Frazz by Jef Mallett for June 18, 2023

You don’t occupy the volume of the hill at the best of times. You only occupy an area somewhere on it.

You can play this game with your pet goat and you’ll both understand the game equally well.

Doing stuff that has a point is called “work”.

…that kid, man.

Don’t forget, there’s a bit of Schadenfreude involved when you win.

The lead song for the “The Point”. Everyones got one, that’s the way they wanted it, that’s the way it’s going to stay.

I bet that kid is fun at parties

How to ensure the other kids will leave you alone at recess

Except King of the Hill teaches you the basic military principal of taking and controlling the high ground.

King of the Hill is a physical version of Monopoly, and teaches much the same lessons.

It has the same point as Frazz’s running, biking, and swimming. It gets you active and out in the fresh air. I prefer King of the Hill (or soccer or hockey) because the strategy takes my mind off how much I hate running (the skating is pretty cool though). King of the Hill is also a full body work-out.

Not.

The conversation is interesting. But, what I find even more fascinating are the antics of the children in the background and their exuberance, regardless of what is happening to them. Totally immersed in the experience and building memories.

Mallett used to do whole panels of dozens of children just enjoying their playground time, spontaneously doing what children do and making the day brighter for onlookers.

And for me, the old guy who remembers the young guy.

Games have to have a point?

One can see stuff from the tops of hills. Like all the flatlands.

“Listen, children, to a story, That was written long ago, ’Bout a kingdom on a mountain And the valley-folk below”…

Actually, it seems to me that the point was more to deny others than to gain oneself.

What a buzzkill that kid is.

The “Point” of “King of the Hill” (we always called it a “mountain”, no matter how high), such as it is, is not that the “King” can have something, but that “he” can successfully deny that something to others. It teaches — or tries to teach — dominance.

As a child, I quickly tired of it, even when I “won”. I said, “You can have the ‘mountain’; I’m going to have fun.”

I wonder how many kids have ever been clever enough to realize that two “weaker” ones could team up to oust one “stronger” one, and that they could then share the summit.

And I wonder how many nearby adults refused to allow that “solution”.

Wonderful graphics today!

Ommmm. . . . .The journey is the point. . . . Not the destination. . . . Ommmm Speaking of journeys, Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads, Granddads, and if any, Great-Granddads.

senility waves its hand.

But enough about the author. I think that King of the hill is maybe the most important of the kid sports. The experience saves, and enhances lives by developing the skill of how to hold a car (or grocery cart) back on a decline, or the constant pressure from the floor, through the body into and apposing the matching arrangement of bones and muscle in one’s Tango partner. Plus, King of the hill is 100% person to person contact, a thing missing not only from tug-of-war, but apparently, from 1/3rd of the youth in in the U.S. (thanks to no recesses at a time when video games keep them wired up (with wires, that is) in the house.

What is the reason for the purpose of the point of this strip?

The sidebar drawings are a hoot.

The acme is the literal point.

Note: A girl is suggesting this.We never had a game called Queen of the Hill, or even Ruler of the Hill. I’m surprised the boys might still play it, what with kids in bubble wrap these days.

https://ibb.co/D8fBND8

I was too much of Caulfield in my youth. I had difficulties to find a girl that considered me fun to be around with. Too bad I found out so late.

It prepares you for the rat race of adulthood. I never fit in with it..

“It’s getting to the point/Where I’m no fun any more…” —S. Stills

Always preachy. rarely funny.

Not only do you occupy the same AREA of the hill, but you are also now on top of the greatest possible volume. It is understood (in the world of the game) that the person on top is “the king” and thus ruler over the hill and everyone on it. And you can look down on all of them and get a nice view of things around you. And it doesn’t matter that there are other hills and other things that are as high or higher.

The real problems with the game are that 1) it tends to get too rough, and 2) there’s no end, unless you play until everyone is exhausted. It’s actually pretty common for two players to team up to take down the king, and even to share the top, but that doesn’t change the game much, except maybe to end it because they’re unbeatable. It’s also not uncommon for everyone to just quit and lie down around the top, looking up to see shapes of things in the cloud formations, or they just laugh and run away to leave the king or conquerors to exult very briefly before getting bored and coming down to join the others.

When you come back later when no one is around and lie down on the top and stare into the beautiful blue or starlit black sky, then you are truly the king of the hill. Or the queen. Or better yet, a royal couple.

Harry Nilsson once animated, voiced (I believe) and wrote the soundtrack for a cute little film called “The Point.” It was about a young man named Oblio, the only person with a round head in the Land of Point. When the king realized this, he did what many societies that failed did: he banished Oblio and his dog Arrow (who DID have a point), to the pointless forest after winning a rigged game of “Triangle Toss.” Eventually, everyone realizes that what they do (and did) is pointless and that even the Pointless Forest has a point after Oblio and Arrow meet all kinds of weird and cool creatures. Eventually it’s discovered that even Oblio has a point. It’s a cool soundtrack and includes the song “Me and My Arrow.” (For more and better info, read about in on Wikipedia.)

The point is that it’s a game. Have fun and stop over analyzing