42: Geico

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 07:49, 26 October 2017 by Fabian42 (talk | contribs) (Trivia)
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Geico
David did this
Title text: David did this

Explanation

This comic references a long-running ad campaign for Geico insurance in which a character (different in each commercial) lists a series of horrible events or news, but then caps it off with "but I've got good news: I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico" – news that may be good, but is usually either trivial compared to the magnitude of the preceding bad news, or else is said to the person whom all of the preceding bad news applied to, giving them false hope that the good news was for them. It became a recognizable pop culture phrase. Geico's ad is also mentioned in 870: Advertising

In this one-panel comic, Cueball parodies the punchline by saving money on his car insurance by intimidation, instead of choosing the best provider.

The title text Randall attributes this comic to the unknown friend David. He does the same in 51: Malaria and 100: Family Circus. We can assume (or rather, we can hope) that "this" refers to the act of writing the comic, as opposed to the act of threatening his insurance agent.

Transcript

[Cueball holding a golf club.]
Cueball: I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by threatening my agent with a golf club.

Trivia

  • This was the 38th comic originally posted to LiveJournal.
  • Original title: "Monday's Drawing: Geico"
  • Original Randall quote: "Current mood: :( sick"
    • The sad smiley was green with two x for eyes.
    • It suggests that he was feeling really bad.
    • This is further supported by the fact that he made a reply to the first comment on LiveJournal "hehe, silly".
    • His reply: "No laughing, 'less you want some of this too! *hefts golf club menacingly*"
  • This comic was posted on xkcd when the web site opened on Sunday the 1st of January 2006.
    • It was posted along with all 41 comics posted before that on LiveJournal as well as a few others.
    • The latter explaining why the numbers of these 41 LiveJournal comics ranges from 1-44.


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Discussion

Is David a reference to David and Goliath? 108.162.254.169 09:14, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and maybe there is an other pun: The US Volkswagen Rabbit is named Golf in Europe and many other countries. A small car owner (Rabbit/Golf/David) fights against the big company (Geico/Goliath).--Dgbrt (talk) 20:48, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
No. 108.162.219.58 01:28, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
No. 108.162.219.58 01:28, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I would not be surprised to find that the David in this (and other) comics is in fact David Throne. 173.245.54.194 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Is "No laughing, 'less you want some of this too! *hefts golf club menacingly*" really a hint to him being sick? And isn't him himself saying that he is sick a much bigger hint? I don't think there's much value in writing that there then, but I didn't just delete it, because it contains some information. Fabian42 (talk) 07:51, 26 October 2017 (UTC)