Now they have pulled the reknowned physicist Richard Feynman into this lame story line. Incredible! And in keeping with the standards of the strip, they have to make him appear to be just as stupid as the rest of the characters.
Here is some of the gibberish that they have Feynman saying just moments after being accidently zapped into the time lab by the new time machine:
"Perhaps if we analyze the physical dynamics of the coordinating vectors used in the space-time continuum used as your foundation, we could reconfigure the fundamental synchronicity involved!"
Not only does that make no sense whatsoever - even using Star Trekkian sci-fi logic - it is not even good grammar.
So now it has become clear that not only is Dr. Wonmug a complete idiot who has no idea how his own time machine is supposed to work (in addition he is a complete jerk as demonstrated by the scene in which Feynman is first zapped into the lab and very naturally asks "Who are you people", instead of answering him, Dr. Wonmug rushes up to him with an angry scowl and screams in his face "No, Who are you!!!" - as if it was his fault for coming to the time lab rather than Alley Oop - sheesh!!) but we now know that future-boy Dave Wowee - Dr. Wonmug's "cousin" from the future - is also a complete idiot who doesn't have the foggiest notion how his own time machine from the future operates.
So now we have to pull in a famous historical figure from the past to help our crew of dimwits fix their problem. And of course, Feynman is eager to jump into this problem just moments after being zapped into the lab in the middle of one of his bongo drumming sessions.
Maybe once Feynman fixes the time machine he will confiscate it and take it away from these dangerously stupid people who have no right to be messing around with technology that they do not understand.
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Thursday, July 24, 2003
The end is near
This painfully awful Alley Oop segment appears to finally be drawing to some sort of conclusion. First Dr. Wonmug has been thoroughly humiliated by his inability to repair his own time machine, then his "cousin" Dave Wowee from the distant future comes to the rescue with a time machine from the future... and now we find out that even future boy has no clue as to how the time machine works. After spending what seemed like weeks doing calculations on a yellow note pad, Wowee finally returns Oscar Boom to the present time period but is then mystified that Alley Oop didn't transport with him. So what was that he said earlier about needing to have all the precise coordinates in place, blah, blah, blah...
Maybe when they finally show that Alley Oop has mysteriously transported back to his time period in Moo the writers will anounce that they are retiring the strip and relenquising their pens. We can only hope.
Maybe when they finally show that Alley Oop has mysteriously transported back to his time period in Moo the writers will anounce that they are retiring the strip and relenquising their pens. We can only hope.
Thursday, June 26, 2003
The lovefest continues
This whole lovefest between Alley Oop the wimp priest and the king who is supposed to look like Sean Connery is getting way too syrupy now. And I like the way that Oscar Boom has suddenly dropped off the face of the planet. I mean, as far as the king and the priest are concerned Boom is just a criminal who should still be in the stockade. Aren't they concerned that he is standing there wielding a broken board like a club? While Oop is soaking in all this adulation and being granted his freedom will he even remember to say "Oh, and what about my friend over here?"
Monday, June 16, 2003
Well armed prisoners
Wow! Alley Oop looks absolutely sinister today as he waits to pounce on his captors with a vicious looking polearm that was conveniently left lying around in his cell. I mean, how stupid is that? That they would leave these kinds of weapons lying around in a cell where they keep their prisoners locked up?
Meanwhile, the wimp priest who was totally won over by Alley Oop during their two-second chance encounter seems to have forsaken his own faith in favor of worshiping the time-traveling caveman. It is the priest and the king, who is supposed to look like Sean Connery, who are approaching the cell in such a noisy fashion. Do you suppose Oop will lop their heads off with his polearm before they can explain that they have come to free him? We can only hope.... Meanwhile, what's up with the morons back in the time lab? Are they taking a coffee break or something? They zapped Dinny the Dinosaur away about a half hour ago and still haven't done anything to retrieve Oop and Oscar Boom. Oh well.
Meanwhile, the wimp priest who was totally won over by Alley Oop during their two-second chance encounter seems to have forsaken his own faith in favor of worshiping the time-traveling caveman. It is the priest and the king, who is supposed to look like Sean Connery, who are approaching the cell in such a noisy fashion. Do you suppose Oop will lop their heads off with his polearm before they can explain that they have come to free him? We can only hope.... Meanwhile, what's up with the morons back in the time lab? Are they taking a coffee break or something? They zapped Dinny the Dinosaur away about a half hour ago and still haven't done anything to retrieve Oop and Oscar Boom. Oh well.
Friday, June 06, 2003
Thanks be to Alley Oop!
As I predicted, the priest has been declared a hero by the denizens of the Scottish castle after Dinny the dinaosaur is zapped away by the time machine. He has been carried back into the castle to be presented to the King (who bears a striking and most certainly not accidental resemblance to Sean Connery). Despite the fact that the King is the one who sent for the priest in the first place and sent him on the mission to vanquish the dinosaur, the Scotsmen still find it necessary to introduce the priest to the King (sigh). And for a good example of how poorly and illogically the Alley Oop strip is drawn these days check out the June 5 segment when the King reaches out with his left hand to shake the priest's hand and the priest in turn reaches out with his right hand. You can't shake hands that way, morons!!
Today, we have the King congratulating the priest on his accomplishment, but the priest stops him and says that he cannot take credit for what has happened. Now any good priest would be expected to say this and of course would insist that the credit for the good work be given to God. But not this priest. He is sure to give credit to Alley Oop and ask that he be released from the dungeon. The only question that remains is whether the idiots controlling the time machine will figure out how to zap Oop and Boom out of there before they go down to release them. Remember that for no logical reason we are operating in concurrent time frames here, so how long does it take them to reset the time machine now that it has been upgraded with all this fancy gadgetry from the future?
Today, we have the King congratulating the priest on his accomplishment, but the priest stops him and says that he cannot take credit for what has happened. Now any good priest would be expected to say this and of course would insist that the credit for the good work be given to God. But not this priest. He is sure to give credit to Alley Oop and ask that he be released from the dungeon. The only question that remains is whether the idiots controlling the time machine will figure out how to zap Oop and Boom out of there before they go down to release them. Remember that for no logical reason we are operating in concurrent time frames here, so how long does it take them to reset the time machine now that it has been upgraded with all this fancy gadgetry from the future?
Friday, May 30, 2003
Time passages
What is with this tracking between the two time periods? We are following events in the present time and having it overlaid with events in 1308 Scotland to indicate that they are somehow happening concurrently. But we are talking about a time machine here!!! Why can't they just zap Dinny from whatever time period they choose? Go and get him sometime before he is being shot at by the invading English army. Of course, then we would lose the whole narrative of the story. Alley Oop is not a comic strip for people who like to think too much.
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
Everyone speaks English
Alley Oop has been preceding in slow motion this past week which is probably good since I have had little time to comment here. We are still going through the motions of having the new time machine zap Dinny the Dinosaur out of Loch Ness just as a cowardly priest has been sent out to exorcise the demon from the loch. It is certainly fortunate that Dinny the Dinosaur can understand English and its perhaps even more amazing that all these folks in Scotland in 1308 also speak such good English.
Last week when they first turned on the new time machine from the future it immediatly honed in on Dinny without anyone having to do more than scribble on a yellow notepad. Now, several strips later, we are told by Dave "future boy" Wowee that he must have the exact coordinates to move Dinny back to the past. Amazing that the only noticable advance on the new futuristic time machine is that it comes with a flat-screen monitor, but you still have to interface it with a keyboard and mouse. Oh well, such is the lack of imagination of these authors.
I see today that Wowee has entrusted his yellow notepad to the clueless Dr. Wonmug, maybe so he doesn't feel too completely useless as he stands around and watches everyone else do his work for him now. The remainer of this particular series is easy to predict -- Dinny will magically vanish at the preist's command making him a hero and he will then repay his dept to Oop by having him freed from the dungeon just before he too is zapped away by the time machine.
Last week when they first turned on the new time machine from the future it immediatly honed in on Dinny without anyone having to do more than scribble on a yellow notepad. Now, several strips later, we are told by Dave "future boy" Wowee that he must have the exact coordinates to move Dinny back to the past. Amazing that the only noticable advance on the new futuristic time machine is that it comes with a flat-screen monitor, but you still have to interface it with a keyboard and mouse. Oh well, such is the lack of imagination of these authors.
I see today that Wowee has entrusted his yellow notepad to the clueless Dr. Wonmug, maybe so he doesn't feel too completely useless as he stands around and watches everyone else do his work for him now. The remainer of this particular series is easy to predict -- Dinny will magically vanish at the preist's command making him a hero and he will then repay his dept to Oop by having him freed from the dungeon just before he too is zapped away by the time machine.
Wednesday, May 21, 2003
Back to the future
Well, we are finally off of the tedious back and forth between Alley Oop and Oscar Boom about the latter's criminal past, which ended abruptly when Oop suddenly noticed that he is (gasp) imprisoned in a torture chamber!! Yes, now we are shown that Oop and Boom are surrounded by torture devices that would make Saddam Hussein blush. But the denizens of this castle are supposed to be the good guys here aren't they? I mean, Dinny the Dinosaur did scare away the bad English Army that was about to invade. Oh, but I'm sure they only torture really bad people down in the dungeon and they wouldn't imprison anyone who wasn't guilty - except for Alley Oop of course.
So now we have flashed back to the current day time lab which has just been upgraded with equipment from the distant future!. Dr. Wonmug, who could no longer figure out how to fix his old time machine, is now standing around like an eager child waiting for Dave Wowee from the future to install everything and tell them whether or not it works. When asked to check out the new equipment, Dave Wowee stands in front of the machine scribbling something onto a yellow note pad for no clear reason when suddenly it springs to life showing a picture of Dinny on multiple TV screens. This machine is such an improvement, it does just what the folks want witihout their having to do any thinking for themselves, in other words, just what they needed.
So now we have flashed back to the current day time lab which has just been upgraded with equipment from the distant future!. Dr. Wonmug, who could no longer figure out how to fix his old time machine, is now standing around like an eager child waiting for Dave Wowee from the future to install everything and tell them whether or not it works. When asked to check out the new equipment, Dave Wowee stands in front of the machine scribbling something onto a yellow note pad for no clear reason when suddenly it springs to life showing a picture of Dinny on multiple TV screens. This machine is such an improvement, it does just what the folks want witihout their having to do any thinking for themselves, in other words, just what they needed.
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
The time travel conundrum
Today's strip is one of those jaw-droppers where you are left scratching your head and wondering where they come up with this stuff. Oscar Boom is trying to reconcile himself with Alley Oop while both are locked in the dungeon of a Scottish castle sometime back in the 1500s. He admits to having a "criminal past" which is news to anybody who has only been reading the strip for - oh, say the past 8 years! And then Alley Oop starts to have more flashbacks to strips dating back to WWII! Oop admits that Boom might have redeemed himself when he invented a rocket back during WWII! First off, how old is Oscar Boom supposed to be anyway! 100!?! And secondly, if he redeemed himself so long ago, why is Oop hung up on stuff that happened prior to WWII? Why aren't they making plans to escape from the dungeon? What will they do if the y do escape but clueless Dr. Wonmug can't ever fix his time machine?
Ah yes, the broken time machine problem. This was the beginning of the latest series that started several months ago when the time machine went haywire in the first place. At that time, Dr. Wonmug admitted to his assistant Ava, that he no longer knows how to fix his own invention! What's up with that!! Does he have Alzheimers or something?? But rather than addressing this issue, they set about placing want ads in the newspaper to look for someone who can fix the machine!! But the person who eventually answers the ad turns out to be a distant cousin of Dr. Wonmug from the future who has traveled back in his own time machine to give them a hand. But now the conundrum. If the current day time machine is broken and Wonmug can't fix it, how does he ever pass on this knowledge to future generations of his clan to build other time machines? It is not logical!!!! But that isn't stopping them at this point, so even when future boy fails to fix the old machine his answer is to go back to the future and fetch parts to build a futuristic machine that they can use from that point on in the past - or the present- whatever. Just pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, Dorothy.
Ah yes, the broken time machine problem. This was the beginning of the latest series that started several months ago when the time machine went haywire in the first place. At that time, Dr. Wonmug admitted to his assistant Ava, that he no longer knows how to fix his own invention! What's up with that!! Does he have Alzheimers or something?? But rather than addressing this issue, they set about placing want ads in the newspaper to look for someone who can fix the machine!! But the person who eventually answers the ad turns out to be a distant cousin of Dr. Wonmug from the future who has traveled back in his own time machine to give them a hand. But now the conundrum. If the current day time machine is broken and Wonmug can't fix it, how does he ever pass on this knowledge to future generations of his clan to build other time machines? It is not logical!!!! But that isn't stopping them at this point, so even when future boy fails to fix the old machine his answer is to go back to the future and fetch parts to build a futuristic machine that they can use from that point on in the past - or the present- whatever. Just pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, Dorothy.
Tuesday, May 13, 2003
A long history
The Alley Oop comic strip was created in 1933 by V.T. Hamlin. I did not start reading the strip until 1995, so there is a long history behind the strip of which I am clearly ignorant. That is especially apparent today as Oop and Oscar Boom continue their pointless, meandering discussion about Boom's illicit background. I never knew that Boom was anything other than Dr. Wonmug's assistant, but apparently from today's flashback where he is shown punching Alley Oop in the jaw, he must have at one time been an arch villian who later converted to the good side. Why this is suddenly necessary to bring out now while they are both trapped in the dungeon of a Scottish castle is beyond me. Maybe the writers are just filling space because they don't know where to go with the story next, not that that has ever stopped them before.
Monday, May 12, 2003
A Scottish dungeon
Today we find Alley Oop, our time-traveling caveman, trapped in a dungeon in a Scottish castle with one Oscar Boom, a member of the current day crew who use the time machine to serve business clients and to make a profit. Oop and Boom are stuck in this time because the time machine malfunctioned and Dr. Wonmug and his assistant Ava haven't a clue as to how to fix it. More on that later.
Oop's trusty sidekick dinosaur was also transported to this time period and landed in the moat around the castle where he has been mistaken for the Loch Ness Monster. He effectively scared away an invading British army and is now the subject of much consternation among the occupants of the Scottish castle. Oop snuck into the castle earlier and was immediatly captured and accused of spying and sent to the dungeon, but not before he was conveniently left alone with the resident cleric who has been summoned by the king to make the evil spirit in the moat go away.
When Oop was tossed into the dungeon cell they were nice enough to leave him with just a simple rope tying his hands behind his back. Boom, however, was placed in the stocks. Oop broke free of his rope with ease and then set about freeing his buddy by loudly breaking apart the wooden stocks. Once he was freed, Boom celebrated by yelling very loudly "Yes!! I'm Free!!!!" Amazingly enough, the guards did not come in to see what all the noise was about. How fortunate.
For the past several days Oop and Boom have been having an awkward discussion about the latter's unfortunate habit of trying to steal gold and artifacts on his time travel jaunts. Boom has apparently had enough of this discussion today and tells Oop very loudly to knock it off!!! Fortunately, the guards still do not come and investigate.
Oop's trusty sidekick dinosaur was also transported to this time period and landed in the moat around the castle where he has been mistaken for the Loch Ness Monster. He effectively scared away an invading British army and is now the subject of much consternation among the occupants of the Scottish castle. Oop snuck into the castle earlier and was immediatly captured and accused of spying and sent to the dungeon, but not before he was conveniently left alone with the resident cleric who has been summoned by the king to make the evil spirit in the moat go away.
When Oop was tossed into the dungeon cell they were nice enough to leave him with just a simple rope tying his hands behind his back. Boom, however, was placed in the stocks. Oop broke free of his rope with ease and then set about freeing his buddy by loudly breaking apart the wooden stocks. Once he was freed, Boom celebrated by yelling very loudly "Yes!! I'm Free!!!!" Amazingly enough, the guards did not come in to see what all the noise was about. How fortunate.
For the past several days Oop and Boom have been having an awkward discussion about the latter's unfortunate habit of trying to steal gold and artifacts on his time travel jaunts. Boom has apparently had enough of this discussion today and tells Oop very loudly to knock it off!!! Fortunately, the guards still do not come and investigate.
Saturday, May 10, 2003
Welcome
Welcome to Alley Oop watch, a blog that analyzes the daily doings of the nation's dumbest comic strip. Alley Oop is a long-running strip about a group of current day time travelers and a pre-historic caveman that does much of their work for them. The strip was good at one time, but the original creators and their successors have all passed on and the folks left directing the strip are clearly inept and clueless.
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