Merry Christmas From SoSF!

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What? This one really didn’t require any dialog at all, but that’s never stopped Batiuk before. This one is just too stupid to even bother picking apart. I think I know what he was going for here but jeepers, did he ever fail miserably. This guy can take the hoariest, moldiest, mustiest old gags ever written and botch them in ways you can’t even imagine.

As far as I know this marks the first time Funky’s house has actually spoken. Let’s hope Les’ house keeps its big mouth shut, as I don’t even wanna know. Merry Christmas to all, now let us never speak of this one again.

And Not A Creature Was Stirring, Except In Mort’s Pants

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Good old horndog Morton, fully recovered from his advanced Alzheimer’s disease and as randy as ever. Gross. I honestly forgot all about Melinda, who apparently still lives with Funky and Holly in Pizza Mahal. And Cory and Rocky…apparently they’re still characters in the strip. Who knew? Other than the fact that they’re engaged we really know very, very little about Cory and Rocky. Comic books, pizza, the army, engaged…and that’s about it. They’ve had one or two arcs at most over the last six or seven years and those were when he first came marching home.

Where do they live? Where do they work? What do they do? Why are they even in the strip in the first place? Continuity? That’s, uh, “inconsistent”, let’s say. As far as Morton is concerned I don’t want to belabor the point as I’ve ranted about it many times, but his transformation from “advanced dementia patient” to “sassy and adorable old coot” is one of the more offensive things BatYarn’s done over the course of Act III. He milked that Alzheimer’s arc for a shitload of pathos, it really takes a lot of balls to just suddenly drop it and have Mort jamming with jazz combos and hitting on elderly women.

I Think She Meant To Say “Binge Eat”

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Uh yeah, sure, Tom. The internet killed Christmas caroling, just like it killed comic book collecting and band directing and stinky old movie houses and band boxes and the virtual anonymity of comic strip authors. And “binge watching” is somehow involved too. It’s just so sad and so typical of these troubled times to see a woman in her late fifties remind her badly aging and increasingly decrepit husband to refrain from walking door to door in a raging blizzard and stay inside and be entertained instead. What IS this world coming to?

It’d have been funnier if he did a Xmas week arc where Funky calls his old pals, only to be greeted with different variations of “what are you, nuts?”. But it was “funnier” it just wouldn’t be FW, now would it?

And Then Deprussian Set In

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So John decided to just stop by WHS to see if Becky, his wife, needed a ride home? How does she usually get home? Couldn’t he have just called her first?

Heh heh, that’s a good one, as everyone knows how regimented that Prussian army used to be. See, this is an example of our pal BatDerp trying too hard not to inadvertently offend someone. The German army, the Russian army, the US army…someone somewhere might take offense, but the Prussian army?

“Dear Akron Daily Bugle,

The “Funky Winkerbean” comic strip that ran on December 22nd was very offensive to all Prussian army veterans, as it implied that the Prussian military was very tightly-wound and regimented. My experience in the Prussian army was quite the opposite, as our commanders always promoted a relaxed and genial atmosphere. I demand a retraction and must insist that you stop publishing this blatant anti-Prussian propaganda at once.”

Not bloody likely. Anyhow, it’s pretty pathetic to see Becky STILL having to point out the differences between herself and the guy she replaced as band director a hundred years ago. “I do things differently than Harry did”…well good for you, Becky.

Becky The Heretic

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Becky prefers CONCERT band over MARCHING band??? Burn her at the stake! Crucify her! Wait…scratch that second suggestion. I mean you’d need to hire someone to build a special cross and surely the Americans With Disabilities Act would come into play and with the WHS budget being what it is and all…

But anyway, yeah, winter in Ohio is cold. The thing that really stands out here is Dinkle’s out of character reaction. He’s just standing there with that moronic grin on his face as his prized one-armed protege essentially spits in the face of everything he’s ever stood for. If he’s going to react like that what’s the point of this “gag” at all? And what the f*ck does this have to do with Christmas?