Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for August 14, 2014

Good morning guys from Vista Bill!

Good morning, VistaBill! Things were sure looked at differently in “1944”, eh?

On the cup " Ovaltine" was the original sponser of Little Orphan Annie on Radio

Good morning, VistaBill, cpalm, Jim and all the latecomers!“Young?” Golly, Mrs. SIlo needs new specs!

And for those of us who live in the Vancouver, BC area, we also recognize Ovaltine as the name of a funky café on East Hastings, which has been featured in several movies, including a scene in “I, Robot.”

I could be wrong….but that might be the first time any product has ever been listed in a Dick Tracy strip. Usually brand names are ignored and instead just “paint”, “chilli”, “hamburgers” and so on.

So, Ma Silo has the hots for Tracy. For her, I’m sure he is “young,” although he’s obviously too old for Annie. That’s a good plan, though, taking her to the movies. Seems normal, so they can meet without anyone being suspicious. (He is pretty handsome in the uniform, though, you’d have to admit.)

Whoever said that they didn’t have permission to say “Ovaltine” on Sunday, today shows that it wasn’t the reason. I thought at the time that it was just for the effect of not finishing the sentence.

Ma Silo, C-O-U-G-A-R!

Slowly, the plot thickens. Also, the cup of Ovaltine. If Ma Silo can keep her lust under control, Tracy’s plan should work, getting Annie and him together to plan their escape. (But I ask again, how they can plan an escape unless they know the parameters of their imprisonment?)

Actually, this doesn’t look at all like Mr. Silo. Harold Gray always depicted Mr. Silo as clean shaven. The man in panel one looks more like Mr. Futile. Annie stayed with the Futiles in Cosmic City in the early 30s.

Good morning, VistaBill and other fans. I suspect that Dick will take Annie to the movies during the Belinda radio show.

Good morning Gweedo.

“A Hansom Young War Hero…”? Whatever Axel is doing to the townsfolk is making them see Dick as Younger than he actually is.

The Dr. Magpie Chronicles..

Chapter 8.

“Ye Gads, someone has grabbed Annie from behind and is trying to strangle her”! Tracy exclaimed out loud while springing into action. As he bolted away from the plane and towards Annie he quickly figured it would take him about 30 seconds to get to her. “Not as young as I used to be”, he reluctantly acknowledged as he began to huff and breath heavily. He was glad when he saw that Annie was trying hard to get out of the grip of her assailant. “Spunky girl, she’s buying time for me to get to her”

.

Annie, shocked to be attacked from behind was angry at herself than anything else. “How could I be so careless, allowing someone to sneak up behind me”! She though as she tried in vain to loosen the hands wrapped around her throat. “Get off of me Mister”! She managed to blurt out while trying to kick him in his knees. “Sorry girly but I’ve got my orders”! Annie was surprised that she felt no fear, only anger. “Never again will I let anyone harm me”! Annie determined while biting down hard on several fingers wrapped around her mouth causing her assailant to briefly let go while letting out a loud yell. “OOWWWW. Now you’ve done it! I’ll make you suffer greatly for that”!.

A brief look of horror came upon Tracy’s face quickly replaced by one of determination when he realized he was separated from them by an 8 foot fence. Without breaking stride, Tracy leaped as high as he could when he reached the fence, grabbing hold of it about half way up. Summoning up all his strength he climbed the rest of the way to the top, then leaping off he managed to land directly on top of Annie’s assailant, knocking the wind out of both of them..

Annie, bracing herself for his continued attack almost jumped out of her sneakers when out of thin air someone suddenly jumped on top of her attacker, causing a quick end to his attack on her.“Gee Mister, thanks! You saved my life”! Annie looked towards the two men who were lying on the ground behind her. Her assailant who was definitely knocked out and the guy who seemed to come out of nowhere to save her from certain death. She watched as he struggled to rise to his feet, finally making it upright..“Are you alright, young lady”? Annie gave Tracy a quick look-over, deciding right away that she’d never seen him before. “Doesn’t matter who he is, he saved my life, that’s for sure”! She thought to herself before answering him. “I am now but golly, I’d be dead if you hadn’t stopped this guy from strangling me”!“Glad to be of assistance. Do you know who this bum is”? Annie looked directly at the face of her assailant who was lying on his back, deep in la la land. “Gee, I don’t know, maybe I’ve seen him before,,Wait! I have seen him. He’s the guy who handed me a flyer just a little while ago”. Annie handed the flyer she’d put in her pants pocket to him to look at. She waited a moment as he looked over the flyer then heard him say, “The mysterious Dr. Magpie. Very interesting”! Annie, figuring she’d been patient long enough decided it was time to get tough.“Who are you Mister and why were you on this Warbucks International plane”? Annie saw that the guy was thinking about what she asked him then was very surprised to when she heard his answer. “Why, my name is Dick Tracy and I work for Oliver Warbucks. He asked me to investigate Dr. Magpie”!.

To be Continued…..

Thanks Nun’Ya Bidness for your interest in my silly story. Took a little vacation with the family.

I Love the Ovaltine Cafe…usta have coffee there, way back, now that neighborhood sure has changed! .Dick is about to embark on some “Police Activity”

Since the “Belinda” radio show is so important to Axel’s plans, and since he pretty much controls the town, it may be that there is no movie showing in the local theater until after the broadcast.

Old Lady Silo warns Dick, “Don’t pull the old popcorn box trick on her; she wasn’t born yesterday!” And then Dick thinks about having to answer to Punjab.

Actually, it’s Tracy taking a young girl to the movies a time or two that’s creepy

First and foremost – good morning VB and all! Time to dust off my Magpie Booster button – great job and nice to have the BB franchise rekindled.

Now – for those of you who are like me and too young to have first-hand knowledge of such things, I’ve read that some movie houses would actually air a popular live radio broadcast as an opening act to whatever movie they were showing.

Can any of our seasoned posters confirm this? If so, that could eliminate the possibility of anyone missing the Belinda broadcast by catching a matinee.

OK, let’s look at this logically. If we dismiss the “It’s only just a dream” scenario then what’s happening can have only one of two explanations. Either it’s an elaborate plot by Axel who has somehow and somewhere built an entire town in the year 2014 and has managed to keep it hidden from everyone OR Diet’s project went haywire and Annie & Tracy are really in 1944. I personally am leaning to the latter but it really doesn’t matter. Why don’t Dick and Annie just leave town? Does Axel have all the roads blocked by rejects from the Walking Dead? Better yet why doesn’t one of them just pick up a phone and call the authorities? I know a lot of you dinosaurs that post here were alive in 1944, didn’t you have phones? Just asking!.S.I.T.O.A.N.L.T.P.N.M.I.

Tracy could get some clues just by turning on a radio.If it picks up other stations, he could get their call letters and location on the hour (the old “station identification”), giving him some idea of where and when he is.More significantly, if the radios can’t pick up other stations, it would show “Belinda” is either closed-circuit, or Axel is jamming radio broadcasts.

“Did they only show a half the word “Ovaltine” ?”The outside of the Cafe appears, with the full name. It has also been featured in the TV series’ ’DaVinci’s Inquest’ and ‘The X-Files’.

Anyone who feels it’s OK for an extremely older gentleman to bring a young child whom they aren’t related to and don’t know to the movies by themselves under any circumstance is out of their mind! It’s not cynicism, its reality.

Now that is a handsome cab!

Maybe they didn’t have permission. Perhaps Mike and Joe have skirted that issue by splitting the word — “Oval” in one panel, “Tine” in the other.

I doubt that the makers of Ovaltine objects to the free advertising and I don’t think they would have to actually request permission. What I was trying to say was that they were not denied permission either.

What’s that in Pa Silo’s pipe

When I was a child, in the 50s, we were still being taught that, if you were in a situation that was making you afraid, you should seek out a uniformed policeman. The cop on the corner was thought to be above suspicion. And this is supposed to be 1944, whether it really is or not. A uniformed cop taking an interest in an orphan girl would probably not raise any eyebrows.

It’s highly debatable what the relationship was between Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) and Alice and other children he knew. Certainly, some of his actions and speech seem suspicious to us today, but it seems that his reputation really got this way after he died.

An avid photographer, he took many photographs of children, sometimes nude, but nude children were once considered to be the epitome of innocence. Dodgson lived most of his life under a vow of chastity, but he did like to spend time with women as well as children. About 6 years ago a letter he wrote (to ALice) was put up for auction, seeming to suggest that he preferred girls over boys, but very cryptic:

… what could Miss Lloyd have been thinking of to say such things of me? ’She must have taken some remark of mine about liking children and have said to herself for “some” read “all”, for “girls” read “boys” and for “ten” read “two” – such a method of exaggeration is wholly unfounded, and yet she professes to be an admirer of Dr Liddon.

There was a fairly balanced review of his changing reputation in Smithsonian Magazine in 2010: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/lewis-carrolls-shifting-reputation-9432378/?all

O Yes, That’s the place, Gweedo…Main & Hastings…i lived in this neighborhood in the 70’s…