A Many Feathered Cap

Looks like we are finally, FINALLY, at the end of this summer’s Big Blue Bomb. Thank you to everyone who carefully took us through a play by play of the hideous stupidity in the comments. I can’t wait for next year’s edition of “Batiuk Takes a Tax Deductible Vacation,” when Dinkle is inducted into the Grand Ol’ Opry for being the most authentic country music sensation since Lil Nas X.

Continue reading “A Many Feathered Cap”

“Got the Reference!”

I went on a little reference search tonight, just as a treat.

First, the Prince Store at Minneapolis/St Paul Airport.

This one may have come from a Batiuk provided reference picture. I found out that the dangly ceiling garlands are how the store looked as of August of last year.

I’m guessing most of the obviously traced stadium panels were similarly from Batiuk’s private stash of vacation photos. But I did manage to pull in some good ol’ Google slop. Some are only possibly the reference.

Some are a shoe-in.

Statue of Louis Riel.

The Provencher Bridge with Cityscape.

And now, for my favorite.

Blue Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea

And last of all, I believe the lady Mountie was supposed to be a cameo of this poor sweet law enforcement officer, who most definitely didn’t deserve the shame.

Boy Mountie looks OLD by comparison. I mean in art style. Guessing he’s pulled from some ancient Ayers arc of yesteryear.

M.C.G.A.

A very wise man once said, “N’interrompez jamais un ennemi qui est en train de faire une erreur.“

Unfortunately for all of us, he said this in French, which is a language no one speaks but the French, (who are too snooty to translate) and French Canadians (who are somehow even snootier than the French).

I asked Grok what the saying meant and it gave me this.

“Never interrupt Banana Jr. 6000 when he’s on a roll.”

But I cannot stay silent anymore. I am well and truly sick and tired of this disgusting state of affairs going on in Crankshaft right now.

I’m not talking about the shameless pandering to the Canadian Football League, the city of Winnepeg, Princess Auto Stadium, poutine as a food, or the Canadian Museum of Human Rights.

I’m talking about the eponymous so-called protagonist himself, Ed Crankshaft. The old bastard is too damn agreeable these days. It makes me SICK.

For the first week he sat idly by watching Pam and Jeff angst over damaged sports apparel with the disinterested flat affect of a cow watching CSPAN. Barely got a quip out. And since then he’s been all grins and enthusiasm. Even when he’s ‘complaining’ it’s more Mr. Magoo than Misanthropic.

This is what we have now:

And this is what we NEED:

Humor is subjective. But anger is funny. Anger is energy. Anger is passion. Anger is life.

It is what this strip was built on. It’s CRANKshaft, not GOOFstick.

Get rid of this passive, grinning, empty headed dundermuffin, and give me back a Crankshaft with some spite. MAKE CRANKY GRUMPY AGAIN!

And what is up with this best buddies relationship between Cranky and Jeff these days?

Be-ware-of-eve-hill said it well on the last post.

In the old days Crank and Jeff’s relationship was dynamic, fun, and a breeding ground for jokes. Because they couldn’t stand each other and weren’t shy about it.

Jeff and Ed, the blue-collar bus driver and the white collar accountant, they didn’t understand each other, and were brimming with resentment, and yet sometimes found common ground, or had moments of connection.

Was the old relationship a lazy copy of Archie and The Meathead? Maybe. But stock conflict straight from the trope rack is better than this anemic bland bond built of nothing.

So this is my rallying cry! Make Cranky Grumpy Again! And let him go back to hating Jeff just as much as the rest of us do!

It’s The Thought That Counts

Have you ever gotten a self-serving holiday or birthday gift? Like, a starter package for a pyramid scheme, from a pushy friend who’s been trying to recruit you for months? Or an accessory for a device you don’t have, from someone who has it, and wants you to get interested in it? Or a donation in your name, to a cause they support but you don’t?

That’s exactly what this arc feels like.

First, let’s keep in mind how bonkers this story already is. The plot mechanism is “Pam damaged Jeff’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers shirt,” which, again, is a plot borrowed from media for pre-schoolers. Replacing it might have cost $50 total, including international shipping. Instead, Pam took the grandiose step of buying two tickets to a Blue Bombers football game, without even asking anyone if they wanted to go a game.

A game in Winnipeg. Which is almost 1000 air miles away from Cleveland. Toronto is only 300 miles from Cleveland by car, would have been a much better tourism destination, and every CFL team plays a game there every season.

Pam’s “gift” of a $50 football ticket obligated its recipients to spend well over $1,000 each. The flight from Cleveland to Winnipeg starts at $650. Plus taxes, fees, hotel, meals, ground transportation, and border crossing costs. Updating passports, if you need to do this, is also expensive and time-consuming.

So who paid all these add-on expenses? And why?

  • Jeff paid the trip expenses, because he’s the only one with a real job. This would make basic sense. Crankshaft has a job, but I doubt it pays much. And it obligates Jeff to spend money he may not wish to or be able to.
  • Crankshaft paid for the trip expenses, because somehow he is independently wealthy. This would explain a lot. I’ve long wondered how Ed is able to buy gobs of stupid crap online, while the family shrugs off the massive property damage he causes. There are real-life stories of janitors and teachers who built impressive savings accounts over their long lives. Crankshaft doesn’t seem the frugal type, but time is on his side. A penny saved in 1940 (when he was already an adult) would be worth $3.17 in 2024 according to online inflation calculators.
  • Crankshaft paid for the trip expenses, because he’s the grownup. This would be consistent with how parent-child relationships work in the Funkyverse. Children are treated as subservient wards even when they’re in their 70s. Witness the Funky Winkerbean storyline where Holly’s mother bullies her into doing a cheerleading show where she gets seriously injured, and has to be treated a time when the family is doing home renovations, and Montoni’s is failing. Nobody ever says a word about this.
  • Pam also paid for the trip expenses, as part of the gift. This would fit Batiuk’s overarching theme of a mother wife doing having to pay penance for destroying the child husband’s special fandom object. But how does Pam have this kind of spare money lying around?
  • Pam paid the trip expenses, to force Jeff and Ed to get along better. This theory would address a long-ignored problem in the Funkyverse: Jeff and Ed should hate each other. They’re not blood relatives; they’re in-laws.

    Ed’s shenanigans – which includes water damage to Jeff’s precious comic books – have done infinitely more damage to Jeff than one ruined t-shirt. Jeff is long overdue to give Ed a The Reason You Suck Speech that would push the one from Family Guy into second place.
The joke is that Quagmire’s many criticisms of Brian are all 100% canonical.

Ed wouldn’t like Jeff either, because Ed is needy of attention, and he would see his child’s spouse as a competitor for it. Fortunately, the Funkyverse is very asexual, sparing us from a Wilbur and Dawn Weston situation.

But let’s lighten up. These two disparate, unfriendly men traveling together for a common purpose should be rife with comedic possibilities. Planes Trains and Automobiles, the National Lampoon’s Vacation movies, the original Toy Story, and family movies like Step-Brothers, mined gold from such a premise. But unfortunately, the Funkyverse is also very conflict-averse.

Instead, we’ve gotten one week on the mechanisms of appeasing a toddler, and a week on the banalities of air travel. At least Jeff’s puke-inducing Inner Child hasn’t shown up yet. But he still might.

The last possible explanation:

  • Pam wants to get both Jeff and Ed out of her life for a few days. As much as Jeff should be a tightly wound ball of hatred, Pam should be far, far worse. She’s forced to constantly indulge two idiot manchildren and their consumptive, destructive ways. Any woman would have left both of them decades ago.

    This could be a fun twist. It’d be nice to see the story cut to Pam enjoying a day of peace and quiet in the house, wearing a self-satisfied smirk that would be justified for once. But Pam is a woman, and the Funkyverse is very disinterested in women.

    But why else would she buy Ed a ticket, when he wasn’t the aggrieved party?