On February 17, 2009 all full-power broadcast television stations in the United States will stop broadcasting on analog airwaves and begin broadcasting only in digital. Digital broadcasting will allow stations to offer improved picture and sound quality and additional channels.

We at Comic Wonder know this is a relatively confusing time and many of you have answers about what this means to you. We have no idea but we wanted to be sure you saw this TV commercial before the big Cablepocalypse.

Well, it’s that time again and we sent a representative of team Comic Wonder out to award the Comic Wonder of the Year trophy to the best joke-teller of 2008. This year’s winner is no other than 1anero, who hails from the windy city, which is where we caught up with him…

Kris presents the big trophy!

 

 

 (Trophy detail)

Discount Engraving Corp comes through again!  How do they keep their prices so low?!

 

 

The ‘Big Check’!

 

 

 

Eager to cash in on his Comic Wonder booty, 1anero heads to the ‘Big Check Cashing Store’

 

 

her: “We’ve never had a check this big before!”

1anero: “$2500 is a lot, but that’s the biggest you’ve ever gotten?”

 

 

I’d better get the manager

 

 

That’s the manager?

 

 

…Seriously? The guy with the eye patch manages the check cashing store?

That is the most appropriate thing I’ve ever heard of.

 

 

I’m pretty flush, so I guess I can wait around a while while they discuss how big my check is.

 

 

This guy is VERY impressed too.

impressed guy: “Who’s the comic?”

1anero: “me”

impressed guy: “You must be pretty funny with a check THAT big.”

1anero: “You have no idea”

 

 

Might as well endorse it while we’re waiting

 

 

Is this even going to fit in here?

 

 

 What!?? It’s just like cash! What are you talking about?

 

 

 There’s the door Comic Wonder!

 

 

Seriously bummed best joke-teller in the world.

 

 

This check isn’t even worth the massive amount of paper it’s printed on!

 

 

 This is the part of the story that I warned you about in the headline.

Comedy turns to rage as 1anero opens up a 55-gallon drum of Whoop A$$ on the messenger.

This is also the hard lesson that I talked about in the headline. Big checks aren’t real. They’re for photo ops, because people look really stupid shaking hands and holding a really tiny check. You cash the tiny check. I feel bad that I didn’t mention that to Kris before he left.

 

Who’s laughing now!

(answer: 1anero)

 

 So, we got these photos in the mail and nobody’s heard from 1anero since. If you happen to live in Chicago and see him, please drop us an email or call the authorities.

Incidentally, we’re hiring a new … whatever Kris did.

Dude, I’m so sorry, but our Facebook relationship has to end here.When I first accepted your Friend Request, I never expected anything like the past two months to happen. I can’t tell you how surprised I was to find a confirmation asking if I was your son. How could I one-up that? It was so original and just so hilariously ironic- I’m 6 months older than you!

Soon we had hooked up randomly at Stacy Watson’s house party in 1992; within days we had met in Uganda, fighting Rita Repulsa. The lies, bro, the lies! When will they end? Last week I got three wall posts asking me what “Space Camp” was like. You know as well as I do that we never went Space Camp! Will it ever be enough for you?

I thought you’d get the hint yesterday when I canceled your confirmation about working together as wine tasters last summer; but sure enough this morning I have 1 pending friend request. What is it now, man? Did we go to Pee Pee Doo Doo Junior High? Did we take “Butt Sex 101″ together?

I’m afraid I’m going to have to change our relationship to “I don’t even this person,” because quite frankly, I don’t even know you anymore.

This hurts me, bro, and you can only expect a status like “Ian is going to be suffering from a broken heart,” or something in the near future. I know I can take the “is” out now, but it reminds me of a better time, back when FaceBook was only college kids, back when Pluto was a planet, back when we just best friends and the details of our relationship didn’t matter.

Sometimes I wish we never left stupid MySpace in the first place. After all of this drama, those incessant offers of free Macy’s gift cards just don’t seem so bad anymore. You’ll still be in my “Top 8“ when you’re ready, I’ll be waiting.

Goodbye dude,

Ian

P.S. Accept my invite to Zombies so I get some points. It’s theleast you can do, asshole.

I write this as I finish, well as Akun (my Sherpa,) finishes the final check on our equipment. Moments from now, we will begin our ascent to the Day 1 base camp, our first step in conquering your peak and thus, defeating you.You have been the center of my nightmares for years now, ever since you claimed the life of my father in early 1997, and now you are about to pay dearly. My father was trying to punish you for killing his father on one of the initial attempts at scaling you in 1936. My grandfather was a good family man, and you decided to blow him off the south face of the mountain without hesitation. Then, in some horrible déjà vu, you decided to cut my father off from rescue with snow storm after snow storm, slowly freezing him to death. Why must you single out my linage in your violent outbursts? What did we ever do to you?

I am not some blood crazed maniac. I have spent days on end considering how to deal with my father’s death. My decision to climb you came after much deliberation. Many of my friends suggested I file a civil suit against you, to try and hurt you financially… but I passed on such a passive aggressive approach. One friend suggested releasing large amounts of CFCs into the atmosphere in order to slowly shift the climate, reducing the snow cover on your hollowed peaks and rendering you weak. I don’t have time for such methods.

I will climb you because that is the only way to destroy you once and for all, and to bring the souls of my family back to sea level. Our family crest, sewn onto an American flag, will pierce your heart, which Akun tells me is at the very top of the mountain. I hope you will understand that you brought this onto yourself. You choose to make yourself the tallest and most dangerous mountain in the world. You choose to have radical weather patterns and consistently freezing conditions. You choose this life.

And just so you know, I have an 8-year-old son who has already pledged to continue our fight if you should find a way to kill me as well. So why not just let me end you now?

There are certain celebrities that can get away with just about anything and still keep their street cred.  Alec Baldwin is one of those stars who can turn lemons in to lemon spritzers.  2007 was a year Alec would soon like to forget.  His well-publicized battle with his ex-wife and daughter made news world-wide.  The threatening voicemail he left for his 12-year-old daughter became thing of legend.  Even Pat O’Brien was jealous how much poor judgement Alec could use on the phone.  The difference is that Alec has the seductive voice to pull it off.  Listening to his call sorta made me want to buy an expensive foreign car.  It was unintentional but his voice is just that commanding.

   2008 was another story for Alec, with 30 Rock skyrocketing and his first Emmy win.  It’s a brave new world for Alec where he will have his pick of roles and money to burn. You can deny that Alec is a “great actor” but you can’t deny his vocal chords are made of spun gold.  PURE, Rumpelstiltskin spun gold!  How good is he?  He was able to take a script of ordinary plumbing references and cause massive eargasms around the world for his performance in the Liquid Plumber Foaming Pipe Snake commercial(A reason not to fast forward through commercial breaks!).  Few people on this earth have enough presence to command total awe over something so gross.  He had me daydreaming about riding on the back of the mystical foaming pipe snake as we whirled around my plugged up toilet bowl.  Alec Baldwin is that good.

   Because Alec was able to make Liquid Plumber “hip” (essentially a fluid based turd-buster) I wonder if other advertisers will take those hard to market items and utilize other fascinating celebrities.  Christopher Walken could surely make Cream of Wheat sexy?  I could probably be convinced that I needed a new cheese shredder if Clint Howard said so.  Especially if his brother directed the commercial!  It terrifies me to think of what most of us wouldn’t do for a David Archuleta endorsed ziplock bag?

First, mood music. (http://www.miditrax.com/xmasmidi/AuldLangSyne2.mid).  Nothing can strike up emotion and make the hairs stand up on the back of your back quite like a MIDI version of Auld Land Syne.  Every wonder what that song is that we sing each New Years Eve?  Auld Lang Syne translates in to “old long since.”  That pretty much sums it all up, eh?  OLD LONG SINCE!

We at Comic Wonder are sorry to break the news that our beloved song is actually lost in translation.  Sure, we can assume it’s intended to say something like “the good old days” but the sad fact is that it doesn’t.  

None the less, New Years Eve has passed and we at Comic Wonder want to thank you for an amazing year!  Truly!  So many of you have delighted us with big laughs.  A couple of you have really let us down and should be ashamed of yourselves.  Put some pants on for crying out loud.  I’m sure that applied at least a dozen or so of you.

Johnny Mac may or may not have pants on right now but he has a pass either way because he’s once again got us chuckling with his rendition of “20 year reunion.”  He will be our last Comic Wonder of the Week for 2008 and forge new paths for the year to come.

We have SO many new things in store for Comic Wonder in 2009 and we can’t wait to roll out the new features.  In a time of financial crisis, mortgage meltdowns, massive lay-offs and investment scandals, we at Comic Wonder want to wish you a very Happy New Year!  We hope to toast to you all in our awesome Comic Wonder community every New Year and raise a glass of champagne and sing “old long since.”

Posted by:

Terry Aki, Comic Wonder season help and author of “7 steps that will change your staircase forever.”