Thursday, August 19, 2004

Dumbed Down


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Originally uploaded by mwthomas87.
Whenever the Alley Oop cartoonists introduce a historical figure into the cartoon strip they usually manage to dumb them down in their effort to have them interact with the imbeciles who make up the regular cast.
In this strip we have Dan Gable, the former Olympic wrestler and coach at Iowa University, trying to give wrestling advice to Oop.
Here is his advice:

"If your friend is in top codition, he'll have the stamina to run his opponent all over the mat... until he runs him out of gas. You know.... wears him out."

"Runs him out of gas???" I certainly hope that Coach Gables didn't really talk like that. Or that he had the bad speech habit of always saying "You know..."

Oop is typically clueless, but then a light comes on in his tiny little pea-sized brain. We can only imagine what that means...

Monday, August 16, 2004

Breaking the Ice

Alley Oop has supposedly been sent back in time to ancient Athens to find the great Greek wrestler Milo so that he could learn from him in his own bid to become a wrestler in the 2004 Olympics. But Dr. Wonmug sent Oop to a time before Milo had a chance to compete in his own Olympics so I’m not sure what Oop was supposed to learn from the guy. Anyway, once there Oop challenges Milo to a match and promptly throws him 20 feet in the air so that he comes crashing down on his face. Now Milo’s spirit has been broken and he is contemplating giving up his dream of being an Olympian. So Oop promises to go find other historic figures and ask their advice for Milo.
Next Oop gets shipped to 1900 Iowa to meet Frank Gotch, another famous wrestler from history. Once there Oop inexplicably grabs the guy and throws him 20 feet in the air so that he too comes crashing down on his face. Afterwards, Oop says “Oops, Sorry. Guess it was a conditioned response.”
A conditioned response!?! To grab some guy who is walking past you and throw them violently to the ground??
When Gotch gets up his head is spinning with little stars floating around. You might think he would be a bit preturbed with Oop at this point, but you would be wrong. Instead he says “Now that you have my attention, what is it that you want?”
Wow, some icebreaker. Good think it didn’t break Gotch’s back too.
So Oop asks this guy who he has just slammed to the ground for wrestling advice, as if he needs it. Gotch has two things to contribute. First, he makes the brilliant observation that a wrestler needs to be in excellent physical condition. Great. When we first met Milo, he was walking around with a fully grown bull on his shoulders. He explained that he had been carrying the bull around since it was a calf to help condition himself for wrestling. So Oop is going to go back now and tell Milo that he needs to get in shape??
Gotch’s second bit of advice is to smile at your opponent to take them off their guard. I’m sure that will be a big help for Milo too. And that is all the advice he has. Then Dr. Wonmug zaps Oop away while he is still talking with Gotch, no doubt traumatizing him for the rest of his life.
Next Wonmug turns around and ships Oop to 1972 Iowa to meet wrestling coach Dan Gable, supposedly the greatest Olympic wrestler of all time. Once again Oop wrestles the guy but this time the match ends in a draw. So what kind of advice does Alley need anyway? If he can beat or best the greatest wrestlers in history, what could they possibly tell him that he would need to know?
Of course Gable’s first pearl of wisdom is that a wrestler needs to be in top phsical condition. Well, Duh. I think we have heard that somewhere before and once again the information will be of no use to Milo.