Tag: Harry Dinkle

Harry and the Chocolate Factory

Just as he’s outstayed his welcome around the halls of Westview High, Dinkle has lingered way too long in Funky Winkerbean, Act III. I’d supposed Harry went around giving “band candy motivational speeches” to fellow music educators or Becky’s current students simply as a way to keep busy, but it turns out he’s a compensated shill for Big Chocolate. He rushes home to share his big news with his wife Harriet (we must assume that’s Harriet, though she now looks like a 53 year old, instead of someone who’s been married 53 years).

Flow Like Barlow

If death itself was not enough to keep Lisa from continuing as a cast member in the Funkiverse, did you think mere retirement would deter Batiuk’s second favorite and probably best known character, Harry L. Dinkle? The World’s Greatest Erstwhile Band Director has cranked out three volumes of his autobiography to date, yet his Life and Times of Claude Barlow continues to be a work in progress, dating back to the days when Dinkle was never seen not wearing his peaked cap.

Dead Feeb

SosfdavidO here, and we’re back with “What hearing loss?” Harry Dinkle in today’s strip. Tombat really wrote himself into a corner with this charcter– it’s hard to kill off someone based on a real life person you know. So Dinkle is a spry 70 year old forever while the rest of the Funky Bunch slowly catches up to him, eventually likely even passing him in age.

“Dead Feeb” is as good of a password as I could muster from the variety of options available from musical notes but I’m sure someone can do better!

The Man Who Knew To Munch

Link to today’s strip.

Wow, that Dr. Harry L. Dinkle character sure is multi-talented!  Here’s the third seminar he’s chaired during this convention, and each one has been on a different subject.  In the first he taught some infants how to conduct, in the second he taught people how to be colossal dicks, and here he’s…wait a minute.  “Band Candy Fundamentals”?!  Seriously?  Could there possibly be an entire clinic devoted to band candy?

Or–and stay with me here–or is this an actual joke?  About how there are all these clinics and symposia and seminars, and a lot of them are just trivial and could easily be replaced by simple common sense?

I’m going to go with “that is the joke.”  Because the actual words in Dinkle’s mouth in that last panel make no sense to me–though the folks in the front row seem to find it hilarious…in a kind of sinister way, I must note.   “Conflict Chocolate.”  I’m guessing it’s a pun based on something, though that particular something eludes me.  A movie or TV show, maybe, or some specialized band conductor’s magazine.   Or some long forgotten Superman comic book–or better yet, a story from The Flash.

I sure hope this is it for a while from Harry L. Dinkle, PhD.  I’ll give the week this much credit: out of all the strips comprising Harry’s visit to the OMEA, only one had someone praising Dinkle.  That’s got to be a first.  Thank you, Tom Batiuk, for that Herculean level of restraint.  I hope it didn’t hurt too much.