Okay, I’m an old guy and i remember Aunt Fritzi from my childhood in Donna Reed Dresses and the like – but now Aunt Fritizi is hot. The strip is incredibly improved (though still only a mild chuckle on its best days.
What say you dopers? What happened to prim Aunt Fritzi?
People read Nancy?
Marc
Always. Now, for some unfathomable reason, she’s poured herself into a Kmart velour playsuit and blah teenage mall-rat hair while Nancy and Sluggo lounge on the couch dressed like a couple of 1930s street urchins.
The gags continue to be like that old joke about restaurant food: bad, and served up in teeny portions. Any humor is provided by incongruity and/or irony like the above.
Why shouldn’t Aunt Fritzi be hot? The strip was originally all about her as a pretty-but-dumb young babe trying to make it in the movies, just as Blondie was originally about a pretty-but-dumb gold digger and not a housewife. Nancy came along later and gradually took over the strip. Take a look at the article in Don Markstein’s * Toonopedia * for details:
Well, to be honest, my memories of Aunt Fritzi are from the shoulders up, as she was always peeking into the panel – truly sidelined in a strip that once was named after her.
Don’t get me wrong, the strip isn’t funny, but to me, it along with Henry were only slightly below Precilla’s Pop and Trudy as being “not really funny” to me.
So, in seeing a full framed, full figured Aunt Fritzi – I was taken aback – she looks prettier to me now than in the shots above, but the attractiveness of any drawn character is truly dependent on the artist involved as I’m sure Mary Jane Watson/Parker will attest to.
Oh, and ask Lois Lane about it while you’re at it.
…appearing in Tijuana Bibles when rent money was scarce.
Yeah, those two kids look like time warp refugees.
Let this poor strip die.
Better idea: Go back to calling it Fritzi Ritz. Ditch Nancy and Sluggo. Make it about the comedic travails of young, single Fritzi again. Kind of like Cathy, only funny and with a protagonist who isn’t an irritating neurotic twit.
So sensible and yet, so beyond possible given editors. I can hear echoes of “Why can’t she be more like Cathy?” fading even as I read this wonderful suggestion.
Perhaps a Hannibal Lecter accident.
Dinner with The Family Circus.
Some people think it has value. See recent thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=352673
See also “The Zen of Nancy” – [ur]The Zen of Nancy
And an interview with Denis Kitchen of Kitchen Sink Press: Bushmiller Society Secret Cult - Denis Kitchen Interview
Sorry – “Zen of Nancy” – http://www.bostonphoenix.com/alt1/archive/books/comics/06-96/NANCY.html
Nancy’s still around?!
Lord almighty, I had no idea.
Back in high school (1970-1974), one of my English class texts was an anthology of poetry. Among the selections was a poem titled Nancy. I recall that Nancy was described as a poorly-behaving child, whose psychological problems probably stemmed from the disreputable profession of her guardian.
The poet didn’t come right out and call Fritzi Ritz an [ahem] “escort,” but it wasn’t that big a leap to imagine that he believed she was.
Wish I could find that poem again.
Sweet Zombie Jesus!
Shoulda been “hooha.com.”
Nah, she was hotter in the 30’s.
