#237: Ted's New Friends

There are several other versions of this panel in which Ted is challenged by his interactions with new friends. In one he is huddling with the penguins of South Georgia & Sandwich Islands during a long cold winter after taking in the last night of Asparagus the Cat’s post-Cats (the musical) would tour promoting his acoustic alt-country album of songs based on T.S. Elliot poems. It’s my personal favorite, but it doesn’t quite work for, ahem, commercial purposes. So we’ll have to wait for The Rejection Collection for that one. In another, Ted is happy enough lounging with a giant sloth in Java, but it turns out Ted is a neat-freak and their relationship devolves into an Odd Couple-like bickering fest until Ted just retreats back into his tidy little shell and plays solitaire on his iPhone. There were more, including attempted tie-ins with Alexander Zebrafeld and Frank the Fly, and one bit with Felix the Double Helix that ventured toward the German Absurdism examples that Hanelore gave us the other day (e.g. Loriot’s rock-eating “Stone Louse”). Artie is thinking about a Ted the Socially Ambivalent Turtle franchise, but says he still can’t quite see the through-line bc he hasn’t gotten fully into Ted’s head yet. The Committee is holding out hope for a full Ted franchise with associated future tie-ins, bc Krenshaw says introverts are a captive market. He keeps saying it, and I think he means it as a joke, but it reminds me of The Princess Bride bc I don’t think captive market means what he thinks it means. Anyway, since none of the attempted franchise panels are quite working at the moment, and Ted is only slowly revealing himself to Artie, here is what the Committee did approve for now. I hope you like it. Happy Saturday. Now put down your phone, get out of your shell & go have some fun. -Ed.