You is bringed to day Bizarro by Satisfactory Discourse.When I submitted this cartoon weeks ago, I knew it would cause some confusion. Since it appeared in papers a week ago, I've gotten dozens of emails from people who were mystified by it, which means there are many thousands more who were equally out to sea but didn't bother to write.
The cartoon refers to a game we used to play as children, one of those games that only works on someone who has never heard it before. You get them to say these three words – owah, tagu, siam – slowly, like a chant. Then you ask them to go faster, stringing the words together, until they are saying, "oh what a goose I am." Laughter ensues.
This kind of thing comes up from time to time, where I want to do a cartoon based on something I know or have heard or remember, but am not sure how common or widespread the knowledge is. I ask CHNW if she gets it and that's about all the research I do. She got this one and she was raised in Florida (I, in Oklahoma), so I figured I'd give it a try.
In addition to the emails from the dazed and confused, I got nearly as many from people who remembered the game from childhood but hadn't thought of it in years. And also one from a reader who had played a dirty version of the same thing where the end sentence makes reference to the speaker's biological habits.
That's the official report on the Great Basketball Cartoon Conundrum of 2009. Onward and upward.
