Beans, and no Wieners
Thanks to today’s new-run strip in For Better or For Worse, I know where that awful wiener recipe in Elly’s weekly letter came from. In retrospect, would I consider that recipe to be better food than what appears to be John’s bean and unknown white substance diet? That’s a tough call. What is not a tough call is that Lynn Johnston is not keeping her story straight with the new-runs involving food:
Tuesday, March 10 – Elly tells John she put a week’s worth of meals in the freezer.
Thursday, March 12 - John promises Mike they would go out to eat, which means he is going to ignore the food Elly left. So far so good.
Saturday, March 14 - In the reprint, we see John looking for where Elly put the spaghetti, which conforms neither to the frozen food story nor to the eating out story. Lynn Johnston is rarely faithful to the reprint story, so this is not much of a surprise.
Monday, March 16 – John serves meal consisting primarily of beans, and Michael complains that John left out the wieners Elly usually puts with the beans. This story conforms to none of the stories we have seen so far – no spaghetti, no eating out, and no Elly frozen food. It would be easy to concoct a story that would make all these things work together logically to read between the lines, but ironically, I thought that was what the new-runs were supposed to do.
As for the strip itself, the joke depends on the idea that children will interpret what you say literally, if it works to their advantage. In fact, young Michael is so advanced in his preschool that not only can he count beans, but he understands the concept of how to calculate one half of that count. When my kids were in preschool, they were doing well to know the numbers necessary to count that many beans. Fortunately for Lynn, young Michael is so advanced or this joke would not work at all.
Tuesday, March 10 – Elly tells John she put a week’s worth of meals in the freezer.
Thursday, March 12 - John promises Mike they would go out to eat, which means he is going to ignore the food Elly left. So far so good.
Saturday, March 14 - In the reprint, we see John looking for where Elly put the spaghetti, which conforms neither to the frozen food story nor to the eating out story. Lynn Johnston is rarely faithful to the reprint story, so this is not much of a surprise.
Monday, March 16 – John serves meal consisting primarily of beans, and Michael complains that John left out the wieners Elly usually puts with the beans. This story conforms to none of the stories we have seen so far – no spaghetti, no eating out, and no Elly frozen food. It would be easy to concoct a story that would make all these things work together logically to read between the lines, but ironically, I thought that was what the new-runs were supposed to do.
As for the strip itself, the joke depends on the idea that children will interpret what you say literally, if it works to their advantage. In fact, young Michael is so advanced in his preschool that not only can he count beans, but he understands the concept of how to calculate one half of that count. When my kids were in preschool, they were doing well to know the numbers necessary to count that many beans. Fortunately for Lynn, young Michael is so advanced or this joke would not work at all.
posted by howard at 12:44 AM
5 Comments:
howard,
It would be easy to concoct a story that would make all these things work together logically to read between the lines, but ironically, I thought that was what the new-runs were supposed to do.
I think today's letter should explain why John is feeding his kids beans, rice and orange juice when he knows that Elly has all those dinners ready to go. That's because Lynn has reverted to letting the retcons tell her story for her.
In fact, young Michael is so advanced in his preschool that not only can he count beans, but he understands the concept of how to calculate one half of that count.
And yet physically, he's regressed to the point where he needs a special booster seat to sit at the table, which appears to have fused with his body in some disturbing and incomprehensible way in the first panel. Especially troubling are his teeny-tiny doll feet.
LJ does appear to have forgotten that she had Elly leave a week's worth of frozen food. Unless we're meant to believe that John either tuned her out when she said that or forgot what she told him.
April_Patterson,
LJ does appear to have forgotten that she had Elly leave a week's worth of frozen food. Unless we're meant to believe that John either tuned her out when she said that or forgot what she told him.
Or, better yet for her purposes, he's too stupid to be able to reheat them. She could have written instructions and taped them to the food and he'd still try to serve them ice cold.
DreadedCandiru2,
Or, better yet for her purposes, he's too stupid to be able to reheat them. She could have written instructions and taped them to the food and he'd still try to serve them ice cold.
Or he could burn to them to cinders while being distracted by the kids or reading his paper. Either of those would have worked in the “John is an idiot” paradigm.
aprilp_katje,
And yet physically, he's regressed to the point where he needs a special booster seat to sit at the table, which appears to have fused with his body in some disturbing and incomprehensible way in the first panel. Especially troubling are his teeny-tiny doll feet.
We must remember that this is the boy so short that he could easily bend over and get completely under a drainage pipe pouring water. He’s not very big.
LJ does appear to have forgotten that she had Elly leave a week's worth of frozen food. Unless we're meant to believe that John either tuned her out when she said that or forgot what she told him.
Like anything else, Lynn Johnston alters what she wants in order to make a joke. If she needs Michael counting beans, they have beans. If she wants Elly to point out that she has prepared John for her week away, then that’s what she does. Tomorrow, if she needs John to sprout antlers and run about saying, “What’s all this, then?” then he will.
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