Mallard does not seem to understand the difference between being interrupted by a question and censoring yourself. And that's the aspect of today's panel that makes the most sense.
21 comments:
Anonymous
said...
As far as I can tell, Mallard is singing "Tube Snake Boogie" by ZZ Top. The "censored" line is "she won't do it, but her sister will."
Despite Mallard's delusions, I believe this is precisely the sort of mildly naughty lyric that kids have been singing for generations.
If Mallard was a teenager when "Tube Snake Boogie" was released in 1981, his parents must have been teenagers (or younger) in the early years of rock and roll. I wonder if he's figured out yet what "Good golly, Miss Molly sure like to ball!" means yet. Or how about "I'm like a one-eyed cat peeping in a seafood store" from "Shake, Rattle and Roll"?
Thanks for providing the reference, Truce, I would never have gotten it otherwise.
Questions For The Duck:
(1) If you have such an enormous telephone-pole-sized stick up your ass--don't that make your browneye blue?--about naughty song lyrics, then why are you singing them around children?
(2) Which is more humiliating: dressing like that (put on some pants around the kid, sicko), or playing basketball against a child taller than yourself? Where's his dad? And can't you find ANY friends your age in HUMAN years?
Of course, decades ago, people were crapping themselves Mallard-style over Elvis and The Beatles. If Tinny were to think about any of this for three seconds (fat chance), he'd realize it's capitalism in action: catering to the whims and base desires of the paying audience. ...WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA, BRUCE TINSLEY???? YOU COMMIE RAT!
If Mallard was a teenager when "Tube Snake Boogie" was released in 1981,
...he'd be several years younger than Tinshley, who was born in 1958. This, in turn, means he became old enough for the fun parts of the sixties just as those things either stopped being fun or just plain stopped happening. I sometimes think this, all by itself, is the key to understanding the self-portrait as a bitter tool of the Noise Machine he draws in every panel.
I think that "I know a girl . . ." line goes waaaay back. It's the kind of rhyme soldiers would chant while drilling in basic training. I doubt that it was new even in Mallard's parents' day. If you were actually trying to illustrate some cultural barometer, wouldn't you use a current song? Has Tinsley been asleep for the last 25 years?
Also, Mr. Upright Morally Superior Mallard Fillmore goes around singing songs with risque lyrics?
Things just ain't the way they used to be. Also, they never were.
Bessie Smith, 1931:
"I need a little sugar, in my bowl, I need a little hot dog, between my rolls You gettin' different, I've been told, move your finger, drop something in my bowl I need a little steam-heat on my floor, Maybe I can fix things up, so they'll go Get off your knees, I can't see what you're drivin' at! It's dark down there! Looks like a snake! C'mon here and drop somethin' here in my bowl, stop your foolin', and drop somethin', in my bowl"
In a long-out-of print novel that my father published in 1980 or thereabouts, that rhyme--or a very close paraphrase--is presented as a soldiers' marching song. He was in Vietnam, so preseumably that's where he got it.
If you look hard enough, you can find anything that is dirty enough to require censoring in just about any musical era.
It's not an indication of the times, it's an indication of YOURSELF if the only songs you can hum are ones that require censoring. I know plenty without a single dirty word or dirty reference in them, and some of them are popular enough that kids will recognize them.
A funny thing about the lack of pants on Mallard. Back in the 70's Marvel Comics had Howard the Duck. Mallard is obviously a rip off, especially in black and white. Trapped in a world he never made.
Anyway, somewhere along the line Disney decided that Howard the Duck needed to wear pants and have a thicker bill, lest he be confused with Donald Duck.
I wish Disney would go after Mllard for the same reason.
21 comments:
As far as I can tell, Mallard is singing "Tube Snake Boogie" by ZZ Top. The "censored" line is "she won't do it, but her sister will."
Despite Mallard's delusions, I believe this is precisely the sort of mildly naughty lyric that kids have been singing for generations.
If Mallard was a teenager when "Tube Snake Boogie" was released in 1981, his parents must have been teenagers (or younger) in the early years of rock and roll. I wonder if he's figured out yet what "Good golly, Miss Molly sure like to ball!" means yet. Or how about "I'm like a one-eyed cat peeping in a seafood store" from "Shake, Rattle and Roll"?
Thanks for providing the reference, Truce, I would never have gotten it otherwise.
Questions For The Duck:
(1) If you have such an enormous telephone-pole-sized stick up your ass--don't that make your browneye blue?--about naughty song lyrics, then why are you singing them around children?
(2) Which is more humiliating: dressing like that (put on some pants around the kid, sicko), or playing basketball against a child taller than yourself? Where's his dad? And can't you find ANY friends your age in HUMAN years?
Of course, decades ago, people were crapping themselves Mallard-style over Elvis and The Beatles. If Tinny were to think about any of this for three seconds (fat chance), he'd realize it's capitalism in action: catering to the whims and base desires of the paying audience. ...WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA, BRUCE TINSLEY???? YOU COMMIE RAT!
WHY DO YOU HATE PANTS???????
If Mallard was a teenager when "Tube Snake Boogie" was released in 1981,
...he'd be several years younger than Tinshley, who was born in 1958. This, in turn, means he became old enough for the fun parts of the sixties just as those things either stopped being fun or just plain stopped happening. I sometimes think this, all by itself, is the key to understanding the self-portrait as a bitter tool of the Noise Machine he draws in every panel.
I think that "I know a girl . . ." line goes waaaay back. It's the kind of rhyme soldiers would chant while drilling in basic training. I doubt that it was new even in Mallard's parents' day. If you were actually trying to illustrate some cultural barometer, wouldn't you use a current song? Has Tinsley been asleep for the last 25 years?
Also, Mr. Upright Morally Superior Mallard Fillmore goes around singing songs with risque lyrics?
Bruce Tinshley and Mallard Fillmore: protecting Uhmerka from songs written a quarter-century ago.
Next: Mallard frets about the impact of Three's Company and Kramer Versus Kramer on the youth of today.
I don't trust that Elvis Presley character!
Tomorrow, Mallard will hopefully share his memories of his first 2 Live Crew show.
Wait, unless he's talking about this square dance song. That would be AWESOME if he was.
Tbone, that would make my life if Tinsley thinks square dance songs are "teen music."
So he's bitching about how dirty music was over 25 years ago? He's lost his mind, if he ever had it.
Wait 'Best of Mallard'. Ha!
Oh man...
I love music that's older than me. (And some that's not, whatever, I'm not picky.)
My mom was so upset (maybe it was an act) to learn what 'little red corvette' meant.
And she was a teenager in the late 70s. She lurved Donny Osmond. *barf*
knew a girl named Nikki I guess you could say she was a sex fiend met in a hotel lobby...
I've never understood if she was the one with the magazine or he was. Any theories?
Sorry to turn the discussion from Mallard to Prince.
let's go back to the duck
love em and leave em fast...
sorry, I'm listening to Prince, Mallard can take a flying duck
but it was saturday night I guess that makes it all right
Things just ain't the way they used to be. Also, they never were.
Bessie Smith, 1931:
"I need a little sugar, in my bowl,
I need a little hot dog, between my rolls
You gettin' different, I've been told,
move your finger, drop something in my bowl
I need a little steam-heat on my floor,
Maybe I can fix things up, so they'll go
Get off your knees, I can't see what you're drivin' at!
It's dark down there!
Looks like a snake! C'mon here and drop somethin' here in my bowl,
stop your foolin', and drop somethin', in my bowl"
In a long-out-of print novel that my father published in 1980 or thereabouts, that rhyme--or a very close paraphrase--is presented as a soldiers' marching song. He was in Vietnam, so preseumably that's where he got it.
Where's Mallard's pants? What is it with comic strip ducks and their pants?
Those damn lyrics indeed.
If you look hard enough, you can find anything that is dirty enough to require censoring in just about any musical era.
It's not an indication of the times, it's an indication of YOURSELF if the only songs you can hum are ones that require censoring. I know plenty without a single dirty word or dirty reference in them, and some of them are popular enough that kids will recognize them.
A funny thing about the lack of pants on Mallard. Back in the 70's Marvel Comics had Howard the Duck. Mallard is obviously a rip off, especially in black and white. Trapped in a world he never made.
Anyway, somewhere along the line Disney decided that Howard the Duck needed to wear pants and have a thicker bill, lest he be confused with Donald Duck.
I wish Disney would go after Mllard for the same reason.
What do you suppose the "K" on his hat means?
Neo-KKKonservative
It's for the Kentucky Wildcats. Tinsley's obsessed with them for some reason.
Case in point:
duckcover.blogspot.com/2007/01/those-damned-wildcats.html
I imagine Tinsley went to UK ... or, a much, much more pathetic possibility - that Tinsley didn't go, but Mallard "did."
It's also similar to line from Red House by Jimi Hendrix Experience.
I think I'll go back over yonder
Way back upon the hill
Because if my baby don't want me no more
I know her sister will.
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