I get the inspiration, but ... _Dilberito?!_ How was such ridiculously niche branding supposed to succeed?? Is the creator seriously that far up his own ass??
Scott Adams is so far up his own ass it's recursive. He believes he's one of the greatest philosophical minds ever and that he'll be remembered for anything he's done other than Dilbert. He's also a massive white supremacist and super sexist.
The New York Times noted the burrito "could have been designed only by a food technologist or by someone who eats lunch without much thought to taste."
And years later, Soylent came on to the market being designed by the exact same type of person.
I am either not high enough or too high to understand how that comic is making fun of dilbert. Or does he have a few comics that are about as nonsensical? (I only read a few in passing so I know very little dilbert lore)
Dilbert often has single-punchline strips where the punchline is spread over multiple panels, followed by someone commenting on the punchline. The punchline is usually that Dilbert is the smart straight man and everyone around him is incompetent (The same thing is made fun of in the pony comic). Finally, Adams has a bad habit of drawing his characters chest-up, hiding most of the character behind the desk or the edge of the panel (so he does not have to draw hands).
Those are the the things made fun of in the zippy strip, first the characters point out how you only see the top of them, then the "joke" is a jab at the repetitive punchlines, then the boss follows up with a nonsensical comment on the punchline. The stilted speech and Zippy standing behind the corner in the final panel are more in line with the Zippy comic strips than with Dilbert.
As a dad of two girls, these jokes exist in a lot of kids stuff. Part of what makes it funny is you're not expecting it, so it catches you completely off guard. Then you laugh out loud and you kids either laugh too because they think there was something funny to laugh at, or they just look at you like you've got 2 heads. Both responses only make it funnier to me
Watching the original run of Animaniacs as an adult was an absolute blast. So much stuff that completely flew over my head as a kid, plus other stuff that was lost in translation. Many references still fly over my head, but it's still great stuff.