The Urinater II
Back on the 29th, Lynn Johnston did her new-run in For Better or For Worse, showing young Farley the dog either urinating on John Patterson or melting his heart. In today’s For Better or For Worse, we see the original discovery that Farley was a urinater, when he soaked Elly on the way home. There are a couple of ways to compare the 2 instances.
1. Elly’s reaction to being urinated on is wide-eyed shock and then she puts on the glaring eyes of the Charles Schulz’s Snoopy imitating a vulture. Back on 10/29, John is unable to tell the difference between urine and the emotion of a melting heart, and his facial expression is difficult to interpret, which is to say, extremely poorly drawn. I prefer Elly’s reaction. Even though it is loaded with anger, it makes more sense. After all, if a dog was peeing on you, would you really draw a comparison to your heart melting with sympathy?
2. Because of the new-run, we now know that John Patterson had foreknowledge of young Farley the dog’s urinating ways, and apparently failed to pass that information on to Elly so she could properly protect herself. Before, the situation was funny because it was unexpected. Now, the situation takes on another element of “My ex-husband stinks!” common to most of the reprinted strips featuring him.
3. In light of the idea that Farley the dog is a runt, and therefore likely to have health problems, 2 appearances of unexpected urination instead of one, change the outlook from humour to problem. Maybe Farley the dog has some kind of bladder infection.
What we did we get from the new-run? In case (1), the knowledge that John relates his emotions to dog urine. In case (2) that John should have warned Elly about urine and failed to do it and case (3), that Farley seems more likely to have the health problems of a puppy who is the runt of the litter.
Back on the 29th, Lynn Johnston did her new-run in For Better or For Worse, showing young Farley the dog either urinating on John Patterson or melting his heart. In today’s For Better or For Worse, we see the original discovery that Farley was a urinater, when he soaked Elly on the way home. There are a couple of ways to compare the 2 instances.
1. Elly’s reaction to being urinated on is wide-eyed shock and then she puts on the glaring eyes of the Charles Schulz’s Snoopy imitating a vulture. Back on 10/29, John is unable to tell the difference between urine and the emotion of a melting heart, and his facial expression is difficult to interpret, which is to say, extremely poorly drawn. I prefer Elly’s reaction. Even though it is loaded with anger, it makes more sense. After all, if a dog was peeing on you, would you really draw a comparison to your heart melting with sympathy?
2. Because of the new-run, we now know that John Patterson had foreknowledge of young Farley the dog’s urinating ways, and apparently failed to pass that information on to Elly so she could properly protect herself. Before, the situation was funny because it was unexpected. Now, the situation takes on another element of “My ex-husband stinks!” common to most of the reprinted strips featuring him.
3. In light of the idea that Farley the dog is a runt, and therefore likely to have health problems, 2 appearances of unexpected urination instead of one, change the outlook from humour to problem. Maybe Farley the dog has some kind of bladder infection.
What we did we get from the new-run? In case (1), the knowledge that John relates his emotions to dog urine. In case (2) that John should have warned Elly about urine and failed to do it and case (3), that Farley seems more likely to have the health problems of a puppy who is the runt of the litter.
posted by howard at 10:25 PM
8 Comments:
I had wondered whether this strip would be re-run, as we'd already seen Farley urinating within what one assumes is a short time frame. I thought this would also allow a slam-at-Rod moment as Farley chose John to be the beneficiary of his bladder contents. I hadn't appreciated what you've picked up in your analysis: the slam works better if RodJohn had foreknowledge that Farley was prone to leaking and didn't warn LynnElly (ElLynn?), thus demonstrating what a jerk he was.
Another reason why this strip was re-run: it saves Lynn the bother of coming up with something new.
I prefer Elly’s reaction. Even though it is loaded with anger, it makes more sense. After all, if a dog was peeing on you, would you really draw a comparison to your heart melting with sympathy?
No. I'd wonder what the nice old lady meant when she'd said he'd been rejected, though. Elly has just realized that she's been BSed into adopting a dog with an infected bladder.
In light of the idea that Farley the dog is a runt, and therefore likely to have health problems, 2 appearances of unexpected urination instead of one, change the outlook from humour to problem. Maybe Farley the dog has some kind of bladder infection.
I dunno--my grandmother had a chow chow, and when she [the dog, not the grandmother] was a puppy, she pretty much leaked anytime someone picked her up. It seemed to be related to being so! excited! And she had no health problems.
forworse,
Another reason why this strip was re-run: it saves Lynn the bother of coming up with something new.
In that respect you are right. This is the second time we have seen a strip re-run where the joke of the rerun was already spilled by a new-run prior to it. John’s lament over Marie the hygienist was done twice and now Farley’s urination is done twice. I would like to say this is only a problem with Lynn’s treatment of the new-runs, but it hasn’t been so long since the July 21 run of strips where the joke every day was “No one talks to Grandpa Jim”.
DreadedCandiru2
I'd wonder what the nice old lady meant when she'd said he'd been rejected, though. Elly has just realized that she's been BSed into adopting a dog with an infected bladder.
Maybe. Most likely Elly has just realized she never plans to pick up that puppy again.
The only way this could be a good sign would be if it meant that LJ was going to fix the old run of strips by showing that, behind the scenes, Farley was a runt and did have some health problems.
Unfortunately, sometimes a bathroom joke is just a bathroom joke. I'd bet on that here :-(
aprilp_katje,
…she pretty much leaked anytime someone picked her up. It seemed to be related to being so! excited!
I have seen dogs like that. That could work for young Farley the dog, except he seems to be kind of like a little puppy lump when he is being handled.
CanuckDownSouth,
Unfortunately, sometimes a bathroom joke is just a bathroom joke. I'd bet on that here :-(
I wouldn’t take you up on that bet. Lynn Johnston has a history of bathroom humour. The irritation is that she would do a bathroom humour joke and then reprint a bathroom humour joke within a week using the exact same bathroom humour, only with different victims. That’s not enough difference.
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