Comics I Don’t Understand

Nightly News

Cidu Bill on May 6th 2008

Filed in Bill Bickel, CIDU, Jan Eliot, Stone Soup, comic strips, comics, humor | 16 responses so far

16 Responses to “Nightly News”

Patrick May 6th 2008 at 12:21 am 1

OK, it took me a minute but I finally got it and I actually think it’s cute and kind of funny:

She picks up what she thinks is a cordless or cell phone, dials a number and waits for an answer - only to realize that what she really did was pick up one of the remote controls and inadvertently turned on the TV. She’d be horribly embarrassed if anyone else were in the room so it’s … “one of those times you’re so grateful to be alone.”
brien May 6th 2008 at 04:52 am 2

The way I see it, she accidentally turned on the TV by putting her foot on the remote control on the table, and is reaching for it to turn the TV back off in the last frame.
jjmcgaffey May 6th 2008 at 05:19 am 3

No, I think Patrick’s got it. She’s reaching for the phone (and putting down the remote, which sure as heck looks like a cellphone to me!) in the last panel.
Mike May 6th 2008 at 06:55 am 4

Left hand is putting down the remote…right hand is picking up the phone.
Elliott May 6th 2008 at 07:42 am 5

Patrick’s right. Only on U-Verse do you need to punch 7 buttons just to turn on the box.
Kaitlyn May 6th 2008 at 09:30 am 6

Elliot - she probably hit a 6 buttons that weren’t the power button and/or weren’t pointed towards the TV/cable box.
Lihtox May 6th 2008 at 11:28 am 7

She mistook the “On” button of the remote for the “Send” or “Connect” button (or whatever the heck it’s called): on my cordless, at least, I can dial the number first, and then press the “conect button”, at which point it dials the number.

I needed the explanation to get it, but it is pretty funny.
Pinny May 6th 2008 at 12:05 pm 8

brien (#2) has it.

She has a phone in her hand the entire time (phone=white with blue screen and antenna, remote=black with just buttons), but watch her foot move in frame 2, then in 3, clicking on the remote, and finally she leans over to turn off the TV (using the remote) in frame 4.
Patrick May 6th 2008 at 12:34 pm 9

Why would she be embarrassed that she managed to turn a TV on using a soft, fuzzy slipper? On the contrary, if someone saw you do that, they’d say, “Hey cool! I bet you couldn’t do that again if you tried!”

She is embarrased because she thought the remote was a phone. (There is no antenna on the device she is dialing). In the final frame she puts it down with her left hand while picking up the real phone with her right.
Judge Mental May 6th 2008 at 01:16 pm 10

I also discount the fuzzy slipper theory. If you look in the very first frame, there are *4* “remote/phone-looking things”. From bottom-to-top, she choose number 2; with number 3 being the phone that she ultimately picks up in the last frame. Note the antenna (and blue screen) in both frames 1 and 4.
jambo May 6th 2008 at 02:07 pm 11

Patrick is correct. The fuzzy slipper idea is not really embarrassing.
brien May 6th 2008 at 04:48 pm 12

She’d be embarrassed by being caught putting her feet on the coffee table.

She clearly turned on the TV by putting her foot on the remote control on the coffee table - the same one she’s reaching to use to turn the TV back off.

One could even presume that the person she’s calling is someone who used to live in the house, who she had often scolded for putting feet on the coffee table. Being caught by THAT person would be especially embarrassing.
Pinny May 6th 2008 at 07:31 pm 13

OK, I concede. She is NOT picking up the one with the blue screen in frame 1, yet she is holding it in frame 4. Additionally, she IS picking up one with a red circle in the middle in frame 1 and if you look closely she is actually putting that same one down in frame 4. I now agree with Patrick (#1) that the chronology is:

Frame 1: She lifts the remote (red dot) that looks very much like the phone (blue screen) which is on its right.

Frame 2: She tries to dial the remote like a phone. At the same time her foot is approaching the table top. (There is NO significance to this last fact.)

Frame 3: Somehow her dialing causes the TV to turn on. Also, her foot has come to rest on the table. (There is NO significance to this last fact.)

Frame 4: She embarrassingly places the remote (red dot) down on the table with her left hand after lifting the real phone (blue screen) with her right hand.
solarrhino May 6th 2008 at 08:00 pm 14

So Katie Couric got at least one viewer that night.
Bah humbug May 7th 2008 at 07:35 am 15

In this strip, the remote definitely is NOT the gizmo with the stumpy antenna, so it IS the one she picks up, dials on, puts to her ear (with her left hand), and puts back on the table (with her left hand). In the first frame, the gizmo with the antenna - which she’s picking up with her right hand in the last frame - is directly to the right of the gizmo she’s picking up.

BTW… My mother accidentally changes the remote with her butt all the time - and it’s funny, not embarassing. No matter where she puts it down, it always seems to work its way either under her butt/leg or between the sofa cushions. Then it waits until we’re all relaxed and settled in to start doing random and wacky things to the channels and/or volume. I’m convinced her remote does this just so we pay attention and don’t fall asleep or read the paper.
bAT L. May 7th 2008 at 10:54 pm 16

But nobody took into account the remote behind the grassy knoll!

Seriously, though, (well, not serious, but you know) at first I thought #2 was right, but I now see that #1 is correct, although I have my suspicions that she may have inadvertently turned the TV off and then really quickly back on in the last panel.