Comments on: Look at all the MAPLE SAP I got!

Look at all the MAPLE SAP I got!

The Card Cheat — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:17:45 -0800

The worst comic strip ever? Thrill to the stilted, unfunny adventures of Uncle Funny Bunny and Chumpy, brought to you by Jerry Beck, of Cartoon Research fame.

By: nudar

nudar — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:31:21 -0800

They get my vote.

By: fire&wings

fire&wings — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:34:11 -0800

Good grief. Absolutely joyless. My favourite is the one with the cookies bizarrely hidden in the trombone.

By: daniel_charms

daniel_charms — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:36:34 -0800

This week on Best of the Web: the worst comic strip ever!

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:36:39 -0800

that's a tuba - you hide pancakes in a trombone

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:38:47 -0800

Meh, it's still better than Marmaduke.

By: Dreama

Dreama — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:40:28 -0800

Humorless. Pointless. Painful. Everything a comic strip ought not be. Who allowed this thing to be published and why?

By: Stonewall Jackson

Stonewall Jackson — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:40:28 -0800

> This week on Best of the Web: the worst comic strip ever! daniel_charms, when kids these days say 'worst', they mean 'best'. And to 'shake your booty' means to wiggle one's butt. Permit me to demonstrate.

By: LarryC

LarryC — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:42:47 -0800

Nope, still Garfield.

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:47:02 -0800

Kee-doodle, that was bad.

By: porn in the woods

porn in the woods — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:47:27 -0800

This stuff was pretty controversial in its day - many newspapers refused to run the edgier strips and Jack Pierce had to walk a fine line. Strips which took stands on racism, sexism and communism were met with a deaf ear in the marketplace and he had to take things down a notch. But Uncle Funny Bunny and Chumpy is Bloom County compared to Jim Kersell's Loki, Your Fuzzy Forest Friend. At least UFB&C attempts groaner humor in a Bazooka Comics kind of way.

By: BeerFilter

BeerFilter — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:47:30 -0800

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!!

By: fleetmouse

fleetmouse — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:52:02 -0800

This stuff was pretty controversial in its day Yeah, they censored the strips about Chumpy's boner crimes.

By: slimepuppy

slimepuppy — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:52:02 -0800

Ok, so, this site is blocked at my work so I can't independently verify, but is it actually worse that Boston and Shaun as linked to previously by obvious? Because I find that really, really fucking hard to believe.

By: stammer

stammer — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:01:32 -0800

Maybe I just got hypnotised, but "Follow This Map To A Treasure" made me laugh really hard.

By: DecemberBoy

DecemberBoy — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:08:12 -0800

Wow. They are NOT kidding. At first I was like, "wow, this really isn't funny or good in any way at all." Then I got a little irritated. I soon escalated to slightly pissed off, indignant that anyone would devote time to creating something so totally worthless. Finally, I was just sad, kind of depressed, like maybe life isn't really worth living after all. Uncle Funny Bunny and Chumpy made me want to die a little bit. Yeah, it sucks.

By: grouse

grouse — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:10:04 -0800

I don't know guys, I chuckled at a couple of these. I know I am easily amused, though.

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:11:42 -0800

Wow slimepuppy, I missed that the first time around... thanks?

By: DecemberBoy

DecemberBoy — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:19:21 -0800

but is it actually worse that Boston and Shaun It depends. It's more awful if you only take into account the awfulness of the strip itself, but not if you take into account the fact that the artist and the audience of Boston and Shaun are sexually titillated by it. Uncle Funny Bunny and Chumpy is about as funny as genocide, but at least it's highly unlikely that anyone beat off to it. Boston and Shaun, on the other hand, exists solely as an outlet for the creator's twisted furry/vore fetishes and for those who share those fetishes to tickle their pecker to, on top of making Garfield look like Calvin and Hobbes. Taking that into account, I'd personally go with Boston and Shaun as the worst.

By: dobbs

dobbs — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:19:24 -0800

Doesn't seem any worse than Marmaduke to me, either.

By: teraflop

teraflop — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:24:15 -0800

slimepuppy: I dunno, seems like they're about even.

By: nudar

nudar — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:24:31 -0800

Well on the one hand, no it isn't as bad slimpuppy, because that Boston and Shaun is seriously atrocious. I think at face value, you have sourced a worse comic. That is a shocker. But on the other hand, Boston and Shaun could have been created by any idiot with MSPaint and $10 to buy the domain name. Which it seems is most likely the case. Fluffy bunny and chimpy tool or whatever the crap is called, appear to be bona fide published comics from a print media source of yesteryear (probably not the NYTimes though I'm guessing, could be wrong, I dunno). So I guess it depends on what you think is worse, unfiltered drek seemingly barfed up from a 12 year old, or woefully banal drek that really really should not have made it onto the presses.

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:27:26 -0800

I smiled a few times (probably because of the corniness)...it's no worse than a lot of other kids cartoons I can remember. And yes no way near as bad a Garfield, which just makes me want to hurt things every time I've had the misfortune to read it.

By: kurumi

kurumi — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:33:19 -0800

Frank and Ernest prevails.

By: everichon

everichon — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:36:29 -0800

No ~~love~~ vitriol for The Born Loser? I mean, at least Uncle Bunny and Loki have some near-dada weird going on.

By: Pope Guilty

Pope Guilty — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:38:34 -0800

Sorry, no, Family Circus. Even Bill Keane hates it, and he draws it.

By: Stan Chin

Stan Chin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:39:53 -0800

Achewood sucks.

By: mrbarrett.com

mrbarrett.com — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:40:52 -0800

These are bad, but the Bazooka Joe comics in Bazooka gum are worse by at least an order of magnitude.

By: ricochet biscuit

ricochet biscuit — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:41:45 -0800

I tend to agree with nudar: Boston and Shaun seems like it might be some obscure post-ironic comment on unfunny comics. Like this, but with marginally worse production values. Although I can find nothing about Jack Pierce, in my mind's eye he is a fiftyish man with a troubling moustache who really believes what he is producing is something the young people today really enjoy. Which to be fair, may have been more the case in 1952.

By: stavrogin

stavrogin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:44:09 -0800

Dreamwalk Journal still holds a place in my heart as the worst comic ever.

By: rdone

rdone — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:48:02 -0800

Did anyone but me detect a striking resemblance between Chumpy and a prominent U.S. politician with a horticultural last name?

By: dng

dng — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:51:13 -0800

Compared to George and Lynne this cartoon is a masterpiece

By: ORthey

ORthey — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:51:56 -0800

I agree with Pope Guilty. Family Circus is the biggest cartooninary abortion ever published.

By: DecemberBoy

DecemberBoy — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:58:23 -0800

And hey, no discussion of awful comics can be complete without at least a mention of David Gonterman. His stuff is pure, concentrated awful. It's AwfulCore. However, it's so bad that it goes past "so bad it's good", then past "plain bad", and onto a new level where it's good again. It's certainly far more entertaining than Uncle Funny Bunny and Chumpy, but then so is an enema.

By: Lentrohamsanin

Lentrohamsanin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:02:10 -0800

David Gonterman is the Henry Darger of the of the 21st century.

By: dng

dng — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:05:54 -0800

If we're allowed to include web comics, I would like to nominate Joe Hoster. Inexplicably started by the webhosting company brinkster, and heavily advertised on their site, they've so far only managed to make one strip. And it is probably the worst thing ever made

By: Aquaman

Aquaman — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:07:56 -0800

You're all wrong. Mallard Fillmore is the worst. Full of conservative weapons-grade stupid, puked up by a drunken republican piece of no-talent garbage.

By: crapmatic

crapmatic — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:10:28 -0800

Darn, I was expecting a flashback to Fusco Brothers.

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:10:36 -0800

I don't think it's fair to compare web comics to this. This went into a publication that was sold to hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren in the US and Canada. THE GUY ACTUALLY GOT PAID FOR THIS!! I'm sure he spent whatever My Weekly Reader gave him on hookers and blow, or whatever the 1952 equivalent of that was (chippies and Demerol?)

By: cog_nate

cog_nate — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:11:17 -0800

Kee-Doodle!

By: krautland

krautland — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:12:52 -0800

boingboing had this on august 3rd. boo!

By: porn in the woods

porn in the woods — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:13:02 -0800

I get a proto-Lockhorns vibe from the domestic squabbling of Uncle Fuzzy & What's His Nuts. The Lockhorns?!? You read Parade magazine?!?

By: Lentrohamsanin

Lentrohamsanin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:13:22 -0800

You're all wrong. Mallard Fillmore is the worst. Most political strips are atrocious. Minimum Security, for instance, is at least as bad as Millard Fillmore (and is now apparently all about bunnies).

By: jeff-o-matic

jeff-o-matic — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:17:47 -0800

I completely disagree. These are aimed at very small children who might get a kick out of them. They're like mini riddles that a kid would decipher with very basic reading comprehension. The art sucks, but the fact that it's so obviously aimed at tiny kids keeps it from being the worst ever. I enjoyed reading them.

By: cortex

cortex — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:19:36 -0800

Mallard Fillmore is the worst. Mallard Fillmore is notable only for being crap with an ideological political bent, as compared to the generally apolitical nature of most crap newspaper comics. Doonesbury has the distinction of being political but not crap, but then it's much more (if not purely) ideologically neutral in its criticism than Mallard could ever hope to be. Johnny Hart's regular weird rightward, godward jabs were at least mitigated by some sense of art within the man's work, at least in aggregate, that elevated the stuff above baseline crap even. I didn't like his work, but it at least seemed like work sometimes. Mallard Fillmore is just Adam with conservative talk radio chatter in the place of kids yelling in the back seat and dad working from home. It's The Lockhorns with unidirectional instead of mutual loathing. It's unexceptional shit that gets a little extra traction from those liberals who get twigged by the ideology and from those conservatives who like a comic that's explicitly On Their Side, but it's still unexceptional shit.

By: parmanparman

parmanparman — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:30:02 -0800

I can't believe no one has mentioned Howard Huge

By: grouse

grouse — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:35:25 -0800

The web page with the "classic" Boston and Shaun is down, and there's only one strip on the Wayback Machine. Are these still available elsewhere? Surely someone saved this important bit of Internet history? /glutton-for-punishment

By: infinitewindow

infinitewindow — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:39:57 -0800

Uninformed Bob. srsly, Mallard Fillmore, Prickly City and Candorville are the worst. So no love/hate/FPP/. for For Better or For Worse?

By: cortex

cortex — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:45:30 -0800

FBoFW is more an example of a badly flawed genuine piece of work than anything. You can't hate the foobs like you hate Garfield; they have completely different problems.

By: DecemberBoy

DecemberBoy — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:53:23 -0800

Like this (Lasagna Cat). This, indeed. This. THIS. Oh God, this is brilliant. The perfect antidote to the stultifying unfunny of the subject of the post. HE ATE A PURSE. YOU CANNOT EAT A PURSE. A PURSE IS NOT FOOD. I completely disagree. These are aimed at very small children who might get a kick out of them. This argument is the reason why Hollywood squeezes out unending squirts of loose CGI stool such as "Barnyard" and "Alvin and the Chipmunks" and, indeed, the "Garfield" films. "It's for kids, so it's okay that it's total garbage that no one involved cared about or put any real effort into, the little brats don't know any better". Kids will eat dead spiders, but that doesn't mean they should be purposely fed dead spiders for lunch.

By: grouse

grouse — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:53:58 -0800

Also, FBoFW used to be good. And holy crap, I just checked and today is the end of the main story there. Maybe there should be a post on it.

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:56:28 -0800

Hey, it's not like the glory days but I'll have nothing bad said about George and Lynne considering Striker is on the same page (which I only read when I'm waiting to get my hair cut...)

By: mazola

mazola — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:03:43 -0800

Funny as Pud, without the charm.

By: Bonzai

Bonzai — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:25:56 -0800

Jack Chick is the best of the worst.

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:44:51 -0800

This is amazing. Thank you. And while we're bringing up mesmerizingly terrible cartoons, let's not forget Law For Kids.

By: Caduceus

Caduceus — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:54:55 -0800

I kinda want to wish death on some of you for linking those comics, but I suppose I really have only myself to blame for reading them.

By: everichon

everichon — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 11:12:02 -0800

Wow! Law For Kids! Just...wow.

By: dantsea

dantsea — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 11:27:26 -0800

It's bad, but it's no Wee Pals.

By: jonp72

jonp72 — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 11:42:22 -0800

Jim Kersell's Loki, Your Fuzzy Forest Friend. Damn, that's so bad it almost achieves a kind of Zen perfection.

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 11:46:01 -0800

Regarding Boston and Shaun: ten bucks says that someone, somewhere, is masturbating to the middle panel of this strip right at this very moment.

By: damn dirty ape

damn dirty ape — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:14:16 -0800

Kids like puns and goofy sitatuions. No need to be the simpsons Comic Book Guy over everything (or is asking this futile on the internet?) Whats next? Mocking children's fashions or children's textbooks? Haha, look at this little sailor suit or this little pink dress with bunnies on it! Who would wear this?!? Oh my, this entry on the civil war barely mentions the complex socio-economic dependancy the north had on the south nor the self-serving style many accuse Lincoln of implementing emancipation. SNORT! Nor is there a in-depth look at the strategy of naval blockades or a detailed analysis at what happened at Vicksburg!! /keep up the lousy work bloggers

By: TheOnlyCoolTim

TheOnlyCoolTim — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:15:28 -0800

Law For Kids? More like Lawl For Kids.

By: dirigibleman

dirigibleman — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 13:06:14 -0800

let's not forget Law For Kids. It's like the Reno 911 characters did a comic strip.

By: Memo

Memo — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 13:18:46 -0800

Many of those strips are eerily similar to the humor present in some of the gags that can be found in Condorito. I'm not sure what that says about Chile, considering how hugely popular that magazine was.

By: tehloki

tehloki — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 13:36:23 -0800

hahahhahahaha, "SOAP!"

By: batmonkey

batmonkey — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 13:36:49 -0800

If you think of the monkey as a 6yr old and the bunny as the mid-30s adult in charge of said 6yr old, it makes more sense and is even somewhat funny.

By: grouse

grouse — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 13:46:52 -0800

hahahhahahaha, "SOAP!" No soap, radio!

By: kittens for breakfast

kittens for breakfast — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 13:52:35 -0800

Jim Kersell's Loki, Your Fuzzy Forest Friend. I dunno, I think it's kinda sweet. I only have this one strip to judge from, but Loki reads to me like it was intended for very, very small kids.

By: gompa

gompa — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 14:01:10 -0800

I agree with Pope Guilty. Family Circus is the biggest cartooninary abortion ever published. When I was a kid, I had a big oversized Family Circus retrospective. It included Bil Keane's commentary on the cartoon's development and a few of his favourite behind-the-scenes anecdotes - oh the gripping tales of life in the Family Circus trenches, believe you me. Anyway, there were even letters from readers. One of those letters from a reader asked, in all seriousness, whether his wife Thel was as beautiful in real life as she is in the strip. There was, at some point, someone so aroused by the cartoon mom in Family Circus he wrote a letter to its creator to ask for further information. I'm not sure how exactly this is relevant to this discussion, but any discussion about worst comics ever seems like it should include a nod to the severed-frontal-lobe cases who make it possible to make millions by shoveling out this dreck. Indeed this seemed so relevant I was willing to publicly admit I once owned an oversized Family Circus retrospective. In my defence, I hadn't yet reached puberty.

By: kid ichorous

kid ichorous — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:40:36 -0800

In isolation, I think the strip with the ice-skating sparrow is near perfect. The trickster-god suckerpunch you anticipate in the third panel never comes; instead, there's the surreal line "Thank you, Loki!" You get so inured to the expectations of modern web comics that a cloying, 1950s deadpan somehow becomes the more subversive thing. I think I need to go scrub down my frontal lobes with steel wool now.

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:51:48 -0800

In isolation, I think the strip with the ice-skating sparrow is near perfect. The trickster-god suckerpunch you anticipate in the third panel never comes; instead, there's the surreal line "Thank you, Loki!" I want to point out that the sparrow actually says, "Thank you, Loki." Not an exclamation point, but a period. There's something about the placidity there that pulls the strip into an even more unsettling place. The sparrow isn't overjoyed at being given its own pond, which would at least signal an emotional shift that functions something like a punchline; the "Thank you" instead seems more like a quiet breath of relief. Everything's returning to normal. The crisis is averted. Life moves forward in the forest. Thank you, Loki. As before, so shall it ever be.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 16:00:12 -0800

Everything's returning to normal. The crisis is averted.

By: kid ichorous

kid ichorous — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 16:03:26 -0800

As before, so shall it ever be. I will show you harmony, friend.

By: lyam

lyam — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 17:50:27 -0800

Surely these are fake...

By: AndrewStephens

AndrewStephens — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 19:22:46 -0800

I don't known about this. Uncle Funny Bunny is indeed terrible, but I grew up enjoying and paying good money for British comics like "Whizzer and Chips", which in retrospect were just as vapid; I feel I can't really stand in judgement.

By: andromache

andromache — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 21:10:32 -0800

Greg nog, thank you for law for kids. Jesus, these make me laugh out loud . . . they're so instructional and entertaining!

By: wendell

wendell — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 22:19:10 -0800

Do not disrespect Frank and Ernest. The jokes are 99% lame groaners and puns, but the goofy, truly cartoony art somehow raises it to a solid candidate for "guilty pleasure" (at least mine). And once every very-long-while, it achieves something a little bit more.

By: tellurian

tellurian — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 22:19:54 -0800

Almost as bad as Non Sequitur.

By: wendell

wendell — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 22:27:38 -0800

Also, since the death of Johnny Hart, B.C. has actually gotten funny again (not always, but more often) and way less uptight. Ol' Johnny would never have done this, this, this, this or this (4th wall damage!).

By: wendell

wendell — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 22:33:58 -0800

Comics that bounce between one-shot topical humor and character-driven stories (Non-Sequitur and Candorville having been declared among the "worst") end up bouncing between absolutely awful and pretty damn good. Yes, the lows are lower than the highs are high, but I still follow both with the optimism that their batting averages are at least good enough to get them into the AAA league...

By: louche mustachio

louche mustachio — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 23:47:35 -0800

I completely disagree. These are aimed at very small children who might get a kick out of them. They may be kids, but they're not stupid. You know what I mean. Remember when you were a kid, and you would, say, read the Bazooka Joe wrapper, and then you would just... stare at it, because even back then you knew someone, an actual grown-up adult person, was getting paid to come up with this crap and it blew your mind because it was so awful? That said, I love that the designated straight man always makes the Punchline Face at the end of the strip. I laffed.

By: sveskemus

sveskemus — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 06:39:50 -0800

Soap!!

By: BrotherCaine

BrotherCaine — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 07:04:28 -0800

What in the name of God are you freaks doing! Identifying the worst comic strip of all time is like going to the biggest festival in your state and trying to find the worst smelling turd in the port-a-potties. I mean, sure it is theoretically possible, but at the end of your quest, you'll have an almost numb nose, everything will smell like feces, and whatever dubious OCD pride you feel at your acheivement will be outweighed by the time spent focussing on crap. Don't do it. Similarly with any kind of worst sitcom of all time endeavor. That said, Family Circus FTW.

By: Faint of Butt

Faint of Butt — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 09:19:17 -0800

What makes Uncle Funny Bunny even weirder is the occasional glimpses of outside awareness or pop culture parodies on the part of the creator. Look at comic 4 here. It's a joke about frugality or thrift taken to extremes, and Uncle's reaction shot in the final panel is a trademark Jack Benny pose. This can't be a coincidence, but would children of the period have been expected to get it?

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 11:40:30 -0800

and Uncle's reaction shot in the final panel is a trademark Jack Benny pose. This can't be a coincidence, but would children of the period have been expected to get it? Benny had a TV show at that time, so maybe so. Remember, there were only two or three channels in most places in those days, so people watched whatever was on, regardless of whether it was targeted to their demographic or not. I've been listening to old Jack Benny radio shows, and I'm kind of liking his weird, half-breaking-the-fourth-wall style. It seems like Carol Burnett's TV show (a childhood favorite of mine) was really influenced by that approach, down to the ridiculous movie parodies in which the cast tried to crack each other up.

By: signal

signal — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 20:06:52 -0800

Those might be the worst cartoons in English, but they don't hold a candle to the awfulness that is Condorito.

By: not_on_display

not_on_display — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 21:14:28 -0800

I don't care how bad it gets when I read more of these... ...but, just for the moment, the best punchline I've read since Garkov: "Less talk and more work, Chumpy!" "blah... blah... blah... blah..." And for that, it's the best comic strip right now.

By: tomcooke

tomcooke — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 02:19:15 -0800

I grew up enjoying and paying good money for British comics like "Whizzer and Chips", which in retrospect were just as vapid Me too. I think they were just a vaguely pleasant way of spacing out for a bit, the fact that they were entirely unfunny and often bizarrely anachronistic didn't bother me. Oink! was the business though.

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 07:24:35 -0800

No mention of "Girls and Sports"? I am ashamed of all of you.

By: marginaliana

marginaliana — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 09:08:39 -0800

Oh, infinitewindow, Uninformed Bob made me want to kill myself a little bit. Truly awful.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 10:34:01 -0800

I kind of liked the birdbath/ice rink one.

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:51:18 -0800

jonmc: I agree. There's hardly a joke at all, and what joke is there isn't actually funny, but at least it does adhere to the fairly accurate "Two of Six" rule that Scott Adams wrote about in The Joy of Work, which is better than most comic strip punchlines attain. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, I'll summarize the idea. For a joke to be funny, it must be at least two (and hopefully more) of the six following things: Rude Clever Mean Bizarre Cute Naughty To use (some of his) examples, pure puns can be clever, but are almost never funny, and are at best appreciated by a small number of people. However, if you add another of these elements to them, you have the possibility for comedy. The word "Twincest," for instance, is pretty horrible, but the combination of clever and naughty gives it a comedic dimension, even if that dimension doesn't work with everybody. A better example might be my friend who loathes puns with a violent fury. That means that everyone in our group will employ any pun we can think of while in his presence, just to aggravate him. This adds the "mean" dimension, and I can tell you that if you know the context, it can be hilarious. Another good example he uses is South Park, in his discussion of Cuteness, wherein he says that "the jury's still out" on the kids. I disagree. The design of the kids on south park is undeniably cute, which, added to the rampant meanness, rudeness, and naughtiness on display means that the tone will almost always be comedic, even when you're not laughing out loud. Of course, for me, the gold standard of comedy will always have to be Arrested Development, which fired on all six cylinders, so to speak, as much as it could. George-Michael and Meaby's relationship was cute, naughty, and bizarre all at once, which made you root for them, while simultaneously being repulsed by yourself for doing so, and laughing at it all the whole time. The almost omnipresent puns were all either clever and naughty, clever and mean, or all three. Adams describes rudeness largely as "people saying what they really think in inappropriate situations, which was another constant underlying theme behind every line of clever dialog. It's maybe the funniest show ever to air on t.v., and it consistently layers as many of these elements as it can. To look to AD's spiritual successor, 30 Rock, just proves the rule. To just take the character of Tracy Jordan, just about everything he says is bizarre, clever (via broken logic), and cute, because of his childlike attitude, and oftentimes naughty as well. Jenna is rude and cute and often naughty (much like Sarah Silverman.) Actually, I'd argue that there might be a recently popular addition to the list: Uncomfortable, which can describe a lot of Liz Lemon and the entirety of The Office, but in reality that's simply another dimension of meanness - that of the writers to the characters. Anyway, back to Loki, the birdbath spot works as both cute and clever, and maybe even a little bizarre. The fact that we are so expecting of the mean element actually works in the strips favor when it shows us a sweet act of kindness. Also, the artwork made me nostalgic for my childhood Christmases in Colorado, so maybe I'm just willing to give it a little slack. In any case, I liked it.

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 18:05:30 -0800

And looking back through the book, it was "recognizability" not "rudeness."

By: Debaser626

Debaser626 — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 06:56:20 -0800

Two cows are sitting in a bathtub... one cow turns to the other and says "HEY! No soap! RADIO!"

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 07:40:07 -0800

Okay so that one is: 1. Bizarre because he says "soup" instead of "soap" and so the punchline doesn't make any sense, and 2. Naughty because it's two cows in a bathtub, rowr.

By: grouse

grouse — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:04:22 -0800

Bizarre because he says "soup" instead of "soap" I'm not seeing it. Is this mod trickery?

By: not_on_display

not_on_display — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:19:11 -0800

grouse: Bizarre because he says "soup" instead of "soap" I'm not seeing it. Is this mod trickery? NO! Soap, radio.

By: grouse

grouse — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:19:03 -0800

No "No soap, radio," radio.

By: not_on_display

not_on_display — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:01:56 -0800

^ grouse: No "No soap, radio," radio. NO SOUP FOR YOU! radio.