Nerding Day: The Blondie Radio Show (Patreon)

Alright, let’s talk about it. The disgrace in every newspaper. The punchline limping into a new century. The eager virtuoso of blackface. The walking cadaver, living for money and money alone.

It’s Blondie month. Happy 95th, Boop-a-Maniacs.

All thanks to our generous friends at Camel.

If you’re like me, you assumed Cookie was the dog and Daisy was the infant. We’re not that smart. Though, based on this show, vintage Dagwood would make Cookie sleep outside.

See, I forgot something on our maiden voyage into the BlondieVerse: the 11-year radio show. It lived long enough to get cocky about mastering long division and books without dogs, only to learn that the class bully was now six feet tall, wider than an Enhanced Games champion, and still stuck on books about dogs. Or worse, Blondie.

Again, here's the comic today:

A taste of the void itself. Here's where it started:

Livelier, but less bankable. When Blondie hit radio, flappers had left with peace and prosperity. However, Chic Young, a pure survivor, adapted. First, by siphoning the lead’s personality. Then, by replacing it with nothing. Finally, by replacing her altogether with Dagwood, a character best described as not.

While early strips leaned on Chic's love of jazz club pickups, that was a direction. The flavor existed. Pasteurized Blondie flattens the brain like a steamroller.

And made bank.

Delicious, artisanally filtered bank.

Extra bank! We’re not done. You should be two packs deep, honestly. Where’s Brendan? We’re on the clock.

Bank harvested on two networks, over ten years. Synergized with twelve movies and daily strips. Blondie had a better business plan than The Bubble.

But how can we get Camel’s pleasant aroma out of our clothes?

Super Suds! What was I thinking? One sponsor cures another. If it’s good enough for America’s favorite trophy, it’s good enough for me.

Now I get Chic Young letting his son crawl inside the strip and rearrange the organs. He'd already cashed out in every format in his era. If Stalin made the first offer, I’d have covered Dagwood Helps Kulaks Diet. Only mortality robbed us of Blondie VR. Giving his failson the rights let Chic sell from beyond the grave. We can only strive to give our children the same.

One bit of trivia on the cast: while Dagwood had one actor throughout, nine years in the studio replaced Blondie with a younger actress. On radio. A sound-based medium. Can't have fans hearing those crow's feet. It’d distract from the rich pitter-patter of Blondie dialogue:

Which starts eventually.

Sidebar: “Science points the way.” Every day, I run into fresh reminders of Asimov warning us not to treat scientists like godsent wizards.

There we go. Give them a moment. It takes Blondie Radio a century or two to reach a point.

Promising banter. If you get past the repetition (you won't) and aged terms (numbness sets in), you'll notice a hint of exposition. For example, I'm typing right now. My fingertips are striking the keyboard. Keyboards turn energy into conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are delicious brain vitamins. Bill Gates wants to turn you into a keyboard. You should buy a gun. Fast. You can save Mars if you buy a gun. You’re a hero!

For what it’s worth, the jokes fly quickly. Imagine a cat trying to write 30 Rock. More effort than Blondie is really worth, but I respect the word count. After all, there are impressive episode titles to live up to.

I surrender to fate. The quotes so far are from The Gypsy Queen, where Dagwood buys a trailer and then fucking nothing. Just a half hour of punny slurs, followed by some mockery of the homeless to their face. But the Tragi-Dice have their own will.

Our winner: Arab in Love with Blondie. We’re keeping the memory of Arab in Love with Blondie alive. The story lives in us, like shitty Guy Montags.

Most episodes are capital-G Gone, so no Blondie Tries Black Magic. Only fifty or so tapes survived American preservation of knowledge. Even the ruins are inconsistent—a few other titles pop up for this adventure:

There’s that sting. What would our time together be without it? How much longer would we merely breathe, instead of live?

Based on the style elsewhere, I’m guessing it’s Blondie Meets an Arabian Knight. They liked to start titles with “Dagwood” or “Blondie,” so that the drunk and senile could follow along. And it has that crumb of whimsy missing from Blondie’s Arabian Lover.

Wherever the truth lies, we’re listening. I’m thinking this audio sitcom has all the wisdom my next marriage needs.

Today’s episode stars scab Blondie. Sort of. In each version of Blondie, Dagwood spreads like black mold. If his name sounded less like a pirate STI, I’m sure they’d have changed the title. As things stand, Dagwood’s crotchety nemesis/mentor/middle manager Mr. Dithers follows him around the world like a butler. Strange, when Dagwood’s his employee.

First, Blondie and her only friend discuss feeding their husbands.

All you need to know about the Dithers is nothing. But if you insist on wasting RAM: Cora gives bad advice, and slept with Mr. Dithers at least once. He’s never forgiven her for it. More importantly, Cora proves Blondie doesn’t sit in a lightless room, waiting for Dagwood to return. Mostly. Perhaps.

There’s two minutes of food banter, followed by a baffling riff on “candied eggshells.” I think Dagwood eats Easter Eggs, because he thinks they’re Chinese food? I’m not quoting it, we have shit to do. Just know that we’re in the opening, and they’ve already written themselves into a corner.

Until Blondie finds a special ad:

Wow, traffickers had it made back then. In the golden age of catfishing, you just needed a slur and a dream. Until something later in the decade made people more cynical. Or maybe the problem’s on our end. We’ve lost the drive to convince trophy housewives to leave it all behind.

I’ve seen more authentic 4chan tripcodes. If you answer “Mustafa Bin Akbar Pasha,” the cops won’t leave Dunkin’ to search. The milk carton won’t waste ink on your photo. You’re part of the natural loss rate of human beings. Department stores call it shrinkage.

The charlatan sends some redolent trash, to bait the trap.

The exchange begins. Presumably, an ex-con’s passing prison wine off as arak, while Blondie sends him instructions for a grease fire. Friendship’s fun. Riker’s moonshine or not, Blondie’s found joy outside the nuclear home. And that can’t stand.

Dagwood’s keen instincts tell him something’s off. He can’t detect danger or punchlines, just threats to his unearned romance. See, Dagwood knows his marriage is a leftover playtesting glitch. Fear keeps him up at light, no matter how many Camels he chain-inhales.

A Camel joke! Set up with the grace of the animal and the soul of the company. Clever voices can mix the pleasures of caricature with the business of cancer. The Bumsteads have mastered branding-friendly disdain. Mercifully, they’re about to be scammed out of their nonexistent inheritance.

At this point, catfishing plots have a few options. The Bumsteads can buy into the paper-thin illusion and lose everything. They can counter-troll the charlatan, and write letters pulling him into their own trap. Or my favorite: they can buy the scam, and exhaust the fraud into tipping his hand.

One problem: he’s real.

Mustafa Bin Akbar Pasha’s real, and absolutely famished for white toes. Typing that got me an invite to the Pentagon Signal group, and buckle up in December. Practice your goose step, and brace for more uppers than a MBA study break. Until then: what the fuck?

In fairness, I jumped ahead a bit. I wanted you to know all that nothing leads to some hate. Back in the rising action: after exposure to a non-Dagwood, Blondie’s behavior shifts. Slowly. Subtly. Foreignly.

Sounds like Blondie’s blazed. Nice throwback to her character having a character. But in Dagwood’s world, it’s as good as a confession.

And I’m left to wonder: do cheating dreams spawn racism, or does economic anxiety spawn hotel chairs? I don’t wonder, it’s the second one. But it’s amusing to imagine NTR fans resisting the Klan like the Dark Side. If that’s your struggle: stay strong. Society can move forward, if you welcome bulls of all creeds. Well, if your wife welcomes bulls of all creeds.

Remember, in sepia Blondie there’s an underlying tension: Dagwood’s terrified of Blondie running off with a human. Of losing Blondie to a personality or a face. Of his hot wife becoming a hotwife. Visions of a Kingston divorce might haunt him in the newer strips too, but I’m not reading that shit. Someone else can check syndicated Blondie for cuck-panic.

His boss is friendlier to swinging.

“Let me be clear. Nothing would bring me more joy in this hellbound life than my wife’s enslavement. The trafficker can be a foreign deviant or healthy American island-owner. I don’t care. I just want her gone, and suffering.”

That’s our Dithers! There’s love in there. 1930s love is prosecutable, and kills senate campaigns. But there’s love.

Meanwhile, Cora’s after dick with better credit. To that end, she’s invited a horny stranger into her best friend’s house. My friends tell me this is considered odd. Squares.

An experiment! Hypothesis: money’s nice, and any mammal can out-fuck Dagwood. Testing can get complicated, but Cora seems to have ideas.

Then Mustafa actually shows up, with an unlimited budget and bigger erection. I haven’t seen this much money lobbed at a blonde since Theranos. Only Mustafa’s much smarter than venture capitalists, since Blondie’s armpits exist.

Truly, the imperial imagination is stubby and insecure. It must’ve been cold.

After a bit more sheikface, Mustafa tries the hard sell:

For once, I’m rooting for Blondie. Cash out. You picked Dagwood for wealth and he dicked that up. Nothing’s ahead for the Bumsteads but resentment and Dust Bowl wages. Flee before he learns a second blonde exists.

Seriously. Relatable’s great, when things are going well. When Earth’s imploding, I’d rather be terminal than relatable. All Dagwood has on Mustafa is antennae and two children I defy someone to name without scrolling up.

Don’t fret over the House of Saud’s stabby hobbies, you’ll be fine. This is clearly an American banker with a head wound. He took some shrapnel in Guernica, and copes by stunt-fucking former lead characters. Embrace the adventure. Leave. They just replaced that last Blondie after nine years.

Sadly, Blondie puts her shit family first. But Cora convinces her she can make Dagwood jealous, via free harem vacation. Breathing also works, but we go high concept on Blondie.

Today, Cora’s my favorite. Dagwood sounds like Shrek’s Donkey bleeding out, Mr. Dithers is one joke dragged into eternity, and Blondie’s xanned out. But the writers don’t care what Cora says, so it’s often wild. Likely why the Dithers follow the Bumsteads around like Pikachu.

With that nudge, Dagwood’s cuckdreams enter cuckreality, and he has to pretend to hate it. The final haggle over Blondie Boop-a-Doop’s soul begins.

He gives up, and sells his wife in the face of danger. An elegant reversal of the courage that brought them together.

And so Blondie ends, with the finest twist this side of Eddard Stark’s haircut. I’ve been tough on the buildup, but I can’t deny game. Blondie is, as a whole, a fine cautionary tale on marrying a Dagwood.

Wait, shit. There’s more.

Dagwood has a gambit! Mustafa’s dessicated foreign girlhate is no match for red-white-and blue innovation. Dagwood hates things about his wife that haven’t been invented yet. Maybe it’s genius. Maybe it's buried rage after giving up Vanderbilt-tier wealth. Either way, cultures without words for Dagwood’s hair can’t grasp the brain beneath.

“That means four camels to carry.”

I’ll be real with you: I planned to hit Psychic Yoga today. That book loiters on my desk like a loaded gun. Then I heard these words in this order, and it was Blondie month.

Do you know how long learning a Firelog Pose took? I have the hips of a corpse. Then the gods dumped sponsored racism on me Brand-friendly puns, seasoned with ignorance. Blondie month was inevitable. It made my brain more flexible.

I’m only doing four 2000-word articles about Blondie, so I don’t have much time for this point. But Chic and his imitators aren’t super into women’s lib. Looks like their flapper phase was just about hats.

Somehow, someway, Dagwood outsmarts someone. Confirming my Guernica head wound theory.

So begins the Great Sex Depression. If you think dating’s hard now, thank Slaanesh that you’re not dating in the 1930s, when being one of the last solvent humans wasn’t enough. Today, you can look a VP in the eye and say “I write jokes about anime porn mishaps. At my job, which I have instead of an Andrew Tate tattoo. Do you have a car?” Love blossoms.

Next time I date a Real American, I’m trying out “my lovely white dove.” That line could score me Clarence’s job. Easy street, until segregation circles back.

Enabled by Uncle Sam, again. Just like the Bumstead’s atomic adventure. Clearly our owners want me Dagwood-brained. The only way out is through.

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