Tag: Crankshaft

Bowling For Imbeciles

Link To Today’s Masterpiece

So they went out and bought bowling shirts, THEN discovered that one of their teammates can’t bowl at all? Brilliant. With BanTom’s vast archives of gags like this one, no wonder has needs two daily strips, as one just ain’t enough. I’m assuming that those “Crankshaft” characters have names but please, don’t share them, OK? I think I’m happier not knowing.

Seriously though, what a shitty gag. Why even bother with doing a crossover if you’re not going to put anything into it? Like with that Dick Tracy arc earlier this year, it was so listless and so lifeless you could only wonder why he did it in the first place. I mean it couldn’t possibly be any easier for him, you have Crankshaft show up on Monday, act like a real dick on Tuesday, then repeat it four more times. Apparently you’re supposed to be reading CS this week as a sort of FW “companion piece” that helps the “jokes” make more sense but frankly that seems like way too much trouble IMO. And there still isn’t any payoff even if you do, but you already knew that.

But if you’re a glutton for punishment…here ya go.

Numb-er Of The Beast

Link To Today’s Action

Ah-HA! So it IS Rachel after all. He really could have made that a tad more clear IMO. See, I thought Rachel was a lot younger and…ahhhh, forget it, I’m not getting into yet another timeline dissection, as it’s so fouled up at this point that it doesn’t really matter anymore. Special thanks to billytheskink for clarifying the Rachel Act II timeline yesterday, never an easy task where FW is concerned. If this is a pre-time jump flashback it means that Rachel has been working at Montoni’s for a minimum of seventeen years, which is both sad and hilarious.

Apparently the “jokes” here are a) Ed’s standard malapropisms and b) Rachel doesn’t know how to bowl. Hee-f*cking-larious. Please, someone sedate me before I break a rib by laughing too hard. Or, in lieu of that, I’ll just read this strip again a few times. Crankshaft never fails to not amuse me and today he keeps his perfect record intact. The device has not yet been invented that can adequately measure how little I care about Ed Crankshaft and his merry band of infinitely patient dimwits. And if these are the kinds of punchlines I’m missing by ignoring CS, I’m even happier that I pretend it doesn’t exist. You can do it too, BTW…it’s easy.

TFH sez: To help you keep up with the crossover…here’s a link to today’s Crankshaft.

It’s Called Writing-Up, People

Link To Today’s Strip

Another terrible joke in a terrible arc about two terrible characters from two terrible comic strips. What is the joke supposed to be here? Is the blonde student supposed to be someone I’m supposed to recognize or is it just the idea of a student reprimanding the two morons that’s supposed to be the gag? These jokes are getting alarmingly bad, like in a “you should see a doctor” kind of way. Hopefully this marks the end of the band convention arc because I don’t want to see how much worse this could potentially get.

The Wheels On The Bus Fall Off And Off

Link To Today’s Strip

What? I’m staring at this thing, trying to see if maybe I’m missing something but I can’t for the life of me figure out what the joke is supposed to be here. Did he mean to say “hearsed” in panel three? I mean yeah, that’s awful but at least there’s a logic to it. If this is how he meant it to read, well, he’s got bigger issues than stupid boring pointless crossover arcs to worry about because this one is troubling-ly terrible.

Until this week I honestly had no idea that Crankshaft was just as full of contrived drippy pathos and attention-seeking melodrama as FW is. And here I thought it was all gags about the elderly and dumb malapropisms, but it turns out that’s merely half the story. It’s just like FW except instead of constantly whining about getting old, the CS characters already ARE old. It all makes such perfect sense now.

Killing Ed Softly With Baton

Link To Today’s Strip

Few people remember how this legendary Act II arc ended up playing out. Dinkle did indeed stab Crankshaft, causing the bus to plunge into one of Ohio’s many ravines. A guilt stricken Dinkle rendered first aid to Crankshaft who managed to survive, but the entire band died of exposure while awaiting rescue. In one of the strip’s most harrowing twenty-two week sequences, Harry and Crankshaft resorted to cannibalism to survive long enough for Les and Lisa to rescue them.  Some of TB’s most chilling (pun intended) work.

The fact that Dinkle is the one reciting this retconned story makes it pretty creepy if you ask me. He’s flat-out admitting that he once threatened to kill a school bus driver for refusing to drive children through unsafe conditions. While that sort of thing was considered hilarious back in 1976, now it’d probably result in that weirdo Dinkle being banned from the school for life, at least. And he’s telling this story to a woman who lost her arm in a car crash, no less. Surprisingly tone-deaf stuff from a guy so in tune with the issues facing young people today and (zzzzzzzz).