Tag: Buck

Everything’s Broken

billytheskink
September 3, 2018 at 1:53 am
Why wouldn’t Bull want to go to the game? Why hasn’t he been going to games ever since he retired? He’s a legend as both player and coach at Westview. They named the stadium after him…

Add this to the list of things that billytheskink remembered and Batiuk forgot, and to the litany of indignities heaped upon Bull this week. Maybe Principal Nate just told Bull they were renaming the stadium in his honor, figuring he’d forget about it too. Judging from Bull’s deranged facial expression, his mind’s just about gone. At least Batiuk saved the one decent “broken record” play on words until late in the week, though it’s delivered as an irritable rebuke from long-suffering Linda.

Impermanent Record

Today’s strip serves no purpose whatsoever aside from moving us one day closer to the end of this “story” arc, and to Funky’s 50th anniversary, and to Tom Batiuk’s retirement. Buck’s inane question receives an inane answer from Bull, and everyone smirks. I just can’t get over the fact that had Buck not invited the Bushkas, Bull would be sitting unawares in his basement instead of in the nosebleed seats as his decades-old rushing record is challenged.

Boresday, February 1

Today’s strip was, again, not available for preview.

So, let’s look back at the 1983 introduction of the goat that so disturbed Buck back in the day, Billy the Scapegoat. Or was his name actually Billy? The answer may surprise you… but probably won’t interest you.

First, the whole thing was Dinkle’s idea, including the name “Billy”.  Unfortunately for the Westview football team, the goat did not possess divine power.

FW9-26-83
FW9-27-83

“Billy” was under the impression that Westview had the only terrible high school football team in existence.  Though this might explain why he ran onto the field hitting players.

FW9-28-83

He also didn’t care for the uninspired name Dinkle gave him, preferring his own uninspired name.  No ever called him Paul, of course, because he couldn’t talk.

FW10-1-83

While called a “scapegoat”, Billy-Paul was more like an oracle, his heavy-lidded ennui a prophesy of things to come for this strip.

The Men Who Swear At Goats

Today’s strip is what passes for levity in Funky Winkerbean these days, I guess. Buck was apparently disturbed by a commonly-milked farm animal when he really should have been disturbed by the complete lack of almost everything at this football game. There appears to be no crowd, no officials, almost no players (look at that empty bench behind Stropp), and apparently no one else but Bull around to wrangle a loose mascot. Was Westview’s football stadium nicknamed “Uncanny Valley”?

Oh, and did you know that the Scapegoat mascot had a name back in Act I? It’s Billy, much to my chagrin… He once appeared on a book cover with Erma Bombeck’s name.

You know you've got trouble when you have an animal sacrifice at every pep rally

Doomsday, January 30

Today’s strip was not available for preview, but it is easy to speculate on what it will involve based on yesterday’s “hat”-focused anti-humor. Bull will be there, Buck will be there, and a retcon may well show up too…

Bull’s football career has been one of the most heavily-retconned aspects of this strip in recent years, with much of this re-written continuity in the service of the super-serious CTE story arc. Bull went from simply being contacted by a St. Louis Football Cardinals scout before he hurt his knee to actually trying out for the team (presumably during the 1982 strike) after suffering a major knee injury in college. The recently and incessantly-discussed goal line officiating screw up game was originally said to have been Coach Stropp’s final game against Big Walnut Tech, not Bull’s. This goal line play situation’s only actual roots in Act I are a 1980 “Casey At The Bat” parody arc called “Westview At The Goal” (much thanks to SOSFer Don for pointing this out a few weeks back) which was nobody’s final game against Big Walnut Tech. Heck, even the backward-facing emu seen on Bull’s college helmet in yesterday’s strip was originally forward-facing.

Frankly, I wouldn’t comment that much on these retcons if they weren’t being used to try to punch up the maudlin nature of a story that doesn’t need any re-written history to be maudlin. Are we supposed to take everything in this strip seriously except its continuity? Please.