Comic Strip of the Day

CSotD: The Parent Trap

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Mike Peterson Published: September 8, 2011 1 minute 2 comments

 
Sometimes a gag is so insanely inventive that you just have to pause a moment in admiration.

Open House as a sting operation to nab unwary dropouts. Ladies and gentlemen, Keith Knight.

Today's Knight Life works with more elements than the "You've Won A Ticket To The Super Bowl" sting operations that periodically nail fugitives, but let's start there, because the key to those events is that cons believe in The Big Score.

Part One: I've never known a con (or "aspiring con") who didn't believe that there was some magic thing and that, if you just got that thing, you'd be set for life.

Many of these people are intellectually gifted, but somehow, though they are brilliant at gaming the system, they can't manage to play it straight. They're sure there is a catch and they are always on the brink of figuring it out.

And the more intelligent they are, the more contrarian they become. Like Keefe's friend Dexter in this strip, they truly believe that the Man is actively trying to trap them into something and that they are too smart for him.

When I was on radio years ago, I did a show on an anti-recidivism program at Canon City, with one of the psychologists and an ex-con who had been through the program and was now acting as a peer counselor.

We talked about learning to set goals, have a budget, dress for success, show up every day for work and all that good stuff that cons have to learn if they're going to stay out of trouble. Then, during a commercial break, he starts telling me that he's managing this bar band that is going to be the Next Big Thing, the next "Chicago."

In other words, he wasn't committing crimes anymore, but he was still looking for the quick score. He wasn't rehabilitated; he was just redirected.

Part Two: To exaggerate street-thug delusional thinking into the idea that Parent/Teacher Night is a sting operation is hilarious, but the gag also plays on the discomfort a lot of completely non-thug adults have in going back into that school building.

There are two or three kinds of Parent/Teacher events:

One is the kind where you go through your child's bell schedule with 10 or 15 minutes in each class to get a sense of what will be happening that year.

Another is the sort of "Flash Dating" event later in the year, where parents go to school and line up in the hall to take a turn for a brief one-on-one (or one-on-two) conversation with the teacher on how their particular kid is doing.

The third is the scheduled conference, in which you get a little more time, a little more depth and there is a little more control in that it isn't just a matter of which parents show up: You are expected to set an appointment and to be there.

In all three cases, but particularly the latter two, you can see the intimidation on the faces of parents for whom school had been a rough experience, and on those for whom a prolonged conversation with a college graduate is intimidating enough without the topic being their kid's chances for success in life.

But, frankly, I don't know how anybody, whatever their background, can watch that grade book open without getting a knot in the pit of their stomach.

It's like your annual performance evaluation at work, or an IRS audit. No matter how well you think you're doing, no matter how honest you tried to be in paying your taxes, there's that little voice telling you that all your inadequacies are about to be laid before you.

She's going to open that grade book, take her ruler, run it down the columns and show you proof positive of how you've failed as a parent.

For someone like Dexter, it's more empowering to view the event as a trap than to admit that the prospect scares the crap out of you.

And we're all enough like Dexter that his over-reaction provides a burst of comic relief.

And a technical note: I like how Keith plays out the dialogue. If Dexter himself makes the "reveal," he's just a loony and the gag deflates. By having Keefe say it, his astonishment becomes our astonishment and that's where the guffaw is born. But not only does the punchline have to come from Keefe, but it can't be the last line — even though Dexter's odd rejoinder is not the main joke, you need him to say it in order to confirm the gag and finish the strip properly.

Whether he agonized over properly framing the gag or it just instinctively came out that way, Keith Knight made the most of a very funny idea.