Making it Greater? 03/10/23

If you are a loyal reader of this blog, you’ll know why we named last week’s blog, “Makin’ it Great.” Since this week’s blog is based on this week’s comics which is the conclusion of a four-part series from last week…okay, you don’t care. That’s fine. And the truth is, I couldn’t come up with a better title, so there you have it. In the recent past I have made lots of references to this particular series being a three-part series, and now you find out that it’s a four-part series. So what gives? John was reading over the script for part 3 when he called me and said, “This is about Al receiving the Franchisee of the Year award, right?” To which I replied, “Right.” He went on, “And yet in part 3, the supposed final comic in the series, he still hasn’t gotten the award, right?” To which I sheepishly added, “Right.” Hence we came up with a part 4, and now it’s a four-part series, right?

This week we touched ever so lightly on a touchy subject, getting touched. I mean here is poor Joanne, this is not her idea of a 5-star vacation. Sioux City, Holiday Inn, seminars on heat lamp technology… and then she gets groped by the Pizza-on-a-Stick mascot, Mr. Sticky. Maybe Mr. Icky would be more appropriate. Fellas, take it from us, when your wife asks what time the indoor pool opens, that is a sure sign she’s only doing this for you. But back to Joanne, at the very least, she could take solace in the fact that Mr. Icky was wearing enormously oversized foam gloves.

And last but not least, as we get closer to the Academy Awards this weekend (did the Knicks really have to play the Lakers at the same time?? Really? It is not making me popular with my wife) it got us thinking about Al’s award. Okay they didn’t roll out the red carpet, they didn’t arrive in a chauffeured limo (though a Toyota Corolla Uber is as close as you can get), Joanne wasn’t wearing Dior and Al was most definitely NOT in a Prada tux, and right, they stayed at the aforementioned Holiday Inn, not the Four Seasons, but still we figured, if you were Al, you’d feel pretty damn special, It’s almost the same thing. Just a matter of degree, that’s all.

We will see you again next week with two new comics as Spring is in the air. Just 11 days away, but who’s counting?

Andy and John

Good Eatin' 8/27/21

This week we become food obsessed. Okay, okay, we’re always food obsessed. Because face it, once you’re firmly in your 60’s, what else are you going to become obsessed with? 

The point is not everything works the way it used to work. Which is why we came back to food. In the first comic, we return to Al’s franchise, Pizza-on-a-Stick. One of the employees came up with a brilliant idea for dessert, Spumoni-on-a-Stick. What’s the plural of that? “I’ll take 6 Spumoni-on-a-Sticks please?” Or “I’ll take 6 Spumonis-on-a-Stick please?” These are the kinds of meaningful debates John and I engage in. The second one sounds better but the first one is right. Plus, John draws the strip so he won, not that I’m a sore loser or anything. To put the final ribbon on the bow I asked my daughter, an excellent grammarian, which version she preferred. She said, “I know the second one sounds right but the first one is actually correct. You’d order a cheeseburger or 6 cheeseburgers. So…” When she’s right and she agrees with John, it just doesn’t seem fair. But I’ll tell you this, if you come into Pizza-on-a-Stick and order 6 Spumonis-on-a-Stick, I promise not to be literal like John and pile 6 scoops of spumoni on one stick. I know this is fiction, but who the hell would do that?

Okay, now that THAT’S off my chest, let’s go to comic #2, Al’s backyard vegetable garden. John and I have a mutual friend Chris who built a magnificent garden with raised beds and every natural method of maintenance and pest control. John tried to mimic it as best he could, and when I had a house, I maintained a vegetable garden as well but much more basic. Why? For one thing I’m not very good with my hands (a common affliction among us Jews) and secondly, my love of vegetables stops at salads. But the point is, these gardens are a TON of work and they yield very little until you get overrun by cherry tomatoes during the last of summer, and end up having to shovel half of them into the soil so they make for a rich mulch the following summer. Sure, it’s a great thrill to go into the garden and pick out your salad or dinner for the night, but if you stop off at the farmstand on your way home, that works too. Plus, the cost/benefit ratio is a bit out of whack, as Al’s son Sid gleefully points out.

So, as Porky Pig said, Th-th-that’s all folks (at least for this week). We will be back next week with two new ones that take us up to Labor Day! Where does the time go?

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

On Advertising 11/20/2020

Ahh advertising. It’s a career I spent 39 years in and John spent almost as long (he’s just 5 years younger). And it’s a career I’d like to think we know a little bit about. A little bit. And it’s the career we used to do before this new career as underemployed cartoonists. So when we were talking about new topics to explore for some upcoming strips, we thought, why not write about advertising? Al has a pizza franchise, Pizza-on-a-Stick, so let him try to come up with a new campaign that will take his franchise to the moon (that’s the way they talk in advertising). They say stuff like, “We want to own the casual dining experience.” Or, “We want to own the weekend.” Now the question is, who exactly gave you ownership of a particular day of the week/time of day/mealtime/or made you the official non-alcoholic beverage of the Kansas City Royals? And the answer is, who cares? And that attitude is probably why we’re both doing a comic strip instead of creating ads. That and being over 60, which is a fate worse than death (unless you own the agency, and maybe not then either), but I digress. From our years in the ad wars, we know that franchises like Al’s are given ads from “Corporate Headquarters” in places like Akron, Topeka or Cincinnati. Usually, they hate it. And frequently the individual franchisees want to run their own stuff. And therein lies the tension for the first two comics in our three part series. The third and final part is coming next Tuesday.

Here’s a dirty little secret about most creative people. They thumb their noses at pop culture, figuring anyone can do that, but what I do, now that’s special. So Al’s reaction is based somewhat on that emotion. But he doesn’t want to admit to that so he latches onto another popular trend that has taken off, thanks to the internet. Crowd sourcing. What does that mean, you ask? It means fielding ideas from the crowd (online in general, but in this case from his store employees) for free, but then you only have to pay the person if their idea has actually been chosen. It’s just another way for an agency to not have to pay so many employees. It doesn’t matter if the ideas stink, they’re free! Well, in this case, the crowd sourced idea is so bad, it matters. And the trouble is, even though Al detests that jingle, he can’t top it. More on that next Tuesday.

Anyone want to crowd source some comics?

Have a great weekend

Andy and John

Fun is in the eye of the beholder

Fun is whatever you decide is fun. If you’ve ever given a kid a Christmas present they were begging for and then watched them completely ignore the present and play with the empty cardboard box, you know what we’re talking about.

In our first comic this week, we go back to Al’s new franchise, PIzza On a Stick, to see how it’s working out. Apparently not so well. The employees, like good employees everywhere, are bored out of their minds. They use the sticks, meant for serving pizzas on sticks, to wage swordfights, leaving the franchise stickless. If you’ve gone inside any fast food chain lately to pick up an order, you’ll recognize the behavior that inspired this comic. Now it’s not just any fast food place, mind you. It’s the places that don’t have drive-thru windows. The places that were designed to encourage people to dine in. Like 5 Guys, which Andy happened to go to before the shelter at home phase of this pandemic response really kicked in. It was right after the last time he ventured outside to play golf, socially distant golf mind you, and he was now hungry. He cautiously ventured inside, cautiously pulling his long-sleeved shirt over his hand to avoid touching the door handle, and saw a completely empty store save for two employees who never bothered to look up, until the third hello (hello? Hello? HELLLLLOOOOO!) One employee finally looked up from his phone and responded while he had to ask the other to go to the grill and start cooking. And by the way, they overcooked the damned burger. Andy also tried hard not to retouch the sleeve he had pulled over his hand but can’t be completely sure he succeeded.

At any rate, the next comic also comes from personal experience. There are some couples where one of the partners enjoys driving with the top down and the other one…doesn’t. This is especially true among bald men (who don’t have any hair to mess up and their wives (who hopefully do). Andy mentioned this to John. And John, being the thoughtful one, said so the only time they’d drive a convertible is on vacation. Which made Andy smile, because those were the only times he’d be driving a convertible. On vacations or commercial shoots. For him it was the sun, the wind, the thrill of the open road. For his wife it was hair pins, baseball caps or tightly wrapped scarves and having to shout in order to get heard. To get back to the title of this blog, fun is in the eye of the beholder.

Well there you go. We promised a week of corona-free comics and we did it. Next week, we will be back with two new ones that refererence our new reality. Unless we forget to send them out because we didn’t realize what day it was. One last thought. A special shout out to Andy’s wife Joanie wishing her a very happy birthday. And how do you celebrate? Movies? Out. Restaurant? Out. Concert, ball game, Broadway show? Out, out, out. Or do you get take-out, pick up a cake and watch Ozark on Netflix? In other words, a night like all the other ones that have preceeded it for three weeks (except for the cake part). Sigh.

Have a great weekend, at least the part of it you don’t spend washing your hands.

Andy and John.