After paying to fly Les 2,000 miles to LAX, you’d suppose Mason would at least spring for an Uber to bring him the rest of the way. Instead, the task falls to the eternally youthful and hot Cindy Summers Winkerbean Jarre to fetch Les. because what else are true friends for? Also, does Cindy still even have that job at Buddyblog? His arrival in sunny California has done nothing to snap Les out of his apathy; he even slouches in the passenger seat of Cindy’s sporty, battleship gray roadster. Batty’s gone to great lengths to depict Les’ complete lack of confidence. And you knew that TB was going to compose some kind of wry punchline around “pitch”… but when else have we seen Les “pitch” anything? His endless book signings attract fans who come prepared to buy his work (in multiple!). He sure doesn’t “pitch” an appreciation of language arts to the generation of students who’ve endured his class. He pitched himself in matrimony–twice–and somehow succeeded both times. You know who can pitch though? Mrs. Les Moore, aka Cayla. Come to think of it, Les is the last denizen of the Funkiverse who should be making sporto analogies.
Tag: palm trees
The Les You No
Today being 4/20 and all, I found it perfectly appropriate that Mason’s contact photo on Les’ phone should be a picture of some cannabis. But the “trees” we’re looking at in today’s strip are the kind that “don’t provide any shade,” not the kind you smoke. So, the Lisa’s movie is already in the pitch meeting stage, is it? Normally, this would mean that the screenplay’s been completed. Otherwise, they have nothing to “pitch.” Of course, normally, location scouting for a major motion picture takes place after the script is done, and by someone (or a team of people) whose job it is to scout locations; not by the leading man/exectutive producer taking pictures with his cellphone.
Les, perhaps still smarting over his students’ shabby treatment of Batton Thomas, shows little enthusiasm over going to Hollywood to pitch the movie. This sends the normally mellow Mason into a tizzy, demanding that Les join him immediately, his teaching job be damned. Mason is hellbent on involving Les in every single aspect of this movie project, but one questions the wisdom of dragging him along to the pitch meetings. Is no one in Hollywood going to be aware that Lisa’s Story already had been optioned and gone into production nearly six (!) years ago? And that, after insisting that he write the screenplay, Les arrived in Hollywood, splitting his time between complaining, daydreaming, and wishing for death , before walking away from and sabotaging the project?
Ski-dawdling
If only I could believe that Cayla’s question in today’s strip truly represented some self-awareness from TB, because YES! why didn’t Mason lead with this inevitable smoke-blowing? Sure, STILL nothing has actually happened, but we’ve wasted several days of strips even getting to Mason’s effusive and unwarranted praise, a scene we all knew was coming before this movie thing got to the point where Les could start trying to undermine specific elements of it.
As far as Mason’s opinion of Lisa’s Story goes, why would he think it would succeed in winning an Oscar where the beloved film Love Story (which, incidentally, turns 50 years old this year) largely failed. Does Love Story simply not exist in the Batiukverse? I guess I could buy that, given that this is a universe where Lisa’s Story was an Eisner Award finalist. But will Mason be satisfied with just a nomination or a Golden Globe? …or, more appropriately, a Razzie?
Hai-tide
That’s just the thing ’bout
today’s strip… things never seem
To be going anywhere…
“Until all of a
Sudden they do” Mason says
Such bloviating
Appropriate, though
Bloviation was first coined
In, yep, Ohio
Dangerously sharp
Mason’s nose proves fertile ground
For growing palm trees
Les thought the deal died?
It’s not even been three months
Since they discussed it
Les is clearly pissed
That this movie could happen
Will be a looooooooooooooong week…
Second Hand News
Ooooooooooooooo! Rumors! Swirling rumors! Each one far too interesting to be true or even explored in Funky Winkerbean. Enjoy them now, because today’s strip is probably the last time they will ever be mentioned.
It really is too bad too… the most interesting aspect of celebrity mystery deaths are the wacky conspiracy theories obsessively promoted by space cadets with more imagination than TB has ever had. They can be disgusting, demeaning, profiteering, and otherwise awful, but interesting they really so often are. Otherwise, this Brinkel story is just terribly sad… which I guess, to be fair, is TB’s wheelhouse. It’s a really boring wheelhouse.
In true Batiukverse fashion, the police are having to hold people back from attempting to join Valerie Pond in the back of that ambulance.
Son of Stuck Funky 
