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Shoe, 9/21/11

Here’s the thing about jokes of the form “you put the X in Y,” where X represents one or more syllables in Y: the humor only works if the X makes up a part of Y even though the two words are not related semantically. For instance, if your significant other had travelled into orbit as part of the U.S. space program, it would be funny if, after admiring their attractive backside, you said, “Baby, you put the ‘ass’ in ‘astronaut.'” However, if you were dating an Olympic champion, you shouldn’t say, “Baby, you put the ‘win’ in ‘winner,'” as that would sound very, very stupid. “Crank,” in the sense of an eccentric, obsessive person, is actually derived from “cranky,” so the level of wordplay here is pretty disappointing to say the least.

(OK, I admit that I launched into that etymological and linguistic lecture entirely because I’m particularly proud of the “you put the ‘ass’ in ‘astronaut'” joke I thought up.)

Anyway, I do enjoy the cranky old Biz character in Shoe despite the fact that he’s being linguistically ill-used here. I particularly like the fact that he’s angrily berating Roz for always serving him tasteless tasteless food, and yet he nevertheless comes to Roz’s to eat all the time. Isn’t there some other bird-restaurant where the bird-people of Shoe eat? I’m pretty sure there’s some kind of snooty place where they serve fancy bird-French food. Maybe Biz can’t afford it, on his bird-Social Security.

Spider-Man, 9/21/11

So, just to keep you up to date, Peter Parker is insisting that, because a bunch of sick kids are expecting Spider-Man to visit them at the hospital, he must go to the hospital, even though the police are after him and also know that he’s planning to visit the hospital. Because if there’s one thing those sick kids want to see, it’s their hero getting arrested.

Apartment 3-G, 9/21/11

Ruby has heard you complaining about how her hair is dumb, and has responded by dying it Manic Panic red! That … that’s what you wanted, right?