5 Golden Rings

Cidu Bill on Dec 8th 2008

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Filed in Bill Bickel, Brevity, CIDU, Christmas, Guy & Rodd, basketball, comic strips, comics, humor | 15 responses so far

15 Responses to “5 Golden Rings”

  1. Mark Gritter Dec 8th 2008 at 12:16 am 1

    It’s a manual version of the bouncing-ball subtitles for singalongs. The guys on the left set up the letters and the basketball players bounce the ball across them in time with the music.

  2. Brian Dec 8th 2008 at 12:20 am 2

    You know how sometimes music with video used to display the lyrics, with a “follow the bouncing ball” indicator to show which word to sing when? This is a live-action version.

    The choir is performing. The stage hands on the right are holding letters so that, after every line, they can quickly set up the words for the next line. And the basketball players on the left are there to bounce the indicating ball across the top.

  3. Cidu Bill Dec 8th 2008 at 01:59 am 3

    But why basketball players for this particular song?

  4. Chaz Larson Dec 8th 2008 at 02:06 am 4

    I don’t think there’s anything to the choice of basketball players aside from them being a handy visual shorthand for “people who bounce balls”.

    There really isn’t any other athlete that comes quickly to mind that bounces balls, and if it were a random procession of people there holding balls, we’d be asking “What’s up with the random people? Why are they all holding balls?”

  5. Keera Dec 8th 2008 at 03:43 am 5

    The bouncing ball on the lyrics is usually red. Basketballs are red(dish). That’s why basketball players. To answer that question.

    I was so relieved to see this strip posted here because it was a CIDU for me.

  6. Morris Keesan Dec 8th 2008 at 10:40 am 6

    This was a CIDU for me until I read the comments here, but I just wanted to say that Brian’s comment makes me feel really old: “music with video used to display the lyrics”???
    Try “sing-alongs in movie theaters”.
    “Follow the bouncing ball” predates video by quite a bit, and I would be mildly surprised if any videos have this, unless they’re videos of old animated films, or perhaps ironic homage to the old movies.

  7. devildan Dec 8th 2008 at 11:59 am 7

    Why so surprised at the basketball players? Which other players bounce balls? Maybe tennis players…

  8. Brian Dec 8th 2008 at 03:28 pm 8

    Morris: How can the bouncing ball predate video? “Video” just means a moving image. Even silent movies included video (in fact, that’s all they had).

    It certainly predates “music videos”, i.e. the stuff that used to be shown on MTV, but that’s not what I was talking about.

    If the bouncing ball predated all video, then it would have to have been done in a non-animated real life format… just like in the comic. And I don’t think that’s really what you meant.

  9. Susan Sunshine Dec 8th 2008 at 05:25 pm 9

    Funny, I came up with the same explanation late last night in a comment on Comics.com. Glad to find out others found the same meaning — but if it neeeds so much explanation, it sorta takes away from the humor, methinks.

    Excuse me, Brian, but “video” doesn’t include film. Video refers to electronically stored images, ie, first television, and now digital images on computers, etc, WITHOUT analog “hard copies”, though it CAN refer to a digital copy of analog film, such as old clips on YouTube.

  10. Lola Dec 8th 2008 at 06:12 pm 10

    I have to beg pardon that video means electronicly stored images. We nerds that went to school in the 60’s were always in charge of the audio/video equipment, which at the time was a filmreel projector. The only thing digital was our fingers getting caught in the machinery.

  11. Charles Dec 9th 2008 at 12:06 am 11

    In my neck of the woods, A/V meant Audio/Visual, not Audio/Video. Video has been used as a term for television since the 50s, but not generally for film.

    The first VCR (video cassette recorder) came out in 1972. Before that would have been VTRs (video tape recorder - we used 1/2″ reel to reel VTRs in college). But until VCRs became commonplace, there would not have been much common usage of the term “video”. Most people would have said “TV”.

  12. Susan Sunshine Dec 9th 2008 at 06:18 am 12

    Yes — I helped run A/V equipment in high school, and it stood for Audio-Visual. Only since TV cameras started shooting videotape instead of film has the word “video” become common, and the term “A/V” eventually become confused with audio/video inputs on tvs and computers.

    However, one of the first tv shows I remember watching, as a small child in the 50’s, was Captain Video. I’m not sure we knew what it meant, and now I think it was a sort of inside joke.

    I just searched “video” on Google, and everything I found backs up my original contention

    http://www.answers.com/video

    (sorry — I don’t know whether links work in here or I need to use tags.)

  13. Lola Dec 9th 2008 at 07:04 pm 13

    Well I thought maybe I didn’t remember it right so I got out the musty smelling yearbook from 1967 and there I am with the rest of the pocket protector set in the AVVAS- Audio, Video & Visual Aids Society. The video was moving pictures, the visual aids were the opaque and overhead projectors. It was a small school in rural Michigan and the acronym should have included an “L” because we took care of the stage lighting too.

  14. Jack Dec 12th 2008 at 04:52 pm 14

    It’s making fun of the screens on karaoke videos where the ball bounces across the words so you can hit each word at the right time. This is taking that literally by having actual people bounce the ball and set up/take down the words.

  15. Mat Dec 16th 2008 at 01:54 pm 15

    It’s also funny because it’s such a fast song.

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