I know that not everybody’s going to get this one. If find yourself scratching your head, go rent or purchase “The King Of Kong.“ A little ways through you’ll go “Ooooh, THAT’S why this PartiallyClips would perhaps have been funny if I’d seen this first,” which is of course the best way to experience a joke.
I’m assuming both this strip AND “The King Of Kong” are potentially up for discussion in the comments, so let’s go ahead and throw a spoiler alert on this bitch. If such a thing is necessary for a documentary.
-=ShoEboX=-
Ok, I just read the synopsis of The King of Kong on IMDB, and I kind of get it now. I think the idea is, that Billy Mitchell used to have the cheese grader record? And now he’s going to propose another cross-country duel?
In “King Of Kong,” Steve Wiebe sets a world record in Donkey Kong witnessed live at a tournament. Shortly after he’s done so, it’s revealed that Billy Mitchell has sent in a videotape of himself beating this record.
So what I’m really going for here is the idea of spite taken to an extreme – the Steve in this strip has developed a hatred of Billy so intense that he’s willing to take a cheese grater to 87% of his body just so Billy will have to grate 88% of his own.
-=ShoEboX=-
“King of Kong” was a great movie that was significantly more fictional than the producers made it seem — they made Billy Mitchell into a villain, and cut the movie so as to make it that much more compelling of a story. Reality got lost in those cuts, unfortunately.
Still, I enjoyed the reference. I do wonder how many people got it.
It may out me as a huge geek, but I totally got this, and it cracked me up. Mitchell seems to generate strong emotional responses from people. I can easily accept that someone would grate themselves silly just to get Billy to grate himself a teensy bit more.
Ok, thanks ShoEboX. It actually IS funnier now.
Very nice. Thanks for the laugh.
@ Clay: give me some more. I watched the movie and I did feel Billy the villain . . . where can i find more footage? Where can I find documented info for the other side?
thanks
I took this a completely different way. Billy Mitchell happens to also be the father of the modern Air Force. I was totally confused.
It may out me as a huge geek, but I totally got this, and it cracked me up. Mitchell seems to generate strong emotional responses from people. I can easily accept that someone would grate themselves silly just to get Billy to grate himself a teensy bit more.
I had no idea who Billy Mitchell was, but I did get the point that he was a Topper (he who insistys on topping all of your announcements and accomplishments, at any risk to himself. See the character by the name of Topper from Dilbert for one of the silliest examples) who was hated by the record-attemptee.