By the pricking of my thumbs Something wicked this way comes By the pricking of my nose Here it comes and there it goes When wickedness has gone its way Sillyiness returns to stay Leaving a trail of cookie crumbs Something silly this way comes.
"Right, right, stop it. This film's comic's got silly. Started off with a nice little idea about grannies zombies attacking young men, but now it's got silly. This man's hair is too long for a vicar oungam too. These signs are pretty badly made. Right, now for a complete change of mood."
Silly Tip was a man, but he wore a dress ... He battled the zombies to blow off stress ... Young Venus told Remy, the local houngan, "Now from death, you'll retrieve my belovéd young man!"
With weird zombie army, They fought, fought, fought! Said Tip, "You won't harm me!" He shot, shot, shot, shot, shot!
Now, badass-ness of Tip can't be overstated, But they couldn't make Alphonse be incarnated!
(TUNE: "Thriller", Michael Jackson) (Did you expect anything else?)
We're in New Orleans, And fighting through the streets where zombies roam! Yes, it's a bad scene! Let's duck into this old abandoned home! We don't have long! Those zombies won't by stopped by flimsy boards! It's like that song, Where teenage kids were trapped by undead hordes! I hear the chords ...
Of Jackson's "Thriller!" Will there be A funky beat to help repeat that choreography? Our moves are killer! Wait and see! A hand you can rely on Is what Brian Is tryin' To be!
Nah, it's Nick. Not only was he talking at the beginning of the mission about the giant flying buzzsaw work he was going to be doing, that's his distinctive wrongswearing in the last panel.
>>>Just remembered who it was so deleted my original comment - Tigerlily??
I don't think we're actually supposed to have any doubt as to who it is. I think we're just supposed to release a breath of relief as we realize Nick has come through with yet another eleventh hour rescue.
I could be wrong and maybe tomorrow we'll all but one be startled by her emminent funkiness. That'd be kind of cool.
My previous comment wasn't in response to yours, Andy, but rather, through bizarre fluctuations in the space-time continuum (or possibly someone deleting their original comment and re-commenting after they remembered the name of the character they were talking about), in response to the comment after mine.
In unrelated news, it's sad that the air cavalry riding to the rescue didn't wait a few seconds longer so that Tip and Sweetheart could make some embarrassing last-minute confessions.
Given how Nick's sensoring circuit seems to work and how it's often possible to tell what he /meant/ to say, I have to admit it is going to bother me ALL DAY what on earth Nick originally intended 'nickle-pickers' to come out as.
Way back in August, the folks at BP Picked up the phone and made a call to me ... "Mister Zerhakker, could you bring your blades And help us clean up ... the mess that we made? Take fallen timber, make it toothpick-sized!" That's when I re-a-lized! (You realized?) I realized that I could chop A bumber crop That even George A. Romero can't top!
I am a buzz-saw! Working the coastline and chopping down trees! I am a buzz-saw! And I dismantle the zombies with ease! You know that there's nobody quicker At rescuing both of you nickel-pickers! And now! And now with a crash, man, I'm coming to save your ash, man! (Get it? "Ashman"?) 'Cause I'm a buzz-saw, A chopper named Nick!
Now available, the Zerhakker Kitchen Buzzsaw! It dices your melonfarming ghouls! Juliennes the backstitching undead! And makes great zombie conkers slaw!
In unrelated news, it's sad that the air cavalry riding to the rescue didn't wait a few seconds longer so that Tip and Sweetheart could make some embarrassing last-minute confessions.
Sweetheart admitting she liked evil cat eyes in the Thriller video seems like (by Sweetheart standards) an embarrassing confession.
Adam (10-0-0-1) says:
Ah Nick, he adds so much fun to every panel he is in.
There are some neat YouTube videos to be found with searches like 'helicopter tree trimming'. But none of the helicopters featured in them look nearly as awesome as Nick, of course.
David Harmon (mental_mouse) says:
I love yesterday's (not-so-)Silent Penultimate Panel! (Despite breaking style, those boggle-eyes are an awesome followup to the "Goodbye friend" scene!
Also, it's nice that they get a disaster or two on their side! Flying buzzsaw versus rogue swamp for the title!
Eric Burns (ericburns) says:
For the record -- just for the RECORD -- Nick was opposed to Air Force service because he didn't want to be armed and kill. At the time, we thought he had moral difficulties with it.
Now, we just know he wants to be *close* when he does it. Clearly, Groom Lake should have had him transferred to Air Cav.
@Dougthehead - Allow me to provide some context. The film series that Nick is excited about is called Evil Dead, staring Bruce Campbell. The premise of the film is that a bunch of friends go visit a cabin in the woods, and find the last resident's audio notes on the Necronomicon. After playing the recorded invocation, all hell predictably breaks loose. In the ensuing mayhem, the hero loses his right arm. Later, the survivors buy a few minutes in the toolshed, resulting in this classic scene:
Eric Burns: I rather doubt it. My guess is that mindless zombies don't count. They aren't people any more, heck, they're not even alive. (Note that sentient zombies like UNITY are another story altogether.)
Did Nick's filter turn "hella" into "hecks of?" That's the only way I can parse the sentence... they could stand to turn that thing down half a notch.
Rob (rrreed) says:
Actually, the first thing to came to my mind upon seeing that saw apparatus was The World is Not Enough, where it was used in almost the identical fashion that Nick used.
"The insurance company is NEVER going to believe this!"
Apropos of very little, a band named "Mistle Thrush" used to rehearse in the basement of the house I lived in for the first couple of years after I graduated college. Just Googled 'em and they're still together and gigging around Boston. Good on them.
Nick would love it if Dr. Lee gave the "That's what she said!" line. He just doesn't like Tip.
... or he could be trying to ignore that one of the few short-comings of his awesome new non-human existence is that he no longer has an organic huge dangling thing.
@Shaenon It's not your fault - the Osprey is a pretty round-hulled helicopter, without a lot of inherent intimidation value. If he was based on an Apache airframe, you could cover it with little G.I. Joe missile pods, and if it was a Comanche it would have the cool predatory angled hull. Still, Nick is basically a foul-mouthed pacifist geek, so the model that is pudgy but useful is actually a pretty good fit.
While Nick is floating on the breeze, Trimming trees ... with such ease, He rescues teammates by the threes! Save the crew! Zombie too? Chopper, please!
Nick Zerhakker, Nick Zerhakker, interrupt your raid! Come now to our aid! But you won't get paid! Nick Zerhakker, civil servants must get by on praise ... 'Cause your heart is full of love, you get no raise!
Just in case anyone still thought it was because nobody else would hire a sweary helicopter.
John Ames (commodorejohn) says:
Is that why they do what they do? This explains the nice people at the local Post Office, but the folks at the DMV could use a polite reminder by Sweetheart...
Man, my workplace'd LOVE to hire Nick. Nothing a mental health RBHA needs more than a talking, chainsaw-toting black ops helicopter for patient pickup. The follow up paperwork would be amazing.
I suppose the question is whether Nick's "Barry Ween chip" (to use the term from PS238, which itself refers to a /different/ comic... wow, that's like three levels of meta there) reads intent or actual word. If he says "dam" as a way of getting around the censorship, does the chip know his intent (to swear) or only the actual word?
(Of course, another question is whether Nick's chip takes the same approach that Zodon's chip does in PS238, wherein longer streams of profanity are simply replaced by show tunes rather than censoring the individual words.)
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