Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for December 20, 2015

Magoo is very old.

Oh Magoo, you’ve done it again!Again with a squint, a chuckle, a grin.Who? Magoo. Magoo, that’s who.Wishing Happy Holidays to every one of you.At Patterson the play’s the thingScrooge and Spirits lift voice and sing.Past, present, future bells do ringHoneymoon did Junior bring.Christmas Future arriving lastShows tomorrow shaped by the past.What might be may be sponged awayThus make good use of each new day.Oh Magoo, you’ve done it again!Again with a squint, a chuckle, a grin.Who? Magoo. Magoo, that’s who.Wishing Happy Holidays to every one of you.

A last panel laugh three days in a row. Thanks for the Christmas season joy, Team Tracy!

“Youngsters like Flintheart”…. LOL

.Good morning fellow DT fans, Magoo fans, and my buddy, Vitamin Flintheart!

Three cheers for Rutgers’ favorite son!

.Hello Gweedo!

.Nice work Pequod!

“A hand for each hand was planned for the world. Why don’t my fingers reach?” . . . (Tap-dance on my heart, why don’t you?)

Maybe Quincy has made a trip from the “Old Comics Home” to see this show.

Charming poem, Pequod! Captures the Spirit of Magoo….

Magoo’s remarks would certainly make Flintheart feel good about himself, and I bet Kandikane would appreciate them, too. It is good to see some Christmas cheer for Tracy and friends. I dare say the mood will change after New Year’s Day, if not sooner….

I’d been thinking the last couple of days the silhouette doesn’t quite capture Magoo’s likeness, but there it is in the third panel this morning: nailed it.

Oh, Staton and Curtis, you’ve done it again!

So am I the only one who is reading that in Jim Backus’ voice?

The thing that gets me about Magoo’s Christmas Carol is that it has nothing to do with his poor ivsion. He’s mostly blind, but he’s also an actor. By using a recognizable character and ignoring his primary trait, they accidentally gave him uncommon depth for a character of his genre.

Flintheart has a first appearance in 1944, as part of the Flattop story line. Quincy McGoo did not come along until Jim Baccus first voiced him in 1949. So that youngest Flintheart is actually older then McGoo.

But then, McGoo has never been able to see that well….

I could easily watch the original cartoon repeatedly throughout the season. Yes, it’s THAT good!

With Razzleberry Dressing! So happy to see this today!

Magoo recognized Tracy right off—-better glasses or contacts?

Are they doing the same thing they did w/ Popeye and Olive Oyl where they can’t really show their faces because of copyright law????

Besides, it makes the box office that much bigger in a few years when Quincy stars in the revival tour… “He’s Back!”

A very happy and nostalgic feel to today’s strip. There is a slight typo on the lyrics. There should be no “the” before “two shoes.” The correct lyrics are:“Where are two shoes that click to my clack?I’m all alone in the world.”

Here is a clip of the song on YouTube for those who don’t know it or want to watch it again:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7qOFB4IXA8

Nice poem, Gweedo!

Oh brilliant! I have this on DVD and saw it only a few weeks ago. This was spot on, with Flintheart, and the Ghost Christmas Past (notice the little flame?) Of course the song too. This strip thread is perhaps the best I’ve seen yet and a excellent, masterful tribute to the season and the classic. Good work, Team Tracy!

Thank you Team Tracy for one of the sweetest Holiday Gift ever to appear in print or computer screen. The best of the Season to you guys and and your families!

@Gweedo – It’s legal here !!! – Murray

giggles Yes, nothing like a natural blond ;)—Oh yes, nothing like natural section :)And Mysta (Moon) Maid is about as Natural as it gets !

@Neil Wick

Oh thank you Neil!—

You can use _ and _ for italics, * and * for bold an – and – for strike through, as long as there is apace before and a space or a period after the formatted word(s).

Here is essentially the scene in the first main frame of today’s strip for comparison:

Greetings to Vista Bill Raley and Comet, cpalmeresq, AnyFace, Night-Gaunt49, Neil Wick and all the gang. Enjoyable poetry from both Pequod and Gweedo today.We’ve been busy these past couple of months with the house remodeling, then a new furnace (unexpected, though I saw it coming), and the holidays.The Chicago Tribune has an archive site (I believe Neil Wick suggested it one time), and I went back and found the original newspaper ad for the premiere broadcast of Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol.This is from December 18, 1962:The “channel 5” is NBC affiliate WMAQ-TV, then known as WNBQ.

The CW Network is showing Magoo again this year on Christmas Eve, but I am afraid it will be heavily edited. Last year it was given a 90-minute time-slot, but this year it’s limited to one hour. Fortunately I have the DVD.A belated Happy Hanukkah, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you from me and “the girls.”

And greetings to all of the rest of the regular posters and newcomers here. I apologise if your name was left out.

The fanbase is growing, which is a good thing.

Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol is one of my favorites along with the Patrick Stewart version.

Still near-sighted, one would imagine. But: he’s facing the stage to watch the show, anyway…..not like when he was turned the wrong way while the players took their bows in the original!

A nice evening at Patterson Playhouse. I recommend a double-feature of Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol and Scrooge (1951) starring Alastair Sim. ‘Tis the season. Happy holidays to Team Tracy and their many fans. Safe travels to all. Steer clear of Magoo, as he does better seated next to Tracy at Patterson Playhouse than he does behind the wheel of an automobile.

Thanks to cpalmeresq, Vista Bill, Gweed (nice), Night-Gaunt49, blunebottle, Willy007, Sisyphos, Jim Backus, Chris Sherlock, Jonathan K. and Ray Toler for the kind words. Very much appreciated!

I don’t see what Magoo has to do with dick Tracy……?

Clearly in the Tracyverse, MaGoo’s “nearsited” persona is an Act, much like Jack Benny’s Persona of being cheap, can’t play the violin well (he was a concert level performer)

MaGoo is a well known stage,film, and TV actor who “character” is one of eccentric nearsightedness.

Wonder if anyone noticed he sounds just like a co-star of a popular 1960’s sitcom? :)

I think this sequence has gone about as far as it can go and we should be turning to other things tomorrow. How about a flash to something else that is happening elsewhere to give a taste of what’s coming up? They used to do that but suddenly stopped lately. This mini-story and the hangman story were rather bland and come across as filler. I hope we’ll get into some real crime story with an interesting villain soon. There hasn’t been much to comment on the last 3 months.

I haven’t watched these specials on broadcast television for years because I have them on DVD. I hope what you say about the Smithsonian is correct.Rudolph is still being shown in its edited version. Just out of curiosity I watched the ending of this year’s telecast to see if the so-called Peppermint Mine* scene had been restored. It was still missing.*The “Peppermint Mine” scene refers to the original ending of the special which showed the character of Yukon Cornelius tossing his axe into the air. When the axe hits the ground, Yukon does his usual sniffing and tasting of it and declares, “Peppermint!” and goes on to explain that he wasn’t actually searching for silver or gold. He was looking for a peppermint mine.This scene, which only runs for about 30 seconds, was replaced with the scene of Santa rescuing the Misfit Toys from the island. This was added to clarify the story. Viewers had written in complaining that the fate of the toys was not properly resolved in the original version.

Gweedo,.Holton was a captain (the highest civil service rank in the Chicago PD) and had been a commander (one rank above captain, serving at the pleasure of the chief)..The title of the book was THE THIN BLACK LINE. I used “African-American” in the next sentence to avoid redundancy.

Lots of love for Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol today.

I always wondered where they found a ten year old Mister Magoo lookalike to play young Ebenezer Scrooge.

Imagine doing the commercials the BBC way. Only between shows, not during them would be fine.____________________

Under the BBC model, set owners pay a tax, and the collected revenue is used to produce programming. Hence no commercial advertising.

Though I believe there are some commercial stations there now as well.

You guys make me glad I do not have cable.

When Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol aired in 2012 on NBC for the first time on network broadcast TV in 45 years, they hacked it up so badly that a lot of devoted fans of the show were very angry, so not having cable is no assurance.

Or someone gets someone to reprint it with updates and maybe a DVD with it.

Well, there is a DVD and now a Blu-ray Disk. Those would be worth getting. The author or the book has a blog and, last year, he discovered some new never-before-published pictures from the song recording session of the special. He says in his blog post, “As there are no plans to do another edition of the [self-published] Magoo book, I have decided to post the photos here.” Apparently, three editions of the book have been published. The third edition had extra material and the Blu-ray/DVD and was published in a limited edition of 250 copies.

Such a little thing, but I believe the lyric actually is:

“Where is a voice to answer mine back?Where are two shoes that click to my clack?I’m all alone in the world.”

not “the two shoes”.

BTW…

LA, LA, LA-LA-LA-LA-LA!

My favorite version of “A Christmas Carol” after the George C. Scott one. ;-)

Oh Magoo, you’ve done it again!

Again with a squint, a chuckle, a grin.

Who? Magoo. Magoo, that’s who.

Wishing Happy Holidays to every one of you.

At Patterson the play’s the thing

Scrooge and Spirits lift voice and sing.

Past, present, future bells do ring

Honeymoon did Junior bring.

Christmas Future arriving last

Shows tomorrow shaped by the past.

What might be may be sponged away

Thus make good use of each new day.

Oh Magoo, you’ve done it again!

Again with a squint, a chuckle, a grin.

Who? Magoo. Magoo, that’s who.

Wishing Happy Holidays to every one of you.

Intro (skip if you’ve already read any of the previous intros):

Hello, greetings, casual readers of past Tracy stories. I’m here because I’m on 2 missions. The first is something I’ve never done before, read each Tracy story by Mike Curtis (or his occasional guest writer) in one sitting each. I feel his stories are worth it. IMHO, Curtis is by far the best post-Gould writer this strip has ever had, and we’re all lucky to have him.

My second mission is to provide an immediately useful Featured Comment whenever needed. My 3 friends below will reply to me. You can read their replies if you like, but their only real purpose is to bump up this comment to the Featured Comment.

There are 2 basic types of immediately useful Featured Comments: the first type is to provide you with a Mumblespeak translator when needed. The other type (this type) is anytime that day’s strip quotes a real song. I will provide an html to a recording to that song so you’ll know the tune even if you’ve never heard it before.

End Intro

And here we have a snippet of this classic song from this classic version of A Christmas Carol. Here’s a video of the original:

https://www.youtube.Com/watch?v=b7qOFB4IXA8