Today’s strip is best read in print… on a popsicle stick, or maybe a Laffy Taffy wrapper. I would even guess TB took lifted this gag wholesale from a Bazooka Joe strip but for, um… obvious reasons.
My only question is, where is this snarky Funky when Les gets to thinking he’s Shecky Greene?
First, a big hand for Epicus Doomus for taking a three week stint writing these posts. Yeoman’s work, truly. I can’t tell you how many times this strip has had me wanting to tap out after one week day.
Looks like today’s strip continues what we saw last Friday and Saturday, and what has dominated 10 of the 18 strips printed since Christmas Day… yes, it is yet another installment of At Home With The Winkerbeans. Part Pluggers… part Lockhorns… It somehow manages to fall short of even the absolute worst that those two mockable comics page mainstays have to offer. Heck, I’m not even sure what is going on here.
Is the joke that Holly’s vision is even worse than Funky’s? (Believe it or not, there is 4 year old precedent for this.) Is it that Funky’s vision is so bad that he thinks their DVR has a clock when it doesn’t? Is it that neither of these characters wear glasses regularly even though they both demonstrably need to? Does TB think DVR clocks are ubiquitous in the way VCR clocks once were? (They aren’t.)
One down, thirteen more to go…
Oh good. I was getting worried. We hadn’t seen Montoni’s in what feels like FOREVER and I was starting to wonder if Batiuk had forgotten about it, just like he forgot about Wally Jr or Crazy Harry’s children.
I said once that I thought Lisa’s Legacy was the Axis Mundi around which this entire universe turned, and while Dead St Lisa is certainly the spiritual heart, the physical center of the Funkyverse is this stupid little pizza joint. Monk’s Cafe in Seinfeld, or the Central Perk in Friends pale in comparison to this monolith.
As many of you know, Montoni’s is based off of the real restaurant Luigi’s located in Akron, Ohio. So, today’s strip instantly raises the question, does Luigi’s sell salad dressing. After a little digging using that internet Dinkle loathes so much, I found out that yes Luigi’s does offer bottled Italian salad dressing for sale in store. Seven-fifty will buy you this little number.
Really, looking at Luigi’s, they should be insulted by the Montoni’s comparison. Sure, they share a band box, and a counter with stools, but Luigi’s looks like a decent place, with a much more inviting and charming interior. By all the accounts I read, this place is almost always packed, and with a line waiting outside.
They do have weird idiosyncrasies, like not accepting credit cards, instead having an ATM in the back that doesn’t print out cash, but prints out a receipt to use up front. And the monstrosity below is their interpretation of a salad.
Weirdest of all, while scrolling through pictures of Luigi’s looking for salad dressing, I found what must be the inspiration for another old Montoni’s friend. See if you can spot it.
Today’s strip marks one week since we’ve heard so much as a peep from Amicus Breef, and yet he is still there like he did anything at all to help Adeela or anyone else. He doesn’t even get to bluster to the ICE agent, Funky fills that role today. Things ICE should have to show if they are going to arrest Adeela should be Amicus’ wheelhouse, not Funky’s. And yet, ICE backs off at Funky’s incomplete demand (seriously, what was he demanding to see?) while they never wavered when confronted by Amicus, making Funky a far far better immigration lawyer than Amicus, who is literally an immigration lawyer.
Son of a gun, TB remembered the insulated bag! Before we praise him too much for this, it should be pointed out that the insulated bag officially spent more time in ICE custody than Adeela.
Also, Funky still hasn’t gotten his delivery car back.
The panel borders of today’s strip are just holding it, just enough to keep it from —
It burst into the frame! Get out of the way! Get out of the way!
Get this Funky! Get this Funky! It’s boring and it’s crashing! It’s crashing terrible! Oh my, get out of the way please. It’s boring, bursting into the frame and it’s — and it’s falling on the boring cast and all the folks agree that this is terrible. This is one of the worst catastrophes in the world.
And oh, it’s…boring, oh, four or five segments into the strip. It’s a terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen. The smirks and the lameness now and the text is crashing into the foreheads, not quite to the boring cast. Oh, the humanity and all the characters smirking around here. I told you. It’s — I can’t even type to the readers whose snark we host here. It – It’s….I — I can’t type ladies and gentlemen.
Honest, it’s completely a mass of smirking dreck. And everybody can’t hardly read it. It’s hard, it’s crazy. Folks, I — I — I’m sorry. Honestly, I — I can hardly read it.
I — I’m gonna step away where I cannot see it. Funky, that’s terrible. I – I can’t….Listen folks, I — I’m gonna have to stop for a minute because I’ve lost my head. This is the worst thing I’ve ever witnessed.
With sincerest apologies to Herb Morrison and humanity… and Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (who TB should also apologize to).
Son of Stuck Funky 
