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Funnel Funnies
Thu Jun 24, 2004
Listen in RealAudio 
Tornadoes certainly aren’t known for being funny. But correspondent Bob Henson
recently caught up with a man who finds humor in the world of storm chasing.
BH: David Hoadley has been chasing storms since 1957—about as long as anyone.
He’s also a cartoonist and the creator of Funnel Funnies, a strip that pokes fun at
himself and his fellow storm nuts. It started in 1977, when Hoadley launched a
newsletter called "Stormtrack."
DH: Well, Funnel Funnies just came along about the same time as I thought of the
newsletter. I was trying to think of a varied newsletter with different sections to appeal
to different people. And it just occurred to me naturally, since I have a talent to do a little
cartooning and show the funny side of storm chasing.
BH: One of Hoadley’s main themes is frustration: the never-ending quest of the
chaser to catch up with a storm that always seems to be one step ahead.
DH: Oh, I suppose one of my favorite cartoons is the one where the chaser shows up
at the weather office and he’s looking depressed and haggard, and three or four of the
weather staff is coming up to him saying, ‘You should have been here last week. We
got these great photographs. This farmer got these pictures from his front porch. He
didn’t even have to get up from his rocking chair."
BH: When Hoadley started chasing in the fifties, it was an obscure obsession. Now,
it’s been featured in a Hollywood blockbuster. One of Hoadley’s classic Funnel
Funnies takes the idea of the Sophisticated Chaser to its logical extreme.
DH: And he would even hardly look at the tornado anymore. He would simply set up
his camera and then pet his Afghan hound and relax in the front seat maybe with a little
Mai Tai and not really pay attention. That was, of course, a humorous aside to the
desperation that most of us usually feel trying to get to the storm.
If you want to see a Funnel Funny, check out our Web site: www.weathernotebook.org.
We are funded by Subaru of America and the National Science Foundation.
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