Crankshaft by Tom Batiuk and Dan Davis for June 19, 2023

Oh boy.

“That’s very nice, sir, but this is the Arby’s off I-75 in Wapakoneta!”

So, Caveman Masonne, is there some reason you can’t send a text?

I love the story line

What a punchline.

Yeah, but is anyone else looking forward to it?

We’re not.

Wow, that’s supposed to be Mason? Doesn’t look much like him. Wasn’t Mason a blond??

True, dat.

I guess a little more convincing in voicemail….

“Awesome. With you two showing up it will double our attendance!”

And what will the Val run to celebrate its grand re-opening? A true classic like the restored “Metropolis”? Something artsy like a Wes Anderson retrospective? Maybe a small indy film that got great reviews at Sundance? A revival of something recent and popular like back-to-back showings of the three good “Star Wars” flicks?

Or the post-Oscar® re-release of “Dead St. Lisa’s Story: The (not very) Moving Picture”?

Answer: none of the above. To properly open the Valentine, Masoné also financed the restored director’s cut of “Phantom Empire.” Six hours long, lovingly re-spliced from the serial to a script found in a locked box in a corner of Branson Cave.

cue the dark ambient music with discordant overtones which, although broadly tonal, is inflected with chromatic and polytonal passages representing the archetypal example of a florid, melodramatic style

Call somebody that cares!

Your house surrounded by sand? Oh..yuck!

He must think it’s reopening as a peeler joint. In honor of the Crankerbean merger from hell, the ‘performers’ will be The Lizard, Fat Mary, and 3 of the interchangeable blondes.

I didn’t know cavemen left voicemails…

So this is just going to continue to merge into Funky Crankshaft? Ed Winkerbean?

Can’t wait!