Dick Tracy Archives - Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures

Dondi, the Sunday Comics, and the Bicentennial Newspaper I Saved

The newspaper shown here is the actual paper I brought home for my family and saved because it marked the Bicentennial of the United States.

Back then, bringing the newspaper home was part of the routine, and the comics were always one of the first places I looked. I remember reading Dondi on those walks home from the store. I enjoyed it, maybe not as much as some of the others, but it still stayed with me. It certainly caught me more than Dick Tracy, which I never really got into.

At the time, I was about the same age as Dondi, so I think that made him stand out. He looked like a kid I could understand — wide-eyed, innocent, and always seeming like he needed someone to look out for him. What I did not understand then was the deeper background of the strip.

Dondi was a long-running newspaper comic about a war orphan taken in by American soldiers. It was created by Gus Edson and Irwin Hasen and ran from 1955 to 1986. The story changed with the times, but the heart of it stayed the same: a young boy trying to find safety, kindness, and a place to belong.

I’ll be sharing more from this saved Bicentennial newspaper, including how the newspapers and the comics celebrated America’s 200th birthday. Looking back now, it is not just a newspaper anymore. It is a little piece of the country, the comics page, and my own childhood all folded together.

Do you remember saving a special newspaper or reading the comics before anyone else got to them?

When Guns Were Fun

There was a time when a kid could watch a Saturday morning ad and immediately know what he wanted next: a Dick Tracy gun set.

Mattel’s Dick Tracy line included the Snub-Nose .38 pistol with a holster and the Tommy Burst Machine Gun, both tied into the famous comic-strip detective. The ad was pure early-1960s kid fantasy: a young boy playing detective, saving the day, and turning the living room into a crime-fighting headquarters while Dad tried to read the paper.

The Snub-Nose .38 was the kind of toy that made a kid feel like an undercover detective. Add the shoulder holster, and suddenly you weren’t just playing cops and robbers — you were Dick Tracy. The Tommy Burst took it even further, giving kids the look of an old gangster-era machine gun, except now the kid was the good guy chasing the crooks. Collectors still identify the Tommy Burst as part of Mattel’s early-1960s Dick Tracy toy line.

Watching those ads now, it is almost shocking how casually toy guns were sold to children. No disclaimers, no bright orange tips, no nervous wording. It was just “here’s the cool detective gear,” and every kid understood the assignment. Back then, toy guns were part of cowboy shows, police shows, war toys, spy kits, detective sets, and neighborhood games that lasted until the streetlights came on.

Of course, times changed. Today an ad like that would probably cause a committee meeting before it ever made it to TV. But for kids of that era, the Dick Tracy Snub-Nose and Tommy Burst weren’t about violence. They were about imagination, sound effects, hiding behind the sofa, and yelling “I got ’em!” before your mother told you to take it outside.

Did you have one of these Dick Tracy guns — or was this the kind of toy you circled in the catalog and never got?

The Fast Talking Guy FedEx Commercial

John “Motormouth” Moschitta Jr., also known as “The Fast Talking Guy became most popular from the FedEx commercials starting in 1981 which lead to six Cleo awards. Cleo’s celebrate the excellence in advertising. Since then he appeared in over 100 commercials, this FedEx is probably his most remembered ad. Moschitta first appeared in the ABC TV series That’s Incredible. He has been credited in the Guinness Book of World Records as the World’s Faster Talker at 586 words per minute.

John has been on many television shows from Sesame Street, Garfield and Friends, Pinky and the Brain , announcer on Hollywood Squares (2003-2004) and as himself in Family Guy as the FedEx voice guy in the Fox-y-Lady episode in 2009. He is credited in movies like Young Doctors In Love, Starchaser, Transformer Movie and the radio announcer in Dick Tracy.