That’s Man OF La Mancha

Cidu Bill on Mar 10th 2010

lamancha.png

That’s all. Just wanted to mention it, because it bothered me.

Filed in Bill Bickel, Joe Martin, Willie and Ethel, comic strips, comics, humor | 13 responses so far

13 Responses to “That’s Man OF La Mancha”

  1. CTew Mar 10th 2010 at 04:19 pm 1

    Willie & Ethel are Americanized Andy & Flo Capp, and often uproariously funny at being so. Willie eats, visits his local bar, and sleeps. He does seem to watch more TV than Andy. He actually goes on job interviews once in a long while, and gets hired for a day or two at a time - somehow. Maybe Willie’s impossible dream is to eat, drink, watch TV, and sleep only. Ethel has fewer aspirations than Flo, and I don’t think she’s ever had a job. Maybe they’re independently poor.

  2. Charlene Mar 10th 2010 at 04:27 pm 2

    What I love about Don Quixote is that the Victorians who translated the book into English turned the story into a romantic “tilting at windmills” story of a man being his own man and having big dreams, being unconquerable, etc. The story is really about an obsessed fanboy who goes nuts and confuses his fandom with real life.

    The modern Don Quixote is the stereotypical guy living in Mom’s basement, the walls lined with 632 Star Trek action figures.

  3. Daniel J. Drazen Mar 10th 2010 at 05:07 pm 3

    Why do I get the impression that Willie fell asleep during the performance?

  4. Rasheed Mar 10th 2010 at 05:40 pm 4

    Maybe it was Snowy River? Or U.N.C.L.E? Or Nantucket?

  5. Lord Jubjub Mar 10th 2010 at 05:47 pm 5

    Charlene, in the Victorians’ defense, Quixote was written as a bit of satire against the renaissance romances about the medieval times.

  6. mitch4 Mar 10th 2010 at 07:19 pm 6

    So there isn’t supposed to be a strange little logic puzzle here?

  7. Jeff S. Mar 10th 2010 at 08:15 pm 7

    Rasheed… I was thinking Glad myself.

  8. The Bad Seed Mar 10th 2010 at 08:48 pm 8

    Bill, I assume you got the joke, and were just commenting that that marquee does not show the correct title for the play/movie. I seem to know a disproportionate number of people who are unable to correctly state the name of any person or thing without mispronunciations or totally incorrect wording, and I’m always wondering whether it’s laziness or brain damage. ;)

  9. More fantasy, less reality, no baby blues Mar 10th 2010 at 09:06 pm 9

    I love the fact that Don Quixote , perfectly, applies to video games. Most Western games this century have featured generic muscular infallible toughasses fighting in generic World War II battles. Don Quixote would be a perfect metaphor for any of those characters.

  10. Chuck Mar 11th 2010 at 04:35 am 10

    I rented Man of La Mancha. I didn’t like it much, though I think it’s mostly because Dulcinea didn’t sing very well.

  11. Carl Mar 11th 2010 at 06:00 am 11

    Just to rain on Bill’s parade, it’s worth mentioning that Spanish de is both “of” and “from”. In other words, the marquee is just as correct (in the sense of translating the phrase from Spanish) as the more common phrase, although of course that is not the title of the play.

  12. David A. Rooney Mar 12th 2010 at 10:36 pm 12

    Direct translations from other languages into English do tend to have amusing grammatical mistakes. I think if this had been title in American english originally it would be “LaMancha Man”.

    Oh God, now I’m hearing the Villiage People in my head: “Lamancha, Lamancha Maaannn . . .”

  13. CIDU Bill Mar 12th 2010 at 10:44 pm 13

    I remember that disco revival of the musical. It wasn’t pretty.

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