Tuesday! Where we rush into a plot-line that we’ve literally already seen before. I’m not just just referring to when Darrin was born but in the 600 times his delivery was mentioned in the strip since. I mean, no wonder Darrin is having Deja-Vu about it, how many times has he had to sit through the story of his rush to the hosptial?
Odds that Fred is going to pop out of his medical drama to “help with the delivery” are looking pretty darned high from the looks of today’s strip.
‘Ello! 4th-trumpet and Westview Waterboy DavidO is checking in, giving much-needed relief to Beckoning Chasm after BC’s two week run of excellent Funky snarking.
On to the funnies!
Hoo-boy. Put on your Members Only Jacket and throw on your Michael Jackson album because we’re about to retread over one of the tiredest troupes in situation comedy, the “Oh God, I’m having a baby, let’s duck into the nearest malfunctioning elevator that has a Rabbi, a mime and a 300lb guy who easily faints in it.” routine that was required in every sitcom, by congressional mandate, from 1983-1994.
Today’s strip throws logic out the window in favor of comedy, though I still don’t see how a panicked trip to the hospital where you gnaw your fingertips raw with anxiety constitutes comedy.
This sort of strip is great at illustrating why cell phones are the bane of screenwriters everywhere. In the age of instant connection, Jess could have just texted Durwood to come pick her up; she’s really feeling it and it’s almost time. The suitcase would already be in the car in that scenario; no need for a pregnant woman to go hauling it around.
I can’t peek ahead, so there’s no way of knowing if this arc is going to go on for weeks or if the Sainted Grandbaby will be enrolled in Westview High this time next month. Either way, prepare for every single worn out fumbling-dad-goes-to-the-hospital schtick ever seen in the last three centuries.
Get yer Funky Winkerbean tropes here! Let’s see how many I can list:
This one’s not a trope (yet), but what has been going on with that banner? Its right side is suspended by—magic? a ginormous protrusion from Derwood’s occipital skull? writing?
YouTube (registered trademark, BTW) better upgrade their servers, pronto, before Boy Lisa follows through on his “threat” and crashes them with the tens of hits that video would certainly generate. Some arch-villian Frankie turned out to be. Ditto for his doughy henchman White Lenny, who is a real wuss compared to Black Lenny, who at least knew how to lean menacingly. Derin would have probably gotten the same results by simply throwing “Lisa’s secret journal” at them. Those corners do hurt, you know.
OK, so who had “they make a video of Summer reading random pages from her dead mother’s thirty-something year old journal that just happened to be discovered exactly when it fit into the story which forces Frankie and Lenny to give up when they threaten to air it on YouTube” in the “how does this arc end?” pool? Once again TheMaster finds the least-interesting, most random, nonsensical and totally balls-out stupid way of “crafting” a story that took what seems like a hundred weeks to tell. No one can predict what he’ll do and quite frankly I don’t think he even knows until he pens it. This whole story reads like he jotted it all down on a napkin while heading to the bathroom at 5am after a big craft beer, Seroquel and Nyquil bender. Like every other FW story does. It’s amazing, uncanny and totally inexplicable.
I’m admittedly as beady-eyed and nit-picky as anyone here at SoSF, so maybe my opinion is somewhat skewed. That said, Lisa’s silly little “prayer” comes across as being rather selfish and short-sighted to me. After all, how did she know back then what would become of Frankie? Perhaps he would have changed his ways and become, oh I don’t know, an ordained minister or a first responder hero or a devoted family man or whatever. Typical Lisa…me me me, always self-absorbed in that annoyingly cloying way she had (and still has despite being dead). In any event, as Nelson Muntz might say, “Haw haw! Your prayer went unanswered!”.
So what did Frankie do, exactly, to merit this non-stop sneering and eyebrow-cocking? His attempt to “cash in” on one of Lisa’s many tragedies? Les did it a few times. Cayla was practically boinging off the walls when the movie check arrived. Summer even went as far as to suggest a 3-D version of “Lisa’s Story”. What makes that any different? I get the feeling that any “outsiders” who dare to enter Westview get chased to the city limits by a group of pitchfork-toting sneering fat guys wearing pizza shop smocks in an old-fashioned car as “Dueling Banjos” plays in the background. What a bunch of hostile pricks.
But forget all that nonsense, as none of it matters anyway. The big news today is that Montoni’s appears to be selling T-shirts! I simply MUST have one, although because I’m not a XXXXL I doubt they’d be carrying my size. If Batom doesn’t start hawking these on his site he’s both lazy and stupid, because he’s sitting on a gold mine with those.
Son of Stuck Funky 