Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for April 02, 2024

oh brother, now here comes the soppy-ness…

even Dick is getting a chuckle out of it…

pretty good-looking Dick that Chuck has drawn there…

For goodness sake, Mike’s using “Something is Missing” from the 1977 Stage Musical! (Dropped from the 1982 film version for making Warbucks “too soft” too soon in the story)

Good morning™, all!

Well, it looks like I was wrong. It seems that maybe they did have the rights to the Broadway musical. I suppose the intro by Vitamin was clue.

The only reason I still say “maybe” is that some of the lyrics are changed.

The world was my oyster

But where was the pearl ?

Who’d dream I would find it

In one little girl ?

youtube .com /watch?v=stmRtJOaRSs

What’s next? Warbucks breaks out in a chorus of “We’re getting a New Deal for Christmas?”

Good morning™, Lost Loves Found !

Without being “too loud”, Chuck has very nicely conveyed Annie’s mood in P.1. She is on the edge of going to pieces and by P.2. her Adopt-a-Daddy gives the reassuring comfort that makes everything right.

Like !

“Yes Annie, Fate murdered your parents, and turned Bob Smith into an idiot, so you could eventually live here.”

Awwwwww…..

Very good one today, art and story, Like!

This still leaves us wondering what happened to Annie’s biological parents.

One of the problems with the 1986 movie An American Tail was it didn’t know when to stop. It had three climaxes. You thought it was over, but it just kept going.

I’m wondering why I’m thinking that as I read this.

So, are we done now?

Ack. I hate show tunes.

“BOB Fate, my hitman valet. I never fully trusted your parents, and my accountant said having a child would give me a needed tax break. Sooo, who’s Daddy’s little financial ace in the hole? YOU are! Yes, you IS! Now, the nice detective is about to leave, so it’s back to the sweat shop for you! I need ten thousand Pokemon knock-off tee-shirts by nine if you want that bowl of gruel. Think quota, Red!”

Don’t do it Dick. I can see that look on your face and I know what you are thinking about, no. You are not going to break out into a a song and dance.

Corny .

Where is Andrea McArdle now that we really need her?

ooo…this is a Dr. Fate crossover too! LOL

I guess Daddy knew how things would come out because he saw the musical and bought the soundtrack back in 1982 when the show was on Broadway. He and Boris sat together in the front row.

After the show, they argued about their differing opinions of the play which started a long-running feud that eventually escallated to Boris’s plan to kidnap Daddy. It turned out that Boris and Daddy were both in love with the same woman from Annie’s past. Boris’s scheme was to shove bamboo spikes up Daddy’s fingernails until he renounced his love for the beautiful dream girl of them both, Miss Asthma (who it turned out was Punjab’s first wife).

Well, somebody had to think of something that might make this story interesting.

MOVIE QUOTE—

MOE: “First of all, how did you steal a railway car from the middle of a moving train?”

LARRY: “That’s a secret I’ll tell no one!”

CUCKOO ON A CHOO CHOO—1952

1-DADDY-O: ♪♫ GRAY SKIES ARE GONNA CLEAR UP…

2-PUT ON A HAPPY FACE! ♪♫ Oh. Here’s a Perry Como fav of mine: ♪ LET A SMILE BE YOUR UMBRELLA ON A RAINY RAINY DAY!!!! ♪♫

3-DT: Daddy-O sings so dam bad that even my nose knows it stinks! DADDY-O: ♪♫ WHEN THE RAIN COMES, IT’S JUST A STATE OF MIND. RAAAAAIIIIIIIINNNNNN! ♪♫

When you look back and remember how Tracy adopted Junior, this may hit closer to home than you’d think.

If Steve The Tramp hadn’t been such a stinker, a bachelor adopting a kid may have been an impossibility in the old days….

I know I’m slow but I just realized Shelley has been replaced by Charles….I’m guessing sometime in the last month. Shelley was great…..and Charles looks pretty good as well.

….looks like some sorta “happy ending”….y’know, with everyone a-smilin’…….I’m keeping MY fingers crossed…….

Panel 4: Tracy remembers he hates sentiment and show tunes, and shoots them both.

Not mentioned is that Oliver Warbucks sings horribly off-key…..

Does Tracy go back to fighting crime or am I going to be subjected to “another sentimental journey”? Mentally, I can hear big band music playing in the background…Duke Ellington, Glen Miller, etc.

Well, at least Annie is happy now.

You mean “Fate made your birth parents a pair of dumb4$$es,” right?

Intro (skip if you’ve already read any of the previous intros):

Hello, greetings, casual readers of past Tracy stories. I’m here because I’m on 2 missions. The first is something I’ve never done before, read each Tracy story by Mike Curtis (or his occasional guest writer) in one sitting each. I feel his stories are worth it. IMHO, Curtis is by far the best post-Gould writer this strip has ever had, and we’re all lucky to have him.

My second mission is to provide an immediately useful Featured Comment whenever needed. My 3 friends below will reply to me. You can read their replies if you like, but their only real purpose is to bump up this comment to the Featured Comment.

There are 2 basic types of immediately useful Featured Comments: the first type is to provide you with a Mumblespeak translator when needed. The other type (this type) is anytime that day’s strip quotes a real song. I will provide an html to a recording to that song so you’ll know the tune even if you’ve never heard it before.

End Intro

The song Daddy Warbucks is singing is “Something Was Missing” from the original Annie musical. Listen to it here:

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