Frazz by Jef Mallett for November 11, 2018

And directions often included instructions like making a left where the Johnson’s barn used to be.

If I didn’t live through it, I wouldn’t have believed it either, but life was different – and better, before the smell phone.

Pumped your gas, washed the windshield, and checked the oil – with a smile in a clean uniform.

My first job in high school.

I remember gas station attendants, that was a nice era. Too bad you can’t find that kind of service anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7qQ6_RV4VQ

Fraz looks good for an octogenarian. All the running must keep him young

That was back when we took pictures of OTHER people!

Humor is that short window of time between inappropriate and outdated.

In New Jersey, they always have gas station attendants.

And women certainly drove routinely when Frazz was a kid. Heck, they did when I was a kid. The claim was that they were bad drivers, not that they didn’t drive at all.

All types of humor are time sensitive. As awareness of possible slights to others grows, we try to self-edit, even though occasionally knowing what not to say is made more confusing due to rapidly changing mores. Even in classic comics, occasional strips tap a tender spot and remind us of that which was formerly acceptable but is no longer.

The times, they are a-changin’.

“time is no friend to jokes” – that may be the most profound thing I read today.

Honestly, I don’t know how women in my grandmother’s generation did drive At least in the 1920’s most cars were relatively light. But in the 40’s and 50’s they weighed as much as modern cars (3500-4000 pounds), had bias ply tires and no power steering. My wife has tried to drive my ‘50 Dodge, but if it’s not rolling she cannot budge the steering wheel.

People still ask gas station attendants for directions, albeit less often than they did when I started out 18 years ago. I’m pretty much the only one at our station that can regularly give directions without pulling out my phone (assuming they don’t ask for something obscure like a residential street).

Even more fun on the rare occasions when they then decide to argue with you. If you’re so certain you already know the (wrong) answer, why did you ask in the first place?

Why the iPhone product placement?

Frazz may remember pre-GPS but no way he remembers full service gas stations. Heck, he doesn’t even remember 4 channels on the TV.

The past is a foriegn country.

And some stations gave out free aluminum glasses with each fill-up!

I’m guessing that Frazz has heard other people talk about service station attendants. I’m in my 50s and when I started driving there were a few places (including a Hess station near college) that had attendants but it cost more to go there so I pumped my own gas to save a few $. I haven’t seen a service station attendant since the late 1980s. I doubt that Frazz has seen an attendant in action, unless it was an old youtube video.

I remember gas station attendants. I never liked sitting there while someone else messed with my car. I was thrilled when we got to pump our own gas.

What happened you ask? Liberals!

For even more comments/insights in to the past: https://www.gocomics.com/thebarn/2018/11/07?ct=v&cti=1451790

I remember gas station attendants when I was a kid, and my mom collecting the the glasses they gave out with each fill-up. There were still a few stations with attendants when I started driving in 1977. Even after I was married and had kids there was one station that had an attendant to pump gas. Now my adult kids pump the gas for me because I have a hard time getting in and out of the car.

Back in the 60’s, I worked at a Gulf Oil station. We wore slacks and semi-dress shirts with a tie (used clip-ons for safety). The Gulf Oil promise was to have an attendant to your car within 10 seconds. Full service station…oil change, tune ups, tires, etc.

for dated jokes watch very old Bugs Bunny cartoons. You have to know history to get the puns.

Re: Time Sensitive Humor: One of my favorite Todd Snider songs, ‘All Right Guy’, contains references to ‘that book with pictures of Madonna naked’, ‘It ain’t like I’m going on TV and tearing up pictures of the Pope’ and being pulled over by police and made to ‘do the stupid human tricks’.

kind of disappointed in Frazz today, Spend almost a weekon holloween and nothing on armistice day / veterans day

Hence the outdated term “service station.”

Also today: https://www.gocomics.com/fredbasset/2018/11/11?ct=v&cti=1487532

15 hrs · Frazz ANACHRONISMS AND JOKES

It’s interesting how, anachronism aside, most of the stuff you can’t joke about anymore is stuff we shouldn’t have been joking about in the first place, and that we’re just a little more advanced now.

Which I suppose makes the joke itself an anachronism.About this website

gocomics.comFrazz by Jef Mallett for November 11, 2018 | GoComics.com

Some states (like New Jersey) still have gas station attendants. There are no self service because it is against the law.