Waiting For Godot

[Fat Hippo]

Reading a play?! Reading a play?! What's next? Playing a novel? Listening to a painting? Plays are watched, not read, or you should not bother appreciating them at all!

Your school may have been different, but we read at least a dozen plays, and only ever saw one live, and maybe watched 2 of them on video.

I'm not saying all of these work very well in the written form. In fact, it may explain part my disdain for most classical dramas. But it's also a regular part of most literary education. Unfortunately, appreciation doesn't always figure into it.

 

[bificommander]

My guess of the joke was "Tim Burton will always give Jonny Depp a big part in his movies, no matter what his character's role was in the source material".

Spoiler: For example: Who the fuck is Alice?

 

[JarinArenos]

Arg, why do you hate my brain? >.<

 

[Chrono212]

Ha! I get it. But makes me sad that something like that could easily happen.

Spoiler

Godot isn't a character in the play, the play is of the two people, appropriately enough, waiting for Godot.
Godot in turn could be a metaphor for anything from god to death to everything in-between.

I saw the play performed by Cpt. Pickard and Gandulf the Grey once.

 

[Farther than stars]

Reading a play?! Reading a play?! What's next? Playing a novel? Listening to a painting? Plays are watched, not read, or you should not bother appreciating them at all!

Your school may have been different, but we read at least a dozen plays, and only ever saw one live, and maybe watched 2 of them on video.

I'm not saying all of these work very well in the written form. In fact, it may explain part my disdain for most classical dramas. But it's also a regular part of most literary education. Unfortunately, appreciation doesn't always figure into it.

Such a same. There's nothing like the first time when you hear a heart-broken Romeo cry into the sky: "Then I defy you stars!"

 

[Dr. Mongo]

My guess of the joke was "Tim Burton will always give Jonny Depp a big part in his movies, no matter what his character's role was in the source material".

Spoiler: For example: Who the fuck is Alice?

That is how I understood it. Godot himself would be a mix of The Mad Hatter and Jack Sparrow. And the only time he would not be on screen would be for several appearances of Helena Bonham Carter.

 

[cynicalsaint1]

I know what Waiting for Godot is, but I'm not sure what that has to do with Johnny Depp or Tim Burton ... other than "Haha, Depp never shows up" ... so unless that's the whole joke I feel like I'm missing something here ...

 

[Uszi]

I've heard about Waiting for Godot, but didn't know enough to get the joke. So, being a good denizen of the internet, looked it up. So, the net result of today's strip is +1 knowledge, +2 cultural enlightenment, +1 chuckle.

Okay I'm lost.
Who's this Johny Deep character?

Umm, what?
Completely lost here.
[sub]I need a map.[/sub]

The point just flew over my head and appears to be on a flight to Mexico.
In other words...
Ya lost me after Johnny Depp.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_for_Godot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_for_Godot#Godot

Again, as someone who just really "got it," this is what I thought:

Johnnie Depp, who often is the sole hook people are going to movies for (Pirates of the Caribbean, the new Lone Ranger [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjFsNSoDZK8]), is in this case playing a character who doesn't even show up in the movie. Tim Burton also takes on these projects and does wonky remakes of things when they're better left alone. But, at the same time, Tim Burton loves doing these slightly tragic or tragedy type movies, so it isn't even inconceivable. And, Tim Burton does these huge overhauls, and he might do such an overhaul of the original material that Godot shows up in an adaption of a play that's famous for him not even being in it.

So, the joke is, I guess, 1: about Johnnie Depp usually filling seats, and here he's playing someone who doesn't show up, 2: Tim Burton's wonkyness, since they drew Burton's interpretation of Godot as someone wearing a hat with a carrot and a dog and shit, which is baseless since we never see Godot or no what he looks like, 3: As bad as an idea as it may be, it isn't really out of character for Burton.

Finally, I'm at least 65% positive they didn't mean this Godot:

 

[MetalMagpie]

I think it may be about the fact that in the play godot never actually shows up, so jonny depp wouldn't actually be in that movie.
I don't think that's funny though.

I know what Waiting for Godot is, but I'm not sure what that has to do with Johnny Depp or Tim Burton ... other than "Haha, Depp never shows up" ... so unless that's the whole joke I feel like I'm missing something here ...

I read it as "Tim Burton is so mad about crow-barring Johnny Depp into his films that he would do an adaption of Waiting for Godot where Godot actually arrives (played by Depp) and completely takes over the story."

You know, the same way he has crow-barred Johnny Depp into other films, completely ruining them.

 

[McFazzer]

*Snip*

It would be great if it was about toaster face Godot though.

 

[LavaLampBamboo]

This is a play about the pointlessness of life.

It is mainly about two men, Estragon and Vladmir, who are waiting for a man Godot, a play on the word God.
There are only two other characters, Pozzo, a slave-master, and his slave Lucky. If this seems like a tiny cast it's because it is, it's desolate. Lucky only has one line in the entire play, but this one line (in my version of the text) takes up 3 entire pages, it's complete gibberish.
(Also saw the Ian McKellen version, and I really wish I could find a recording of Lucky's speech, it was brilliant.)

Point is, God(ot) never shows up, Johnny Depp will never get his part. The play ends with them agreeing to leave and not come back, but they freeze, they never exit the stage.

There was also this lovely story that came out-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1277418/Sir-Ian-McKellen-mistaken-tramp-rehearses-play.html

To lighten the mood at the end, McKellen and Roger Rees did a tap dance. Y'all missed out.

Samuel Beckett was once asked about this and said "If Godot was meant to represent God, I'd have called him God. They're waiting for Godot."

I saw this when it was on with McKellen and Patrick Stewart opposite him. It was a really excellent performance and incredibly funny. I highly recommend it.

 

[Uszi]

*Snip*

Okay Uszi, how long have I been doing this?
Uszi, you know me. You know what I'm about.
Uszi, Uszi wat u doin?
Uszi, srsly
Uszi...
STAHP ET!

no u

*Snip*

It would be great if it was about toaster face Godot though.

I have to agree. Especially if everyone else is dressed like it's 1953 and Godot shows up in an electric visor and drinks 17 cups of coffee in two acts.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Yeah, I don't get it. Who's Godot?

 

[RC1138]

"Perhaps we'll get an erection!"

Best quote ever (one of my favorite plays).

That said I actually don't get the joke. Godot never shows up (kinda the point). Is it playing on Burton's odd way of reimagining series?

This is a play about the pointlessness of life.

It is mainly about two men, Estragon and Vladmir, who are waiting for a man Godot, a play on the word God.
There are only two other characters, Pozzo, a slave-master, and his slave Lucky. If this seems like a tiny cast it's because it is, it's desolate. Lucky only has one line in the entire play, but this one line (in my version of the text) takes up 3 entire pages, it's complete gibberish.
(Also saw the Ian McKellen version, and I really wish I could find a recording of Lucky's speech, it was brilliant.)

He wasn't God. Beckett once said something to the effect that if he wanted to to be God, he would have said God. Also there are more than 4 characters in the play... there's six, the two messenger boys (usually played by two different, but fairly similar looking, child actors).

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Umm, what?
Completely lost here.
[sub]I need a map.[/sub]

It's a riff on how Tim Burton misses the point of every adaptation he does in order to continue his Johnny Depp obsession (although I'm disappointed you couldn't find a way to shoehorn Helena Bonham Carter in here as well Grey. I mean, Tim Burton always does ).

Anyway, 'Waiting For Godot', is a very understated play about two men who are quite literally waiting for another man named Godot. However, Godot never actually shows up. Rather than a character, Godot is a plot device. He's figurative, and through him many ideas are explored. It's the sort of dark, quite abstract piece that Tim Burton might have done a really good adaptation of back when Tim Burton didn't suck, but if he did it today he'd make Godot the main character (just like he made Willy Wonka the main character in 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory', and practically made the Mad Hatter the main character in 'Alice in Wonderland'), make Godot 'goofy' just because Johnny Depp needs his pay check, and leave the actual relationship between the other two characters (which is what 'Waiting for Godot' is actually about) to get completely lost in the background.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

This is a play about the pointlessness of life.

It is mainly about two men, Estragon and Vladmir, who are waiting for a man Godot, a play on the word God.
There are only two other characters, Pozzo, a slave-master, and his slave Lucky. If this seems like a tiny cast it's because it is, it's desolate. Lucky only has one line in the entire play, but this one line (in my version of the text) takes up 3 entire pages, it's complete gibberish.
(Also saw the Ian McKellen version, and I really wish I could find a recording of Lucky's speech, it was brilliant.)

Point is, God(ot) never shows up, Johnny Depp will never get his part. The play ends with them agreeing to leave and not come back, but they freeze, they never exit the stage.

There was also this lovely story that came out-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1277418/Sir-Ian-McKellen-mistaken-tramp-rehearses-play.html

To lighten the mood at the end, McKellen and Roger Rees did a tap dance. Y'all missed out.

Samuel Beckett was once asked about this and said "If Godot was meant to represent God, I'd have called him God. They're waiting for Godot."

I saw this when it was on with McKellen and Patrick Stewart opposite him. It was a really excellent performance and incredibly funny. I highly recommend it.

What artists say about their work and what can be drawn from it can be two very different things.

Godot is not "meant" to be God, but he can be representative of God, as well as lots of other things.

 

[RJ Dalton]

Of course, if Tim Burton did direct this, we wouldn't have to wait long for Godot and we'd find out he's a manic-depressive with daddy issues and pedophilic subtext.