18: Snapple

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Snapple

Original title: Monday's drawing: Snapple

Title text: Sn = tin

Explanation

This was the seventeenth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 17: What If, and the next one was 19: George Clinton.

Snapple is a brand of beverages that mostly sells bottled juices and teas. Its name is based on a carbonated apple juice the company once produced ("snappy apple"). In this comic, Cueball hands another Cueball-like guy an apple calling it a "Snapple". When the guy bites into it, his teeth are blocked by the apple's metallic surface because Cueball has infused the apple with tin. Tin is a metallic element whose abbreviation on the periodic table is "Sn" (as the Latin word for tin is "stannum"). Thus, the "tin apple" could be referred to as a "Sn-apple". The fourth panel is a silent wide shot, perhaps suggesting the joke was met with silence as a weak joke. As a meta-joke, the final panel might jokingly suggest that the silence is because those unfamiliar with the periodic table of elements don't get the joke. According to the caption at the top, James Zetlen presumably once made a joke to Randall similar to the one in the comic.

The title text continues the trend in early xkcd comics of explaining the joke rather than expanding on it.

Transcript

[Above the frames:]

This one is entirely James' fault.

[Two Cueball-like guys are standing and talking.]

Cueball: Here, take a bite of this Snapple.

Friend: food!

[Cueball's friend takes a bite.]

Friend: Ow! What is this?

Clink

[The panel switches to Cueball.]

Cueball: It's an apple infused with tin.

[Beat panel. A wide shot of the two.]

[Same scene, except the panel is lightly shaded and there is a box above saying:]

Those of you who know your periodic table should be laughing right about now.

Trivia

This is the first xkcd comic featuring James Zetlen.

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Discussion

Rikthoff (talk) Rikthoff (talk) Does anybody know what the correct date of issue of this comic is? Also, Does anybody know who James is?

There is a community portal discussion of what to call Cueball and what to do in case with more than one Cueball. I have added this comic to the new Category:Multiple Cueballs. Since the one named Cueball has all the interesting parts of this comic, it may be OK to keep him listed as Cueball. Just made a note that the other guy also looks like Cueball.--Kynde (talk) 18:13, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

After reading adventure stories for 3 hours, my friend took this comic to the humorous conclusion that a hero is simply a mix of helium and rhodium, and a heroine is made up of helium, rhodium, iodine, and neon. I then had to remind him that a) rhodium is Rb, not Ro, so helium and rhodium, along with sulfur, would be various herbs, and b) everything should just be spelled H anyway(see 1123: The Universal Label).PikminCreator (talk) 18:44, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Wonder if there is a apple for every element, Happle, Heapple, Liapple and so on.Dontknow (talk) 21:16, 24 March 2017 (UTC)