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May 29, 2007

Templar: Jake WHAT?

I'm makin' stuff up again. Sorry.

And I'm starting to think Sunny maybe spent a good proportion of his childhood with a bar of soap crammed in his face. Just a guess.

While inking Templar today, I listened to an episode of the Old Time Radio show Family Theater. Family Theater episodes featured one-shot dramatic plays, and they usually had a moral.

This episode's moral? Fake incompetence to get other people to like you.

No, really. A family with a super-capable, painfully organized housewife moves into a neighborhood, and gracefully rejects welcome wagon style offers of assistance from a matronly neighbor. Said neighbor then instructs the local clubs and businesses to all give Capable Housewife and her family the cold shoulder, until Capable Housewife formulates a cunning plan and pretends she can't make dinner for her own kids. Neighbor swoops in, feels useful, and engineers a promotion for Housewife's husband. The End.

This was aired with complete sincerity sometime in the 1950s. You were supposed to learn something from this.

Family Theater is crazy like that, though. The moral of another one was basically Nobody marries fat poor girls. So stop being fat and poor. A'course, this was the 1950s, so the 160-pound protagonist was considered freakishly massive. The episode ended with her returning to her soul-devouring factory job after turning down a promotion so she could stay in the same department as her secret crush, who runs screaming from her fat poorness after she tries to make him dinner.

Did I mention every episode ends with an order to pray?

Wow.

Posted by Spike at May 29, 2007 01:25 AM

Comments

Oh, the 50s...

Also, I find the dialogue between Ben and Gene oddly amusing, if only because it's a break from Sunny's constant ranting.

Posted by Wark at May 29, 2007 01:56 AM
71.34.12.250

Using fake incompetence to make friends and influence people? Ooh man, shades of "Fascinating Womanhood"..
It's a book all about how women can keep their men fat dumb and happy by pretending they're too small/weak/not intelligent enough to do certain menial things, and then express shock, surprise and wonder when he's able to do them.

A relationship based on lies and manipulation is the best sort, wouldn't you agree? Someone seems to, the thing's been in print since 1963.

Posted by Joe at May 29, 2007 12:17 PM
208.186.105.42

Awwww won't someone give Gene a hug?

Those small letters won't hug themselves!

- j

Posted by Jason at May 29, 2007 12:59 PM
192.240.14.3

"we made zora." That's such a sweet little statement, especially after Sunny's asshole cracks in the background.

Posted by stacey at May 29, 2007 11:54 PM
70.227.201.186

I am very bad at patience and want more Jake information right now immediately.

This is a positive reflection on your writing skills, incidentally.

Posted by otto at May 30, 2007 12:02 AM
70.226.140.67

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