16 Comments

1. 

   This is one of the panels I was referring to earlier..

2. 

   It’s actually weird they didn’t just leave it at “they did what?”.

   That they are shape-shifters and choose their forms to fit is weird and complicated and actively distracts from the joke. And make zero sense.

3. 

   I agree with woozy.

   But, Bill’s question reminds me of the Hitchhikers Guide joke that was lost on Americans. The alien was told to choose a common name so as not to stand out, so he chose Ford Prefect, which is (was?) a British car model. These aliens were told to take a familiar shape….

4. 

   I wonder if some editor thought aliens coincidentally looking like toilets was too implausible and the cartoonist thought shape shifting would be a workaround. As though that would make any more sense.

5. 

   Heres’s another vote for woozy’s improved caption.
   P.S. Larson did a “Far Side” panel in which the aliens had heads that looked like hands just waiting to be shaked, with disasterous results for the Earth.

6. 

   woozy’s second thought makes me lean back the other direction. Sure, there’s the simple joke that the aliens look like toilets and are disgusted with the result. But it’s a deeper, possibly ironic, joke that they chose a ubiquitous shape to mimic because it would be familiar to us, and then, that deliberate choice is shown to be terrible.

7. 

   Wasn’t there a Far Side (?) Comic where the aliens looked like toilet plungers?

8. 

   The aliens are familiar with us via our many, many broadcasts. In TV broadcasts, toilets are occasionally seen in the background, but are pretty much never shown being used for their intended purpose. So the aliens thought they were disguising themselves as a common object often seen and usually ignored.

9. 

   CIDU Bill, you may be thinking of Tramalfadorians.

10. 

    Hmm… not directly, guero… but now that you mentioned it (and I looked it up), I bet whoever drew the comic I’m thinking of got the idea from the Tramalfadorians.

11. 

    And then there are all the jokes where the aliens attempt to communicate with something that is not human.

    For instance the gas pumps at the gas station. “Not only do Earthlings refuse to talk to us, but you won’t believe what they put into their ears.”

12. 

    CIDU Bill – I think the kid in Frazz (Caufield?) who does a favorite literary work each Halloween did a Tramalfadorian one year. Maybe that’s what you are thinking of?

13. 

    guero, I’m pretty sure the point of the strip was that somebody tried to make the alien do the job of a toilet plunger.

    I do remember the Frazz, though.

14. 

    After looking at the spelling that guero and Bill were using, it took me the longest time to figure out what the mistake was. Vonnegut’s fictional planet is called “Tralfamadore“.

15. 

    Aaaaand another . . .
    

16. 

    @ Andréa – Presumably just another “alien”, and not necessarily “another funny strip” (I see what she was trying to do with it, but it doesn’t really work). On the other hand, it did remind me of Tom Lehrer’s line:
    “…as someone once remarked to Schubert: ‘Take us to your Lieder!’ “