0517: "Marshmallow Gun"

[cyberia]

Yeah you're not funny anymore. This was a long setup for a really mediocre joke.

I'm sorry to say this, but I'm taking you off my bookmarks.

So show us your consistently hilarious and cutting-edge 500+ issue webcomic.

[iain_benson]

userfriendly?

[Dobblesworth]

I think Randall's obsession with Ghostbusters has been done to death now. It wasn't even that great a film anyway. There, I said it.
Cut out the lower half of today's strip and we have a nice cunning short. The logistics of the second half seem rather odd anyway - the angles they're firing at in the middle lower panel were seriously inaccurate if they were aiming to hit one-another if they produced those parabolas and the intersect about 20 metres skyward.
I suppose an evolution of xkcd projectile warfare might come with Rubber Band Guns.

[Spike13]

haha, this is great.
That movie was sweet.

I wish I had a vegie marshmellow gun

[rnew]

This is one of my fav so far. I loved the original supersoaker comic, and I'm glad it's back.

I agree the comic should've been split though. I was laughing after the first row

[dennisw]

The super soaker makes the girl's hair fly back with its tremendous power, but not the marshmallow gun.

But the more I think on it, the more absurd the concept of hair flying back due to gunfire is.

I think the flying hair is from the chair swiveling fast around.

There aren't any motion squiggles indicating hair motion, gun kick or chair swiveling. However, in the previous three panels, the back of her head is undergoing a serious pounding*. Mussing ensued.

* Sans headboard.

[Styles]

I suppose an evolution of xkcd projectile warfare might come with Rubber Band Guns.

Randell would be the one with the rubber band Gatling gun.

[PatrickRsGhost]

How does burning cheese figure into Ghostbusters? I don't remember them talking about burning cheese. Marshmallows, yes. Giant Twinkies, yes. But no burning cheese.

In the second movie they dealt with a dancing toaster.

I liked the double-Ghostbusters reference. Not just the movie, but the animated series.

Spoiler:

In the animated series "The Real Ghostbusters", there was an episode where some children's hospital or the city of New York wanted to use the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in a parade or at some carnival. The team sends Slimer (who has become their "pet") into the containment unit to retrieve Stay Puft. He talked with sort of a deep, dopey voice.

[Domovoi]

Yeah you're not funny anymore. This was a long setup for a really mediocre joke.

I'm sorry to say this, but I'm taking you off my bookmarks.

So show us your consistently hilarious and cutting-edge 500+ issue webcomic.

Because you're only allowed to dislike something if you can create something better, right?

[Felstaff]

There've been too many references to the word 'wooter' in this thread, which has transferred its inherently silly qualities into my head, which has transformed it into 'woofter', another hilarious epithet.

It wasn't even that great a film anyway. There, I said it.

LEAVE NOW! AND SWITCH OFF THE LIGHTS AS YOU DO SO. If it hadn't been for Ghostbusters, the Cold War would still be raging, and VH1 would have nothing to pad out I Fucken LOVE The 1980s. Except Wall Street. But then it would have been fifteen minutes of Wall Street followed by fifteen minutes of Marc Almond's bust-up with Ultravox.

You should thank your lucky stars for Harold Ramis.

[mr_coffee]

Entirely unrelated, I'm sure... but somehow I felt this was a throwback to the "tickle bazooka" as introduced by Joel in an MST3K episode... thereby increasing its ha ha rating in my opinion.

[ethraax]

anyway, as a tweeter shooter, this comic gave me the initiative to go buy a marshmallow gun and bring it to school to annoy people XD

I dunno, they arrest you and expel you for that up here...

[Hasufel]

Is the lower-left corner of the first textbox bothering anyone else?

Yes! I just want to fill it in!!

[boxbrown]

Did this comic make sense to the younger readers? Are kids still watching Ghostbusters?

[Lawrensaurus]

I'm a younger reader!
I've never seen it, but I knew enough about the movie to get the joke.
Now I've got no excuse; I've got to go rent Ghostbusters. And buy a marshmellow gun.

[Felstaff]

Are kids still watching Ghostbusters?

They better be. xkcd readers born in the 90s and beyond: watch Ghostbusters, or you will never grow as a person, and nobody will ever respect you. Your first meeting with a mortgage lender, a family-planning physician, or a university dean will invariably involve the question: 'How many times have you watched Ghostbusters?'

And you'd better have a damn large integer as your answer.

Now go. I'll just be waiting here with my proton-pack blueprints, (which, incidentally, makes me cooler than anyone you've ever heard of.)

[Alder]

Well, today's comic made me chuckle...though it does feel like two separate comics.

The reappearence of the supersoaker did it for me, really.

[Susy]

Yeah!! I remember the crossing beam thing in ghostbusters, hahaha so yes, I guess this would revert marshmallows right?? Now the thing is how bad would it be?? Would the earth be flooded by sticky substance??

Yeah you're not funny anymore. This was a long setup for a really mediocre joke.

I'm sorry to say this, but I'm taking you off my bookmarks.

Mediocre? Dude, don´t you think perhaps you just have become one of those regular common boring persons who do not laugh at the logical but complicated things??? I think that´s the most probable reason why you don´t find this funny and not xkcd not being funny anymore.

[boxbrown]

Now I've got no excuse; I've got to go rent Ghostbusters.

Some of Bill Murray's best work. Ghostbusters #1 is a total classic. #2 is inferior but worth seeing.

Dr Ray Stantz: Everything was fine with our system until the power grid was shut off by dickless here.
Walter Peck: They caused an explosion!
Mayor: Is this true?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Yes it's true.
[pause]
Dr. Peter Venkman: This man has no dick.
Walter Peck: Jeez!
[Charges at Venkman]
Mayor: Break it up! Hey, break this up! Break it up!
Walter Peck: All right, all right, all right!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Well, that's what I heard!

[Grop]

Other Ghostbusters references: 213 and 459.

[quartertonality]

Did Randall recently partake in the woot-off? That is the only place I have ever seen one of the marshmallow guns. So much cross-referencing going on here already, I figured maybe.

[rnew]

Ghostbusters was on TV yesterday and I hadn't been told beforehand.

Mindlessly scanning channels + finding ghostbusters = joy

[sje46]

How does burning cheese figure into Ghostbusters? I don't remember them talking about burning cheese. Marshmallows, yes. Giant Twinkies, yes. But no burning cheese.

[/spoiler]

El oh el. You're kidding, right?

Lurk more.

[Cedar]

This comic has caused discussion in my office which has now degenerated into a full-on 80's nostalgia-fest.

As I type, a colleague is regaling me with choice snippets from the wikipedia page on "Under Siege".

Randall, I hold you personally responsible for this outrage.

Thanks,
Malcolm.

[mturyn]

Maybe the whole thing is _actually_ about debugging JavaScript...mind you , I wasn't fond of "Ghostbusters"...for that matter, "Jaws" was never my speed and I don't like "Star Wars".

[scikidus]

I have a friend who has the dow and arrow marsh mallow shooter.

Heck, this is how wars under Obama should be fought.

[sexybobo]

Hmm... is Randall a wooter? (I narrowly escaped buying one a week ago...)

I am willing to bet he is. I got my 3 Friday so it would be good timing for this comic.

[Domovoi]

Mediocre? Dude, don´t you think perhaps you just have become one of those regular common boring persons who do not laugh at the logical but complicated things??? I think that´s the most probable reason why you don´t find this funny and not xkcd not being funny anymore.

People just laugh at different things, give him/her a break.

Personally, I didn't care for this comic either. Like Lindir The Green said, it basically just references Ghostbusters without saying anything witty about it, but it still took 10 panels to get there.

Some people still find that funny, others don't. It's a fascinating world.

[Kazuke]

I want a marshmallow gun now.

And the throwback to the grape juice super-soaker was great.

[OmegaLord]

I have a friend who has the dow and arrow marsh mallow shooter.

I thought, due to the Obama thing, that it was stock market themed. My imagination can only stretch so far.

Yeah you're not funny anymore. This was a long setup for a really mediocre joke. I'm sorry to say this, but I'm taking you off my bookmarks.

OK. om nom nom, more bandwidth for us.

[moody7277]

The logistics of the second half seem rather odd anyway - the angles they're firing at in the middle lower panel were seriously inaccurate if they were aiming to hit one-another if they produced those parabolas and the intersect about 20 metres skyward.

I agree with you on their bad aim, but the trajectories are most definitely not parabolas. Neglecting air resistance with marshmellows = epic miss. Seems to me you'd either want to aim so that air resistance make the marshmellows stop directly over the target and they rain down, or as in the first half you use a low, fast trajectory.

[hideki101]

The super soaker makes the girl's hair fly back with its tremendous power, but not the marshmallow gun.

But the more I think on it, the more absurd the concept of hair flying back due to gunfire is.

I think the flying hair is from the chair swiveling fast around.

There aren't any motion squiggles indicating hair motion, gun kick or chair swiveling. However, in the previous three panels, the back of her head is undergoing a serious pounding*. Mussing ensued.

* Sans headboard.

Do you need any? I assume motion was implied due to the fact that the chair made a 180 degree turn between the two panels.

[Baza210]

To unnecessarily elaborate by quoting a Calvin and Hobbes strip about a snowman:

"Obviously if he evolved from a snowball, it raises serious philosophical questions for him."
"Like the morality of throwing one's precursors at someone?"

This does so much more for me than Ghostbusters.

[dharmamama]

Did this comic make sense to the younger readers? Are kids still watching Ghostbusters?

They are if their parents are fans! Ghostbusters, Airplane, Blazing Saddles, Monty Python and the Holy Grail... I love sharing good, funny movies with my sons. Which, even if I didn't, most of them are referenced enough in pop culture that they'd get curious and eventually watch them anyway.

[Smiling Hobo]

Haha...last week we had a secret santa exhange in a choir I'm in, and I got my designated person a marshmallow gun. Does that count as a "get out of my head, Randall!"?

*Nibbles on kitten*

[Southwest]

Yeah you're not funny anymore. This was a long setup for a really mediocre joke.

I'm sorry to say this, but I'm taking you off my bookmarks.

You are, of course, free to do what you please, but was the decision to unbookmark xkcd based on this comic or many? Because if it was just this comic, I would advise you to relax just a bit. Not every xkcd comic has made me laugh; in fact, I agree with you that this comic wasn't incredibly humorous. But Randall, like everyone, has good and bad days, and makes jokes that aren't necessarily funny to everyone. It happens.

I'm curious, though, why you felt the need to broadcast your departure. A longing for sympathy? A feeling of being betrayed by Mr. Munroe? When I stopped reading "Ziggy" in my newspaper, I just stopped reading it-- I didn't write a letter to the artist, or to the newspaper, for that matter. But of course, this is the Internet, and it's so much easier to say ridiculous or hurtful things behind a computer screen.

But alright then. Bye!

Aaaanyway.

Didn't actually find this one that funny. The pacing was weird, and the joke was a little weak, in my opinion. I got the Ghostbusters reference, but it just didn't make the joke for me. Oh well; they can't all be winners.

[lorenith]

I think this one would a been best as just the top row.

I mean I got the second part, but meh, seems like it was tacked on to me.

[cyberia]

Yeah you're not funny anymore. This was a long setup for a really mediocre joke.

I'm sorry to say this, but I'm taking you off my bookmarks.

So show us your consistently hilarious and cutting-edge 500+ issue webcomic.

Because you're only allowed to dislike something if you can create something better, right?

If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. If chasington doesn't like xkcd anymore that's fine but I don't think he's accomplishing anything by announcing it to the world. As if Randall's going to swoop down and get on his knees and beg him to stay.

Did Randall recently partake in the woot-off? That is the only place I have ever seen one of the marshmallow guns. So much cross-referencing going on here already, I figured maybe.

gizmodo also had an article about marshmallow guns about two weeks ago.

[Chasington]

Ah, I'm sorry, I seem to have caused unrest among some people here.

This isn't the only one I don't find funny. I'm not sure if he's out of ideas, writing too many too often, or if I am just not finding his jokes funny anymore, but the bottom line is they aren't funny to me. Most of his comics just seem to be references to things in hopes of people going "yeah I get that reference too, that's awesome!", without any actual joke. Then, I remember old comics like say... the old one about stepping on the floor tiles in a certain pattern and I remember having that same reaction, which makes me think I'm just tired of his comics.

As for my reason posting here, well... mostly the fact that there are a lot of people that seem to like everything he does and I get some satisfaction in being one of the only ones who think otherwise heh, I'm sure you guys have done this too with something sometime.

Not everyone has to like his comics right?

[vviipp]

Wow, an real-world and and inside ref.
If I had one of them marshmellow guns, I'd probably be using some creepy Homestar Runner quotes (which would also be outdated).