The Zig man often gets a bad rap, as if it’s some lame-o kind of “Family Circus” type thing, but every now and then, it gets me in the funny bone.
This is todays. Geez, the little man of glue just wants to read his paper and drink his coffee and he gotta take shit from his freakin’ toaster. It’s just a funny drawing too.
This one from last week really cracked me up, especially if you look past the actualy joke and consider it’s more sinister undertones. It also answers the question of whether Ziggy is naked underneath that shirt he’s always wearing. Looks like he wears the “boxer briefs” too.
I will never criticize Ziggy for the rest of my life because of one strip I read about 10 years ago. He’s standing in a line of people (and because he’s so short, you only see the people in front of and behind him from the waist down). The guy behind him is wearing slippers and a polka-dot muumuu. Ziggy is looking over his shoulder at the guy and says “I’m with you; I hate it when they do these things in alphabetical order.”
See, your problem here is that you’re really not inside Ziggy.
Each and every day he faces these completely frustrating scenarios. All the dude wants to do is get along, and his parrot is canceling the vet appointment, the people don’t look like him, he’s always getting shit from everybody.
He finally gets up one morning, chilling with his coffee and paper just like we all do. He’s sitting next to the same toaster that he’s probably had for 20 years. He’s probably even thinking, “you know, something shitty is going to happen today because something shitty always happens, but at least for right now, while I’m sitting here with my paper and my coffee, everything is all right.”
That line, “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Dave!” is from 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s a line a computer that has taken over the spaceship says. It’s repeats it and similar lines in a calm, monotone fashion while it tries to kill people.
If my toaster said it to me in the same voice, I’d be creeped out.
The joke is a quote from “2001: A Space Oddessy,” when the computer refuses to do something for Dave. I haven’t seen the movie, but the line is generally considered a nugget of popular culture.
It’s a reference to the HAL 9000 computer in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which the computer goes nuts and says, “I’m sorry Dave, but I can’t allow you to do that.” right before it tries to kill Dave Bowman.
