Alley Oop watch

Lazy cartooning

2010-04-22T14:10:00.000-07:00

When I mentioned in the last post that the Benders would probably be well served to extend the fight sequence over several weeks, I neglected to mention that this would require drawing more than one fight scene that they use over and over and over again.
Because, as you can see below, that is precisely what the Benders have done.

In the April 15 strip, we get the first scene of the melee with Oop grimacing as he clups a Lemmian with a red bandana upside the head. Behind him to his left is Foozie with an uncertain look on his face as he is set upon by a clone of the guy that Oop just bashed. And to the right of Oop is Wooly locked in a struggle with three Lemmians - one has grabbed his club, another has his left arm and a third looks like he’s going to hit him while he is being restrained. And immediately behind Oop is a menacing-looking bald-headed Lemmian with both arms up in the air looking like he is going to try and tackle Oop from behind.
So far so good. Then on Sunday we get a repeat of the same picture since the Benders have given up on producing new materials for Sunday and just rehash scenes from the previous week.
Finally, on Monday, April 20, we resume with the fight.... except that it is simply the exact same fight scene as before only flipped so that whereas earlier Oop was swinging his club with his right hand, now he is singing with his left hand and so forth. So the Benders did as little work as possible. Alley Oop is still in the process of hitting the same guy, Wooly is now off screen, but everything else is just the same as it was the week prior.
Then on Tuesday, April 21, we get a change. Oop is STILL hitting the same guy (flipped back again and using his right arm once more) and we can now see Wooly once more still in t he exact same position. The only difference now is that the bald-headed guy behind Oop suddenly has a club in his left hand that he is swinging awkwardly at Oop’s hat. Why the sudden importance being placed on the hat is beyond me. The fact that Oop stops in the middle of a fight to liberate Moo so that he can retrieve his top hat is stupid beyond compare.
And it’s not even worth noting that in the split second it takes for the swinging club to strike Oop’s hat, he has already switched his club from his right hand to his left hand.

More Wham! Bam! Pow! please

2010-04-19T09:43:00.000-07:00

Finally, after weeks of Alley Oop and the Moovians behaving like sniveling cowards, they finally show some life in this April 15 comic. Maybe the Benders decided to take a clue from the new movie “Kick-Ass.” Here, for an all-too-brief moment, we have Alley Oop acting like the hero he is supposed to be and whaling away at the Lemmians. The Benders could run several weeks worth of this fight scene and improve the strip greatly. Oop should be able to take on five or six of these guys at a time. Instead, all we’ve seen him and the rest of the Moovians do is immediately surrender everytime they see more than two Lemmians together at one time. It’s pathetic!
But no. One brief glimpse is all we get and then we have to turn the focus back to Oola and some Lemmian deserter having a long, drawn-out, pointless conversation. Yawn.
If we are lucky, we may get one more brief glimpse of the fight before Oop blows his horn and Dinny/Oola ride to the rescue scaring away all the Lemmians who will act like they’ve never seen a dinosaur before. Sheesh!

Right foot..... No! Left!

2010-02-04T11:38:00.000-08:00

Isn't that amazing? Alley Oop somehow managed to switch feet as he was being trapped by the Lemmians. You can clearly see in the first panel that Oop and Wooley both get their right feet caught in the trap. But in the next day's panel, Wooley is hanging by his right foot, but Oop is now hanging by his left foot!!!
Do you suppose this has something to do with the plot? Or were the Benders once again not paying attention to the details?
I'll let you decide.

Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

2010-01-25T14:54:00.000-08:00

Really sad that after years of building up to this point that the Benders would just pull the plug on the whole marriage thing.
I really don't have much more to say other than to note how ridiculous it is for Alley Oop to put on a necktie when he is not even wearing a shirt. But we needed a new thread so here it is.

Hitting rock bottom

2009-10-02T23:31:00.000-07:00

Can the Benders make Alley Oop sink any lower in character?
Oop has just poisoned an innocent and unsuspecting Wooley (and inadvertenly poisoned his would-be fiance) in a fit of jealous rage. And now, the same Wiz who instructed him on how to mix up his little potion is advising him to duck out and shun responsibility - like a kid who just hit his baseball through a neighbor's window and then runs for cover.
What a FINE example Alley is setting for all his young fans!
Perhaps now Doc will save the day by zapping Alley Oop back to the future for the start of a new "adventure". Maybe he can then send Oop back into his own recent past where he could slap some sense into himself before he ever concocts his poisonous plant scheme.

More mis-perspectives

2009-10-01T14:48:00.000-07:00

This is sooooooo awful!!! I can't believe that the Benders are such idiots! They just CAN'T be this stooopid! It has to be that they are simply thumbing their noses at the readers in pure disdain.
In the strip above, we have Ooola hiding behind a rock that magically materialized behind the poor, unsuspecting musician who we assume is about to suffer the wrath of the insanely jealous Alley Oop.
The first frame gives us the perspective from behind Ooola as she peers around the RIGHT side of the rock and watches the musician direct the singers with his RIGHT hand. Then in the very next frame, we get the same scene from Alley Oop's perspective, but now Ooola is peering out from the LEFT side of the rock (from her perspective) and the musician is now directing the singers with his LEFT hand.
There is no consistency whatsoever. Simple details are carelessly overlooked or ignored. It is enough to drive anyone mad. Perhaps that is what has already happened to the Benders.

Jumping to conclusions...again

2009-08-04T10:18:00.000-07:00

I think we have all seen this story line before from the Benders. Alley Oop comes home from another long bout of time travel to discover his long-neglected flame Ooola (Gasp!) TALKING to another man!!!
So naturally our overly jealous and presumptive hero Alley Oop throws a big hissy fit and then walks away in a huff. No effort to fight for and reclaim the love of his life, just complete indifference and self pity.
Remind me again why we are supposed to be rooting for such a despicable character as the Bender's version of Alley Oop? If their point is to disgust old fans and drive them away from the comic strip, then they are certainly succeeding.

Consistently inconsistent

2009-07-16T08:05:00.000-07:00

I have to hand it to the Benders. They are stubbornly consistent in their inconsistency. Throughout the entire kidnappying ordeal of Dr. Bronson, they couldn’t make up their mind how they wanted him to be tied up. Sometimes we would seem him sitting with the ropes going just around his chest and his arms tied behind the chair. Other times we would see the rope going all the way around both arms, pinning them to his side in a way that his hands could not be tied behind his back.
Now here in the last strip of the series we see both examples once again back to back. In the first frame, the rope is around Bronson’s chest, but not around his arms or the chair. How this binds him to the chair or restricts his movement in anyway is unclear. In the second frame, the ropes are clearly around his arms again.
I just don’t see how they can miss this. Are they doing it on purpose? Don’t they have any respect for their readers, much less for their own work?
It is just baffling.

Time (Machine) Shifting

2009-04-06T08:58:00.000-07:00

With Alley Oop these days the sloooow pacing and the dull storylines are just part of the problem. What really drives me crazy is the lack of consistency in perspective. Today’s strip is a perfect example. In the first frame we see the mysterious man peeking around the time machine at Oop and the lady in the red dress. The time machine, you will note, is on his left side and Oop and the lady are about to walk out a door on a side wall to their left.
In the second frame, we get the same scene from the perspective of the mystery man, but now the time machine is on his right side and Oop and the lady are walking out a door that is straight in front of them. Also, Oops ax is in his left hand in the first frame, but is missing (presumably in his right hand) in the second frame.
There is no explanation for this other than that the Benders are being careless, sloppy and lazy.

In case you missed it...

2009-02-17T07:01:00.000-08:00

Just in case you were dozing off during the past month's worth of Alley Oop strips, the authors haved decided to recap all the action for us this week.
This latest turn of events has earned the Benders the title of "THE laziest creators of any currently running comics strips" at The Daily Comics Review.

Oscar Boom returns

2009-01-23T15:02:00.000-08:00

I really don't know what to say about this. I thought they were unfair to Oscar when they turned him into a bad guy all of a sudden. Are they going to flip him again and let him return to being a good guy, or are they just setting him up for his next diabolical scheme?

Ooops! That must be Alley’s cue...

2008-11-14T07:28:00.000-08:00

Like helpless 2-year-olds, the womenfolk have gone and gotten themselves into a big mess again. Poor Alley, can’t turn his back for a second without one of them wandering off and getting eaten by a sabertooth tiger (or is that a sabertooth sloth cosidering how slow it is?) or stupidly rapelling halfway down a cliff and getting stuck because she didn’t use a long enough rope.
Now Ooola has tripped and will no doubt end up dangling on the end of the rope with Dee where they will have to wait for Alley to come to their rescue.

Graverobber

2008-10-14T10:11:00.000-07:00

My Lord, this is getting downright creepy! What the hell is wrong with these people? The look in Dee’s eyes is just sick as she practically drools over this recently dead neanderthal’s remains. Doesn’t she realize that what she is doing is in essence graverobbing?
She is not at some archeological site thousands of years in the future. She got in a frickin’ time machine and traveled thousands of years into the past, just shy of when the neanderthals were living, and is now digging up gravesites under no more than a few inches of top soil (considering that she uncovered it with a little hand trowel in less than a minute).
Ooola was right to react disgusted by what Dee is doing. This IS disgusting!
Maybe Dee will next fixate on Ooola’s pristine cavewoman skull. Imagine how much she could learn from that!
“Hey Dee! What are you doing with that axe in your hand? Whoa! Watch where you’re swinging that thing. You could take someone’s head off!”

Time traveling archeologist?

2008-09-26T14:27:00.001-07:00

Let’s see if I can get my mind around this. I don’t know what era Moo is supposed to be in, but just for grins let’s say it is 10,000 BC.
So, Dee wants to know what was going on in 15,000 B.C. and she has access to a time machine. So what does she do?
She goes back to 10,000 B.C. and then starts an archeological excavation!?!?
Does anybody else see something wrong with this picture? Did it ever occur to her to simply get back in the time machine and go back another 5,000 years or so?
Maybe if we are lucky she will get eaten by a sabre-toothed tiger before she does too much digging.

Dig this!

2008-08-20T12:02:00.000-07:00

I assume we are going to get up close and personal with each one of Alley Oop's myriad party guests which should drag this out for several weeks at least. That's OK, I suppose. It could be worse.
First up was Will Rogers who became a setup for a lariat gag with Ooola. Next was Doc Wonmug's former assistant who has now promised to stick around and upgrade the time lab with new software (and new bugs, no doubt).
Now we get Doc's daughter Dee who tells Oop today that she is leaving her job as a museum curator to do archeaology.
"I can't wait to do some digging around Moo," she says.
Ummm. Why? Can someone please explain why someone with ready access to a time machine would spend time on archeaological digs?

The Surprise Party

2008-08-06T07:31:00.000-07:00

I’ll bet nobody saw this coming! A gathering of all the characters from the recent storylines to wish Alley Oop a happy 75th birthday. I can see Fill, the barbecue guy; the bongo-playing physicist Richard Feynman; dance instructor Rudolph Valentino; Will Rogers; Dave Wowee; and the usual cast of characters including a few surprises like King Tunk and Oscar Boom. Awful nice of them to let Boom out of that bottle to celebrate Oop’s birthday.
I can’t make out everyone in the strip today. It is kind of small on the computer screen and blowing it up just makes everything fuzzy. Plus, I’m just not up on all my Oop history. So I’m requesting some of my readers to help me out and pick out who some of these other folks are.

Blame the syndicate

2008-07-31T07:03:00.001-07:00

Alley Oop bursts into the Bender’s studio swinging his ax and what does Jack do? He cowers in a corner and points his finger at Carole.
“All I can do is draw whatever Carole writes,” he whimpers.
Sheesh! It reminds me of the episode a while back when Guz cowered in his cave while King Tunk took control of Moo.
And then what does Carole do? She blames the Syndicate! Brilliant! A nameless, corporate bureaucracy is ultimately to blame for all of Oop’s problems.
In fact, I think she nailed it. I too blame the syndicate - for hiring the Benders to do the Alley Oop strip in the first place!
So what is Oop going to do now? Bust down the doors at United Media? Or give up and go home in defeat just in time for his big surprise party?
It’s a shame the Benders didn’t take their cue for this storyline from Stephan Pastis who draws the “Pearls Before Swine” comic strip. He recently had a segment in which he introduced a caricature of himself which had a twist that most Alley Oop readers could appreciate...

Alley Oop meets YouTube

2008-07-30T12:36:00.000-07:00

On a whim I did a quick search of YouTube for anything about Alley Oop. Wading through the bazillion references to the popular basketball dunking manuever, I came across these curious clips harkening back to a 1978 cartoon show I was completely unaware of.
The first clip is the intro to the cartoon series called Fabulous Funnies featuring what I believe to be is Foozy. The short-lived show featured animated versions of comic strips such as Broom Hilda, Nancy and Sluggo, Katzenjammer Kids and Alley Oop.

The second clip is of a video review show that pans one of the Alley Oop episodes found on an old VCR tape. It is the only other clip I could find that had any pictures of the Alley Oop characters. Even the video versions of the old Alley Oop song by the Hollywood Argyles doesn’t show any of the Alley Oop characters.

Y’all can provide your own withering reviews of the Fabulous Funnies version of Alley Oop in the comments below.

Who Can It Be Now?

2008-07-28T13:58:00.001-07:00

I was on vacation for awhile and it looks like things have really been cookin’ at Alley Oop Watch while I’ve been out. Things have gotten really bizarre in Alley Oop’s world lately with a sulking, thoroughly self-obsessed Alley Oop about to go postal on the current day authors of the comic strip.
`Not that the Benders don’t deserve to have Oop go postal on them, but it shouldn’t be over something as pathetic as his insistent whining about people forgetting his birthday. What he should really pound them about is turning his heroic character into such a whining wuss. Not to mention making him such a vengeful, arrogant, conceited doofus to boot. How dare those Moovians consider the anniversary of their country to be somewhat more important than Oop’s birthday! Such an outrage!!! I guess Oop is like a kid who was born on the 4th of July and thinks all the fireworks every year are for him.
Meanwhile, during the course of this bizarre, time-skipping, multi-dimensional, reality-bending scenario we have learned that Hamlin and Graue aren’t the slightest bit perturbed when Oop comes banging on their door, but the Benders are obviously terrified. What’s that supposed to mean?
Oh, and Dave Wowee is apparently an homage to Dave Graue.
Well, I have to say that the premise of the latest episode, while outlandish, is at least somewhat original and, dare I say, interesting. So good news all around for the poor, forsaken fans of Alley Oop who have had to suffer these many months through one awful series of strips after another.

You just said that

2008-05-13T12:16:00.001-07:00

Well I’d have to say that today’s Alley Oop strip advances the storyline not one iota from yesterday’s nearly identical strip.
What’s up with this?? Did the authors draw two versions of the same strip and then decide to use both of them just to be lazy? Did they forget that they said the same thing the day before? Do they not know where they are going with the story next and are thus attempting to stall and delay the storyline?
I’d say the answer is “All of the Above” based on what we have seen from the authors these past few years.
And what is with this “Boppo” character? Have we seen him before or is he a new invention? Is he supposed to be a long-lost Marx Brother or something?

And we’re off again...

2008-04-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

Finally time for a new adventure and already the first panel has lots of problems. Look closely at the two panels side by side, both from the same perspective with Guz’ cave entrance in the upper right corner. In the first frame we have Oop in the center of the panel rushing up to talk to a guy holding a spear. Oola is on the left side of the frame facing towards us and addressing another woman.
In the second panel, the only person still in the correct position is the spear guy, although he has swapped the hand holding the spear and the strap that runs across his chest in panel one is now gone.
Meanwhile, Oop has run all the way to the front of the panel and turned his back to us, while Oola has completely flipped sides, turned her back and replaced one of the men who had been standing behind the spear guy.
“Anybody know what’s up here?” Oop asks.
“Not a clue!” spear guy says.
And apparently neither do the cartoonists. They don’t know what’s up, down, left, right or sideways.
Sheesh!

Catching up...

2008-01-31T15:33:00.001-08:00

OK, I know I’m behind, but it’s not like the story is zipping along at such a pace that I can’t catch up.
I’m torn now as to what is most annoying. Is it the really, really big dumb things in the strip, like introducing an Alley Oop look-a-like out of the blue with no explanation? Or is it all the little dumb things that add up over time, like in today’s strip where Queen Umpa tells Oola to “send word” if she needs help when we’ve already established that she is going alone? What is she going to do? Whip out her cell phone?
This Early Oop character’s sudden insertion into the strip reminds me of the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where they suddenly revealed that Buffy had a sister named Dawn. And the most shocking thing about it was that Buffy, who we had understood was an only child up until then, reacted as if nothing was out of the ordinary and as if she had always had a sister. Of course, it was quickly explained in the series that Dawn wasn’t really Buffy’s sister, but an ethereal being known as “the key” who had the power to destroy the world if she were to fall into the wrong hands. Therefore, a group of magical creatures seeking to protect the key had transformed her into Buffy’s sister and then altered everyone’s memories so that Buffy would protect her. Or something like that. At least, they made the effort to explain the situation, unlike our Alley Oop writers who apparently don’t have enough respect for their readers to give them that much.
Finally, I want to second the comments in the previous thread about the inexcusable behavior of the Early Oop character with the implications that he is an abusive serial stalker and a menace to society. How the hell did that escape everyone in Moo’s notice up until now?

Burning biscuits

2008-01-02T13:46:00.000-08:00

Foozy knows the good Oop, so that would seem to be a strike against the notion that Alley accidently wound up in Early Oop’s parallel universe. So does this mean that Early Oop is intruding in Alley’s universe, or are we just supposed to accept that Early is just another character in this universe, who just happens to look like Alley, and has the same last name as Alley, and knows all about Alley (and Oola), and apparently has it out for Alley, and.... yet we the faithful readers are completely in the dark as to who this new character is.
A long-lost brother? Does anyone know if Alley ever had a family? Parents, siblings, cousins?

Meanwhile, when would a caveman ever use the phrase “burn his biscuits”? Are the Benders still hung up on the last storyline? Because that sounds like something Will Rogers would have said, not Early Oop.

Happy New Year

2007-12-31T09:00:00.000-08:00

So has Alley Oop stumbled into this alternative universe before? This Earlie Oop character's immediate recognition of our hero would seem to indicate so. If so, how did he get out of it last time? What will the alternate universe Oola be like?
Or could it be that Alley is actually in his proper universe and Earlie is the interloper trespassing in their dimension?
Such riveting question that I'm sure will be explained as this new story unfolds for the next five or six weeks. Hold on to your hats everyone!

Could they be related?

2007-10-06T11:15:00.000-07:00

Check out the new bad guy in this strip. Doesn't he look familiar? Hmmmm?
The dark eyes, the black hair, the hooked nose. Why I'd say he looks almost like this guy. Maybe it's one of his descendants. Heh!

He never met a neanderthal he didn't like...

2007-10-02T07:45:00.000-07:00

Now Will Rogers is going to get the Bender treatment just like Richard Feynman. I just hope they don't make him come across as stupid as the rest of the Alley Oop cast these days. At least they've done their homework up to this point and have Rogers in the proper time and context. I wonder what his special ability is that Oop will need to use. Trick roping?
So is this going to be like the Star Trek Next Generation episode where Mark Twain helps the time traveling Data to stop a bunch of soul-stealing aliens?
What I don't understand is that if Doc Wonmug already traveled back in time to find Will Rogers and update him on everything, then why does he need Alley Oop? And then, of course, there is the conundrum of how Doc could have known in advance that the timeline was going to be messed up in the first place. But if we just ignore these logical inconsistencies, maybe the Benders will surprise us with a half-way decent story this time. As Monroe would say, "Let's all hope for the best!!!!"

Is it over yet?

2007-09-16T17:39:00.000-07:00

Wow. Time for some fresh thread. Sorry about that.
What an awful story. There is not much that I can add beyond the thrashing that this story has received from the comments in the previous thread. This story, I assume, was supposed to help King Guz redeem himself with his people. They will probably return him to the throne after hearing of his heroic efforts to destroy the bizarre space plague which conveniently effected everyone in Moo except for Guz.
It will now probably be several weeks before the Benders finally drag out the next noxious storyline. In the meantime, I'm guessing we will be treated to lots of filler. Enjoy!

That’s using your head, Oscar!

2007-07-27T11:54:00.000-07:00

I can’t tell you how creeped out this comic makes me feel. Here we had Oscar Boom practically begging not to be sucked back into that freaky tube thing only to be dismissed offhandedly by his former partner Doc Wonmug. We’ve already seen that Dave Wowee doesn’t really understand how or why it works, and now today we have him ominously warning them not to leave Oscar in there too long. Is there something else you haven’t told us about the tube, Dave? What happens if they stay in the tube too long? Do their vaporized molecules dissipate, never to be reassembled? The whole thing seems like a form of torture.
And now we have Ava saying they are going to take Oscar directly to the authorities. Ummm. What authorities might that be? The time cops? The police in Wonmug’s time aren’t going to believe their fantastic time travel story. What exactly are they going to charge Oscar with and how will they prove it? No prosecutor is going to be able to make those charges stick. At best Oscar would be out on bail in a matter of hours if the “authorities” choose to arrest him at all. Maybe they will arrest Doc and Ava instead and charge them with kidnapping.

Wasted opportunity/wasted time

2007-07-13T21:46:00.000-07:00

Hmmmm... Oop is holding the wand backwards. Maybe he'll accidently suck himself up into it this time.
How disappointing that the authors passed on a chance to salvage Oscar Boom's character. Why they felt the need to turn him from a good guy into a crazed lunatic is beyond me. So this means the whole Oscar and Dinny mixed up in the tube at the same time meme was just one long time waster with no consequences for the storyline. Very disappointing, but very typical for these authors.

Why, I oughta.....

2007-06-26T09:52:00.001-07:00

Come on, Oop! Bust Dave upside the head with your ax! He deserves it, the moron! That’s what he should get for entrusting a bunch of clueless people from the distant past with such a powerful, futuristic gadget. Why didn’t Dave go with them to make sure that the device was used properly? What? He didn’t have “time”? They have a TIME MACHINE for crying out loud! Arghhhhh!!!
After being so snotty to them when they first got back, now we see Dave starting to sweat it out in the face of Oop’s wrath. I think they should just take the bulb and bash it against a wall and see what comes out. Maybe we’ll get a weird Oscar Boom/Dinny mix like in that creepy 1970s remake of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” where a pod gets busted and ends up creating a dog with a man’s head on it. Yuck!
I have to agree with Jeff that this has proved to be an unusually entertaining storyline so far, all things considered.

The destruction of Oscar Boom

2007-06-04T09:54:00.000-07:00

One of the most wretched things about this latest storyline is how the authors have completely destroyed the character of Oscar Boom. For as long as I have been reading the Alley Oop strip - dating back to the mid-90s - Oscar Boom had been one of the good guys, regularly going on adventures with Alley Oop and Doc Wonmug. So to see his character suddenly devolve into this crazed, arch-villian is disconcerting to say the least.
Now I see from The Holloway Pages that Oscar had been a good guy dating back to at least 1965 - the year I was born! So this sudden reintroduction of Oscar as a villian comes literally after more than a generation of readers grew up knowing him as one of the good guys.
This is really a travesty in my opinion and a sharp U-turn away from the vision that had been set in place by V.T. Hamlin and Dave Graue. It’s bad enough that the current authors have turned King Guz into a cowering wimp and Doc Wonmug into an absent-minded buffoon.
I’m so baffled by this latest plot derailment that it seems pointless to criticize the other minor flaws in the strip that crop up so consistently - like the left-hand/right-hand holding the gun switcheroo just a few frames back.
I’m assuming next we will have Queen Umpa relinquish her throne to Guz in appreciation of his bold efforts to warn the villagers about an impending crisis by sheepishly telling them they are in danger without ever once mentioning the crazed gunman hiding in the bushes.

Sniff this

2007-03-26T22:08:00.000-07:00

What the heck!?! Futureboy doesn't need to see the computer information to track down Oscar? He just needs a personal item?
So that's what that big honker of a nose is used for. I should have known. Wowee is going to track him down like a time-traveling bloodhound. Sheesh!
I can buy that the silly printout that Ava put together is useless, but a personal item? I suppose this is along the same lines as when Wowee asked for a paperclip to fix the old time machine before giving up and bringing in a brand new one from the future.

Forgetfulness

2007-03-19T13:06:00.000-07:00

Sometime back, I speculated that Doc Wonmug may be suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease because of his forgetfulness - like forgetting how to repair his own time machine.
Now I have to wonder if it is not the Alley Oop strip’s writers who are really suffering from the disease.
The other day we had Wizer back in our time asking Doc and Ava this question:

“I don’t get it... If his lab is more advanced, why don’t you just get him to update your time lab?”
To which Ava replies: “We can’t do that, Wizer! It violates the laws of time travel.”

Really!?! Imagine that! I think I recall saying something to that effect back when they DID GET WOWEE TO UPDATE THEIR TIME LAB!!!!

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!!!!

Did the Benders agree with that assessment and are now trying to forget that it ever happened? Or do they figure that the tiny handful of people who still read this strip will have forgotten by now?

Random placement

2007-02-26T13:42:00.000-08:00

One of the things that drives me nuts about Alley Oop today is how the characters are just randomly placed from frame to frame. Today’s strip gives us a perfect example.
First, why are all the characters always standing around with their backs to one another when they are talking? Is it easier for the illustrator to draw full-frontal shots of the characters each time?
Now look at the first frame in today’s strip. We have Oop standing and looking at the podium he just built, while Oola is directly to his right and Umpa is further to the right. Meanwhile, Guz is in the immediate foreground with his back turned to everyone.
Now jump to frame two and it is enough to make your head spin! Notice the podiums still in the background for perspective. Now it appears that Oop and Oola have suddenly switched places with Umpa ending up in between them and Guz has been magically teleported directly behind Umpa - still with his back to everyone but now reversed. No wonder he has a question mark above his head! He’s saying “How did I end up here?”

Moo-vin' On Up

2007-01-30T13:08:00.000-08:00

Sorry that I've been out of pocket for awhile. I promise to get new posts up quicker henceforth!
So, what happened to all the men of Moo? Are they still cowering behind rocks somewhere since leaving it up to Dinny and Queen Umpa to save the kingdom from the Conquistadors? All we've seen for the past few weeks are women (with the exception of Oop, Guz and Foozy). Is Moo going to evolve into Amazonia soon? And since when did it become a democracy?
This storyline has obviously been brewing for sometime as we've been forced to watch King Guz make one blunder after another. And I suspect that a certain Democratic presidential candidate had something to do with inspiring it as well. In fact, I could swear one of the women characters from last Sunday is supposed to look like Hillary.
But I can't imagine how they are going to resolve this storyline in any kind of decent fashion. I agree with Jeff that it is uncharacteristic for Oop to jettison his loyalty to Guz like this. And how can they allow Guz to remain king at this point without making some kind of sexist "women just aren't cut out for this" kind of statement? Watching these storylines unfold is like seeing a car wreck in slow motion.

A Christmas Carol told badly

2006-12-14T14:53:00.000-08:00

Well that last storyline ended on a lame note, but don’t they all? King Guz has once again proven himself to be a cowardly, incompetent fool. And then we have Doc Wonmung callously sending the conquistadors off to certain deaths because “We can never change history! No matter what!!” What a riot!
Next we are introduced to Wonmug’s bratty grandchildren. But wait a minute!! How can he have grandchildren? Is there a Grandma Wonmug somewhere? How come we’ve never been introduced to her, not to mention their kids?
Now we are being treated to a very much abridged and scrambled version of Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol. But can someone explain to me how the time machine is allowing Doc Wonmug and his grandkids to watch the story unfold without being noticed by the participants in the story? Couldn’t Doc have just read his kids a book and achieved the same results? Oh, nevermind!
Already we’ve confused the ghost of Marley, Scrooge’s former business partner (played inexplicably by Alley Oop) with the Ghost of Christmas Present (I guess we skipped the Ghost of Christmas Past), and with the hood on he looks exactly like the Ghost of Christmas Future. How much more mixed up can this story get?

Open fire?!?

2006-11-27T15:39:00.000-08:00

Such appalling story telling here. Are we to believe that the lead conquistador is such a horrific villian that he would order his men to open fire on an unarmed couple all because the woman said “Leave my husband alone!”? I don’t think Darth Vader is even that bad. Nor is he that stupid.
Think about this. The conquistadors are stuck in a foreign country where they are heavily outnumbered and surrounded by people they know little about. While they have guns (even if they had not been rigged by Oop and Wizer), they are still just single-shot flintlock muskets that have a nasty habit of jamming and misfiring. If the conquistadors really did gun down the king and queen in cold blood, how long would it be before they would be overwhelmed by angry hordes of Moovians? Probably long before they would have time to reload their muskets for a second shot.
Remember that General Custer’s men had rifles too, and much better ones than the conquistadors have, but that made little difference at Little Big Horn.

Catching Up

2006-10-24T09:47:00.000-07:00

It seems I’ve been away from Alley Oop Watch for much too long. My apologies. I know I am way behind, but I just want to comment on a few past strips that struck me as especially odd.
First there was the way Alley Oop was able to contact the folks in the time lab by walking up to a hidden video camera and waving. We’ve all seen how the time machine can magically send back images of the past in concurrent time to the folks in the time lab. No explanation was really needed for how this was done. If you can accept that there is a time transport in the first place (with the magical ability to allow anyone who travels in it to speak the native tongue wherever they end up) then the ability to monitor events with a video screen seems less fantastical. However, now we have this mundane explanation of a video camera that had to be set up in advance and it only serves to send a jolt of reality into the story and emphasize just how ridiculous it all is. Are we supposed to believe that they have set up video cameras all over the world and all throughout time and leave them there indefinitely - powered by Energizer batteries, I assume?
And of course, the folks in the time lab just happen to be monitoring the scene when Oop walks up. How convenient.

Next we have Oop suddenly threatening to punch out Dr. Wonmug. Not a very admirable thing for our hero to do, to say the least. And then we have this extended sequence where they fret about not knowing the exact time and place where the Conquistador invaders came from, as if this should prevent them from swooping in and saving the Moovians from this threat. Here’s an idea - why don’t you scoop up with all the invaders with the time machine and get them out of Moo. Put them somewhere else, anywhere else, until you figure out where they came from. That way the folks in Moo are safe.
But no, that would be too easy. So instead we have to go searching for the answer to their whereabouts before taking any action. But, hey, at least that is something. And now with the reintroduction of Oscar Boom, the story is starting to get interesting again. So let’s sit back and hope they will salvage a halfway decent story out of this mess before it is all over.

Time Travel Rules

2006-09-08T22:08:00.000-07:00

"Time travel rules say we can't do anything to change history, so we can't destroy these (rifles)..." says Alley Oop in today's strip.
But of course Oop is not the one time traveling this time, therefore the rules should not apply to him. He is in his own time, so anything he does now is fair game. Unfortunately, the Benders are too stupid to make this simple and logical observation and so we have this idiotic situation where Oop is going to refrain from destroying the rifles, but will instead make them inoperable. So what's the difference? Either way he has changed history, if that is what he is worried about! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
And since when does Alley Oop start spouting off about time travel rules anyway? He's never cared about them in the past (or the future, that is). Is he afraid some time traveling cops are going to pop in and give him a citation or something? Sheesh!

An alternate Alley Oop storyline

2006-08-18T13:24:00.000-07:00

Long-time Alley Oop Watch reader and devoted Alley Oop fan Jeff has drafted the first part of an alternative Alley Oop narrative which I am printing below. Jeff, who is frequently critical of the writing talents of the strip’s current authors (just a mild understatement), should be lauded for his initiative and his courage in putting his talent where his mouth is. I think his story outline is excellent and I would invite everyone to join in through the comments section and help him to flesh it out further.
So as the current Alley Oop strip plods along at its usual snail’s pace, I hope you enjoy this taste of what could be:

(During a powerful electrical storm, Ava is transported to Nazi Germany into a lab deep in the bowels of the “Führerhauptquartier Wolfsschanze”, or Wolf's Lair, the military headquarters of Adolf Hitler during World War II. There she accidentally happens upon the experimental time machine built by the brilliant Dr. Fritz Liess in 1944.)

Location: Moo
Time: Prehistoric

Our story begins with our hero, Alley Oop, Fishing in a Moovian stream. Suddenly Oop finds himself being transported through time, and into the laboratory of Dr. Wonmug.

Location: Doc Wonmug's Laboratory
Time: Present

Oop, feeling a little angry about being pulled from his tranquil settings without warning, lets his anger slip away when he sees the panic in Wonmug's face. Across the room, frantically typing at the keyboard of the computer that controls the time machine is Wonmug's longtime assistant, Oscar Boom.

A crash of thunder roars through the sky outside, loud enough that it seems to have come from inside the laboratory itself. Oop towards the time machine transportation platform and sees smoke wafting away from its frame.

“What happened, Doc?”

“We’ve lost Ava.” Doc replies. “What with the storm outside, we thought it would be a good time to do some light maintenance and repair work on the time machine. Ava was working on the platform when a lightning strike somehow activated the machine, and transported her into another time.”

“Where?” Oop asks.

“That’s what I am trying to figure out”. Oscar replies as his fingers fly across the keyboard. “The machine miraculously wasn’t damaged too badly, but we are only able to locate and transport people to the present. When the lightning struck it burnt out all the past and future time circuits”.

“Great!” Oop yells. “So you can get Ava back, but I am stuck here!”

“Not exactly.” Wonmug says. “Without knowing Ava’s coordinates, we don’t know where she is to bring her back. We weren’t sure how long the machine would work for, and we of course will need you to help retrieve Ava if we do find her, so we transported you here right away. After all, we knew you would want to help in any way you could.”

“Yeah,” Oop said, having calmed down once understanding Wonmug’s thinking. “You did the right thing, Doc.” But how did the lightning hit the machine? What happened to the lightning rod?”

“The lightning must have hit a power line.” Wonmug said. “A fantastic amount of electricity blew right past all of our safety precautions, and lit the place up like the Forth of July. We fired up the generator to power the computer while we were working precisely to prevent it from being damaged by a lightning strike. I never imagined if lightning were to strike an outside power line that it could activate the platform. I should have been more careful. I should have powered it down, but we just needed to run a few simple diognostics…”

“Don’t beat yourself up Doc.” Oscar said, “No one could have predicted this! What is important now is that we find Ava, and fast!”

Location: Wolf's Lair Laboratory
Time: 1944

Ava was knocked out by the force of the machine when it transported her through time. When she awoke, she found herself on a bed in what appeared to be a makeshift hospital. The room was sparse, and was only furnished with a few small beds, a handful of chairs, and one large desk over by the door. There was a cabinet with glass doors. It appeared to be a medicine cabinet. Her eyesight was fuzzy, and she had difficulty seeing clearly just a few feet away, much less across this room, but she thought there might be glass containers in the cabinet.

Two men in white lab coats were seated at the foot of her bed, and when they saw she was awake, they spoke.

“How do you feel?” the taller man said in German. Ava had taken German and French in collage, and understood what the man had said. She was still mildly confused, and wasn’t sure if she was dreaming, or if not, where she was. Even worse, she couldn’t remember what she had been doing that day, or how she got to be in this hospital.

“I feel… confused. Who are you?”

“I think it is more important we find out who you are, fräulein.” The man asked.

“My name is Ava.” She answered. “I work for Doctor Wonmug. Is he here?”

“Doctor… Want-mog?” the man asked. “I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage, fräulein. I do not know your doctor friend.”

Piece by piece her memory crept back to her conscious mind, and alarm started to replace confusion as Ava realized there must have been an accident in the lab. She remembered Wonmug had her and Oscar running some routine diagnostics when suddenly she saw a brilliant flash of light. The next thing she knew she was speaking German with a couple of strangers in a strange room. The obvious questions came to her mind.

“Where am I?” Ava asked with a little more command in her voice. “And who are you?”

“I am Doctor Fritz Liess, and this is my assistant, Olaf Fenstermacher, and you are in our infirmary. You appeared, well, out of no where! We were quite surprised.”

Ava looked at the nervously. She wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t trust the seemingly good natured doctor, and she certainly didn’t trust his assistant. Fenstermacher’s brooding face was defined by his heavy brow, sharp cheekbones, and strong chin that had a scar that ran from the right side of it back up and around to his right ear. He was a large man, and his heavy hands danced delicately across his clipboard as he wrote down every thing that was said.

“I… appeared out of nowhere?” Ava asked. She wasn’t sure what these men might know about how she was able to do such a thing, but her intuition told her they knew more than they should.

“Yes.” Dr. Liess said as he stood up and walked towards the desk. “Olaf and I were working in my laboratory. We are studying the new ideas proposed by Dr. Einstein..”

“New Ideas” he had said! Ava suddenly knew about when she was. Dr. Liess was obviously talking about Albert Einstein and the theory of relativity.

“We were conducting an experiment testing the good doctor’s hypothesis. We discovered that (I need and idea here) when all of a sudden there was a bright flash, and what sounded like thunder, and then you arrived.” The doctor said calmly. “It was very exciting.”

Ava wasn’t sure why the doctor was telling her all of this. If she was in the first half of the 20th century, any laboratory working on something as important as Einstein’s theory of relativity would presumably want to keep the work hush hush. But doctor Liess was more than willing to talk about his work. In fact, he was more like bragging about it.

Author's note: That's where it falls apart. Einstein’s “new ideas” about relativity weren't new anymore by 1944. Also, I can't rationalize why Dr. Liess would tell Ava all about his project when doing so right under Hitler's nose would be enough to get him killed. I guess I am just trying to move the story along too quickly. That is why I thought that if this were a good enough idea for a story, then perhaps I should just outline it, or just hand over the basic premise to the Bender's and let them butcher it.

Meet the bad guy

2006-08-18T13:08:00.000-07:00

Now we have a group of Spanish sailors, who apparently dropped through a wormhole brought on by some kind of weather anamoly, about to descend on the happy residents of Moo, most of whom haven’t even wiped the barbecue sauce from their mouths.
Just in case it wasn’t obvious that the Spanish leader is the bad guy in this story, today we get the obligatory evil grin followed by the evil bad guy laugh (Bwahahahahaha). The last time we saw that cliched evil grin on a character (eyebrows turned down, mouth turned up) King Tunk was preparing to launch an unprovoked attack on Moo. And why is it that only the captain is allowed to wear a shirt, while all the rest of the sailors run around with less clothing than Alley Oop?
How will our Moovian protagonists respond to this new invasion of their land? Will they offer the sailors some of Phil’s zombie juice dino ribs - thus turning them on to the carefree ways of Moofest? Or perhaps they will challenge them to a dancing contest.
We all await the next (yawn) panel with rapt enthusiasm!

Unconscionable

2006-07-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

This is just awful. I can’t believe the Benders came up with a story line like this in light of what has been happening around the globe with terrorist bombs going off all around the world. What was their particular motivation for today’s strip? The Atlanta Olympic bombing of 1996? The Madrid train bombing of 2004? The London subway bombing of 2005? I suppose the India train bombing that happend just last week was too recent, but when that is what you read in the national news everyday and then you turn to the funny pages and you see terrified people fleeing a cauldron with what appears to be a mini-nuclear explosion underway, what else is it supposed to make you think of? And then to have a once beloved character like the Wizer standing there with this devilish grin on his face amongst all the carnage - as if he had been transformed into some type of Osama bin Wizer abomination. It is just unforgivably bad and inappropriate.
Then the next day we have Alley Oop, who was too stooopid and weak and pathetic to do anything to stop the Wizer’s terrorist plot beforehand, slowing getting up and surprised to still be alive giving a sheepish grin to the Wizer as he smugly says Did you think I was going to kill people?
Well, yes, that is clearly what had been implied all along.
Then we have the great irony of having Wizer scold Fill for “overreacting” after the explosion. Wizer is the one who decided to go nuclear with this terrorist scheme because he felt disrespected when King Guz picked someone else to be the official propagandist (historian). And he’s telling Fill to stop overreacting?? That’s rich.
Now we finally have things winding down (one can hope) and, as commenter Jim was the first to guess, it all ends with a lame joke about the invention of barbecue sauce (and yet one more plug for how wonderful Fill’s barbecue ribs are - Zombie juice, remember).

Zombie juice

2006-06-27T08:09:00.000-07:00

Fill’s ribs must be some kind of narcotic. That would explain this weird cult-like facination everyone seems to have with them. Everytime one of the characters eats one of the ribs they suddenly get this glazed look in their eyes and then become totally compliant with whatever Fill wants to do. It reminds me of that zombie juice that the bad guys forced Indiana Jones to drink in The Temple of Doom movie. Somebody needs to jab a hot poker into Oop’s ribs and see if that will wake him up.

Have we ever seen Fill eat one of his own ribs? I don’t think so. I’m beginning to think that Fill is actually in league with King Tunk and is just prepping everyone in Moo before he launches his next invasion. Once he has turned everyone into a rib zombie, Tunk will be able to waltz right in and take over the country. Fortunately we still have one slim hope. Maybe Queen Umpa will resist the zombies and fight them off with a burning log as they try to force her to eat one of the narco-ribs. As she burns each one in turn they will suddenly snap out of their stupor and Fill’s nefarious plot will be foiled.

Well, at least that would be more interesting that the lame story line we are currently being forced to follow....

Terror plot revealed

2006-06-22T13:32:00.000-07:00

So this is what we have sunk to. Turning major characters from the Alley Oop strip into terrorists. Isn't that just a tad bit in bad taste these days?
I'm predicting explosions and fireworks that will scare people at first and then turn out to be harmless fun. Moofest will then evolve into an annual Fourth of July-type celebration.
But in the meantime we are seeing some of the worst characteristics come out in the some of the long-established characters from Moo.
Umpa's jealousy is leading her to conspire against her own kingdom. Wizer's pride is turning him into a prehistoric Osama bin Laden.
"It won't kill anyone, will it?" Umpa asks hesitantly.
"Let's just say it will make it so no one will ever forget Moofest! Bwahahahahahahahaha!"
Is that answer supposed to reassure Umpa? Or us? Sheesh!

Mischaracterization

2006-06-08T12:57:00.000-07:00

We’ve spent nearly a month now on this long drawn-out commercial touting Bob’s Pig Shop as having the bestest barbecue on the whole planet. There is no telling how much longer the authors are going to drag this out. But now they have taken a turn for the worse by introducing a character who clearly defames the memory of one of our greatest comedians of all time.
I agree with commenter Jeff that the Bender’s portrayal of the “Health Inspector” Golly (or is it Gollie) is a shameful slap in the face to the memory of Oliver Hardy. One can only hope that they will mercifully not drag Stan Laurel into this mess.
Oliver Hardy was an outstanding comic actor, but there is nothing funny about the character of Gollie in the current strip. Gollie, as portrayed so far, is a disgusting slob and a corrupt public official who is easily manipulated and even more easily bribed.
And not only do the Benders have a hard time keeping his name straight - Golly or Gollie - they can’t seem to figure out how to proportion his head in relation with his body. One time we see Gollie and his head is blown up like a balloon (Check out the last frame of the strip from 6/7/06). Then the next time it looks like he just came back from a trip to see a witch doctor.

I also have to agree with commenters Ron and Monroe in noting that Alley Oop’s out-of-control temper and bullying behavior is getting more and more reprehensible as the story progresses. As Ron notes in a comment on today’s strip, “... you have classic bullying here. The strong guy going after the sad looking fat kid...”
I wish that this storyline would end tomorrow, but unfortunately we still have to deal with a number of loose ends including the vengeful and deranged Wizer, the envious and scheming Umpa and the foolish and bull-headed King Guz.
Suffice to say that I no longer think Oop and Ooola will be announcing their nupitals anytime soon.

Ooola and Umpa return

2006-05-18T06:37:00.000-07:00

Frequent commenter Monroe has been rightfully fretting the sudden disappearance of Ooola's character from the narrative after we were led to believe that she and Oop were finally on the path to marital bliss. But now it seems that both Ooola and Queen Umpa have returned just in time to take part in the big party that Oop is organizing to celebrate "winnin' the war with Lem."

First off, allow me to complain just a bit about the sissification of Oop these days. Is this what our macho caveman hero has become? First we spend months watching him take tango lessons from Rudolph Valentino and now he is busy organizing a big party complete with flowery banners and a caterer. As Ooola would say, "Oooh! How exciting!" Yeah, a thrill a minute around here. What's next? Oop takes up knitting and starts making sweaters for everyone?

But back to Ooola and Umpa. I wonder how Umpa will take the news that Oop has brought in a caterer who he thinks cooks much better than she does to handle the food chores? Will she be happy preparing just a few side dishes? Or will she join Wizer in his cave and start cooking up her own batch of WMDs to take revenge on the unappreciative Moovians?

Finally, I'm going to go out on a limb here and make a prediction - Oop and Ooola will use the occasion of this party to announce their engagement. Does that seem too obvious for our authors? It would seem to fit the arc of the current storyline - such that it is. Maybe then we can spend a couple of months watching Ooola's bridal shower. I can hardly wait!

Who's who in Moo

2006-05-15T11:20:00.001-07:00

I've been meaning to get a new post up but have had little time. Thanks to all of our commenters for keeping tabs on this latest mess of a storyline.
We are getting new characters thrown at us almost weekly now so let's step back and take a quick inventory. First we had the "Professor" who suddenly appeared wearing a graduation cap and gown which I suppose came from the University of Moo. He is also wearing a modern set of spectacles that one commenter noted must have been picked up in the optical department at the local Moo-Mart.
(It would seem that the Benders are not even trying to maintain any kind of historical accuracy about the strip these days.)
The professor introduces himself by taking a highly offensive and racist jab at Oop ("Alley Oop makes a brilliant point, considering the neanderthal stock from which he comes.") What?!? Like this guy has evolved overnight into a higher lifeform? Is he supposed to be a missing link or something?

When Guz decides on the spur of the moment to hand over the historian job to this upstart, it makes the Wizzer insane with jealousy and resentment and he retreats into his lab where he is apparently hard at work cooking up some kind of pre-historic weapons of mass destruction. There's nothing like taking a beloved character from a long-running strip and turning them into a terrorist.

Next we meet "Pidali," a Hippie artist (notice that he is left-handed) who makes flower power designs on cave walls and keeps a modern looking paint brush behind his right ear. No wait!! It's behind his left ear! No, scratch that, it's back behind his right ear again. Whatever! We learned long ago not to expect the strip's authors to keep these kinds of things straight.

Now we have "Fill," the surly proprietor of boB's piG shop who nearly gets into a fight with the short-tempered Oop over a silly mix-up involving his name. Fill also frequents the optical shop at the local Moo-Mart where he gets his very modern looking glasses. Fill has the most amazing invention - a wooden barbecue pit that somehow manages to cook lots of meat without catching fire and burning to the ground. Very impressive.

Fill is another character, like Mountain, who appears to be drawn to intentionally resemble someone in real life. One commenter even claims to know who Fill is:

I know the character that Fill is based on. He's the owner of Bob's Pig Shop in Pauls Valley, Okla.

In fact, there is a Bob's Pig Shop in Pauls Valley owned by a Phil Henderson. And then we have Foozy making a crack about not smelling that aroma "nowhere this side of Oklahoma." So did Foozy ever go time traveling with Oop, or is this just another instance of the authors ignoring reality in order to make an isider's reference for their own benefit?

Even in Moo ...

2006-05-02T06:55:00.000-07:00

I find it interesting that even in Moo, the recent fiasco with Tunk is being recorded as a non-event. If this isn't art indicting itself, I'm not sure what is, gang. Anyway, I still don't know what to make of our little historian dude here. He's drawn in a way (a la Dave Wowee) that just screams "dork," but our creative team seems to be singling him out as the one sane, reasonable person in the entire strip. Will he turn out to be a villain, using his historian persona as a smokescreen? Somehow that doesn't seem likely, since the Wizer looks as if he's being set up as the bad guy this time around (complete with koo-koo for Cocoa Puffs swirlies in his eyes). I think doing something unexpected with the historian would be more interesting and more entertaining than what we've seen so far, though.

Narrative inconsistency

2006-04-12T15:34:00.000-07:00

This is all just so wrong.
So the accidental discovery of Tunk's crown under some bushes took all the wind out of his sails just as he was about to strike the final blow against his arch-nemesis King Guz. Then, inexplicably, Guz and Oop, who seconds earlier were totally incapacitated and under the control of Lemmian soldiers, are suddenly set free and allowed to waltz out of the cave over to Tunk and start threatening him. Finally, Dinny the Dinosaur shows up on cue to chase away the entire Lemmian Army (all three of them.)
Now, my biggest problem with all of this (other than the fact that it is really lame) is that it is totally inconsistent with things that were said and done earlier in the narrative of the story. Let us step back in time for just a bit and review some of the events that led up to the victorious "five-minute war" that Moo is about to memorialize for all time.
When Tunk is first challenged on his theory that Guz stole his crown his reaction is to declare "I don't know and I don't care!" That would lead us to believe that he is intent on attacking Moo regardless of what happened with his crown. This point is reinforced in the subsequent panels where Tunk muses about "killing two birds with one stone" and notes that "this is the excuse I've been waiting for."
So it makes no sense that Tunk's plans would fall apart the moment he realizes Guz did not really steal his crown. But unfortunately the Benders can't keep their story straight. It's either that or Tunk is suffering from a split-personality disorder. Maybe he is bi-polar.
Either way it is disconcerting for the readers and now to have the incompetent and clueless King Guz standing up and taking credit for a great victory after leaving his kingdom defenseless is just maddening. I'm not sure how this storyline could get any worse, but I'm confident that we shall not be disappointed in that respect.

Nevermind

2006-03-31T11:31:00.000-08:00

The enthusiasm I expressed for this storyline based on yesterday’s strip (3-30-06) is completely shot down by today’s lame-ass strip (3-31-06). What is it about continuity from one strip to the next that the Benders don’t understand?
Yesterday, we had Oop going all Conan on the Lemmians, ploughing into them with a fervor that one would expect from a hero of his caliber who has carried this comic strip since the beginning. But today, we see that he has been instantly transported into Guz’ cave and has been completely incapacitated by one guy and a bear hug. What the hell!?! And where is Oop’s axe??
Meanwhile, we see that King Guz is completely worthless, waking up from his slumber with a stupid look on his face. What is he supposed to be doing while the Lemmians are grabbing Oop and Tunk has his back turned on him? Cowering in a corner?? Was it too much to expect that he might put up a fight and at least try and defend his cave, if not his kingdom?
I’m so disgusted with today’s strip that I don’t even know where to begin. Oh, and my expectation that Queen Umpa might be a factor was apparently unfounded. She obviously doesn’t exist in the vacant minds of our story’s authors.

Wham! Bam! Pow!

2006-03-30T08:53:00.000-08:00

Wow! This is exciting. I guess after all of the complaining we did about how dull and boring the tango lessons were, we should be appreciative to have some real action to enjoy even if the setup was a bit strained. Maybe the Benders really do read this blog.
Here we have Oop wading into the battle with the kind of gusto reminiscent of Achilles in the battle for Troy or Davy Crockett at The Alamo.

But at the same time, what are we to make of King Guz who failed to post guards along the Lemmian border or even have a nightwatchman on duty? Today we find that while his entire Kingdom is engulfed in turmoil with the loud cacophony of battle raging outside his door, he is apparently still sound asleep in his cave and unaware that Tunk is about to pay him a visit.
Still, I imagine that Tunk’s undoing will be his decision to enter Guz’s cave by himself. Who does he think is in the cave, anyway? Does he think King Guz is the only one he will have to contend with? He has obviously forgotten that an even more ominous foe resides in that dwelling. Queen Umpa!! I foresee Tunk getting beaned with one of Umpa’s cooking pots just as he is about to attack Guz.

CHARGE!!!!

2006-03-28T07:07:00.000-08:00

So you take pains to sneak your army into the country in the middle of the night so that you can silently creep up on your unsuspecting quarry and surprise them in their sleep. But then, just as you are about to launch your attack, some idiot stands up and screams ‘CHARGE!!!!!’ at the top of his lungs.
And of course that idiot just happens to be Tunk.

But never mind that, what is up with Moo having no guards along the border with Lem? Recall that just after the snowmonster mishap, King Guz was yelling at the fleeing Tunk that their tentative truce was off. You would think that Guz would have taken himself seriously and prepared for a possible confrontation with the aggressive Lemmians. But here they all are snoozing away without so much as a nightwatchman posted anywhere to sound an alarm.
If that is truly the way it is, then King Guz is clearly at fault here. He is the one responsible for keeping the Moovian border’s secure and the people safe and he has clearly fallen down on the job. Maybe we will find Guz over at some school reading a copy of “My Pet Goat” to a group of Moovian children as the Lemmian invasion commences.

Of course you know this means war

2006-03-23T06:19:00.000-08:00

OK, so Tunk is leading his Lemmian army into Moo on the false premise that King Guz stole his crown. We can see today (3-23-06) that the Lemmian army - all three of them - have these evil grins on their faces which is supposed to clue us in to the fact that they are the “bad guys.” So what was the deal with all that earlier hemming and hawing from the troops who seemed to be questioning Tunk’s sanity? I thought we might see the beginnings of a mutiny, but instead it now looks like everyone is fully on board with this little misadventure. But I guess that is the way most wars go. People get caught up in the patriotic fervor of the moment and don’t usually reflect until it is too late.
Well, it doesn’t look like the Moovians have too much to worry about with this rag-tag bunch. I doubt that Guz will even have to roust his own troops. I think the girls who are finishing up their tango lessons with Oop could kick these boys’ rearends without much trouble. So I guess now we can just sit back and watch all the (yawn) action unfold.

Tunk loses his crown

2006-03-09T08:22:00.000-08:00

Thank goodness we are finally moving on with a new story line. Even one that sounds like it was cribbed from a nursery rhyme - Tunk fell down and lost his crown...

Why do the Lemmians put up with Tunk anyway? Normally, for an autocrat like Tunk to maintain control over a large group of people he must have a loyal Praetorian Guard surrounding him ready to enforce his dictates. But here we have Tunk sitting alone on his throne threatening to cast everyone in his kingdom into the pit. That’s the kind of thing that would spark a mutiny anywhere else.

Tunk has always served as the stock villian for Alley Oop. Kind of like Bluto is for Popeye. So it’s no surprise to see him served up for this new story line. The Benders seem to like throwing contemporary political issues into the strip on occasion and Tunk is their ideal foil for that kind of thing. It’s not clear yet where they are going with this “you’re guilty until proven innocent” thing yet, but Tunk is obviously being set up to take a fall at some point.

Perhaps King Guz will decide that it is time for regime change in Lem and launch a pre-emptive invasion.

Doc Wonmug behind the scenes ...

2006-02-26T14:41:00.000-08:00

Looking at the Sunday version of the finish to this "u-n-f-o-l-d-i-n-g" continuity (as Jeff might call it), I really have to wonder about Doc Wonmug's secret life.

Doc Wonmug has been off-stage for this entire story, but wow, look at this old coot's contacts! First he sets up this "romantic" getaway for the Oopster and his dysfunctional doll - as a gift from Santa Claus. At the same time, he's also apparently gone back in time so that he could get an autographed photo from Rudolph Valentino for Oop and Ooola to unwrap "back home." Did Doc "zang" himself back to the Roaring Twenties, wander around incognito, somehow gain access to Rudy, and get the picture for his friends? Or, did Doc "zang" Rudy into the time lab to get the job done? What sort of questions would Rudy ask if he knew he was talking to someone from the future? Finally, Doc apparently "zanged" the envelope back to Moo in some way. Did he go himself? We never get to see Doc travel through time. Did he "zang" the envelope into an obvious spot by itself? All questions we will probably never get answered.

Is it just me, or does the story-behind-the-story seem as if it would be a heck of a lot more interesting than the achingly prolonged tango that we've been reading for the past couple of months?

And what's up with that orange-and-blue dino in the background???

What a long, strange trip it's been...

2006-02-22T14:06:00.000-08:00

I've never been so thankful to see the "ZANG" effect before. This whole storyline was way beyond dragging. It had lost steam a month ago, had slowed to a stop and was starting to roll backwards.
Then they had to go and torture us further with the suggestion that they would extend this sequence by taking Rudy with them for what commenter Jim aptly described as "The Last Tango in Moo."

But before they go, Oop has to throw out that last stupid comment: "We've got a long trip ahead of us."
What does he mean 'long trip'? The time traveling is pretty much instantaneous, isn't it? Unless Doc Wonmug screws up and ships them off to the wrong century again, they should be back in Moo or in the time lab the next time we see them.

Please stop the torture!

2006-02-14T09:36:00.000-08:00

We've been dragging along with this "dance lessons" storyline now since before Christmas. It's had a few good moments, but overall it has really strained our loyal readership here at Alley Oop Watch. Now, finally, it looks like we may have reached the finale with this Valentine's Day strip.

I think frequent commenter Jeff says it best:

I really, really, REALLY hope this tortureous storyline is over. I beg you, Jack and Carole, zap Oop out of Ooola’s arms RIGHT NOW, and into a MANLY adventure. (Wouldn’t THAT be a riot if they did? What with Ooola being fully supported by Oop in the last panel of today’s comic, and Wonmug zaps Oop into another time leaving Ooola to fall on her ass!)

Ooola is evil, blardy blardy blah

2006-02-06T17:12:00.000-08:00

I've read and appreciated the posts that have appeared on today's strip already, but I thought that it was worth a separate post anyway.

I'm not going to dwell on what's being done with Ooola in this storyline for very long, because it's more of the same, as far as my comments about
Ooola's treatment of Alley goes. Rudy wants to make Oop jealous. Ooola plays along. Oop gets mad, and suddenly he's the bad guy again. Blah, blah, blah.

What's telling is Rudy's reaction to Oop. He doesn't come off as being a real "man's man" here, and for Ooola to have to protect the world's greatest lover from her "insignificant other" is pretty sad. In short, Rudy can deal it out, but he can't take it. And he gets drawn to look like Shemp from the Three Stooges to boot!

Anyway, I got tired of thinking about this story, and decided to splice together my own story from other strips. So I've enlisted Oop from today's strip, Bucky from "Get Fuzzy," a panel from "Mark Trail" that I hijacked from joshreads.com, and a great "Pearls Before Swine" panel to tell a story about a caveman trading insults with a cat, hill folk with questionable thoughts, and a hungrily affectionate crocky-dile. From murderous love to loving murderously. Boredom is a wonderful thing.

Wasting time

2006-01-31T07:52:00.000-08:00

Today Ooola gives us our first clue as to why she gave Oop the brush-off when he finally got around to proposing matrimony. (Personally, I think it’s because she just can’t stand the thought of being named Ooola Oop.)
It seems that Alley Oop is always off on his time travel jaunts leaving poor Ooola to sit at home in her cave and sort rocks. This, of course, brings up the question as to why time travel takes up so much, ummm, time.
Is there any reason why Doc Wonmug couldn’t return Oop to the same precise time that he picked him up following each adventure? That way it would be as if he had never left and the people of Moo would be none the wiser.
That would certainly be the smart way to handle things since it would reduce the liklihood that they are screwing around with history by constantly removing Oop from his home. As it is, it seems that everytime Oop is away some tragedy befalls the poor people of Moo that Oop has to straighten up when he gets back. Imagine how much potential there is for distorting the timeline everytime they zap Oop away for an extended period of time. Perhaps he was meant to marry Ooola and have a whole bunch of kids, but now the relationship has been strained and they never get together and whole generations of descendants are snuffed out.
Of course, there is also the possibility that the Moovians are a historical dead-end. Maybe their society goes extinct at some point and therefore messing around with their timeline doesn’t make any difference. Perhaps Doc Wonmug knows this and is thus not worried. Just some food for thought.

Nothing to Prove

2006-01-29T00:42:00.000-08:00

Apologies to all for being out of action for the past few weeks ... it's been an intensely busy time at work. Darn making a living, anyhows ... But on with the show ...

For the past couple of weeks, the Oopster and Ooola have been prancing around in what the dailies have told us is a 1915 dance studio with future silent movie heart throb Rudolph Valentino. Actually, Oop has been learning to dance with a Gwyneth Paltrow look-alike, while Ooola gets to spend some quality time with The Sheik himself.

One of my favorite things about this past week has been the increasingly "Yellow Submarine" cartoon look to Oop's feet (see second image for a comparison).

In this condensed Sunday version, the whole idea seems to be to get Oop to snap out of it and actually show that he cares about Ooola, which is ridiculous. For this scenario to make sense, we have to make ourselves forget that Oop has been remarkably faithful for decades, has proposed marriage, has been refused, and has spent the past ... geez, how long has it been now? ... either pining away for this prehistoric shrew or acting like an eager little puppy whenever she's around? I would be asking Santa Claus (who provided the impetus for this jaunt) for a refund or a better idea right about now ...

Flip flop redux

2006-01-15T07:29:00.000-08:00

The Sunday strip this week is, once again, a summary of the previous week's continuity - and as far as that goes, it's OK, especially if your local paper doesn't also run the daily. As Mike pointed out earlier this week, there's some flip flop fun going on here - and the fact that it's condensed flip flop fun on Sunday just gives us more to look at, I think. We've got a magically disappearing hat. All right, I think I can understand why the hat is here. It provides a continuity point with the last panel from the previous week. However, it conflicts with the panels right next to it. In panel two, there's a good amount of space in which Rudy could have been seen taking off his hat with his left hand. Would've made for a smoother transition, anyway.

In panel three Rudy has moved into Oop's spot next to Ooola, and in panel four the flip flop is complete. Effectively, these three have been doing square dance moves for about ten seconds' worth of conversation.

The last fun element in this strip is that rather Freudian arrow in the last panel. Believe me, this is an easy problem to run into when you're drawing comics and trying to guide the eye of the reader. I've looked at this page, trying to figure out where else in the layout the arrow could be positioned, and I'm not sure I can think of anything better. Let's just say that having an arrow pointing at the "naughty bits" of a couple doing some romantic dancing ... well, it's just unfortunate.

So - good individual drawings, delicate color, a magic hat, square dancing, and a naughty arrow. Not bad for one Sunday.

Flip-flop

2006-01-10T11:54:00.000-08:00

They must do this on purpose. There is just no other explanation. I think the Benders are intentionally placing these errors of perspective into the strip just to keep me entertained.
I can find one in almost every strip they draw these days.
Look at today’s strip (Jan. 10) for example. In the first frame, we see Rudolph Valentino in the background where he is gesturing with his right hand. In the immediate foreground we see Alley Oop with Ooola standing to his right.
Now in frame 2, we have suddenly shifted perspective and are now looking at the back of Valentino’s head and over his shoulders, but now suddenly Ooola is standing on the left side of Oop. (At least Valentino is still gesturing with his right hand.)

No wonder Oop and Ooola have exclamations over their heads! In less time than it takes for Valentino to say his name, they have been transposed. They are no doubt looking at one another and thinking “How did I get over here?”
For artists who routinely changes perspectives in each strip, why is it so difficult for them to keep something this simple and this basic straight?

What a tango-ed web we weave ...

2006-01-07T23:25:00.000-08:00

Hey, it's not Richard Feynman, but it's close! While Saturday's episode left us somewhat in the dark as to the identity of Oop and Ooola's dance instructor, the Sunday episode lets the cat fully out of the bag. Nope, it's not Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, or even Isidora Duncan. It is ... drumroll please ... the Great Lover himself, silent screen icon Rudolph Valentino! That's my best guess, and I don't think I'm wrong, if you judge by the photo here.

Ever prone to make the quirkiest of choices, our creative team has brought into Oop's troubled life one of the people responsible for popularizing the tango. According to his Wikipedia entry, Valentino worked as a "taxi dancer" (a kind of paid dance date) and a dance instructor prior to being discovered by Hollywood. So this ought to place Oop's adventure here sometime around 1915 or so, though the Argentinian tango costume Rudy's wearing is from his 1921 film, "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse."

In our comic-strip world, Oop is sure to learn "the ways of love" from Rudy here, as well as a few slick dance moves. In real life, Valentino married a lesbian, was jailed for bigamy, and one of his lovers shot her husband dead to be with Rudy.

Anyway, we have gone from Santa Claus to Rudolph Valentino in the course of about two weeks. Are you dizzy yet?

And by the way, what's Oop sweating and spouting exclamation marks for? I'm afraid of Rudy's pants, but that's just me.

Oh, my.... indeed!

2006-01-04T07:43:00.000-08:00

Alley and Ooola have arrived for their dance lessons and the dance instructor is shocked to see that... Ooola has turned into an axe!!! Oh, my....

Well, maybe not. But it certainly looks that way from the illustration. Here we see in Frame 2, as Miss Emma walks up, Oop is standing with his right arm around Ooola. Suddenly, in Frame 3, Ooola is gone and Alley is holding his axe in his right hand and that is when we get the Oh, my... reaction from Miss Emma. What else could she be reacting to?

Of course, she is probably reacting to the WMD in Oop’s hand and wondering how he expects to dance with it. But she could also be wondering why he is showing up for dance lessons dressed in nothing but his bear-skin skivvies. You would think that Doc might have been courteous enough to have at least set Alley and Oola up with some period clothes before shipping them off into time somewhere.

Dance your cares away

2005-12-30T08:48:00.000-08:00

Ooola is back in fine form today. After a brief flirtation with reality, where as Michael noted she nearly jumped off the page with new realistically-drawn features, she is now back to her cartoonish self and her embrace of ditzy female stereotypes.
"Dancing," she exclaims. "When do we go!"
As if that makes the prospect of being barbecued again all the better. Doesn't she remember what she was doing the last time she went time traveling and nearly became a cave girl flambeau? That's right. She was DANCING!
But I guess Santa Claus will make sure that idiot Doc Wonmug doesn't drop a coke on the time machine this time.

Speaking of the time machine, since when has it become nothing more than a venue for Oop's personal vacation jaunts? Doesn't the good Doc have anything better to do with his time (pun intended)? Or perhaps Oop has the right to call in favors whenever he wants on account of his having served as Doc's time traveling guinea pig these many years.

Cartoon or not cartoon?

2005-12-29T03:49:00.000-08:00

Anybody remember "Sam's Strip" from the early 1960's? There was a famous sequence in which Mort Walker and Jerry Dumas had a couple of panels from a realistically drawn action strip followed by a cartoony panel with a punch line. The jarring effect of two clashing art styles were used - back then - to a humorous effect. These days Oop and other strips like Gasoline Alley are doing it straight and for-real. Am I alone here, or is it just plain disconcerting to see our gorgeous, cartoony Ooola morphing into Terri Hatcher or ... I don't know ... maybe even Roseanne Barr if you squint your eyes a little. The third panel continues with Ooola morphing back, and it ends with a very cartoony Oop babbling something about Santa Claus. I'm sure the artist was happy with that middle panel - it's not a bad drawing at all. It's just not Ooola.

Alternate responses ...

2005-12-27T03:54:00.000-08:00

In the first panel, Oop looks so happy, and he's running toward his lady love so quickly that he's raising up little puffs of dust. Ooola, on the other hand, has a bone to pick with the Oopster. "Couldn't you at least have been with me for Christmas?" Oop promptly apologizes. I think rather than capitulating so easily, Oop could have said a number of other things, such as ...
1) "Sorry to mess up your holiday, but I was off saving an imprisoned village of men, women and children."
2) "Santa Claus held me up. No, really! Just like he appeared in that Narnia movie!"
3) "Well, I was going to give you a present, but since you're so dang nasty about it ..."

Dancing with the Oopster

2005-12-22T03:27:00.000-08:00

It's the era of ballroom dancing, folks. Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez made it look hot a few years ago. Last year "Dancing With the Stars" was a hit in the ratings, and ABC is determined to make lightning strike twice with a second season that stars uber-tan George Hamilton and the babe from "Wayne's World," Tia Carrere. Into this foxtrot frenzy comes, at the suggestion of St. Nick himself ... Alley Oop? Look, if Nancy Sinatra's boots were made for walkin', Oop's feet are made for stomping out forest fires. Check out panel one and take a gander at those dogs. But somehow Santa seems to think that a few trips around the ballroom floor will do for Ooola what 70 years worth of saving her life have failed to do. As Monroe says, I guess we'll have to just hope for the best.

Alley Oop, wet blanket

2005-12-21T02:21:00.000-08:00

I almost called this post, "Alley Oop, stinking ingrate," but thought that would come across a bit harsh in large type. Anyway, Oop is feeling so sorry for himself these days that he's becoming an annoying schlep. I wouldn't blame Santa if he was reaching into that bag for a gun after that last remark.

Singin' the Ooola blues

2005-12-19T11:41:00.000-08:00

(Note: I've been misspelling her name by leaving out an O) Was Ooola always so fickle in her affections for the Oopster? The way her character is being scripted today I would advise Oop to just throw in the towel and go look for someone else to court.
Now that it looks like the story is turning back to the Oop/Ooola saga, let's review some of the most recent developments in their 70-plus year relationship.
First, we had Ooola giving Oop the ultimate slapdown for his marriage proposal. "I need time to think about it."
Then she carelessly discards the dress she had spent so much time picking out for their "honeymoon."
And then, upon returning to Moo, she immediately begins flirting with that dreamy new guy, Mountain. And don't forget that it wasn't that long ago that she fell head over heels for Dolph during one of Oop's extended time-travel jaunts.

What more does she have to do to get it through Oop's thick skull that it's over? It was just a fling as far as she's concerned. Or like Butch Hancock wrote and Jimmie Dale Gilmore sang, "She said babe, you're just a wave, you're not the water."

Poor Oop. It's not like he has ever had a wandering eye himself. He's not like James Bond or Star Trek's Capt. Kirk, bedding young women everywhere they go. No, Oop has always been totally faithful to Ooola throughout all his worldly adventures. And this is the thanks he gets. So what more does he have to do to prove his worthiness to his long-time sweetheart?

Looking Moo-wards

2005-12-19T02:25:00.000-08:00

This is the most Oop-like that Alley Oop has looked in quite awhile. Given the space limitations of comics in the papers these days, our artist has managed to still pull off a beautifully classic Oop panel with only the silhouette of a couple of trees, a plant, some lines indicating a waterfall in the distance, and Our Man perched on his beloved dinosaur. In fact, I would be pleased as punch with the whole enterprise if I just didn't have to read the words. Oop is back to what has become his losing battle, and it just kind of frustrates me.

Calling all chickens

2005-12-15T07:26:00.000-08:00

While Tunk's chicken-hearted, feeble-minded, potential army(?) gets let out of the hole, Mountain tells them the biggest whopper of all time: Tunk is gone "forever." My great-grandpa used to claim that he shot and killed Santa Claus every year too, but that didn't make it so. The last we saw, the abdominal was chasing Tunk out toward parts unknown, pursued by an army that will never, ever catch him. That doesn't spell out "forever" to me, but maybe Mountain is just too innocent to know. Since he's the sharpest spoon in their drawer, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. And hey, look folks, someone left a giant Baby Ruth bar outside of the cave entrance, right where that lady could trip over it!

Mountain and Puny - munchkin style

2005-12-12T02:23:00.000-08:00

I was looking at today's strip, and thought something up in the corner looked a little peculiar. As you Oopophiles might remember, Mountain and Tiny are a good foot or so taller than the Oopster. This morning, they appear to be somewhere around five feet tall or shorter, dancing in front of Oop like the kids in "A Charlie Brown Christmas." ARE they Mountain and Puny, or just some random mountain people? If they're not, then where the heck did the giant boys in panel two come from?

Enter Abdominal, Stage Left

2005-12-09T23:33:00.000-08:00

Cheemaneester?!? What the heck is that? It stumped Google. I can't find any reference on the web to such a word.

Well, as predicted the real snow monster has finally appeared. Though why at this particular juncture in the story I can't say. It would seem that he is a little late to the party at this point. I thought it would have been better for him to show up before Tunk was unmasked and defeated. Nevertheless, here he is as if on cue.
It would seem that he is unhappy about something, though I'm not sure what. Is he upset that somebody has been impersonating him?

I also find it odd that Tunk was able to exactly replicate the look of the monster using mammoth fur when he apparently didn't even believe that it was real in the first place.

And speaking of staging, what happened to Mountain and Puny in the final frame here? Did the Roar! of the real snow monster cause them to suddenly vault backwards 20 feet?

You do the hokey-pokey and you turn yourself around ...

2005-12-09T05:18:00.000-08:00

This is a Mike Thomas-style post, and it goes back to my common mantra lately - "It's all about staging!"

Granted, we've got at least a split second between panel one and panel two, but in that time, Mountain has released Tunk and shifted from his side to the front. In the meantime, Oop has also released Tunk, also shifted to the front, has grabbed his mask with his right hand, has shifted the mask magically to his left hand, and is drawing back to wallop Tunk again. Tunk, who has had has head caved in with an ax, has been jumped from the back by Mountain, has had his butt set on fire, and has received an upper cut by Puny, is suddenly no longer on fire and isn't even trying to escape, though everyone concerned has let go of him.

In the meantime (lovely meantime), Oop's outfit has turned back to a dark colour, while the boys are suddenly dressed in white in panel two. Odd, that.

Not that it's perfect, but I've sketched out a possible alternative layout that keeps our chess pieces moving in a logical direction. You could move the "camera" in tighter for a more dramatic presentation, but I think this would work. Also, while in my doodle it looks as if Oop is wiping himself, he's supposed to be holding the mask - in the correct hand. I imagine he could also be positioned shaking the mask over Tunk's head in rage and it would work too.

Space-time anamolies ...

2005-12-07T02:23:00.000-08:00

I know that Jeff has suggested that we are probably being so critical of the Oopster that we can't just sit back and enjoy it anymore. Maybe so, but I'm just MST3K'ing this stuff anyway, because it seems so darn odd. I'm really enjoying this strip on several levels. Comparing this strip with the previous ones, it's as if Oop has drifted into the Bermuda Triangle ...

1) Torches magically appear in a darkened pen.
2) Either Oop has just stepped out of the shower and wrapped a beach towel around himself, or he's on his way to a toga party.
3) Mountain has magically disappeared from the fray.
4) Being on fire is unacceptable. Having your head caved in with a stone mallet (see previous strip) is no biggie.
5) Speaking of which, Oop's mallet/ax/flute has vanished. It's not even visible on the ground.
6) Not only is Tunk screaming because he's on fire, but I'd also expect him to mention that he has a flaming ice cream cone crammed up where the primordial sun don't shine. Flame + severe abrasions = sad monkey.

World's worst come-on line

2005-12-06T02:32:00.000-08:00

Judging from the first panel, it appears that something truly inappropriate is about to happen here.

Never fear, though, soon it's back to the rock 'em sock 'em action we love, with Mountain apparently focusing on one of Tunk's upper vertabrae.

Calling Alice the Goon ...

2005-12-05T02:33:00.000-08:00

Am I the only one who expected Alice the Goon to come a-runnin' when Puny sounded out his pterodactyl call? Alice, that bizarro creature from the Popeye strip whose bloated, hairy, naked body kept children awake at night once upon a time, also tended to speak in this odd oscilloscope kind of lingo. Now we know what a pterodactyl sounds like - a resident of Goon Island. What does a Goon sound like? Umm ... err ... uh ... I dunno. I think I would have just opted for a cool sound effect like "EEERAAKKHHH!" or something here. You tell me. What is a pterry s'posed to sound like? On a side note, doncha just love the fact that Mountain is about to take on a smaller, unarmed man in a monkey suit with a club the size of a horse's leg? Is that class or what?

Mammal? What's a mammal???

2005-12-04T17:28:00.000-08:00

Jeff touched on this strip in a previous post, but it's interesting that in the Sunday Christmas continuity, Oop has, seemingly for the first time, run into a deer-like creature. Actually, he and his posse seem a lot more surprised by this reindeer than they ever were by the Abdominal Snowman in the daily storyline. Pretty odd. Now granted, the Oop strip plays fast and loose with prehysterical time, but you'd think that he would have run into a deer or ancient variety of antelope at some time in his life. Neanderthals had a sweet tooth for deer, as a matter of fact, as well as each other. My favorite part of this strip is when the Wizer refers to Guz, Foozy and himself as the "three wise men," deliberately leaving Oop out. He's our hero, but he ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer.

You're in the Army now

2005-12-03T23:19:00.000-08:00

I'm having a really hard time following Tunk's logic through this ordeal. He wants to invade Moo, but rather than gearing up for that battle he chooses to leave his Army who knows where and climb up into the mountains wearing a monkey suit. There he proceeds to terrorize a bunch of defenseless, cowardly people who subserviently file themselves into a makeshift concentration camp without a struggle.
And now Tunk wants to recruit these folks for his Army???
You've got to be kidding! If they won't defend their own homes, what makes him think they will do any better fighting for him?

Announcement

2005-12-02T17:25:00.000-08:00

I want to take just a moment to welcome Michael Fraley as the new co-author of this blog.
Michael has graciously agreed to pitch in and help me as we continue to follow the travails of our favorite time-traveling caveman. Michael, as most of you know, has been a frequent commenter on this site. He is also a cartoonist and a long-time fan of Alley Oop with an extensive knowledge of the strip's history. So please welcome Michael and wish him all the best.
And don't worry about me. I plan to continue my usual feverish pace of posting comments on this blog as always.

Cowards of the county

2005-11-29T05:37:00.000-08:00

When Mountain first appeared on the scene we were supposed to be impressed by his immense size and strength. Then we met his little brother Puny who turned out to be even bigger. So we were left believing that the people living up in the mountains were supposed to be a race of hardy giants. One would not want to go up against an army of these folks.

As it turns out however, Mountain and Puny seem to be the exception to the rule. Most of the mountain people are average sized folks who are apparently too docile to put up a fight when confronted with someone or something threatening their villages. Now we see today that after being freed from the prison/fortress that sprung up in their midst seemingly overnight, they are all going to cower inside a cave and let Mountain and Puny face whatever dangers are out there alone. How pathetic is that?

Haven’t we seen this before?

2005-11-15T09:23:00.000-08:00

Today’s strip is a complete and utter retread that does nothing to advance the story. It is so redundant that they were able to recycle art from a strip that ran just a few days ago. Compare the strip for today (dated 11/10/05) with the one in the post immediately below this one (dated 11/4/05). Notice how the second panel in today’s strip simply combines the image of Oop from panel two of the earlier strip with the image of Mountain from panel one of that strip. All they did was change Alley’s hands slightly. Both characters have the exact same expressions and positioning. Even the little puff of frosty air above Oop’s right shoulder is the same.
That said, I still can’t understand why Oop is so insistent on keeping those poor folk locked up in their prison. Why doesn’t he just use his stone ax to chop away the poisonous vines and break them out of there? Does he think he needs to leave them there as bait to lure monkey-suit guy back?
I guess we will find out eventually whenever the authors tire of recycling all their old artwork.

Alley Oop: Expert Horticulturist

2005-11-10T09:45:00.000-08:00

This prison/fortress is some engineering feat for one stone-aged guy in a monkey suit to have pulled off. When you get that high up in the mountains the tree line shrinks back considerably. That is why mountain peaks are bald. And the trees that you do find are short and scraggly. So to build such an enormous fortress out of wood would have required hauling tons of lumber up from somewhere else. Quite remarkable that the mountain people didn’t even notice while this construction extravaganza was under way.
How did King Tunk build the prison anyway? Hammer and nails? Now that we are getting a closer look from outside it seems that all the timbers are strapped together with vines. That would be more consistent with stone age construction knowledge, but it would also make it much easier to tear down, poison vines or not.
And that brings us to the revelation today that the vines are chock full of poisonous thorns, according to our resident expert horticulturist Alley Oop. But why would Oop know this when Mountain and Puny did not? Imagine how many vines you would have to gather to build a fortress like this? You would assume the vines are growing all over the place in that case, so why would Oop, a non-native, know they are poisonous while Mountain and Puny are clueless? Did Tunk import all the hundreds of yards of poisonous vines along with the tons of lumber?

Oop Takes Charge

2005-11-05T19:44:00.000-08:00

Nevermind the fact that he is in unfamiliar territory (he didn't even know to dress warmly) with two guys who grew up in that area, Alley Oop is clearly in charge here.
Here he is instructing the natives on how to track people in their own backyard while they look on as if they had no clue what to do next.
But that is our Alley Oop - the globe-trotting, time traveling, superhero! He has already figured out that the snowmonster is just some guy in a monkeysuit without even a glimpse of the critter at this point. Now all he has to do is lay they guy out with one swing of his stone ax and that will be it. Mission accomplished.
So what are the authors going to do to complicate things further? I still think the real snowman will make an appearance in this series at some point.

An introduction and an explanation

2005-11-02T15:55:00.000-08:00

I think it is long overdue that I wrote a general comment providing an explanation about Alley Oop Watch and why I started it.
First, let me say that I am overwhelmed by the response this blog has generated. I believe I may have more regular readers here than I do at my main blog. I know it is not because of anything I write in particular, but more because it has developed into a gathering place for people who share a common interest - either positive or negative - in Alley Oop. I think that is terrific.

I will confess that I started this blog two years ago as a lark. I never thought anyone would be reading it other than myself. But thanks to the miracle of Google searches it has brought together a small, but devoted group of Alley Oop fans and critics. Here is the backstory on how it all started. I was visiting my mother one weekend and was telling her about my blog. She seemed interested so I decided to show her how easy it was to set up a blog on Blogger.com. The Alley Oop strip I had read that morning was still fresh in my mind when I took the two minutes or so to set up the new blog. I had been reading Alley Oop since the mid-’90s and often would be frustrated by some stupid inconsistency in the storyline, but since I didn’t know anyone else who read the strip there was no one I could talk to about it. On the spur of the moment I decided a blog would be a good place for me to vent my frustrations about the strip.

I know that at the top of this blog I refer to Alley Oop as “The world's stupidest comic strip...”, but that is clearly an exaggeration. There are many other comic strips that are far worse than Alley Oop. I just choose not to read them. There is obviously something about the Alley Oop strip that has kept me reading it all these years in spite of my frustrations. I see the criticisms leveled at the strip here as mostly a tough love operation. I don’t want to see the Alley Oop strip ended. That said, however, I welcome comments from Alley Oop fans and critics alike (and most probably wear both hats).

As for the comments, it has been pointed out that the older comments have been disappearing from the site. That is a problem that I hope to rectify soon since I think the comments have added a tremendous amount to this site. Unfortunately, I have tried to do this on the cheap for the past two years. I’ve never invested a penny into the site which is hosted on the free Blogger service and uses the free Haloscan comments. But now it looks like I will need to upgrade my Haloscan account in order to access comments that are more than a few months old. I will try to do this sometime in the next few weeks.

I want to thank everyone for dropping by and leaving your comments.

Scooby Doo, Where are you?

2005-11-01T22:30:00.000-08:00

So the snowmonster turns out to be Moo's arch nemesis King Tunk wearing a costume made of mammoth fur. That's original. All we need now is for the Scooby gang to show up and pull off his mask at an inopportune moment.

Of course, as in most of these stories, there are still a lot of things that don't add up. For instance, how is taking over these mountain villages going to give Lem any advantage over Moo? Alley Oop didn't even know they existed before Mountain showed up so they can't be in a strategic position for launching an invasion. Is Tunk planning to conscript all the Mountain people into his army? That's about the only way I can see how it could benefit him. They don't have a lot of wealth and Mountain said they were starting to run short on food.

Another problem is that Tunk isn't all that big compared to Oop and Guz and all the other cave people. Yet when we first glimpsed the snow monster he was towering over the frightened villagers, at least a foot taller than the biggest man, and snapping huge boards over his head using his bare hands.

Now today we have Tunk laughing about the primitive mountain people because they still believe the snowman exists - as if that was some kind of stretch for people living side by side with dinosaurs. But when the story began Mountain and Puny talked about a snowmonster who they got along with fairly well. So my prediction is that the real snow monster will show up at some point and possibly confront Tunk.

Abominable gulag

2005-10-24T16:02:00.000-07:00

This is getting silly again.
Mountain’s homeland has apparently been ravaged by the mis-named Abdominal Snowman and now we see that all the people are being rounded up and herded into some kind of wooden fortress where they are to be held captive for some unknown reason.
Maybe if there was an army of snow monsters I could see this happening. But one snow monster who is at best maybe six inches taller than any of the men from Mountain’s village? What’s wrong with these people?
As Michael Fraley pointed out in comments, these people are used to dealing with T-Rex’s and other fearsome creatures on a daily basis. How is it that they allow themselves to be cowed by one measly snow monster? Why don’t a group of the men get together, grab a few clubs and go and subdue the creature? Is Alley Oop the only one capable of such feats?
And if they were truly terrified of this creature you wouldn’t have people glumly being herded along like cattle into a cage. You would have everyone running off in five different directions.
I’ll tell you one thing, the snow monster from the Rankin and Bass Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Christmas special was a heck of a lot scarier (and bigger) than this creature.

Abdominal Snowman?

2005-10-04T07:15:00.000-07:00

What the heck is the Abdominal Snowman? Is he a fitness freak who works out all the time trying to build up his abs? Maybe he has been terrorizing the Mountain people by trying to get them to do excercises to build up their abdomens too.
You don’t suppose the Benders meant the Abominable Snowman, do you?

The Mountain saga continues...

2005-09-29T05:32:00.000-07:00

The writers came up with a better way to conclude the strength competition in the daily strips than they did for the Sunday section. Oop managed to salvage his reputation as a hero after initially falling into a self-pitying rage fueled by his jealousy of Mountain.
Now it looks like they are planning to use Mountain’s character for another adventure they are setting up, this one having to do with the impending Ice Age that may be threatening Mountain’s village. That could prove to be interesting. Maybe Moo will soon find itself overrun with evacuees in a story that parallels the travails of the displaced residents of New Orleans.
The brief merging of storylines with the Sunday strip seems to have been a temporary experiment that the authors decided to cut short. That’s good because it was a serious drawback to the daily strip to have each week’s storyline outlined in advance.
I’m wondering how long Mountain’s character will stick around. Do the strip’s writers see him as a new major character with a recurring role?
Perhaps he will become so popular that he will muscle Oop out of the strip altogether. They could rename the strip Alley Oop and Mountain. It’s not unprecedented. Just look at how Barney Google became Snuffy Smith, or more recently the way the strip Ernie became Piranha Club or Robotman became Monty.
Naaaahhhh! They would never do that.

Right arm, left arm... whatever

2005-08-28T22:47:00.000-07:00

This is so unbelievably stupid I just can't believe that the cartoonists in charge of Alley Oop these days actually did it.
We are currently suffering through one of the most boring storylines I have ever seen at Alley Oop and to top it off they make one of the most incredilby stupid blunders I have ever seen in a daily comic strip this Sunday.
Here we have Alley Oop and Mountain engaged in an arm-wrestling competition to see who is stronger. Notice in the first frame they are wrestling with their right arms, but then just a couple of frames later Mountain defeats Alley Oop and suddenly they are wrestling with their left arms.
This is just appalling. Do the Benders even care about this strip anymore or are they just churning this stuff out to collect a paycheck and could care less how badly they insult the intelligence of their readers?

And to make matters worse, the strip's current authors harve recently decided to merge their storylines for the daily and Sunday papers. That means that we get to see a week ahead of time what is going to happen so that reading the daily strip becomes a mind-numbingly boring experience. I'm just wondering if they are going to have the same right arm/left arm screw up in the daily comics like it was for the Sunday version.

Jealous Again

2005-08-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

Haven’t we been down this road just recently? It was just about a year ago that Oop returned from one of his time traveling adventures to find the residents of Moo smitten by a newcomer - Dolph - who turned out to be a bad guy intent on taking over the kingdom. In that case, as with this one, Oop’s immediate reaction to the newcomer is intense jealousy.
This time the newcomer is a walking giant named Mountain. I don’t think he will turn out to be a bad guy because he seems to be based on some real-life figure (possibly a football player) who I’m unfamiliar with.
Mountain saves a family trapped by a boulder in front of their cave entrance. Oop is embarrassed because he could not budget the boulder before Mountain walked up and pulverized it with some kind of football blocking manuever. Instead of congratulating Mountain and celebrating the rescue of the family, Oop storms off in a huff. Why do they insist on making Alley Oop so petty these days? Was he always this way?
Next Oop finds Oola taking a big plate of food to the “dreamy” Mountain, further enflaming his jealousy. Once again I have a hard time understanding Oola’s character. She has been Oop’s steady girlfriend since the dawn of time but when Oop finally asked her to marry him several months ago she blew him off and said she needed more time to think about it. Apparently that also meant more time to have flings with other characters whom she seems to fall for at every opportunity. Has she forgotten about Oop’s proposal or does she even care? Is it time for Oop to take that long ride to nowhere with Dinny that he almost took when she was head-over-heels for Dolph?

We interrupt this blog...

2005-07-28T10:46:00.000-07:00

I want to take a quick break from Alley Oop for a moment to note a new comic strip by Michael Fraley, a frequent commenter on this site.
Michael’s new strip - Burnie and Clyde - can be found on the Comics Sherpa site where new comic artists are provided a chance to show their stuff and perhaps build up enough support and momentum to get into syndication. Here is Michael describing his new venture:

It's about time I put my money where my mouth is. I've got a new strip on Universal Press Syndicate's "Comics Sherpa" site for undiscovered talent. I've done various other “serious" things, including a series of "Arthur: King of Britain" comics that Caliber published back in the 1990's - but folks always seem to like the scribbly, goofy stuff I do best. OK, here it is, a strip about a conservative little turtle and his duck friend who only has one toe dipped in the reality basin.

Best of luck to Michael and his new endeavor. Be sure and check it out regularly.

Now back to our regular scheduled programming...

Waste not, want not

2005-07-20T13:12:00.000-07:00

alleyoop 7-18-05
Originally uploaded by mwthomas87.

Do you suppose Doc Wonmug ever gets tired of buying new clothes for Alley Oop?
Everytime Oop goes to the future he gets a nice new set of clothes that perfectly fit his bulky frame.
You would think he might appreciate this and perhaps leave the clothes there at the time lab when he is not using them. But no! He obviously doesn't give the clothes a second thought.
Here we see Oop transported back to Moo still wearing his modern clothing which he promptly strips off and leaves lying on the ground.
Why couldn't he take a few seconds to change into his caveman clothes before being transported? Why does he have to be so wasteful, especially when he knows his friends have been struggling financially lately. What an ingrate!

Ignoring basic rules

2005-07-08T14:02:00.000-07:00

Alley Oop 7/7/05
Originally uploaded by mwthomas87.

So that’s it?!?! Wowee takes the remote control buttons back and Poof! Suddenly everything is back to normal?? This is ridiculous!

First, I can’t believe they’ve been time traveling for nearly half a century now and this is the first time this “basic rule of time travel” has ever come up.
This is such a stupid way to end what seemed at first to be an interesting and promising storyline.
Good grief! Alley Oop screws around with things everytime he travels anywhere in time! We just finished a segment a few months ago where Oop and his dinosaur halted an English attack on a Scottish castle. Then he went back in time to “observe” a Greek wrestling legend to purportedly prepare for the Olympics and ended up beating the poor guy up and demoralizing him to the point where he wanted to give up wrestling altogether.
I think its a little late to suddenly be issuing a Prime Directive for this strip!

And another thing... Those remote control buttons aren’t the only thing Wowee brought back from the future! He replaced their entire time machine because Doc couldn’t remember how to fix it himself!
Surely the authors of this strip aren’t so completely dimwitted to not realize this is an even bigger alteration than those silly remote control buttons!! Arggghhhhh!!!

Transdimensional e-mail?

2005-06-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

Alley Oop 6/20/05
Originally uploaded by mwthomas87.

Commenter Max is correct to point out how ridiculous it is for Dave Wowee to have Doc Wonmug’s e-mail address on his computer in the future. Unless they have invented some way to send e-mail through time it makes no sense. Will there be some explanation for this at some point later on? I doubt it. Sadly, I’m afraid it is just another inconsistency that has been overlooked by the strip’s current authors. I’m sure they thought it was clever to have Doc’s e-mail on the computer screen and didn’t stop to think that it wouldn’t be practical.

Still unresolved is the question of how such a dramatic shift in the nation’s political and social structure took place without Wowee being the slightest bit aware of it. It has been suggested that the remote control transporation devices accidently sent them to an alternative universe where historical events unfolded differently. That would probably make for a facinating storyline. Unfortunately, I doubt it is something this writing crew is capable of coming up with and it looks now like the more likely explanation is that Wowee is just as much of a clueless idiot as his benefactors from the past.

The Red vs Blue divide is an interesting plot device so I am curious to see where they are going with it next. In what seems like a political commentary on our present situation, the Red States (i.e. Crimsonia) have become obsessed with capturing terrorists to the point that they do not hesitate to invade people’s privacy ( Patriot Act) and abuse prisoners (Abu Gharib, Guantanamo) to accomplish their task. I’m curious to see how the Blue States (i.e. Azuria) will be presented - perhaps overrun with tree-hugging, terrorist-appeasing, hippie pacifists?

Blind coup

2005-06-01T11:58:00.000-07:00

alleyoop 5-31-05
Originally uploaded by mwthomas87.

I’ve put off commenting on this latest Alley Oop series for a bit while trying to figure out where the heck they are going with all of this. So far Alley Oop and Ava haven’t progressed much further than the broom closet where they wound up after transporting themselves back to the future. They started off in a mad rush to try and save Doc Wonmug and Dave Wowee from some kind of futuristic prison where they’ve apparently been beaten senseless. For some reason Ava is unable to use the time machine to track Doc and Dave’s whereabouts and just zap them back to the present. So she and Oop launched themselves willy-nilly into the future and then just sat inside a closet for the better part of two weeks watching helplessly as the bad guys ransacked Dave’s laboratory.
They got there at just the right time to witness the bad guys planting bogus information in Dave Wowee’s computer that would incriminate him in some sort of global terrorist plot and now they have conveniently stumbled across the computer chip that was used to plant the bogus information that the bad guys carelessly left behind. The cartoon at right shows the ridiculous circumstances whereby one of the bad guys picks up a ream of paperwork in an awkward fashion and then fails to notice that the computer chip has slipped off and fallen on the floor. Why was he so careless with the computer chip and why does he need all that paperwork? Why do they even have that much paperwork in the future?

Ah yes, the future! Here are a few observations we can make so far about our future based on the sketchy details the strip has revealed so far.
Dave Wowee’s ridiculous hairstyle is ridiculous even then as everyone seems to either be bald or wearing fur-lined caps. We have yet to see any future women either.
Wowee’s cape is also not common in the future which leads us to the conclusion that rather than demonstrating some futuristic style of dress all this time, he is really just an eccentric wierdo who doesn’t fit in any better in the future than he does in the present. That might explain his willingness to abandon his future home and live in the “past” with Doc and Ava.
As I’ve noted before, the computers of the future must still be interfaced with a keyboard, but at least they float in the air and vanish when not in use.
The bad guys are wearing some kind of uniforms with medals dangling from their caps and goofy looking goggles which don’t appear to serve any purpose. Wowee is apparently not put off by these uniforms so maybe they are commonly worn by military folks of that period. But then we get this interesting exchange where Wowee tries to defend himself claiming his rights as an American citizen only to be informed that he is no longer in America. What!?!? So does that mean that there was a coup and the government was overthrown and Wowee is so clueless he didn’t even notice?
But then as an explanation all we are told is that we are now in some new country called Crimsonia and then the matter is dropped.
So where does that leave Oop and Ava? If the country has been overthrown by some nefarious group that is responsible for framing Wowee, who are they going to show their evidence to?

Empty time labs

2005-05-04T13:29:00.000-07:00

alleyoop05042005
Originally uploaded by mwthomas87.

Couldn't Ava have just said "Alley Oop! Doc and Dave need help!" Instead we have already dragged this new storyline along for a week and a half as she launched into a long flash-back sequence that conveniently saved the most crucial points til the very end.
But the real question I have is why does she need Alley Oop in the first place? She had Doc and Dave pulled up on the time machine's view screen. Why couldn't she just zap them back to the time lab? What am I missing here? Is she not competent to operate the time machine by herself?
And here is another crucial point... Who is left in the time lab now? I assume that it is currently empty, so how did she manage to zap herself back to Alley Oop's time and how does she expect to get the two of them back? If this is not a probelm, why do they need a remote control device like the one that Dave Wowee was offering?

"Somethin' feels wrong here..."

2005-04-29T15:01:00.000-07:00

alleyoop042805
Originally uploaded by mwthomas87.

Or so says Alley Oop at the start of this latest adventure. Why an experienced time traveler like Oop would find it strange just before Ava is zapped into Moo is not clear. Nevertheless, we are immediately presented with a distraught and inarticulate Ava babbling about needing help but unable to say why. Instead she launches into a lengthy flashback where we find ourselves in the time lab with Doc Wonmug just as his cousin Dave Wowee from the future shows up with "remote control transportation buttons."
I wonder if this will be connected with Doc's recent memory problems.

In the flashback, Ava seems alternately concerned and indifferent to the new gift from Wowee. Or maybe she is just disoriented from being transported all over the page by the cartoonists who can't keep her in the same spot from frame to frame. (See Thursday's cartoon where she starts off in the far background behind Wowee and then ends up in the immediate foreground in front of Doc Wonmug. No wonder she has an exclamation mark indicating shock or surprise!

But it was Wednesday's cartoon that threw me this time. Here is what Wowee says about the new gadgets from the future:
"We should have set you up with these long ago!"
Is he joking? What does he mean long ago? He came here in a time machine which purportedly could have been set to go as far back in time as he wanted. If he really wanted Doc to have these things sooner, he could go further back in time and give it to him then.

Guz - The Teflon King

2005-04-18T20:11:00.000-07:00

Alleyoop 4-18-05
Originally uploaded by mwthomas87.

Why aren't the people throwing rotten fish at King Guz too? Why are they only going after J'on Fish?
It's not like J'on Fish could have inflicted his evil tax system on the people without the full support and cooperation of King Guz. And yet Guz walks away from this smelling like a rose (as opposed to rotten herring).