11 Comments

1. 

   Because people think it’s clever to suggest Batman and Robin are gay (maybe 90 years ago), and likewise Spongebob and Patrick?

2. 

   B.A. might be right, but it seems out of place, since the “in-series” superheroes were “Mermaid Man” & “Barnacle_Boy“.

3. 

   Side-kicks be side-kicks. And New Yorker be New Yorker.

4. 

   Why do people always assume that two men in a close friendship must be gay?

5. 

   “Why do people always assume that two men in a close friendship must be gay?”

   In real life I don’t think they do, but in comic and fictional duos there’s connection between the duo so that they individually can’t seem to exist without the other. It’s not necessarily sexually gay, but it is a couplehood.

6. 

   @ Powers – It’s probably just vicarious titillation (or rather: didillation) due to jealousy.

7. 

   “Ambiguously Gay Duo!”

8. 

   Although Patrick isn’t helping matters by forgetting to wear his shorts.

9. 

   Everybody knows who SpongeBob and Patrick are but most people have seen only very few episodes and would not know about Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, so it has to be Batman and Robin, I guess.

   I don’t understand the caption at all as it is, but if it were “It’s a very sweet note from Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy” I would understand it even less, if that is possible, and I would probably understand it even less than that if I knew who Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy are.

10. 

    Since Spongebob and Patrick actually know Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy personally, it would be neither surprising nor funny to receive a note from them.

11. 

    I assumed Kilby meant it would make sense if it were Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy who got the nice note from Batman and Robin; I didn’t realize he meant it’d make sense if was Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy who *sent* the note.

    Not at all sure why being in-universe would make the joke make more sense. Surely the joke is supposed to be one sidekick duo in one universe sending it to another sidekick duo in another. It wouldn’t be funny if the note were in-universe.