Boise Ed submitted this Bizarro as a CIDU, commenting: “The left man can barely hear the tuba, so the right man must be playing it very softly (which is hard to do). ‘Dog tuba’ reads like it’s the dog’s tuba, but he obviously doesn’t like the sound of it, even at that very soft volume. Beyond that, I’m stumped here.“
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P.S. I think it’s clear that this is a play on “dog whistle“, but for CIDU purposes, let’s assume that Wayno was merely referring to the physical device, and not to the political context. Even with that hint, it’s not entirely clear why or even whether this is funny.
Comics I Don't Understand 
same as a dog whistle, but for an instrument which makes a low frequency sound
According to my ten-second online research, dogs have much the same low-frequency hearing as humans, and may even struggle to hear the bottom two notes on a piano (which presumably humans are supposed to hear).
I at first thought the tubablower was failing to make any noise at all apart from a breathy puffing sound due to his completely inadequate lip technique, and the dog was reacting to that. Maybe whatever the blower is doing causes some sort of high frequency screech? But I can’t see that either of those ideas would be particularly funny either, and I doubt that is what is supposed to be happening.
Yeah, I dunno if they were even thinking of super low notes, just “dog whistles can be heard by dogs and not humans, so let’s do a tuba that does the same thing.”
From the expression on the player’s face, I would say that he is blowing hard and playing loudly.
Your take on “dog whistle” seems to leave no space between literal and political. But really there’s the very common metaphorical or idiomatic sense, “a message that only a select subset of hearers will understand”. And the political use is just a particular instance of this general metaphorical sense.
Yes, Dvandom is correct. Dog whistles when blown can’t be heard by humans (thus the political metaphor about saying things that will be understood by some people but not others), so a “dog tuba” when blown is inaudible to the person but not the dog. I’m not falling out of my chair laughing, but it’s not an unfunny notion either.
Would’ve been funnier if it were dog bagpipes.
It seems pretty straightforward: a dog whistle can be heard by dogs, but not humans. A dog tuba is likewise only heard by dogs, despite that being ridiculous (due to the frequencies involved).
Did you post a cartoon of the Dog Traffic Cop asking the Dog Car Driver for ID?
Thanks,
Ric
“ridiculous” does seem like the key word here.
“ridiculous” does seem like the key word here.
I think the angry look on the tuba player’s face is also a connection to the metaphorical dog whistle. Which is generally intended to anger those who ‘hear’ it.