Nevermind

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!

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!!!!

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

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

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 ...

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...

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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 ...

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!

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

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?

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 ...

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

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

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.