From a comedy standpoint, doing my best to avoid the horrible mess on that woman's head, it's just trying to be funny by being random. We're supposed to go "woah, what the hell does 'upholstery' mean here? HA HA I DON'T EVEN KNOW." I feel like the joke is either suppsed to be the woman's analogy does make sense, in which case we feel a little left out because she never explains what it is (because Randall has no idea, he just wants to present the CRAZY IDEA even if it makes no sense). OR the joke is that she also doesn't know what it means but she's using it as a convenient rebuttal to his question, but that doesn't quite feel like what the comic is going for. Also it's not that funny.
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Lastly, I know Abstruse Goose is supposed to be similar to xkcd, but AG 81 just seems waaaay to close to xkcd 353.
Heehee. I agree with all you have to say, but this one still made me laugh.
ReplyDeleteIt might be that there's actually artwork in this one... "artwork" that at least corresponds to the joke. I just like that last panel where the dude's scratching his head.
I was confused about what the joke was supposed to be. I felt a lot like the guy in the last panel, "wait, what?" I know what upholstery means, and it's not that hard a concept to get your head around, so where's the joke?
ReplyDeleteKiwi: The phrase "does the carpet match the drapes" means "does the colour of your hair match your pubes", i.e. it's a risque way of asking a girl if she has dyed hair.
ReplyDeleteBut "upholstery" has no meaning in the context of this phrase, so her answer doesn't really mean anything- and Mr Stickman is left scratching his head.
Vlad, you forgot the most important step: "And then we all laugh uproariously because it is SO FUNNY"
ReplyDeleteThe upholstery is the armpits, I think.
ReplyDelete@Vlad: thanks, but I prefer to remain blissfully ignorant
ReplyDeleteto be fair, as a redhead who has gotten this question before, i think it works, just in a twisted way. it's a stupid answer to a stupid question, and left the asker the one who is confused and uncomfortable instead of the askee (because, let me tell you, that is a VERY rude and awkward question to ask a natural redhead. because then they're going to ask for proof :-/ )
ReplyDeletei like to think of it as the main character getting some of that "quirkiness" he loves to show off so much thrown back in his face by someone who clearly gets crap for being visually quirky and can't hide it.
and beyond that, i try not to think about it too much.
Does the carpet (pubic hair) match the drapes (head hair)? Yes, but not the upholstery (armpit hair, for example).
ReplyDeleteGirl dyed her pubic hair too, so though it's not natural; carpet matches the drapes.
It felt simple to me. I probably just have a gutter mind. But yeah, joke was mediocre. Of course, what I used it for IRL wasn't...
really? No one jumped on her misinterpreting the question? I figured that she thought he was actually asking if her carpets on her floor in her house matched the drapes that were in front of the windows (which according to her they do) and the upholstery would be the furniture in whatever room she is refering.
ReplyDeleteIn that sense, the man is left confused because he's probably a) never heard that answer or b) not quick enough to catch that she actually though he was talking about floor carpets and window drapes
I think that's an interesting idea, and maybe it's right, but I suspect that's not it - simply because there are no carpets or drapes in the comic. If she had misinterpreted his question as being a surface level meaning, she would have said "what drapes are you talking about, weird dude? stop bothering me, i have to go to the fucked up hair convention" or something like that.
ReplyDelete