Geezer Lite
Cidu Bill on Jun 22nd 2010
Timothy Carignan: I don’t know which is more “geezer-ish”; Spuds MacKenzie, or “flipping around the dial.”
Filed in Bill Bickel, Hey Geezers! Comics!, Mike Peters, Mother Goose, Spuds MacKenzie, comic strips, comics, humor, l'esprit d'escalier | 19 responses so far
Jeff S. Jun 22nd 2010 at 10:15 am 1
“Spuds”, by far. Even my daughter has mentioned flipping around the dial.
There was a similar discussion about geezer phrases a while back. CIDU Bill asked why we still said “roll down the windows”, and asked if cars were still being made without powered windows. I bought a 2007 Chevy Aveo5 in February… manual windows and manual locks. It even shocked my son who is 20. Neither of my kids had seen a car without power windows.
Kamino Neko Jun 22nd 2010 at 10:36 am 2
I’m pretty sure Spuds being an old reference is at least part of the point of the punchline.
Skaloop Jun 22nd 2010 at 11:42 am 3
I say Spuds, because iPods still have a “dial” so at least it can still make sense. A hard-partying dog in sunglasses, not so much.
Regarding car windows, I’ve got a 2009, and it has manual windows and locks. It does have power steering, though! I figure any car for the last couple of decades at least has power steering, yet I still hear it advertised as a selling feature. Like motels advertising “COLOR TV”.
Keera Jun 22nd 2010 at 02:18 pm 4
We current geezers aren’t the first to use out-of-date descriptions of current activities. “Hang up the phone,” for example, pre-dates our generation, certainly. I have never used a phone where you lift your hand to about face level to hang the ear piece back onto its hook. The phones I first used had mouth and ear piece in one, which rested vertically on a cradle when not in use.
Powers Jun 22nd 2010 at 02:52 pm 5
Isn’t “resting vertically” pretty much the definition of “hang”?
mitch4 Jun 22nd 2010 at 02:59 pm 6
And what’s up with “off the hook” to mean “intensely exciting” or “over the top”, if you will.?
Keera Jun 22nd 2010 at 03:32 pm 7
Powers @5, darn it. I meant horizontally.
ty Jun 22nd 2010 at 04:04 pm 8
To literally hang up the phone is obsolete, but even in it’s day, the term was inaccurate. On the desk or on the wall, the only thing that one would “hang up” after a call was the earpiece or handset, not the whole phone.
Speaking of out-of-date phrases still in use, let’s not forget the buzzing noise you wait for before pressing buttons to place your call, the dial tone. And the music your phone plays when a call is coming in, the ring tone.
“Resting vertically.” I like that. “I hearby setence you to rest vertically by the neck until dead.” It sounds so much more humane.
Detcord Jun 22nd 2010 at 06:17 pm 9
ty (8)
The term is obsolete, but not inaccurate - in its original usage. On really old phones, the receiver was fixed to a box, and the phone - the part that sent sound to one’s ear - hung from a cradle on the side of the box and was attached to the box by way of a cord. To take a call, one removed the speaker-phone from it’s cradle and to end the call one would replace it in the cradle, or hung it up.
A very long time ago, I actually used one in my Grandfather’s shop. “Hang it up” made sense then and, like the name Hover, the phrase made it into the lexicon. Besides, it sounds better than “terminate”, yes?
Mark in Boston Jun 22nd 2010 at 08:13 pm 10
In the old days they would say “Hang up the receiver” meaning specifically the part of the phone you hold up to your ear. In a Krazy Kat comic strip, Krazy misunderstand’s the operator’s instruction to hang up the receiver and hangs it from a tree branch or some such thing.
There’s some literary term for the name of the whole being used for a part. “Hang up the phone” is like “The White House called while you were out.”
furrykef Jun 22nd 2010 at 10:34 pm 11
Mark in Boston — synecdoche
NoAlias Jun 22nd 2010 at 11:16 pm 12
OK, so we can agree we are all/most geezers.
My question is, what does the comic mean? Has Spuds been beaten up by a better dog actor in a beer commercial that I don’t know about on some other channel?
Or in extreme geezer-hood, did Spuds smoke Tareyton cigarettes and rather fight than switch?
chuckers Jun 23rd 2010 at 05:34 am 13
If Spuds is supposed to be the best actor Grimmy has ever seen, he obviously has a very narrow range of choices. He needs to expand his horizons by flipping channels.
Ellen C. Jun 23rd 2010 at 08:04 am 14
When I saw the black eye under the glasses, I thought of Petey from the Spanky and Our Gang series, which makes for an even more geezerish reference. But it does makes sense that Petey might be considered “the greatest (dog) actor of our time.”
NoAlias Jun 23rd 2010 at 08:55 am 15
I like Ellen C. (14)’s explanation. I remember Petey’s eye as more of a circle around the eye than a black eye blotch, but having the dog in the comic being Petey objecting to being mistaken for Spuds almost makes the comic humorous. My mind was stuck in dogs/commercials mode instead of dogs/famous dogs mode.
Gilgamesh Jun 23rd 2010 at 11:53 am 16
I could see manual windows in a car being advertised as ‘aerobic windows’. People might show up to see if cars had a new type of exercise device.
Tim Jun 24th 2010 at 01:18 pm 17
With the follow-up strips, it’s obvious that Spuds is intended to be a relic of the past, but it sure wasn’t clear from the first strip.
Todd Jun 28th 2010 at 05:17 pm 18
Last time I looked at public pay phones, the handset was still hanging on its hook.
Spuds was a girl dog, by the way.
Araxie Jul 7th 2010 at 01:12 am 19
I, a 19-year-old, was quite familiar w/ Spuds. But flipping around the dial? What the hell are they talking about?