570: New Car

|< < Prev Comic #570 (April 17, 2009) Next > >|

New Car

Title text: Somewhere out there is a company that has actually figured out how to enlarge penises, and it's helpless to reach potential customers.

Explanation

Cueball is sitting in a nice sports car, and his (Cueball-like) friend asks when he got it. It turns out it was bought as a prize supposed to be delivered to the 100,000,000th visitor to his company's website. But the user did not react to the notice on the page about the award, even though it was flashing.

A well-known type of Internet scam tries to trick the reader into thinking that they've won a prize, often in the form of an annoying flashy ad banner (e.g. <script>alert("YOU'RE THE 100,000,000th CUSTOMER! YOU WON A FREE FERRARI!");</script>). A typical clickbait.

Cueball did have a fancy car to give out, but the winner didn't claim it, believing it to be a scam. It is a bit like the boy who cried wolf — given enough lies, the truth will eventually look like a lie.

(As coincidences would have it, the same joke appears in the much-loved British comedy series That Mitchell and Webb Look, in a 2006 John Finnemore sketch about a "MASSIVE YACHT!" giveaway. Presumably, Randall hadn't come across the Mitchell and Webb version when he wrote this comic three years later.)

The title text refers to another type of scam: advertising fake "male enhancement" drugs. Randall suggests that if such a drug did exist, it would be complicated to advertise effectively, since most people would assume it was a scam. Additionally, there may be a relation implied (intersection) between people having sports cars and people needing penis enlargements: big cars to compensate for feelings of inferiority^{[citation needed]} (or red cars to pay for cyanness).

Transcript

[A Cueball-like guy is standing behind, a sports car where Cueball sits turned toward him.]

Friend: When'd you get the car?

[Zoom-in on Cueball in the car.]

Cueball: It's the darndest thing. We bought it as a prize for the 100,000,000^th visitor to our website.

[Zoom-in on the friend.]

Friend: And they didn't want it?

Cueball (off-screen): Apparently.

[Pan to where both the friend and Cueball in the car can be seen, but not the front of the car.]

Friend: Maybe they didn't see the notice.

Cueball: It was flashing and everything!

Friend: How bizarre.

 add a comment! ⋅  add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅  refresh comments!

Discussion

This is the first explanation I've contributed. Feedback is welcome. gijobarts (talk) 00:40, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

• Very nice. Ekedolphin (talk) 09:44, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

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 Category:Multiple Cueballs. Since the one in the car is the most interesting of these two Cueball I have renamed in the transcript (and added explanation) so he is called Cueball, so it may be OK to keep him listed as Cueball. But since the other guy also looks like Cueball and they have about the same amount of lines this is one of the comics where there is no special reason to say one is Cueball and the other not...--Kynde (talk) 11:23, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

im not brave enough to do this, but someone should change the "here" in the clickbait example message from random page into the dont stuff beans up your nose uh huh page172.69.62.67 13:40, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Nvm, I did it >:] 172.70.110.65 18:03, 19 March 2022 (UTC)Bumpf (I'm pretty sure the IP i'm responding to is me from a year ago)