Comic 670: On a Scale From 1 to Awesome...

Oh god. Here's the deal. This is Spinal Tap is a very funny movie. You should all watch it, though I imagine most of you have. This comic, on the other hand, is not funny. And quite frankly it pisses me off when xkcd tries to take a comedy movie and make jokes about it. He did it with Ghostbusters, he did it with the Princess Bride, now he is doing it with Spinal Tap (that list, incidentally, is not exhaustive). The point is, the source material is funny, in this case really funny, and so if you are going to attach yourself to it you had better be damn sure you are making a really fucking great joke. Which, of course, you are not.

The thing that makes this comic especially dumb is that not only is Spinal Tap a comedy, it's a mockumentary! The members of Spinal Tap are supposed to be really dumb. So the punchline is...ha ha, they are so dumb! How dumb are they? They are so dumb, you could take advantage of them! ha ha!

Here, let's watch the original together:

ahhh, so good.

As you can see, the first two panels of the comic are essentially distilled versions of the dialog in the original. And the second two are Randall putting his smart-alec self in the scene in place of Rob Reiner. Being like "oooh, I totally could have said something funnier there! If you are an engineer you will think it is funny!" But no one gives a fuck because a) your version is not funnier at all, b) even if it is, which it is not, the reason they are famous and you are not is that they didn't just make up one joke, they made the whole fucking movie and they made it brilliantly. Who cares what you think of that. Even Mystery Science Theater, which is of course based entirely on other works, makes hundreds of jokes per movie. Yours on its own is just...petty.

And it's not like people haven't made "this amp goes to eleven" jokes before. Guitar Hero (or Rock Band? i forget) had "this amp goes to eleven" stickers for their plastic guitars. Hell, Wikipedia has a whole damn page dedicated to this joke. So your dumb little contribution to the canon makes a huge difference.

This commenter got to the heart of it well, I think, but this commenter just makes me vomit. Why the hell are you giving Randall credit for putting an umlat on the band's name? It's in their fucking name! That's just being correct! Woo hoo! he didn't spell it wrong! good job! here's a lolipop!

god, can i go home now? is there anything else to say about this shit?

Comic 587: Mathy McMurder

Oh man, here I am with another late update! keepin' it professional, here at xkcdsucks.

I'll be nice today and say that this comic has some good parts to it. I can't quite describe it, but it is related to the desperate-looking-for-patterns that is so endemic of sciencey TV dramas, which are certainly worth parodying.

The problem I think is that Mathnet (not something I was familiar with beforehand, I will admit) is as far as I can see already a parody. So the xkcd is just taking something funny and....making more jokes off it. very much like the critique of that Princess Bride comic a few months back: you are going to have to do more than just jump on the back of another person's humor vehicle.

Is there any reason they need that caption at all? It's funnier without it - a little more mysterious (when is the right time for George's useful pattern finding skillz?) and it just sort of flops on the end there. Better to end where the joke is. Perhaps if the caption had been on top, so we still end with the "This is not possibly helpful" concept it would work better at the very end.


--------

Have I already said that Abstruse Goose is one of the worst websites on the planet? It is. That is all I am going to say for a long time about that horrible comic.

--------

Guys do you remember how Randy is having an actual printed book of his comics made up to be sold for money? I am looking for sources to try to get me a review copy. I promise to treat it fairly (and since it will likely have a lot of old comics, I will likely have a lot of nice things to say) and link to any sort of website that may be selling it. If you have any helpful connections to make this happen, send me a missive. Let's make this happen, guys.

Comic 549: The Princess Munroe

Carl's decided to head off 30% of reactionary comments by having me, a fair-weather fan of the movie The Princess Bride, rant about this comic. This way, people don't shoot down his apathy with "but you're apathetic to the movie anyway!" No no, it pissed off a fan, too.

The first thing that comes to mind is, "this parody doesn't even work on a surface level -- that's not how the script goes!" Panel 1 has got the revision correct, then panel 2 flies off the rails. "Why did he let her think he was dead?" Well, all he did was go through 3+ separate trials and chase her down himself, but I guess he could have kept in touch. Panel 3 implicates Westley even though he doesn't admit to murdering while being a Dread Pirate in the movie, and he wouldn't have to anyway if each Dread Pirate passes the mantle on to the next worthy captive. The Dread Pirate's ruthlessness could very well be a mass delusion, which I always took to be the joke of the Dread Pirate's very existence. But these are nerdy concerns.

I count three punchlines in the last panel: "Westley acknowledges the narrative," "Buttercup rejects the narrative/pursues Inigo," and "Westley uses 'As you wish' to desperate/bitter effect." As much as Randall's geek-movie piggybacking annoys me, I think taking characters in new directions has potential, but not like this, where we're left with a Hollywood romance flipped into a breakup. And if Buttercup were so against murder, would she necessarily prefer Inigo, a sword-for-hire? Westley (hypothetically) killed to survive on his way to Buttercup; Inigo does it for cash.

There's a better joke hiding in the alt-text, with the idea that slash writers would've rewritten the movie to fit their tastes, but the execution's just a bumper sticker in the alt-text. If only we could address Randall in person...

*****

Carl: Booo! BOOOOOO!!

Randall: Why do you do this?

Carl: Because you had a beloved comic in your hands, and you gave it up.

Randall: But my fans would have forgotten me if I waited for good ideas!

Carl: Your comic lives and you rely on movies -- (to the fans) -- True comedy saved him in the early days, and he treated it like garbage. And that's what he is, the King of Refuse! So, bow down to him if you want. Bow to him. Bow to the King of Slime, the King of Filth, the King of Putrescence. Boo! Boo! Rubbish! Filth! Slime! Muck! Boo! Boo!

[tl;dr version = Comic didn't get the parody right, wasn't funny in any of its punchlines, booo]

thomas: i changed a few tiny things about this post - added a link to the comic and a comic # to the title --carl

Comic 459: HEY LOOK I FOUND TWO THINGS THAT HAVE THE WORD GHOST IN THEM

Is this the first overtly religion themed comic we've seen on xkcd? It might be interesting to see more. As a filthy hellbound atheist, I can say that there is plenty to make fun of in religion (though it would be a very different direction for xkcd to go).

As usual, I didn't think this was all that funny, perhaps because I think using a well known comedy as your own punchline is a bit of a cop out. Basically, at its core, this comic is just a play on the phrase "holy ghost" and the concept of "ghostbusters." I think a more interesting angle on it would be to actually show the capture of the Holy Ghost and what happens next with him and his captors, not just them getting in trouble later. It would have to deal with all the complexities and uncertainties of the concept of the holy ghost (how would you draw him?) but I think it would make it much more interesting and much funnier.

Also, if you want some hilarious awkward religious tension, read the forum thread on this comic. My favorite post was the one that started "It's nice to see so many Christians out there." Yeah, I'll bet you were feeling real lonely, what with Christians only being 75% of America.