He’s freaked out because there’s a Band-Aid in the water? Am I missing something?
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Um…. maybe we were supposed to think he was swimming in an ocean and sees a shark (or something else scary) but it turns out he is one of the many people who get freaked out by band-aids in swimming pools?
Or maybe Ryan Pagelow is have a mental breakdown in quasi-public (which is basically what I feel Johnny Harts religious conversion in the 80s was). That might explain the incomprehensible dead clown eaten be butterflies comic.
Most public pools have a sign with a list of things that should not be present if you swim. One is open sores or wounds, which is usually what a band-aid is covering. Who knows what biohazards the owner of the band-aid brought forth. If the chemicals are right, it shouldn’t really be an issue, but it is still a phobia in a lot of people. This one reminds me of the Baby Ruth bar in the pool from Caddyshack.
If people with band-aids aren’t permitted in swimming pools, doesn’t that effectively bar children entirely?
Band-Aid?
How do we know it’s not some other brand of bandage?
:-P
“Who knows what biohazards the owner of the band-aid brought forth. ”
That doesn’t explain why the comic would be funny… just why he’s freaking out at a band-aid. I mean a comic strip about a guy looking with a shocked but fascinated look on his face and the reveal that he’s looking at a car accident wouldn’t be funny, would it?
Unless we are supposed to find his extreme phobia funny. (It’s funny be his neuroses make being alive difficult and unpleasant for him….?)
woozy: I think it’s what you already said in your first comment. The humor (in theory) is that when you see the first few panels, you assume it’s something really terrifying, but it turns out that he’s just upset about a Band-Aid.
Sort of like how in a sitcom, a fussy character might say “Oh my God!,” “This is Terrible!,” “How could this happen?” several times, before it’s revealed that they’re upset about the toilet paper roll being hung the wrong way. [Cue laugh track.]
Darn, John beat me to the reference I was thinking of (Caddy Shack).
Shark Week is also upon us soon. Maybe it is a homage and a twist?
“woozy: I think it’s what you already said in your first comment. ”
Yeah…. but that’s really lame.
But I suppose the fear of band-aids may need a bit of explaining if that’s what confused Bill. It is a thing. Not a big thing but a thing. (In family guy there was a scene where Stewie was drowning in a pool and casually accepting that he may die soon and suddenly he reacts “Ew, a band-aid!”… Same joke but better executed.)
In support of the “it’s supposed to look like he’s in the ocean” theory (without comment on how exactly that informs the joke), is the fact that in the fourth panel we see that he is actually really close to the edge of the pool, making it obvious that the first panels are giving an artificially large view of how much water is around him; it’s not as if he’s in the middle of the pool.
I swim for exercise in a semi-public pool, and for some reason a band-aid floating around really grosses me out. They have kind of neutral buoyancy, so they kind waft around a few feet below the surface. I won’t touch it to get it out, but every time I pass it I want to throw up a bit. Pretty funny considering that swimmers have to have a pretty high tolerance for gross stuff (starting with cold wet Speedos in the morning).
I too swim in a public pool, and I just decide before I go in that there’s plenty of gross stuff in there, and I’m going to ignore it. But I’ve met plenty of people who won’t put their face in the water.
Of course some of these pools are so over-chlorinated, the Plague couldn’t survive.
It’s funny when some TV sitcom characters have that degree of frightened reaction of potential biohazards. (Sheldon Cooper, for example.) So why not assume it’ll be funny in a comic strip as well?
A shot and a miss if you ask me.
Or maybe it’s just subverted expectation of looking like something dangerous in the ocean turning out to be something germophobic in a swimming pool.
“It’s funny when some TV sitcom characters have that degree of frightened reaction of potential biohazards.”
It is? Are you sure?
Bob Peters: Sheldon Cooper is exactly who I was thinking of when I wrote my comment above referring to sitcoms. This despite the fact that I’ve never seen a full episode of TBBT.
But presumably, on the TV they do it in a funny way. If this is the ocean fake out, that’s the extent of the humor and that isn’t much.
woozy: Sure, I wasn’t claiming that it actually works well here – just that I think that was the intent.
“This despite the fact that I’ve never seen a full episode of TBBT.”
I thought I was the only person in the country who was in that situation (aside from the Amish and such, anyway). You’re very brave to admit it.
Maybe we could form a support group (possibly extending it to include people who admit to having also never seen any of the dozens of other TV shows and movies that “everybody” has seen?
I haven’t seen it either. Nor have I seen any Star Wars. I was turned off of TBBT by the rampant stereotyping, and off of SW by the scientific inaccuracies.
James, some comedy actors make it funny to the majority of their shows’ audiences. Although there are always some who don’t find it funny. I’ve met people who didn’t even find “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” funny. Not even a few minutes after each gag.
“some comedy actors make it funny to the majority of their shows’ audiences.”
Do they, though? Or is it conditioned response to the audio track?
“I’ve met people who didn’t even find ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’ funny.”
Bits of it (gasp) aren’t. The fat man in a restaurant scene from “Meaning of Life” comes to mind as an example.
My ex-wife insisted that MPFC wasn’t funny. Turned out she had other serious issues, too.
Then there’s this guy:
“off of SW by the scientific inaccuracies.”
What science? SW is mythic fantasy.
Not even one waffer theen meent? “I’m stuufffed.” Is a classic line after a big meal. Actually, MP was way, way ahead of their time for social/political commentary. Think of that particular scene and the current president of a major free world nation. Hint: the Republicans are the waiters.
Ailerons in space.
Where, exactly, does any SW vehicle have ailerons? (OK, the T-16 has ailerons… it’s also a spacecraft that primarily operates in atmosphere.) The Rebel Blockade Runner, Star Destroyer, TIE fighter, Millennium Falcon, Slave I, and Y-Wing fighters all lack wings entirely. The X-Wing has wings, but they’re not aerodynamic… they’re completely flat. The only SW vehicle that I recall showing aerodynamic control was the snowspeeders in ESB… which don’t operate in space.
Star Wars has a science-fiction setting, but it isn’t (and didn’t claim to be) science fiction. It’s high fantasy.
I’d start a big thing about genres borrowing from other genres, but I’m trying to cut back. Star Wars is fantasy… there’s wizards and magic powers and dragons. It’s not science fiction… there’s no science in it. The good guy goes on a quest to save the princess and the whole kingdom, er, galaxy from the power of ultimate evil. There’s even hobbits in it, although they’re a bit hairier than Tolkien’s.
But … it measures time in parsecs! What could be more skiffy than that? (Sniff. My wittle world is shaken!)
More seriously, you are, of course, right that STAR WARS has nothing beyond handwavium tropes to do with science, though the same can be said for a lot of other sf (and almost all movie/TV sf).
“But … it measures time in parsecs! What could be more skiffy than that?”
No, that’s one of the few science-y things it gets right. Han is SUPPOSED to sound like he’s making stuff up… he’s trying to impress the dumb farmboy with doubletalk. Watch the original print… right after Han says this line, there’s a reaction shot of Obi-Wan, showing that HE isn’t fooled by the fast-talking Corellian.
Then, someone wrote a novel that retconned in an explanation for why a “Kessel Run” is measured in distance, not time, and now Disney got ahold of it, so who cares. (cue one more go-around on what exactly is “canon”.)
I find TBBT insulting. Robert loves it. We watch it.
Yes, there are really very few scientists and engineers that are uber-geeky, comic book reading, dress up for cons types. But some do exist (and in other professions of course). I guess we assume they became such close friends because they found kindred spirits. It’s not, in my opinion, a bad show. Few sitcoms are anywhere near reality. I tune in.
George Lucas has given an “explanation” as to why using “parsecs” actually make sense. I would definitely not count his explanation as canon (although Episode VII clearly is). But that shows that while the writer was intending to have Solo boasting, was not intending to have him boasting quite that ridiculously. (I’m assuming the explanation is post hoc.)
Regardless of how you want to classify it, for me “scientific inaccuracies” are fine so long as the writers aren’t trying to present things as scientific. Hyperspace might as well be magic as it’s presented in Star Wars. (Although midichlorians, WTF?) I’m much more bothered by the science in Star Trek, because there they attempt to present some sort of unified scientific framework.
“I would definitely not count his explanation as canon (although Episode VII clearly is).”
The word “not” is missing from your parenthetical. Not budging on that one.
“But that shows that while the writer was intending to have Solo boasting, was not intending to have him boasting quite that ridiculously. (I’m assuming the explanation is post hoc.)”
Except it isn’t. Solo’s boasting was over-the-top in early drafts of the script.
“I’m much more bothered by the science in Star Trek”
Star Trek, once you get to nextgen, isn’t any more Science Fiction than Star Wars is. They hired writers who knew how to write episodic television, and they made up science-y things for them to say… except nobody on the staff knew if the combinations they were using were making any sense, and for the most part, they weren’t.
Exterior shot, Enterprise D. Some kind of threat materializes.
Riker: The ship can’t take much more of this…
(A shower of sparks leaps from the bridge set, and a puff of smoke)
Picard: Options?
(dumb looks across the bridge officers)
Wesley: Maybe we could try to trans-reverse the ion thrust emitters?
LaForge: That just might work… but it’s never been done before.
Picard: Can you do it, Wesley?
Wesley: I’ll try.
(makes three waves at the touch panel control). It’s new and radical and dangerous and never tried before, but the controls are set up to do it with three waves of Wesley’s magic hands.)
Exterior shot of ship as the threat dissipates.
Picard: You did it!
Wesley: Maybe NOW I can get into Starfleet Academy.
Then eventually JJ Abrams got his sweaty little paws on it, and his Star TREK films are not canon for ST, either. And when he tries to remake any other IP from my youth, they also will not count. Maybe he’d like to go back and take another swing at LOST.
To those who’ve never watched a full episode of TBBT, i suggest the episode when Leonard’s mother comes to visit.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Um…. maybe we were supposed to think he was swimming in an ocean and sees a shark (or something else scary) but it turns out he is one of the many people who get freaked out by band-aids in swimming pools?
Or maybe Ryan Pagelow is have a mental breakdown in quasi-public (which is basically what I feel Johnny Harts religious conversion in the 80s was). That might explain the incomprehensible dead clown eaten be butterflies comic.
Most public pools have a sign with a list of things that should not be present if you swim. One is open sores or wounds, which is usually what a band-aid is covering. Who knows what biohazards the owner of the band-aid brought forth. If the chemicals are right, it shouldn’t really be an issue, but it is still a phobia in a lot of people. This one reminds me of the Baby Ruth bar in the pool from Caddyshack.
If people with band-aids aren’t permitted in swimming pools, doesn’t that effectively bar children entirely?
Band-Aid?
How do we know it’s not some other brand of bandage?
:-P
“Who knows what biohazards the owner of the band-aid brought forth. ”
That doesn’t explain why the comic would be funny… just why he’s freaking out at a band-aid. I mean a comic strip about a guy looking with a shocked but fascinated look on his face and the reveal that he’s looking at a car accident wouldn’t be funny, would it?
Unless we are supposed to find his extreme phobia funny. (It’s funny be his neuroses make being alive difficult and unpleasant for him….?)
woozy: I think it’s what you already said in your first comment. The humor (in theory) is that when you see the first few panels, you assume it’s something really terrifying, but it turns out that he’s just upset about a Band-Aid.
Sort of like how in a sitcom, a fussy character might say “Oh my God!,” “This is Terrible!,” “How could this happen?” several times, before it’s revealed that they’re upset about the toilet paper roll being hung the wrong way. [Cue laugh track.]
Darn, John beat me to the reference I was thinking of (Caddy Shack).
Shark Week is also upon us soon. Maybe it is a homage and a twist?
“woozy: I think it’s what you already said in your first comment. ”
Yeah…. but that’s really lame.
But I suppose the fear of band-aids may need a bit of explaining if that’s what confused Bill. It is a thing. Not a big thing but a thing. (In family guy there was a scene where Stewie was drowning in a pool and casually accepting that he may die soon and suddenly he reacts “Ew, a band-aid!”… Same joke but better executed.)
In support of the “it’s supposed to look like he’s in the ocean” theory (without comment on how exactly that informs the joke), is the fact that in the fourth panel we see that he is actually really close to the edge of the pool, making it obvious that the first panels are giving an artificially large view of how much water is around him; it’s not as if he’s in the middle of the pool.
I swim for exercise in a semi-public pool, and for some reason a band-aid floating around really grosses me out. They have kind of neutral buoyancy, so they kind waft around a few feet below the surface. I won’t touch it to get it out, but every time I pass it I want to throw up a bit. Pretty funny considering that swimmers have to have a pretty high tolerance for gross stuff (starting with cold wet Speedos in the morning).
Caddyshack fans might be interested in a recent book on the making of the movie. If I hadn’t been reading a couple-months-old magazine in the doctors office, I wouldn’t have known about it: https://www.si.com/golf/2018/04/17/caddyshack-book-chris-nashawaty-bill-murray-chevy-chase-scene-movie
I too swim in a public pool, and I just decide before I go in that there’s plenty of gross stuff in there, and I’m going to ignore it. But I’ve met plenty of people who won’t put their face in the water.
Of course some of these pools are so over-chlorinated, the Plague couldn’t survive.
It’s funny when some TV sitcom characters have that degree of frightened reaction of potential biohazards. (Sheldon Cooper, for example.) So why not assume it’ll be funny in a comic strip as well?
A shot and a miss if you ask me.
Or maybe it’s just subverted expectation of looking like something dangerous in the ocean turning out to be something germophobic in a swimming pool.
“It’s funny when some TV sitcom characters have that degree of frightened reaction of potential biohazards.”
It is? Are you sure?
Bob Peters: Sheldon Cooper is exactly who I was thinking of when I wrote my comment above referring to sitcoms. This despite the fact that I’ve never seen a full episode of TBBT.
But presumably, on the TV they do it in a funny way. If this is the ocean fake out, that’s the extent of the humor and that isn’t much.
woozy: Sure, I wasn’t claiming that it actually works well here – just that I think that was the intent.
“This despite the fact that I’ve never seen a full episode of TBBT.”
I thought I was the only person in the country who was in that situation (aside from the Amish and such, anyway). You’re very brave to admit it.
Maybe we could form a support group (possibly extending it to include people who admit to having also never seen any of the dozens of other TV shows and movies that “everybody” has seen?
I haven’t seen it either. Nor have I seen any Star Wars. I was turned off of TBBT by the rampant stereotyping, and off of SW by the scientific inaccuracies.
James, some comedy actors make it funny to the majority of their shows’ audiences. Although there are always some who don’t find it funny. I’ve met people who didn’t even find “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” funny. Not even a few minutes after each gag.
“some comedy actors make it funny to the majority of their shows’ audiences.”
Do they, though? Or is it conditioned response to the audio track?
“I’ve met people who didn’t even find ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’ funny.”
Bits of it (gasp) aren’t. The fat man in a restaurant scene from “Meaning of Life” comes to mind as an example.
My ex-wife insisted that MPFC wasn’t funny. Turned out she had other serious issues, too.
Then there’s this guy:
“off of SW by the scientific inaccuracies.”
What science? SW is mythic fantasy.
Not even one waffer theen meent? “I’m stuufffed.” Is a classic line after a big meal. Actually, MP was way, way ahead of their time for social/political commentary. Think of that particular scene and the current president of a major free world nation. Hint: the Republicans are the waiters.
Ailerons in space.
Where, exactly, does any SW vehicle have ailerons? (OK, the T-16 has ailerons… it’s also a spacecraft that primarily operates in atmosphere.) The Rebel Blockade Runner, Star Destroyer, TIE fighter, Millennium Falcon, Slave I, and Y-Wing fighters all lack wings entirely. The X-Wing has wings, but they’re not aerodynamic… they’re completely flat. The only SW vehicle that I recall showing aerodynamic control was the snowspeeders in ESB… which don’t operate in space.
Star Wars has a science-fiction setting, but it isn’t (and didn’t claim to be) science fiction. It’s high fantasy.
I’d start a big thing about genres borrowing from other genres, but I’m trying to cut back. Star Wars is fantasy… there’s wizards and magic powers and dragons. It’s not science fiction… there’s no science in it. The good guy goes on a quest to save the princess and the whole kingdom, er, galaxy from the power of ultimate evil. There’s even hobbits in it, although they’re a bit hairier than Tolkien’s.
But … it measures time in parsecs! What could be more skiffy than that? (Sniff. My wittle world is shaken!)
More seriously, you are, of course, right that STAR WARS has nothing beyond handwavium tropes to do with science, though the same can be said for a lot of other sf (and almost all movie/TV sf).
“But … it measures time in parsecs! What could be more skiffy than that?”
No, that’s one of the few science-y things it gets right. Han is SUPPOSED to sound like he’s making stuff up… he’s trying to impress the dumb farmboy with doubletalk. Watch the original print… right after Han says this line, there’s a reaction shot of Obi-Wan, showing that HE isn’t fooled by the fast-talking Corellian.
Then, someone wrote a novel that retconned in an explanation for why a “Kessel Run” is measured in distance, not time, and now Disney got ahold of it, so who cares. (cue one more go-around on what exactly is “canon”.)
I find TBBT insulting. Robert loves it. We watch it.
Yes, there are really very few scientists and engineers that are uber-geeky, comic book reading, dress up for cons types. But some do exist (and in other professions of course). I guess we assume they became such close friends because they found kindred spirits. It’s not, in my opinion, a bad show. Few sitcoms are anywhere near reality. I tune in.
George Lucas has given an “explanation” as to why using “parsecs” actually make sense. I would definitely not count his explanation as canon (although Episode VII clearly is). But that shows that while the writer was intending to have Solo boasting, was not intending to have him boasting quite that ridiculously. (I’m assuming the explanation is post hoc.)
Regardless of how you want to classify it, for me “scientific inaccuracies” are fine so long as the writers aren’t trying to present things as scientific. Hyperspace might as well be magic as it’s presented in Star Wars. (Although midichlorians, WTF?) I’m much more bothered by the science in Star Trek, because there they attempt to present some sort of unified scientific framework.
“I would definitely not count his explanation as canon (although Episode VII clearly is).”
The word “not” is missing from your parenthetical. Not budging on that one.
“But that shows that while the writer was intending to have Solo boasting, was not intending to have him boasting quite that ridiculously. (I’m assuming the explanation is post hoc.)”
Except it isn’t. Solo’s boasting was over-the-top in early drafts of the script.
“I’m much more bothered by the science in Star Trek”
Star Trek, once you get to nextgen, isn’t any more Science Fiction than Star Wars is. They hired writers who knew how to write episodic television, and they made up science-y things for them to say… except nobody on the staff knew if the combinations they were using were making any sense, and for the most part, they weren’t.
Exterior shot, Enterprise D. Some kind of threat materializes.
Riker: The ship can’t take much more of this…
(A shower of sparks leaps from the bridge set, and a puff of smoke)
Picard: Options?
(dumb looks across the bridge officers)
Wesley: Maybe we could try to trans-reverse the ion thrust emitters?
LaForge: That just might work… but it’s never been done before.
Picard: Can you do it, Wesley?
Wesley: I’ll try.
(makes three waves at the touch panel control). It’s new and radical and dangerous and never tried before, but the controls are set up to do it with three waves of Wesley’s magic hands.)
Exterior shot of ship as the threat dissipates.
Picard: You did it!
Wesley: Maybe NOW I can get into Starfleet Academy.
Then eventually JJ Abrams got his sweaty little paws on it, and his Star TREK films are not canon for ST, either. And when he tries to remake any other IP from my youth, they also will not count. Maybe he’d like to go back and take another swing at LOST.
To those who’ve never watched a full episode of TBBT, i suggest the episode when Leonard’s mother comes to visit.