Gyre
May 24, 2013 at 12:32 am
Clearly there would be such a big audience of people watching a show about people vaguely connected to a woman who died from cancer.
Lenny certainly seems to think so. Meanwhile Darin need to dial it back just a bit, as he’s crossed over to making terroristic threats.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Yes, it would SLAY in the ratings, because EVERYONE loves Lisa! But it’d also be WRONG, because no one should try to use her story to make a cheap buck…uh, except Les, that is. And Batom, who wasn’t giving away “Lisa’s Story” for free the last time I checked. But no one else!
I suppose Boy Lisa’s sputtering, indignant rage would make more sense if there was a little more context here, but then again, probably not. His “war face” is totally hilarious and well worth the idiotic path we traveled to get there, though. And check out Frankie in the background there, smirking uncontrollably. Is he amused by Derin’s pathetic blustering or because “the scheme” is working exactly as he planned? Or it it just that Batom can’t draw him any other way?
So, their brilliant scheme is to pitch their show to two powerless, penniless, completely non-influential, non-Hollywood plebes?
And what Epicus said…despite the swarms of obese, fawning middle-aged women who turn up on Les’ book tours, I doubt “Lisa’s Story” has the popularity to make anyone sane take it seriously.
But enough of that! Reality TV, am I -right-?
….Tom, “Fox Trot” and “Get Fuzzy” were more barbed in their reality TV strips…OVER A DECADE AGO!
I’ve always wondered what kind of sleazeballs it would take to make the designated protagonists of Westview look appealing by comparison. I’m still wondering.
I would watch this reality show only if the writers could find at least one opportunity in each episode for Darin to do something boneheaded enough to cause Frankie to yell:
[img]http://i.qkme.me/3owepi.jpg[/img]
I’m afraid this means “Lisa’s Story” was a best seller in FW world. I always assumed the book was about her perfect marriage with the author, and his ultimate heartbreak when “the other shoe” dropped on her breasts, but I guess there were at least several chapters devoted to her one night stand, teen pregnancy, and the 18 years she managed to get through without meeting her Bio-son until a week before she died. Unless the rage Durwood is showing reflects Saint Lisa mythology that he was immaculately conceived.
Jeffcoat- Nothing funnier than the Gold family acting like hardasses behind their massive bouncers.
The two angry turtle faces made by Dagwood… Priceless. I see TF agrees.
I think the “Ease Up, Friend” image would apply to Dullweed here.
Reading Funky Winkerbean is like carefully reading the ingredients on a food-item wrapper over a long period of time, ultimately realizing that you really don’t want to eat what’s inside after all.
Jessica’s little remark about “reality TV” is so perfectly Batomesque. I guess it’s OK to gawk at weird miserable people and laugh at their trainwreck lives but only if it’s in fictional comic strip form. Like how it’s OK to cash in on a cancer book then have your characters get all mad and conflicted about cashing in on a cancer book.
Now hold on a minute , Darrin… How is what FTR & Lenny doing any different than what Les and Jessica are doing with Lisa and John Darling respectively?
Aren’t Jessica and Les profitting from death and misery, as well? When did you become so high minded? Get off your cancer ridden high horse, Darrenport!
OMG Frankie and Lenny are either downright stupid or just sleazier than ever. There is at least a difference between Les and Jessica, they’re getting their facts straight.
Lets forget the factor that Frankie’s an alleged rapist. He wasn’t her lost love and Darin wasn’t a love child. Well not in true sense. If anything it was a highschool thing and Darin would had been considered more of a one-night stand result, there’s no real story. Nobody in their right mind(if this comic series has any) would watch idiotic idea. If thats the case, well I guess the celebrities whose’s kids have different daddies deserve sitcoms then.
Frankie has evolved beyond gender-specific pronouns. That or they’re now a plural noun.
What’s really annoying is that if she wants to talk about gutter-dwelling sleazeballs who’d pull this, she’s related to one: her dead Daddy. If Plantman hadn’t have given him Bam-Headshot! Cancer, John Darling would be a reality show host by now.
LOL Dagwood’s angry turtle war face is pure NIGHTMARE FUEL!
This is hilarious. If Batyuck would just do something to make Dagwood that enraged on a regular basis, I would be so happy.
But what the hell happened to Dagwood’s Bob Hope-style ski-jump schnozz? Does narcissistic rage cause his nose to hook uncontrollably?
I’m going to enjoy this series by imagining that Frankie and Lenny aren’t the least bit interested in producing a reality show. They’re instead doing this just to screw with Darin, and hopefully screw with him so badly that Les gets hit by Darin’s inexplicable uncontrollable RAGE that’s been provoked by this ludicrous scenario. It’s funny, and it certainly offers pretty much the only explanation for Frankie’s and Lenny’s extraordinary tone-deafness in the face of Darin’s completely over-the-top reaction. If they’re serious, Batiuk has done this so stupidly and poorly that it’s unbelievable. If they’re trolling, on the other hand, they’re succeeding in a manner they could have scarcely thought possible.
So I’ll just sit over here, deluding myself into thinking that’s Batiuk’s real intention until he completely blows it sometime in the next two weeks.
But seriously, WHY is Darin so angry? What was he told (and WHY) that got him so worked up that he appears ready to physically attack these two goofs? And aren’t con-men intimately familiar with how to manipulate their marks? Why hasn’t Frankie adjusted his pitch at all in the face of Darin’s ridiculous reaction? Does he think this is working?
Charles: I like your theory, if only because there’s NO OTHER explanation for why these guys would be making their pitch to two penniless nitwits.
But since this is a Tom comic, I await instead the bizarre, otherly, nonsensical and inexpressibly LAME explanation for their scheme we’ll be getting in…oh…seventeen weeks or so, based on the current rate, -_-
But seriously, WHY is Darin so angry?
Because they’re tarnishing the memory of his mother! His REAL mother!
(Fishstick: Um… hello?)
You know, the mother that he formed a powerful emotional attachment to in the week that he knew her, so strong that it spurs him to violence fifteen years later.
So, wait. Dullard isn’t furious because of all the sacriligious St Lisa “love child” talk. What’s got him going is his hatred of reality TV?? (Forget that he just about exactly fits the demographic for an ideal Reality TV fan. Every character speaks with BatElderly’s 70 year old man voice.)
Good thing Lilly White Lenny didn’t say he was from The Evil Internet, the Republican Party, or anyone else Swishy Tom REALLY despises – Dillweed would have come at him with a kitchen knife!
Who knew Darvon was capable of morphing into this kind of raging, dangerous tough guy? It’s hilarious to think of him threatening ANYBODY. But in Ahia, if you don’t want to be beaten senseless, you’d best not speak disrespectfully of taxes, labor unions, or St Lisa!
Wait until Darin finds out Frankie and Lenny got the idea from Lisa during a “how to find your bio son” VHS she taped for Frankie.
So this is the sinister plot that Batyuck has come up with after weeks of build-up?
These 2 goonies want to slap together a Reality TV show for the Bravo Channel to ride on the coat-tail fame of the Lifetime Channels showing of Lisa’s Story.
Tom you really are a no talent hack
Can we have a week long lecture on realty TV and how damaging it is to real documentaries now? They already have a total failure who can spout nonsense about how others don’t live up to her standards. Maybe they can even go upstairs and have it in the comic book shop so those two dorky kids can watch in horror again.
Beanie: Lenny already established they are “Big on YouTube”…which in Tom’s world is the same thing as admitting you think very kindly of Hitler.
Also, I don’t think you can blame Tom’s attitudes on him being old…most of the seniors I know are addicted to reality TV and -love- how the internet allows them to get in touch with/watch videos of their grand kids instantly.
More, I think it’s just Tom is a bitter, spiteful technophobe.
OK, let’s say that;
-“Life With Lisa’s Leftovers” actually makes it to air,
-As if emerging from a coma, the entire world realizes the horror that is reality TV,
– A New Age of Entertainment is born,
-Frankie and Lenny claim that this was their aim all along and become pop culture heroes,
-Les’ movie never gets made.
EVERYONE WINS!!
Complicating matters will be the revelation that Lenny is Cayla’s older brother (they do share the black-to-white-to black gene, after all), making Lenny Darin’s step-step-step uncle (-ish)
The abject ridiculousness of this plot line, not to mention all the critical background facts that Batominc failed to mention, has inspired me to create this map, purely as a public service.
FW is so much like Mary Worth. No matter how unrealistic and boring (hard to do at the same time) a story line may seem when starts off, Batuik and the author(s) of Mary Worth manage to make it more unrealistic and even more boring.
If you’re going to go unrealistic Tom, give your hall monitor a machine gun and make the school’s mainframe computer a Trekkie fan and throw in some talking leaves while you’re at it.
WH, thanks for stopping the FW universe at the state line; my home area of Crawford County PA has suffered enough.
Hey Tomahack, flip a quarter or something. Do you want Frank ‘n’ Beanhead to be tough-guy, underworld, leg-breaker, intimidating con men, or a couple smirking, giggling, ambiguously gay goofballs? Pick one and run with it. Nobody cares which, even though its pretty goddam funny to think of Dillhole as the biggest badass in the room.
WH – It’s worth mentioning that Columbus is the home of David Willis, author of the web-comic Shortpacked! (among others), who has notably included references and disturbing parodies of Funky Winkerbean.
I think Darin should *accept this offer* and do the reality show. Think about it, this could be big money. Does Darin want to stay in Westview all his life and be doomed to a career as Funky’s heir apparent at Montoni’s? Nobody deserves such a horrid fate!! Darin and Jessica can use the big money from this show to get the hell out of Westview once and for all and move to NYC where Jess can really pursue her filmmaking career. Darin can there finally put his depressing childhood behind him, being raised by an adoptive father who didn’t even tell him he had another child, and finding out he’s the product of a date rape where a jock took advantage of the homeliest girl in school! Then he finally meets his birth mother, who is dying of cancer and now married to some guy named “Les”?!
Now he;s workiung for alcoholic Funky in the dying business of Montoni’s. Why wouldnt he want to run away and escape from all this! Get out of Westview Darin! Do the reality show, take the money and leave there forever!
@Duane: glad to oblige 🙂
@bobanero: Cool! I was unaware of the Shortpacked Columbus connection.