Difference between revisions of "1072: Seventies"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Jump to: navigation, search
m (Waldir moved page Seventies to 1072: Seventies: Mass-moving pages to 'number: title' format, per discussion at explain xkcd:Community portal/Coordination#Page names)
m (replaced: == Description == → ==Explanation==)
Line 1: Line 1:
 
{{ComicHeader|1072|June 22, 2012}}
 
{{ComicHeader|1072|June 22, 2012}}
  
[[File:Seventies.png|Hey, man, the 1670s called. They were like 'Wherefore this demonic inſtrument? By what ſorcery does it produce ſuch ſounds?" ]]
+
[[File:Seventies.png|Hey, man, the 1670s called. They were like 'Wherefore this demonic inſtrument? By what ſorcery does it produce ſuch ſounds?"]]
  
 
== Image Text ==
 
== Image Text ==
 
Hey, man, the 1670s called. They were like 'Wherefore this demonic inſtrument? By what ſorcery does it produce ſuch ſounds?"
 
Hey, man, the 1670s called. They were like 'Wherefore this demonic inſtrument? By what ſorcery does it produce ſuch ſounds?"
  
== Description ==
+
==Explanation==
 
This is another take on the common insult "<insert some year> called and they want their shirt/hat/software/whatever back".  Randall has used this joke before in the comic "[[0875|2009 Called]]".
 
This is another take on the common insult "<insert some year> called and they want their shirt/hat/software/whatever back".  Randall has used this joke before in the comic "[[0875|2009 Called]]".
  

Revision as of 00:32, 9 August 2012

Template:ComicHeader

Hey, man, the 1670s called. They were like 'Wherefore this demonic inſtrument? By what ſorcery does it produce ſuch ſounds?"

Image Text

Hey, man, the 1670s called. They were like 'Wherefore this demonic inſtrument? By what ſorcery does it produce ſuch ſounds?"

Explanation

This is another take on the common insult "<insert some year> called and they want their shirt/hat/software/whatever back". Randall has used this joke before in the comic "2009 Called".

In this case, this one is funny because someone in the 70s would not know how to leave a voicemail because answering machines and especially voicemail had not been invented yet. Also, his telephone has a rotary dial, rather than a numberpad, so he can't "press 1". (I do enjoy the 70s guy with the hair and the bellbottom pants and no shirt. The pants the 70s guy is wearing are called "bellbottoms" and were in style in the 70s. They are called this because they are considerably wider at the bottom creating a sort of "bell" at the "bottom" of the pants.)

The image text plays off the fact that the telephone had not yet been invented in the seventeenth century.

For our younger readers

A GPO 746, the standard UK telephone from the late 1960s to the 1980s

Originally telephones had rotary dials instead of buttons. This is the origin of the phrases "dial tone" and "dialling a telephone number".