DADDY WARBUCKS DROPS A BOMB
AGRONSKY, MARTIN
Daddy Warbucks Drops a Bomb by MARTIN AGRONSKY Some months ago I reported on the lamentable fact that, with a few rare exceptions, the funnies aren't funny any more—that instead of sticking to...
...Through the medium of the comic strip, Gray portrays a situation where one of his men, traveling in Communist China, is seized and imprisoned on espionage charges by the Chinese Reds...
...Harold Gray, has always committed Annie to demonstrating that life is just a series of journeys from one vale of tears to the next...
...Agronsky's nightly broadcasts over NBC...
...The way to keep peace is to make war, preferably nuclear war...
...Daddy Warbucks Drops a Bomb by MARTIN AGRONSKY Some months ago I reported on the lamentable fact that, with a few rare exceptions, the funnies aren't funny any more—that instead of sticking to their original function of providing newspaper readers with a daily laugh, they have been converted into a miserable mishmash of daily serials with a message...
...Gray's comic strip hero, Daddy Warbucks, has been declaiming what amounts to a treatise glorifying "preventive war" against the Communists...
...Li'l Abner has become Al Capp's launching platform for satirical arrows against contemporary Babbitts and politicians...
...Perhaps none of this would matter if Little Orphan Annie were labeled for what it is—a political tract, not a comic strip— and carried where it belongs, on the editorial rather than the funny page...
...Gray as a delineator of humor is a misnomer —nobody ever laughs in Little Orphan Annie...
...But when the funnies are as bad and even worse than the front pages, that becomes just too much of a bad thing...
...The strip has evolved into a fullblown political tract which aims at demonstrating that the best way to deal with the menace of Communism in the era of H-bombs is to drop one on them before they have a chance to drop one on us...
...Her creator, a Mr...
...A prime example is the comic strip called Little Orphan Annie...
...Some, like Mary Worth, purvey advice to the lovelorn...
...This has been adapted from one of Mr...
...To describe Mr...
...When the three hours pass, Mr...
...As you can see, foreign policy is stripped to the essentials in Little Orphan Annie...
...And sure enough, Daddy is proved right—his man is immediately released from custody by the Communists...
...And so on...
...others like Rex Morgan, M.D., crusade against medical quackery...
...For Daddy Warbucks there are no problems such as concern about starting a nuclear war...
...When one of the characters asks fearfully, "Couldn't you have touched off a world war?," good old Daddy replies reassuringly, "Nonsense...
...Daddy's man apparently doesn't know about State Department regulations forbidding travel in Red China...
...But I want to protest: It's tough enough these days having to read the front pages after you get through with the funnies...
...He just calls up the Chinese Communist chief of state and says, "Deliver my man in three hours or else...
...It describes how the Red seat of government is blown to smithereens by an atomic explosion...
...For some weeks, Mr...
...The best way to start a fight is to be afraid to start it...
...Well, the funnies are getting even unfunnier...
...Gray depicts a news report telling what his "or else" means...
...Gray has dedicated himself to making Annie and the other characters in his strip the chief mourners at the disappearance from the American scene of rough, tough, rugged individualism...
...Recently, Little Orphan Annie has discovered foreign policy...
Vol. 22 • June 1958 • No. 6
