1648: Famous Duos

|< < Prev Comic #1648 (February 26, 2016) Next > >|

Famous Duos

Title text: The Romeo and Butt-Head film actually got two thumbs up from Siskel and Oates.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Needs to be expanded; Needs more for the main explanation and more info on what the combos would mean to people compared to the originals. It would be great if the cycles below was updated to fit with the table, so Thelma and Louise was 1 in both (and all the other numbers in the cycles thus also increased by one.) More wiki link in the first table. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

In popular culture (the term is loosely used in this case) there are many famous duos, such as Calvin & Hobbes (six-year-old boy and his toy tiger, from the cartoon strip with the same name) or David & Goliath (future King of Israel and giant, from the Book of Samuel, Old Testament). In this table, Randall describes a fictional parallel universe where the same names are used in different combinations -- instead of Calvin, it is now Thelma (from the movie Thelma & Louise) who is paired up with Hobbes, and Calvin is instead paired of with the King, from Anna and the King. In all cases the one mentioned first on the list is also mentioned first in our universe, so it is always of the form Calvin and the King, never Calvin and Anna. There are 24 duos, and all 48 partners are mentioned (they go through four cycles).

The humor of this comic comes from the ridiculousness of the pairings, and the reader's imagination of the stories that are created with the pairs. See the whole list of real duos as well as the list of alternative duos below.

In the title text, alternative movie Romeo and Butt-Head is mentioned, the fifth entry on the list. This is a combination of the famous Shakespeare play "Romeo and Juliet", which was filmed (among other times) as Romeo + Juliet in 1996 with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the leading roles. Butt-Head is the less stupid one in the duo from the animated TV series Beavis and Butt-Head (and a film). As Romeo and Juliet is one of the best known love stories and Butt-Head is one of the most disgusting teens ever depicted on the big screen, the combination could create disturbing pictures in people's heads (especially of teenage girls).

In the alternative universe this movie has been released, and here it gets the best possible review of two thumbs up from Siskel and Oates. Gene Siskel was paired with Roger Ebert, when they reviewed movies as the famous duo Siskel and Ebert. They were widely known for the "thumbs up/thumbs down" review summaries, with their best combined review being Two Thumbs Up.

In the alternative universe Siskel gives the film a (surprising) thumbs up, but Ebert has been replaced with Oates, who also approves of the film. This is a reference to John Oates of Hall & Oates, an American musical duo from Philadelphia.

There also exists a comedy duo named Garfunkel and Oates, formed by Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci, who chose the "Garfunkel and Oates" name by combining the second names from Hall & Oates and Simon and Garfunkel (who are both mentioned in the main comic). Although this exact combo would not be possible in the XKCD version, as it takes the second names from two duos rather than the first name from one and the second name from another, there may definitely be a deliberate reference to this group as well which has taken the parallel universe idea into our universe.

List of real duos

• See the list of alternative duos below.

Famous duos in this universe

Name	pairing	Partner	From	Name index	Partner index	Explanation
Thelma	and	Louise	road trip film	1	3
When Harry	Met	Sally	romantic comedy film	2	16
Batman	and	Robin	comic book characters	3	4
Antony	and	Cleopatra	historical figures	4	12
Romeo	and	Juliet	Shakespeare characters	5	24
Bonnie	and	Clyde	historical figures	6	7
Pinky	and	the Brain	TV show	7	20
Simon	and	Garfunkel	musical duo	8	22
Beauty	and	the Beast	fairy tale characters	9	10
Beavis	and	Butthead	TV show	10	5
Rocky	and	Bullwinkle	TV show	11	2
Abbott	and	Costello	comedy duo	12	17
Dr. Jekyll	and	Mr. Hyde	book	13	15
Samson	and	Delilah	Biblical characters	14	11
Butch Cassidy	and	the Sundance Kid	historical characters and famous movie	15	23
Bill	and	Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Bogus Journey	movie series	16	6
David	and	Goliath	Biblical characters	17	8
Sherlock Holmes	and	Dr. Watson	Arthur Conan Doyle characters	18	19
Jay	and	Silent Bob	View Askewniverse characters (Clerks movies)	19	18
Anna	and	the King	movie, based on Anna and the King of Siam	20	21
Calvin	and	Hobbes	comic series	21	1
Timon	and	Pumbaa	characters from the Lion King film series	22	14
Mary Kate	and	Ashley Olsen	twin actresses	23	13
Mario	and	Luigi	video game characters	24	9

List of alternative duos

• See the list of real duos above.

Famous Duos in a nearby parallel universe

Duo name	Explanation
Thelma and Hobbes
When Harry met Bullwinkle
Batman and Louise
Antony and Robin
Romeo and Butthead
Bonnie and Ted's excellent adventure
Pinky and Clyde
Simon and Goliath
Beauty and Luigi
Beavis and the Beast	Beavis starts with the same letters as Beauty
Rocky and Delilah
Abbot and Cleopatra
Dr. Jekyll and Ashley Olsen
Samson and Pumbaa
Butch Cassidy and Mr. Hyde
Bill and Sally's Bogus Journey
David and Costello
Sherlock Holmes and Silent Bob
Jay and Dr. Watson
Anna and the Brain
Calvin and the King
Timon and Garfunkel	Timon is put together with Garfunkel, which makes it a close match to Simon and Garfunkel.
Mary-Kate and the Sundance Kid
Mario and Juliet

Cycles

There are four cycles. The longest starts with "Thelma" and ends with "Louise" as follows:

• First cycle: length 15

   Thelma & Louise
   Calvin & Hobbes
   Anna   & the King
   Pinky  & the Brain
   Bonnie & Clyde
   Bill   & Ted
   Harry  & Sally
   Rocky  & Bullwinkle
   Samson & Delilah
   Timon  & Pumbaa
   Simon  & Garfunkel
   David  & Goliath
   Abbot  & Costello
   Antony & Cleopatra
   Batman & Robin

This means, it starts with "Thelma", paired with "Hobbes" diagonally down, from "Hobbes" to "Calvin", who is paired with "the King" and so on, until "Batman" is paired with "Louise", completing the cycle.

• Second cycle: length 4

   Romeo  & Juliet
   Beavis & Butthead
   Beauty & the Beast
   Mario  & Luigi

• Third cycle: length 3

   Dr. Jekyll    & Mr. Hyde
   Mary-Kate     & Ashley Olsen
   Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid

• Fourth cycle: length 2

   Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson
   Jay             & Silent Bob

Assigning an index starting with 0 (= Thelma & Louise) to 23 (= Mario & Luigi), they can be written as:

   (0, 20, 19, 6, 5, 15, 1, 10, 13, 21, 7, 16, 11, 3, 2)
   (4, 9, 8, 23)
   (12, 22, 14) 
   (17, 18)

Transcript

[Caption above the panel:]

Famous Duos in a nearby parallel universe

[A list with 24 duos with a gray “and" between the two names (in one case it is a “met") and three times there is a gray word before (once) or after (twice) the names. The list is centered with the “and" in the middle disregarding the length of the names on each side:]

Thelma	and	Hobbes
When Harry	met	Bullwinkle
Batman	and	Louise
Antony	and	Robin
Romeo	and	Butthead
Bonnie	and	Ted's excellent adventure
Pinky	and	Clyde
Simon	and	Goliath
Beauty	and	Luigi
Beavis	and	the Beast
Rocky	and	Delilah
Abbot	and	Cleopatra
Dr. Jekyll	and	Ashley Olsen
Samson	and	Pumbaa
Butch Cassidy	and	Mr. Hyde
Bill	and	Sally's Bogus Journey
David	and	Costello
Sherlock Holmes	and	Silent Bob
Jay	and	Dr. Watson
Anna	and	the Brain
Calvin	and	the King
Timon	and	Garfunkel
Mary-Kate	and	the Sundance Kid
Mario	and	Juliet

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

Discussion

No rhyme nor reason to these pairings?

It appears the pairings are completely random. I was looking for some deeper meaning to them but it seems this is one of those comics to be taken entirely at face value. 108.162.216.12 14:18, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Aren't "Pinky and Clyde" also the names of the pink and orange Pacman ghosts? 108.162.216.36 11:48, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, this is true. Are there any other sensible pairings? 173.245.54.35 17:10, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I noticed an interesting pun with "Timon and Garfunkel" in that "Timon" is the same as "Simon" just with a different first letter. And "Mario" rhymes with "Romeo" 141.101.70.61 20:25, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I added this to the explanation. Mikemk (talk) 05:45, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

There seems to be many sensible pairings... --Kynde (talk) 16:19, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

You've already posted the correct pairs, but of course I wanted to draw them with lines, nursery school style:

http://i.imgur.com/tWTJAYC.gif

108.162.228.143 15:33, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Possible inspiration

Possible inspiration: the comedy music duo calling themselves Garfunkel and Oates 108.162.216.48 15:45, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that was my first thought as well. Never heard of Hall. 108.162.219.5 16:08, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

If you're from the U.S. and over 35, you probably should have. Hall & Oates are the best-selling musical duo of all time. Fryhole (talk) 20:47, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

"Never heard of Hall", this statement saddens me greatly, LOL! It's up there with Kanye fans thinking he discovered Paul McCartney. :) Wow. I myself had barely heard of Garfunkel & Oates until I looked up and watched their show, they're the obscure ones here. I, however, agree that they probably inspired this comic, or at least contributed. - NiceGuy1 198.41.235.191 00:54, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

I was thinking of (Captains) Scott and Oates , I must admit, but then I'm British. (Needs more emphasis... "...but then I'm British!!" That's better. We do love our glorious failures, at least our historic ones.) 162.158.152.95 10:22, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

As currently described, the cycles thing does not make any sense to me. The order seems wrong. For example, the way the first cycle makes sense is to start with Thelma and Louise, Batman and Robin; and end with Anna and the King,Calvin and Hobbes. That way you've arrived back at the top and would only repeat if you continued. Can anyone justify the current order? Trlkly (talk) 19:01, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, you can do it that way and will arrive at the same cycle lengths, each cycle just backwards. The way I did it was to go from "Thelma" to "Hobbes", then go to "Calvin" because that's who "Hobbes" belongs to, then go from "Calvin" to "The King" and so on. If the first name is the order of couples, then the second name basically just tells you the index where to jump next, that's usually how permutations are written. Your way considers the second names to be in the right order and uses the first as an index to jump to next. I also doubt it's an important part of the meaning, but I was curious how long the cycles would be. or (talk) 19:38, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

The rating system for "At the Movies", at least during Siskel and Ebert's term, was that each reviewer would give a thumbs up or thumbs down. "Two thumbs up" referred to the aggregate rating when both reviewers liked the film. The explanation said that Siskel gave Romeo and Butthead two thumbs up, which wouldn't make sense if we assume that the show's rules were the same. Fryhole (talk) 20:47, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Haven't there been some similar comics? I cannot remember which... The style reminds of 1625: Substitutions 2 and 1288: Substitutions. But they are not like this in theme. --Kynde (talk) 23:08, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I thought it was interesting how there's only one "Bill" and one "Ted", but both their movies are represented, I thought it indicated that there was some mismatch, like an incomplete pair somewhere... But sorting it out, I realize now that's it's only that "Bill" got one complete title, "Ted" the other. Oh well. Usually view these on my iPad, I needed a computer to truly analyze. Turns out I nerd-sniped myself, LOL! - NiceGuy1 198.41.235.191 00:47, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Seems to me that Harry/Sally are outliers here. Every other pair is exclusively, or by far most commonly, known by the same regular pairing format of "A&B," but Harry/Sally are not most often named as a duo, as 'Harry & Sally,' but through the movie's title, "When Harry Met Sally." When I saw 'Sally' in my first read-through, I instantly wondered "Who's the X in 'X & Sally?" (Having already managed to forget 'When Harry Met' above.) The only 'A&B format' pairing which I could casually dredge up with a 'Sally' was "Sally Rand And Her Magic Fan," a risqué 1930's-40's burlesque performance in which a seemingly near-nude Ms. Rand held & used large ostrich feather fans as strategic cover, thereby teasing the audience. However, in that instance not only was Sally's A&B 'partner' an inanimate object (& thus not quite a "duo"), Sally was the pair's 'A,' while the comic's pattern requires her to be the second, 'B' name. Miamiclay (talk) 18:09, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

"Mario and Joliet" is the title of an episode of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show that retells Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. --Tepples (talk) 02:30, 1 March 2016 (UTC)