Excalguitar

Cidu Bill on Dec 3rd 2009

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Yeah, I get the reference. But not the joke.

Filed in Argyle Sweater, Bill Bickel, CIDU, Eric Clapton, Scott Hilburn, comic strips, comics, humor | 25 responses so far

25 Responses to “Excalguitar”

  1. Tim Dec 3rd 2009 at 12:19 am 1

    I think the idea is that, just like Arthur became a legend by pulling the sword from the stone, Clapton became a legend by pulling a guitar from a stone. I don’t think there’s too much more to it than that.

  2. TasmanSea Dec 3rd 2009 at 12:29 am 2

    I agree with Tim… I think this might be another one where it isn’t so much that you don’t understand it, and more that it isn’t that funny.

  3. Elyrest Dec 3rd 2009 at 12:32 am 3

    So this is how rock guitar started?

  4. Frank the curmudgeon Dec 3rd 2009 at 12:42 am 4

    ELYREST nailed it. (English influence over rated though.)

  5. Frank the curmudgeon Dec 3rd 2009 at 12:44 am 5

    ELYREST nailed it. (English influence over rated though.)
    Maybe he ruled or be came a king.

  6. PeterW Dec 3rd 2009 at 02:14 am 6

    The reference is the joke.

  7. RyanE Dec 3rd 2009 at 02:26 am 7

    While I don’t find it extremely funny, I did chuckle at it.

    Sadly, after I chuckle at it, I miss Gary Larson’s Far Side that much more. I have a feeling he could’ve actually made a good joke out of this, somehow.

  8. Singapore Bill Dec 3rd 2009 at 02:44 am 8

    My first impression was that it’s rather insulting to Mr. Clapton, who undoubtedly worked very hard on his craft.

  9. Rainey Dec 3rd 2009 at 04:28 am 9

    Singapore Bill, according to legend, King Arthur had to work very hard to rule England ( or all of Great Britain depending on version of story ). So it doesn’t imply that Eric Clapton had it easy.

  10. Fred Dec 3rd 2009 at 04:31 am 10

    Isn’t there a famous expression, ‘Clapton is God’? Was Arthur a god? This reference is getting more and more tenuous to my mind.

  11. Nicole Dec 3rd 2009 at 08:36 am 11

    I definitley think this is a what you see is what you get. What I see is a joke that doesn’t quite work.

  12. Kevin A Dec 3rd 2009 at 09:26 am 12

    I think the humor comes from taking a unique event and portraying it as common to the region.

  13. Mitch4 Dec 3rd 2009 at 09:36 am 13

    Wow, when I saw this originally I didn’t even glom onto the sword in the stone allusion. I thought the guitar had fallen from the tree and struck him, recapitulating the Newton’s apple legend. But yu’re right, Arthur is clearly more intended.

  14. Cisco Dec 3rd 2009 at 09:54 am 14

    I chortled over this one (which is all I ask), but not until reading Elyrest’s (3) interpretation, which made it actually funny.

  15. AMC Dec 3rd 2009 at 11:52 am 15

    There is also the “Clapton is God” aspect - on par with Arthur as a savior, sort of?

    http://www.ericclaptonportal.com/ecfaq/biography-ecs-life-career/clapton-is-god-graffiti-nickname.html

    Doesn’t help with the funny though.

  16. John Small Berries Dec 3rd 2009 at 01:58 pm 16

    “Strange women lying in ponds, distributing guitars, is no basis for a musical career!”

  17. Kevin A Dec 3rd 2009 at 02:26 pm 17

    Aww, John S. B., … that hit the spot.

  18. paperboy Dec 3rd 2009 at 02:48 pm 18

    It’s a reference to the idea that White British are not authentic Blues players, like the American Blacks; that they just stumbled upon the music.

  19. Forrester Dec 3rd 2009 at 05:58 pm 19

    Help! What am I missing here? Dec 3rd’s Get Fuzzy:

    http://comics.com/get_fuzzy/

    I suppose there’s a joke in there somewhere about lobsters actually being the customers or something, but . . . ? And I don’t get whatit’s “ha ha ha” at the end . . .

  20. Mark in Boston Dec 3rd 2009 at 07:39 pm 20

    Forrester, the whole Get Fuzzy series is about Bucky wanting to open a fish restaurant, and Satchel thinking the fish will be the customers. It’s the old joke, “Do you serve crabs here?” “We serve everybody, sir. Sit right down.” Bucky and Satchel are doing a Who’s On First with every possible variation of serving fish.

    Maybe tomorrow Bucky will show Satchel a book titled “To Serve Fish”, and Satchel will be horrified to realize “IT’S A COOKBOOK!”

  21. Usual John Dec 3rd 2009 at 08:13 pm 21

    John Small Berries - Although the Monty Python line is funny (as is your alteration of it), I can never hear it without reflecting that it’s a conflation of two different events in the Arthurian legend - the sword in the stone, which was a miraculous method of confirming Arthur’s identity as the rightful son of the prior king, Uther Pendragon, and the separate sword Excalibur, which was given to Arthur by the Lady of the Lake. (Some versions of the story do conflate the two swords, but in those versions it is pulled from the stone, not given by the Lady of the Lake.) Just another case of too much information hurting the funny, I guess.

    Mark in Boston - If you’ve really foretold tomorrow’s Get Fuzzy, I’m going to find that disturbing.

  22. Nate Dec 4th 2009 at 12:03 am 22

    It would have been a better Joke with Elvis, I think; he became The King, after all. Better parallelism.

  23. Molly J Dec 4th 2009 at 10:07 am 23

    Yeah, but Nate. Elvis’s guitar prowess? Not so much.

  24. Paperboy Dec 4th 2009 at 01:17 pm 24

    Then it should be a microphone-in-the-stone.

  25. firedmyas Dec 4th 2009 at 05:15 pm 25

    ^^ or a peanut-butter & bacon sandwich.

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