SoSfDavidO here with another snark! Looks like Darrin is still moping about his damn pen missing. Nothing left to do but lean back and… WHOA! What’s going on in today’s strip?!
Zip it up, Darrin, or at least give Pete a 1-minute warning!
Tag: silhouette
Old Tyme Rock ‘N Roll
Well, I guess today’s strip provides some semblance of continuity to Morton Winkerbean’s uh… dream (I guess that’s what it is) of being a “rock star”, lining up with Thursday’s strip about drugs and groupies and whatnot. That does seem like an odd dream for a nursing home resident, even today as the stars of the rock ‘n roll era approach nursing home resident age. Still, it actually kinda makes sense that a wannabe rock star would name his son “Funky”.
This also lines up relatively well with the Mort we first met back in 2011, still not fully lucid and irritating the folks around him with bad dad jokes. Today’s Mort is less somber and churlish than the on we saw at Christmas five years back, but we’ve only ever seen him like that around Funky. Perhaps we can chalk that up to Mort simply not liking his son… another reason he might have named him “Funky”.
Low Blow
Today’s strip reminds me of an episode of 50s/60s “animated” series Clutch Cargo, “The Ghost Ship”. The episode starts off with Clutch’s ward Spinner wondering aloud if the fishing boats in the harbor ever move.
A rare moment of self-awareness in an “animated” show that consisted almost entirely of still images (with creepy filmed lips placed on top of them) or a pure coincidence? I leaned toward the latter but was never 100% sure.
Similarly, I’m pretty sure today’s panel 1 is unintentional, but not fully sure. It could be a sly call back to that time in late Act II when Harry’s hearing loss forced him to hand his baton over to Lefty, meant to poke at us beady-eyed nitpickers who have noted on many occasions that TB completely ignored this maudlin mess once Act III began. I concede that is possible, but likely? Ha!
TB ignores precedents set in his own work and retcons things more often than Tom Armstrong draws Marvin soiling himself.
Poor Carl, he was doing so well when we last saw him on Christmas day. I admire his dedication to playing the trumpet
Back To Square One
Oh good, TB doesn’t have Lefty lollygag in explaining her community band problem in today’s strip. Yeah, it’s a stupid problem and it could have easily been explained in yesterday’s strip, but we also very well could have spent a week getting to this point. Unfortunately, I expect we’re still spending a week with these two.
Ah, the national community band competition… a great American 4th of July-ish tradition. Yes indeed, it’s up there with Coney Island hot dog eating contest and the international stingray decoration show and that thing Jimmy Smits used to host on public television.
In the reality that is recorded on the internet, I was able to find two things comparable to Lefty’s competition, but nothing exactly like it:
- First is the Sousa Foundation’s Sudler Silver Scroll, which is an award for community bands but does not involve a live, competition show.
- Second is the Music for All National Concert Band Festival, which isn’t a competition at all and has the decency to take place in March instead of around the 4th of July, the show date for which pretty much every community band in the United States was founded.
Stick “E” Note
How serious is Mason Jarr about becoming Mason Jarre? Taping-a-letter-e-to-the-back-of-his-chair serious! Of course, from where they’re standing/sitting, Cindy and Pete can’t see that, but Mason’s thoughtful pose speaks volumes. In fact, I’m going to go sit in a chair and assume that same pose and ponder why the hell we invest more thought, time, and effort into the Funkiverse than does Tom Batiuk.
Son of Stuck Funky 
