Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for March 31, 2022

Good morning™, everyone!

Poor Tracy! He can’t get away from it. (I did think she’d go along with singing that song.)

Not to Dick’s taste. ✨

Who predicted 12 arms? Good job!

For once, Tracy has it nailed. The big question is, why is he tuning in the show?

Good morning™, dreading disaster detectives !

Tess ! Don’t expect me home in time for supper all this week. Hey, chief !  Can we put this guy in protective custody and have Junior go out dressed up like fake Tonsils while we tail him for the inevitable curbing ?

HAHAHAHA!!! I know how you feel, Tracy! WOW! I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tracy look so disheveled. He looks like he came off of a 12 day bender. Are we sure that’s coffee he’s drinking? If so, maybe he needs something stronger, wink-wink, nudge-nudge.

One thing that’s always mildly bugged me about Tonsils (although I loved the original story and am enjoying this one, too) that it’s often been said that Tonsils was a parody of the pre-Elvis singer Johnnie Ray and that “The Rainbow Turned Muddy” was a parody of Ray’s hit single, “The Little White Cloud That Cried”. But “The Little White Cloud” is a very slow song, and Tonsil’s multiple arms, suggesting fast movement implies that “The Rainbow Turned Muddy” is a very fast-paced song. So I’ve always had a hard time imagining what the tune of “The Rainbow Turned Muddy” is supposed to sound like.

Whoever called it yesterday: Sure enough, twelve arms!

“Tess, Where’s the Whiskey?”

That second panel is awesome….LOL

More arms there than a mannequin factory!

Ye Gods, I agree!

Poor Tracy. That’s really annoying.

So turn it off……

Help! Help! Outer space aliens with many hands has invades the earth!

Dot better watch her high notes…She doesn’t want to shatter Tonsils’ glass eye.

Tracy has a headache, THIS BIG…and it has Excedrin written all over it.

Tracy’s face looks like he hasn’t had his coffee yet. And the way he’s dressed, maybe it’s his day off.

I know, detective – I feel the same way about Lipps, Inc.’s Funky Town.

Doesn’t this guy know any other songs?

Something about this song turns everyone into Kali.

A bad hands day. D.T. seem to be arthritic in his left hand and Tonsorial seems to have six fingers on one of his left hands.

I feel like vomiting!

everyone’s a critic

Hey Tracy, if you don’t like it, TVs have off buttons!

Another example of illogical forced plot syndrome.

Lazy plot indifference. Tracy is so pissed off he walks out on his good friend yet he leaves the channel on?

Give me a break!

poor Dick Tracy… maybe he should watch something else for awhile.

Both Tracy and Dot had bad memories of the real Tonsils. This second rate imitation is mimicking his voice. It grates on Tracy’s nerves and brings back bad memories of being shot in the head. Imagine the feelings of Bonnie Braids when she hears this. She and Sparkle were probably traumatized as children. Why would Tracy have this program on in his home? …and all for a joke.

Well, apparently the Dot View show does have a live band, and, apparently that bit of this “Tonsils” clone urging Dot View to sing this "rainbow song was planned. What wasn’t planned was Tracy tuning in and getting disgusted, as was Dot View when she first heard of this “Tonsils” impersonator had been booked for her show.

I note that the band appears to have been ready for this possibility :)

*I can’t get that SONG out of my3 head!!!!! And I’m starting to LIKE it. (sob)"

Gang signs, Tracy!! Arrest them!

For the last few days, everyone on this board has expected that Tonsils II and Dot View would sing together. Today they finally did. If you don’t think the story is going slowly, why are the readers all ahead of the writing?

That is definitely NOT the Temptation walk.

Tracy’s not digging it. I don’t know whether Dot is happy about it either. If she isn’t, she sure is being a pro about it for the cameras.

I’m laying odds that this is gonna be the swansong story for not only the “creative team” but for the strip as well

Tracy, way past exasperation at the revival of a performer who dang near “Kennedy’d” him, leaves his badge, fedora, tie, and trenchcoat at home…takes his pistol and the backup strapped to his ankle…and a full box of bullets, jumps in his car and heads to the dot view studios, and goes on a shooting rampage gunning down everyone in sight. Matt, Dot, Vitamin, Kandi, Frankenmindy, Coffyhead…they ALL end up feasting on hot lead justice, doled out by the now lunatic Tracy.

After an old west style shootout, Sam apprehends the lunatic Tracy, and as the disgraced Tracy is carted off to prison in the loving, warm embrace of a pretty white jacket whose sleeves tie in the back he rambles REPEATEDLY “Oh the rainbow turned muddy….”

Cut to the final scene (and the last crossover) as PORKY PIG appears and stutters his trademark line “T-T-T-THAT’S ALL FOLKS!”

If he got bent out of shape by being reminded of everyone who’s tried to kill him, he’d be a pretzel!

1-ASTRO: HEY! THE HOUSE BAND IS SWINGING! MAYBE I’LL FIRE THE BARRACUDAS!

DOT DASH: YOU DON’T HAVE TO – THEY QUIT TO BECOME THE HOUSE BAND AT CHUCK E. CHEESE! BETTER PAY AND BETTER SONGS!

2-DT: Uggg. What a night. At least the room stops spinning if I cover one eye. Hmmm. That reminds me – I’m due for an eye-exam. Uh oh… TESS! BRING A BUCKET! FAST!

Tracy…why didn’t you hit the mute button on your remote? Come to think of it, he might beat Coffyhead to the punch in taking this guy out.

“Ye Gods”….and me just drinking coffee…where is the liquor cabinet…I need something to take the edge off. Rum and orange juice is a good start. Tune in tomorrow….when we see Dick Tracy “loaded” and staggering around the house. Maybe he can sue Vitamin for “emotional distress”.

You’d think a dude being basically a cover band for a dead attempted murderer would generate enough bad press for it to sort its own self out.

MOVIE QUOTE—

“People of our class don’t go around killing each other!”

“Of course not.We just bore them to death!”

Lucille Watson&Errol Flynn—FOOTSTEPS IN THE DARK—1941

I love this! While not even close to original to have an old character run the same plot as the original story, great to see Dot and having the spasmodic arm flailing allows 21st century comics curmudgeons see how crazy Dick Tracy really was.

The final panel is perfect. A new avatar for Avenger09 or another Gouldian take that all culture after 1935 has unknowable positive qualities to the older generations?

Absolutely beuatiful “re-take” of the original scene.

Dick better get used to that song,because soon he’ll be stationed backstage bodyguarding Tonsils 2.

Dot looks like she’s having a good time.Maybe this time it won’t get spoiled.

Speaking of adlibs on talk shows—-

In the 1950’s,noted musician/insult comic/eccentricOscar Levant had a hit talk show in California.

The sponsor was either Emerson or Philco portableradios.

One day Levant blocked off the regular commercial announcer and did it himself.

He said the radio was “absolutely unbreakable” and threw it down on the studio floor.It broke into a thousand pieces.

Without missing a beat,Levant yelled—“Well,why should everything be unbreakable anyway!!?!”

The sponsor quit,but public outrage made them change their minds.

LOL!

I hate you,Eddie Moppet.You didn’t have a romantic bone in your body.

Wow over 200 comments, is this a record?

Well Wichita 1.0 has over half of them

I am firmly with Tracy today. I don’t need no stinkin’ “muddy rainbows, blah blah blah” with the Hindu divinity multiple arms! YE GODS!

You call this a TV classic?