Crankshaft by Tom Batiuk and Dan Davis for March 30, 2024

Mangling words like one of the Keane Kids? That’s the Ed we all know and mildly tolerate!

Okay, write off yesterday’s “Mason, Meyer and Morrow” as a warm-up. Here’s the knee-slapping nomenclature we turn to the ‘Shaft for! “Alberta Clipper”! Get it? It’s a Canadian-born meteorological pattern, and yet it’s also the name of a TV weather lady! Get it? And Ed mentioned it even though he didn’t need to to make sure we all got the reference! GET IT!?

Oh, and Pmm gets to say “What are you doing, Dad?” once again, thus fulfilling her reason for existing in this strip.

“What are you doing, Dad?”“Well this morning my bus blocked a hippie van that was just bellowing smoke and the wind shafted so it suffocated my bus and have you ever noticed how space is so spacious like it’s always got room for more of itself and all these nice colorful labels so you can tell space from itself?”

He expected to hear the Northern Lights?

“And the other weather lady, or meteorologist ma’am or La Nino nana or some other kind of scientist defined by her body parts, PAULA VORTEX—[Tom pauses to laugh at his witty-schisms!]—says we can see something that Davis can’t be bothered to draw! Me, I think the Aurora SO-BORING-alas needs to look like a 1990 Trapper Keeper!” (squints) “IT NEEDS DOLPHINS, Lisa Frank!”

“The weather lady ALBERTA CLIPPER ON CHANNEL TWO, I just really need to clarify, not the Barometric Bimbo on channel FOUR, I think we super need to specify that.” Tom, keep racing! Someday your non-jokes WILL get below the bottom of the barrel!

Yes, the Norm Crosby of the comic set.

Love it!

How Celestial.

Y’know, I could almost see an actual human being giving that level of needless exposition, except that they’d more likely say “The weather lady on Channel Two, Alberta Clipper”, simply because it flows better. But Batiuk wouldn’t be Batiuk if he didn’t manage to fall just short of that “almost sounds like actual human dialogue” goalpost.

“What are you doing, Dad?” The studio audience erupts in laughter and applause as Pmm speaks her catchphrase upon entering the scene.

Wait, so apparently there are two network channels in the area? Aren’t they always watching Channel One, where his granddaughter (allegedly) works?

And a very pretty one it is.

I’ve never seen the aurora. Even when it supposedly was visible this far south, light pollution may have prevented me from seeing it. In addition, I’ve never seen the Milky Way.

Good name for a weather person! Also, the pun (groan!).

Looks like Tommy’s been watching a lot of Cheers reruns lately.

3 w’s dot getyarn dot io slash yarn-clip slash 57552411-b16e-41f8-aa9b-9367a80789e1

Surprised you are still up………..

Like 50% of the jokes are “Ed is having a stroke”

I know at least in Chicago, the local stations like to brag about their weather reporters. But a weather reporter with the name “Alberta Clipper”? Sounds like the days of “Happy Talk.” Ed must have heard the name wrong.

“Northern Lights a running wild in the land of the midnight sun?” Ed must be way up north. OH and thanks Johnny Horton of that song line

I wonder what he will call the solar eclipse?

Carla from Cheers bursts onto the set. “You’re a roaring bore-ealis!” (If you’re old enough to have seen this episode.)

Does he really have to name the weather lady? A normal human would have said “I saw on the news tonight…” And does SHE really wonder what he’s doing outside when that spectacle is going on?

“Your dad’s outside staring at the sky again…”

SIGH “I’ll go see what he’s doing.”

The art on this strip is usually very good.

AND she apparently was correct…..

can he also see Brewster rocket ?

All Cranky needs are hearing aids…………

Welcome to the Saturday edition of the Crankshaft drinking game.

Pam is alone with Ed and asks what he’s doing. Take a drink.

Ed mangles the English language. Take a drink.

The strip features a punny name for a news person. Take a drink.

The strip features unnecessary, overly wordy dialog. Take a drink.

Tired of reading one of my comments? Have a drink.

She promised you a roaring borealis? She was lion.

I have only seen the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) one, in Syracuse NY- 49 years ago.

Panel 1: Over-the-shoulder view of Ed watching TV news broadcast, showing her name as a title card, dialogue: “Take a look outside tonight! You just might see…”

Panel 2: Today’s panel, minus Pam, only Ed saying “… a roaring borealis!”

There. Punchier, Ed not giving over exposition like a non-human, Pam not there to be worthless. Thirty seconds of thought and revision. It is that easy.

If Cranky wants to see The Northern Lights, he’d better make a guest appearance in FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE