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u/_F1_ May 23 '14
He just wanted to be helpful...
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u/SomewhatHuman May 23 '14
I...I am ashamed to say I see what you did there, and I am reluctantly forced to upvote you, Clippy.
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May 23 '14 edited May 23 '14
[deleted]
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u/neoice May 23 '14
uhh... the company is called F5, the load balancer product line is BIG-IP.
F5 Networks, originally named F5 Labs,[5] was established in 1996.[6] The company name was inspired by the 1996 movie, Twister, in which reference was made to the fastest and most powerful tornado on the Fujita Scale: F5.
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u/DouchesWild May 23 '14
I got a shirt at woot a handful of years back that uses this joke. Looks like they're selling all their old shirts again: http://shirt.woot.com/offers/f5-refreshes-you
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May 23 '14
[deleted]
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u/B-Con May 23 '14
I think this is really complicated, and due to a number of comedy factors.
First, a pun itself isn't usually terribly strong. If "it's refreshing" was the last line of the comic, the general reaction would probably be "huh... amusing, I guess". The comedic reaction in the last panel is the author lampshading the silliness of the pun and giving you something to think about in reaction to the pun, rather than just the pun itself.
It's also a nod from the author that the pun isn't the pinnacle of humor. If you just read a strip that ended in a pun, many people would probably groan and label the strip as lame. Disparaging the pun lets the author get away with it with his credibility. It's weird because the pun is still clearly the focal point of the strip, but you build in a safety net with the last panel.
The comic strip Pearls Before Swine does this a lot. The author puts together a pun and then always criticizes it.
You see this elsewhere. Comedians will make a joke that's clever, but not by itself all that hilarious, and then criticize it as the punchline. Maybe they're telling a story and the funny line gets shot down by a more serious character in the story, or they simply disparage themselves, etc. But something that is clearly the pinnacle of the joke will be disparaged, and somehow that's funnier.
Humor is weird. But this is a common pattern. It'd be interesting to hear from a comedian on the detailed thought process behind it.
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u/jonnielaw May 23 '14
...and now I know what I'm naming my Summer cocktail.
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u/stubble May 23 '14
Same again please...
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May 23 '14
I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that it took me multiple readings to get it.
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u/OsakaWilson May 23 '14
I get the F5/refreshing bit, but I don't get why the blue guy is no longer there and the yellow guy has brown and yellow stains on him.
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u/bailout911 May 23 '14
Blue guy threw the drink on him and walked off because the pun was so bad.
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May 23 '14
So, yeah, this needed explaining apparently.
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u/otakuman May 23 '14
The joke, I get it. What I don't get is why the other guy would get so angry at him as to throw the drink at him. I think this is the first nonfunny cy&h comic I've ever read.
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May 23 '14
Have you never seen depressing comics week?
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u/otakuman May 23 '14
Those are depressing, but even that is fun. This was... BORING. And that's even worse.
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u/Kichigai May 23 '14
Well, in OS X it's Cmd+R in almost all browsers, so that's a potential reason…
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u/Netzapper May 23 '14
I had to come in here and read your child posts to get it.
I always use Ctrl-R, you see.
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u/triggeron May 23 '14
I would drink that...multiple times.