FSF

[pip bip]

[Krusty Walnut]

@pip-bip None of those look Brazilian.

[JoeKaz]

Reminds me of an REO Speedwagon album of yore... The Earth, a Small Man, His Dog and a Chicken. Dang I'm old. Get OFF my LAWN! LOL Happy Friday!

[trivet]

@joekaz said in FSF:

The Earth, a Small Man, His Dog and a Chicken

[trivet]

@pip-bip
Today will live in infamy. This is the very first Far Side I don't get.
It is truly a dark day for me.

[pip bip]

@trivet

[Qaaaaa]

this is also an alignment chart

[trivet]

@pip-bip
Still don't get it - it's based on this song? This is seriously bothering me.

[BaconSandwich]

@qaaaaa said in FSF:

this is also an alignment chart

Reminds me of an alignment chart we did at work once, where we put the names of cheese on it.

[RamblinRover]

@trivet "You all know The Girl From Ipanema, now here's the Man From Ipanema, The Dog From Ipanema, The Nerd From Ipanema, and all the rest!"

It's like a bad pitch meeting in a way. It's actually a joke about how someone being known just as The Person From Place is kind of odd without context or the parts fitting together.

It's only logical in the sense of the song because it's a way to connect the idea of a place to the song, and connect the idea of a person with the place. The girl is from Ipanema in Brazil, on the coast (mentioned: when she goes down to the sea every day), which immediately paints a picture of a young girl by the sea in an exotic place.

Conversely, The Slob From Newark is not an image that most people would write a song about, but also paints a picture.

Now mix the two: boring, dull, or pointless thing combined with exotic locale. The Dog From Ipanema. Is there anything exotic about the dog? Nah. Is there a picture painted by the phrase? No. The place carries no extra context to the dog, it's just a dog with a title that people are acting like means something.

Which is funny.

[trivet]

@ramblinrover
Ok - I've never heard of the song, so it went completely over my head. I accept full responsibility, as Larson can do no wrong.

The first Larson joke I didn't get.
2020 continues to suck.

[RamblinRover]

@trivet He actually has a lot of "feggin weird thing based on song name or title" stuff. Like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Gals
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elephant_Man_(film)

Because clearly Buffalo Gals are literally women with animal faces, and people with animal faces will be attracted to each other, because.... well, I don't know. It's funny.

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueberry_Hill_(song)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Came_Back

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misty_(song)

As I think you can see, he does this shit A LOT.

Also, I may or may not have an encyclopedic knowledge of The Far Side.

[MUSASHI66]

@ramblinrover said in FSF:

@trivet "You all know The Girl From Ipanema, now here's the Man From Ipanema, The Dog From Ipanema, The Nerd From Ipanema, and all the rest!"

It's like a bad pitch meeting in a way. It's actually a joke about how someone being known just as The Person From Place is kind of odd without context or the parts fitting together.

It's only logical in the sense of the song because it's a way to connect the idea of a place to the song, and connect the idea of a person with the place. The girl is from Ipanema in Brazil, on the coast (mentioned: when she goes down to the sea every day), which immediately paints a picture of a young girl by the sea in an exotic place.

Conversely, The Slob From Newark is not an image that most people would write a song about, but also paints a picture.

Now mix the two: boring, dull, or pointless thing combined with exotic locale. The Dog From Ipanema. Is there anything exotic about the dog? Nah. Is there a picture painted by the phrase? No. The place carries no extra context to the dog, it's just a dog with a title that people are acting like means something.

Which is funny.

When a joke needs an explanation of why it is funny, which is so long that it won’t fit on the screen of an iPhone 12 Pro MAX without scrolling, it looses about 99% of the humor it might have contained in the first place.

If we had a / button this comment would be downvoted into oblivion, but most Far Side just isn’t funny. Most of the time it’s “huh”, sometimes it gets a chuckle and I don’t think I ever had a LOL moment.

[trivet]

@ramblinrover
But I got/get everyone of those, as they reference songs I have actually heard of.

I'm so disappointed in myself.

[RamblinRover]

@musashi66 I would agree this isn't one of the funniest out there, but a lot of my post is unraveling the aspect of why understood context would make it funny, if he had it. It's a little like describing how Steve McQueen gets in his car and puts it in reverse to do a burnout in Bullitt. The description is dry and tedious even if the result is electrifying: the context and specifics are what matters. Execution. Now imagine explaining the scene to somebody who doesn't even know what a burnout is. Or a car. How long would it be then?

[RamblinRover]

@trivet The () From Ipanema gag really requires one to have not just heard of the song, but actually to have listened to the song, so it's a little "higher difficulty" than some. Because the song paints a picture, and all the extra entries to the list of Things From Ipanema clash with the picture. Badly.

[jayvincent]

@ramblinrover said in FSF:

@trivet The () From Ipanema gag really requires one to have not just heard of the song, but actually to have listened to the song, so it's a little "higher difficulty" than some. Because the song paints a picture, and all the extra entries to the list of Things From Ipanema clash with the picture. Badly.

and Wiki says:
“The Girl from Ipanema” is a Brazilian bossa nova jazz song that was written in 1962 by Jobim and Moraes. The first recording came in 1962 by Pery Ribeiro, but it only became a worldwide hit in 1964 with a version recorded by Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz, and in 1965 it won the Grammy for Record of the Year.

So if your timeline doesn't include Grammy winning songs from 1965, you totally won't get this joke. Given that you would have to be at least a teen to appreciate the song in 1965, the prototypical target audience for this joke is 70 years old...

[RamblinRover]

@jayvincent

70 years old

I get what you're saying, but the song really is not that obscure .
Also according to wiki it's possibly the second most covered song of all time, and still crops up in things a lot. Exposure during the 2016 Olympics put it back on the billboard charts, and it was even in an episode of Scrubs.

Obviously also when it appeared in The Far Side it was 30+ years ago, and therefore right in the wheelhouse of the typical newspaper reader.

I suppose there's a weakness in needing a better than casual familiarity, and that being a pop song instead of rock it hasn't been pounded into people's heads like rock from '65 that popular would have been. Eh.