What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? How many times is Walt going to the pharmacy? February – April 2026

Just once, in the current story, although considering Walt Wallet is now more than half as old as the United States repeat pharmacy visits aren’t too out of line. The first visit, in early February, was Walt and his caretaker Gertie going to get vitamins on sale. The second visit, this past week, has been Gertie alone trying to get something for Walt’s headache. The timeline for all this is vague but these visits have to be on separate days. Walt gets mail after his pharmacy visit, and is at church right before Gertie goes out for aspirin. It just seems like this is one continuous long day of incidents featuring guest star The Jack Benny Show’s own Frank Nelson, the “yyyyYYYYYEEEESSSS?” guy.

If I’ve done my job right, this will catch you up to late April 2026 in Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley; if it’s after about July 2026, try checking this link for a more up-to-date essay. Also there: everything I’ve written about Gasoline Alley unless I failed to tag it. Good luck.

Gasoline Alley.

1 February – 25 April 2026.

As foretold back in early February, the story was moving on from Rufus and Joel back to Walt Wallet, a man half as old as the United States, and his caretaker Gertie. It starts with the two going off trying to buy vitamins at a buy-one-get-one-free sale. Since this involves an extremely old person the attempt to pay by card goes terribly wrong, and every person in the world gets stuck in line behind them. There’s an excellent chance you’re still in the pharmacy line despite your not being particularly fictional.

Pharmacy Cashier: 'Doug! This computer won't cooperate!' Doug: 'Let me take a look ... uh-oh! For goodness sake!' Customers behind Walt and Gertie start complaining. 'What now? More delays?' 'This sure isn't the fast lane!' 'It's the only lane!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 16th of February, 2026. The people stuck in line look familiar to me, as supporting cast of **Gasoline Alley**, although I’m not feeling energetic enough to find just where they have appeared and what they were annoyed by main cast for.

Staggering finally out of this they get a late and mauled Christmas card from Rufus and Joel, along with a note apologizing for it being late and mauled. Walt is so old the post office still attaches an apology for delivering mail late and mauled.

Once that’s done, they go off to church so Walt can fall asleep in church. The pastor’s homily trying to make some train analogy leads Walt to dream that he’s getting a train to heaven. Except he misses the train, gets the next one, and solidly refuses to take the hint when the conductor is The Jack Benny Show’s own Frank Nelson.

Nor does he pick up on it when the gatekeeper has horns and a Mandrake the Magician mustache and is Frank Nelson again. That there’s alarms that go off when the gatekeeper says “Heavens no”, and later when Walt talks about his family Bible, also don’t register. Frank Nelson Devil figures that Walt’s supposed to be going to heaven, which is probably the best thing you can hear from a Frank Nelson. Then Gertie wakes him up.

In Walt Wallet's dream: 'I take it you're Saint Peter!' Frank Nelson as Hades's Gatekeeper: 'HEAVENS no!' A siren sounds: VOIP! VOIP! VOIP! Wallet: 'What with the sirens?' Nelson: 'I said a NAUGHTY word. Saint Peter works UPSTAIRS!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 21st of March, 2026. This whole story is something of a litmus test for whether you should be a **Gasoline Alley** reader. If you’re up for this particular style of American Cornball and happy to carry on with gags like this, the comic strip’s up your alley. If not, I don’t know, maybe try **Alley Oop** instead.

Off now to Corky’s Diner where the menu is all food with devil names in it, and Walt wants to go home. He’s got an awful headache, and traffic cop Frank Nelson Again pulls them over for speeding. But Officer Again is happy to escort them home at speed, saying he loves running the siren and going fast without getting a ticket, which, have to admit, does sound like the good part of being a traffic cop.

Back home, Walt’s got a headache, so Gertie heads off to the pharmacy alone this time and somehow buying baby aspirin is hard. Well, that’s life for you.

Next Week!

How’d that Woodsman Olympics turn out? How about Rusty Trail’s competitive photograph-taking? Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail gets some time unless I get the wrong train ticket and should have reason to take a train somewhere.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? Since when does Gasoline Alley have EV chargers? November 2025 – January 2026

Since they needed a place to tow the guy who had an electric vehicle to, is when. Gasoline Alley is in an old-time, American Cornball-genre sitcom universe. It has whatever you need to get the story done. But I agree, it seems odd that Slim Wallet’s gas station getting its first electric vehicle charging point would be worth some mention, even a story. Maybe even a story harkening back to the comic strip’s origins when it was about “guys screwing around all day trying to get their cars to work”. I’m sure they can come back to it if a story presents itself.

Meanwhile, I hope this essay catches you up to the end of January 2026 in Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley. Sorry, my window for plot recapping just misses February. Don’t worry; I’ll catch it next time, which I expect to be somewhere around May 2026. You can find that future plot recap after it’s written, and all my Gasoline Alley recaps, at this link, along with whatever news I see about the comic. Now, what was going on before that.

Gasoline Alley.

10 November 2025 – 31 January 2026.

Newlyweds Baleen and T-Bone returned from their honeymoon, and new characters Toodle and Howie were ready to get married after the harrowing experience of a fake restaurant inspection. I explained it all back then, don’t worry.

After a couple weeks of T-Bone delivering “my wife she so awful” jokes to Howie we get relief in the form of Rufus and Joel, come with a bag of something as a wedding gift. But the opening has to wait as a stranger enters. He has an electric vehicle and no name, but strong William Schallert energy. The electric vehicle needs charging, and this seems hard for the locals to process. It falls to Rufus and Joel to figure out that an extension cord might be useful, and it might, though connecting a string of 86 extension cords all the way from Corky’s Diner to the electric vehicle manages to short out the diner.

EV Guy: 'I need to plug into a 240-volt outlet (electric outlet) and then into my car! This special cord came with my vehicle, but it won't reach my car outside!' Toodle, the waitress: 'Wouldn't switching to gas be a lot easier?' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 28th of November, 2025. You may ask, Joseph, you know lines such as “strong William Shallert energy” are why you’re a **third**-tier comics blogger, right? And yes, I know, they absolutely are, but I can’t help that I like being like this more even than I’d like moving up to second-tier.

Rufus and Joel volunteer to tow the guy’s car to Slim Wallet’s gas station, which has a charging plug somehow. In the process they dent the brand-new car. They’re able to pull the dent out enough to make it just a scratch, and another dent, which is when Schallert chases them off. Slim’s able to fix the dent easily while the guy has a doughnut and coffee, though. Also while he buys a scratch-off lottery card and wins five thousand dollars, which is quite the Christmas … uh … string of successive events?

Schallert exits the strip Christmas Eve, and on December 26th we return to Rufus and Joel’s wedding present to Baleen and T-Bone. It takes a couple weeks to fill out the side jokes and actually open the bag, which turns out to contain: some hideous sculpture of the kind you only see in old sitcoms. Baleen figures the thing to do is send them a thank-you card and toss it in the trash.

Joel, handing the sculpture to T-Bone: 'Rufus 'n' me know how much you an' Mr T-Bone 'preciated th' weddin' gift we gave yo' ... an 'guess what? We done foun' another one jes' like it!' He holds out this bronze(?) sculpture with a fish that has a woman(?) playing a long horn, with a Groucho mask behind her, and abstract swoopy things that look like the decoration put behind a capital letter in an illuminated manuscript behind all this. Rufus: 'Now yo' got a matched pair!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 17th of January, 2026. So who do you suppose bought that thing in the first place, and what for, if it wasn’t giving to Alice Otterloop?

Encouraged by the thank-you card, and delighted they could find a sculpture just like the one they’d given in their trash collection, though, Rufus and Joel give them the sculpture again to make a matched pair. This time Baleen and T-Bone try hiding it in Walt Wallet’s trash, apparently forgetting that Rufus and Joel haul all the named characters’ trash. Rufus and Joel head off amazed at their good fortune at finding a third of whatever this is. And from last week, suspiciously near to when I was going to do a recap anyway, the focus seems to be moving to Walt Wallet being old around Gertie. We’ll see how that pans out.

Next Week!

Gambling! Stolen nature photos! Hats! Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail gets a couple hundred words from me here.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? Did the Health Inspector Close the Diner Down? August – November 2025

The health inspector did not. While the big drama point of the last couple months of Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley was the health inspector finding a lot of problems with Corky’s Diner, they all got washed away. Everything’s fine, now. I’ll explain why, with an essay here that hopefully will catch you up to mid-November 2025 in the comic strip. If you’re reading this after about February 2026, I should have a more up-to-date plot recap here, and any news I get about the comic should run there too.

Gasoline Alley.

18 August – 8 November 2025.

So, I was wrong. When Corky was interviewing for temporary staff, my last plot recap, I thought they’d encountered a guy just quirky enough to make it. Nope; he was a week of jokes about how he keeps setting the kitchens on fire. But the next guy to walk in, Howie Doone, is a solid choice and that gives regular server and cook Baleen and T-Bone time for their honeymoon.

Toodle, calling in an order: 'Wreck two on whiskey!' Howie: 'Toodle! Wreck means scrambled, but we don't have a liquor license here!' Toodle: 'Howie! 'Whiskey' is diner lingo for rye toast! Rye whisky - get it?' Howie: 'Why didn't you say so in the first place?' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 12th of September, 2025. I sympathize so much with Toodle’s **extremely** neurotypical love of using diner lingo now that she’s memorized all of it but she has to have picked up by now that Howie doesn’t know any of it and it’s just slowing things down. Maybe she could try practicing one or two a day until he gets up to speed.

The basic dynamic of guest server Toodle and guest cook Howie is that Toodle is way more into diner lingo than Howie is, so she’s constantly calling out, like, “Colonel Mustard in the dooryard with the spicy monkey fruit” and having to follow up with how that somehow means baked oatmeal with sliced banana but takes longer to say. That’s all amiable enough stuff and Slim Wallet gets to liking them, what with how they manage to make the “Drippy Gooey” — a double burger with cheese and some gooey sauce that gets the proper name “Corky’s Bodacious Big, Barnbuster Burger” — even more of a State Fair Heart Attack snack.

But that merriness comes to an end when the city health inspector pops in. And he spots a lot of problems, starting with Toodle and Howie not wearing hair protection. Slim’s hat is good enough head covering for the moment. But he also spots chipped concrete and correctly calls out as bribery Howie’s offer of a free meal to hold the inspection until after the lunch rush. Really apart from ten points off for Toodle and Howie’s public display of affection in the kitchen it all seems fairly reasonable and things look dire for the diner.

Howie: 'What's going on out there?' First Attendant: 'Our 'resident' thinks he's President Lincoln!' Second Attendant: 'He shaved his beard and wandered off!' Fake Health Inspector: 'When am I due at Gettysburg?' Howie: 'Why didn't you stop him?' First Attendant: 'He didn't look like Lincoln anymore!' Second Attendant: 'We thought he was a visitor!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 10th of October, 2025. President Lincoln was well-known for how he hoped, once the terrible war was over and he could lay down the reins of the presidency, to travel the country with Mary Todd inspecting taverns for cleanliness.

So that’s cue for the rescue squad to come in, wearing hospital coats and carrying butterfly nets (implied). The “city health inspector” is actually an escaped patient from the mental hospital and in his cornball comedy insanity he’s shut down three restaurants already. So everything’s happy, just in time for the actual health inspector, Frank Nelson, to show up.

The actual inspection apparently goes better. Corky hires on Toodle and Howie as a second shift. And Baleen and T-Bone come back after a happy honeymoon where it never stopped raining. Plus, Toodle and Howie are already to get married themselves, the experience of two weeks character-time of Gasoline Alley shenanigans proving to be long enough for them to pair bond, increasing Gasoline Alley‘s lead over Mary Worth for weddings.

Next Week!

What if we went hunting feral hogs with a would-be-disgraced-were-she-capable-of-shame tiger cult leader? Or if that’s not your speed, how about upcycling some sweatshirts? Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail offers all this and more, next week in this slot.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? When did Baleen and T-Bone split up? May – August 2025

I can’t find it. It must not have rated a mention in any of my earlier summaries of Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley plots. But kicking off the current storyline is that Baleen and T-Bone, waitress and cook at Corky’s Diner, are engaged again. The closest I can find to their breaking up is a mention last April, during the Plot to Rename Gasoline Alley The Town, the two found themselves on opposite sides of the name-change question and it was so contentious “our romance almost got dis-engaged”. But almost is not did, so, I don’t know.

By the end of this essay you should be caught up on what’s happening in Gasoline Alley as of mid-August 2025. If you’re reading in the far future, like, after mid-November 2025, maybe try my archive of all Gasoline Alley plot recaps to find something more up-to-date. Good luck.

Gasoline Alley.

26 May – 16 August 2025.

Slim and Clovia Wallet had travelled all the way out to their kids’ farm, taking them up on the offer of free eggs. They wait for Rover to get home from delivering a chicken tractor. I choose to believe the comic strip when it claims that’s a mobile chicken coop that’s totally a thing because why would Jim Scancarelli lie to me about that of all things? Also Rover’s son Boog, previously known to readers as a kid with big ink-drop eyes, is now a high school graduate with big ink-drop eyes.

Slim brakes his truck to a sudden stop, sending the eggs in the backseat flying loose, in order to avoid a very frightened deer in the road. Also a bird happens to be flying in the foreground so looks huge. — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 13th of June, 2025. The bird’s just happy to be included in this scene. Also, uh, I guess Slim and Clovia are relieved they didn’t try to carry the bucket of eggs in the truck cabin now.

Anyway, Rover and Boog are happy to give their folks a bucket of eggs. But in the drive home, Slim has to brake hard to not hit a deer, and while he succeeds in that, he sends the eggs crashing. Nothing to do but throw away the ruins and mourn the toed-in tire making them drive funny. Also to stop for the traffic cop (yes, in car 54) who gives them a $150 ticket for dumping trash, the broken eggs.

Slim drives the battered, wobbly car into some town’s Fourth of July parade, as one does, and is mistaken for being a clown car. Clovia chooses to embrace the doom and smiles and waves like she’s part of the parade. They do a convincing enough job that not only are they accepted as parade-folk, who gather around and proclaim the Wallets one of us, but the Parade Official gives them a $500 check for having the most popular float. You wouldn’t think “dirty ancient pickup truck with a busted axle, smeared with egg goop” was what the public wanted, but then, look who we named President.

Parade Official: 'Ha! Ha! I get your joke! You automotive engineers don't want to divulge your trade secrets!' Slim: 'How true!' Clovia, in the background, looks nauseated. Official: 'What will you do with your prize money?' Slim: 'Buy some eggs!' Clovia rolls her eyes into the next comic. — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 11th of July, 2025. The Parade Official had asked Slim how he got his truck to drive so funny and Slim gave a loopy explanation about you go out and get some eggs, you see. Also the Parade Official asking where he was from is how I learned this parade was not meant to be Gasoline Alley Township’s parade. Anyway I give all this this much mention because the Parade Official’s reference to Slim as an Automotive Engineer is something Slim takes with excessive pride, and it looked like it was going to turn into a story about Slim putting on airs. That didn’t happen now, but I can’t rule it out being a future story and want the event logged here where I can find it when I need to look like I have an encyclopedic knowledge of these strips.

That wrings about everything there is to wring out of the Quest for Eggs, so the Wallets pull in to Corky’s Diner, and that, starting the 19th of July, gets us to the current story. Baleen, the waitress, is delighted to show off her engagement ring; she and cook T-Bone Towser are back on. The thing holding the wedding up? They can’t both take off for a honeymoon because the diner won’t have enough staff. They’re able to find a short-term waitress in the person of Toodle Lou Lautrec, but they’re struggling to find a cook who’ll take a two-week job.

Corky, interviewing a waitress: 'Have you waited on a table before, Toodle?' Toodle: 'Sure, when a restaurant's crowded! Ha! Ha!' T-Bone, interrupting: 'Corky! She did great here a minute ago by herself! She even knows diner lingo!' Corky: 'Say something, Toodle!' Toodle: 'Something!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 9th of August, 2025. Toodle’s exchange here makes me think Jim Scancarelli’s going for a Gracie Allen vibe with the character, but the character design is just enough off that I don’t think it’s intended to be direct, the way Frank Nelson shows up in bit parts.

It gets bad enough that Corky and T-Bone decide the trouble is nobody wants to work which, well, yeah, but it’s also like a two-week full-time job. Most of us don’t have the time for that even if we wanted it. Has Corky even considered maybe cutting back their hours and seeing if they can borrow someone from The Other Diner I Trust Is In Town? I mean, I could imagine a real-world Gasoline Alley being a one-diner town but you can not tell me there isn’t a place for Gasoline Alley characters who are Angy at Corky to dine. But this week started with someone new coming into the strip and he looks like a keeper, so probably T-Bone’s betting some relief soon. We’ll know soon.

Next Week!

It’s a race between alligators and peacocks to see who eats Mark Trail’s face first! Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail gets some love next week, unless something interrupts!

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? Why celebrate a 106th anniversary? On the wrong date? March – May 2025

The recently concluded story in Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley featured a celebration of the 106th anniversary of the comic strip’s start. And, for some reason, in March, rather than the November when the anniversary would otherwise be. I can’t find a good reason for this other than the shaggy-dog nature of going to great effort to get to the Old Comics Home to celebrate something nobody would really bother celebrating, and on the wrong day even if they did celebrate it. Sorry not to have a stronger answer for you, but that’s the best I can figure.

Hopefully I’ll answer any further questions about Gasoline Alley leading up to late May 2025 in this essay, though. If you’re reading after about late August 2025, though, I hope to have a more up-to-date plot recap here. Or if any news about the comic strip comes out, I’ll try and share that here too.

Gasoline Alley.

2 March – 24 May 2025.

When last we looked in on Gasoline Alley, Mutt and Jeff had finally driven Walt Wallet through the blizzard to the Old Comics Home. But rather than a zany home full of comic strip characters of the past there’s a blackout. When Mutt and Jeff finally find a candle, that somehow turns out to be a firework, they find the sarcastic visage of Frank Nelson, the “Yyyyyyyyyyyes?” guy from The Simpsons and, originally, The Jack Benny Show. He’s there as a paramedic, sent out by Walt Wallet’s loved ones to figure whether he died or something in the snowstorm.

But he’s fine, of course, and more, the real reason Mutt and Jeff brought Walt Wallet here is revealed: it’s a surprise party! Celebrating, of course, the 106th anniversary of Gasoline Alley. Which was back in November but stuff gets in the way. Something in me is tickled by just throwing an anniversary any old time.

Jeff: 'Listen up! The cook said he kept the food hot till we got here, but when the power went off --- supper spoiled!' Mama Katzenjammer: 'Does that mean we go to bed hungry?' Maggie (of Bringing Up Father); 'I'm afraid so!' Second panel: Jeff: 'APRIL FOOL! Hot food's being served in the dining hall [ All the assembled character zoom off ] ... Hey! Wait for us!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 1st of April, 2025. It felt like there were fewer character appearances here than usual, although Mutt, Jeff, Barney Google, and Snuffy Smith always get the most attention. This is one of the few panels showing a mob of characters and it’s mostly **The Katzenjammer Kids** and **Bringing Up Father**.

Snuffy Smith and Barney Google promise a bodacious wing-ding for their own comic’s 106th anniversary, coming the 17th of June, but I have no idea if that’s in earnest. And when the celebratory dinner is done, they drive back — through the field of Farmer Al Falfa, whom you totally remember as Paul Terry’s big cartoon star of the 1910s and 20s. Back home, Walt and Mutt and Jeff have another meal, Gertie’s grilled cheese sandwiches that taste like steak. I don’t know if this is supposed to just be cheesesteaks or what. Anyway, Mutt and Jeff invite Walt to retire at the Old Comics Home with them, and he declines for some reason.

After that, Gertie gets out some old postcards. It lets Jim Scancarelli show off his efforts at making vintage-style Easter cards which is nice. You may or may not like the strip but you can’t say Scancarelli doesn’t enjoy drawing stuff. Then they spend a week on the proposed abolition of the (United States) penny. It’s one of those ideas that people get really passionate about, like abolishing Daylight Saving Time or not teaching cursive in schools, even though it would make almost no difference to anyone or anything. Anyway, Walt Wallet thinks ending the penny is foolish and he’s against it.

Slim, looking at the blocked-off covered bridge: 'We'll have to backtrack ten miles! Fooey! Clovia, please move those barricades. We'll scoot through and no one will be the wiser!' Clovia, pointing at what's beyond the barrels: 'Oh yes they will! There's no flooring in the bridge!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 16th of May, 2025. Oh, c’mon, this worked out great for **Carnival of Souls**, right?

Monday, the 5th of May, started the current story. It begins at breakfast with Slim Wallet wondering why they can’t have scrambled eggs. It’s because eggs are too expensive. Well, their kids Rover and Hoogy have a farm and offered them all the eggs they can carry, going out and stocking up makes good sense. But the road is horribly busy, and it turns out a covered bridge they need is flooded out, so there’s twenty miles of detour to get to them. This past week, they finally got there, finding that Rover is out delivering a tractor somewhere and Hoogy is busy with forest ranger-ing. And that’s all, right now.

Next Week!

Sure, AI may be wrecking the things everyone depends on, but that’s a price some cloddish men are happy to have you pay! Next week, Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail gets both of its ongoing plots that are about this explained, plus, I think shark eggs are going to play a role somehow?

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? Is this the time Walt Wallet finally dies? December 2024 – March 2025

First things first: I’m publishing a day early because I want to. There.

Second: probably not. While everybody has observed that an elegant solution to the problem of Gasoline Alley trying to age the characters while its patriarch Walt Wallet is older than the US Steel corporation would be having him move to the Old Comics Home. The Old Comics Home is a goofy, out-of-continuity place where legends from comic strips both ended (Krazy Kat, Mutt and Jeff) and not (Barney Google and Snuffy Smith) live in an eternal shenanigans boarding house, you know, like Sam’s Strip that you’ve never read either. But I get the vibe that if Jim Scancarelli wants to shuffle Walt Wallet off for good, even if he could come around any time Skeezix, himself over a hundred years old, wanted. I suspect Scancarelli likes being able to tell jokes about how impossibly old the founding generation of Wallets are.

So, the point of this essay is catch you up to early March in Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley. Around late May or early June 2025 I’ll probably have another, so if you’re reading after that time you should look here for the most current plot recaps. Also, should any news about the comic strip come out, I’ll share it there. But you’ll see it sooner at The Daily Cartoonist, most likely.

Gasoline Alley.

8 December 2024 – 1 March 2025.

Aubee Skinner, Ava Luna, and Sophie got rescued from the surface of Mars, thanks to the timely intervention of Ava Luna’s magic doll Ida Noe and also how the adventure was all a fantasy. Not a fantasy: the reports that RT the Artificial Intelligence wrote about the planets, nor the failing grade they got for turning in lousy reports. Luckily, Santa’s on the case, dropping off the magic doll Ida Clare to be Ava Luna’s new toy friend who’s better than RT. Meanwhile the kids go home with the finally-old-enough-to-be-weaned kittens from Walt Wallet’s new cat.

New year, new consideration of how Walt Wallet is really way too old for this. And a new story of things for him to be too old for. Here, it’s the Home Owners Association, issuing a fine for having the Christmas decorations up for too long. A trio of people who look like they didn’t make the Crankshaft casting call plague Wallet’s door, trying to make some trouble about Gertie (Wallet’s live-in nurse) living there.

Broad-faced White Guy: 'We're from the friendly neighborhood Home Owner's Association!' Gertie: 'Are you here about those stupid fines?' White Guy: 'Do we detect some animosity here?' Gertie: 'Will we be fined for that, too?' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 18th of January, 2025. Seriously, look at that Home Owner Association guy. He’s somehow got everything instantly punchable about Harry L Dinkle combined with everything punchable about Les Moore. It’s speaks to Jim Scancarelli’s skills in character design that the part is cast this well.

Skeezix calls in the help of his lawyer, Eva Van Shrewder (get it?), who I hadn’t met before and apparently Skeezix hadn’t either. But she finds that Walt Wallet doesn’t have to pay a dime. For one, all the members of the Home Owners Associations have code violations. I’m not sure if this is of actual code or just of HOA codes. Second, Walt Wallet kept their Christmas decorations up through January 6th, which is the correct time. You people taking Christmas down the 26th: what is wrong with you? And finally, Walt Wallet isn’t a member of the Home Owner Association, he and his house dating back to the days when you used deed restrictions to keep out Black or Jewish people instead of hiding behind an HOA. The Angry Committee is never seen again, presumably because they’re off asking their attorney, Rene Belluso, how he failed to see this legal beatdown coming. Anyway there’s probably no repercussions coming from the neighbors being all sore to start with and getting beaten by two people older than commercial radio.

Packed tight in a car in a heavy snowstorm. Walt Wallet: 'Can you see the road, Mutt?' Mutt: 'Oh! Yes! Perfectly!' Wallet: 'Why are we bouncing up and d-down so b-badly then?' Mutt: 'I'm afraid we're going across Farmer Alfalfa's freshly plowed field now!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 1st of March, 2025. I don’t know that “Farmer Alfalfa” is a reference to the lead of Paul Terry’s **Aesop’s Film Fables** cartoons of the 1920s, but I also don’t know that it’s **not**.

And with the 7th of February we start in on the new adventure, the one going on now. Mutt and Jeff visit, there to bring Walt Wallet to the Old Comics Home for what turns out to be the first time since the comic strip’s centennial in 2018. I, too, am amazed it’s been that long. It took nearly seven years for the two to drive Wallet over to the home, because a snowstorm set in and their car isn’t technically a jalopy but, c’mon, it’s Mutt and Jeff’s car.

Today (Monday the 3rd) they arrived at the Old Comics Home, though, so we can look forward to Jim Scancarelli showing off how he can draw Smokey Stover or Toots and Casper or whatnot. Probably see more of the old slapstick comics, though.

Next Week!

It’s more bear costumes than I expected in Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail, but to be fair, there are a lot of numbers that would have been more than I expected. See you in a week or maybe some other span of time.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? Are those kids really on Mars? September – December 2024

No. The current Gasoline Alley story has four kids, a magic doll, and a magic artificially-intelligent robot on a crashed flying saucer on Mars. It’s all in their imaginations, and I suppose this means their previous magic-doll adventures with Santa Claus and Abraham Lincoln are firmly established as imaginary too. I’m not sure why Jim Scancarelli takes pains to explain the reality level here. It can’t be to keep the strip in a gentle but recognizable reality; there’s too many talking animals and magical events like the Old Cartoons Home for that. It’s got to be for more than just the shout-out to old-time-radio, since he’s got to be qualified for inclusion to the Old Time Radio Museum by now. Maybe it’s some allusion to Christmas serial The Cinnamon Bear I’m not recognizing or something.

Well, if I’ve managed my job okay, this catches you up to early December 2024 in Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley. By March 2025 I should have another post, so if you’re looking for a more up-to-date plot recap, try this link. I’ll also drop a note if any news about the comic breaks out.

Gasoline Alley.

17 September – 7 December 2024.

In the most shockingly surprising shock surprise of 2024, my prediction that Mee-Meow, the cat found by Walt Wallet, was pregnant came true. There’s soon four new kittens in the house. Gertie gives Rufus and Joel fifty bucks to leave the story (a bird steals Rufus’s half). And she works out when she’ll be able to drop the cats off in Mark Trail.

The 1st of October starts the transition to the current story. Aubee Skinner and her friends Ava Luna and Sophie come bearing gifts of cat food, and get the promise that they can have whatever kittens Mark Trail doesn’t want.

RT, from inside the dome of his flying saucer, tells the kids, 'Welcome to my flying machine! Be sure to duck upon entering!' Sophie quacks as she runs toward the stairs. The saucer has a long extension cord that doesn't quite reach to the EV charging station, and the magic doll Ida Noe holds up the end asking, 'What's this for?' without being noticed. — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 26th of October, 2024. I believe we’re supposed to take it that RT just failed to plug in the flying saucer, but it does read like Ida Noe is sabotaging the flight.

The kids weren’t just there to meet the cats, but also to share Ava Luna’s magic doll Ida Noe, and Aubee’s robot toy Arty the Artificial Intelligence. They’re there to show off how they can make up cat names and then help Aubee and Ava Luna in school. They have a report due on space, you see, and haven’t got the new Encyclopedia Brittanica. Instead, the toys offer to take them all to the solar system so they can write from knowledge. Artee also promises to write the report itself if they’ll let it take them in its electric-powered magnetic flying saucer.

RT takes them off on a quick tour to the Sun, then Saturn, then that black hole Voyager 6 fell into, before finally running out of power and crashing on Mars. I know, I was thinking of science fiction author James Blish’s adequate young-readers novel Welcome to Mars too. They don’t have the power to lift off again, so what can they possibly do but hope somehow someone somewhere comes to their rescue.

RT: 'Why didn't you bring a battery charger?' Ida Noe: 'What happend to 'whoever controls magnetism controls the universe'?' Sophie: 'What'll we do while they're arguing?' We see the saucer from outside. Someone declares, 'We're stranded here forever!' and someone else, 'Guess we are now the real MARTIANS!' Meanwhile RT and Ida Noe shout about 'What about quartz electric?' 'You mean piezoelectricity?' 'I mean polarization of electrocatalysis!' 'Aw! Scram gravy ain't wavy!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 5th of December, 2024. The magnetism-controlling-the-universe thing references the science fiction turn Dick Tracy took in the 60s, with Diet Smith and his space coupe and all. “Scram gravy ain’t wavy” is a **Smokey Stover** line, a little less famous than “foo” or “notary sojac” are.

And what do you know but Jones, who’s … (checks notes) … the foundling that bear rescued from the forest and that Aubee’s mother Hoogy Skinner adopted or something visits the Wallets and picks up Ida Noe, whom I’d just assumed was on the Mars trip. But she’s aware of the distress the girls and RT are in, and directs him how to plan a rescue mission. After dressing him up like Chip from Rescue Rangers he flips his hat and poof, they’re on Mars. Thinking quickly, Ida Noe has Jones build a battery using only an ice cream scoop, some string, and a battery, and while we’re not there yet it sure seems like they’re going to get home safe and sound.

Next Week!

It’s the chance to check in on those cats the Wallets aren’t prepared for! That’s more than just a throwaway joke as I get to talking about Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail next week, all going to plan.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? Do you have a Gasoline Alley anecdote unrelated to the plot to share? June – September 2024

Why yes, I do! First though let me warn people living in December 2024 or later that you should follow this link for a more up-to-date plot recap of Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley, or any news about the strip. But first, my unrelated story.

So I was at the veterinarian, and the receptionist noticed and said she liked the name of Fezziwig, the delightful and extremely round mouse we used to have. I got to share some anecdotes of his amazing mouse behavior, and she said how the name sounded like something out of one of those Jim Henson movies of the 80s like Labyrinth or The Dark Crystal. This got us trying to remember the name of the creepy-looking evil Muppets from The Dark Crystal and it was tough going. I finally offered, “The Skeezix”, which she accepted, and I was halfway home before I realized my mistake. It gives you some idea how far my brain is stuffed full of Gasoline Alley stuff, though.

In the meantime, I would like to advise people that getting a clever and amiable and very round mouse is a great thing to do. Also that it would be great if someone figured how to render the longtime comic strip star as a weird dragony-bird-bat thingy.

We never figured out anything about the name of the good Muppets from The Dark Crystal.

Gasoline Alley.

23 June – 15 September 2024.

Since the last time I checked in on Gasoline Alley not a lot has developed. It might have been the best time in ages to jump on if you’re new to the strip. A tree had fallen onto Walt Wallet’s lawn and the insurance company is being all insurance company-y about it.

Sam A Wood [ Frank Nelson ]: 'We started cutting at 7 am, Mr Wallet!' Wallet: 'I didn't hear anything!' Wood: 'Oooh! Neither could my guys!' Wallet: 'Why not?' Wood: 'Your snoring drowned them out!' Wallet: 'now cut that out!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 17th of July, 2024. I’m a little curious if the suspended-by-a-crane thing is imitating something that happened on Jack Benny’s TV show. I’ve seen enough episodes of it that I could imagine that as the big visual stunt punch line. This isn’t meant to disparage the storyline or the jokes. I like them, I just recognize they’re well-done examples of a humor style not done much in pop culture these days.

He hires Samuel A Wood to clear the tree. Wood is Frank Nelson so we get that cozy round of jokes. Wallet sits down to watch the work going on, like anyone would. But a crane accidentally scoops him up and swings him around a bit. My enjoyment of the physical comedy was tempered by thinking, jeez, this is a man who was of voting age before letter-sized paper was standardized as $8\frac12 \times 11$ and he’s holding on by his cane. He gets down fast — not “plummet” fast, but fast — and the insurance company covers the cost, so that’s all well.

Walt Wallet screams in quite reasonable terror as the crane lifts up the log he's on, and he has to hold on by his walking cane. We get a crane shot of him, dangling from the crane and the log, eyes closed tight and saying, 'The view is probably great from here, but I'm not looking down!' as the workmen look shocked and worried. — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 27th of July, 2024. And he was doing fine right up until Crankshaft launched his barbecue grill at him!

In the other story running alongside, Walt Wallet has a cat. Well, a cat appeared during the storm and didn’t leave, so there we go. Mee-Meow has done the sorts of things you’d expect. Hiding from the noise of the chainsaws and cranes. Demanding food that meets an unknown yet ever-changing standard. Hating on Mondays. Wearing a helmet labelled “HAM” while riding the shoulder of a robot to see Garbage Ape and Jimmy Frog are Grand Marshalls of a ticker-tape parade for gum. But Mee-Meow disappears, not even come out for treats, so the question is, what gives?

Unlike Comics Kingdom, GoComics doesn’t offer a way for me to peek a week ahead and seem wise with my forecasts. But I know how the genre Jim Scancarelli writes in goes. There is no way Mee-Meow is anything but very pregnant and we’ll be getting a bunch of kittens distributed to miscellaneous characters. We’ll see how that forecast works out. I’m confident. Jim Scancarelli seems to like drawing cats too much.

Next Week!

Is Rusty Trail going to be eaten by a lion? Probably not, but Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail has given us other improbable sights, such as Mark Trail having an interior voice, so who knows? Unless you’ve used that Comics Kingdom power to read the strip a week ahead of today.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? Why is Walt fighting a giant pig? April – June 2024

The last couple months of Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley have been Walt Wallet facing problems that resolve themselves without his even needing to be there. That’s my favorite kind of problem too, but for me not being there. After that adventure resolved, Walt Wallet had a dream that relived it in metaphor. It didn’t last as long as it did in my memory. Scancarelli’s more fun when he goes for the wild image. Those wild images were what my subject-line question was about, though.

If you’re looking to catch up on the plot as of late June 2024, continue on, please. If you’re looking for sometime other than June 2024, including after about September 2024, try this link. I hope to have all my Gasoline Alley coverage there.

Gasoline Alley.

1 April – 23 June 2024.

When last I visited Gasoline Alley, Acting Mayor Elburt Imeswine told Walt Wallet of the plan to rename the place Electric Acres. Walt and Skeezix leave, despairing that the public will rise up against this city renaming. A stop at Corky’s Diner gives them no comfort, as the patrons don’t want to talk about it. The menu even has an Electric Acres Burger Special on it, the idea of chef T-Bone and the start of a fight between T-Bone and fiancee Baleen.

Imeswine, throwing a tantrum at Mayor Melba, who has the charter with her: 'This is fraudulent! We didn't have a *king* here in the US named Franco! This charter is a fake! Alonso XIII was king in space and Francisco *Franco* was a Spanish general who came along later!' Melba: 'You ever hear of a cartoonist named Frank O King?' Imeswine: 'No!' Melba: 'Well, you should!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 27th of April, 2024. Here we learn that Imeswine may be street smart, in that he’d probably do fine on Jeopardy!, but he’s oblivious to what genre he’s in and who’s writing him. Most of us are like that.

At the city council meeting Acting Mayor Imeswine is eager to push the name change through. He declares victory just in time for Mayor Melba to get back from her personal business — her mother was moving into a nursing home — and declare it was impossible to change the name of the city. The town charter, signed by Frank O King in 1918, proclaimed the place would always be Gasoline Alley. Imeswine doesn’t even know the cartoonist who started the comic strip, but there we go.

Walt, celebrating the triumph that he … didn’t have anything to do with, relives the events in an extended dream sequence. It’s a bunch of fun visuals, loosely drawn on the David-and-Goliath myth with Imeswine as a goliath hog. It’s also loosely drawn on the saying about the pen being mightier than the sword, so that’s a lot of the visuals. The dream comes to a crashing halt with the goliath hog vanquished. Also with the power knocked out.

A gigantic bipedal pig-monster looks over the river bank, seeing the tiny figure of dream-scape Young Walt Wallet, who cries out: 'Hey, Imeswine, you fat pig! Prepare for your demise!' Imeswine leans over, reaching for Wallet with a hand big enough to grab him at once, and answers, 'HA! Are *you* all that Queen Melba of Gazali has to fight me?' Wallet, who's in line of Imeswine's breath: 'You didn't brush today, did you? You smell like a cigar!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 17th of May, 2024. Dream Walt’s look there has me wondering what it might be like if Jim Scancarelli drew **Alley Oop**. There’s an excellent chance he has, in the background of some Old Cartoons Home sequence, but I mean for a story. Could be fun.

As there’s been a heavy storm, and it knocked a quite big tree over that blacked out the neighborhood. Power crews are already on it, though Walt Wallet can’t figure why his emergency generator didn’t kick on. He does kick it, and the power comes back, but that may be from the power crew working.

Meanwhile, a cat’s wandered into Walt Wallet’s home, and doesn’t show much interest in leaving. So it looks like Walt has a cat now, that’s nice. And that’s where we sit in late June.

Next Week!

Who’s scaring Rusty Trail and creating heaps of e-Waste and why is it Honest Ernest? Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail gets the chance to explain several key ways we’re screwing ourselves over next week, all going well! … On Earth, at least.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? Is the place actually named Gasoline Alley? January – March 2023

Yeah, so, the town where Gasoline Alley takes place is named Gasoline Alley. In the current story Walt Wallet tells a few bits of how that came about. It’s mundane enough: the spot where Walt and his friends got together to try getting their cars to work was naturally named the “Gasoline Alley” and as town congregated around them the name stuck to the place. I suspect without knowing that Frank King didn’t have a particular town in mind for where his jokes were set, and by the time it mattered everyone called the place after the comic strip. I know that by the late-40s radio series the town was called Gasoline Alley and that seems to be as much name as it needs.

After reading this you should be up to speed on Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley for early April, 2024. Want to read all my plot recaps and, where available, news about the comic strip? Including, if you’re reading this after about July 2024, a more current plot recap? You’ll find everything I have to say about Gasoline Alley at this link. At other links, you might miss something.

Gasoline Alley.

7 January – 31 March 2024.

Last time I checked in on Gasoline Alley, Walt Wallet, a person of more than ten years of age, was having trouble doing the laundry. Clovia, his wife, took over the chore and found a note in his pocket. She wants to know what “The girls and I want to thank you for your generous gift! Your true love, Sweet Thing” could mean. Slim hasn’t got any idea. She kicks him out of the house.

Clovia: 'Oh, Slim! I'm sorry I was angry and didn't trust you!' Slim: 'Me too, Clovia.' Clovia: 'I couldn't get you on your cellphone!' Slim (as they hug): 'Yeah! I forgot to take it! I was in a huff and a hurry.' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 5th of February, 2024. While I couldn’t imagine anyone seriously thought the love note was anything too different from what it was, I was surprised Scancarelli didn’t tease the story out by having Slim investigate and get some false leads, or

After a day spent at Corky’s Diner having coffee and schtick with Baleen Beluga, Slim falls asleep in the parking lot. The cops come waking him up, with the news that his wife filed a missing-persons report. Also that all is forgiven. The note was from Aubee, their granddaughter, who called to make sure he saw the note she slipped into his pocket for a surprise. It’s a thank-you note for the money he gave the kids’ cheerleading squad for outfits. So, a happy reconciliation in time for Valentine’s Day.

And then, the 12th of February, started the current story, with Clovia and Slim hearing news so shocking they can’t tell the reader about it for over a week, telling Skeezix, and having Skeezix go to Walt Wallet. That news: the city council is considering renaming Gasoline Alley. To have something that sounds more modern and not-so-dingy they fed the problem to an artificial intelligence, and after burning up 346 acres of Brazilian rainforest it gave a sure hit of a new name: For Peanuts Or For Hobbes.

Vice-Mayor Imeswine, monologuing: 'Well, that's certainly a very provincial story --- but we aren't living in a bucolic frontier any longer --- don't you see? It's time for a change! Forward! Always forward! Progress, man, progress!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 28th of March, 2024. The Wallets are quite worried about the idea of Imeswine changing the town name “arbitrarily” but, I mean, towns change names all the time. Mind, I’m from New Jersey, where whatever you called them every municipality was officially named either “Washington”, “Hamilton”, or “Dover” until the last thirty years when they filed paperwork to spread the names out to, oh, “City of Toms River”, “Borough of Toms River”, and “Town of Toms River”.

The Wallets go to City Hall, where mayor Melba is not. She was called out of her office “real sudden like”, according to comedy relief Rufus. Acting mayor Elburt Imeswine is happy to see the Wallets right up until they start talking. He shuffles them off with the promise there’s a council meeting next week when they can talk about it. And that takes us up to Easter and the close of my reporting window. How will Mayor Melba come back home and quash the renaming plan? How will it turn out Vice-Mayor Imeswine tricked Melba into leaving town? We’ll find out in the weeks to come, I’m sure.

Next Week!

Also in the weeks to come! Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail hits more security guards and there’s something about a banjo cat! That’s if all goes to plan, and the plan is what I’ve claimed it is. We’ll see just what happens by next Tuesday, though.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? Why are Rufus and Joel in Charlotte, North Carolina? October 2023 – January 2024

The unsatisfying answer is they hitched a ride with Slim Wallet. Why was Slim going to Charlotte? He wasn’t, to start with; he was driving back after dropping off some tires. Rufus and Joel, taking over the driving, got lost. Slim took back over and drove them to the mall, where he was supposed to play Santa. As to why Charlotte as opposed to any generic city? My guess is Jim Scancarelli wanted to show off his great skyline photos of the place called “The Queen City of the West” by people who went on too long and accidentally named that WKRP place.

So this should catch you up to early 2024 in Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley developments. If you’re reading this after about April 2024, or news about the comic strip breaks out, I’ll share with a post here. If neither of those are true, this is the most up-to-date stuff you can get except from whoever the dedicated Gasoline Alley snark bloggers are.

Gasoline Alley.

15 October 2023 – 6 January 2024.

Last I checked in, Bear, the bear, had got Jones, yet another foundling boy, fostered by Ranger Hoogy Skinner. While on a walk Bear and Jones meet up with Rufus and Joel, everyone’s comic pair of least-realistic characters in the strip. They’ve ended their hiding out in Bear’s uncle’s cave when Bear’s uncle starts snoring. Or growling. Whatever.

So that encounter — let’s date it the 16th of October — is when the main story of the end of last year started. Rufus and Joel figure to walk back home. It’s a longer walk than it was running out into the woods. They hitch a ride with Slim Wallet, returning from the Queen City after dropping off some tires. On the drive back to Gasoline Alley Slim gets so tired he asks Rufus and Joel to drive, while he sleeps in back on the truck bed.

Rufus and Joel decide to get on the Interstate, and before you know it they’re on I-77 and heading into Charlotte. They hit a pothole hard enough Slim falls out of the truck, but don’t notice until they make another orbit of the city. Slim’s angry, but awake, so there’s something to be said about being thrown out onto an Interstate. They pick him up again, and he drives, not to home, but to Gasoline Alley Mall.

Rufus at the wheel of the truck looks at the road: 'This is right where that sink hole was! There! Thy put a baricade over it now! Mr Slim must've flipped out when we hit the hole!' An outright livid Slim stands on the side of the highway. Joel: 'If that's him, he's really gonna flip out when he sees us!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 22nd of November, 2023. I think we all agree with Slim Wallet’s anger there. In driving around town to no point they’ve wasted all the time they could have spent at Carowinds amusement park!

Because it’s now Christmastime and someone’s got to play Santa for Frank Nelson at the department store. Slim was signed up for it, but with his road injury he’s not up to kids on his lap all day. Joel, the shorter and fatter one, has to take his place, while Rufus is his elf.

The kids are from the Gasoline Alley kids crew, finishing with Jones, who turns out to be able to say stuff after all. And then some woman I don’t recognize thanks him, as Santa, for spreading the true meaning of the season and whatnot. After that, some brat of a kid yanks on Joel’s beard and that’s enough of that for everyone.

The 26th of December saw a big bit of news. Baleen Beluga and T-Bone, waitress and cook at Corky’s diner, are engaged. They haven’t set a date yet. And then from the 2nd of January we got … Slim, a grown man, failing to use the washing machine correctly. Where is this going? I don’t know, maybe they’re going to stretch and make it to Raleigh/Durham.

Next Week!

My schedule has me talking about Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail. But what if — and I’m just thinking out loud, silently, while watching The Price Is Right on the DVR — I looked to the world of Mongo instead? What might happen? Check in next week and we’ll see what happens. If it does.

Finally I checked with an AI search engine which told me her name was Sally Mustang

So you know where I’ve been this week, my head decided it was important that I remember the full name of Rose Marie’s character Sally from The Dick Van Dyke Show. But also remembering instantly and well the name of her nothing boyfriend, Herman Glimscher (probably played by some actor or other). I can’t explain any of this, but it’s how it turned out.

(Also, oh, it turns out Herman Glimscher was played by Bill Idelson, who played Rush on Vic and Sade. Also Skeezix on one of the radio shows based on Gasoline Alley. Wow!)

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? What’s with the talking bear? July – October 2023

The current story in Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley hasn’t just featured Bear, the talking bear. He’s been the protagonist. We’ve met him in earlier stories, although I don’t remember him taking a role this central. It’s one of the less realistic aspects of the comic strip in Jim Scancarelli’s tenure. But it fits with the sort of genial, slightly cornball writing he favors. It feels very like an old-time-radio setup — see the era when Jack Benny had a polar bear in his menagerie — although I don’t remember an exact parallel. (Jack Benny’s polar bear, played by Mel Blanc, mostly made Rochester very nervous.) Anyway if this is going to throw you out of the extremely soft world of Gasoline Alley it’s maybe not the strip for you.

This should catch you up to mid-October 2023 in the doings in the great forests outside Gasoline Alley. If you find yourself in 2024 or even later and want a more current plot recap, there’s probably an essay more useful to you here. And now on with the show.

Gasoline Alley.

23 July – 14 October 2023.

Rufus was breaking out of the hospital last I checked in. Rufus and Joel went to a bear’s cave to hide from their hospital bills and that closed out the month.

From about the 1st of August the new and current story started. This focuses on Bear. Not the one whose cave Rufus and Joel have invaded, the one whose friends with fifth-generation family members Boog and Aubee and their mother, park ranger Hoogy Skinner. Bear runs across a lost kid, some toddler just old enough it’s alarming no adults are around. Bear starts asking the other animals, who don’t know anything and don’t want to be eaten by a bear.

As Jones, a toddler, eats cookies in the foreground, Ranger Hoogy Skinner talks with Bear: 'Bear! Jones can't hear us! The authorities are on the way to pick him up!' Bear: 'Y'mean like - away? Forever?' Skinner: 'Yes!' Bear: 'No! They can't have him! I won't allow it!' Skinner: 'Shh! They'll care for him until his parents are found!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 7th of September, 2023. Bear argues that Jones’s parents don’t care about him or they wouldn’t be missing. While I understand the feeling, this seems uncharitable. For all we know they were abducted into the current **Judge Parker** storyline and will be back as soon as they can escape. There’s no knowing.

Bear does find an abandoned campsite, and worse, one that’s started a forest fire. He runs with the kid to Ranger Hoogy Skinner’s tower. She already knows about the fire, and there’s helicopters dropping water on it already, so it’s nice that some of these aren’t big problems. The people registered at the campsite — name of Burns — are nowhere to be found. But there’s also no reports of lost children. The only hint of the kid’s name is that his shirt has ‘Jones’ written on the back, but a first name? Last? Athlete his dad likes? No one can say.

The Ranger has to contact the child protection authorities, or as the script refers to them, the agency people. Who come out, after Skinner has convinced Bear he should hang out in the woods out of sight. We follow him, so we don’t know exactly what happens except that Jones(?) cries a lot and runs away, into Bear’s arms. Bear roars, scaring the agency people off … for now.

Bear, roaring loud enough it frightens a bluebird off his shoulder: 'Don't you humans touch him!' Jones runs into Bear's shoulders, crying. The child care authorities cry out: 'YIPE! It's a real live bear!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 20th of September, 2023. If you’re wondering how the frightened, confused young Jones there finds a real-live grown-up roaring bear to be a comforting figure, please imagine that Bear is voiced by Bert Lahr. Now **you** want to be adopted by him too, don’t you? If that’s not doing it for you, how about Alan Reed? Daws Butler? Don’t worry, I can roll off familiar-seeming names until one of them lands. **And so can Jim Scancarelli**. Ed Wynn work for you? Yes, of course Ed Wynn works for you.

They’re soon back, though. They’re happy to let Ranger Skinner watch the kid for now. I mean, this is Gasoline Alley. The last character added who wasn’t a foundling was Walt Wallet, a hundred and five years ago. But they’re coming with wildlife authorities who want to put Bear in a zoo. And they’re already here! Wallet puts her ranger hat on Bear and they whip up the first explanation that comes into anyone’s mind: pretend that Bear is a Smokey Bear animatronic. This somehow satisfies everyone in authority, possibly because they’re busy with the great Michigan’s Adventure pumpkin heist.

Now Hoogy Skinner has to watch over Boog, Aubee, Jones, and also her husband Rover. She does what you’d expect and hires Bear to babysit them all. (The pay is room and board.) And that’s our soft pilot introduction to Mr Bearvedere, coming this fall to the NBC Blue network! Looking forward to it!

Next Week!

You know who else is on good terms with a bear? Cherry Trail. I’ll check out what’s happening in Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail next week, all going well. See you then.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? Amnesia and slapstick. May – July 2023

This essay should catch you up on Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley for late July 2023. If, for you, it’s after about October 2023 and you want to know what’s happening you should be able to find my most-up-to-date plot recap here. Otherwise, well, we’re looking at a nicely contained story recap here. Hope you enjoy.

Gasoline Alley.

1 May – 22 July 2023.

I last checked in right at the transition between stories. In the days after my finishing off the story Jim Scancarelli focused on Rufus and Joel. And the rainstorm following them home. They get through the heavy rain and floodwaters to their junkyard home, only for Rufus to slip in the mud and knock his head on a plank of wood.

He spends the night more unconscious than usual. Come morning Joel worries that Rufus isn’t breathing. He takes Rufus’s cell phone and shocks everyone by having a cell phone. I mean, in Gasoline Alley. I know everybody’s had them for like twenty years now but this still feels like Grover Cleveland getting a fax.

9-1-1 dispatcher on the phone: 'What's going on over there?' Joel: 'I'm fixin' on findin' out rite now!' He looks, seeing an ambulance, a fire truck, and a tow truck stuck in the river or the mud. Joel: 'Yo' ain't never gonna believe this!' 9-1-1 dispatcher: 'Try me!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 8th of June, 2023. I like Becky the Mule’s expressions here. It’s a hard body type to get thoughts expressed in.

The poor 9-1-1 dispatcher is unaware Rufus and Joel live in the slapstick, cornball universe of, oh, The Phil Harris/Alice Faye Show. The ambulance slide off the road and get stuck in a ditch near Rufus and Joel. So does the fire truck sent after that. So does the wrecker sent after the both of them. This leaves the creek dammed high enough Joel can just take Rufus by mule-cart, like normal, to the hospital.

Turns out Rufus has amnesia. And again the hospital staff doesn’t know what genre they’re in, so they don’t just suggest dropping another coconut on his head. They instead turn to medicine and we get a fair bunch of the sort of medical jokes you’d expect for CAT scans and how much fun it is to be wheeled on hospital carts and all. They examine Rufus’s head and, finally catching on to the vibe of these guys, find nothing. They put him back in a room for further care.

Robot Nurse: 'Take your pills, please.' Rufus, standing in bed: 'Get away! I ain't takin' no pills from no talkin' machine!' Robot Nurse, looking cross: 'Insubordination now, is it? Take your pills as directed or else!' Rufus: 'Or else, WHAT?' On the robot's chest screen appears the text, 'Insubordination now, is it?' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 21st of July, 2023. Also speaking of character design I like: the medic robot’s dialogue appearing on screen on their chest. I was at a nearly appropriate age for **Shirt Tales** to impress on me the neatness of clothing with changeable words and that’s never left me.

The hospital sends a small, vaguely Twiki-ish robot, to give Rufus his pills. This seems too advanced until you remember Gasoline Alley’s hospital takes care of Walt Wallet, a man so old he remembers when there were only eight commandments. Rufus is terrified of the thing, and the thing fries its circuits trying to understand his resistance. Some good news, though: the stress brings back Rufus’s memory! We get to learn Joel’s last name — Smith — and it looks like they’re busting out of the hospital this week.

Next Week!

Ooooh! Someone’s in trouble and you know who I bet it is?

Picture of the classic old-time Mark Trail, pipe in mouth, holding an elephant tusk and surrounded by captive or dead owls, gators, turtles, and more. Cops, drawn in the more cartoony Far Side style, break open the door. Caption: 'Suddenly, Fish and Wildlife agents burst in on Mark Trail's poaching operation.' — Gary Larson’s **The Far Side** reprint for the 23rd of July, 2023. Original publication sometime in 1991. I was not on Usenet when this comic first ran but I bet people had very strong, silly responses to it.

The inside scoop on Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail next week, all going well.

Did I Just Discover Something About Charlie Brown’s Family?

So last week I was reading the Peanuts repeats, because I don’t see any reason I should ever stop that. And last week we got to this pleasant enough exchange at the Charlie Brown Talking Wall:

Charlie Brown: 'I have a grandfather who is 76 years old. He just lost out in the first round of a tennis tournament.' Linus: 'Is he the kind who hates to lose?' Charlie Brown: 'No, he takes it quite well ... he says it's all part of growing up!' — Charles Schulz’s **Peanuts** for the 13th of May, 2023. Originally run the 15th of May, 1976. Also, I mean, half of everybody oses out in the first round, there’s no shame in that. Unless it’s a double-elimination tournament and even then, half of everybody’s gone by … I have no idea when. But half of everyone loses their first round and half of everybody loses their second.

This strip, like almost all those repeats for this year, is from 1976 originally. So Charlie Brown’s grandfather was born in 1900. And hey, wait a minute, you know who else was born in 1900? Of course, the longtime star of Gasoline Alley, Walt Wallet. I hadn’t been sure whether he was born in 1900 or if we just assumed that, but here’s a strip from Jim Scancarelli which seems to make the case:

Official: 'Mr Wallet! I'm from Social Security and we've got a few questions to ask you.' Walt Wallet: 'Gulp!' Official: 'You've been drawing a check from us for quite a long time! Exactly what is your social security number?' Walt: '2!' Official: 'Two? How can that be?' Walt: 'I was second in line when it all started! I'm so old I can remember when General Motors was a Second Lieutenant!' Official: 'Hmm! Our records show your age as 114! We know that's a mistake! How old are you?' Walt: 'Age is just a number - and mine is unlisted!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 5th of January, 2014. Walt’s got some nice schtick going here, but may I suggest: “I’m so old I can remember when Jack Benny was 38”?

Is Walt Wallet Charlie Brown’s grandfather? I think we have to say he’s not, no. Never mind the temporal shenanigans that would have to be waved away for Charlie Brown to appear in a Wallet family reunion. I don’t see where there’s a Wallet who could be Walt’s child and Charlie Brown’s parent. And I know there can’t be an unaccounted-for Wallet relative, because if there were Jim Scancarelli would absolutely have done a strip about finding a lost Wallet. Also if Walt was 114 the first week of January, 2014, there’s a 98% chance he was born in 1899 anyway. So, not him.

(Also there is no reason to think this strip has to happen the 5th of January. Among other things, the day was a Sunday, when it’s not likely a social security official would be poking around on non-crisis business.)

Ah, but what other legendary comic strip character was born in 1900? And then we get to this repeat from a couple weeks ago:

1905 'Little Nemo in Slumberland' strip set on New Year's Eve, in which Father Time brings Nemo to the hall of ages. Each year that Nemo touches brings him to that age, and he grows to his mid-40s before Father Time helps him back to being five years old. The newly five-year-old touches '1999' and ages to 99 years, for the end of the dream. — Winsor McCay’s **Little Nemo in Slumberland** rerun for the 6th of May, 2023. Originally run the 31st of December, 1905. So, this Tome Morgue they’re visiting … why isn’t there a uniform spread between one row and the next? In panel five, for example, we have jumps from one row to the one below of 17 years, 12 years, 15 years, 19 years, and 24 years. In panel nine, we have gaps of 15 years, 21 years, and 24 years. Is part of the trouble that Father Time doesn’t have good organization skills?

So. Character born in 1900, unaccounted-for since 1927, always learning such useful lessons as “don’t wantonly grab the Time Drawers once you’ve already seen touching them can make you old and dressed uproariously out of fashion for 1948”. There’s no obvious reason Little Nemo couldn’t have grown up to play tennis and offer soft lessons about maturity to Charlie Brown. Do we have a match? What do you think, sirs?

If you don’t like this I have theories about Dumbo and Gertie the Dinosaur you might like better. Just warning you.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? How could Walt Wallet have met Abraham Lincoln? February – April 2023

He couldn’t. Walt Wallet was born over two weeks after Abraham Lincoln’s murder. However, the current story, wrapping up, in Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley builds on a claim he’s made about having shaken Lincoln’s hand. His reasoning, first explained in February, is that his great-grandfather shook Lincoln’s hand, and his great-grandfather shook his grandfather’s hand, and his grandfather shook his father’s hand, and his father shook his hand, and therefore …

Walt Walet: 'Hey, kids! What would you say if I told you I shook hands with Abraham Lincoln?' Ava Luna: 'You couldn't have, Mr Uncle Walt! You're not old enough!' Walt: 'I haven't heard those words in years! My great-grandfather, Waldo Wallet, actually shook hands with President Lincoln. Now Waldo in turn shook hands with my grandfather, Arval Wallet, who shook hands with my father Woodrow Wallet, who in turn shook hands with me. That means *I* shook hands with President Lincoln too, right?' Aubee: 'Did they wash their hands after shaking?' Ida Noe: 'We visited with Sana Claus in the North Pole! Now *that* was really something!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 19th of February, 2023. So some trivia about Walt Wallet’s family tree here, to be entered into the **Gasoline Alley** wiki at your earliest convenience. Also I’m amused by the notes in the center panel bottom row, when we see the hands of Uncle Walt and Walt’s Father tagged as such, and the tags admitting not knowing if it’s the other way around. Good little detail.

Yeah, I wouldn’t have bought this as a kid either. It’s cute, but I understand the skepticism of the kids who hear the story. And when they hear it a second time, in the daily story. If I do my job well, this essay should catch you up to the end of April in the daily continuity. If you’re looking for something after about August 2023 there’s probably a more up-to-date plot recap here. Here we go.

Gasoline Alley.

6 February – 29 April 2023.

Boog Wallet, of the youngest generation of the strip, started February hanging around his friend Bear, the bear. Bear talked a bit about the problems of encroaching civilization, like how loud it is. Boog gives Bear some earplugs to help his hibernation and heads for home.

Boog shivers in the woods through a snowstorm: 'Brrr! I know these w-woods like the back of my hands!' The snow is presented as being blown on him by a Jack Frost head on the body of the literal word 'SNOW', partly obscured by bare trees. Boog: 'B-but now, I can't see the woods or my hands, front or back!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 10th of February, 2023. Presenting Jack Frost in the first panel there, with a body literally reading ‘SNOW’, and obscured by trees, is a magnificent bit of staging. Does a lot to make the scene feel colder.

Unfortunately snow’s rolling in. It’s wonderfully illustrated stuff — Jim Scancarelli let himself play here, with happy results — but it also threatens Boog’s life. After a quick prayer he stumbles across the stairs of his mother’s forest-ranger station. So he survives, which is good for him. And he even had a backup miracle. Bear woke up, saw the snow, saw Boog’s prints, and knew he wasn’t dressed warm enough for this. Bear is a good and loyal friend who happens to be bad at hibernation.

Boog’s mother drives him home, though, and around the 4th of March we pass on to Boog’s little sister Aubee and her friends Sophie and Ava Luna. Also Ava Luna’s magic doll Ida Noe. They’re off, first, to see Unca Walt Wallet in case he wakes up.

Some great news: he does wake up! He shakes the kids’ hands and tells them they now can claim to have shaken hands with Lincoln. While anyone can claim that, he baffles the kids by explaining his logic. Also baffling them is the sense they did this before, in the Sunday strips, what’s the deal? (They’re reintroducing it for people who only get the dailies.)

Ini 1863 Ava Luna sees: 'Uh-oh! Here comes trouble!' Officer: 'Good day, children! Constable Matthew Waffles! To whom do I have the pleasure of talking with?' Aubee, Sophie, and Ava Luna introduce themselves in turn, Ava Luna gulping first. Ida Noe, the doll, starts, 'Ida Now! Oops!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 7th of April, 2023. So I’m going to nerd out here rather than annoy you in the main text. Aubee starts to take out her phone, but is talked into not messing up history, which, good goal there. But it is a shame she couldn’t have taken a discreet movie of the Gettysburg Address, for many reasons, among them that we don’t actually know precisely what Lincoln said. We have several drafts of the speech, with minor variations, and of course Lincoln wouldn’t be bound to deliver the text in front of him exactly. Newspaper reports manage to make matters worse, with “transcriptions” of the speech running from vastly shorter to vastly longer versions. In every real sense it doesn’t matter. Nothing of substance would change if in one spot he said ‘in’ where we think he said ‘with’. But wouldn’t it be sweet to **know**?

Never mind the odd claim. They wonder could it be true that Walt’s great-grandfather shook hands with Lincoln? Since he passed away in March of 2016 it seems there’s no way to know. Unless …

Ida Noe, the magic doll, observes that since they could wish themselves to visit Santa Claus, why couldn’t they wish themselves back in time? And so they’re off to 1863. Their belated desire not to mess up the course of history lasts until they meet Constable Matthew Waffles and want to know if he knows Officer Barbara Waffles. The Constable is amused by notions like women being cops or having the vote or getting credit cards in their own name. But he takes a liking to the strange kids and brings them to front-row center-stage seats for The Gettysburg Address.

They’re excited, sure, but a gust of wind kicks up and blows President Lincoln’s notes away! This is the job for a couple kids who are young and energetic and don’t know whether that back-of-envelopes story is true. They gather up the notes and, fortunately, a large white guy is there to take over once the work is done.

Ava Luna, explaining the notes: 'We've got the president's speech ... ' Aubee: 'Before it blew away!' Waldo Wallet: 'Thank you youngsters, for your quick thinking! I will hand them up to President Lincoln!' Sophie: 'Haven't we seen him before?' Aubee: 'Yeah! But where?' Ava Luna: 'He reminds me of Mr Uncle Walt!' Ida Noe, thinking 'Yeah! But much, much younger.' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 24th of April, 2023. Another nice artistic flourish in a season that’s been full of them: the design of Waldo Wallet is more closely fashioned on the style the comic strip had when it started, a century-plus ago, so that Waldo Wallet looks of a different time from the kids. I knew Jim Scancarelli knew we would notice that.

They realize the fellow bringing Lincoln’s notes back to him and shaking the President’s hand looks a lot like a young Uncle Walt. And indeed, turns out his name is Waldo Wallet. As they head home they reflect that yes, the core of Walt’s story was right. Also they can’t think why they didn’t shake Lincoln’s hand while they had the chance. No sense waiting to return home, though. The code of magic doll time travel forbids it.

And so we end, I think, a cute trifle of a story that gave Jim Scancarelli even more chances to play with the visual style. If you didn’t enjoy, well, there’s probably another story coming in the next week or two.

Next Week!

And in my blog here next week or so? More bears! Bears that attack! Bears that befriend! Bears that are microscopic and lack the ability to attack or befriend! All that and architecturally-assisted flooding in Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail, if all goes well.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? Why does Gasoline Alley have a talking bear? November 2022 – February 2023

Gasoline Alley, at least under Jim Scancarelli’s tenure, is a lightly fantastic universe. That’s all. There’s elements that can’t exist, like the Old Comics Home, or the recent visit with Santa Claus, or the current story with Bear. There was an attempt at saying the recent visit with Santa Claus was imaginary. I think it’s not possible to make the talking bear only something in kids’ imagination. Scancarelli enjoys a strip that lets him step outside the already-gentle realism of the normal story and that’s that.

This should catch you up to early February 2023 in the comics. If you’re reading this after about May 2023, I should have a more up-to-date plot recap of Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley at this link. If you’re not, then, enjoy catching up here.

Gasoline Alley.

7 November 2022 – 4 February 2023.

Walt Wallet was finally writing up a bucket list. The least recklessly dangerous thing on it? Riding on the back of a garbage truck, something that caught his imagination as a child and that he never got to do. The trouble: nobody’s going to let a man who can remember when there were 45 states in the union ride the back of a garbage truck. Even if they would, they can’t; there’s no perch for that anymore. Hulla Ballew, reporter for the Gasette newspaper, thinks it’d be a fun story if he could. And Rufus, of the comedy-relief team of Rufus and Joel, has an in with Mayor Melba.

Walt Wallet standing before the garbage truck he's to ride, as the crowd gathers calling for a speech: '(Gulp!) I'm at a loss for words! Thank you for this opportunity to ride on one of our city's clean an' sanitary garbage trucks! It's been my childhood dream to do so!' Crowd member, to the woman beside him: 'Trucks weren't invented when he was a kid!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 7th of December, 2022. Snarky guy is not exactly wrong; EtymologyOnline gives 1913 for the introduction of ‘truck’ like we think of trucks in American English. But ‘motor truck’, certainly getting the same spirit of the thing, dates to 1901 which … I guess we usually suppose on 1900 as Walt Wallet’s notional birthdate. (The word itself goes back much farther, with the usual sorts of goofy mutations in meaning.)

Over dinner at Corky’s Diner Rufus asks if Walt Wallet could get a ride. Melba thinks it’s a great idea; fun for Walt Wallet and some good publicity for the sanitation department. Despite Skeezix’s reasonable concern, the bit of civic whimsy gets set up in good order. By early December the city has a garbage truck, with a platform on the back, and a harness so a theoretically 122-year-old man can’t fall off, ready to go. And so, in front of cameras, the press, and half the population of town, he gets his ride.

Though we see him take off, we don’t get to actually see his ride. We see him arriving back home and thanking the mayor, who thinks she’ll ride the garbage truck back City Hall herself. And, the 13th of December, he falls into a happy sleep.

The 14th starts the next story, with Aubee Skinner (great-granddaughter of Walt Wallet), Ava Luna, and Sophie visiting. Also Ida Noe, Ava Luna’s magic doll, who’s used as an excuse for Scancarelli to spend a week drawing The Twelve Days Of Christmas. Which was not the only Twelve Days of Christmas montage this season, either; Barney Google and Snuffy Smith had a take on the song too.

Rudolph, rushing in: 'Scuse me, Santa! Bzz! Bzz!' Santa, looking up from his iced drink under the palm tree: 'Uh-oh!' (To Aubee, Ava Luna, Sophie, and the magic doll Ida Noe) 'Sorry, ladies, but an emergency has arisen at home! We must get back to the North Pole in a hurry! C'mon, deers, saddle up and' let's get flyin'!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 3rd of January, 2023. You have to agree Jim Scancarelli draws a cute reindeer. Any animal, really; we’re a bit disadvantaged he didn’t get into drawing a full-time funny-animals comic strip.

After that — and after Christmas — Ava Luna says she’s going to take Santa up on his invitation last year to visit again. And in a poof they’re off to … not the North Pole. It’s after Christmas. Santa’s vacationing in the tropics. Not for long, though, as there’s a crisis back at the North Pole. Bunky, the Big Book Brownie — keeper of the list of naughty and nice kids (we met him in 2021) is resigning. He wants to strike out on his own, form some company of his own to do elf business. Santa is skeptical of this plan, which you can’t even call half-baked. It’s more resting in the mixing bowl waiting for someone to find the cake dish and start preheating the oven.

Bunky: 'Santa! My mind's made up! I have enjoyed my stay here immensely! I just want to be an entrepreneur and be my own person ... er ... elf!' Santa: 'I completely understand your feelings, Bunky! When I was a kid I wanted to ride on the back of a garbage truck!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 17th of January, 2023. I was starting to pitch a story about Santa deciding to use his worldwide overnight transportation network to gather all the trash from all over the world and then — using his amazing skills at creating things — salvaging what can be made into new goods and bringing the true waste to places it can be safely stored, dispersed, or left for future technologies that make it usable again, and then realized I was probably writing a **Dinosaur Comics** that already exists.

But Santa understands Bunky’s aspirations and mentions his own childhood wish to ride the back of a garbage truck. This, I’m sure, reflects Jim Scancarelli’s awareness of how The Jack Benny Show could turn anything into a runner. Anyway, Santa wishes him luck. He may be aware that the moment Bunky saw Santa’s new secretary, Allure, he’d insist on staying another 99 years. So everything is resolved in a happy if old-fashioned manner.

And then — you know, I’m going ahead and putting the start at Sunday, the 29th of January — we start what seems like the current story. Boog Skinner, Aubee’s older brother, is talking with the local wildlife again. Particularly, Bear, his best friend. Bear’s having some trouble sleeping, what with the racket of the city (Gasoline Alley) encroaching on the wilderness. Also all the fuss about Groundhog Day. Boog offers some earplugs and wishes him a good late hibernation and that’s where that story’s gotten.

Next Week!

It was an innocent attempt at cryptozoology; how we not end up exploding a boat over alligators? Other than because they were crocodiles? I try to answer next week as I recap Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail, all things going to plan.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? What’s with this Terrence Smiles guy? August – November 2022

A good deal of September and October in Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley starred mall-based piano player Sir Terrence Smiles. He was illustrated with that odd specificity that inspires the question, was this based on some real person? And yes, it was. I admit I know this only because of a comment the 15th of September by charliefarmrhere over at GoComics, but I can pass that on. Sir Terrence Smiles is a riff on Terry Miles, a YouTube guy who plays boogie woogie at shopping malls. Here’s a five-minute video with one example of this. Seems like fun. Miles has a whole YouTube channel of this stuff and that’s all I know about him and his groove. I trust he’s flattered to inspire a comic strip character.

This should catch you up to early November 2022 in Gasoline Alley. If you’re reading this after about — wow — January 2023, or any news about the strip comes out, you might find a more up-to-date recap here.

Gasoline Alley.

22 August – 5 November 2022.

Boog’s fantasy of building a spaceship for Jimmy had faded, last I checked in, replaced with building a model. He impresses his would-be girlfriend Charlotte with the toy, and everyone gets excited to launch it. Polly the parrot even calls Gasoline Alley Television to get some media coverage for the model rocket launch. This doesn’t pan out to anything. They show up after the accidental launch. But it does foreshadow the Gasoline Alley media coming around for the current story.

Jimmy: 'I'm texting all the neighbor kids to meet us at the field up the road at three! We can't have a great rocket ship ascension without an audience!' Polly: 'Should we alert the news media too? Awk!' Jimmy: 'That's a good idea, Polly!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 27th of August, 2022. To say more direct nice things about Scancarelli’s artwork: Polly being drawn so large in the last panel is a great choice. Polly’s tail sticking over the boundary to the panel before makes for a neat transition between camera angles, and showing the bird so large supports how Polly’s dominating the story beat. It flows great. Also Scancarelli draws a nice parrot.

Polly sits on the remote control by accident, launching the rocket inside the house. It flies around, smashing up everything, just before Jimmy and Charlotte’s parents get home. They’re okay with this. Charlotte’s Mom says they were going to get new lamps and vases anyway, and jabs her husband in the gut until he agrees they totally were. You know how the women-folk be with the shopping.

So, the 14th of September, the story transitions from all the model-rocket stuff to the mall. Jimmy discovers Sir Terrence Smiles at the piano, playing boogie-woogie. Smiles is a relentlessly cheerful, enthusiastic person, and he encourages Jimmy to sit up and play with him.

This takes us onto a conflict-free patch of story. It’s all about Smiles and Jimmy playing together. Jimmy’s a novice; Smiles is a most enthusiastic … teacher isn’t the right word. But the person introducing him to piano-playing. This includes some fanciful scenes, the sorts of nonrepresentational mood imagery that Scancarelli does well but not enough. It’s a nice depiction of struggling to learn a little of playing music. And then we get into some silliness, Smiles’s getting his sock stuck in the piano keys somehow and going on from that for a while.

Jimmy and Terence Smiles playing on the piano; we see chains of the notes theyre playing, finishing with a picture of them on a music staff, Miles atop of chord helping Jimmy climb up the notes. Smiles says, 'You're climbing up the music ladder, lad!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 24th of September, 2022. And again, saying nice things about art: this is a great depiction of having fun while you struggle and learn a skill. Two great body language panels giving way to a non-literal representation. Good going.

Jimmy’s parents come over; he never answered their texts about it being time to go for ice cream. Smiles talks about how Jimmy’s got an impressive ability, and he goes with Jimmy and Charlotte and parents to the ice cream place.

And so, with the 10th of October, we start the current story. It’s a Walt Wallet story. He’s working on his bucket list, in the touching belief that he might someday die. He has a couple of the wide-eyed ambitions any of us might, like walking on the moon or skydiving. He’s also got one that seems so mundane it ought to be possible: riding on the back of a garbage truck. It’s one of those fanciful ideas that caught him in childhood, to the disapproval of his teachers. They didn’t like the idea of his being a cowboy, either.

Rufus and Joel, junk dealers, are glad to give Walt a ride on their mule-pulled wagon. But that’s not the fantasy, which is to ride a garbage truck like Denzel Washington rides in the movie Fences, which I never saw. Rufus and Joel ask their friend DC, who’s in the city Refuse Department. DC would be glad to, if that were possible. The city’s garbage trucks don’t have running boards or grab bars anymore. The yard waste trucks do, but they’re not used, and anyone letting someone ride on them would get fired fast. Even if that person weren’t eight years older than the number zero.

Joel: 'Well, how 'bout it? Can yo' fix it up t'give Mr Walt a ride on th'back of yo' truck?' Yard Waste Guy: 'We'd admire to do so, but if our supervisor found out we'd be terminated so fast between the words 'you're' and 'fired'!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 2nd of November, 2022. I did not catch the yard waste guy’s name, although since his friend with the refuse department was DC I’m going to guess this guy is AC? Anyway, the comments in this whole segment of the story have been people discovering their local garbage trucks don’t have running boards anymore. Ours have those robot arms that I’m amazed can grab garbage bins and, even, the paper bags used for bagged leaves. I’ve watched this happen over and over and still can’t believe it works.

All may not be lost, though. Hulla Ballew — failing for once to identify herself as Bob and Ray reporter Wally Ballew’s sister — hears something’s up and wants to know what it is. She also forgets one time that she works for the Gasette, introducing herself as working for the Gazette instead. How will this lead to a happy conclusion? Is there a happy conclusion possible? We’ll see over the next couple months.

Next Week!

Is a shirtless Rex Scorpius going to get himself eaten by a tiger or trampled by a rogue elephant? Lots of endearingly odd developments to recap in Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail, next week, I hope!

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? Shouldn’t Boog be like 18 by now? June – August 2022

The story in Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley starred Boog Skinner, one of the fifth generation of the comic’s central family. He was born in September 2004, implying that he should be eighteen. But anyone can see he’s not. I’m not sure how old to peg his age, since I’m at the age where every kid looks either three, ten, or sixteen. I’d put him at ten. He’s old enough to be interested in the idea of girls, at least. And to be able to build a plastic scale model without comic mishaps. I couldn’t claim he wasn’t fourteen or so, but he’s not leaving-high-school old.

What’s going on is that while the identifying gimmick of Gasoline Alley is the characters aging, they don’t age in real time. It’s not as static as it was in the 1970s and 80s, when the aging froze. But it is slower than real time. Given that a story can take a month or more of reader time to do a couple days of character time that seems a fair way to show enough of characters’ lives. Reasonable people may disagree.

So this should catch you up to late August 2022 in the comic strip’s story. There’s likely a more useful plot recap if you’re reading this after about November 2022. And if any news about the comic breaks I’ll share it at that link too.

And over on my mathematics blog I look at comic strips, now and then, and here’s one of those essays. I figure to have another Reading the Comics post tomorrow, all going well. You might be interested.

Gasoline Alley.

5 June – 20 August 2022.

Rufus and Joel got to Hollywood to take up their movie jobs. Only it was the wrong Hollywood. They were in Florida, by a mistake we might have seen coming. They give their last 50 cents to a beggar and immediately find a loose $20 in the street. They notice it’s 11:11 and wonder if the vanished beggar might have been an angel, reflecting a superstition I never heard before. I’d checked the GoComics comments to see if anyone knew more about it. One of them this was the same kind of thinking that brought that Comet Hale-Bopp cult to kill themselves. This is what happens when you take seriously the Skeptical Inquirer articles about Society. Stick to the articles about how, like, these chupacabra sightings were more likely a raccoon with mange.

Joel: 'Rufus! Good thing you don't work fo' NASA!' Rufus: 'How's that?' Joel: 'If you navimagatd a rocket ship t'Mars --- it'd end up so'where like yo'head!' Rufus: 'How's that?' Joel: 'It'd be in a empty black hole in space! See?' (He points to the back background of the scene.) Rufus: 'I don't see nothin'!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 7th of June, 2022. Hey, wait a minute … navigating a rocket ship to Mars? That’s foreshadowing! We never get foreshadowing!

Anyway they phone home to learn they were fired and there’s nothing to do but return to Gasoline Alley. They do, along the way spotting a meteor that serves as transition to the current story, which started the 1st of July.

Boog Skinner and his girlfriend Charlotte are stargazing and making a wish on the falling star. Charlotte’s little brother Jimmy comes in to remind us he’s not dead yet. Jimmy we met a couple years ago. He suffers from Tiny Tim Syndrome, suffering an unspecified fatal illness that some new treatment helps. He’s still getting better. Boog has the idea to build a rocket ship for Jimmy, who’s not only a train enthusiast but also a spaceships guy.

His grandfather Slim Skinner offers his help, and his metal junk pile. The building of a Flash Gordon-esque rocket goes swiftly. In days they have something ready to launch. Ah, but Rufus and Joel, getting home just in time, ask with what fuel? Slim offers his El Diablo Fuego-hot jalapeño chili pepper chews. That’s not enough to fuel a rocket. But add a bit of Joel’s cousin Zeb’s high-potency medicinal home-brew “koff medicine”? Well now you’ve got something ready to take off before you can even say “lunch not launch”.

Looking over the homemade, Flash Gordon-style rocket; Polly is flying near the cockpit and awks at it. Jimmy: 'Will it fly, Boog?' Boog: 'We don't know! It's not been tested!' Then everyone turns as smoke pours in from off screen. Boog: 'What's that noise?' Charlotte: 'Uh-oh!' Jimmy: 'It's shakin' an'quakin!' Rufus: 'It's blastin' off!' Slim: 'But we didn't do the countdown yet!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 30th of July, 2022. Joel later says that ashes from his pipe started the ignition so don’t worry, the rocket liftoff is explained and Jim Scancarelli is way ahead of us snarkers.

So it does! The homemade contraption lifts off and soon passes the Moon. And, according to the news, soars to Mars, NASA calculating it’ll arrive in minutes. Boog’s rocket lands on Mars in sight of Percy, the Perseverance rover that landed on Mars back in 2021. (Here I learned something; I thought ‘Percy’ was the comic strip’s jokey nickname for the rover. Not so.) And, more amazing, Perseverance detects life inside the rocket. Through its porthole we see Polly, Charlotte’s parrot, begging to be let out.

It’s a dream, of course, as Polly tells Boog over the TV feed. Boog wakes up, regretting only that he has to do it all over again. But if it was all a dream, why does he have Slim’s bag of jalapeño chews?

Joel: 'How did that parrot get inside the rocket?' Boog: 'How did she survive the trip to Mars?' Jimmy: 'It's like a dream!' Polly, from Mars, heard over the TV footage on Jimmy's tablet: 'AWK! Awk! It IS A DREAM! Wake up, Boog! Get me outta here!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 11th of August, 2022. I like this as a way of declaring the dream over and it even matches real experiences where noticing you’re in a dream can end the dream. Also, uh, I guess Polly’s female? I didn’t know that.

Anyway he rebuilds his rocket, as a kitbashed model this time, and brings it to Jimmy. And that’s where things stand now.

Next Week!

Who’s responsible for soaking the Lost Forest in so much toxic lawn chemicals that it’s making the local pets sick, and why is it the Sunny Soleil Society? Are we not going to chase a rogue elephant? And why is a nature-show streamer in danger of being slurped up into a roadside zoo cult? All this and Canada geese in Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail, next week’s story strip, if things go to plan. See you then.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? Why was Dick Tracy in Gasoline Alley? March – June 2022

Dick Tracy appeared in Gasoline Alley recently to kick off a story. The premise is that Tracy was hoping to bolster the image of police among young folks. In a moment of synchronicity this is also a storyline in the Vintage Ben Bolt dailies on Comics Kingdom. Ben Bolt had the boxing superstar become a beat cop to convince teens to like cops. Dick Tracy has a more direct plan: bribery. They’ll have kids find spending limits in Easter eggs, then the cops drive them to the mall to buy that much in goods. A couple of the regular cast get singled out for the pilot project.

So this should catch you up to early June 2022. If you’re reading this after August 2022, or any news about Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley breaks, there should be an essay here about it. Thanks for reading this essay.

Gasoline Alley.

21 March – 4 June 2022.

Rufus and Joel, the clown princes of City Hall Janitors, had emerged from hiding last I checked in. They were terrified that Hollywood Movie Mogul Cecil B DeMillstone wanted to sue them into oblivion, for waxing the floor he’d slipped on. They had misunderstood, as you could only have guessed if you knew Jim Scancarelli’s comic style. DeMillstone wants, instead of making a Gasoline Alley movie, to make a sci-fi comedy starring Rufus and Joel. DeMillstone wants them in Hollywood and once and even buys plane tickets.

Rufus: 'Th'recoustics out here is messin' with my earpans! It sounded like yo' said th'movie folks want t'put *us* in th' movies!' Mayor Melba: 'I did!' Joel: 'Rufus! Don't yo' know she's gonna yell 'April Fool' any second now?' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 1st of April, 2022. I understand the plucked-from-obscurity story that Scancarelli’s trying to tell here. But so far all the movie folks have seen is that they mopped a floor that other people slipped on … it doesn’t feel like much of a movie, there. I figured they’d be brought to Hollywood so they could mop floors there.

They’re willing to go to Hollywood, but not by plane. They hitch up their mule, Becky, and get there … slowly. Very slowly. Their adventures fade out of focus the 11th of April, and we see them sometimes while the other plot takes center stage. They resume focus the 25th of May, when they’ve gotten only two inches on the map away from Hollywood. And, finally, arrive! Where everyone looks at them like freaks or a promotion for The Beverly Hillbillies. They ask for Cecil B DeMillstone’s movie headquarters and learn there was a terrible mistake. They went to Hollywood, Florida, a twist I somehow didn’t see coming. Well, I’m sure they’ll be fine.

So the other story ran from the 11th of April through the 24th of May, with a few moments checking in on Rufus and Joel’s progress. This story starts with Dick Tracy, of Dick Tracy fame, stopping in. He’s looking for kids to give shopping sprees to. The Mayor’s choice for this treatment? Aubee Skinner, Ava Luna, and Sophie, who foiled those counterfeiters at the Halloween party and then visited Santa.

They get a great Easter egg, with a $250 spending limit. Aubee hopes to buy something for her parents, but gets distracted when she notices shoplifters. Two people stuffing a lot of watches and jewelry under their big coats. The kids know they can’t accuse grown-ups of shoplifting before they even leave the store without paying.

Abuee, Ava, and Sophie: 'Excuse us a minute, Officer Waffles! We'll be right back!' Officer Waffles: 'Sure!' Sophie points at the two shoplifters, stuffing their coats with jewels and watches: 'Stuff!' Ava: 'That's right, Sophie! They're stuffing watches and jewelry in their coats!' The Swiftys, shoplifters: 'Those kids see us!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 10th of May, 2022. I get the use of signifying names for minor characters. It’s part of the genre of story Scancarelli wants to make, helping establish character without doing characterization that’s not really needed; we don’t need to explore Ima and Eura Swifty’s characters. So, “Officer Barbara Waffles” is a name I don’t get. If it’s a riff on Barbara Walters, all right, but that seems like a name you’d give to someone who was a reporter? Maybe the character goes back far enough that the link made sense originally, but her storyline developed to where now the name doesn’t quite fit? If someone knows, I’d be glad for the insight.

They don’t tell their chaperone, Officer Barbara Waffles, although I don’t know why. It’s possible the kids have made a mistake. They figure to watch the shoplifters, though. The shoplifters see them, and start to flee the store. Sophie runs after, grabbing their loose hat, and somehow the guy trips over her, falling outside the store and knocking over his partner. So now, at least, they’ve left the store without paying for a lot of stuff.

They’re well-known shoplifters Ima and Eura Swifty, quickly taken to jail. And the kids, already renowned for busting up a counterfeiter, get the thanks of Dick Tracy himself for busting up shoplifters. So, have to suppose these kids have a good impression of the cops of Gasoline Alley.

And that’s the standings. This past week we’ve been with Rufus and Joel in Hollywood, Florida, and we’ll have to see what they get up to in the eleven weeks ahead.

Next Week!

Beaver-induced logging fires! Non-fungible tokens! And an older Mark Trail not understanding technology! I look at Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail in a week, if all goes well.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? Why would anyone make a Gasoline Alley movie? January – March 2021

The current Gasoline Alley story is built on some Hollywood types coming in make a movie about the town. While the town’s residents are interesting to the comic strip readers, one might ask why anyone in-universe would care about this town? Longtime readers enjoy the more-or-less plausible lives of interesting characters. But why pick this place, other than that Walt Wallet is a generation older than Betty White?

While searching for something else, I ran across this timeline of events in Gasoline Alley. It’s a list of some of the big story events including when Skeezix turned up on the doorstep. and seems to be pretty solid for events up to about 1950, that is, the era when the comic strip made its reputation. It may not convince you — I mean, breach of promise stories? Everyone did them back then and that’s such an alien idea today, like suing somebody for not wearing a hat — but it gives some idea what all happened.

Over on my mathematics blog, I just looked at the comic strips which observed Pi Day. How many of them were about mathematics? The answer may surprise you!

This essay should catch you up to mid-March 2022 in Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley. If you’re reading this after about June 2022, there’s likely a more up-to-date plot recap at this link. And now, action!

Gasoline Alley.

1 January – 19 March 2022.

The current story had just been called when I last checked in. Some Hollywood types are descending on Gasoline Alley to make a movie. Rufus and Joel try to clean City Hall up to the point that it shines. The movie makers slip and fall on the wet floor. The comic relief pair suppose that the movie makers want to sue them for damages. After their attempts at disguising themselves fail completely, they run off to hide in a cave.

Joel, mop in his hand: 'Oh, man! We done done it now!' Rufus, standing over the puddles of water: 'We sho' is sorry, Mr De Millsbrothers! Th'flo' was wet!' DeMillstone: 'My name is DeMillstone! SOMEBODY BETTER HELP ME UP!' Assistant: 'Do you need an ambulance, C.B.?' DeMillstone: 'Get those two men's names on the double!' Assistant with a clipboard: 'Doubling pu right now, sir!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 8th of January, 2022. Cecil B DeMillstone is an almost inevitable name for a Hollywood Movie Mogul in this genre. Rufus I assume is mashing the name up with the Mills Brothers, who were a quite popular singing quartet especially through the Golden Age of Radio.

The movie folks turn their attention to Walt Wallet. They turn over some kind of prospectus for a movie based on his life. It’s a big, bold work, not bound tightly to the facts. He calls Skeezix over to describe some of them. And to recount a story that … actually, he’s told before, back in January and February of 2014. But he claims that when exploring in Egypt ages ago he and his party, desperately short on water, fell into the tomb of the Pharaoh Do-Ra-Mi. They found an urn on the shelf, with ancient, stale water that they drank happily. And then found the hieroglyphics proclaimed it the “Energy Shot – For Youth”. Which, well, he is a pretty spry fellow for being six years older than the SOS distress signal. But back in 2014 when he told this story he was making up that it was the Fountain of Youth. He was spinning yarns back then, which, fine. But when why his shock in 2022 when someone believed him?

In the flashback, young Walt Wallet looks over an ancient urn, while a camel licks him and two porters look on: 'After drinking the water, I felt great and tried to decipher the hieroglyphics on the urn!' In the present day Skeezix asks, 'What did it say, Uncle Walt?' Walt: 'Extreme energy shot for Youth!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 25th of February, 2022. When this joke was done back in February 2014 — the first panel of the 2022 strip seems to be an elongated version of the 2014 version — it set off a short-lived mania for Walt’s Fountain-of-Youth water. I’m not surprised I had forgotten this, but I am surprised Skeezix doesn’t remember it, because he had the plan that abated the mob scene. On the other hand, Skeezix has had nearly a decade of other shenanigans around him, too.

After sharing this and some other, lesser tall tales with Skeezix, the movie folks call to say never mind. They’re not doing Walt Wallet’s life, which is a shame, since this was an excuse for Scancarelli to draw a young-looking Walt Wallet doing a lot of fun action. (One of the stories shows him hopping a train, which seems mundane enough to have happened.) But the movie folks have decided to do a science fiction piece, Teenage Thing Meets The Creature From Gasoline Alley. Scancarelli’s heart is in doing a 1950s radio sitcom and I like him for that.

The movie producers still want to get hold of Rufus and Joel. The pair emerge from hiding, when the bear they were hiding with kicks them out. And that’s where we stand. Will it turn out they’ve made a bad assumption about what the movie folks wanted them for, so that their winter hiding in a cave was foolish? There’s no way of knowing except reading, or remembering the rules of the 1950s radio sitcoms that the comic strip wants to be. We’ll check back by June, anyway.

Next Week!

The only question worth asking right now is when is Mark Trail going to punch an NFT? And the answer is, always, not soon or often enough. But if we’re lucky by next week I’ll be able to tell you just when Mark Trail does. That’s Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail next Tuesday, if things go to plan.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? Are they making a Gasoline Alley movie? October – December 2021

In the strip, as I write this, someone’s making a movie in Gasoline Alley. I trust it’ll involve the characters of the venerable comic strip. Still, it raises the question: wait, did they never make a Gasoline Alley movie? Like, back in the 40s or 50s when every comic strip turned into a movie? Indeed, they did, with two movies in 1951: Gasoline Alley and Corky of Gasoline Alley.

There were also a couple of radio versions of Gasoline Alley. The 1941 NBC version, according to John Dunning’s On The Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio, was a daily serial that adapted that day’s newspaper comic. I know they only had to fill ten minutes of airtime, and that comics were more densely written those days. I still can’t imagine how you pad one day’s comic out to that much time. I can’t find any recordings of the 1941 run, though, and wonder whether it’s unavailable or whether it’s held by collectors who haven’t put it on the free-download sources.

So this should catch you up to the end of 2021 in Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley. If you’re reading this after April 2022, or if any news about the comic breaks, I should have an update here. And on my other blog, I’ve been sharing some older writing, while I get the energy to finish last year’s little glossary project. You might enjoy it also.

Gasoline Alley.

10 October – 31 December 2021.

The Gasoline Alley forest rangers wanted to hold a Halloween party, last I checked in. The young, bear-befriending Aubee and Boog suggested the Emmons house, vacant since the widow Sarah Emmons died. It’s a fine, haunted-looking place, their mother Hoogy Skinner agrees. But she’s barely seen the spot when real estate agent Kim Luna arrives with the news it’s been sold, sight unseen. But the new owner doesn’t mind if the locals have a party as long as they don’t damage the place.

Kim Luna: 'Good news! The owner said you could use his house for the party ... but don't damage or leave it a wreck!' Hoogy Skinner: 'He hasn't seen it, has he?' Luna: 'No! He's from out of state and bought it *site* and *sight* unseen!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 26th of October, 2021. He bought a house in Gasoline Alley Town without even having real estate agent Kim Luna walk through it holding up a Facetime camera? This out-of-state owner is braver than Navy Seals. Also the comments on GoComics have charming messages of concern from people worried about the lawsuit potential everyone’s opening everyone else up to, here.

It’s a successful enough party to attract Snuffy Smith. Also Bearlee and Uncle Bearnaise, the wild bears that Aubee and Boog were hanging out with last plot recap. They give Aubee, who’s herself dressed as a bear, tips on how to act more authentic. The bears win the costume contest, because Jim Scancarelli likes writing that sort of gentle fantastic American Cornball plot.

Then, from the 9th of November, a second American Cornball plot intrudes. This one involves counterfeiters, who’d been using the place to store their product. I know what you’re thinking: oh, they’re the buyers of the house, right? But then why would they have allowed a party there? They’re not the buyers. They were just using the abandoned house. They never expected the place to get sold, nor that there would be a party there. If they had they’d have pretended to haunt the place or something. Still, they’ve locked up everything incriminating, so I’m not sure what they’re there to do. I guess they wanted the free food.

Bank robber, in front of a wall of cartoon characters including Pogo, Birdman, Ben Grimm, and Felix the Cat: 'Something's going on! There's a commotion over in the corner where our press and phony money is hidden, Boss!' Sophie, a little kid dressed as Amelia Earhart, opens the door and dollar bills pour out; she says, 'Blooky!' The Boss says, 'Not anymore, it isn't!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 12th of November, 2021. There is a strip where Sophie’s mother explains how she was able to pick the lock open: ‘Easy!’ And that’s all we get. Whether you see that as yeah, all the explanation the story needs (and a cute joke to finish it) or as an irritating dodge of the author’s responsibility to explain major developments probably says whether you should be reading **Gasoline Alley**.

And then one of the kids opens the locked door with everything behind. The counterfeiters fake having guns, by draping handkerchiefs over food. The partygoers think it’s a performance, and slowly realize it’s not. The cops show up fast enough, thanks to Boog calling them. The counterfeiters try to flee, but slip and fall on the broken beads of Ava Luna’s necklace. (She’s the daughter of the real estate agent.) And so all ends happily. Not for the counterfeiters, sent to jail. But Sophie and Ava Luna get rewards. And the party is the hit of the forest rangers’ families’ Halloweens.

On the 6th of December started the annual magic encounter with Santa. It sure reads like it’s the same night of the Halloween party. But Aubee, Sophie, and Ava agree it’d be great to visit Santa Claus. Ava even knows how to get there: she’s got a magic hat and doll.

Ava Luna, setting her magic doll Ida Noe on the table: 'I'll prove it works! OK, Ida Noe. Aubee, Sophie, and I are ready!' Ida Noe: 'Where do you want to go?' Ava: 'How about Santa's Workshop, North Pole?' Ida: 'OK! Pull down your hat!' Aubee: 'Uh! Wait a sec, Ava!' Ava: 'You scared, Aubee?' Ida: 'What's the hold-up?' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 11th of December, 2021. If you want you can say this was all in the kids’ heads, but then are you really getting into the Christmas story spirit? Anyway I’m a little surprised there wasn’t some allusion to the classic old-time-radio children’s Christmas serial **The Cinnamon Bear**. But it’s plausible there was and I missed it.

So you’re either in for this sort of light silliness, or you hate-read Gasoline Alley. I hope you walk a path chosen wisely. The kids blip up to Santa’s Workshop and meet Bunky the Elf, keeper of the list of good and bad kids. They meet the reindeer and see the sleigh’s loading dock. And even get to meet Santa Claus, who asks them to tell their parents that Santa still loves them. Again, you’re either in for this sort of thing, or you hate-read Gasoline Alley. (I don’t hate-read the strip.) Mrs Claus gives them cookies right before Ava wishes them all back home, where they wake up in bed with a tale their parents won’t believe. But also cookies, and where did they come from? Huh?

The 27th of December starts the new and current story, about a movie getting made in Gasoline Alley. It’s too soon to say where this is going.

Next Week!

Zebra mussels, bees, skulduggery, and NFTs! What else could it be but Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail, recapped, if all goes well? See you then. And until then, if you see something in nature? Please try not to mess it up. Thank you.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? Did the widow Rufus was dating die? July – October 2021

No. The current Gasoline Alley story mentions the old Emmons house, and that the widow Sarah, resident there, had died. That is not that woman dating Rufus in an incomplete storyline from 2017. Rufus’s date was the Widow Leela, or as I knew her, the Widow Emma Sue and Scruffy’s Mother. We haven’t seen her since the comic strip came back from its never-explained long hiatus in early 2018.

So this should catch you up to mid-October 2021 in Gasoline Alley. If you’re reading this after about December 2021 there’s likely a more up-to-date recap here. And if news about the strip breaks out I’ll share it at that link too.

And if you’d like some heavier reading, my Little 2021 Mathematics A-to-Z is a glossary of mathematics terms. The second essay of this year’s set tried to explain Addition, and how we can tell it from multiplication.

Gasoline Alley.

19 July – 10 October 2021.

I last checked in near the end of the story where Rufus and Joel get strange signals from outer space. They spent a week or so talking about that, and then went off to their job garbage-collecting. They passed Boog and Aubee Skinner, the young kids who’re the latest generation of the Wallet clan. And that, the 4th of August, was the transition to the current story.

Ferd Frog: 'You thought I was going to say I was a prince, weren't you? I'm a prince of a fellow; handsome; and I sang country music until I was turned into a frog!' Aubee: 'I don't believe it!' Ferd: 'Kiss me and you'll believe it!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 14th of October, 2021. I don’t know, I’d think hearing Ferd try would prove he hasn’t sung country music since he was turned into a frog. I don’t know why Ferd said “weren’t you” instead of “didn’t you” in the first panel there. I suspect a last-minute rewrite went wrong.

Aubee has a school assignment to collect leaves. She skips a rock across a pond and hits a ~~narcissist unicorn~~ talking frog. Ferdy’s an old friend of Boog, who of course talks with the animals. The rather large Ferd asks for a kiss on the lips to restore his ‘real’ life as a country music singer. She has enough of his schtick and he leaves, saying the only way for her to grow is “older”. Which is true but seems like the punch line for a conversation they didn’t have.

The next animal met is Boog’s best friend, Bear. Who is what you think from the name, and so frightens Aubee. Boog is still too young to understand how to keep people informed. Bear has seen her before. Her mother, Hoogy, was a very pregnant forest ranger and went into labor deep in the woods. But Bear and his forest friends knew where to find Chipper Wallet, Physician Assistant. (Gasoline Alley has more good things to say about physician assistants than even the American Academy of Physician Assistants does.) It’s a swiftly-told tale of the animals grabbing Chipper by his shirt and pulling him over to the very pregnant lady. From there, they let nature take its course.

Bear: 'Temptation is something that leads you into a situation that sounds good, but you might not like it later! So if you kissed Froggy, he would have gotten a kiss ... and you would have gotten a bad taste on your lips! See?' Aubee, making a sour face; 'Yuk! Yes!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 17th of September, 2021. Boog knows the frog as Ferd, by the way, while Bear speaks of him as Froggy. I’ve gone with ‘Ferd’ because Boog, as a friend of the frog, seems more likely to be addressing him by his preferred name. This is the sort of thing I have running around my brain.

After that tale Bear mentions how Ferd is a hoax, trying that “country singer line” on people for years. And she shouldn’t give in to temptation, such as the temptation to kiss a frog. It’s a good lesson, I guess, although she was never tempted and nobody suggested she was.

Bear then moves into telling about the dangers of forest fires. It’s another good lesson, I guess. And it’s presented with some good creative work, the kind where Jim Scancarelli shows off his drafting skills. It’s also something that hadn’t been an issue. Bear mentioned how he and Boog had saved each other from “school bullies” and “forest fires”. And later mentioned the pair had been in three forest fires since Boog’s birth in 2004. This seems like many forest fires, especially as they have to have come before I started doing these recaps like five years ago. But then Bear goes on to share some of his anti-forest-fire poetry, hammering down a lesson nobody needed to learn. Aubee and Boog hadn’t been doing anything that could start a fire, or even talking about doing anything.

Bear: 'Aubee! A tiny spark can cause a tremendous catastrophe!' Aubee: 'How?' Bear, speaking over a large panel in which the trees of the forest are arranged to spell out the word 'FIRE', itself burning, or are reacting in horror and leaning away from this fire: 'Easy! That tiny spark can start smoldering in a pile of dry leaves! It'll grow big, then bigger, and in minutes it will catch our forest on ... ' and the word balloon leads up to the blazing tree sculpture reading 'FIRE'. — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 21st of September, 2021. I admit I’ve had trouble following the connective tissues between the conversations Aubee’s having with Ferd and Bear. This even though each individual conversation makes sense, and offers chances for good stuff like this second panel. It could be Bear is just someone who figures he’s got to be dispensing life advice, even if there’s no help needed. Kind of a Polonius/Dean Pelton figure. Yeah, maybe that works.

Rain starts, so Aubee and Boog head to their mother’s ranger tower. They forget the leaf collection in the surprise downpour, but not to worry, Bear brings it to them. And talks with their mother some, somehow not warning her about the danger of transporting firewood great distances. (It spreads invasive insects.) This, the 2nd of October, seems to finish that story.

Back home, Hoogy shares that the forest rangers are putting on a Halloween party. They don’t have a spooky enough place for it, though. The kids suggest the Emmons house, fallen into disrepair since the widow Sarah died. And that’s where we are on the new story, started the 4th of October. I look forward to sometime just before Christmas talking about how this Halloween story turned out.

Next Week!

Rather more bees than we had expected visit us in Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail, if all goes to plan. See you there!

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? Could Gasoline Alley happen in real life? April – July 2021

A major part of the story in Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley is a radio signal from 1952 being and heard on someone’s colander. Could this happen? Well, no, of course not.

The thing that isn’t obviously impossible is the radio reception. A crystal set radio needs no battery or electricity. It uses the energy of the radio signal it detects to drive the speaker. It needs only a few components, many of them ones you could make yourself in 1920. Building a crystal set radio is a great way to learn electronics. After a few minutes’ work, you can set about hours, days, whole months of trying to get the stupid thing to work. It never will. But for purposes of a comic story? All right, let it happen.

A radio signal from 1952 bouncing back to Earth and getting stuck in a communications satellite? Yeah, that’s nonsense. It would be less bad if the signal were broadcast from some station that has an old-time-radio night. I don’t know why Jim Scancarelli didn’t go for that instead. It could encourage people to look for broadcasters who bring up old recorded stuff.

This should catch you up on Gasoline Alley for mid-July 2021. If you’re reading this after about October 2021, or if any news about the comic breaks out, an essay here may be more useful. Thanks for reading.

Gasoline Alley.

26 April – 18 July 2021.

My last check-in came after Walt Wallet dreamed about some moments in his life with Skeezix. That’s the story I suposed to be how the strip commemorated the centennial of Skeezix’s introduction and the comic strip’s change. The strip then sent Gertie, Walt’s caretaker, to the store again, for more eggs. This seems like a lot of egg consumption. But that’s if you assume the strip from Monday, the 18th of April, takes place right after that of the Saturday before. We’re trained to expect that unless a comic says there’s a time gap something happens right after what came before. The story makes more sense if we’re looking at a week, or even a month, later.

Gertie, at the supermarket, holding a carton of eggs: 'I'm looking for unbroken cackleberries!' Mim: 'Huh? What's that?' Gertie: 'What do hens say?' Mim: 'Cluck! Cluck!' Tim: 'They cackle! Oh! I get it! Cackleberries! We're the dumb clucks!' Mim: 'Us? Speak for yourself!' Gertie, slapping her head: 'Oh! I started their first argument!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 30th of April, 2021. I understand, and appreciate, that Jim Scancarelli wants his characters to have soft, pleasant lives. But, wow, Sidney Potier and Katharine Houghton’s characters from **Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner** are looking at Mim and Tim and saying, “Now **that’s** a couple that married too fast.”

At the store again, Gertie runs into Mim and Tim, the couple whom she helped cute-meet back in February, our time. Mim and Tim got along great, turns out, and now they’re married. You see why I say this has got to me later than “the next day”. As it is, Gertie sets off their first argument, over whether “cackleberries” is a clever joke name for eggs. I understand there’s whirlwind romances. I still say Mim and Tim should have dated a little longer.

On her way out Gertie runs in to Rufus and Joel, as they run into her car. Rufus and Joel are the most 50s/60s-sitcommy characters in Gasoline Alley. Their stories tend to be deep in the American Cornball style. So if you don’t like that, bail out of any and all Rufus-and-Joel stories. You will not have fun.

Disembodied voice: 'Astro to Earth! I can't raise them! You try, Roger!' Joel, waking from bed: 'Oh! Not again!' Voice: 'Cadet Roger Manning calling Earth! What's wrong down there, Junior?' Joel, tossing a jug of moonshine out the door: 'I know what's wrong! No mo' sippin' on th'jug --- no mo' --- no how!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 22nd of May, 2021. So I grew up at the very tail end of this being a thing in American pop culture but let me promise younger readers, as though I had any: encountering something weird and promising to never again touch Demon Alcohol? That used to be crazy funny. I genuinely do like the nostalgic vibe of seeing it again.

If they are for you, then what you got the last two months was Joel hearing mysterious voices. “Astro on the Polaris, calling Earth! Come in!” And when Earth does not come in, Cadet Roger Manning tries to get Earth on the radio. Anyone with old-time-radio credentials recognizes this: it’s the Tom Corbett, Space Cadet series. I’m assuming this the radio series, as Jim Scancarelli is a major fan of old-time-radio. (I’m aware it was a TV show first. And last, as the radio program ran less than a year. The clip gets identified as from the radio series, on what grounds I do not know.) The important thing is Joel doesn’t recognize it, and neither does anyone else until the end of the story.

Since there’s a racket, Joel goes off to Rufus’s house to sleep. And keep Rufus awake, since Joel snores like I snore. In the morning, the strange sound is still going. Rufus can hear it too. It’s not the radio, since Joel doesn’t have one. So, aliens it is, then.

Newspaper reporter: 'Polly? How'd you TV guys scoop *us*? We heard about it first!' Polly Ballew: 'You have your ways --- we have ours! [ Getting in front of the camera ] Now, please move out of our way ... while we do a live broadcast!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 17th of June, 2021. Incidentally we never do hear how Polly Ballew got word of this. Maybe the Galactic Institute of Space Research and Astral Studies dropped a tip so they’d have an excuse to appear.

The press is hardly going to ignore a good flying-saucer story. Reporters from the Gasette newspaper show up. So does Polly Ballew, of Gasoline Alley Television. Polly’s so excited by the story she doesn’t even mention being the sister of Wally Ballew of Bob and Ray’s old-time-radio show. (This might be because Bob and Ray had a running spoof of Tom Corbett. This was the Lawrence Fechtenberger, Interstellar Officer Candidate series. Too close a mention might spoil people’s suspension of disbelief. Except I’d think anyone who would spot that link would be going along with Scancarelli on this, so who knows?) But she also confirms the strange noises are coming from the kitchen colander.

Joel, introducing the Galactic Institute of Space Research and Astral Studies people: 'Howdy! This is m'fr'en' Rufus! These folks are from a outer space outfit studyin' my colander!' Rufus, sotto voce: 'They don't look like they is from outer space!' Joel: 'How yo' know? Yo' ain' never seen nobody from out there!' Rufus: 'I is too! In plenty o'movies an'th'TV!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 5th of July, 2021. I had not noticed before writing up the alt text for this image, but you could redraw this dialogue as a **Pogo** strip and it wouldn’t seem out of place.

Drawn by Polly Ballew’s live reporting, three members of the Galactic Institute of Space Research and Astral Studies show up. Cosmos Quasar, Dr Lana Luna, and Andrew Andromeda are happy to study this apparent alien transmission. With scientific investigators on the scene, Polly leaves. But their verdict: It’s the Tom Corbett, Space Cadet radio series. They recognize “Cadet Roger Manning of the Astro”. Their explanation: last week a communications satellite went off-course. A fragment of ancient radio got stuck in its circuits, and by freak coincidence is getting sent right to his kitchen colander. They recognized the names.

The story’s punch line, fitting to a cornball 50s/60s sitcom, is the departure of the Galactic Institute of Space Research and Astral Studies trio. Scotty beams them up.

The three Galactic Institute of Space Research and Astral Studies researchers, caught in a beam that looks like sunlight, with their forms dissolving: 'Well! Our work is done! Let's go home!' 'Right!' And the last says, in Greek (with Greek lettering) 'Beam us up, Scotty'. Rufus's mule Becky looks on, surprised. — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 17th of July, 2021. I don’t know why Scancarelli chose to depict an alien language as Greek. I would put money on his thinking of the idiom about something “being Greek to me”. And wanting to use an actual language that readers would have a fair shot of deciphering.

This would seem to end the Rufus-and-Joel story in time for this essay. Monday’s strip still had the characters talking about it. But the transition to a new story sometimes does happen mid-week. Often the protagonist for one story sees the protagonist for the next. Who that will be, and what they’ll do, I have no way to know except wait.

Next Week!

On the one hand, renowned nature guy Mark Trail! On the other, renowned pop science guy Bee Sharp! The stakes: an app about whether the air is healthy for pets. It should all come together in Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail, discussed next week, if all goes well.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? What did happen for Skeezix’s 100th birthday? February – April 2021

I’d delayed my last Gasoline Alley plot summary a couple weeks back in February. This so I could say what was happening for Skeezix’s centennial. His discovery on Walt Wallet’s doorstep changed the strip and made it into something that would last a hundred-plus years. And I was startled that nothing particular did happen.

That did change. We got a story revisiting a few moments in Skeezik’s life. This from the perspective of Walt Wallet, a fair choice. The retrospective was shorter than I expected. This both in its duration, which was only a week for the readers, and its scope, which only covered up to World War II. But it is an observation, albeit late, of Skeezik’s centennial.

So this should catch you up on Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley for late April, 2021. If you’re reading this after about July 2021, or if news about the strip breaks, I should have a post here.

On my other blog, I do write up comic strips with mathematical content sometimes. Yesterday, for example, I got to bring up a 1948 panel of Barnaby. You might like seeing that.

And now, what has been going on in Gasoline Alley since February?

Gasoline Alley.

14 February – 26 April 2021.

A lot of stuff at the supermarket. Gertie, Walt’s live-in caretaker, stops to help Mim, a woman who’d lost her glasses. Gertie can’t find them, but throws her back out searching the floor. She pulls on a shelf to straighten up, knocking over bottles of floor wax. And then we get a bunch of slapstick as characters fall over, drawing in more bystanders to slip and fall over, drawing in — Well. We are fortunate the slipping wave stops before it encompasses all humanity in the dreaded Global Pratfall Event. And in comes Tim, who’d found Mim’s glasses when he got home. He surmises that they fell into his basket and he hadn’t noticed. Since they’ve met cute and have matching names, they need to go off and date and reappear in stories to come.

Mim: 'Oh, my! I can see again! Thank you! Thank you! How can I repay you?' Gertie: 'Not me! He!' Tim: 'Aw! I was glad to help!' Mim: 'No! I insist!' Tim: 'I insist! No!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 4th of March, 2021. By the next day, in-character time, Tim is calling Mim ‘honey’, so I suppose things are moving fast. Or I’m mistaken in saying that’s happened the next day. Though **Gasoline Alley** tries to age characters in roughly real-time, there have to be gaps in time we readers don’t see. Otherwise the characters live, like, one or two days per month.

So, come the 10th of March, Gertie heads home and into the next story. She calls Walt to let him know she’s running late, but gets no answer. She fears the worse, speeding home. A cop stops her for speeding, but concedes these are good reasons to rush home and check on an unresponsive 115-year-old. They call in the fire department and the ambulance and find … that he was just watching the TV and couldn’t hear the phone.

Young Walt, holding an infant Skeezix: 'Skeezix! What're you doing here?' Infant Skeezix: 'I live here! Don't you remember?' Walt: 'But, you're grown up and married and live across town!' Skeezix: 'Married? At my tender age?' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 31st of March, 2021. I liked this retrospective-in-a-dream frame. It excuses jumping to good parts without transition or explanation, for one. (And doing such a jump makes the dream more authentic.) And it lets a moment like this be a dialogue, usually more interesting.

From the 24th, Walt talks about the lost stamina of his youth. He goes to bed, and wakes up the next morning … looking and feeling 20 years old. He’s dreaming, of course, but chooses to enjoy that.

Teen Skeezix, pointing out a car to Middle-Age Walt: 'Want to go for a ride in my new jalopy, Uncle Walt? Hop in!' Walt: 'Skeezix! You can't drive! You're just a baby! ... [ They're in the car, racing down the street ] Well, at least you were yesterday!' Skeezik: 'Baby? I'm 15 years old!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 31st of March, 2021. I liked this retrospective-in-a-dream frame. It excuses jumping to good parts without transition or explanation, for one. (And doing such a jump makes the dream more authentic.) And it lets a moment like this be a dialogue, usually more interesting.

He talks with Baby Skeezix. Relives going on the first drives with a 15-year-old Skeezix in a mid-30s jalopy. Waves Skeezix off to the Army, and back from World War II. And, while he’s feeling young, goes for a run. It’s a moment that touched me. I don’t yet have the experience of being old. But I did used to be quite fat. When I was losing that weight there was one day I realized I could go from walking quickly to running, and that the transition felt good, and the running felt good, and I imagine Walt’s dream felt like that. I hope everyone gets to experience that good feeling.

Adult Skeezix, hugging: 'Goodbye, Uncle Walt!' Walt: 'Where're you going Skeezix?' Skeezix, showing his ARMY shirt: 'Off to WWII! I enlisted!' Walt: 'Be careful! Don't worry! We win the war!' Skeezix: 'How do you know?' Walt: 'Been there! Done that!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 5th of April, 2021. “Oh, I’ve played like 300 crazy scenarios in Hearts of Iron III and, let me tell you, you have to seriously nerf the Allies to lose.”

But it is a dream, and only a dream. He wakes the next morning with the usual sorts of aches and indignities of age.

Walt wakes back up the 13th, has breakfast, and they discover they’re out of eggs. While Walt naps, Gert goes back to the store. She’s been trying to find a box of eggs without any cracked, without success. The egg delivery guy is handling the packages roughly. Also she sees Mim again, who’s there with Tim and contact lenses.

Next Week!

Hollywood glamor! Rappers! Childhood bullies! Homeowners Associations! Viral videos! It’s Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail, if all goes as planned. I still don’t know how Mark Trail didn’t get arrested after stealing that boat in Florida. Sorry.

Also, if you’re a little curious somebody built a Smokey Stover web site … I’d estimate in summer of 1997 … updated the copyright notice in 2003, and forgot about it ever since. So please enjoy some vintage comic strips on a very vintage web site. It’s got an image map for its front page, if you can imagine.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? What happened for Skeezix’s centennial? November 2020 – February 2021

So … uh … nothing. The 14th of February, 1921, was the day that Gasoline Alley turned into a comic strip anyone but a specialist would have heard of. It’s when Walt Wallet found an abandoned infant on the doorstep. The child was soon named Allison (Get it? Alley-Son), but everyone’s called him Skeezix. It was a milestone for the comic, and for comics. It pioneered the comic strip where characters grow up in something like real time.

The comic strip’s long acknowledged this big deal, as it should. And this year, for the 100th anniversary of the moment there was … a pleasant enough Valentine’s Day card and acknowledgement of Skeezik’s 100th birthday (observed). And that’s all, to my shock. I had expected this to be feted. I imagined at least another visit to the Old Comics Home. I have no explanation for why this wasn’t a bigger deal. Over at The Daily Cartoonist, D D Degg has similar thoughts, plus a good number of historic Gasoline Alley strips observing the day. This including Skeezix’s first appearance.

So this essay should catch you up to mid-February 2021 in Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley. If you’re reading this after about May 2021, or if any news on the strip breaks, I’ll have an essay here may be of more use to you.

Gasoline Alley.

8 November 2020 – 14 February 2021.

When I last looked in, Slim Wallet had finished running a Halloween haunted house successfully, only to hear noises downstairs. It was his mother Lil, and his cousin Chubby. It’s an unwelcome-houseguests story, the kind where a vague relative visits. The kind where they have heavy trunks and don’t move them upstairs.

Slim, looking at a turkey: 'Mother! How did you manage to get this huge gobbler?' Mother: 'Easy! I shot dice with the butcher and ... ' Chubby: 'She won!' Slim: 'Honestly?' Mother, with her fingers crossed behind her back: 'uh ... honestly, I won!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 25th of November, 2020. Still, they did think to get a turkey for everyone for Thanksgiving, so it’s not like they’re **impossible** houseguests.

Despite their help with thanksgiving, Clovia’s quite stressed having them around. Slim’s not too thrilled by them either. So in the tradition of old-time-radio and old-fashioned TV sitcoms, they hatch a Scheme. They’ll use the haunted house props to make Lil and Chubby think the place is haunted. To work! Lil’s makeup kit is out of place. The clocks are set wrong. A weird figure appears before them. This convinces Lil and Chubby, who flee. Clovia’s proud of her husband’s haunting. Slim’s baffled because he hadn’t even started haunting yet. But how could that happen?

Clovia: 'Slim! Lil and Chubby ran out of here like they'd seen a ghost! If you didn't scare them off, who did?' Ghosts behind Clovia, unheard: 'We did! We messed with the clocks again ... ' Clovia: 'Brr! A cold feeling just came over me and ... did you hear a voice?' Slim: 'Cut it out, Clovia! You're scaring *me*!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 7th of December, 2020. You’d think Slim and Clovia would be used to it with this sort of thing happening to them all the time. Well, if we were good at noticing the patterns in our own lives we’d all have lives with different problems.

So that wraps up the story, on the 8th of December. The 9th of December started the next, again centered on Slim and Clovia, so there’s little transition needed. Bleck’s Department Store asking Slim if he can play Santa again this year. Trouble is in washing it. The dryer doesn’t work.

Clovia: 'Wake up, Slim! The electrician's here!' Slim: 'Grok! Umph! Huh?' Slim, rousing himself: 'You were due yesterday! What took you so yawn, er ... long?' Frank Nelson: 'Oooh! It's a long way from the north Pole to here by reindeer!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 17th of December, 2020. The story had a lot of the Frank Nelson character. I understand some of that, since he’s a fun person to write and probably the Jack Benny Program regular most easily plucked out of that context. Having him in two key roles seems like maybe too much, though.

The dryer repair person says the dryer is fine. Dire news from the electrician: he’s the Frank Nelson character. He figures the dryer needs a new power cord. Fixing that doesn’t help. His next diagnosis is the circuit breaker. Now the dryer works … once. They yield to the inevitable and go shopping for a new dryer. The dryer salesman is Frank Nelson again.

This leads to a couple weeks of delivery attempts by Sidney and Lew. They feel like a reference to me. I can’t figure out who, though. There’ve been a lot of delivery-team scenes in the past. In the first delivery attempt, Slim’s fallen asleep and can’t hear them. On the second attempt, Slim and Clovia are awake. But they notice a dent on the back of the dryer, and touch-up paint on the front. I’m not clear where the damage came from. Frank Nelson offers them a $150 discount to take the dryer, but Clovia suspects it’s not a new dryer. She’s convinced by the promise of a discount, though, and Sidney and Lew are happy to leave. And the new dryer doesn’t work.

Sidney, trying to hold the dryer up against the front steps: 'Ring the door bell, Lew! [ Ungh! Oof! ] I can't hold this elephant forever!' Lew: 'Hush, Sidney!' [ He rings the bell. ] Sidney: 'Nobody's home! Let's leave it on the steps!' Lew: 'How many times to I have to tell you to hush, Sidney?' Sidney: 'Two thousand, two hundred, and twenty-two times!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 18th of January, 2021. You see what I mean about this feeling like a reference, though? I’d expect if Sidney and Lew were screen characters that there’d be, you know, one tall skinny guy and one short fat guy. They’re almost identical, which evokes a Heckle-and-Jeckle or Mac-and-Tosh pairing. Or maybe this is just Scancarelli making up something that feels like a callback. He’s got the talent to do that.

So if you like this mode of American Cornball plotting? (I do, by the way.) You likely enjoyed Scancarelli’s skill respecting the styles and conventions of the genre. If you don’t like this, the story was like chewing tin foil. You know, these are the sorts of stories he wants to tell.

Sidney and Lew return, to take out the broken one and return a new one. And that seems to work, and to end the story, with the 6th of February.

Last Monday the current story began. It features Gertie, Walt Wallet’s live-in caretaker. At the supermarket she encounters someone in distress. She’s lost her glasses, and crying. Gertie volunteers to help. I don’t know where this might lead.

Next Week!

It’s Tony DePaul and Jeff Weigel’s The Phantom, Sunday continuity. How does the Ghost Who Walks help a Bangallan detective return from the dead? We’ll see, or we’ve already seen. All I do is recap what anyone could read. See you then, unless something urgent comes up.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? What comics would you have Comics Kingdom bring back? August – November 2020

The Comics Kingdom survey still seems to be up, so, let me remind you of it.

HEY! @ComicsKingdom is doing a survey about what classic comics people might want to see brought back with new art and Popeye is an option – HINT HINThttps://t.co/cSa2sO4TqP

— Randy Milholland (@choochoobear) November 9, 2020

There are strips I’d love to see revived. There are strips I can’t see being revived usefully. What I mean is, we don’t need a new generation of Kabibble Kabaret. There, I’m sorry, estate of Harry Hershfield, but you know I’m right.

So, now, this essay should catch you up to early November 2020 in Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley. This link should have more up-to-date plot recaps, and any news about the strip, as I get it.

On my other blog, I’m writing up essays about mathematics terms. This week should be ‘V’. It’s probably also going to be late because it’s been a very busy week. I should have had a busy week for the letter ‘X’ instead; there’s so few X- words that I could miss the week and nobody could tell. Too bad. Now on to Gasoline Alley.

Gasoline Alley.

17 August – 7 November 2020.

Last time in a story I had thought might be a repeat, small-scale crook Joe Pye met his long-lost wife Shari. (I think it was new.) Shari’s upset about his vanishing years ago. But Pye and his sons had escaped from jail and need everything. He claims they’re wandering minstrels providing music for church services and stuff. She’s willing to fall for this. And they’re willing to go along with this for a bath, a meal, and a bed.

Joe Pye: 'Shari! Your church might not have the instruments we're, uh, used t'playing!' Pye Boy: 'Daddy's right! We need a five-string banjo, fiddle, guitar and tambourine! Most churches wouldn't have such as that!' Shari: 'No problem! We've got all them in the choir room! Great, huh?' Joe and Boy: 'Yeah! Great!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 10th of September, 2020. Once again, I want to point out Scancarelli’s draftsmanship. For example, in the three panels the camera rotates nearly 180 degrees around the action without being confusing. For another, look at Shari’s hand in the last panel, with the middle fingers resting together and the index and pinky fingers separating. That’s a pose your fingers take when you don’t notice, and it speaks to artistic observation that Scancarelli depicts that. Also it’s cute that Shari and her son have their hands to their cheeks simultaneously and conveying nearly opposite feelings.

And she can offer a job. Pastor Neil Enpray’s happy to have them perform in church this Sunday. They’re worse at music than I am, and I’m barely competent to listen to music. But all the Traveling Truebadours can do is bluff through it. The Pye men try to figure what they can do, while the pastor lectures on the appearances of snakes in the Bible. Joe Pye figures what they can do is pocket cash from the collection baskets.

Pastor Enpray asks Roscoe Pye to bring him a box, though. And inside is a snake! They’re terrified, fairly, and run, fleeing the church. It’s a rubber snake, of course, a toy. Enpray was hoping to “make an impression” on his congregation.

So, they escape without showing how they don’t know any hymns. But they’re also hungry and homeless. And figure Shari won’t take them back. Joe Pye figures they have one hope left: go back to prison. Why not break back in to their cells? This inspired me to wonder, when someone does escape prison, how long do they wait to reassign their cell? I have no idea. If you do, please write in.

They get there as another prisoner’s trying to break out. They’re caught up by the prison guards and confess they’re escaped prisoners. Warden Bordon Gordon, a tolerably deep Bob Newhart Show cut, is having none of it. He insists their time was up and they were released. He just forgot to mention. It so happens they were let out the same night four other people escaped, which is why there was a manhunt.

Warden: 'What brings you boys to see us?' Joe Pye: 'We're turning' ourselves in, warden.' Warden: 'What for? Your time was up! We released you!' Pye: 'You didn't tell us!' Warden, thinking: 'Hmm! I knew there was something I forgot to do!' Pye: 'So we escaped fo' nuthin!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 19th October, 2020. And yes, I see the Warden’s finger-cracking in the first panel too. It’s not hard to imagine Scancarelli having a decent career at Mad Magazine filling in the corners of the page with little toss-off gags.

The comic logic is sound. The Pyes figuring jail’s their best bet and they can’t get in, makes sense. I don’t know a specific silent comedy with this premise, but I’d bet all the A-tier comedians did something like that. I don’t fault you if you don’t buy this specific excuse.

Onward as the premise demands, though. They have to get arrested. Their best plan: steal from the grocery store. When they try to wheel a cart full of food out and admit they can’t pay, the store owner apologizes. Times are tough. Take the food. Have some soup, too. Because, you know, when you leave food in the hands of people rather than corporations, hungry people get to eat.

In the last days of October they approach a spooky old house. It sounds haunted. They run out of the place, and out of the strip; with the 30th of October we transition to Slim Skinner and the new story.

The haunted sounds are Slim’s fault, of course, but in a good way. He’d decked out a slated-for-demolition house for Halloween and that went great. There’s a bit of talk about getting the city to save the building, but that doesn’t seem to be the plot. Instead, in the middle of the night, Slim’s mother and cousin Chubby come to visit. And that’s where the daily plots stand.

Slim, dreaming of himself narrating a story: 'I'm Herbert Lewot, alies the Towel! (That's Lewot spelled backward!) My partner in grime is the Washrag! (His real name is Tex Grxznopfski, but it's too hard to pronounce forward or backward!) We patrol Ajax City aboard our sleek, modern vehicle, the Barsoap V, in search of crooks to clean up in the cities' clean up grime campaign! I spied a silhouetted 'second-story' man sneaking in a 20th story window!' Washrag: 'Wouldn't taking the fire escape be easier?' Towel: 'Washrag and I climb up the building and burst into the apartment after the crook! But to our dismay and alarm there was no villain! Who is it then?' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 20th of September, 2020. I picked this as the most active of the Towel strips. But the 13th and the 27th of September are the ones that have more little jokes and references tucked into the corners, so you might like those better.

For a couple weeks in September there was at least a running thread. Slim dreamed of being a Herbert Lewot, wealthy comic-book-reading bachelor who’s also the grime-fighter The Towel. (Spell “Lewot” backwards.) The setup feels very like an old-time-radio spoof of any number of old-time radio superheroes. (The ‘Tex Grxznopfski’ and talk about spelling backwards particularly feels Jack Benny Show to me.) Slim Skinner’s shown, for example, reading Yellow Jacket comics. Remember that both the Green Hornet and the Blue Beetle were respectable-enough radio superheroes. I’m sure there are more obscure bug-themed radio superheroes too. I think this is just a one-off, but if Scancarelli wants to fit a sub-strip into his strip? There’s a long history that he knows very well to support him.

Next Week!

The most anticipated plot recap since the new team took on Alley Oop. It’s my first plot recap for Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail, next week, if all goes well. See you then.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? Is Gasoline Alley in repeats still? May – August 2020

I can’t tell whether the current storyline in Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley is a repeat. From May through early July the strip repeated a story from 2010. We assume this was to give Jim Scancarelli some time to research and work ahead for the February 2021 centennial of Skeezix’s debut.

So a story began the 6th of July. It feels like a repeat to me, and to many of the GoComics commenters. But nobody has found it in the archives, to my knowledge. Those archives only go back to April 2001, true. But it would be odd to reprint a strip from more than twenty years ago; strip sizes have changed since then. But there’s no definite word either way.

If I get word that this is definitely a repeat, or definitely new, or any other Gasoline Alley news I’ll post it here. Also, I expect, a new plot summary around November 2020.

Gasoline Alley.

25 May – 15 August 2020.

The story as repeated: Gertie, Walt Wallet’s caretaker, worried about the side effects of his medications. Like, they can cause hallucinations. They seem to be working: Walt calls Gertie out to see a mass of exotic tropical birds. The birds vanish before Gertie gets outside. Then there’s monkeys swinging from the trees, except when Gertie steps outside. A hippopotamus on the lawn. Gertie worries about the hallucinations until she comes face-to-face with a lion.

Gertie: 'Mr Walt! You were right! There ARE critters everywhere!' Walt, surrounded by monkeys, exotic birds, a hippo, an elephant, and so on: 'I told you so!' Gertie, pointing to a friendly lion: 'Hoo-wee! This one didn't brush his teeth!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 13th of June, 2020. This is what it’s like to have a furry convention set up in your town, by the way. You’re walking to that place where you build-your-own-tacos and whoop, hyenas!

It draws a crowd, including Polly Ballew, oddly young sister of Bob and Ray reporter Wally Ballew. (Hi, Dad!) And, finally, it draws an answer: “world’s greatest animal trainer” Clyde Bailey. These are circus animals, who escaped after “hungry vagrants” broke into their cages and stole food. Bailey’s able to round up the animals and get them back, and bring this repeat to a close.

Animal trainer Clyde Bailey, calling the animals: 'Tantor! Simba! Tarmangani! Oongowah!' The next panel the elephant and lion screeeeech to a sharp halt. The birds flying around them are probably also stopping too. — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 26th of June, 2020. I’m sorry not to share more pictures as Scancarelli draws a great cartoony animal. It looks like he had a blast with this action. I would pay for a cornball funny-animals comic book like they published in the old days drawn by him. Give me that elephant and that lion swapping vaudeville patter.

The current and possibly new story started the 6th of July, with Rover Wallet and son Boog driving home. This would fit from the end of the previous story, the Farm Collective one, by the way. They pick up a hitchhiking Joe Pye, and his three sons. On W-PLOT Radio, they hear of four “armed and dangerous” escapees from State Prison. The Pyes jump out of the truck.

On the truck radio: 'I repeat! The FOUR escaped convicts are armed and dangerous! This is not a fake report!' One of the Pye kids, riding in the truckbed: 'It IS too! We ain't armed!' Joe Pye: 'Joe Pye and his boys will sue em fo' desperation of character!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 13th of July, 2020. Wh … why are the bunnies spying like that in the first panel? Are they hoping to nab the escapees and grab the reward?

It’s hard to believe in a Scancarelli character being “dangerous”. But the Pyes agree they’re fleeing the cops, and go tromping through the wilderness. They tromp through the water, figuring this will wreck their trail. And then come the dogs. They surrender to what they take are police dogs. But they’re not; the dogs, Flotsam and Jetsam, are a woman’s.

Shari Pye, cross, and arms crossed: 'The Joe Pye I'm talking about had three sons named Red Tommy, Milferd, and Roscoe Baby!' One of the Pye kids: 'Roscoe BABY? Ha ha ha! Oh! BABY mine!' Shari: 'What're YOUR names?' Pye kid: 'Gulp! Uh ... ... Manny!' Next kid: 'I'm Moe!' Last kid: 'An' I'm Jacques!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 10th of August, 2020. I’d like to help by tagging which of the Pye kids is which but I just don’t know. They seem to reliably be shown together which makes it hard to say who’s who. Also, I know Scancarelli fought the impulse to have them declare they were Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered/Bemildred. (They were the trio of bats in Walt Kelly’s **Pogo**.)

The woman thinks Joe Pye looks familiar. His name is familiar too. She’s Shari Pye. Joe Pye knew someone by that name, years ago. Married her, in fact. She’d married a Joe Pye, it turns out. And had three sons who fled with Joe. Joe Pye comes clean: he’s her long-lost husband. Also, when he told his sons that their mother had died he had mixed up his phrasing. So the family’s reunited, then, that’s sure to be a good thing, right?

And that’s where the storyline stands as of the middle of August. Again, if I find evidence this is a repeat, or is definitely not, I’ll pass word on.

Next Week!

It’s a comic strip I know to be in repeats! I’ll look at the last weeks of James Allen’s Mark Trail and the start of Jack Elrod repeats. Unless something disrupts the plan. Thank you for bearing with me as we hope there is a plan.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? Why is Gasoline Alley in reruns? March – May 2020

I don’t know why Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley went into reruns this last week. GoComics commenter 436rge asserted that Jim Scancarelli is preparing something for the 100th birthday of Skeezix. This seems plausible. Skeezik’s arrival in the strip made this comic. And others; it’s a landmark in comics history. It was key in giving us comic strips that are about people with life stories. And strips in which characters grew older and changed. It would be odd if Scancarelli did not make a big production of this.

Skeezix entered the strip the 14th of February, 1921. I have no information about whether Gasoline Alley will be in repeat through February of next year. It’s possible, but it’s not a sure thing.

If you’re reading this essay after about August 2020, we’ve probably left farms far in the distance. There should be a more up-to-date plot recap in a post at this link. Thanks for reading.

Gasoline Alley.

2 March – 23 May 2020.

So are farms like scrapbooking, but for food? A couple years ago the schoolteacher in Gasoline Alley promoted scrapbooking to the kids, as a good creative thing they should do. And Jim Scancarelli’s comic strip talked about it a lot. Or so it felt like; probably it was just a month or two of the characters being really into scrapbooking. That memory’s lodged itself in the Gasoline Alley snark-reading community, anyway. It’s a fun reference whenever a comic strip seems to start obsessing over something, whether it’s Mary Worth and CRUISE SHIPS or Gasoline Alley again and … farms. So that’s what I was on about last week.

Baleen Beluga, the new and personality-rich waitress at Corky’s diner, was getting closer to T-Bone, the cook. He’d like to get closer to her too, but rejected her Sadie Hawkins Day proposal trick. I don’t know the details of the Sadie Hawkins tradition but I’m pretty sure getting someone to agree that “I do [ know what leap year is ]” doesn’t make a breach-of-promise suit. Her feelings were hurt by T-Bone’s reluctance. Then her body was hurt, by slipping on the floor somehow. And you know what that means: visiting mirror-touch synesthetic physician’s assistant Peter Glabella at the clinic.

Beluga, crying: 'Boo-hoo! You care more for the soup than you do me!' T-Bone: 'Please don't cry, Baleen! Listen! We've got to work here at the diner! Let's talk about all this later!' Beluga: 'Leave me alone!' (Black panel filled with crashing noises: BANG! CRASH! E-YOWCH! Tinkle!) T-Bone: 'Baleen! Are you OK?' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 7th of March, 2020. I swear I’m not one of those needlessly literal readers who needs every single step explained. But I’d like to know what Baleen was doing, sitting down, that she could fall badly enough to hurt herself. Also I’m not sure that if I were doing the strip I’d have put ‘TINKLE’ there, just because, you know, bad laughs.

After a couple weeks of waiting-room gags Beluga meets Aubee Skinner. She’s the three-year-old latest generation of the comic strip’s star family. And we follow her and her mother home, to Rover Skinner. (Grandson of Walt Wallet, original centerpiece of the strip.) The handoff is done … oh, I’ll call it the 24th of March. You could date it as early as the 12th, when they arrived at the clinic, if you like. Or the 19th, when Aubee climbs into Beluga’s lap.

Rover is getting ready for the Farm Collective’s meeting. And he talks his teenage son Boog into coming along. (Wikipedia tells me Boog was born in September 2004, and Aubee in September 2016. So, yeah, these ages still check out for being real-time.)

The point of the meeting: to promote “saving our farmlands”. Attending the meeting are a bunch of the local farm families. Skinner’s thesis: without family farms, they’ll pave over the land, there’ll be no food, and people will starve. Checks out; that’s what must happen. But Skinner expands on the problem: land is expensive. And that’s all he mentions before explaining his special guest speaker isn’t there yet.

The Molehill Highlanders band plays, particularly, the World War I ditty “How’re You Gonna Keep ‘Em Down On The Farm (After They’ve Seen Paree?)”. Boog sees in this century-old paean to the dullness of farm life a way to get people excited about farm life. His father agrees, and soon everyone is buzzing about their campaign’s theme song. Also they have a campaign, I guess. Charlotte, Boog’s girlfriend, also has a great idea. Wouldn’t it help cut down farm expenses if local teens did the farm work, but for free? It sure would!

Boog: 'Hey, Pops! Charlotte came up with a cool suggestion! How 'bout us teens helping out some farmers with chores, planting, etc etc? They wouldn't have to pay us and ... ' Boog's father: 'How about you doing chores, etc, around your own home for free?' Boog and Charlotte: 'Gulp!' Comedy Parrot: 'Oh, brother ... er ... father!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 27th of April, 2020. Wait wait wait, have an agricultural labor force made up of unpaid and under-paid persons from a socially disadvantaged group? Is that **possible**?

She’s thinking internships or something. Anyway after all this, special guest speaker Eric Helmet arrives. He’s got a broken tractor and a bunch of farm-life jokes. And talks about how farming is expensive and hard. But, he figures, what if they had some kind of outreach program so that people understood agriculture? Also, Don Henley wrote “A Month Of Sundays”. That’s a fanciful ballad imagining a time in 1957 that bankers were friends to farmers.

Eric Helmet, speaking to the crowd: 'My memory must be in erase mode! I forgot to tell you something! There's a song by Don Henley called, 'A Month of Sundays!' It's about a farmer's feeling and the changing times! You can Google the lyrics! They sure are poignant!' Comedy Parrot: 'Does that mean *loud*?' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 11th of May, 2020. Now, if you google the melody instead of the lyrics, you find out Don Henley forgot to write one, but hey, some folks like that.

I don’t mean to make this sound disjointed. But what we see on-camera is disjointed. And shallow, considering it went on for about two months. I’m willing to trust that in “reality” Helmet talked in some detail about being a struggling farmer, or as it’s known technically, “being a farmer”. And I understand Scancarelli wanting to tell corny but amiable jokes. It’s more readable than the screwed up parts of agricultural policy, or as they’re known technically, “all of agricultural policy”. But it did read like a slightly weird obsession.

There’s no handoff to the current storyline. It just started the 18th of May. It’s also a repeat, something I would not have noticed (at this point) without reading the comments. It originally ran from the 19th of April through the 5th of June, 2010. So that’s six more weeks of this storyline. As it is, Walt Wallet is home from the hospital, after a stretch of being a hundred and ~~twenty~~ten years old. Gertie looks over his pills and worries about the side effects. We’ll see what happens after the 6th of July.

Next Week!

Why does James Allen’s Mark Trail look weird? I’ll share what I have learned. (I have learned nothing.) But we’ll see what the story has been.

What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? Did Baleen leave Gasoline Alley or what? December 2019 – February 2020

Baleen said she was leaving Gasoline Alley. She came back, though, saying that it was an accident. It was sentiment. She’s moving toward a romance with T-Bone, the cook. I say moving toward because I write this in the closing days of February 2020. Sometime after May 2020 there’ll likely be new plot developments. So if you want the most up-to-date plot recaps and news about Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley please check this link. And if you like comic strips with a mathematical theme please check in on my other blog. Thank you.

Gasoline Alley.

9 December 2019 – 29 February 2020

I last checked in on Gasoline Alley in the weeks before Christmas. A train full of kids were riding the Mistletoe Express to see Santa Claus. But it broke down in front of Corky’s diner. Corky put in a call to Slim Wallet to get his Santa gear on and entertain the restless kids. And what do you know but he got there in record time and put on a great show, never breaking character, and giving everyone a merry time. Even talking in rhyme the whole day. And there’s nothing mysterious or ambiguously supernatural about that at all.

Slim, dressed as Santa, running up: 'Corky! I'm sorry I'm late! I had a flat tire and forgot to bring my phone!' Corky: 'But you were just here and did a fabulous job!' Slim: 'Whadyamean? I just got here!' Corky: 'Then who was that other Santa?' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 20th of December, 2019. If you don’t like this sort of lighthearted old-time-radio/60-sitcom holiday magical realism then maybe Jim Scancarellis **Gasoline Alley** is not a comic strip for you, all right?

Well, the day after Christmas started the new story thread. It’s still focused on Corky’s diner. Terry, the regular waitress, is back. She’s completed her treatment for the actue angina pectoris that Peter Glabella had diagnosed. With Terry back, guest waitress Baleen declares she’s off. But Corky and T-Bone (the cook) beg Baleen to stay. She has none of it.

Anyway, the diner’s doing great business. It’s crazy crowded. The strip never says their hotcakes are selling like hotcakes, but Jim Scancarelli is kicking himself for not doing that joke. They put up a fresh sign begging for more wait staff. And who shows up again but Baleen? She claims that she caught the wrong bus, and this is where it stopped for lunch. And she missed them all.

Woman carrying in the 'Waitress Wanted' sign: 'Uh! I'd like to apply for the waitress position!' Corky, recognizing her: 'Baleen! You're hired! Get your apron and get to work!' Baleen; 'Aye aye, Captain!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 15th of January, 2020. And as usual I’d like to mention the work put into the art here. That there is any visual appeal at all to these scenes show the work Scancarelli puts in to staging scenes. The first panel could have as much mystery if it were just an off-screen voice geting Cookie’s attention; focusing close on a walking Baleen from down low gives the scene a sense of motion. The shading of the lead characters, too, gives a neat composition. This strip would be very easy to draw lazy and it’s just not done. I know I always say this about **Gasoline Alley**, but I’m going to keep saying it until people agree with me. I can accept people not liking the way Scancarelli designs characters, especially as there will be mixes of characters drawn to different levels of photorealism. But I won’t accept people not acknowledging that he stages them well.

So Jim Scancarelli has realized that Baleen’s a pretty good fit for the gang at Corky’s Diner. She steps back in, and we get back to restaurant jokes. And a bit of story development: a jerk customer starts mocking Baleen’s name. T-Bone leaps to her defence. Terry had said that T-Bone had a crush on Baleen. The first real evidence we get of this is the hearts in his eyes when Baleen kisses her thanks. But then she gets all cold, particularly saying she missed him “like the bucolic plague”. Which when you look at it is a hard thing to parse. Terry gives T-Bone the advice to be patient and let Baleen find a comfortable spot.

But, it’s Valentine Season. Baleen starts getting cards. She’s been popular with the customers, to the point of sometimes sitting down with them. This is pretty much my deepest restaurant nightmare. There’s a Wendy’s I can’t ever go to again because the cashier recognized I always order the baked potato. A server feeling comfortable enough to sit down with me might well cause me to burst into embarrassment flames.

All the attention is making T-Bone jealous. Terry recommends he send her flowers. He feels like that’s hopeless. Terry claims Baleen sent the (anonymous) cards to herself and made up a Valentine party she was going to. I don’t know on what basis she deuces this other than that “Valentine party”? Well, T-Bone at least sends a card. And then a wreath of roses arrives.

Baleen, looking over a wreath of red flowers: 'Ooh, T-Bone! What a lovely Valentine gift!' (She kisses him; he gets hearts in his eyes.) T-Bone, thinking: 'Gulp! I did't send this wreath! One of Baleen's secret admirers must have!' — Jim Scancarelli’s **Gasoline Alley** for the 14th of February, 2020. It’s a small artistic touch but the sort of thing I think emblematic of Scancarelli’s work that there’s so many valentine hearts in the second panel there. Not just the three floating above the actual kiss, but also the heart in T-Bone’s eye and the two hearts making the centers of the O’s in the sound effect ‘Smooch’. It’s the sort of little thing making a panel funnier to look at that Scancarelli reliably pays attention to and I’m glad for it.

He didn’t send them. Also they’re a funeral wreath. Terry reveals she ordered the flowers on T-Bone’s behalf. She didn’t order a funeral wreath, though. It’s one of those zany screw-ups that happen at florist’s in the 60s-sitcom world of Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley. T-Bone thinks fast for once, and says it shows how he’ll love her until she dies. And this wins Baleen’s heart.

That seems to put their story at a good resting point. The last couple days have been jokes about Baleen painting signs for the diner, advertising their hours and whatnot. Oh, and hey, is there something ritualistically special about Leap Year in proud-to-be-old-fashioned comic strips like this? Mm?

Next Week!

So, seriously, did Mark Trail leave Dr Harvey Camel out there to die in a snowbank? James Allen’s Mark Trail gets its recap in a week, if all goes to plan. It is hard to read what Mark Trail did any other way. I’m unsettled too.

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10 October – 31 December 2021.