OH BOY!! Buddy Holly’s 1957 hit never was so popular as when Quantum Leap fans would edit badly recorded VHS footage to the song as infamous Sam Beckett would say “Oh, boy…” as he leaped into yet another body (when did this man sleep?).
For April’s Fools Day, a nice nod to one of my favorite time travel shows. Sam and Al were a great pair. The real joke was on us by Donald P. Bellisario as he ended the series with “Dr. Beckett never made it home…” My wife cried and I spit out my Mountain Dew. WHAT?! All that so you can ruin our hopes of Sam coming home with one little line?! Shame on you Donald. That’s what we get for trusting the guy who made Magnum PI…
Also, Quantum Leap is one of the few shows from the recent past that I can parody as it makes sense that Sam would leap into 1977 from time to time. Perhaps a neighbor next… to put right what once was wrong!
Oh (boy), I’ve added a FaceBook fan page for the comic. If you have a FaceBook account, go become a fan. Click here to view the page. I’ll be getting some other stuff up soon.
You know I don’t think I actually knew that about Quantum Leap (the never getting home part) didn’t Sam and Al switch places towards the end though? I thought Sam got home but it ended up with Al being stuck leaping…my memory is fuzzy I guess.
Sam leaped into Al (for the 2nd time, I think) and prevented Al from losing his first wife in the series finale. This was after leaping into a body right at the earliest possible moment that the QL program could have him into (allegedly), right around his birth. He taked to a “god” like bartender.
You can hit That 70s Show (obviously) but also Life on Mars (figure some of the denizens of 1973 New York can survive four years), and other nostalgia shows. I can see the cute little boy from American Dreams as a 20ish burnout in an alleyway somewhere complaining about how much pressure it is to be cute ALL THE TIME and scrounging for roaches.
I really didn’t like that character.
Oh man,some of the episodes in that were awesome.
The point at the end was that Sam realized that what he was doing — leaping into lives, setting things right that once went wrong, et cetera — was what he WANTED to be doing. That was his preferred life. And *that’s* why he never made it home.
Awww, yeah….
Quantum Leap had one of the worst endings. Sam shows up in a small mining town, walks into a bar, meets God, saves the day, leaps again as himself (if I remember it right) and tells Al’s first wife to wait for him then disappears into the time stream – never to come home – ever. So, he basically undoes his meeting Al. More questions than answers. I’m still depressed over it.
…oh, great strip today. Loved it!
RE: QL final episode – I do get that the final line that Sam never came home meant he chose to “right what once went wrong” for the rest of his life… but I’m from the era where you like to see an ending… where he comes home, even briefly, to be with his wife, etc. Some sort of resolution that makes you feel good.
Yes, yes, his leaping was of greater good to mankind, yadda, yadda, but still at some point a nice resolution would have been in order. Of course, I’m bantering about a Sci-Fi show… so I am an official geek.
But, that’s just me… I wanted to see the castaways of Gilligan’s Island come home. And why hasn’t the Jupiter 2 ever been seen again? I think the Robot went crazy and killed them all…
🙂
Didn’t the folks of Gilligan’s Island get rescued, then, marooned on the same island, rescued then turned it into a resort?
Who’s the geek now?
If I recall correctly, they got “rescued” and re-marooned on the same island half a dozen times, but only one of those did they actually make it back to the mainland before being re-marooned on the same island.
However, also if I recall correctly, that one rescue where they got back to the mainland before being re-marooned and the later rescue after which they turned the island into a resort were in the 1980s, so out of scope for this comic.
Yes. Those TV movies got really stupid, as if the show wasn’t already silly enough.
Absolutely brilliant! What’s ironic is that the wife and I were actually talking about this show on the way to work today! I mean, how random is that?! QL was one of my all time favorite TV shows too.
I hope this isn’t a one-off! I’d love to see what Sam needs to fix in somebody’s life!
RE: Kevin – Toon in Friday and find out… 🙂
I watched that show on saturdays, when i was a kid. I miss that show.
Yeah but…
I thought the comic was intended to be themed on life in the 70s – putting the lifestyle under a microscope as it were. All these recent gags involving shows and lifestyles that went on in the 80s, 90s and 00s are kinda jumping the shark from where I sit. Plus, the gags that come from the later years don’t seem to have as much payload as the “timely” ones. Not so much because the 70s were funnier than any other time period you could pick, but because there is an expectancy gleaned by those who weren’t there based on a parody of the actuality, and you can and have played off that beautifully in the past strips.
But it’s your show and your BS&T. Take it where you like and damn the torpedoes.
Steve.
“I was there”. :o)
RE: roxysteve – One, I appreciate all comments, not just the ones that say the comic is cool and all that… I take into consideration what my readers want. I do drive the ship, yes, but my passengers have to stay on board.
I tackled “LOST” because they came to me… I made fun of it too with the use of “dude” which is not a 70s term. This Quantum Leap storyline is a spin off of my driving down the “LOST” and Star Wars road. We will not stay on this road for very long, trust me.
I have a very involved storyline this year, but I think it best to break up the pieces with some general gags. Now, I may be wrong. But Girls With Slingshots took a month to do a storyline on Valentines Day last year, and I did get really tired of it, especially when March arrived. But, as you said, damn the torpedoes.
1977 is a part of the story here, but, it’s about everyday life for my characters, and that part of it has changed little in 30 years. How they deal with it is the fun part (sex, drugs & rock and roll). In some ways, very little has changed… high gas prices, stock market dropping, Government having no clues, etc., and that too is the point of the comic.
Thanks for you comments, it keeps me on my toes! There will be a lot more to come, stick around. 🙂
It’s my vague recollection that “dude” was a 70s term, but primarily a subset of California surfers and Texan cattle ranchers (the latter using it mostly as a synonym for ‘tourist’.) Technically, it’s been a term since the late 1800s, but for most of that time meant something very different. I think I’ve heard that it was first observed in surfer communities in the 1960s.
That makes sense. I do remember the term “Dude Ranch” back in the ’70s.
Well, I wouldn’t have the comic bookmarked if I didn’t think it was worthwhile and clever.
I’ll be interested in how you show us that the drummer is now Sam Becket while at the same time that the others can only see Robyn (assuming you’re going for the standard Q.L. gambit). I sat for an hour on the train yesterday and couldn’t see a way to do it.
Then again, I can’t draw for toffee. :o)
Did you notice that the kids have started wearing stack heels and loon pants again? I swear, nothing under the sun is new. I wonder where we got it from? The original fashion probably called for a well-powdered periwig to finish the ensemble.
Poor Robyn now she is a he hair chest, a pair, boring clothes and gross fart jokes I really don’t miss the boys. One was mean poor little creature beetles, spiders smashing them and call them monsters they are only a inch but I miss the sweet little old lady room mate.