Tag Archives: time travel

by | October 16, 2020 · 10:30 pm

How Much Is That Dummy In The Window?

Does today’s strip really take place right after yesterday’s? Amicus and Wally left the box office window presumably just a few minutes prior to go bother the supervisor and in that short time Adeela has already been put on the 3:45 AM flight to Baghdad? I see nothing that really indicates otherwise except for Adeela’s speedy departure, so I guess we’re still in the middle of the night of Adeela’s arrest.

I suppose this was inevitable, though. Westview has seen several immigrant refugees move to town over the years, and none have wound up ultimately staying. Let’s look at their fates:

Lu Lin and Zhang Li – escaped detention in communist China for their role in student pro-democracy protests and opened The Jade Dragon, a Chinese restaurant, next to Montoni’s:

Kahn (or is it Khan?) – immigrated from war-torn Afghanistan, founded a deli, and even became a US citizen (despite having been a known Taliban-affiliated arms dealer):

Rana – orphaned by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan and the adopted by Wally and Lefty and raised in Westview by Lefty and DSH:

Bye, Adeela…

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by | October 11, 2019 · 10:30 pm

Deafinitely Dumb

Hey, remember when this story arc was about Bull?
Today’s strip sure doesn’t.

Look, I’m just going to gloss over the fact that Dinkle was actually introduced well over a year into this strip’s existence and just give TB credit for remembering that Funky Winkerbean itself is 47 (and a half) years old… And with that out of the way I’ll go right into wondering what the heck this has to do with Bull, his condition, his life, or anything. I guess if you twist your neck 117 degrees and squint until you experience sharp pain in your temples it appears the notoriously egotistical Dinkle (or is that Buck?) is paying Bull a compliment by saying they were equals despite his long and incessant history of considering all things inferior to himself and his marching band. But really this is just TB repackaging his biggest hit.

Dinkle is the only thing about this strip that has ever moved merchandise. His “football fields are for band practice!” bit covers books and t-shirts, and even serves as his character’s introductory line in the stage play Funky Winkerbean’s Homecoming. Dinkle’s shtick has sold band posters (“Dinkle wants your horn to twinkle”) and shoes, and no less than 9 Dinkle-specific collections of FW strips have been published! No, seriously, there have been 4 Lisa books and 9 Dinkle books.

Football Fields are for Band Practice!
Sunday Concert
Harry L. Dinkle Live at Carnegie Hall
I Never Promised You a Rose Parade
Gone with The Woodwinds
Would the Ushers Please Lock the Doors!
Attack of the Band Moms
The Grass is Always Greener on the Other Side of the Football Field
Music is Worth it… Music is Worth it… Music is…

This is nothing more than TB pushing his most-recognized character/cash cow into a story the New York Times inexplicably gave him ink for. Ugh!

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by | October 10, 2019 · 10:30 pm

Tempo Of Doom

Today’s strip… or July 11th’s strip? YOU make the call!

This time warping stuff is getting really really old, especially when it makes negative amounts of sense. At least with Tuesday’s “five years ago” mishap you could chalk it up to the strip’s time simply not matching real time even while matching real time’s seasons (not an uncommon thing at all in comic strips). This strip has long done that, though not in a consistent way – Summer’s generation was in high school for 5 years, Pete and Durwood’s for almost a decade, and the Act I gang was there for 20 of course.

Today, though, we’re at “three months ago”. That places this flashback in early July, and yet both Buck and Bull are wearing coats? I mean, this is presumably still an October funeral, right, what with the falling leaves colored a bright orange hue? Heck, this doesn’t even line up with Buck’s mid-September visit, where he and Bull stroll out to Jerome T. Bushka A&L Automotive Stadium, as neither man is wearing a coat then.

Is this beady-eyed nitpickiness? Maybe, but when there are little errors like this in nearly every strip it starts to add up to genuine distraction. This is especially true when the story hops all over the calendar, which *gasp* makes invested readers hop through the calendar with it in an attempt to understand what is going on.

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by | October 9, 2019 · 11:30 pm

Please no more Lesday, October 10

Today’s strip was not available for preview. I considered waiting for it become available to post, but with the possibility of more Les on the table… I am sorry but I am not willing to burn the 11:00 PM oil potentially posting about a despicable character in a despicable situation.

However, true believers, just so I don’t send you to the comments section empty-handed… here, in honor of the late Jerome Bushka, is Bull’s very first appearance in Funky Winkerbean:

FW5-3-72

Oh, sorry, that’s the first mention of Bull, May 3 of 1972, in classic TB tell-don’t-show style. Here’s his first appearance, on September 23 of 1972 (Wait, why doesn’t Funky have CTE too, being a football sporto?):

FW9-23-72

And the first time he appears and is named, on September 26, 1972 (Until 2013, this was the canonical reason Fred Fairgood was estranged from his daughter Kerry. No, really!):

FW9-26-72

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by | July 10, 2019 · 10:30 pm

Hammett Up, Cliff

Today’s strip gets a “time travel” tag and a “retcon” tag, because both of those things appear to be happening!

This is lifted wholesale from the Fatty Arbuckle case, by the way. Dashiell Hammett actually was a Pinkerton man in the late 1910s and early 1920s and he did claim to be a part of the Pinkerton team hired by Arbuckle’s defense attorneys, though some historians doubt his involvement was significant if it even happened at all.

How this squares with the timeline of silent film star 1940s icon Butter Brickle Brinkel’s trial is unclear… but all timelines in the Batiukverse are about as clear as an oil spill.

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by | August 5, 2015 · 10:30 pm

Pa-Loop-aville

Today’s strip brings up many Funkyverse Altering Questions (FAQ), which I will attempt to answer below.

So Young Crazy apparently lost/water-damaged the smartphone, is this TB’s cheap way of maintaining Act III’s status quo?
Yes. More convenient than a Neal Rubin Gil Thorp plot conclusion, isn’t it?

Shouldn’t I be asking the questions, not you?
Uh…

Does that badly taped sign in panel 1 say “Smew Reunion”?
Probably.

Is Les doing his trademark waddling off underneath the Smew Reunion sign?
Definitely.

Is that Donna, Holly, or Mary Sue looking over Crazy’s shoulder?
Good question.

Which words coming through the time phone in panel 2 are onomatopoeias and which are things Young Crazy is actually saying?
Judging by the lettering, “splash” is an onomatopoeia while Young Crazy is speaking “ooops” and “pa-loop”, both popular vernacular in 1978.

What hath Jobs (and Woz) wrought?
An immeasurable number of fictional computers made by parody companies named after produce (and at least one real-life example). “Pineapple” falls somewhere between Kumquat and Banana on the scale of bad to thoroughly terrible Apple parodies.

Shouldn’t Crazy have specifically told his younger self to buy Pineapple stock in 1996 or 1997?
Yes he should have, but because of his lack of specificity we were spared references to McHale Swindler and Bil Spamelio, which is a plus.

Into what liquid did Young Crazy accidentally drop the smartphone?
Search me… Maybe the Time Pool, though none of the gang looked wet after passing through it.

What did Crazy tell his younger self to do with the smartphone before buying Pineapple stock?
He, uh… Oh.
No.
Nononononono.
Sorry, FAQ over. I need to take a shower, followed by another shower.

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by | August 4, 2015 · 10:30 pm

Roaming Charge of the White Decayed

Today’s strip indicates that some time about a year ago TB finally got around to seeing the closing scene of Disney’s 2007 hit Enchanted.

One could argue that Milton Berle stole jokes too, so who are we to judge. One could more successfully argue that Berle could deliver a stolen joke well. I could argue that Crazy’s square end tie looks stupid, and so I will.

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by | August 3, 2015 · 10:30 pm

Violating the Time Directive

Ah, so today’s strip clarifies that Young Crazy didn’t steal the smartphone, Old Crazy (soon to be called “Crazy Prime”) gave it to him in hopes that he will use it to alter the future reality. This, of course, will lead to an homage to the legendary Family Matters episode “Father Time”, in which Carl and Steve go back in time and give a past Carl stock tips that lead to present Carl becoming fabulously wealthy but childless. Present Carl finds that he was much happier in his original reality and returns to the past with Steve to… Ha, sorry, the thought of there being an alternate reality in which a Westview resident is less happy than the present one is not even theoretically possible.

I was going to remark further on the fact that Old Crazy is willing to alter the present reality in order to enrich himself, but not willing to do so in order to possibly prolong Lisa’s life, but I know we have commenters here who are better suited for that job.

Meanwhile, Cindy and Bull exit stage orchestra pit, and Bull is just done with this time pool business. I think this strip’s readers are with him.

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by | August 2, 2015 · 10:30 pm

Light at the end of the Time Pool?

billytheskink here, occupying the SOSF time share for a couple weeks. I’ve just come back from a weekend of moving everything out of my parent’s house of 30 years in 100 degree heat, driving it 4 hours away, and moving it all again in 97 degree heat. I mention this because it was considerably more enjoyable than the last half of last week’s strips, now that I’ve got around to reading them.

So today’s strip confirms that the time pool works both ways, and that everyone’s internal organs and white Keds (and Holly’s elephant Q-Tip) apparently survived the trip intact.

Who do you need to convince, Cindy? This is literally everyone you interact with, plus some people that you don’t. Is convincing Barry Balderman and Principal Fairgood that you talked to your future self about the definition of “happy” really all that critical?

I do look forward to Act II Apple Annie Crazy’s attempts to convince the stagflation-weary populace that time travel is possible by showing them a stolen battery-operated device that he should have idea how to use and no way to charge.

If it is just so important, you know how the gang could really convince people that there is a “time pool” in Crazy’s locker? They could show it to other people… kinda like how Crazy convinced the rest of them in the first place. Nah…

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by | August 1, 2015 · 10:00 pm

The War of the Time Pools

No one would have believed in the early years of the twenty-first century that Westview was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than Les’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as pizza mongers busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.

Yet across the gulf of the internet, minds that are to Les’s mind as his is to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded today’s strip with beady eyes, and slowly and surely picked at nits.

Here ends my snark stint,
So off will I slink.
Coming up next:
Billy the Skink!

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