welcome the always erudite and entertaining Epicus Doomus who will be your host for the next couple of weeks. Exit, stage left!

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