Reality… or illusion?
‘Duck’ Dixon and Cobblers will be starring in “Dick Whittington” at the Bradford Alhambra this Christmas. Book your tickets early, don’t miss out.
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‘Duck’ Dixon and Cobblers will be starring in “Dick Whittington” at the Bradford Alhambra this Christmas. Book your tickets early, don’t miss out.
I love Dean and Linda in panel 1! His amusement is so subdued, and hers is so boisterous.
Also, Teenie and Donnie are clearly having a ball (each).
Aw, they’re still together.
Ah yes, the Tinsley Sisters. Loved their appearance on that Jonathan Creek New Year’s special ages back
Thank goodness they decided to be a vocal trio, and gave up their original intentions as a performance art piece.
Until I got to the last panel, I was actually going with the Living Joke as the leader.
Yes! Teenie and Donnie certainly took the lead!
Tinsley Sisters, second place. Third place: No Award.
All these characters read like C-list villains in Batman’s rogues gallery. Or the A-list villains of a C-list Batman-knockoff.
Teenie and Donnie more remind me of the Flying Graysons.
Are “Duck” Dixon and Cobblers somehow related to Eggsy? Or maybe the palce where Eggsy got his goose outfit also sells ventriloquist dummies? Admittedly, the resemblance is mostly conceptual.
1) Teeny Briars is living her absolute best life.
2) Cobblers may still be available for performances come December, but I strongly suspect “Duck” Dixon will be busy assisting the police with their inquiries into certain plans he was very close to implementing with several like-minded individuals.
But which one is Cobblers and which one is Duck? The first mystery the police have to solve. They’ll arrest the wrong man and the Q-Anon plot will go ahead.
GASP! Panel 1 confirmed that Dean and Claire’s ex (maybe) nuisance are friends and love hanging out together! AWESOME! But for Claire to have to spending time next to her even off the bus must be true torture. Meanwhile, Glenn finally has a way to satisfy his craving for bizarre shows. I’m happy for him.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Goddamn, those Tinsley Sisters! I laughed out loud!
This is more confession than criticism, but this whole story has felt like John is lampooning parts of popular culture I know almost nothing about, and I can’t tell what’s a reference to something real and absurd and what’s simply absurd.
Like, I’m aware that there are many talent shows, but I haven’t watched them except for clips that go viral. And I don’t know what makes k-pop different than boy bands, except that the artists are Korean.
I’m pretty sure the Tinsley Sisters are meant as a reference to the Andrew Sisters, who were a girl group from the 1940s. Quite popular during the war years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andrews_Sisters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfWc52smNs8 Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcyiC79l910 Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree
I don’t recall any of the Andrews Sisters having blue hair, though.
I think that the Andrews Sisters were what kids today call the “trope codifier” for “blonde, brunette, redhead”. Blue hair presumably shows either anime influence or a misunderstanding of why ladies of a certain age once tended to blue rinses.
John may also have had the Puppini Sisters in the back of his mind, though I don’t think any of them have ever had blue hair either.
Let’s we forget, there were also the Boswell Sisters.
There’s a modern, English, act named the Puppini Susters, who are themselves modeled after the Andrews Sisters,which is what I assumed he was referencing here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puppini_Sisters
They first came to prominence covering “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfZqyzI8pW0
but quickly broadened their scope of material, if not of style: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR2AQttnYb8
A much saltier version of the Andrews sisters. Or was Chattanooga Choo Choo not about what I thought it was about?
The Andrews Sisters’ had a hit with “Hold Tight” which — unknown to them, at the time — was a bawdy Harlem tune about oral sex.
White people taking racy Black songs and singing them cluelessly was literally the origin of rock and roll.
The “Tinsley” bit comes from a district of Sheffield pretty much adjacent to Meadowhall, where British Rail built a huge new freight marshalling yard in the 1960s, just as their wagonload freight business started to collapse.
The ultimate fear of any comedian is what to do when life itself becomes too absurd to parody.
It’s all right. I’m in the same boat. The world’s a lot brighter if you pretend it’s not based on anything real, though.
Everything in this story is a reference to something real, but not something I interface with day to day. In many ways it is as much a learning experience for me as it is for you, a journey we share into the cultural lowlands of the UK in 2023.
These acts mostly read as parodies of the sort of thing you’d once have seen in British variety shows (US trans: vaudeville?), though mostly not for a good sixty years now. Or maybe TV talent shows have brought such things back, godelpus.
Duck Dixon and Cobblers may, I think, be a reference to Keith Harris and Orville. Though they were more a symptom than the whole of the problem.
As a Yank with a fondness for British humo(u)r, I frequently feel that way. Years after Monty Python aired on U.S. tv, I learned that Reginald Mauldling was a real person.
Now, I google “milk, milk” and learned something new.
“Milk, milk” is hardly purely British. I’m American, and I remember it from when I was a kid.
Yeah, the version I learned as a kid was “fudge” rather than “chocolate”, but…
The “milk, milk” part is new to me. The version we used when I was in elementary school just had lemonade and fudge. And that was the in US.
The milk seems like a necessary part of the scansion.
True confession of my own:
I genuinely thought Le Pain Quotidien, which appeared on the first page of Holiday Surprise, was a classic piece of Allison whimsy. I mean, free jam? That can’t be real, right?
But no, it’s an actual thing. I should go out more. If I save up for a year or so, I might be able to afford a train to a Southern station.
In addition to the ones already covered, I’m pretty sure Henry Hubble is supposed to be a spoof of magician/comedian Lioz Shem Tov:
https://youtu.be/lHBml4Nwc0s?t=48
Ok, sorry, man, but this is getting creepy.
I was subjected to Rod Hull and Emu in a pantomime as a child. I can’t recall any warnings about the New World Order, but they did have some terrible trouble with an unexpectedly animate string of sausages.
I LOVED ROD HULL AND EMU!
remember Lenny the Lion? Apparently Terry Hall is credited with having the first non-human ventriloquist’s dummy.
Is there a firm distinction between hand puppet and ventriloquist’s dummy? My impression was that e.g. Shari Lewis predated Terry Hall. I can see why Shari was popular in the UK, as even as a young-un I was amazed when she’d sing three-part songs with Lamb Chop and Charlie Horse, switching distinct voices seamlessly. I’m afraid all I saw in Rod Hull’s creation was an excuse to permit grabbing people in the groin without being arrested.
Lenny the Lion meets Emu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRslhdudAsU
Rod Hull and Emu had a certain manic energy. One couldn’t imagine Orville the Duck beating up Michael Parkinson.
Old-school variety performers were probably not much more prone to cranky politics than the rest of the population, but some who were could occasionally get obnoxiously loud, if only when complaining about their tax bills.
Millicent Montgomery pulling a Self Esteem, although perhaps lacking the self esteem to go full Self Esteem.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-61967203
Honestly I could just spend an hour watching Teenie and Donnie spin beach balls, I need something utterly chill.
I could see “Duck” Dixon and Cobblers or Henry Hubble leading a cult.
Ah. So Hess’s another level of Hell that wasn’t included in The Inferno.
I get the feeling Claire may not be as reassured by Glenn’s answer as he thinks.
Perhaps he should attempt to reassure her more by telling her that the acts are likely to maintain their level of quality. Surely that would work.
Claire doesn’t like kitsch, carnivals, and in general, mixed fare. Glenn on the other hand would not be likely to enjoy a documentary on NGO’s in isolated villages.
Other than this, their tastes are perfectly aligned
Top class performances, each and everyone of them! 😀
After this line-up, D-Slide ought to either bring the house down, or get it condemned.
So far, it looks like D-Slide would win hands down, even if they ALL fell over each other.
Surprisingly, Teenie Briars is the Dog, and Donnie the Dog is the name of the young woman.
Parents can be so cruel
In my head cannon, every one of these people is actually an incredible performer, with truly amazing stage presence and an incredible amount of talent. Unfortunately, all of them happens to be abysmally bad at the specific types of performance they are attempting. Bad choices, across the board.
“Canon” obviously. Argh.
Now I want a head cannon 🙁
Comics fans with frickin laser beams attached to their heads
“Head Cannon” just might be my next fictional Internet band name.
This… is a really good pitch for a new competition show: Outside My Wheelhouse. Talented people perform things they are really untalented at… and they have only 24 hours to get good at it, working with coaches who are the best in the business. Bono does a knife-throwing act! Yo-Yo Ma lands a triple axel! Michael Jordan and Lady Gaga absolutely kill at pairs tennis!
We’re going to be very, very rich, Alaric.
Like every episode of Faking It happening at once, with even less preparation.
The US already has ‘Celebrity Circus’ which is not just a cover term for the whole US celebrity system but is about celebrities learning circus acts like high wire in a short time frame.
I never watched it; the best I could hope for would be a terrible accident and they’d never allow that, or broadcast it.
In my youth here in New Zealand I’ve sat through ironically titled ‘talent’ shows in which optimistic young people were cruelly encouraged by grown ups to demonstrate their talents for the amusement of said grown ups. That’s the only explanation I can come up with for the “ludicrous displays” the rest of us had to endure.
We’re pretty good over here at crushing dreams so almost none of them continued with their unrealistic fantasies into adulthood.
Shows like BGT indicate that dream crushing is not as effective in Britain…
Almost forgot to ask; “‘Duck’ Dixon and Cobblers will be starring in “Dick Whittington” at the Bradford Alhambra this Christmas.” Which of the two will be playing the cat?
Is the Hubble bubble going on there a reference to a hookah, fried food, or turmoil? Or something else which Google refuses to reveal to me?
It’s magic! He’s making bubbles appear out of NOWHERE 9and a small container of liquid) with his magic (plastic) wand! At least, that’s how I saw it.
Sorry, I was too obscure. I’ve heard the expression “hubble bubble” before, wondered if the comic intended something by it, couldn’t remember what it meant, found a few definitions, but didn’t particularly see that the comic related to any of the meanings Google had displayed, and thus my babbling.
Actually, I’d watch Teenie Briars and Donnie the Dog. Quality entertainment.
The rest are toilet though.
Based on what mid-century variety shows looked like in the US, when you’d nothing better to do, most people would eat this stuff up! Today, there’s tiktok.
I used to hate this kind of stuff, but I appreciate it on a different level. It’s not just about me, it’s about us acting dumb together, and having fun at it. Perhaps this is the true inner meaning of the clown.
I’d like to see more of The Tinsley Sisters.
For reasons.