After Act I ended, Tom Batiuk said that he couldn’t use Les for hanging-off-the-gym-rope gags anymore, after his involvement in Lisa’s difficult pregnancy.
So why doesn’t he realize that Pizza Box Monster gags don’t work anymore either?
Many of us have said that we miss Act I’s sense of sarcasm, absurdity and wonder. The PBM’s annual visits to Montoni’s were probably the closest thing we got in Act III. Tom Batiuk wrote himself into a pretzel to avoid solving the easily-solved problem of who the PBM really was. But it was still fun to watch him get Funky’s goat every year.
The story wasn’t at odds with the oh-serious-tone Batiuk adopted when he decided he was the new Sherwood Anderson. Because PBM was an obviously unserious character, who existed only for a recurring joke. Like Family Guy‘s Evil Monkey, and at least a dozen Simpsons characters (Troy McClure, Gil Gunderson, Hans Moleman, the Spucklers, etc.)
But now we’re supposed to take PBM seriously. He’s essentially Pete and Mindy’s boss now. This “young” couple we’re supposed to be rooting for has their life’s savings tied up in a person they can’t be bothered to identify. Even after he tried to reveal himself to them. All they had to do was walk into the dining area with their eyes open!
Montoni’s in Crankshaft feels like the beginning of an identity theft horror story. Except that you wouldn’t have a drop of sympathy for the victims, because they brought it on themselves. And there’s nothing LifeLock can do, if you willingly choose to enter into a financial agreement with a sentient pile of cardboard. To “buy” a restaurant that closed and sold all its equipment months before. Then again, we’ve never seen Pete or Mindy do any actual work, so I have no idea who’s ripping off who here.
PBM butting heads with Ed Crankshaft should be fun, but it isn’t. Instead, it just adds more layers to “why don’t Pete and Mindy know who this person is?”
Back when I owned a Sega Genesis (and the Sega Genesis was still current), there was an obscure but riotous game called Mutant League Football.
It was an over-the-top, super-violent version of American football. It was even more extreme than the later NFL Blitz. It was also a pretty good football game. It was so good, it was easy to forget how silly it was.
MLF was arguably better than the Madden series, which was primitive at that time. MLF was certainly more fun to play. Except that you had to play head-to-head; the vs. computer mode wasn’t much fun. My college roommate, friends, and I played Mutant League Football against each other like people play Madden nowadays, and like we played NHLPA Hockey ’93 at the time. We took it seriously.
MLF had a feature where you could bribe the referee, and he would call a stupid penalty on your opponent. This only worked once per game, so the secret was saving this for when you needed it. There is nothing more infuriating than getting a critical defensive stop on a 3rd-and-3, and then getting a 5-yard penalty for flicking boogers. The term “rage quit” didn’t exist yet, but I caused one or two. I hope the 2017 remake kept that feature.
I tell this story because of today’s strip:
Trinity Rodman is an elite professional women’s soccer player who also plays on the U.S. National Team. And, yes, she’s the daughter of basketball’s Dennis Rodman.
What post-apocalyptic mutant soccer league does this man’s daughter play in that gave her a broken leg? Not a sprain, not a foot fracture, a full broken leg. Soccer is not a violent sport! Especially not at the level of competition that exists in Westview/Centerville, which is Class A high school at best. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but that would be a pretty severe injury.
When characters under-react to something that is blatantly strange or unusual, TVTropes calls it an Unusually Uninteresting Sight. There are ways to justify this reaction, but none of them exist here, or anywhere in the Funkyverse. If anything, the Funkyverse runs on Unusually Uninteresting Sight. Characters don’t react at all when they’re being blatantly abused, attacked, exploited, manipulated, shown bizarre things, and left to die from untreated cancer.
Or, as we’ll see in the second panel, insulted.
In the unedited strip, Pam says “I’m sorry to hear that! How is she?” to which the man responds as seen above. I can appreciate that some people struggle to pick up social cues, but how oblivious can you be? Pam clearly meant “how is your daughter’s recovery going?” even if she didn’t say those exact words.
Pam showed empathy (in what’s basically a phatic conversation anyway), and the man throws it back in her face with a pedantic, unfunny response. It would be much more effective – and, dare I say, fewer inches away from reality – if Pam recognized this insult, and responded accodringly. The man was so eager to make a joke that he deliberately ignored the obvious subtext.
I often talk about the Comedy Disconnect, which is when the writer sacrifices reality in a desperate attempt to get laughs at all costs. I’ve further noticed that Tom Batiuk loves to do this when it’s completely unnecessary.
We don’t know who this man is, or who Lizzy is. (Unless he’s some Act I bit player Batiuk expects us to remember.) His opening line could have been “my son broke his leg playing high school football”, which is a far more plausible scenario. The rest of the strip could have played out the same way. Which still isn’t a joke, but let’s solve one problem at a time here.
Pam recognizing and responding to this insult is a perfectly workable second panel. In fact, my edited version of strip has two jokes in it – which is two more than the unedited strip has.
And this is a common problem in Act III/Act IV. Last week’s “Crankshaft juggles choir practice and the bowling championship” arc had multiple Comedy Disconnects that didn’t need to exist at all.
November 11: Crankshaft says “my father taught me how to play the ukelele when I was little.” This would have been about 1925-1930, when the ukelele was barely known in the United States. This could have been any musical instrument. Keep in mind that Crankshaft could not read yet.
November 15: Dinkle is annoyed that Crankshaft put a bowling team logo on the back of his choir robe. This ignores the fact that we’ve seen Dinkle raising money for choir robes on multiple occasions. The punchline could have been Dinkle handing Crankshaft a bill for the replacement cost. Which also would have kept Dinkle in character.
I came up with my own name for this more specific version of Comedy Disconnect:
Toxic Filler: When filler text inadvertently undermines the story.
We’re back on a Crankshaft staple: old people moaning about how difficult their life is.
But do you ever think Crankshaft comes off a little …. humble-braggy? “Oh, look how old I am, I have it soooooooo rough.” And his eternal look of smug condescension doesn’t help.
Come on Ed, you should know that’s not how a “happy ending” works. Did you never visit the Valentine Theater during the brief time it was a strip club?
Back pain, muscle soreness, medication, Ben-Gay, and deep tissue massages are a 56-year-old man’s problem – not a 106-year-old man’s problem. Crankshaft and all his buddies should all be on their arthritic knees, thanking God for how healthy and active they all still are. They can live independently in their own homes, work, travel, and have full range of motion. And not a drop of dementia or cancer in any of them! (Ed probably has dementia, but it’s considered “quirky.” SEE ALSO: Weston, Wilbur.)
Ed reminds me of Dinkle in this regard. He’s always whining about how hard he has it, but we never see him experience any actual difficulty. Have you noticed that Dinkle’s much-maligned bands have never delivered a bad live performance? Same thing with Crankshaft. Those pain lines will disappear the second Batiuk wants to do another wacky gardening mishap. Or if he wants to give Ed a third sports award this year.
He also reminds me of kids I knew in middle and high school who were always saying “oh, I failed that test!” Despite talking up their status in the valedictorian race the rest of the time. Oh, shut up, Julie. We all know you didn’t fail. You got an A, or maybe a B if you did really bad. One of the great things about moving past high school was that I no longer had to indulge people like this.
In a world defined by pointless, inescapable tragedy, I often wonder if Crankshaft causes any lingering bitterness in others. Ralph Meckler, Les Moore, and Eugene are all characters I suspect wouldn’t appreciate Ed’s constant keening about his amazingly superior health. “Timmy/Lisa/Lucy died decades ago, and I’m supposed to listen to health complaints from this guy who’s harder to kill than The Terminator?”
This has gone on long enough. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Ed Crankshaft needs to die. Cut the cord, Tom. You want to stop writing gags? Prove it, by getting rid of the character you most need to write gags for. And please spare us the ten years of vegetative state you think Ed still has in front of him. You’re getting into Gasoline Alley territory.
Boy I sure hope Davis got the permission of the Swanston Community Center and the Mission Oaks Recreation and Parks District before stealing the photo from their Ping Pong Club.
Harvest should be wrapping up this week on the farm. Many MANY MAAAAAANY thanks to Banana Jr 6K for taking over posting duties for much of the last couple months. Please, everyone, praise him with MUCH PRAISE!
Son of Stuck Funky 