Beau Peep Notice Board
Beau Peep Notice Board => Just a Fort => Topic started by: Roger Kettle on April 25, 2007, 10:03:12 PM
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I'm about to give away a trade secret. (This is akin to a magician explaining how a trick is done).
Writing about animals in a comic strip is much easier than writing about humans. You get away with murder. Let me explain...
Fred Basset (the cartoon strip dog) is watching his master play chess with the local vicar. In the final frame, he thinks " He should have moved Bishop to King four". A dog thinking this is (mildly) funny. A human thinking this is..well..not funny at all. In short, this is a cheap and easy way to get a laugh. The fact that, in Beau Peep, I feature a camel and two vultures and, in Horace, I feature a snake and a bear, is purely coincidental.
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This is all true, only Fred Basset has been abusing the privilege for thirty years.
I picked up a few FB books at a garage sale some years back and found that he frequently recycled a gag (in slightly different situations) about eight times.
The guy who did Fred Basset died a while back, I'm sure, and I think he lived in Dorset, not too far from where I lived.
If I'd known this earlier, I would have taken the time to pop by and throw a brick through his window.
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Tham the Thnake rockth ;D
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Re animals in Horace. Is the frog not technically an animal then? Also, what about the horsie?
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I know. I'm shameless.
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I disagree about recycling a gag, especially if it's done well. "Only Fools and Horses" recycled the "Dave" joke endlessly. One of the later ones where everyone is congratulating Rodney, shouting "Rodney! Rodney! Rodney!" followed by a lone "Dave!", had me in stitches.
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I agree that was always a great laugh, Mincey, but it was the difference between a recycled gag and a running gag. The Dave line wouldn't actually have been particularly funny if not for the repetition. It relied on it as a running gag. Wholly different from rehashing old stand-alone jokes.
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Is the animal "technique" a recycled gag?
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I thought you were alluding to Malc's Fred Basset post. I think I'd describe the animal 'technique' as a device rather than a gag as such, in that it can be applied in many different ways and situations, and isn't reliant on one specific thing (other than the creature verbalising).
Does it sound like I know what I'm talking about? Or would it just be funnier coming from a gerbil?
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Let me get this right. Are you saying you're not a gerbil?
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Certainly not. If you want me to be a gerbil, then I'm a gerbil.
Does that make me funnier?
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Works for me. I pissed myself.
it was the difference between a recycled gag and a running gag. The Dave line wouldn't actually have been particularly funny if not for the repetition. It relied on it as a running gag. Wholly different from rehashing old stand-alone jokes.
Wiser words was never spoke.
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Yep---perfectly and succinctly described, Tarks.
I used to do a little test when I wrote scripts featuring animals. Would this be funny if a human was saying this line? This is why the snake has virtually disappeared from Horace. In my opinion, it had ceased to work. I've explained before about the original concept of introducing the snake. It was, simply, a way of adding visual variety and, in a Western strip, what better creature than a rattlesnake? I then realised that every cartoon snake I'd ever seen ssssspoke like thisssss so I thought it might be amusing to have a snake who couldn't pronounce the letter "s". While I think it initially worked, it was becoming increasingly contrived.
Of the animals that I write about, I think the vultures in Beau Peep work best. This is a basic father/son thing where, I hope, the dialogue stands up on its own. Well, that's the aim,anyway.
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Basically, A Man Called Horse is a natural successor to the ancient Egyption hieroglyph where it was customary to show the Pharaoh as a god in human form.
A literal translation of the Akhenaten temple scroll is "A Man Called Horus".
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I know for a fact they jazzed this up a bit from he original "A Man Called Bob".
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I actually enjoy reading the strips that feature the animals (not that I don't enjoy the other strips), I think they remind me of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons when I was little (and now, I must admit).
Sam is one of my favourite characters in Horace, and I'm sorry to hear that he's been moved to the sidelines. I'd say this about any of the characters I like though, but as time goes on things change, and hopefully new characters will emerge.
The strips where the humans interract with the animals interest me, as they give an imaginary insight into the thoughts of the animals. And as quite a lot of people are frightened of snakes, well, this gives me hope that Sam may return some day.
Another thing: a dose of surreality is good for you... who needs to read about people all the time anyway?
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Tom, I'm pretty sure Sam the Snake will appear again in the future....just nowhere near as often. He featured every five or six weeks for about sixteen years and..well...he jutht needed a retht.
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Sixteen years! How old is that in human years?
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Well, the average life-span of a rattlesnake is around 22 years up to a maximum of around 30, so that makes it around 3:1 in terms of snake:human years, making Sam around...well...my age.
So - mid-life crithith time?
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(http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/icbirmingham/may2006/2/8/65C0C12C-C4B3-A47A-BD95589E385C9733.jpg)
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Well, the average life-span of a rattlesnake is around 22 years up to a maximum of around 30, so that makes it around 3:1 in terms of snake:human years, making Sam around...well...my age.
So - mid-life crithith time?
Thenility will be thetting in! (Feel free to use that one Roger).
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Don't worry---I will!
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Have you had him do any tongue-twisters yet, Roger - Like "The Leith Polieth dithmitheth uth"?
or
"Thee thells thea-thells on the thea-thore"
or
"The thixth thick sheik'th thixth sheep'th thick"
or
"Thix thlippery thnails, thlid thlowly theaward"
I could get you a week's worth of material!
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The thixth thick sheik'th thixth sheep'th thick
I can't even say that as it is ;D
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You thee...I mean, you see, this is the kind of stuff that used to drive me mad. One of the words you suggested was "sheep's". Now, if I'm going to stick to the pattern, I should represent this as "theepth"---and that is, basically, indecipherable. Had I continued introducing the snake every five weeks, I would have feared for my thanity.
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I thought it was:
1 sheep
2 sheeps
&
3 sheepsies
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Okay - here's a strip for you Roger.
Thammy the Thnake says: ""Thee thells thea-thells on the thea-thore"
Toady the Toad says: "How much for?"
Thnake says "That'th irrevelant, it'th a tongue-twithter".
Toady the Toad says: "I thought you were going to thay thickthpenth"
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Well, technically, I suppose it should be "six cents" and how do you write that and make it understandable? "Thickth Thenth" ? To me, that looks more like "sixth sense". As I said before, writing this stuff every five weeks was driving me bonkers.
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Couldn't you just write in a miracle lisp cure?
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I went for the "dump the snake" option.