When was it that “dude” lost touch with the meaning the bald dude in the salmon sweater so carefully explains, and took on being an acceptable form of address for just about anyone?
Yes, that’s something I’ve been ITCHING to know.
Wikipedia says it was 50-60 years ago.
Dude went generic in the 1960s, and by 1973..
And I can register the distinction of having read and admired the novel “Mott the Hoople” before there was a band named after it.
An unfortunate side effect of cartoon nosism. You have to custom order your masks.
Ziggy’s never been known for wearing clothing correctly. And to be fair, he doesn’t seem to have nostrils.
I’m having a Bill moment in thinking “Yeah, al fresco and alfredo sound alike, but what’s the joke”. Okay, I’m actually thinking “alfredo and al fresco sound alike but that’s not really funny or interesting”. I know it’s a pun and that’s the joke but it’s a very flat squib one. Maybe as alfredo is just a name there are no conflicting concepts.
(I was trying to come up with an example of a flat squib pun that wasn’t clever or interesting and I thought of “board” for “bird” and figured I could point out what a dull and unfunny pun that would be and I thought of a group of board watchers, or the chairman of the bird, or room and bird and…. those actually seemed kind of funny after all.)
(So I guess this doesn’t work for me as Alfredo is a name without much mean and al fresco is a foreign phrase so there is no immediacy to the switch and it just leaves me flat. I guess.)
Yes, “alfresco” is barely a pun, but I don’t think it’s even central to the comic. The “joke” seems to be that something that sounds nice (a whimsically-named dish to enjoy outdoors) is completely unappealing in the circumstances. Not much of a joke, but that’s Ziggy for you.
An unfortunate side effect of cartoon nosism. You have to custom order your masks.
Someone needs to tell Rodney:
I thought the Alfredo/Al Fresco joke was fine.
I just realized that the Wizard of Id strip was a literal Saturday Oy.
My dad said he thought it was neat that there was a band named after a character in Gene Ahern’s comic strip “Our Boarding House,” Martha Hoople, but I had to tell him it was Mott the Hoople.
The Idian subjects have their masks covering their noses, but not their mouths. So close ….
Just so it is said: al fresco means “in the open air” and sorta sounds like alfredo, so those eating outsde would be eating their fettuccini alfredo al fresco.
I also wanted to say that Dude Ranch Dressing is already a thing, if a relatively recent thing.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some Italian dish with “al fresco” in the name. I think it can literally be taken as “in the cool” so perhaps something served on ice. After all, aren’t there sauces named for sailors, charcoal burners and ladies of the evening?
There are number of dishes with that in the name. Google provides the ones I saw from English-language sites, so it’s hard to say with some more in-depth research as to whether they are Italian or Italian-American.
Comics I Don't Understand 
A minor digression: I see that Ziggy’s mask isn’t covering his nose . . . THIS is how it should be done –
https://safr.kingfeatures.com/api/img.php?e=gif&s=c&file=QmFieUJsdWVzLzIwMjEvMDEvQmFieV9CbHVlcy4yMDIxMDExNF8xNTM2LmdpZg==
When was it that “dude” lost touch with the meaning the bald dude in the salmon sweater so carefully explains, and took on being an acceptable form of address for just about anyone?
Yes, that’s something I’ve been ITCHING to know.
Wikipedia says it was 50-60 years ago.
Dude went generic in the 1960s, and by 1973..
And I can register the distinction of having read and admired the novel “Mott the Hoople” before there was a band named after it.
An unfortunate side effect of cartoon nosism. You have to custom order your masks.
Ziggy’s never been known for wearing clothing correctly. And to be fair, he doesn’t seem to have nostrils.
I’m having a Bill moment in thinking “Yeah, al fresco and alfredo sound alike, but what’s the joke”. Okay, I’m actually thinking “alfredo and al fresco sound alike but that’s not really funny or interesting”. I know it’s a pun and that’s the joke but it’s a very flat squib one. Maybe as alfredo is just a name there are no conflicting concepts.
(I was trying to come up with an example of a flat squib pun that wasn’t clever or interesting and I thought of “board” for “bird” and figured I could point out what a dull and unfunny pun that would be and I thought of a group of board watchers, or the chairman of the bird, or room and bird and…. those actually seemed kind of funny after all.)
(So I guess this doesn’t work for me as Alfredo is a name without much mean and al fresco is a foreign phrase so there is no immediacy to the switch and it just leaves me flat. I guess.)
Yes, “alfresco” is barely a pun, but I don’t think it’s even central to the comic. The “joke” seems to be that something that sounds nice (a whimsically-named dish to enjoy outdoors) is completely unappealing in the circumstances. Not much of a joke, but that’s Ziggy for you.
An unfortunate side effect of cartoon nosism. You have to custom order your masks.
Someone needs to tell Rodney:
I thought the Alfredo/Al Fresco joke was fine.
I just realized that the Wizard of Id strip was a literal Saturday Oy.
My dad said he thought it was neat that there was a band named after a character in Gene Ahern’s comic strip “Our Boarding House,” Martha Hoople, but I had to tell him it was Mott the Hoople.
The Idian subjects have their masks covering their noses, but not their mouths. So close ….
Just so it is said: al fresco means “in the open air” and sorta sounds like alfredo, so those eating outsde would be eating their fettuccini alfredo al fresco.
I also wanted to say that Dude Ranch Dressing is already a thing, if a relatively recent thing.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some Italian dish with “al fresco” in the name. I think it can literally be taken as “in the cool” so perhaps something served on ice. After all, aren’t there sauces named for sailors, charcoal burners and ladies of the evening?
There are number of dishes with that in the name. Google provides the ones I saw from English-language sites, so it’s hard to say with some more in-depth research as to whether they are Italian or Italian-American.
https://thisishowicook.com/ziti-al-fresco/
Another site states that “al fresco” has a different meaning in Italian, roughly meaning “chilled” and slang “in prison”.
https://www.thelocal.it/20190311/italian-expression-of-the-day-al-fresco
There’s another Al famous in Italian cuisine — he’s Al Dente.
Andréa – Then again so many people in real life wear their masks under their nose – maybe Ziggy is wearing his that way also.