It’s supposed to be funny because caveman don’t have much to repair – just rocks, which can’t really “stop working.”
Is the repairman wearing a beaver hat? It looks more like there’s some beaver-like creature floating behind him, with just the teeth sticking over his forehead, but I guess it’s just a hat.
It’s funny because that’s a typical vague auto repair complaint, but rocks don’t make noises. Also because cave men had bad spelling and grammar.
Way too busy with misleading irrelevant and distracting details. What does implying Grogg recently died in a no doubt funny manner, or Son of Grogg can’t properly skin a beaver to make a cap add to the joke.
And since this comic is clearly not aimed at children, how can the cartoonist possible think anyone over the age of twelve would be amused by yet another a caveman doing primitive stuff that we do cartoon.
Re-reading through “The Complete Far Side“, I discovered a surprising number of “cave man” panels that played on the idea that “everything is a rock”.
The very first Far Side cartoon I ever saw was a caveman chiseling a wheel out of a rock and saying to his companion “this invention will change everything and go down in history; I call it the hammer and chisel.”
Cavepeople typically bang rocks together to make music in order to foster community cohesion, so presumably this rock needs tuning or has some sort of an unpleasant rattle inside. ObHHGTTG: “We’ll be saying a big hello to all intelligent lifeforms everywhere and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys.”
People who are sick of cavepeeps discovering things for the first time will not want to check out Roy Lewis’s The Evolution Man (1960), in which one prehistoric chap makes all sort of progress and discoveries all at once. However, it avoids the cod “me throw long stick” kind of speech, and the characters are well aware of their role in The Ascent of Man and the perils and promises of various routes and some argue that maybe we would be better off going back to the trees.
The boys protest: “People always mate with their sisters,” one cries. “It’s the done thing.”
“Not any more,” responds Edward. “Exogamy begins right here.”
There’s a quote in the linked article from Terry Pratchett, who says he read the book the year it came out: “It contains no starships, no robots, no computers, none of the things that some mainstream critics think sf is about — but it is the hardest of hard-core science fiction, the very essence. It’s also the funniest book I have ever read, and it showed me what could be done. “
At first I thought the beaver thing was a picture on the wall, of the original Grogg, in costume for some reason. Like a modern company might have a painted portrait of the deceased founder on a wall.
My first impression was that a beaver had beheaded Grogg and was pretending to be his son.
The rock needing to be repaired is a simple, if lame, gag. But what is the point of “son of Grogg” and the beaver pelt?
Way too much going on here: There seem to be 6 different gags battling for control (though I don’t get any of them).
I second the fondness for Lewis’ THE EVOLUTION MAN, and appreciate the implicit reminder that I ought to re-read it (in honor of Terry Pratchett’s memory, for one thing). But I notice you left off its subtitle: “OR, HOW I ATE MY FATHER.” I suppose that might give some people a queasy feeling in their stomach. . .
As for the beaver hat/headpiece, I’m assuming that Rock Repair Specialists back in Those Days were considered a sort of shaman, and shamans and witch doctors are often (usually?) depicted, at leats in cartoons, with animal or monster headpieces.
The edition I had of The Evolution Man was the Penguin one at the top of the Neglected Books page I linked to, without the subtitle. Apparently the book was re-released with differing title versions only sometimes with the subtitle: according to Wikipedia “To prevent further ‘advances’, the family takes matters in hand, leading to a conclusion given away by the book’s eventual subtitle, ‘how I ate my father’.”
Hmm, seems the first edition title too was a giveaway too, according to that Wiki link:
“What We Did to Father (1960); reprints: 1963 (as The Evolution Man, Penguin), 1968 (as Once upon an Ice Age), 1979, 1989 (Corgi), 1993 (as The Evolution Man or how I ate my father), 1994 (USA))”
The hat threw me, too, but I assume it’s a caveman version of the backward baseball cap (the beaver tail being the brim). But it’s unnecessarily distracting. And the rock should have been larger, more of the focus of the gag.
“People who are sick of cavepeeps discovering things for the first time will not want to check out Roy Lewis’s The Evolution Man (1960), ”
It’s not that I’m sick of them. It’s that I sick of them not being original and unclever. Taking a rock to a car mechanic is not clever and not original.
Although I *am* completely sick of caveman no nomitive voice no article speak.
Mona @ 3 wins the thread :-)
Thank you, larK❣
beckoningchasm gets the trophy for explaining the beaver 🏆
Something happened to Grogg, and now Grogg’s sonn is running the business. What happened to Grogg? Did Sonn of Grogg kill Grogg with that rock, and is the rock now making a funny noise as a result? I don’t think Grogg was the beaver, but I suppose a cartoon beaver could run a repair business. Beavers are “nature’s engineers” after all.
Once again the cavemen are either badly speaking English, a language that doesn’t exist yet, or else they don’t know how to speak their own language.
Do any of you guys remember a user named “Grog” from the old version of this site? He used to chime in from time to time all the while doing his best caveman impression?
Unfortunately, Grawlix, we seem to have lost a few people who didn’t realize we came back after a month in Limbo. Not that that’s necessarily what happened with Grog, of course.
I base this on the fact that every couple of weeks I see another old name returning to the fold.
Well, I can explain the funny noise from the rock. It’s seriously unbalanced and would make a terrible clatter….and a really lumpy ride.
Bill – As I mentioned at the time, an embroidery site I also “follow” at the same time you had the problems with the site, was in the middle of switching where/how the site ran. Since that was planned, however, both versions of the site were running at the same time – the older with the name.com and the newer one with the same name.net. later the new one became .com and the old one shut down. Even with about 3 months before and after the switch of info for people, a lot of people, okay, women, were lost – and even now there are much fewer posts by the ones who are there than there used to be particularly, for some reason, by the members in Italy and France.
Comics I Don't Understand 
It’s supposed to be funny because caveman don’t have much to repair – just rocks, which can’t really “stop working.”
Is the repairman wearing a beaver hat? It looks more like there’s some beaver-like creature floating behind him, with just the teeth sticking over his forehead, but I guess it’s just a hat.
It’s funny because that’s a typical vague auto repair complaint, but rocks don’t make noises. Also because cave men had bad spelling and grammar.
“What noise sound like?”
“Worble worble wobba worba woop!”
Way too busy with misleading irrelevant and distracting details. What does implying Grogg recently died in a no doubt funny manner, or Son of Grogg can’t properly skin a beaver to make a cap add to the joke.
And since this comic is clearly not aimed at children, how can the cartoonist possible think anyone over the age of twelve would be amused by yet another a caveman doing primitive stuff that we do cartoon.
Re-reading through “The Complete Far Side“, I discovered a surprising number of “cave man” panels that played on the idea that “everything is a rock”.
The very first Far Side cartoon I ever saw was a caveman chiseling a wheel out of a rock and saying to his companion “this invention will change everything and go down in history; I call it the hammer and chisel.”
Cavepeople typically bang rocks together to make music in order to foster community cohesion, so presumably this rock needs tuning or has some sort of an unpleasant rattle inside. ObHHGTTG: “We’ll be saying a big hello to all intelligent lifeforms everywhere and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys.”
People who are sick of cavepeeps discovering things for the first time will not want to check out Roy Lewis’s The Evolution Man (1960), in which one prehistoric chap makes all sort of progress and discoveries all at once. However, it avoids the cod “me throw long stick” kind of speech, and the characters are well aware of their role in The Ascent of Man and the perils and promises of various routes and some argue that maybe we would be better off going back to the trees.
The boys protest: “People always mate with their sisters,” one cries. “It’s the done thing.”
“Not any more,” responds Edward. “Exogamy begins right here.”
There’s a quote in the linked article from Terry Pratchett, who says he read the book the year it came out: “It contains no starships, no robots, no computers, none of the things that some mainstream critics think sf is about — but it is the hardest of hard-core science fiction, the very essence. It’s also the funniest book I have ever read, and it showed me what could be done. “
At first I thought the beaver thing was a picture on the wall, of the original Grogg, in costume for some reason. Like a modern company might have a painted portrait of the deceased founder on a wall.
My first impression was that a beaver had beheaded Grogg and was pretending to be his son.
The rock needing to be repaired is a simple, if lame, gag. But what is the point of “son of Grogg” and the beaver pelt?
Way too much going on here: There seem to be 6 different gags battling for control (though I don’t get any of them).
I second the fondness for Lewis’ THE EVOLUTION MAN, and appreciate the implicit reminder that I ought to re-read it (in honor of Terry Pratchett’s memory, for one thing). But I notice you left off its subtitle: “OR, HOW I ATE MY FATHER.” I suppose that might give some people a queasy feeling in their stomach. . .
As for the beaver hat/headpiece, I’m assuming that Rock Repair Specialists back in Those Days were considered a sort of shaman, and shamans and witch doctors are often (usually?) depicted, at leats in cartoons, with animal or monster headpieces.
The edition I had of The Evolution Man was the Penguin one at the top of the Neglected Books page I linked to, without the subtitle. Apparently the book was re-released with differing title versions only sometimes with the subtitle: according to Wikipedia “To prevent further ‘advances’, the family takes matters in hand, leading to a conclusion given away by the book’s eventual subtitle, ‘how I ate my father’.”
Hmm, seems the first edition title too was a giveaway too, according to that Wiki link:
“What We Did to Father (1960); reprints: 1963 (as The Evolution Man, Penguin), 1968 (as Once upon an Ice Age), 1979, 1989 (Corgi), 1993 (as The Evolution Man or how I ate my father), 1994 (USA))”
The hat threw me, too, but I assume it’s a caveman version of the backward baseball cap (the beaver tail being the brim). But it’s unnecessarily distracting. And the rock should have been larger, more of the focus of the gag.
beckoningchasm, beaver tail = brim of backwards baseball cap, brilliant! 😃
So what is the joke about Son of Grogg?
“People who are sick of cavepeeps discovering things for the first time will not want to check out Roy Lewis’s The Evolution Man (1960), ”
It’s not that I’m sick of them. It’s that I sick of them not being original and unclever. Taking a rock to a car mechanic is not clever and not original.
Although I *am* completely sick of caveman no nomitive voice no article speak.
Mona @ 3 wins the thread :-)
Thank you, larK❣
beckoningchasm gets the trophy for explaining the beaver 🏆
Something happened to Grogg, and now Grogg’s sonn is running the business. What happened to Grogg? Did Sonn of Grogg kill Grogg with that rock, and is the rock now making a funny noise as a result? I don’t think Grogg was the beaver, but I suppose a cartoon beaver could run a repair business. Beavers are “nature’s engineers” after all.
Once again the cavemen are either badly speaking English, a language that doesn’t exist yet, or else they don’t know how to speak their own language.
Do any of you guys remember a user named “Grog” from the old version of this site? He used to chime in from time to time all the while doing his best caveman impression?
I wonder what he’d’ve made of this comic…
At least this one is original . . .
https://www.gocomics.com/theothercoast/2018/06/30
Unfortunately, Grawlix, we seem to have lost a few people who didn’t realize we came back after a month in Limbo. Not that that’s necessarily what happened with Grog, of course.
I base this on the fact that every couple of weeks I see another old name returning to the fold.
Well, I can explain the funny noise from the rock. It’s seriously unbalanced and would make a terrible clatter….and a really lumpy ride.
Bill – As I mentioned at the time, an embroidery site I also “follow” at the same time you had the problems with the site, was in the middle of switching where/how the site ran. Since that was planned, however, both versions of the site were running at the same time – the older with the name.com and the newer one with the same name.net. later the new one became .com and the old one shut down. Even with about 3 months before and after the switch of info for people, a lot of people, okay, women, were lost – and even now there are much fewer posts by the ones who are there than there used to be particularly, for some reason, by the members in Italy and France.