Ballard Street by Jerry Van Amerongen for January 25, 2009

From underneath the table.

Does anyone remember the Choo-Choo Cafe in Des Plaines, IL? If you sat at the counter, your food came to you via an electric train.

How do they get into their chairs?

I always wanted a LGB train to run from a soda machine loaded with beer to a hot tub. These large trains also had a wine cask built as a train car.

Margueritem: that makes a good one for believe it or not! Why not send it in?

similar to the sushi places where little boats go by with dishes to choose from.

I WANT THAT!!!

Imagine, no more passing the gravy one way while the carrots are going the other way…I’ve got to get this installed before next Thanksgiving!

Meanwhile, Buster seems to have found the Kibble Car.

Looks like Claude succumbed to pee-er pressure.

Cleo, you are a big liar! But Claude does not need your encouragement, he cannot resist those buttons.

Hullo, everybody!

I see that once again, we have half a dozen “first run” comments on this Ballard Street strip….

Now, in 2019, we’re joining the 2009 regulars, as we do every day, in order to have a place to discuss

the Jan 24th  2019 “CLEO and COMPANY”

 

Which you can read on Sherpa

http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=cscwy

 

Claude, Claude…. you’ll never learn…. and (don’t tell Claude or Clara) … I’m glad.

Especially while we have re-runs… we get to see you make the wrong choice time after time… and we laugh every time.

I have to confess… I never remember which beginning is which, so I watch every time as though it’s new.

Will the building go up or down, or Claude shrink, drop, or get menaced by a dinosaur… there are probably more…. it’s always a surprise.

 

As for Ballard Street…. I want the train too!

Who wouldn’t.

 

Strangely, in the first comment, Marg seems to be replying to 4deerinmyyard, who posted next.

Remember though, that in the last 10 years, some commenters have changed their names, closed their accounts, deleted their comments, or been banned.

So it may have looked different then.

 

I can answer a couple of those questions though….

I Googled it…. and the Choo-Choo Cafe in Des Plaines, IL, was closed for a while…

but it re-opened and still serves the patrons, at least those who sit at the counter, their hamburgers and hot dogs via a model train.

 

As for how they get into their seats….

If you enlarge the strip, or simply have better eyes than I do…. and look at the narrow strip behind each chair…

you can see a set of brass hinges on the section behind Wilma’s, and a spring-loaded hook behind Gene.

I’m sure that small flap lifts up, so they can push in their chairs…

and they drop and latch it behind themselves once seated, so the train can run behind them.

It’s a good thing that building didn’t drop into an underground lake. They both would have gotten an early bath.

 

My Favorite Part™ was

https://postimg.cc/zVxg52vg

And set the potato train to collide with the gravy train.

Did not!

Did too!!

Did not!!!…….

That’s Cleo doing her Jiminy Cricket imitation.

But, I don’t think Claude needs much of a push to push that button. It had his name written all over it! Love it! Chuckle, chuckle.

Cleo could run for President.