Hats on hats
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Dick Tracy, 9/2/26

So I guess that computer didn’t just magically explode, but had actually been already fitted with some kind of internal incendiary device without noticeably increasing its size or weight, which definitely is a real thing that we should believe might happen. Anyway, I personally am loving our jaunty fire inspector here, who loves nothing more than using big, theatrical gestures to walk people through the aftermath of some horrifying incendiary event. Now, obviously he’s seen a “USB killer” used before for pranks and pyrotechnics displays and such. The occasional gender reveal party, you know. That’s just the normal stuff you encounter every day in the fire marshall biz. But murder? Well, that’s a new one on him.
Pluggers, 9/2/26

Now, an unlucky angler pulling a non-fish object out of the water is a classic cartoon bit that we must respect. Usually it’s an old boot or a tin can or something, but given that our dog-man plugger has caught himself a hat, I’m a little puzzled here by what the … excitement? activity? … lines emitting from his bald head are signifying. Are we supposed to understand that this is a beloved long lost hat that blew into the lake weeks or months ago, and his scalp is tingling with excitement at being reunited with it? That this is just some random hat he’s discovered, but he’s been immediately seized by the intrusive thought that he should put it on, despite the fact that it’s no doubt very wet and very disgusting? Or has he in desperation and despite his scalp’s protests decided to use that hat he put on this morning and wore out on this fishing trip as a lure?
Alice, 9/2/26

Hey, you guys heard about the omnipresent surveillance state? You heard about this? Thank goodness information on that topic has now been provided to the no doubt large share of people who only get their news from the comic strip Alice, though I think she’d be a more credible speaker on this point if she wasn’t also convinced that space aliens live in her floorboards.


164 replies to “Hats on hats”
The Plugger hooked his hat on his cast, Josh. Desert elites like you simply wouldn’t understand!
FC: Got any whale oil left, Thel. Suddenly I’m in the mood for “pre-electronic” lighting.
DT In a well-plotted strip, the fire investigator’s contradictions of the event (a capacitor surge isn’t a programming language sequence doing noob-b-gone.exe! setting off a bomb planted in the laptop wouldn’t have left it singed but intact!) would be Serious Clues about Something Being Up. But here you can be pretty sure it’s just a technobabble word salad served on the side of a gruesome death story entree
Alice has learned about the “New World Order” conspiracy theory, I guess. Or maybe Hulk Hogan’s New World Order wrestling stable. Either way, I’m not sure her 75% increase in monthly internet viewing has been good for her.
New World Order my ass! There is nothing orderly about the world!
Alice:
Is experiencing today’s installment kind of like what it was like going to a Grateful Dead concert; i.e., you had to be under the influence to really appreciate it?
Dick Tracy:
“I always wear this slicker, Officer. Even when it’s not raining. It’s part of my trade dress.”
Mary Worth Mashup: These Missing Final Panels validate Nelly’s ire, doncha think?
DT: Isn’t he supposed to be a takeoff of Jim Carrey’s Fire Marshal Bill?
Pluggers: He’s located Andy Bear’s corpse, who drowned in that pond last week.
Usually, in the Dickverse it is criminals that have deformed physique and body horror, but there is some uncanny valley about this fire marshal. Is this to show that even the thin blue line is not so innocent, after all? Is Dick Tracy going woke?
Seems like the real message is: Pluggers use a traditional but difficult bait casting style reel instead of a spinner even at the risk of bodily harm.
Pluggers: “Wait a minute! Doesn’t that hat belong to Carl Rhinowski, who went missing two weeks ago? Guess he finally ran out of stuff to hock and decided to end it all.”
Perhaps the flock cameras are laughing at you because you’re using lettuce as a bookmark, Alice.
MW – Has Sex-Negative Nellie changed the spelling on her name?
Alice : I’m glad SOMEONE looks at Alice and finds it funny.
*************
Beetle Bailey : …wasn’t Pvt Blips dating Chip Gizmo at one point? What happened to that?
*************
Luann : And here we have Frank flat-out admitting he’s NEVER helped around the house, and deliberately avoids being involved with raising his kids.
*************
Pluggers : Imagine what would have happened if the Plugger hadn’t worn a cap. Imagine the awful dog-man winding up his throw, the hook getting caught in his scalp, the swing towards the lake causing a layer of it to start ripping of…
What I’m saying is that the Plugger isn’t pulling a cap out of the water, he somehow yanked it off his head while throwing his line.
DT — A fire bomb so powerful so as to kill a man and bend the table support into some Chihuly shape but discerning enough to leave a recognizable thumb drive which can no doubt be used to track the perpetrator. The designer is a genius!.
Alice: Looks like Alice is about to vandalize some Flock cameras.
DT: A story about a tech-based hitman with the handle “USB Killer” sounds interesting. More interesting than whatever the hell is going on here, anyway.
Pluggers are terrible at absolutely everything they do.
PLUGGERS: If he lost the hat on this fishing trip, then there are sharks in that water. And now they know what he tastes like.
MW: Way to go, Mary. While you were out carousing with Jeff, Ian and who knows else, this poor, miserable Charterstonian has actually reached the point of abandoning ship. A pox on your licentious life!
RMMD: Are we now in for a week of the twins deciding that they WON’T listen to Gramps, and they WON’T go back to school, and they WILL kidnap Sarah Morgan? And then failing miserably at kidnapping Sarah Morgan? Better make it two weeks.
H&L: Lois: “You’ll calm down when you’ve had him for 71 years.”
LUANN: I feel like the more Luann’s parents extol her virtues, the greater are the chances that she’s out there doing something stupid.
@Guillermo el chiclero: That is DEFINITELY Fire Marshall Bill.
Imagine how much the cameras would laugh if they were positioned to look up Alice’s dress.
MW: Geez, Negative Nelly, you’re gonna give yourself a stroke, and then instead of this being a story about Mary changing your whole outlook on life with One Weird Trick, it’s gonna be about Mary providing cleaning tips to Mr. Ahora about how to get the stain of a rotted body off of linoleum.
ALICE: I feel for Alice. I mean I know that every time I go out I suspect that someone (from the government, most likely) is following me whispering “How does it feel, to treat me like you do?” almost like a taunt.
I feel like this strip should have happened on a Monday though. Call it a hunch.
MW: Talk about scratching the surface …
C’shaft: So no more of Crankshaft yelling about the server robot? Pepper must have killed him already.
Dustin: So this week is going to be about Dustin actually doing things well for a change only for people to insult him anyway, then?
Luann: It’s funny because Nancy does all the domestic labor in addition to having her own job, and Frank cheerfully refuses to help out.
MW: So Nelly is the Frank Grimes of the Worthiverese: the only person who sees the absurdity and idiocy around her for what it is until it drives her to madness and death.
Phantom: Or it would be if you weren’t loudly narrating your every move…
RMMD: More proof that the twins are terrible at this: their home is furnished like the lobby of a Holiday Inn.
SH: So it’s also got residences for outdated legacy comics?
MW: Is this woman being set up to be like Mary’s opposite number? Her *evil* twin? Let’s see here:
Mary *loves* Charterstone and everyone in it = Nelly *hates* it
Mary has pure white hair = Nelly has dirty gray hair
Mary cooks wholesome muffins and eats wholesome seafood = Nelly eats dry cereal
Let’s get Nelly outside and see what she thinks of the ‘Supplemental Nutrition’ agricultural plot. If she stomps on the zuchinni because she can’t abide the color green, that’ll clinch it.
Ph: Okay, now we know this is a wish fulfilment fantasy. When was the last time Africa was blessed with enough moisture to have mist and fog? Hasn’t Stripeypants heard the gospel of climate damage?
MW: To quote the great wordsmith Ludacris: “Move bitch, get out the way.”
Alice: Yes! May I please order a new world? This one is defective.
Maybe Narnia? (Narnia is cool)
Alice: Oh shit, new Alice-based conspiracy theory just dropped: the artist is actually an over-oated Nelly Fenely screaming silently at a world she neither understands nor loves. Nothing will change my mind on this, nothing, do you hear me?!
PLUGGERS: Yeah, whatever dude. I’m pretty sure this is not the most humiliated this plugger has been fiddling with his rod in public.
PLUGGERS (2): Plugger (hearty chuckle): “Well, shucks, that was an embarrassing faux pas. Oh well, back to my job of being a JRPG protagonist….”
RMMD: Lyle checks back in a few years and finds one niece has become a successful time-share agent and the other an accomplished telemarketing recruiter.
He falls to his knees and screams; “What have I done!!!!”
MW: Once was a woman named Nelly
She was bitter and probably smelly
Will she be changed
By a date Mary arranged
With Wilbur, or just a muffin with jelly?
Dick Tracy: I can only read this as a vamp on Fire Marshall Dan, which dates me, and leads to the sad realization that I might be the target audience for Dick Tracy’s nostalgia tour, which in turn…uh. I’m ready for my ice floe, fellas.
MW – So is this just some grumpy old woman who Mary will help to see the beauty in life? Or, in an earthshaking development, is this the introduction of the anti-Mary, a new, major character who will shake things up by consoling Toby, Wilbur, Dawn, et al to “Fuck this shit. You don’t have to put up with it.” I’m sure that Ian, for one, will definitely be on board with it.
GA: Who?
Phantom: “Ha ha! I will defeat AI again!”
FLASH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!: We all knew “Somehow, Ming returned.” Now they’re getting around to telling us how that happened. Hopefully, the filler backstory will be better than explaining Palpatine for the Sequel Trilogy.
Dick Tracy: That rictus grin! The way he turns everything into a performance! We are exactly one “Let me show you something!” away from resurrecting Fire Marshall Bill!
B. Bailey: With a nod to Boxing Helena, both Blips and Buxley are talking torsos without functioning body parts. Why today of all days to show the real horrors of war?
Alice: “Alexa, play Flipper Ha Ha Ha“
MW: I’m pretty sure Nelly would speak for all of us, if we were ourselves inmates at Charterstone.
Plug: Frankly, I thought the lure was the hat.
The fire inspector did it. He’s not traditionally handsome and this is Dick Tracy where looking a little off is a sure sign of criminal activity. And he would have gotten away with it too if it weren’t for the meddling readers getting wise to the tropes.
Pluggers never forgot to cut open the lung cavity before weighing down the body at multiple attachment points – to account for both bloating and rot – but somehow they can’t take it upon themselves to desecrate their victim’s John Deere hat.
FC-“I’ll get the hose.”
MW-“I hate that Wilbur Weston who leaves surprises on the grass.”
MW-Yes but how do you really feel about people?
Alice-“I watch you while you pee!”
I just stopped in to see who was going to be the first person to make an off-color joke about Baldo. Well, it isn’t going to be me.
DT: According to all the police procedural novels I’ve worked on, typical municipal cops and firefighters get along like cats and dogs. This prancing burlesque comedian know-it-all clearly has the smoke coming out of Tracy’s ears. Too bad for him that only the police are licensed to carry sidearms.
MW: Yep, Grumpy Nelly really needs to get laid. What’s Richie Q. McAscot up to these days?
Plugger Tim McMillen loses his shirt and undershirt on successive casts revealing a back full of embedded lures.
Pluggers ceaselessly go fishing, even though they know they won’t catch anything. As Camus said, “we must imagine Pluggers happy”
@Anonymous: Oops, this was me, hiding the body better than I thought.
Pluggers:
Pluggers fish for compliments, but there are none to be had from the Comics Curmudgeon constituency.
If tomorrow’s installment involves Alice wielding a chainsaw I will forgive everything about this strip.
MW: After that tirade, I wouldn’t be surprised if Friday’s strip has Nelly buying a gun. OK, I would be surprised, since this is Mary Worth and nothing that dramatic ever happens.
@Ukulele Ike: typical municipal cops and firefighters get along like cats and dogs
Having recently updated my church’s safety signage, I’ve learned the reason for this. Firefighters want dozens of exits; police would prefer just one well-controlled entrance. Both for sensible, if opposed, safety reasons.
DT: The fire bomb was clearly pert of the laptop all along. Folks, next time your employer buys you a laptop to be used for work purposes only, be aware that they may have ideas about terminating your contract early.
MW Redux: Nelly needs to head to downtown Santa Royal and around ask for Reno, tell’im Tommy sent her. That’ll adjust her attitude and fast!
REX MORGAN M.D.: You know what. These two dimwits do need to go back to school. Maybe if they had a little education they’d have enough common sense to realize that Lyle does not have any proof of their misdeeds* (it’s his word against theirs. And don’t forget the solid credibility of Rene, the perpetually dishonest prison inmate) and whatever “jail time” they’d do from shoplifting isn’t going to amount from much (certainly not more then the employee who just let them straight up walk right out the door with the store’s merchandise) plus since he’s not reporting them to the authorities and instead using this to essentially blackmail them into his would-be cult, he’s now an accessory to the crime.
*Yes, yes I know the Blunder Twins probably still have the stolen goods stored in their apartment with the “Property of Target” stickers still on them and the Facebook posts where they took selfies of themselves with the caption “Look at all the stuff we stole! Hahahaha!”. But my point still stands.
@Hibbleton: “Why couldn’t they do good honest work, like getting paid to ensure that dodgy pseudo-culty bullshit infiltrates our education institutions?”
DT: If Dick Tracy can just use characters from In Living Color now, that actually opens up a whole world of possibilities. We can look forward to thinly-veiled versions of Homey the Clown, Vera De Milo, Wanda, Men on Film, The Head Detective, and more.
Pluggers: My comics-reading instincts tell me that our plugger friend is merely frustrated and is rolling his eyes. Those lines emanating from his head are meant to illustrate how flustered and disappointed he is at catching something other than a fish. Or perhaps the hat belongs to someone that our fisherman friend drowned a while ago, and he hates being reminded of his terrible crime.
Alice: So these cameras are depicted as cylinders with human eyes. Which means they’re extremely close to being full-fledged Alice characters themselves.
Pluggers should have remembered that fishing in the same river where you dumped the body of a guy you killed is always a bad idea. But I guess that’s the perils of your mind slipping as you age…
@Ukulele Ike: Awp, you just figured it out! Yesterday we were all trying to figure out who Mary is going to pair Ol’ (Wo)Man Wynter up with for a ‘happily ever after’ when the answer was right in front of us! Now watch as they turn out to be long lost sweethearts or something…
@Ukulele Ike: Your a little behind the times. That’s how the story would have “fixed” Nelly 10 years ago. But in the updated mindset of the new and improved Karen Moy, all of Nelly’s problems will be solved by (spins “Wheel o’ Pets”)….
Dick Tracy:
So I decided to look up this “USB killer” business, and it turns out to be a real thing, and Dick Tracy‘s explanation for how it works is more or less correct—they use capacitors to increase the voltage of power drawn from the host machine, then send it back in to fry it. I don’t know if a fire marshal would necessarily have run into many in their line of work—I assume it’s pretty rare for them to actually cause fires—but I suppose it’s plausible. What isn’t plausible is Dick being at the scene, since as far as anyone knows it has no connection to his current investigation and clearly falls under the jurisdiction of the Chicago Police Department’s Bomb and Arson Unit.
MW: Ellen Corby really got mean after “The Waltons” went off the air.
“Only in this case, USB stood for ‘Uniform Severe Burns!’ Get it? No? Oof, tough crowd, that’s OK, I gotta million of ’em.”
Alice:
Look, I’m not saying I approve of the surveillance state, but it’s always nice to see someone who enjoys their work, like these jovial sentient cameras apparently do.
@18 MKay: on Luann; it’s a day ending in “Y”: Luann will be doing something stupid.
Phantom: Fog, mist, and canopy your striped ass. It’s the plot armor. It’s always the plot armor.
FG: Rather than building that portal out of whatever junk was laying around, A-Team style, why didn’t Ming just use one of those Kiran magic hockey pucks to teleport?
Alice stole this from They Might Be Giants’ The Communists Have the Music.
@Vulpes: Yeah, they did that (more or less) on NCIS.
They found a USB from a crime scene that may have had evidence on it.
Abby (the forensic and tech specialist): Loads it up onto her computer and it fried her harddrive. The computer didn’t explode but..
MW: Nelly looks like my 11th grade math teacher. Who was an angry nun.
@Doctor1Hundred: Yep, and the actual lure is what the hat is hooked on, Josh.
Pluggers: “If you sit by the river long enough… you will see the body of your enemy float by”
@Charterstoned: Going by stereotypes, I assume she carried a yardstick?
@Charterstoned:
Also, for some reason I assumed that Catholic schools (or similar) ONLY taught religion.
Not teaching anything aside from “This is what happened in The Bible.”
@The Rambling Otter: No, a pointer stick.
@The Rambling Otter: Also, for some reason I assumed that Catholic schools (or similar) ONLY taught religion. Not teaching anything aside from “This is what happened in The Bible.”
True story. My college roommate was an Observant Jew whose parents sent him to Catholic School because it was the best school in their community (private or public) from an educational perspective. His parents told him, “pay close attention to everything they teach you except when they’re talking about a guy named Jesus.”
Crankshaft: So it turns out that this robot, “Pepper Oni,” is not in fact AI but a Japanese spirit enslaved by these two dweebs to perform menial tasks at their beck and call. They may smirk now, but the Ghost World will inevitably call in their price for their mortal presumption.
Alice – The new laugh track means it’s funny. Allegedly.
9CL – It’s a good thing he says he’s a musician, because how would we know? He spends his time wandering in a void, alternating between blathering pretensiously and making out with his sociopathic bride. Even when he’s shown at a piano, it always very quickly moves to furious boinking.
Gil Thorp – Gil doesn’t care if they get heat stroke. He just doesn’t want to have to clean up their barf.
Mary Worth – So Nelly has been living at Charterstone for some time, but this is the first we’ve seen her. It looks like she’s not on Mary’s muffin delivery list, because if she had regular visits from Mary she would be a much nicer person.
I bet her head exploded when those fucking parrots were making all that noise.
@Her Father, John Darling: There was a movie made by the members of “Channel Awesome” back in the day.
One character “Santa Christ” an amalgamation of Santa Claus and Jesus Christ, dies.
So they have every single member of the site (and even some who since left) say “I BELIEVE IN SANTA CHRIST!” in hopes it would bring him back to life.
When it gets to one member whose username is “ThatJewishGuy”
(his show on the site discusses and educates on Jewish customs)
He says: “I believe in… wait, you want me to say WHAT?!”
@Charterstoned: @The Rambling Otter:
Also, despite no-one complained, I’m apologizing in advance for my ignorance.
You can be certain that I’ll be more tactful in the future.
There will be nun of that from now on ;-)
@Baja Gaijin: Mashup – Wlibur must have told Mary that there was a pocket of baking soda in the muffin he had. Mary’s eyes look like one of the children in Village of the Damned.
@Guillermo el chiclero: I’m amazed at how many TV shows I’ve seen Ellen Corby in. Everything from Wagon Train to The Rifleman to Hawaii Five-O. She was a reliable character actor.
@I speak Jive: Tall Amos is not a musician, he’s a piano tuner. Spread the word, it’ll make the top of Brooke’s head blow off.
The Comics Curmudgeon don’t want tuners with good taste; we want tuners that taste good.
As terrible as Luann is, it’s worse when they have these conversations in the bathroom. Could be worse, I guess. Could have Ma DeGroot (Nancy? who cares?) douching and Pa DeGroot on the can reading USA Today.
Isn’t that why he married Beth, who is probably used to these chores in her regular line of work?
Alice: Have you heard about “the world’s ugliest Hawaiian shirt,” which is imprinted with so much information that it confuses AI-based surveillance equipment and prevents it from recognizing the wearer as human? I think that’s the effect Alice is going for here, with her wild hair and a boxy dress that seems to combine eight different hues, not even counting the flowers. But maybe she shouldn’t be walking so close to her friend, who prefers a relatively normal hairstyle and single-colored outfit — suggesting that Big Brother has already compiled a file on her that could fill two thumb drives.
PLUGGERS: l know that hat– Andy Bear was wearing it yesterday
#69. MW: not to judge and surgery can do wonders, but Nelly sure has changed since I saw him in concert about a decade ago. He was more pleasant then, too.
@Baja Gaijin: Yes, this is Nelly’s pantheon of hate.
I hope Nelly runs for the HOA leadership against naturally Mary.
BETTY: Now here’s a kid who could benefit from an afternoon with FRAZZ. Plus ten minutes with Caulfield
CURTIS: So Mom has a private secret bedroom. Hope Dad never finds out
@I speak Jive: 70- Ever see the episode of “Bonanza ” where her and William Demerest are a couple?
@Guillermo el chiclero:Yeah, that was my impression as well.
Dick Tracy: Why does the fire marshall look like an older Dan Dare? What’s the connection between spaceship-piloting action hero and arson investigation?
Pluggers: Pretty sure the joke is supposed to be that the Plugger somehow got his own hat hooked when trying to cast his fishing line, but it’s done extremely ineptly.
Alice: It sure would be nice if the writer of Alice could do satire about this subject without making her characters look like they suffer from extreme paranoid schizophrenia. Would probably make the point better.
@Emily Riposte: BOOM! (big laugh).
Alice: I was startled to learn the other day that my tiny hometown (fewer than 1300 people) has installed a Flock camera.
Could not find any info on where it’s located or how it got there.
I’m sure a Flock salesman offered the city council a few hundred dollars and in return he gets a commission and a chance to say he’s increased the number of cameras in his area.
I can’t imagine the camera doing anything about crime. My hometown has long been known as a kind of laboratory for developing the drugs eventually going to The Big City. We were like the Bridgeport to The Big City’s Broadway for drugs like crystal meth, crack and designer drugs.
Luann-“I just laid there and you did all the work on top of me,” Frank says.
Pluggers: The dogman caught his hat when he cast the line, Henry Blake style,Josh. You need to watch more MASH.
@Baja Gaijin: Putting Nelly and Ian close together like that made me suddenly think they would be a nice, age-appropriate couple. This would free up Toby to date either Wilbur or Dawn, both prospects are terrifying but there can only be one new character per story arc.
Pluggers: That spot where this Plugger has chosen to attempt to go fishing looks like an absolutely terrible and uncomfortable place to sit for a prolonged period of time. Also he doesn’t seem to have anything to drink. He’s not there for recreational enjoyment, he’s trying to snag the incriminating evidence of his crime.
Alice: Those look like the eyes of Satan from the 1968 film “Rosemary’s Baby” and Alice is impregnated with the child of Satan.
LUANN: Yes we get it Frank. You laid there like a corpse while Nancy had to desperately “Hop on Pop” to get anything to happen. (And apt metaphor for their marriage as a whole.)
Sex Organ V.D.: You kids violated the Costanza Law about being in possession of a Big Salad™ without paying for it.
@I speak Jive: I think Mary Worth as a comic believes that the apartments in buildings like Charterstone are super-sound-proofed so that nobody is bothered by their neighbors being loud or whatever. This is bullshit in real life, of course, as anyone who’s lived in such a place can tell you, but it would explain why the comic never shows anyone complaining about things like the aforementioned parrots’ constant screeching or Wilbur’s shrieking tantrums.
@Dr. Larry Erhardt: In this arc of YuYu Hakusho!, the most unexpected crossover of all time happens when everyone’s favorite spirit detective Yusuke Urameshi must investigate a shitty pizza parlor in a sleepy American town that enslaves spirits to power their machines. This somehow leads into a tournament arc in which Yusuke and Crankshaft duke it out.
@Vulpes: I think it’s well-established by now that Dick is the only real cop in the city and that every single crime in it is investigated by him personally.
@2+2=7: Given how the story arc just prior to this one involving that one dipshit trying to blackmail Mae Mae handled the subject, I sincerely think that Beatty is unaware that blackmail is a crime, and yes, threatening to expose someone’s criminal act unless they do as you demand IS blackmail. And yes, you are right that it could get Lyle into a lot more trouble than anything the Twins have done; the only true criminal offense they’ve committed is shoplifting (and even that’s a stretch since, as you say, they only got away with it due to such extreme employee incompetence that they were effectively handed the stuff they took) and while Beatty can whine about it all he wants, the other scams we’ve seem them commit – like the busking – are all perfectly legal and basically victimless. Sure, they TALKED about kidnapping Sarah, but they clearly possess no capability to actually do it and never got around to even trying. Conversely, Lyle is now actively committing multiple serious crimes and if the Twins had even half a brain in their skulls, they could ruin his life by just calling the cops and saying that an old fart is trespassing in their house and trying to pressure them into doing things they don’t consent to.
This plot is fucking stupid. It’s kneecapped at every turn by Beatty’s laughable inability to convey any sort of genuine evil from his villains paired with his personal preoccupation with “totally owning” scammers and refusal to ever let anything interesting happen, and is the ultimate expression of how those three flaws manifest in Rex Morgan under his pen. He treats women fake-playing violin on the street or a guy trying to claim credit for an elementary school student’s shitty cat drawing the same way other writers would treat gangbangers or bank robbers, yet also wimps out of ever having any serious consequences for anything involving these people.
@Anonymous: I don’t remember that one.
Ms Corby was a regular on the 1950s series Trackdown, which MeTV aired for a time on their Saturday Westerns schedule. Her character was the newspaper publisher/reporter in the town where Robert Culp’s Texas Ranger character was based. My favorite episode involved her covering an effort to get women the vote.
@Activist: Hey. It must be the money.
@Anonymous: Pluggers: That spot where this Plugger has chosen to attempt to go fishing looks like an absolutely terrible and uncomfortable place to s( )it for a prolonged period of time.
_____________________
You forgot the “h”.
@CanuckDownSouth: Is that Fire Marshal a call back to Jim Carrey’s Fire Marshal Bill on In Living Color in the early 90s?
Mary’s Worst: Nelly’s noggin note, continued….”I hate that Mary Worth who makes me wash my dishes before I put them back in the cupboard! “
@cheech wizard: The idea of an Anti-Mary who – instead of Mary’s manipulative sycophant-producing meddling – gives people genuine advice to improve their situation and isn’t clinging to a Pleasantville-esque ideology of conformism and puritanism is pretty fun to imagine. Mary would fucking SEETHE at the sight of Nelly telling Dawn that she actually shouldn’t bottle up all her emotions and let men treat her like shit.
@nescio: I don’t like your comment because I don’t like thinking about what Alice characters look like under their clothing. What kind of geometric shapes would be used to represent a vagina?
Did Alice become self aware and knows she’s a Picasso painting being watched by museum goers? Its the Pac ass meets Dali crossover you never knew you wanted.
DT: It’s sad to see Jim Carrey having to make ends meet by reprising one of his stock characters in a mere comic strip.
DT: So the pyroexplosive left an impressive black stain and soot in the corner of the cafe, knocked off the henchman, left the rest of the cafe largely intact, AND left the laptop still in one piece and the bits of the US drive are still recognizable. Usually these sort of improvised devices created a lot of bits and pieces and it takes days to weeks for the forensic team to figure out the device and construction. Fire Marshall Bill must be a wizard, OR in a twist he is in cahoots with WideScreen and supplied the device!
MW: Finally a opponent who might match Mary’s bland platitudes with raw anger!
JP: If it is the aim to make ever character unsympathetic – they almost got it!
GT: Is Gil switching to a spread offense this year and out of his T-formation?
RMMD: The twins realize the Uncle Lyle is the only threat to them. Uncle Renee is in jail. They now have to the justification in their minds to knock off Lyle and continue on with their plans.
I get that the USB angle adds a cool modern connection to high tech and plots like Stuxnet, but if you’ve managed to insert a high powered bomb into someone’s laptop, why do you need that part? Just make the bomb go boom! It’s like using your phone’s Bluetooth to hack into a free style soda machine and selecting Lime Dr. Pepper for your victim, also you’ve already loaded up the seltzer water with strychnine.
Crank: I feel like if “Pepper is short for Pepper Oni” had worked as a punchline at all, it would still only have been once. As it is, it didn’t land the first time and this one is somehow even worse.
MW: At last, a Mary Worth character we can all identify with!
OTF: So … the first panel represents Dethany not being able to connect to the meeting? The panel with her visible in the meeting before she makes a symbolic walk around her laptop? Also, Deth, you’ve got another Zoom meeting scheduled; this one’s with the Keane family’s lawyer.
SH: Pointless and narratively incoherent cameos from other comic strips? What is this, Dick Tracy?
S4th: If a giant bird were circling me, I’m not sure “Maybe she’s trying to protect us from something” would be my first guess.
@I speak Jive: 100- I think this episode was called the “The Hay Burner”or something like that. Little Joe came to their ranch to break in some horses for them. It was basically Uncle Charlie meets Grandma Walton.It was one of the “Lost” episodes of “Bonanza ” They had pretty good chemistry.
Alice – The New World Order is that we are all compelled to laugh out loud at Alice even though it’s horrifying, grotesque, and unfunny.
@Doctor1Hundred, @Anonymous, @Hibbleton, @ectojazzmage, et al.: TIL that Josh don’t fish.
Don Abundio, translated:
“That Christmas tree you picked out is too tall, Abundio. You’ll never be able to decorate it!”
“Bah! There’s always a way!”
“You just have to think creatively”
“This is perfect! Now throw me some tinsel!”
@Anonymous: I just looked it up on the imdb – the title was The Hayburner, and it originally aired in 1963. What I could see of the reviews was good. MeTV shows Bonanza during the week, so I’ll try to remember to watch out for it. That episode was in season 4, and they’re running season 8 now.
Wait, so Wallhack was using a device provided to him by the guy he was trying to betray? And kept using it after said betrayal? And then plugged a USB into it without knowing what the drive contained? I’ve seen pluggers with better cybersecurity instincts than this alleged computer nerd.
@treetown: On DT – Of course, he’s secretly The Riddler!
@I speak Jive: 115-I found it on You Tube. Also, she had a bit part in “It’s A Wonderful Life” as one of the good citizens of Bedford Falls who helps bail out George Baily.
@Doctor1Hundred:
#1 PLUGGERS: Yep, you got it Doc. Good diagnosis.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: As terrible as Luann is, it’s worse when they have these conversations in the bathroom. Could be worse, I guess. Could have Ma DeGroot (Nancy? who cares?) douching and Pa DeGroot on the can reading USA Today.
I hope she remembers to floss the teeth inside her vagina too.
@I speak Jive: #80: She played the head of a car theft ring in an episode of “The Andy Griffith Show”. To show how reliable she was, when she had her stroke (which was written into the show), co-star Will Geer suspected something was wrong when she failed to show up for work that day. He rushed to her house and found her lying on her living room floor. His quick action and calling the EMTs probably saved her life. She started out in Hollywood as a script girl in the 1930s and branched into acting.
MT- Attack of the Giant Mutant Armadillo Rabbits.
The fire inspector reminds me of “Fire Marshal Burns.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_In_Living_Color_sketches#F
@ectojazzmage:
The Yu Yu Hakusho joke is cotw material
@Ukulele Ike: Thanks for the link! I like that song, and I haven’t heard it before because I’m only familiar with TMBG’s earlier albums.
The Familliar Mucus: Thel appreciates the Melonheads’ devolution! Thats nice.
@99 ectojazzmage: on Charterstone: You forgot about the wailing and hair-rending when Wilbur’s overnight visitors sober up and see him without beer goggles.
Late Thread Cuisine: This reminds me of the newcomer to Mary Worth’s storyline: sour, bitter, and thoroughly unloveable.
Agreed that the guy in Dick Tracy is an homage to Jim Carrey’s Fire Marshal Bill; I’m pretty sure the Plugger’s hat has just blown off within the last few minutes but he hadn’t realized it; Alice absolutely sucks ass.
@Remy: It’s good to see Jim Carrey getting work after his time on “In Living Color.” What’s that? Dozens of films? Two Golden Globes? Oh come on, next you’ll tell me one of the fly girls ended up a singer.
Alice: If Flock cameras are just going to follow us around playing peekaboo…Well, honestly, that’s going to get old pretty fast too.
DT: A crime scene described as “a possible terror attack” would have to be crawling with FBI and Homeland Security agents, but that doesn’t mean there’s no room for Ronald Reagan dressed as a milkman.
C-Shaft: They could have given Montoni’s customers a heads-up about what they were in for by naming the robot “Steffy Lococcus.”
Dustin: The employment agency lady is so used to the “set him up to knock him down” rhythm she might as well be related to him.
Luann: Frank can talk with a toothbrush in his mouth but I really wish he wouldn’t.
MT: “And they called me mad for listening to caving podcasts!” You’re one letter off, Mark.
MW: Notice something missing from Nelly Feneley’s litany of hate? Yeah, there might be a swipe at “the idiots who live here” in general, but there’s nothing about the condo president. No one dares cross Mary Worth, even between their own two ears.
Phantom: All that sounds nice, but you’d still better have a juicy T-bone ready for Devil when you get back to the cave.
RMMD: The Scam Twins are too young to recognize it, but I’m pretty sure they’re sitting on the same soundstage where The Mike Douglas Show was taped.
Shoe: Kudos to the Shoe team on recycling ancient ethnic jokes so that they are—if unfunny—a little less offensive to modern sensibilities. I look forward to finding out how many bird person Senators it takes to change a lightbulb.
JP: So at this point, the best Parker-clan role model for Charlotte, in terms of a successful career, is Ann, the long-time con artist and all-around perp who is on her way to getting a TV show.
LUANN: Having known smart effective teachers as family members and friends, I’m trying to rev up some indignation that the Evansii are presenting Luann The Inexorable Dimwit as qualified for the profession. But this strip presents Frank as a good business owner, Bwad as a courageous firefighter, and Borenice as the brains of the outfit, etc., etc., etc. So there’s no point in trying to pick through the dumpster fire any further.
@ectojazzmage: I’d be more interested in seeing Nellie do things like install a hitching post outside so she can tell Toby “Is that the horse you rode in on? Let me give you a suggestion…”
@Baja Gaijin: Should have been a spleen.
Zits: Wearing their mother’s maternity clothes definitely sounds like a trend that teens would try in 2026. I just found out about the Cat in the Hat trend which is thing where teens dress up like The Cat in the Hat and stalk people.
@Poteet: The good news is that if Luann accidentally sets one of her pupils on fire, she has a brother who can put them out. Well, maybe. Just in case, ask for the sister-in-law instead.
@Artist formerly known as Ben:
Or perhaps “Bran Damage?”
@Baja Gaijin:
Like all too much of Mary Worth, this seems quite familiar.
STILL would totally eat it.
@80 I speak Jive: I love that scene. Whoever is doing the chasing will always have the “crazy eyes.”
@86 treetown: I figured that everyone should see why Nelly’s complaints are valid.
@95 Owlbear: Um, yeah, I guess that could work?
@Anonymous: Sounds like the new “Scary Clown” trend.
Except this is worse. Dragging the reputation of clowns through the mud is one thing, but a beloved Doctor Suess character?
If Mike Myers didn’t already destroy the character, I would have very much objected to this.
@Peanut Gallery:
You don’t need a rationale
To sing the Internationale!
(The Johns still have their knack for those witty Cole Porteresque lyrics)
@Ettorre:
It’s an homage to the Jim Carrey character “Fire Marshall Bill” from the show “In Living Color”.
Say, has anyone noticed that the fire marshal in today’s DT is reminiscent of the In Living Color role “Fire Marshal Bill,” as portrayed by Jim Carrey?
— Thanx and a tip o’ the hat to our good buddy Everybody Posts, Nobody Reads
@145 Ukulele Ike: I hadn’t noticed that the fire marshal in Dick Tracy is reminiscent of Jim Carrey’s “Fire Marshal Bill” on In Living Color until you mentioned it right this minute.
@Artist formerly known as Ben:
“Dustin: The employment agency lady is so used to the “set him up to knock him down” rhythm she might as well be related to him.”
I still have a theory that the employment agency lady is Dustindad in disguise, as if some sort of split personality.
Dick Tracy: Let’s see how committed they are to putting Fire Marshall Bill in this. Is he going to get himself injured tomorrow?
@Poteet: I’m trying to rev up some indignation that the Evansii are presenting Luann The Inexorable Dimwit as qualified for the profession.
“Those who can, do.
Those who can’t do, teach.
Those who can’t teach, teach gym.”
Maybe Luann will teach gym.
Dennis Minus Menace: “Good news,Mom,my shoes ran outta mud! Now I’m up to dog poop!”
@Ukulele Ike: I thought it was Captain Kangaroo
@Artist formerly known as Ben: Bwahaha!
@White Rabbit: I think you are a very generous person to think Luann could adequately teach children the rules of how to do complicated activities like softball and folk dancing. When I try to think of what Luann could teach adequately, I come up with things like (1) tic-tac-toe (2) towel-folding, and (3) how to follow Luann around while chanting, “Miss DeGroot, you are the best! Better far than all the rest! Miss DeGroot, you are the best…”
@The Rambling Otter:
Well if it makes you feel better some teens have already been arrested for stalking and threatening while dressed as The Cat in the Hat. It’s like the Dr Seuss books says Oh, the Places You’ll Go…to Prison
@JamesBont: It is just about plausible that he could absent himself from the law office for hours and no one would notice.
@Bob Tice: Dick Tracy:
“I always wear this slicker, Officer. Even when it’s not raining. It’s part of my trade dress.”
______________________
…”I was wearing a raincoat everyday when Columbo was still in diapers,Marvining himself!”
@Human-eared Dragon: Dick Tracy: Let’s see how committed they are to putting Fire Marshall Bill in this. Is he going to get himself injured tomorrow?
__________________
Tomorrow….he starts talking out of his butt.
@The Rambling Otter: Alice: Yes! May I please order a new world? This one is defective.
___________________________________________
Is that how Alice came to look like that? Was she thrown off the fire latter with Spenser Tracy et al, exploded in the basement with Sid Ceaser, or buried under a big W?
“Its A World,World,World,World,Mad”
@The Rambling Otter: @Anonymous: Sounds like the new “Scary Clown” trend.
__________________________________
“Won’t someone think of the Baja Gaijins?
I wonder if the closeups of the USB space shuttle were originally labeled CHALLENGER as a foreshadowing clue, but some editor decided that would be in bad taste even by “Dirk Twacy Hollistic Defective” standards.
Well, props to Alice though. People clearly can’t get too worked up about the surveillance state for privacy reasons, but if the creepy goons are going to *laugh* at you, well, that’s intolerable …
A good cop drama combines just the right amounts of realism and over-the-top fantasy violence. USB-Killers are real devices that can sometimes destroy laptops, so there’s your realism, but what if the laptop … HAD A BOMB IN IT?!? Now that’s exciting!
Don’t worry about why the bad guys didn’t just use the bomb directly. Those are the kind of boring details a good writer won’t trouble the audience with.
That fire marshall guy shure seems patterned on Jim Carrey’s character “Fire Marshall Bill” from “In Living Color.” I absolutedly hated Fire Marshall Bill because he was always blowing things up! Perfect segue into a Tracy character! Bonus: Like most Tracy characters, Fire Marshall Bill has a physical deformity – a horrendous overbite.
I am certain we are meant to assume he caught his hat while casting.