Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for January 19, 2016

Oh my, Ralph and Ed are here today.

Looks like Specs and Spicy are going through the back (or shall I say trash) door. Now the chase begins…

Gee! When did Ralph quit being a bus driver and Norton quit working in the sewers. I always thought they would star there until Ralph lost 175 pound and Norton got a big reward for finding some fabulous item lost by Bill Gates.

Did Ralph ever do the garbage run with Ed? I thought he was only ever a bus driver.

People used to exit via the laundry truck.

Hmmm……..this has dark forebodings for sure…….

.Good morning all!.Cool! Ralph and Norton!

“Ya know, Ralphie, these bags are so heavy, feels like there’s a body in ’em!”“Don’t even say that, Norton. I don’t wanna go through all that trouble again!”

Not a good escape idea, especially when they turn on the compactor part that most garbage trucks have.

I guess budget cutbacks hit Tracyville…rather than lay off the extra bus drivers & sewer workers, re-purpose them….

Didn’t Norton work in the sewer, and Ralph was a bus driver? Did Alice really go to the moon? Ye gads, I’m old.

Well, I suppose the Honeymooners have new jobs. As for Specs and Spicy, this wouldn’t be an escape route. I suppose they are getting rid of some kind of evidence. A body is not out of the question, but it could be anything.

Uh-oh…..somebody got Specs…..POW! Right in the kisser!

Are Specs and Spicy trashed? Did the Apparatus get to them before they could skip to Cuba?Norton and his bus-driver pal, who seems to be moonlighting, may make a disturbing discovery. And away we go!

Hmm !

Is this the early, First Wave of Federal ‘Investigators’ ??

Has someone in ‘Authority’ finally arrived at the looted BANK ?

But you think . . . Four Billion in raw CASH is a Darned ‘Heavy’ Load to ‘transport’ !

Could this then, be part of the Gang’s ‘Transport Team’ (?)brazenly, still acting - right out there in the OPEN ?(With not a Policeman in sight !)

And a Six Wheeler Garbage truck ? That’s real Clever !As they’re apparently exchanging ‘Banter’ (?) about the ease in doing this Job . . .Fritz Ann and Team were probably over in Switzerland doing “security” on the Iran hostage deal, result they’re late - still flying in ! (?)

I guess, in due course, we’ll find out the ‘relevance’ of what’s being shown here (?)“Heavy” might mean it’s part of Specs’ and Spicy’s - ‘personal’ plan to escape the Apparatus ?Did someone ‘speculate’ (yesterday?) they’re thinking Cuba?

But as we ‘wait* to find out, we realize it’s going on close 4 weeks now - and not a ‘word’, on the ‘situation’ at the Bank that experienced the largest robbery in Dick Tracy history

Ok the guys got this one wrong. Ralph and Norton were never trash collectors. Ralph was a bus driver and Norton worked for the water department.

Yes,Ed was a subterranean engineer and Ralph was associated with the Gotham Transit Lines.

I loved Ralph and Ed When Ralph told him to address the Ball

Perhaps Specs and Spicy will be helped on their way by that nice couple upstairs — he owns a nightclub and she’s always trying to get into show business?

Back in the mid-’70s, there were quite a few folks in the Civil Service who had to take the choice of either a lower-paying job or being laid-off altogether. Cops becoming Bus Operators was the least of it. People in jobs that had several steps to full pay/qualifications were stuck at the step they were in – a progression from one step to the next that ordinarily took one year took five years.

Although I though Ralph and Norton had the seniority to escape that bit, unless they took it voluntarily – which was an option ;-)

Of course, now 98% of the old farts like me who remember those times are either retired or dead by now.

So they went from bus driving sewer worker to garbage collectors. That is definitely a sideways career move.

Today we have Kramden and Norton. There have been other Jackie Gleason connections and references in the past, like Fontane:Based on Frank Fontaine (Crazy Guggenheim).

[giggles] I couldn’t say anything more! Loved it :)

Wow, blast from the past to keep dem readin..

Hey! Ralph drives a bus and Norton works in the sewer!

O.k., I’’k a killjoy.

Comments about Ralph, the bus driver, now hauling trash….When I was a school bus driver in Woodland Park, Colorado, the contractor for the school buses was Laidlaw..In our training films for school bus drivers, we would learn that Laidlaw was a Canadian contractor for….of all things….Garbage trucks!.A common joke among Laidlaw drivers was,.At least trash doesn’t talk back at you!

Love the Kramden-Norton crossover!

@JPuzzleWhiz said: “You’ll notice they’re not referring to each other by their full names, so we’re left to assume the obvious.”Ralph always called him “Norton,” at least on the shows I have seen (to be honest, I haven’t seen all of the Honeymooners episodes.)Was there ever a show where he called him “Ed”?

Wow, once again the Comics Kingdom coloring is way, way different. (For the record, I think it is much better here.)

I mentioned it a couple of days ago, but “Happy birthday, Joe Staton!”

Happy Birthday Joe Staton

Perhaps it would have been more appropriate for the garbage guys to be Abercrombie and Fitch, from Hi and Lois.