IT’S HALLOWEEN! THAT MEANS IT’S TIME FOR UNUSUAL SEXY COSTUMES!
You know what we’re talking about: those sexy costumes for the ladies based on concepts that have no right to be sexy. We’re doing a whole series on that for the month of October!
VOTE TO ASK YOURSELF, “WHYYYYYY?”
As for this comic…
Sometimes it’s tragic to find out how others view you.
Story time: I was in high school. It was a grade nine science class. The year was 1992. I don’t remember why, but my seat in that class was inexplicably located right within a small enclave of girls. This had never happened to me before. I was not well versed in the art of socializing with girl-types, but I did my best. And honestly, looking back on it, I think I knocked it out of the park.
I decided a good role to assume within this enclave of girls was that of the funny man. If I could keep them laughing, I knew I was doing something right. And it worked. They laughed a lot. I could tell that they liked me – not liked liked me, because that wasn’t what I was aiming for, but just in the ‘we accept your existence’ kind of social approval that was my primary goal.
Then one day one of the girls said, “You know what? You remind me of this character from this TV show. You remind me of him SO much.” Then another girl concurred. They ALL concurred. I was exactly like this character.
I hadn’t ever seen the show in question. But I was curious. So I went home and watched. It was obviously a show with a primarily female target audience. The opening theme song popped up and (as all shows did back then) a cavalcade of the characters appeared on screen, one after the other. They were all good-looking guys: hunky dreamboat after hunky dreamboat. And I wondered, “Which one of these handsome devils do I remind these girls of? Is it the blond guy? The dark-haired guy? Who?!?”
Then another character popped on the screen, and I immediately knew who it was.
The show was ‘Saved By the Bell’. And the character was Screech.
I’ve hated that show ever since.
I do like the Robin voting incentive.
I’m as happy as a pig in, er, mud about it!
“Oh, to be a pig upon that farm”
It’s almost Shakespearean!
Almost?
Colin = 100% Shaggy.
To everyone but Colin.
at least he dodged (for the moment) the ‘other’ topic.
I suspect that was by pure luck, though.
Honestly, I think this was a reasonably smooth avoidance of a nuclear meltdown on Colin’s part.
at least the girls in your high school acknowledged you, that counts for something. as for the comic, Colin has too much facial hair to be either Fred or Shaggy.
Colin = Scooby
Honestly, they were nice girls. They weren’t the cool types and they didn’t mean it as a putdown. It was just … an observation. And like all observations that hurt, it was … largely accurate.
Shave your beard off, Colin, and we’ll talk some more about it.
We will see. That is the inevitable endgame here, right?
I’m just afraid he wants Daphne to be Scooby. I’m more afraid for Colin’s life expectancy if this is indeed the case…
Well, things are heading in that direction. Inexorably.
Definitely a Shaggy. It’s the hairstyle. Like, zoinks, it’s time to stop running from it like a whackjob in a mask and embrace it, like an massive pile of snacks.
Regarding the incentive: I had no doubts. She’s internalized the lesson about wearing the clothes, not the clothes wearing her.
(Whereas I wear clothes and the clothes are worn by me).
If the clothes are wearing you, those are some bossy clothes. I avoid bossy clothes.
This is progressing pretty much exactly as I pictured it.
And that’s the problem with group cosplay. Many people have certain opinions on who they are most like.
It’s a dangerous game. And there are definitely the roles that are desirable versus the roles that are undesirable. I remember there was once this group of four girls at the high school where I teach. They came on Halloween dressed as the Ninja Turtles. It was pretty adorable. The girl who played Raphael was in my one class.
I went up to her and said, “So, you’re Raphael. Let me guess: you pulled the short straw and got to choose last, right?”
She looked at me in defeat. “Yep.”
I knew this because when playing the TMNT arcade game back in the good old days, I always got the leftover joystick. And the leftover joystick was always Raph. No one wants to be Raph.
“No one wants to be Raph.”
–spoken like someone who never played the extended nightmare that was the original TMNT NES game. Raphael, by virtue of having fast weapons, had distinctive advantages in a number of parts.
Dude, you don’t think I lived that game? I did. Died in that stupid final hallway in the Technodrome who knows how many times. Ralph was okay. Worked on certain enemies. Useless on others.
Ralph has never been a bad choice in most of the games. Just unpopular.
Uh, which one was he?
what weapons?
I know one had katanas, one had nun-chucks, one had a bow (1/4 staff), and one has sais.
The one with the sais.
But Sais are more versatile than just about any other type of weapon.
Why aren’t they popular?
Sais are a defensive weapon. Very good at snagging and binding other weapons. Less useful on the offensive, but still. Lots of fun. I would definitely choose them over a stick any day. And I never really understood the tactical advantage of nunchucks. They always seemed like a weapon designed for one purpose: to make Bruce Lee look cool.
Oh, hey, as a Freshman in ’92, that makes you one year younger than me (unless you were like me and graduated at 16 too, which based on your writing I would say was a possibility, but based on grades maybe not so much).
Also, a few episodes ago, I was admittedly conflicted upon my role as either Shaggy or Freddy.
I’m too dumb (really I think my limbic system is miswired, and “flight” has never been an option… even when my risk assessment figures it might be the better option)
to ru away, so no cowardice (self preservation?), though ammittedly it has worked out for me thus far, even in cases of catastrophic consequences (in 1992 I spent six weeks in a coma because of it, and still graduated early despite being expected to make up all missing work, and keep current on, well, current classwork. I quit caring and trying at that point, and still passed).
I was in high school from 1992 to 1998 or so. But high school back then in Ontario went five years. And I was in no rush to finish.
What are you thoughts on four vs five years for high school? Two of my parents didn’t really like it (both teachers). Are the kids as prepared for uni/college now as the previous ones?
Five was good. Four isn’t enough, in my opinion. The fifth year was optional back in my day, though you needed the fifth year to apply to university.
I feel that honestly kids after grade twelve just aren’t quite old enough to head off to university. One year makes a big difference at that age.
“saved by the bell”?
never watched it.
It must have been a sitcom.
I don’t like to watch shows that use canned laughter to tell the audience what’s supposed to be funny.
You’re not missing anything. It’s one of those awful high school sitcoms that people have fond memories of but are actually pretty terrible. The main character (cool handsome blond guy) is an insufferable social bully. But because it was the 90’s, we were supposed to relate to him.
I hated the show from the get-go. Didn’t have to wait for someone to say “you remind me of…”
I’m fairly certain that you got the better end of the stick in this rat race. You aren’t on celebrity boxing.
Yeah. Guess I’m in a better place. Though only the best celebrities appear on celebrity boxing!
I guess I’m too out of touch with today’s hip youth to understand what his shirt’s referencing. Ahh, well. At least I know he’s a shaggy.
Unless he wants to bleach his hair.
Oof, Screech. At least I never got that comparison growing up. At least people don’t compare you to Dustin Diamond nowadays! XD
Yeah, I guess it was all downhill for that guy. Oof.
Well, the youth of today won’t understand his shirt either. It’s a very niche reference.
And as for hair color, I think his natural hair color is fine for Fred. Honestly, you’re not going to find a grown man with hair much blonder than that.
don´t know what he´s complaining about, shaggy is WAY cooler than fred…..honestly, fred was always the ridiculous blonde jock looking for clues while shaggy (and scooby) tangled with the monster….plus he gets to eat a LOT!
The eating thing IS key. Colin is way more Shaggy in his persona.
Collin: Taking one for the team. Good man. It’s no Daphne and the Velmas, but did the best he could with limited time to prepare.
Puck: Totally missing the opportunity to not have a fight. They grow up so fast.
Phoebe: Hard-core fashion experimentation. College must have been a wild ride for her.
I never really got into T.V. shows about high school. Well, when I was in high school, there weren’t that many, so it wasn’t hard to miss ’em.
Expect for Buffy, of course. That was gooood.
For what it’s worth (and I regret to say this, but I’m saying it), I hated Buffy too. It was trying too hard to be cool for me. I actually like the Buffy movie that the show was vaguely inspired by, because that one was patently ridiculous. The show thought it was better than that, even though it wasn’t.
I know I’m in the minority on that, though.
I a million percent agree about the Movie. Kristy Swanson FTW!
Glad someone is in agreement. Because I always feel alone on that front.
Not everything’s for everybody. It’s O.K.
Buffy tries hard, yes, but didn’t get far with her either. There was a time when I would probably totally watch a show from high school as long as more than half of the cast weren’t ordinary humans, but there weren’t any back then and when shows like Monster High appeared it was already too late. Well, wait: I watched XMen Evolution and that matches the description, so one.
I feel Colin did well here. He averted the crisis. People were predicting he couldn’t, but he did. He created a NEW crisis, but still, the old one is slightly defused.
Any landing you can walk away from … is a good landing.
Agreed.
Sometimes you get a little wood on the ball.
Nope I’m with Colin on this one. He is definitely *not* Shaggy. Shaggy has enough sense of self-preservation to run full speed away from danger. The fact that he is still around while the two women argue proves that Colin is no Shaggy.
Very good point.
Oh you kids! Most of you seem to be young enough to be my own get (graduated from 12th grade in 1962). Missed most of your cultural references, or just brushed by them. Me, I miss Crusader Rabbit!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we’re ALL old men on the Internet. If you remember anything before the year 2000, you’re ancient by Internet standards. So we’re all in the same boat. Some of us are just more in the boat than others. 😉
I think the rule is if you were using computers before there was such a thing as a web browser, you’re internet old. It’s interesting to think that there are people in the workforce who weren’t even born when Napster died. Heck, I have network equipment in a drawer somewhere that is older than some of my co-workers.
That said, growing up on Nick At Nite and the Disney Channel does give one a rather skewed cultural history point of reference. Most of my favorite cartoons and live-action shows growing up were considerably older than I was, and more than you’d think were black and white for a child of the ’80s.
Yeah. Same.
— want to REALLY show someone was born too late?—
Tell them You root for the coyote.
See if they get THAT.
BTW, I did.
I always hoped he’s catch that D*** bird.
when he finally did (but was too small to do anything but hold a toe nail) I wasn’t very thrilled.
Looney Tunes are eternal. No dating there at all. They are as fresh as the day they can out. 75 years ago.
Good rule 🙂
Yeah, the first time I worked with a new hire who was post napster (and hadn’t had to fight with hardware that didn’t plug and play) I felt so old.
It seems like yesterday when I had to fight with hardware that didn’t plug and play … wait, it WAS yesterday :-). Although it’s true that the hardware now is EXPECTED to plug and play, it just doesn’t always work. When I bought my first sound card, I needed to manually set which ports it’s on and that was how it was SUPPOSED to work back then.
At least back then there was always a solution. Now you’re often just screwed.
Yup, old on the internet 🙂
I see from your other comment that I graduated HS one year after you did EG.
All I have to add to this conversation is C64, TRS-80, config.sys, autoexec.bat, TURBO button, (Mosaic) Netscape, telnet chatroom, geocities, Real Audio player.
If we wanted internet we had to WORK for it.
Hopefully it’s been long enough that no one gets traumatic flashbacks from that. If not, I’m sorry, please try to focus on the time spent chatting and exploring the WWW, and not the time spent editing config files and dialup scripts.
I had a special batch file that loaded up customized config.sys and autoexec.bat files for each individual game I ran, because they each required special memory allocations. XMS, EMS, all that good stuff. The bad memories, they’re returning…
QEMM386 was fantastic, it could move memory from XMS to EMS and back on-the-fly … and how much conventional memory it could free by moving stuff to area between graphics memory and ROM …
Internet old? Pffft. I managed a MILnet gateway several years before The Algor and his team took the NSFnet public. Managed a USEnet host, too, which was a Silly-Koan Valley hub for alt.folklore.urban, and I *still* mise Crusader Rabbit, dagnabbit!
(yaddida yaddida hand-punched “HELLO WORLD” with a stylus and ran it myself on the school’s IBM 1401 (actually a 1620 running a 1401 emulator), wrote buncha code for the physics lab’s Olivetti Programma 101, Played D&D in BASIC on a PDP-11/14 running RSTS/E, ran a PDP-11/10 running RT-11, had way too much fun running SPACWAR on a PDP-12 (still got me LINCtape, still have the “I’ve been VAX-inated” pin I got from Bill Strecker’s hand in 1977,…)
I’m getting the feeling they’ll never make it as far as the convention…
Hmmm? Well, we will see. I mean, they might get lost on the way…
Therein lie many amusing tales, one hopes.
Fun fact: Do NOT look up “sexy pig farmer” on the internet. EVER. There will be results, and they will only be sexy if you subscribe to a disturbingly narrow fetish.
Also: Colin is such a Shaggy it’s ridiculous, but I also am surprised he wouldn’t consider that a complement. The dude has Big Shaggy Energy oozing out his pores, and given his life preferences I’d think he would wholeheartedly embrace it.
Although, I’d give him Scooby, too, if it weren’t for the beard. I mean, basically Scooby is Shaggy with less pot and more sense of smell.
I didn’t Google that. I know better.
And like with the girls and Velma, it’s not that there’s anything wrong with the role. It’s about desperately wanting to be something you aren’t. Colin has Big Shaggy Energy, but he really wants Big Fred Energy. Which sounds kinda dirty, for some reason.
Colin stepped right into that one. Puck can go as Moonbeam McSwine from “Lil Abner”.
Now THAT takes me back.
LOL
Puck isn’t too very far from Carmen Álvarez – I think she could pull it off – mayhap with a black wig or a dye job, and something to cover the lovely freckles….
A dye job and covering the freckles? What’s the point of even living if you do that?
I’m a little mystified at the insinuation that Daphne is the sexy one.
You and the rest of the males on the Internet, it seems.
Colin . . . you are Shaggy. You are almost more Shaggy than Shaggy. Tyler is Fred, accept it.
It’s a cruel truth.
Won’t Colin have to shave off his beard to become Fred? It’s been a long time since he was clean-shaven. PS Puck makes pig farming sexy. What an achievement! 🙂
It’s been a long time. A long, long time.
Before the Roman investiture of Britain there was The Royal Swineherd, a member of the Royal Succession, and there was also The Auld Sow, Kerridwen herself. Don’t go dissin’ pig farmin’.
I didn’t. I elevated it.
I wa’ant referrin’ ta *you*, Geck.
@Brother Parvus, I don’t doubt the ancient Romans respected pigs. For example, Sooeytonius. 😉
As a big fan of “The Lives of The Twelve Caesars”, I appreciate and also groan at this comment.
Great Caesar’s goats! 😉
He did have a lot of goats.
Screech. Oof, man. Oof.
Although, I fully relate to that as well. In high school I was also a Screech. On the one hand it was great that it allowed me the opportunity to socialize with attractive classmates… But on the other….. Screech.