From Unca $crooge
Update after this post was first scheduled, the next strip came out, and in it the organist dies.
So maybe the first strip doesn’t have a joke at all, just setting up a serial storyline? Moving up another post, since I suspect there’s not a lot to discuss here. But I’ll leave this post up, in case I’m wrong.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Holy cow! No, not much of a ‘joke’, for sure. What happens in the following strip? Does the congregation get let out and a child gets run over by an ice cream truck?
Yeah… the first is just a set up. No joke at all and none intended.
But the story-line…. Jeebus, Batiuk… we get it! People die and it can be in public and debasingly material…. and…? is there going to be anything illuminating and worth hearing in this morbid and debased story? Somehow I doubt it.
So comic kingdom ever lets you go back a week so I can’t see what happened wednesday, but Thursday to Friday, the upshot of having the organist die in public inf front of everyone is …. they have to offer the position temporarily to someone who is reluctant. that’s the upshot an the primary concern after watching a person (presumably someone you know quite well and care about) die in front of you. I assumed the storyline would be about people being shocked and shaken and reflective of mortality, and I was thinking that would be cheap and pointless. But this… thats the upshot is even less relevant and callous than I could have imagined.
Batiuk, what the HELL is wrong with you?
If you need to go back further, the CK strips at Seattle PI have a longer retention period:
https://www.seattlepi.com/comics-and-games/
Woozy’s right. The whole death scene was a set-up for getting Lillian (the leftmost choir member here) to take over as organist, at least temporarily. I suppose someone, somewhere, found this hilarious.
Thanks. Didn’t help make the story any better.
Because who’s going to replace the organist and the modest reluctance of Lillian will naturally be the most pressing and relevant issues when you just watched someone drop dead five minutes ago right in front of you. Okay, we got Lillian to agree, everything’s settled now; I was worried there for a moment… sheesh.
The great composer and organist Louis Vierne died at the console of the organ of the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris as he was playing a recital. So it happens to the best of them.
As for “Precious Memories,” everyone knows this joke. The pastor said to the congregation: “I am going to say a word, and when I say the word, sing the first hymn that comes to mind.”
The pastor said “Cross.” The congregation sang the first line of “The Old Rugged Cross.”
The pastor said “Grace.” The congregation sang the first line of “Amazing Grace.”
The pastor said “Power.” The congregation sang the first line of “All Hail the Mighty Power of God.”
The pastor said “Sex.” There was a pause.
Then the quavering voice of a ninety-year-old man was heard singing “Precious Memories.”
Well, maybe this is a setup for a story about how Lillian will work it into her next murder mystery.
At least she died with an organ in her mouth.
Should have been playing “In the Garden of Eden”…
In a gadda da vida? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
I once put that song title into the hat for an extended family game of Charades a few
years after the song came out. My mom wound up faced with trying to act out the title.
Awkward explanations and a time limit ensued.
Rev. Lovejoy : “This sounds like rock and or roll”
Oh, yeah…. the organist collapses (in exhaustion; not death) and the end of that one too.
BTW, the story of Lillian taking over the organ continues, though there have been non-story episodes mixed in too.