MAY VOTING INCENTIVE UP NOW!!!
April showers brought May flowers! And Puck!
As for this comic…
I seemed to recall that this was the iconic seating arrangement in the Mystery Machine, with Scooby and Shaggy relegated to the back, but a cursory re-watching of the original show reveals that (for the most part) only Scoob was in the back. Fred, Daphne, Velma and Shaggy ALL sat in a row on the bench seating in the front. Which is patently impossible in a real van. You can’t fit four people in the front of any street-worthy van. Heck, you’re not supposed to fit three people in the front seat anymore, according to pesky safety regulations. As it is, I violated modern safety codes to make the front have bench seating here and give us three characters in the front.
Four would just be stretching the bounds of believability, I feel. I mean, there’s cozy and then there’s cozy.
lemme just adopt my Shaggy voice. Ahem… “Will you like, be cool, man?” My bro’s trying to score here.
Smooth.
She’s not even talking, but she’s speaking pretty clearly.
The wee ones are good at that.
Callback to #386!
Only this time with toddler disdain.
https://www.puckcomics.com/?comic=puck-386
Just keeps happening, I guess.
Shaggy shagging Scooby?
Scaggy shabbing Shoogy.
Is that the latest Joe Pesci swearing?
Yes.
Depending on the age of the van, it’s likely it’s an older van which has front bench seating anyway, whether it’s legal or not to use an old vehicle with bench seating is another question. I’m not sure what the rules are for old vehicles with bench seating is in Australia, let alone Canada. My dad still uses his ‘85 Toyota Hilux with a front bench seat, it’s still roadworthy. I mean, if rego lapsed you probably could’ve get it reregistered, but no prob on simply renewing it. With most old vehicles you can always still use them if you got a Club permit.
I do love that the old van is still throwing safety to the wind with only having the waist belts in the back seat.
I know the older vehicles are still legal to drive. I’m REALLY not sure whether it’s still legal to put three people in the front, though. In Australia or Canada.
Well, from a quick Google search, which fails to provide an definite answer, the knowledge that they still make vehicles with 3 seats in the front, like the Ford Transit van (driver has independent seat, but has two passenger seats on a bench), and the knowledge that they had front benches in vehicle 10 years ago, I’d say it’s NOT illegal in Australia to have 3 in the front. And if it is, it’s very poorly communicated.
Huh. Exciting!
Poor communication sometimes is. It’s those killjoys who want to know something that ruins it for the rest of us.
The rule in Ontario is that each person on the seat must have their own seat belt and must be wearing (closed) it when the vehicle is in motion. So if there are 3 seat belts on that bench seat, and each person is wearing it, then that should be perfectly legal.
I am just wondering who is holding in-person conventions these days. I am thinking that when the gang gets to the venue, they see a sign on the door saying that the convention has been moved to on-line only and for people to look in their email for the link to the on-line sign-up.
1) This is an alternate reality timeline that never seems to have experienced the pandemic.
2) All of this hinges on whether they’ll actually get to the con. Because they might not. It might all be a…
RED HERRING?!?
See what I did there?
I believe the word want to import from English (as opposed to American or Canadian) is “snogging”
oops, reply in wrong place! Not as funny here, oh well!
Used in a sentence: Shaggy and Scooby want to be Snogging.
It’s a good word.
Keep in mind that Scooby Doo started in 1969:
･ a dozen or more years before seatbelt laws in California
･ everybody was skinnier then
･ “roomy on the inside” was a very big deal back then: vans were so big on the inside, you could fit five people in front. If they were kids. Meddling kids count as kids. Yes it was stupid dangerous, what’s your point.
Stupid dangerous is the best kind of dangerous.
Doesn’t Miranda want a little sister ?
It would be a little niece. And she’s too young for that nonsense.
It appears Miranda is channeling “PUPPY POWER!!”, which is sure to make her as despised as Scrappy Doo was.
The wrong kind of puppy power. Or the right kind. Not sure.
I had a 1975 Buick Regal in the United States in the early 2000s with bench seating in the front and back, and shoulder harnesses? Only for front seat door adjacent!
I never got stopped for having and overly full vehicle. Laws? I dunno, but was never stopped nor cited for such a thing in the US up until 2009.
After that I had stick shift lightweight pickup trucks which would not comfortably accommodate three people (though sometimes we did through necessity), and was still never stopped.
Have back seat shoulder belts become a law? I very clearly have either a) not driven a modern vehicle with enough passengers to notice, or b) simply not been stopped from driving older vehicles, c) not had a vehicle with a back seat, or d) not ever having ridden in a back seat in a decade.
Back seat shoulder belts are now required by law on all new vehicles, and have been required for a while, I think. But old vehicles are mostly exempt? I think?
Law is confusing.
Is this the case even for center seats where it doesn’t seem practical?
Again, not driven a car in… a decade at least? Definitely not a car put out in the last decade.
According to Wikipedia, yes. Since September 1, 2007 in the US. ALL seats, even the center seats, have to have shoulder strap belts.
From experience, it’s a little interesting driving a stick shift ‘88 pickup with a bench seat and having two passengers. More so being a guy and giving a couple girls a ride home. ^.^
Shockingly pertinent here.
Miranda’s just annoyed because no one is worshipping her cuteness or cuddling her. After all, she’s a doggy just like her big sister! Where’s her attention gone? 😉
Life is unfair. She needs to learn that.
Well, the only one Colin needs to be accidentally in contact with is right next to him.
Well whaddya know… A Scrappy Doo episode where I approve of the little guy…
I aim for the impossible.
She’s saying that she’s just to young to have a niece just yet.
INCONCEIVABLE
Exactly. No one wants to be an aunt at the tender age of two.
I have a friend whose niece is older than she is
It happens.
Miranda is working for Phoebe’s dad?
That guy is in favor of teenaged shenanigans with a potential for life-altering consequences, so I’d guess not.
Spoiler: we’re ALL working for Phoebe’s dad. We just don’t know it yet.
man, i *almost* went all my life without seeings Shaggy/Scooby slashfic.
Almost.,
I thought I’d go and ruin that for you.
You’re welcome.
I think the primary question would be “if you have four people on a front bench seat, where do their legs go?” I’m not seeing a steering column shifter, which means there has to be an automatic or manual shifter in the center. In the pictures I’ve seen, the torsos of all four of the gang seem to overlap a little bit (forced perspective perhaps, maybe its a HUGE bench). But somebody is stradling the shifter, and since Shaggy is always on the far left from on perspective, that means one of the girls has to be comfortable with Fred reaching down to….shift.
Of course, I know what’s going on in the show. What’s going on … is that framing and ease of depiction is winning out over realism. This is referred to as a ‘cheat’ in the animation world. For instance, the most common cheat shot (used endlessly in this comic) is to put two characters in a conversation turned 45 degrees from each other, so we’re seeing both faces fully and not just in profile. Looks better that way.
The easiest way to depict a conversation between four or five characters is to put them in a line. And the Mystery Machine sections of the show were always conversational exposition dumps. So rather than cut from a back seat to a front seat and get all complicated, let’s just put them all in a ridiculous line in the front seat and be done with it. Unfeasible. But easier to draw and animate.
And work costs money, no matter what Mr. Disney wanted.
Disney dreamed of a happier tomorrow of indentured servitude.
Sputta-Putta-Pa IS fun to say.
No one wants a teenage pregnancy, but teens DO like the edge. Well, hardly anyone.
Hey, teens gotta teen.
Congratulations on finding a new, inventive way for Scrappy to be the least favorite Scooby character.
Scrappy the c-blocker.
Sad Trombone
I break new ground.
*Does his best Irish Catholic Priest impression*
Indeed. The child does the lord’s work for there’s a time to canoodle and a time when a couple cannot. The furries have enough fodder with this comic, no reason to give them more.
Why do I keep feeding fodder to the furries? Wish I had an answer.
“Guys! It’s the Mystery Machine, NOT the Shaggin’ Wagon!”
A+ for that one.
wait a minute. 2 guys, 2 girls, dog for cover, driving a van cross country? who you trying to kid here?
It was the 60’s too.
Now now, the Empress of Earth does not give stink-eye.
The Empress of Earth dispenses ocular distemp– noooo, really, I can’t go there! Ahem.
The Empress of Earth dispenses ocular disfavour!
Good save.
A mean look won’t do it alone. That there is the kind of disapproval that only crossed arms can convey.
Hey! Cross species relationships; that’s what back seats are for.
Uhhhhhhhh….
Yeah. Yeah, sure.
Well, it seems little Miranda has become her mom’s agent! What a big job for someone so young! :))
Did Puck deliberately teach Miranda to scowl when they act affectionately, or did she just figure it out on her own?
While a prosaic explanation is that she just disapproves of any change in their behavior from the constant video game playing that Miranda’s used to seeing … children are amazingly good at learning from their parents … when they want to … although what they learn is not necessarily what other people want them to.
I think the prosaic explanation is the right one. Although I’m willing to be convinced otherwise…