Strips like today’s, where whatever value there might be in the strip would come from the audience being familiar with the recurring “Pizza Monster” and being excited to see it in the strip again, are among the most baffling to me. Even as out of touch as Batiuk is, it seems hard for me believe that even he thinks there are people out there who think Halloween is Pizza Monster in Funky Winkerbean season and are dying to see it come back. It’s not the Great Pumpkin. And most other strips with recurring “gags” like this actually do something different with it each time. With Batiuk’s recurring gags (especially in Crankshaft-Lena’s bad at bowling! Lena’s coffee is terrible! Lena’s brownies are terrible! Crankshaft is buying gardening supplies again!), he thinks that just repeating something over and over is enough.
So, yay, the Pizza Monster showed up again, everyone can relax now.
Tag Archives: Ridiculous Contrivances
Pizza Monster Monday
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Ha-ICE-ku
Surely there is more This is all of today's strip? Missing third panel?
We already know Identity mistake stuff And so does Wally
Oh it's "possible"? Truly a legal savant is Amicus Breef
A word of warning ICE will not hesitate to deport falling leaves
Adeela's right, though This whole story arc is a Horrible mistake
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Build the wall of text!
Well… today’s strip wades onto the first step of the deep deep pool that is American immigration and guest worker policy. This is what I imagine it would be like if Eeyore was a political talking head on one of the news networks.
I have no idea what Wally is talking about, and I hazard that he doesn’t either.
Adeela is apparently studying architecture, can we assume Wally is doing that as well? That should help him manage Montoni’s really well, better even than Rachel and her decades of experience would… Or will it help Adeela do that? Oh good grief! Are we headed toward Montoni’s sponsoring Adeela’s H-1B visa? *sigh*
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Wot’s Adeela wit you? Eh?
Why is Adeela not excited about graduating from college in today’s strip?
The answer may be undeserving awards-bait… Film at 11.
Thank goodness Tony returned in time to set up this silly transition. I don’t know what we all would have done had Funky had to ask Rachel this rote and rhetorical question. Probably donned sackcloth and ashes…
Well, at least Chuck Ayers doesn’t use wavy panel borders for in-strip transitions from one place to another like TB did. I hate that.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Friend or Photo?
I suppose today’s strip indicates that Adeela was the mother and not the child in last Sunday’s strip, which makes her fairly close to Wally in age.
No, that wasn’t obvious. Wally has been back in Westview for 9 years now. He was taken hostage in late 2007, BEFORE the time jump*, so he hasn’t patrolled an Afghan street in about two decades (heck, it is still a decade plus if you ignore the time jump). Adeela easily could have been that child and, oy… piecing together this strip’s timeline makes my head hurt. Still, I gotta say that Adeela has aged better than anyone in this strip except for maybe Cindy.
* Back in early Act III when Wally had apparently disappeared from the strip after the 10 year time jump, TB stated in a blog post (the infamous “it’s called writing…” post, in fact) that a “clue” in regards to Wally’s whereabouts appeared in the October 11, 2007 strip, in the immediate aftermath of Lisa’s death and just before the Act II to III time jump. That clue being the newspaper in the newspaper box that Les slumps past before he is pickpocketed by a couple of hipsters. It reads, muddily, “Soldiers Taken Hostage”.
Wally remained a hostage until July 2009…
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
La-bored Set Up
It’s an attack of the SMIRKS in today’s strip! Let’s count em’.
1. Professor Forehead channels his inner and outer Les Moore.
2. STATE sweatshirt-wearing bunhead has changed into a purple top.
3. Young Kevin James or that guy from Smashmouth?
4. Cindy? Mindy? Sadie? Jessica? Anon-o-blonde? I’m going with Mallory Brooks, the world’s perfect genome…
5. When did Ed Grimley start wearing glasses?
6. Thatsnought Hewmore would be smirking if someone hadn’t given him the dreaded hatchet face.
7. Emily/Amelia cements her new class project partnership with a handshake and a side smirk.
8. Wally’s cheekbones decide that if his mouth won’t smirk, they will.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Route Canal
Dinkle appears in today’s strip.
No “spoiler alert” tag… this is not a spoiler, it is a warning. You have been warned. Read at your own risk. Or don’t, your life will be better off.
You know what, I’m going to focus on just one small little part of this strip and let our great commenters take the rest of it apart. I’m going to deal only with the first four words that appear in the strip, “Speaking of band candy”.
“SPEAKING OF BAND CANDY”?!
NO ONE was speaking of band candy! No one other than Dinkle is ever speaking of band candy! No one in their right mind wants to speak of band candy! I suppose Dinkle is correct in “saying “speaking of band candy” because that is a 100% accurate description of what he proceeds to do… thus, he most assuredly wanders around uttering “speaking of band candy” whenever he wants to speak of band candy. There is no other possible explanation. I’m typing “speaking of band candy” over and over again in desperate hope that this will be last time those words are ever written. Please. Please.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Son of Stuck Funky 
Special Dumblivery
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).
56 Comments
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Tagged as Adeela, airplanes, Amicus Breef, An idiocy of Winkerbeans, boredom personified, delivery people, deportation, enraging hair strands, excessive word ballooning, Funky, Funky Winkerbean, green pitcher, half-assed political commentary, Holly, how things are NEVER done, immigration, Montoni's, Montoni's logo, multiple Montoni's logos, not how the world works, pizza, pizza delivery, President Clinton, Rachel, Ridiculous Contrivances, sheer idiocy, smirk, stupid, the raptor claw in Holly's hair, unnatural hand gestures, Wally, weird noses, word zeppelins