Tag: Tony

Forgetabilia

Today’s strip echoed a personal experience for me.

For almost as long as I can remember, my parents were small business owners. They ran a family business that started in 1980. When my father couldn’t do it anymore in 2005, my brother took it over. It operated continuously until 2020. You can probably guess what contributed to its demise.

When it was time to move out of the building, one of the more difficult things we had to do was take down all the pictures, mementos, awards, and other history that had been hanging on the wall for decades. There were pictures of old friends and loved ones who aren’t with us anymore. There were pictures of us with famous people. There were pictures of the time we were on a local TV news story. There were print magazine and newspaper articles. There were letters of commendation we had received about the work we did. There were letters that mentioned Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. There was even a Little League team photo plaque dated 1985, for a team I played on. Every item brought back a fond memory of a former time in our lives. So much of my family history was documented on those walls.

Montoni’s history wall sucks.

Three pictures of Tony Montoni? A local TV host? A 12-year-old playing Defender? A vague woman on a motorcycle? Most of this junk isn’t worth hanging on the bathroom wall, much less selling as “memorabilia.”

The picture of the visit from Bill Clinton is fine. Any personal interaction with a current or former POTUS is a big deal. But let’s talk about what’s not on this “history wall”:

  • Mason Jarre, a major Hollywood movie star who has been to Montoni’s multiple times, and initiated the Oscar-winning movie on the premises
  • Atomik Komix, a local, nationally prominent comic book publishing company, with two Hall of Famers on staff
  • Pete, the writer of this world’s equivalent of Star Wars, which was also filmed in this town
  • Holtron, a noteworthy prop from this movie, that is housed nearby
  • Cindy Summers, a local product who became a national news reporter and was so popular in high school her parties were covered by MTV
  • Bull Bushka, a local product who played in the NFL
  • Any of the high school championships Westview won (my local Applebee’s commemorates such things, and I live in a big city with several high schools)
  • Harry Dinkle, a man who single-handedly propped up the economy of Belgium
  • The pizza box monster, who doesn’t turn up in today’s strip either. As commenter Andrew pointed out yesterday, his real-life counterpart is on Luigi’s history wall.

And I never thought I’d have to ask this, but…. where are Les and Lisa? We’re supposed to take their ridiculous over-the-top Love Story rip-off and all its side plots seriously. So they’re a massive part of Westview history.

This pathetic display should be enough to convince Summer that her proposed “oral history of Westview” is unviable. On top of that, Funky is selling all this! Why would anyone want to read a history of Westview, when the people who live there and collected that history, don’t care enough to keep it?

Pennies Dreadful

Funky, Cory, and the Force Ghost of Tony head on into one of Montoni’s many expansive and infuriatingly unorganized storage areas in today’s strip. People were joking about department stores putting up their Christmas decorations in August decades before I was born… but what can be said about decorating for Christmas less than a week before Santa slides down Montoni’s pizza oven chimney?

This is one of the most flabbergasting Funky Winkerbean strips I’ve ever read. Not because of penny socks, or laughably late Christmas decorating, or hologram Tony… but because Funky is apparently capable of feeling shame. Never would have guessed.

The Ladder of Divine Ascent

Link to today’s strip.

Here we have the quintessential “tell, don’t show” strip as everyone stands around marveling at a display of which we, of course, get barely a glimpse. Instead, we get to look at a quintet of imbeciles.

The real treat is panel three, where Tony speeds out of Montoni’s with a huge ladder, that was apparently just sitting around somewhere. Funky looks puzzled, Wally looks at the floor, and Adeela’s face is almost covered by a crucifix! There, that’ll show her! Based on what we can see, she’s either amused or about to throw up.

Holly’s face is that of sheer terror. Tony’s face seems to say “Ha ha, fooled you!” and I think Holly is about to yell to Funky, “Stop him! That grotesque old gnome is stealing our only ladder!“

But no, he’s just using one of the non-black Santa hats to plop onto the Montoni’s mascot. Giving us, in the process, another unneeded look at his fat ass. Something tells me that hat won’t survive the first gust that comes along, but at least someone actually tried to do something without bemoaning the oncoming failure.

I will say this: the street in that last panel is very well presented. It looks like it’s wet from freshly melted snow, so good on whoever was responsible for that detail.

And that’s it from me for this go-round. Tune in tomorrow when Epicus Doomus sits in the center seat. See you on the Funway!

Tag – You’re It!

Link to today’s strip.

This is probably more “inside baseball” than you folks need, but WordPress has recently changed the post editor into a near-disastrous model. Everything is hidden, and when it isn’t, it’s nowhere near where it should be.

We used to have a list of all the tags available for a post, so we could pick and choose which ones were appropriate. Now, we have to guess–typing the first three letters will usually bring up something, but not always.

All this is an extremely roundabout way of saying that when Tony showed up on Monday, I typed in “ton” and got not only “Tony” but “Tony’s stupid ideas.” And today’s strip illustrates that perfectly! “Who’s going to feed them” is not the only legitimate question–“Where are they going to go, on the roof, all day and night?” is another good one. “Where do they go after Christmas?” “Who’s paying for this?” There are lots more.

Thank you, Tony’s stupid ideas.

Decryption in Progress

Link to today’s strip.

I have no idea what a “sanctuary pizzeria” is supposed to be. Once again though, we see someone stick their tongue out while doing menial tasks, it looks just as stupid as it did before.

And once again, it’s Montoni’s and Adeela is front and center. Why? Easy.

Adeela is one of two characters in this strip who is to be treated with kid gloves, whose beliefs and thoughts are always to be held in high regard, while everyone else gets kicked in the guts and has to say they like it. She’s here so Batiuk can get awards for “inclusion” and “diversity” and that’s the only reason she’s here at all. Nothing is ever done regarding her character except bringing up her religion, and that’s just so everyone can tiptoe around it.

(Note: I have nothing against “diversity” among characters. But they have to be characters first.)

Well, this strip is never going to win awards, because the person behind the “writing” can never come up with good characters or a convincing scenario that would appeal to anyone. So, yeah, Adeela will be in every Montoni’s strip from now on, because someone has to have an award they’re really desperate to give away, and one of these days that person might read this strip.

There’s one other character who is treated the same way, and that’s Les Moore. If that doesn’t give you incentive to hate Adeela, nothing will.