Tag: Dinkle

Say “Ensemble” One More Gosh Darn Time

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Mort’s BAND, Mort’s GROUP…does it always have to be an ensemble? Every week he picks a new word or phrase and just beats you over the head with it all week. Mattress, trilogy, signing and now ensemble. Oh yeah, “my mom” too.

As usual BatWhat creates a decent enough premise with reasonable comedic potential, then inexplicably steers it straight into the ground nose down, full speed ahead. Suddenly Holly is telling ancient old Dinkle marching band war stories for some reason, my guess being “intense author malaise” or “devoid of ideas” but who knows, maybe he seriously believes that someone, somewhere might find this entertaining on some level. He apparently just can’t do a Dinkle story without slipping into this weird euphoric reverie over the “good ‘ol days”, the very same good ol’ days he made a conscious artistic decision to move away from “back in the day”. What a nut.

LOL seriously though, back to the strip. It certainly looks like Holly’s well on her way to a one-way ticket to Bedside Manor herself, as apparently she’s forgotten that Funky attended the same high school she did. In fact the entire strip is named after him. And I’m sure he heard all about the big Rose Bowl parade appearance, both at the time and ten thousands times since. But I guess it was just easier and faster to pretend that Funky needs some background on this Dinkle fella than to write a plausible conversation a normal person might have. And that’s really what it’s all about, is it not?

All in all this one is so mind-warpingly stupid it can’t help but make me wonder what he was being distracted by when he half-assed his way through the last few word balloons of 2017. Something on television? Staring out the window at the ceaseless winter snowfall? Pizza? Lisa? Whatever it was, he obviously put less than nothing into this drivel.

Raisin The Bar…Lowering The Standards

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For what seems like the thousandth day in a row I have no idea what the gag here is supposed to be. Are the background anon-o-characters supposed to be characters I’d recognize? “Immaculate metro stations”…huh? There’s no “joke” here, again. And not only that, there’s no “story” either. Color me totally baffled. I even visited the official FW blog just to see if maybe something there would shed a little light on whatever the hell is going on here but (of course) there’s no help there unless you’re looking for way, way too much information on fictional comic book covers. All in all one of the most pointless FW arcs ever and that includes the band box arc AND the Food Film scam.

Global Snooze Farce

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For some reason BatNom finds great, great humor in the idea of high school marching band members selling things to raise money for the band. Turkeys, books, chocolate…it doesn’t matter what they’re selling, just that they’re doing it.

“Knock-knock”

“Hi, can I help you?”

“Hello, I’m with the local high school marching band. We’re selling this Belgian chocolate to help raise money for new uniforms.”

(BanTom collapses to floor doubled over in hysterical laughter. Alarmed youngster quickly backs away and flees.)

See, these stupid marching band gags are all rooted in the character Dinkle used to be. Back when he was the megalomaniacal tyrant band director with all sorts of zany ideas, the band fundraising gags were likewise based upon that zaniness. Harry wants to sell band turkeys, Harry pushes the students to sell more and more candy and so forth. As awful as they jokes themselves were, they were at least consistent with the character. It’d make (a little) more sense if the old Dinkle was acting like marching bands represented the height of “culture” and bragging about his “global sales force”, as he was supposed to be delusional and over-the-top.

The problem (apart from the many other ones of course) is that Dinkle isn’t the zany old band director with his eyes always obscured by his stupid hat anymore, now he’s just another squishy old smirking moron who’s really only immediately distinguishable from the other squishy old smirking morons because he’s often standing next to a woman with one arm. The “jokes” are already abysmal but when taken out of their proper context and delivered by the universally-despised new Dinkle they’re just the pointless mutterings of another annoying jerk.

Interesting note: that was the first FW arc in a while that actually contained some sort of factual information, as totally pointless as it was. At long last, I’m finally actually learning something from this strip. I like it and would like to see it become a recurring thing.

“OK Funky, meet me over by the gazebo.”

“You mean the spot where General Cleveland Cincinnati wrested control of Central Ohio away from the hated Swedes back in 1814?”

“Yes, pizza.”

Phew-Litzer Worthy

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Oh brother. “The Noble Piece Of Chocolate Prize”…ladies and gentlemen, quite possibly the worst FW joke of 2017…so far. “Peace”…”piece”…just abysmal, one of those FW gags that would elicit eye-rolls from a classroom full of dull-witted third graders. And it’s lazy too. “Piece of chocolate prize”, I mean gak, that’s just terrible.

While I’m (sigh) well aware of band candy’s place in FW lore, part of what was supposed to be “zany” about the band fundraising arcs was the way they were always selling stuff other than band candy, like turkeys and band director autobiographies. I don’t remember any arcs about the massive amounts of cheap Belgian chocolate Harry was importing but apparently it was a huge part of his whole goofy persona all along. Maybe I should (chortle) start paying better attention here.

There is of course the strong possibility that this entire premise was built around creating an opportunity to do this joke. This whole chocolate thing did sort of come completely out of nowhere, although that doesn’t especially mean anything either. It’s also interesting to note that for the second week in a row he’s spoofing awards, which again might mean something or might mean nothing whatsoever. It’s just weird is all, which would be a terrific title for the complete FW Act III anthology collection.

Uniformly Awful

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Speaking of uniform, every single Dinkle strip is exactly the same. Premise, premise, sub-moronic Dinkle punchline delivered with grotesque cackle as background characters look on bemusedly. Yeah Harry, if this Van Houten guy hadn’t discovered how to make chocolate more palatable you wouldn’t have been able to sell chocolate to raise money for (sigh) band uniforms…what an incredible lucky break for you. And if early man hadn’t discovered how to kill, behead and eat large birds you’d have been shit out of luck on Thanksgiving too. Who the f*ck THINKS this way? Does this man EVER think about anything other than marching bands and fundraisers? I guess that’s supposed to be the joke, I think. But it’s not funny enough (at all) to be the joke, unless of course you think band fundraising is inherently funny, which almost no one does. I can’t even begin to imagine what someone unfamiliar with FW would think upon reading this. Fortunately though, that scenario rarely comes up.

Coming this fall: Harry’s scheme to create band uniforms MADE of band candy is thwarted when his clarinet section goes down with a near-fatal peanut allergy. Attempts to design peanut product-free band uniforms prove futile.