And there’s even a wall here to keep the good neighbors happy; but what’s the joke?

Cidu Bill on Jun 30th 2010

2roads.png

Filed in Bill Bickel, CIDU, Dave Coverly, Speed Bump, comic strips, comics, humor | 17 responses so far

17 Responses to “And there’s even a wall here to keep the good neighbors happy; but what’s the joke?”

  1. Winter Wallaby Jun 30th 2010 at 12:11 am 1

    I think the joke is just that neither road is “less traveled” (in the sense of being special, out of the mainstream, or counterculture), since they both lead into the same incredibly boring suburb.

  2. Elyrest Jun 30th 2010 at 12:13 am 2

    I don’t think Robert Frost envisioned the woods being cut down to build a housing estate. The less traveled one would be nicer to live on though - less traffic.

  3. Usual John Jun 30th 2010 at 12:16 am 3

    Maybe the wall is a problem. After all, something there is that doesn’t love a wall.

    The name of the development is supposed to be incongruous, because of the disparity between a lookalike suburban development and the path less traveled by. Of course, the “path less traveled by” isn’t really less traveled by; the two paths are worn about the same. So the development could also be seen as the natural destination of those who professed to be nonconformists, yet went the same way as their peers.

  4. Marshal Jun 30th 2010 at 12:21 am 4

    Robert Frost’s “Road Not Taken”

    As to the wall..
    It looks like there is a fork in the road right at the sign,
    so you can go into one side or the other of the Estates
    but not both.

    or maybe:
    No mater which house you buy, you will wish you had bought some other?

    or maybe:
    You’ll wish you lived somewhere else?
    .

  5. mike Jun 30th 2010 at 01:13 am 5

    I think the joke is just the way our commercial culture chews up art and culture and turns it into marketing. the irony is that the poem is about taking the less common path and it’s being used to brand a boring suburban development inhabited by sheep. not really a ha-ha, but not bad.

  6. rain Jun 30th 2010 at 02:56 am 6

    Maybe it’s a play on how all subdivisions are named after what *used* to be there before they built the subdivision: Deer Meadow, Forest View, Willow Creek, etc.

  7. Katie Jun 30th 2010 at 02:56 am 7

    If my memory of the poem is correct, it sucks even more of the humor out of this comic. I thought that the point of the poem was in poking fun of the speaker. The paths were the same, and only to make himself feel better later in life does the speaker declare that somehow there was great meaning in this path choice.

    I guess there is a tie-in for this comic, as it doesn’t really matter which house you were to pick in that neighborhood. Not terribly funny, though.

  8. mitch4 Jun 30th 2010 at 06:11 am 8

    All or most of these suggestions are fitting. I think this is a nicely pointed panel. … “The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.”

  9. Jeff S. Jun 30th 2010 at 06:14 am 9

    If you lived here, you could choose the road less travelled by now.

  10. Tom T. Jun 30th 2010 at 06:47 am 10

    Frost’s wood used to be there, and now it’s a subdivision. The joke is that the developers have so little soul that they thought the poetry would be good marketing. It’s like advertising a parking area as the “Paradise Parking Lot (Now paved!).”

  11. Morris Keesan Jun 30th 2010 at 07:40 am 11

    Whose woods these were, I think I know./His house is in the “Two Roads Diverged in a Wood Estates”, though.

    It looks to me as if whichever road you take here, you’re probably going to end up in the same place. And I think Tom T.’s comment is a better joke than the cartoonist’s.

  12. Mark Jackson Jun 30th 2010 at 08:26 am 12

    I understand that “If you lived here, you’d be forked by now” didn’t test well with the focus group.

  13. Molly J Jun 30th 2010 at 09:29 am 13

    Two roads diverged into a yellow wood, and apparently they were both used to bring in cheap building materials.

  14. huMI Jun 30th 2010 at 11:02 am 14

    In the poem, Frost stops for a wile and thinks about which way to go. It looks to me like neither road leads into the subdivision, you can just stay there and ponder which road to take forever (or take one road one day and the other the next).

  15. Judge Mental Jun 30th 2010 at 11:52 am 15

    My take was the same as rain#6. The joke is the subdivision’s literal, unimaginative name.

  16. Keera Jun 30th 2010 at 02:43 pm 16

    Tom T @9, LOL!

  17. Mark in Boston Jun 30th 2010 at 11:15 pm 17

    Whose woods are these I think I know.
    His house is in the village though.
    He will not see me stopping here
    To write my name in yellow snow.

    (I don’t remember the author, but it may have been Christopher Cerf.)

Comments RSS

Leave a Reply