Punchlines? There should be an app for that.

The end of summer means hauling the outside patio furniture down into the basement (unless they do this every evening for some weird reason) and gives us a chance to see what cruel ravages dementia has wrought upon poor ol’ Tony, who, by even conservative guesses, must be pushing 80 by now.  Thankfully, the time jump was much kinder to older characters like Dinkle and Tony than it was to Funky.  A halfhearted attempt at humor is made, punctuated by a chime-in from the new employee at Montoni’s, who appears to be baked off of his ass.

Oh wait, that’s Summer,who lives with Les, goes to the same school Les teaches at, and works at the same greasy pizza dump he manages.

I know they say running away never solves anything but whoever said that obviously never spent any time in Westview.

Meanwhile, Tony, sliding comically into full blown dementia, complains that Darwin confused him with all of his technical gobbly-gook talk about application programming, probably in a desperate attempt to justify his salary, to which one thinks; hey, boy wonder, if you can’t explain what the hell you’re doing to the average layman then you’re probably not a very good MBA.

I Am the Man in the Box

Where I come from, we print things out. “Printed it off” sounded weird to me (like “playdowns” instead of “playoffs”). But a Google search turned up this forum thread, so we’ll allow it. Today’s strip continues to beat the same dead horse, but anyone reading it outside the context of the rest of the week’s strips would have no idea what the joke was.

Your humble scribe feels the need for a mental health week; for the next seven days, guest blogger davidorth will serve as your guide to the Westviewniverse!

'Roids

“It’s-a meeee, Ton-eeee!”

“…and speaking of Asteroids, I think I’ll go downstairs and lose myself in my collection of vintage arcade games.” The harangue continues into Day 4, and yeah, folks, I peeked ahead because I have to: the theme continues through Friday and Saturday. As I pointed out Tuesday, Darin has, over time, lost his Pinocchio nose and become less “cartoony”, while Tony is just a red cap and pair of overalls away from going into the plumbing business.

SoSF would like to note the passing of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, a genius entrepreneur and inventor whose vision changed the world (while unfortunately giving rise to smug know-it-all technogeeks like Darin). Rest in peace, Steve.

Tony Mono-toni

Flummoxicated
October 3, 2011 at 10:53 am
So I’m guessing we’re in for six days of “technology, amirite?”, complete with weak puns and vague punchlines, no doubt.

Day Two:  How much does Tony love his paper calendar? In panel one, he’s smelling it! And speaking of sniffers, when did Batiuk take away Darin’s most recognizable feature: his ski nose? At right is a comparison of Darin, five years ago, and the Darin of today. He now sports the same generic aquiline beak as Funky and Wally.