Meanwhile Back in Immoral 2009
Today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse shows John and Michael playing a video game of Booger Beasts with 2 video game controllers and their television. Intellivision came out in 1980. ColecoVision appeared in 1982. If the strip is considered to be set in 1980, what are John and Michael playing? Atari didn’t look like this. Once again Lynn Johnston has introduced an item which did not exist back in 1980, less than a month since she had a strip showing Elly using a typewriter. The only thing which is clear from point to point is that these new-run Pattersons flit back and forth between subjects depending on what strikes Lynn Johnston’s fancy with respect to time and space.
As for the purpose of the strip, it is a mystery to me. We see a household with the game Booger Beasts clearly available to be played, which shows someone with buying power in the house likes it well enough to buy it. On the other hand, Elly rails against the game in the following fashion:
1. She would rather John and Michael play checkers or scrabble or some other intellectually stimulated game.
2. She prefers games with goals and strategy and good moral values.
3. She does not prefer games that are gross and disgusting and having no education use, whatsoever.
Going to AMU reprints, I can find no evidence of Pattersons ever playing Scrabble. However, checkers is a different story. Duncan and April played checkers in this strip. And there is a strip with Michael and John playing checkers, which immediately reveals exactly why it is that John would prefer playing Booger Beasts to checkers, i.e. Michael is a sore loser when it comes to checkers. Of course, judging from Michael’s underbite expression in the final panel of today’s strip, he may also be a sore loser when it comes to Booger Beasts.
As for Elly’s complaints, these sound like the same old thing people have been complaining about for years, when judging the entertainment of the young. Instead of reading books, those kids today are:
a. Playing video games.
b. Watching television.
c. Listening to the radio
My father remembers clearly back in the days of radio entertainment, when people used to rail against the radio entertainment programs on the premise that kids were listening to them instead of reading books. The argument was that if you turned the radio off, the kids would pick up books and start reading away. It was nonsense then, just as Elly’s argument that checkers and scrabble somehow represent good morals is nonsense today. Those old fogies of the 1930s and 40s have a lot in common with Elly today. John and Michael, like many intelligent people in the past, do whatever a person does when faced with someone like Elly --- ignore her until she goes away.
As for the purpose of the strip, it is a mystery to me. We see a household with the game Booger Beasts clearly available to be played, which shows someone with buying power in the house likes it well enough to buy it. On the other hand, Elly rails against the game in the following fashion:
1. She would rather John and Michael play checkers or scrabble or some other intellectually stimulated game.
2. She prefers games with goals and strategy and good moral values.
3. She does not prefer games that are gross and disgusting and having no education use, whatsoever.
Going to AMU reprints, I can find no evidence of Pattersons ever playing Scrabble. However, checkers is a different story. Duncan and April played checkers in this strip. And there is a strip with Michael and John playing checkers, which immediately reveals exactly why it is that John would prefer playing Booger Beasts to checkers, i.e. Michael is a sore loser when it comes to checkers. Of course, judging from Michael’s underbite expression in the final panel of today’s strip, he may also be a sore loser when it comes to Booger Beasts.
As for Elly’s complaints, these sound like the same old thing people have been complaining about for years, when judging the entertainment of the young. Instead of reading books, those kids today are:
a. Playing video games.
b. Watching television.
c. Listening to the radio
My father remembers clearly back in the days of radio entertainment, when people used to rail against the radio entertainment programs on the premise that kids were listening to them instead of reading books. The argument was that if you turned the radio off, the kids would pick up books and start reading away. It was nonsense then, just as Elly’s argument that checkers and scrabble somehow represent good morals is nonsense today. Those old fogies of the 1930s and 40s have a lot in common with Elly today. John and Michael, like many intelligent people in the past, do whatever a person does when faced with someone like Elly --- ignore her until she goes away.
posted by howard at 12:12 PM
5 Comments:
howard,
It was nonsense then, just as Elly’s argument that checkers and scrabble somehow represent good morals is nonsense today. Those old fogies of the 1930s and 40s have a lot in common with Elly today. John and Michael, like many intelligent people in the past, do whatever a person does when faced with someone like Elly --- ignore her until she goes away.
If she's in the habit of screaming about nothing at all like she is today, it's probably fairly easy to see why John will not want her to protest the proposed construction of the new arena five years from now; if I were in his shoes, I know that I'd be asking myself if she has any facts to back up her bluster about the Man shorting the arts community.
dreadedcandiru2,
...I know that I'd be asking myself if she has any facts to back up her bluster about the Man shorting the arts community.
Elly does jump in occasionally to talk about supporting the arts, but I think it is more because Lynn Johnston feels that she should than anything she has shown in developing the character. It is much the same way with Elly occasionally jumping in to show how much of an environmentalist she is.
People used to complain incessantly about kids reading books too, particularly novels. There's a certain group of people who can't stand anything that might inspire the imagination, especially if young people like it. They won't bother to learn what they hate is actually like, of course -- Lynn obviously thinks video games don't have goals and strategy, which is a big fat "what?" But then, a game based on boogers is also a disgusting figment of Lynn Johnston's imagination.
clio,
People used to complain incessantly about kids reading books too, particularly novels.
No we are going way back to "If it's not the good book, it's not worth reading."
Ha, is this straight out of "Northanger Abbey" by Jane Austen, by the way? The main character Catherine is reading in the beginning while some older females are asking her mother if reading so much was good for her.
Interesting thread of thought by the way, and it's true! I think that as long as a kid doesn't spend more than two hours on video games or whatever per day and actaully takes turns with their hobbies, then it should be fine to let them play. Not DOOM at age 4, though!
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