Wunnerful, Wunnerful!

Here's a Bizarro cartoon that, for many readers, may require a bit of explanation. Definitions are provided later in this post.

Once again, Dan Piraro improved the gag with his exquisite art, though I was pleased that it followed mine fairly closely. 

My first instinct was to draw a "funny animal" version of the whelk, but I decided to follow advice Dan gave me some time ago. He said that when he drew a cartoon featuring animals, particularly insects or sea animals, he would do photo research to see what they actually look like, because they're usually quite interesting.

His final art one-upped me in the realism department, since I showed an accordion strapped to the sea creature, while in his version, it looks as if the mollusc just sort of slithered on top of the instrument.

We both cheated a little with the other animal. It's modeled after the banana slug, which is actually a land animal, but the bright yellow color looks nice.

As promised, here are a few definitions to help those who were left scratching their heads by this gag.

whelk 
noun 
Any of various large, mostly edible marine snails of the family Buccinidae, having a pointed, spiral shell.

Lawrence Welk 
proper noun 
American musician, bandleader and television personality (1903-1992). Welk hosted a popular TV show, The Lawrence Welk Show, from 1955-1982. Reruns of the program are still shown on many PBS stations.

"Wunnerful, Wunnerful!"
title of this blog post
Variant spelling of "Wun'erful, Wun'erful!," a 1957 comedy recording by Stan Freberg, a multi-talented giant of American humor. The record parodied Welk's program, and featured Freberg imitating the host, and repeating the phrase "Wun'erful, wun'erful" over and over. Welk was said to have denied ever using the phrase, yet he chose it as the title of his autobiography.

By the way, if you aren't familiar with the work of Stan Freberg, you owe it to yourself to check out some of his recordings.

Also, please feel free to view my prior collaborations with Dan Piraro, all of which are archived here.