Bizarro is brought to you today by Invaders.If there is one thing I've learned in my bazillion years as a syndicated cartoonist it is that there are lots of people who don't get any given cartoon. Especially if it has a history reference in it.
For those folks, the British Invasion is the name given to the many British rock bands in the late sixties that were so very popular in the United States. The term was a play on words in reference to the British invasion of the colonies during the American Revolutionary War. The War of 1812 would be another famous example of the British invading something.
Today's cartoon formula: Old guy still dressing like a mod from the sixties attempts to hit on young woman by making an outdated reference and she shoots him down with history. Who said that stuff we learned in school wouldn't come in handy some day?
12 comments:
I didn't get that he was hitting on the girl because at first I thought it was an old lady.
I'm sorry, but anything requiring knowledge of history, science, linguistics or any sort of context at all has been officially forbidden by the Cartoonists' Oversight Panel. Kindly confine yourself to desert-island drawings and funny coconut jokes.
I loved this one -thought it was hilarious. :) Of course, I'm also 54 years old. I can see where my 23 year old daughter wouldn't have a clue what you were talking about.
Well, I said it, one day when I was 10 and mad.
Umm…it was the US that did the invading in 1812. American education seems to have convinced a great many people that somehow the War of 1812 was imposed on the US by the big bad British Empire, but everyone else in the world considers it an imperialist land grab by the US.
Not one of the nobler episodes in your history, and certainly nothing to feel good about. The US lost every major battle, lost its entire Atlantic fleet, bankrupted its government, won absolutely none of its objectives in the peace talks, and saw Washington DC burned to the ground.
I notice the only part of it that got into American pop culture was the consolation-prize victory at New Orleans, a battle fought after the Treaty of Ghent had already been signed. But hey, “We fired our guns, and the British started runnin’’ makes for a good little song, right?
We Canadians remember it a little differently. Mainly as a cautionary tale.
Oh come on. I'm 21 and thought it was hilarious. Hehe :D
The joke was clever, but a little clumsy since the War of 1812 and the American Revolution were not really British invasions... There might have been invasions as part of the war strategy, such as the Battle of New Orleans in 1814-15, but the war wasn't over a british invasion. The cleverness of the joke made up for this, but then in your blog you said:
"The term was a play on words in reference to the British invasion of the colonies during the American Revolutionary War. The War of 1812 would be another famous example of the British invading something"
That statement may have been deeply ironic, but if you think that the War of 1812 and the American Revolution were 'British invasions,' I don't think you should be really all that critical of other's vague interpretations of history.
Oh great, Fabio. We already heard all that "are you a guy or a girl" crap back in the day. So now it's "are you an old man or an old lady"
? Thanks a bunch!
As always, well drawn Dan. I got it :)
@anonymous and Eric...yes, I'm taking liberties with history here but it's a cartoon, not a seminar. Neither war was strictly a British invasion, but it worked for the joke.
Nothing wrong with some intellectual content. It makes one feel oddly superior if you can get it.
Even if one doesnt know of the Brit music Invasion , it still works.
No point in pandering to the lumpen proletariat and lowering standards to make the humour easily digestible pap.
Scintillating humour as always!
I for one have experienced several British Invasions and each was fantastic!
Ms Hudgenson-Filter Spiff, London
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