Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for March 14, 2022

Good morning™, everyone!

I’m not so sure that Vitamin would be getting into this if he did know all the details. The real Mumbles was not the type of “legend” that Vitamin probably has in mind.

I hate this story already! LOL!

Vitamin is my least favorite “regular” character.

Cheers!

Vitamin should’ve asked Tracy about that “bad end”.

Good morning™, music mutant man fans. Tonsils? What about his six arms? That should make him a whiz on the drums, piano, or any number of instruments—even as a one-man band!

First panel today compared to last panel yesterday was not kind…..

Do the kids even dig this type of music today?

Good morning™, crappy cover bands !

I know this one is just getting started but I find myself leaning to the “StillDaMatt” assessment. I could be wrong and quite pleasantly surprised. I sure hope so. The last one will be hard to beat.

To artsyfartsyguy. Did the Runaways shortly ago. The song is okay and a good party tune at that but the best thing about those girls is how they look. (I’ll spare you the cmerb evaluation. LOL !)

If you get involved with crime, always come to a bad end!

We don’t remember him much, either.

“Remember kids, take a bit out of Mr. Crime.”

You’d think Coffy would have attempted to sign Tonsils—You can’t make ALL your money on Vitamin

Tonsils was a no-hit wonder with a novelty song that had local popularity. Some thought he had the potential to develop into a star, but he had no ambition and just wanted out. Unfortunately he was seen as potential witness to criminals and ended up as fish food. It was an interesting story arc… But an impersonator who does a song that never charted? What is Vitamin thinking?

What is with that guys left eyeball? It’s not gonna pop out, is it?

Like Tracy, Tonsils makes it a babit to be “well~armed!!”

Not Tonsils and the Adenoids? Awwww…

That doesn’t look like the Vitamin I remember. He’s drawn funny.

Check out Joe Staton’s take on Tonsils ten years ago today!

Vitamin should stick to theatre…Also, what year or decade is this story taking place in ?

Vitamin has no idea of what people are listening to in 2022…

Six arms is he doing the Jitterbug?

By that I meant this:

Talking heads for (who knows how long) to fill us in on yet another dead villain look-a-like.

Is this going to be another Shakey 2.0?

Bring back the guest writer!

You know, if the guy’s name is Mr. Crime, it may be best to give him a wide berth!

When this guy is not singing, what was his day job….six armed freak in a circus?

The Tonsils story followed on the heels of the death of Model Jones, Junior’s girlfriend. She called his name as she lay dying. Tonsils became a feast for Mr. Crime’s barracuda but the story was far from over. Sparkle and Bonnie Braids miraculously escaped death in a speedboat wreck after Tracy was shot. Rifle Ruby helped find the girls. Newsuit Nan tried to poison Mr. Crime with her special nail polish, which turned out badly for her. Panda served as sidekick to Mr. Crime. Judge Lava was a meal for the flesh-eating Muerte Vines imported from the Amazon Valley. Sam was driven into an icy lake but escaped in time to help Tracy take out Mr. Crime and Judge Rulings. Plenty of twists and turns led to a high body count. We’ve seen encores by Panda, Rifle Ruby, and the flesh-eating plants, along with a hungry young barracuda. It is possible that Tonsils had a posthumous hit with “The Rainbow Turned Muddy,” as death can be a great marketing device.

1-ASTRO ANDREWS: ♪♪♫ YOU AIN’T NUTHIN BUT A HOUNDOG BUT I WANNA GROOM YOUR POODLE IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN! ♪♪♫

2-COFFEE LATTE: Hmmm. Your typical patron will either be disgusted or very confused.

VITAMIN DEFICIENCY: Oh, they’ll be ok. They can’t hear anyway. ♪♪♫ GROOM YOUR POODLE, GROOM YOUR POODLE ♪♪♫ That’s pretty snappy stuff!

3-COFFEE: This might be the first time you need special insurance for damages done by what I expect will be some real Astro Mania by the end of the show.

VITAMIN: Tut tut, dear boy. I always have special insurance for my shows. Typically, it has paid out on seats damaged by leaky Depends and spilled Metamucil cocktails but I’m sure it could cover other causes of damage needs be.

♪♪♫ (finger snaps) GROOM YOUR POODLE, GROOM YOUR POODLE ♪♪♫

Only 2 days into this story and fans are already trying to bite up the writer. Ouch! I think Pac-Man was kinder to his targets…

@Neil Wick..Mumbles, how’d he get mentioned? BTW, the Tonsils, Mr. Crime et al arc was one of the longest running episodes in Gould’s tenure, probably around six months. His was pretty creative. This group, hopefully, will not try to duplicate that story.

MOVIE QUOTE—“I bet the Chinese food here is terrible”

Marisa Tomei—MY FRIEND VINNY—1982

Smart move so far.You don’t have to be a “continuity nut” toremember the 1952-53 Tonsils/Mr.Crime story.

The late Jay Maeder had a soft spot for him and refused to classify him as a villain.

“All he wanted was to be able to go on living”.

Maybe this is an apologia of a sort.Tonsils got killed under Tracy’s nose even t hough Dick was supposed to be protecting him.Maybe the second one will have a happier ending.

And if you t hink celebrity impersonation is out out of style,go to Las Vegas.

There have been several past stories where the songs Sparkle Plenty made as a child star attracted new interest on the nostalgia market.

How IS Sparkle’s career going these days?It’s been a long time since we saw Montana Joe’s radio station.

I wonder which year or decade that this story is taking place in ?And Vitamin knows nothing about his targeted audience and their taste in music…

This isn’t the 1950s…

Vitamin should stick to theatre…

You’d think he’d remember a guy with six arms.

SERIOUS QUESTION: Why is his left eye so weird?

Ah, necessary exposition for us new-bees :)

UNRELATED: Music is a funny business. When I got married, I worked for a music store chain. One day, a girl’ in kind of ratty clothes came into the store and put down about 50 LPs. She and a deluded friend had formed a duo called The Bampots, had done a cover photo shoot at the bottom of an elevator shaft (ironic), and convinced daddy to finance the project. She wanted to set up an autograph session. No albums sold and there wasno public interest.

My next memory concerns Willie Nelson releasing his frist album in a long time. We ordered heavily. Well, about 30 copies came back. Seems someone in the production had gotten confused and put an album uf novelty album of songs on various lame video games (Centipede comes to mind) in the sleeves. Nobody realized it until they actually tried to sing along with Willie. But they DID realize it.The comments we got were…colorful.

And one last tale of woe. TIMES SQUARE had been a big hit at the local theater (where, coincidentally, I had worked prior). Lots of music, so naturally there was a double album released. And equally naturally, we loaded up on the cassettes, which went for a hefty $12 each.

I guess comical and perpetually soused Uncle Beezer assemble the tapes. A customer brought back his tape with a complaint, simply telling me to play it and I’d see what was wrong. I did. The WAS no tape there — just the leader. Which meant $12 for a faint hiss that lasted a whole 2 seconds, and then it shut ff. Another impressive recall ensued.

Ah, heck. I’ll give you a brief one from my days managing a video store. There was a huge retirement home near the store. They’d rent a different VHS movie each week to play for the residents. Good clean fun!

Now, I don’t know who’d last rented Elvis’s BLUE HAWAII, but evidently they’d used our rental tape to recorded a sex tape, then dutifully returned it to the drop box. As that title rarely rented out, it could easily have happened a year or more in the past. Comments? Yeah.

THANK YOU,MUSIC LOVERS!!

Tonsils?

Who thought it would be a good idea to make an impressionist a character in a comic strip, where we can’t hear his voice?

Sometimes I think Vitamin is executing “Senior Privilege” and having a “convenient memory”! Wouldn’t his esteemed friend, Richard Tracy (sic), have filled him in on the Tonsils Story at some point, perhaps over a cup of coffee (or, for Vitamin, maybe a martini) during an Intermission at the Patterson?

Anyway, it’s an excuse for him to fill in The Great Unwashed (i.e., us) out there beyond the Fourth Wall….