This is CIDU

Cidu Bill on Jan 31st 2009

spinaltap.gif
Because Spinal Tap is loud?

Filed in Bill Bickel, CIDU, Mark Parisi, Off the Mark, Spinal Tap, comic strips, comics, humor | 32 responses so far

32 Responses to “This is CIDU”

  1. eeyore19 Jan 31st 2009 at 12:09 pm 1

    The movie “This is Spinal Tap” is known for a scene in which documentary director Marty DiBergi (played by Rob Reiner) is interviewing Spinal Tap guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) about his guitar amps. Nigel proudly shows off that all of the amps “go to 11″ (instead of the standard maximum of 10) because “it’s one louder!” The joke here is that instead of the standard 5 bars of cel phone reception, Spinal Tap phones give you SIX bars of reception.

  2. John Berry Jan 31st 2009 at 12:09 pm 2

    11

  3. Matthew Jan 31st 2009 at 12:20 pm 3

    Yes, (if you can bear just a mite more explanation) the joke is that giving totality a higher number somehow makes it bigger–and better. Whether it’s six bars or five, a dial number of eleven or ten, it’s still all there is; it’s still the same amount.

  4. Meg Jan 31st 2009 at 12:40 pm 4

    “So why don’t you just have it go to 10 and make 10 louder?”

    “But this one goes to 11…”

  5. Mel Jan 31st 2009 at 01:30 pm 5

    This was totally an LOL for me.

  6. blogan Jan 31st 2009 at 01:42 pm 6

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d54UU-fPIsY

  7. arvy Jan 31st 2009 at 02:05 pm 7

    it was an loll for me.

  8. yellojkt Jan 31st 2009 at 02:46 pm 8

    Sheer genius. Perhaps the only way to make the joke better would be to have a drummer spontaneously combusting.

  9. furrykef Jan 31st 2009 at 03:09 pm 9

    Yeah, what they said. What I don’t understand, though, is the title of this post…

  10. Elliott Jan 31st 2009 at 03:10 pm 10

    Bill, rent the movie!

  11. Cornbread Jan 31st 2009 at 03:57 pm 11

    My ancient little Nokia gets seven bars. Take THAT, Spinal Tap.

  12. Kamino Neko Jan 31st 2009 at 05:31 pm 12

    Another one who LOLled, because Spinal Tap is one my my favourite movies.

    As Meg said, the real joke of ‘goes to 11′ is that 11 isn’t really, necessarily, louder than 10. The same amp, labelled normally, would be just as loud at 10 as the Tap is at 11. It just subdivides the representation of the same power into smaller chunks. But the guys in Spinal Tap are idiots, so ‘11′, to them, is obviously better.

    The same with this cell phone - it doesn’t really get better reception (and probably can’t, since it uses the same signal), it just divides up the representation into smaller chunks.

  13. Steven Hunter Jan 31st 2009 at 06:04 pm 13

    I’m only commenting to make the number of comments go up to eleven.

  14. arvy Jan 31st 2009 at 07:40 pm 14

    Steven, when I checked before yours did make it go to eleven, but there must have been two comments waiting for moderation. Now you’re up to 13 - that’s two louder, isn’t it?

  15. Sal Jan 31st 2009 at 09:29 pm 15

    These go to 11! Love that film! LOL

  16. arvy Jan 31st 2009 at 09:42 pm 16

    Can we assume that Nigel wasn’t able to get the job in the chapeau shop so had to settle for the cell phone store?

  17. AMC Jan 31st 2009 at 11:35 pm 17

    Yeah. 220… 221, whatever it takes….

  18. Mark in Boston Feb 1st 2009 at 02:50 am 18

    True story: nearly a hundred years ago, a representative of a piano company was showing a reproducing piano to a famous pianist — I forget who the pianist was, but his name was a household word at the time. A reproducing piano is a kind of player piano that has extra punches on the roll so that a note can be played louder or softer.

    The representative pointed out that the four extra holes meant that the piano could play with 16 levels of expression. “Ah,” said the F.P. “But *I* play with *17* levels of expression!”

  19. pepperjackcandy Feb 1st 2009 at 04:52 am 19

    This was definitely an lol for me.

    I hear they also make a competitor for the BlackBerry that’s 2 and a half feet wide and 4 feet long.

  20. furrykef Feb 1st 2009 at 05:36 am 20

    Heh, now my earlier post doesn’t make sense because Bill fixed the title. (It used to just say “This CIDU”, not “This is CIDU”.)

  21. Kamino Neko Feb 1st 2009 at 09:50 am 21

    ‘I hear they also make a competitor for the BlackBerry that’s 2 and a half feet wide and 4 feet long.’

    Heh…I had to look up the dimensions of the BlackBerry to be sure I was getting the right joke. >_>

  22. BuzzTank Feb 1st 2009 at 11:52 am 22

    My 12-year-old son went to a rock and roll camp last summer where they spent a week putting together bands, and performed a concert at the end of the week. Many of the kids, including my son, wore t-shirts with an image of an amp and the line “It goes up to eleven.” None of the kids were old enough to watch an “R” rated movie, so humor trumped prudishness for most of the kids’ parents. Uh–including my kids’ parents.

  23. Matthew Feb 1st 2009 at 12:12 pm 23

    You know, we explained this comic 36 hours ago. At this point, though, with the extent of the comments & getting to see the scene in Spinal Tap again (thanks, Blogan!), one begins to realize the depth & complexity of this joke. This joke taps into something in the American (maybe the Western European—Spinal Tap pretended to be an English band) psyche. Not simply bigger is better, but the proud stupidity, the ignorance of the flim-flammery. When the twelve-year-olds proudly wear t-shirts that say “It goes up to eleven”, they are celebrating this stupidity & the spirit that wants everything bigger. They are turning it into a pathetically lewd joke, too, of course—which some of ’em got & others didn’t. What is the allure of this insubstantial braggadocio? There’s a dissertation in this: “It goes up to 11”: Humor Celebrating Ignorant & Stupid Braggadocio in American Pop Culture”.

  24. Dave Feb 1st 2009 at 12:53 pm 24

    Perfect LOL for me. No CIDU at all. Joke well received and laughed when I saw it yesterday (I’m a fan of Off The Mark).

  25. Dave Van Domelen Feb 1st 2009 at 01:17 pm 25

    Four bars used to be the standard. Then some company (I forget which) started bragging that they got FIVE bars. This strip is probably mocking that in addition to the Spinal Tap ref.

  26. Frank Feb 1st 2009 at 02:00 pm 26

    I’ve never seen SPINAL TAP so the reference was missed but the hype of
    6 bars was self-evident. My gripe is that I’ve got one bar for phone and 2 for texting and I don’t use the text.

  27. BuzzTank Feb 1st 2009 at 09:43 pm 27

    I’m pretty sure my son wasn’t wearing the t-shirt to turn it into a pathetically lewd joke. He just thought it was funny. I suspect “pathetically lewd” is in the brain of the beholder.

  28. Matthew Feb 2nd 2009 at 11:00 am 28

    What isn’t, Buzz? I said that some of the twelve-year-olds would get the lewdness & others wouldn’t. When I shared a house with a twelve-year-old, he loved Nine Inch Nails. One day, I casually said that I didn’t think that their nails were nine inches. He looked at me with genuine puzzlement. One of the pleasures of maturity: recognizing the salacity in practically everything.

  29. cryptoguy Feb 2nd 2009 at 12:34 pm 29

    Funny, I just took a look at my work phone (a Nokia E90).

    It goes to 7 bars.

  30. Will Feb 2nd 2009 at 11:29 pm 30

    Matthew, what do you mean “Spinal Tap pretended to be an English band”? Spinal Tap was an English band — after all Nigel Tufnel was portrayed by the Hon. Christopher Haden-Guest, son of the 4th Baron Haden-Guest.

  31. Matthew Feb 3rd 2009 at 12:08 am 31

    Will, you are correct. I misspoke (mis-wrote). I stand (though I’m sitting) corrected.

  32. Ian Osmond Feb 4th 2009 at 01:21 pm 32

    I’d say that it is accurate that “Spinal Tap pretended to be an English band.”

    They were genuinely English. They just pretended to be a band.

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