2010-01-03
Explanation
This comic shows a man furiously shaking and yelling at a vending machine labeled "Vendo-Matic," screaming "Stuck!? Stuck!? Come unstuck you son of a bitch! Come unstuck! AAUUAUAAAAUGH! AAAUAHAAGH!" The caption below reads: "Cocaine vending machines were a bad idea." The joke recontextualizes the familiar frustration of having a snack get stuck in a vending machine by revealing that this particular machine dispenses cocaine, which explains the man'''s wildly disproportionate rage and aggression over a stuck product.
The humor works on multiple levels. On the surface, it is funny because the man'''s extreme, profanity-laden meltdown over a stuck vending machine item is relatable to anyone who has experienced that minor frustration -- but the reveal that it is a cocaine vending machine explains why his reaction is so amplified. The comic also plays on the pharmacological effects of cocaine itself: stimulant drugs are associated with agitation, aggression, and erratic behavior, so a person trying to get cocaine from a machine would be exactly the kind of customer most likely to violently assault the machine when it malfunctions.
The votey panel shows a pink tube labeled "Adult Pixy Stix," which is a joke about how Pixy Stix (the powdered sugar candy that comes in a straw-like tube) already looks suspiciously like a delivery mechanism for powdered drugs. The "adult" version implies it contains actual cocaine or similar substances rather than sugar, playing on the visual similarity between the innocent children'''s candy and drug paraphernalia.