Friday, December 12, 2008

Dogs and Diapers: Together for the First Time

A dog chewing up a diaper while it is still on the toddler is the source of humour in today's new-run in For Better or For Worse. That’s a new one on me. I can’t think there is much about that to be appealing for the dog. For one thing, the toddler would be screaming. For another the thing, the diaper would not smell very good. It’s a good thing we know the actual ending of the Farley story, because if we didn’t, then my thought entering the weekend would be that Farley was about to go away.

However, we do have a style of comedy used infrequently in For Better or For Worse, which typically relies on final panel puns. In this style of comedy, you start with a statement that gives the reader a certain expectation; and as the person asking questions about the statement continues on, the situation gets worse and worse. At each point in the questioning, the next answer is a surprise from what you expect, and there is the source of the humour. In this respect the strip works. When Michael says Farley chewed up a diaper, I would not have imagined the diaper was still on Elizabeth. The surprise of that creates the humour.

This is one of the rare cases in For Better or For Worse, where having Michael talk about it instead of showing it happen is better. After all, if we saw little Farley ripping and shredding a diaper off a screaming Lizzie, unable to get Farley off her and getting scratched up in the process; it would make the young puppy seem much more dangerous than amusing. Also, if we saw this happening and saw young Michael nonchalantly going off to find his father and then going off to find his mother to help, without taking any action himself; then we might draw the conclusion that young Michael is a kid with a heart of cold stone and very little brains. Of course, having seen young Michael grow up into a man with a heart of stone and very little brains; this action from young Michael seems to be very much in character.

6 Comments:

Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

howard,

After all, if we saw little Farley ripping and shredding a diaper off a screaming Lizzie, unable to get Farley off her and getting scratched up in the process; it would make the young puppy seem much more dangerous than amusing. Also, if we saw this happening and saw young Michael nonchalantly going off to find his father and then going off to find his mother to help, without taking any action himself; then we might draw the conclusion that young Michael is a kid with a heart of cold stone and very little brains.

It seems to me that Lynn didn't take either of these facts into consideration. All she cared about was the punchline; having to think about the deeper implications seems to have been too much like work. A lot of the crap that's happened of late is like that. She didn't, after all, think too hard about Anthony and Therese's marriage.

2:33 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The dog chewing the diaper is right out of the book Marley and Me.

6:15 AM  
Blogger howard said...

DreadedCandiru2,

It seems to me that Lynn didn't take either of these facts into consideration. All she cared about was the punchline; having to think about the deeper implications seems to have been too much like work.

Or as our anonymous poster indicates, she stole the punch line from Marley and Me and inserted it into her strip.

7:49 AM  
Blogger howard said...

Anonymous,

The dog chewing the diaper is right out of the book Marley and Me.

I have not read this book, but I know it’s been made into a movie which my kids want to see. I presume this is a malicious diaper-chewing and not something like “Marley rescues the baby, by getting hold of his diaper.”

7:51 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's not malicious, but the dog does nip at the diaper... and you're right, it's not to save a child from drowning in the ravine.

10:14 AM  
Blogger howard said...

Anonymous

It's not malicious, but the dog does nip at the diaper...

Does Marley the dog actually remove the diaper from the child and chew said diaper up? And if so, was the diaper filled with goodies? Or are we talking about a little nip which an attentive parent catches and immediately puts a halt to?

12:17 PM  

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