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Funky Winkerbean, 7/7/17

I don’t want to just throw around my big-shot Hollywood insider knowledge, mostly because I don’t have any, but a “sizzle reel” is in fact … not whatever today’s Funky Winkerbean thinks it is? It’s generally a short video cut together from clips from other things aiming to sell or promote something to producers or casting directors, not the general public. You usually hear the term in connection with actors, who will have a sizzle reel of their best performances available for people thinking of hiring them. For a whole movie, a sizzle reel is something that would be created long before any filming actually took place, often pieced together from short scenes from other films in an attempt to show potential financial backers what the final product might look like. (Here’s one for the 2012 film Looper to give you a sense of how they work.)

Needless to say, movie sizzle reels generally do not include footage from documentaries about washed-up actors playing minor roles in the film, and they definitely aren’t put together right in the middle of what has appeared to be a very long and well-funded shoot. I can only assume that the financial backers of Starbuck Jones: The Movie, after viewing the dailies with despair, have abruptly pulled out, and the producers are desperately trying to find new funding, which they won’t because they have no idea what should and should not go into a sizzle reel.

Pluggers, 7/7/17

My longstanding theory is that Sheila Roo, a kangaroo-lady who suffers the indignity of being rendered in white by syndicate colorists who think she’s a rabbit, is not of true plugger stock, as indicated by her employment at a job that requires a suit and her desire to eat at non-chain restaurants. Today’s piece of evidence is the way she looks at her husband with subtle but withering contempt, possibly because of his dietary habits but also possibly because of, you know, just everything.

Spider-Man, 7/7/17

Meanwhile, Spider-Man is significantly degrading the fire-safety features of a building that never did anything to him.

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Mark Trail, 6/30/17

Ha ha, today’s Mark Trail features not one but two hilarious revelations! Number one is that despite the ill-feelings arising from the infamous Water-World disaster, Mark apparently still calls Lesley Joyce on the regular, like whenever he encounters sea-wildlife of note (“Lesley! Yesterday a saw a shark and it made me think of Water-World! I’m still sorry about your car!”). And number two is that he decided that the best way to leave a breadcrumb trail that would lead law enforcement to his rescue would be to absolutely infuriate Lesley by implying that he worked for her. Actually, I guess the revelation that high-level WaterWorld executives still sport soul patches in the year of our lord 2017 is hilarious too, but that’s really more a “laughing at” than “laughing with” situation.

Judge Parker, 6/30/17

Wait a minute, are you telling me that Randy Parker spent months in a CIA black site in Macedonia enduring “stress positions,” waterboarding, and other “enhanced interrogation” techniques and we didn’t get to see it? I for one will be writing angry letters to King Features Syndicate and my Congressman about this.

Pluggers, 6/30/17

I for one am pretty surprised that pluggers took in some summer movie fare last year! Good for them for getting out!

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Mary Worth, 6/28/17

One of my big disappointments in Mary Worth over the past few years is that her stints filling in as Ask Wendy have been pretty dull. I’m kind of an aficionado of advice columns, and let me tell you, one of the main keys to having a good one is to start by curating the interesting ones of the presumable flood of banal queries you get. The best letters to advice columnists take you on a journey; for me, one of the best ones ever was in this Dear Prudence column, the one titled “How to respect a vet on Memorial Day” (scroll down, it’s at the end). It starts with “I may have thoughtlessly offended my war veteran neighbor by inviting him to a birthday party on Memorial Day weekend,” takes a sudden left turn into “this hot, hot vet and I are both in unhappy marriages and have an unspoken attraction so I want to honor his service without giving anybody the wrong idea,” and barrels home into “I’m only staying with my husband so that his daughter doesn’t have to graduate high school in a broken home.” I assume that as an advice columnist, your main task is actually separating the “horny for heroes” wheat from the “How do I decide which of two very vaguely described job offers I should accept” chaff, but Mary seems to think she should just answer whichever question shows up in her inbox first.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up as that Mary should learn from this interaction with Derek. Because you know what would make a classic advice columnist letter? Someone starting with something boring like “My wife and I kept fighting about my cigarette habit” and then somehow ending up with “so there I was, making out with a cruise ship entertainer right outside our cabin…”

Family Circus, 6/28/17

This is just some bug Jeffy found an hour ago, making this a pretty low-stakes interaction Ma Keane can use to practice when she for has to have the same conversation with him about Barfy, or Billy.

Pluggers, 6/28/17

Pluggers are fine when their wives see their ancient, poop-encrusted underwear, but when visiting a medical professional still feel a twinge of shame.