Where the hell are Elmo's parents? Are the Bumsteads the only source of adult guidance for the kid, and that's why he's constantly popping by? Do they even know or care where he is when school's out?
You can say that about every single media involving kids. Why do the adults not seem to care that the kids are poking about in a huge city or having charming discussions with random strangers?
I think it's just Values Dissonance. When the strip started, a child was raised by a neighborhood and, it wasn't odd for someone else to watch your kid randomly for an hour. Back then, your kid left after breakfast, visited for lunch, and came back at dinner.
Maybe Elmo lives on the side of the Bumstead home opposite from Herb and Tootsie; his parents familiar enough with Dagwood and Blondie to be comfortable with him going over there alone. Dagwood himself never seems to object to this.
How in the world does Mr. Dithers get away with the way he treats his employees? In the real world, a boss who did things like he did (specifically things like kicking Dagwood) would be sued into oblivion.
It's mostly for comic relief.
You'll notice Mr. Dithers never seems to tear into anyone else nearly as much.
At the real world time when Dagwood was hired by Mr. Dithers, readers would have still remembered the Great Depression, when people were so desperate for work that employers could get away with corporally punishing their employees (kicking Dagwood would have been seen as the equivalent of spanking him). At the time, no one could risk a retaliatory firing for calling in the law — and no one could risk bankrupting an employer with lawsuits since that would put all the employees out of a job at a time when it was common for one wage-earner to be the sole breadwinner for an entire extended family, which could result in more than a hundred people dying of starvation!
My guess is that, back when Dagwood first went to work for Mr. Dithers, treating one's employees that way was socially and legally acceptable (well, apart from the kicking bit, which would've constituted assault even then), so it's simply grandfathered in as a recurring motif. Also, just because employers can no longer dismiss you without warning, or demote you from executive to stock boy or whatever, without risking a lawsuit, doesn't mean that a Bad Boss can't find all sorts of other non-actionable ways to abuse you.
They can't do that? Then I think it's time to have a talk with my boss who has a reputation for dismissing others with no reason.
Interestingly, I had a relative who had a boss that had an uncanny resemblence to Mr. Dithers's personality, his name even rhymed with "Dithers"
As I can tell, our current era isn't any different, as shitty supervisors like Dithers still exist but they're more subtle about their mistreatment now. Of course, they don't get away kicking the crap out of people nowadays.
Related to the above, how in the world did Dagwood, who habitually sleeps on the job, goofs off, and is late for work and meetings, not only avoided getting fired (for good, at least), but managed to get promoted to office manager?
You haven't hung around most managers in real life, have you?
Sure, there are plenty of incompetent managers in real life, but they tend to get promoted by having a friend in senior management. Dagwood has no such connections.
Fridge Logic - maybe Dithers and Dagwood have an arrangement whereby Dithers turns a blind eye to Dagwood's incompetence in exchange for being able to take his rage out on him in the form of physical abuse. Dithers is just that much of an asshole.
That explains a lot. I can imagine the lawyers during the negotiation of the agreement; so you drop the multiple assaults suit against my client and I drop the unjustified firing against yours… hmm wait a second…
Why do Dagwood and his son look like identical twins?
They're not identical. The differences are subtle but still there: Dagwood has 3 uncombable hair on both sides of the head and a round nose. Alexander has 2 such hair and a pointy nose.
Of course, when the strip was created in the 30's, that was a trendy hairstyle. Why he's still sporting a hairstyle that hasn't been popular since before most of the fans' parents were born is another question entirely, but there you go.
When did Dagwood's and Blondie's children appear? Did they grow up, or did they just appear out of nowhere?
Actually, Dagwood and Blondie started as dating teenagers, then got older, got married, had babies which grew with the years until they reached their late teens/early adulthood. The age evolution stopped at that point.
Which proves that Blonde was better twenty years or so ago.
Alexander did start out as the renowned Baby Dumpling.
Why does Blondie have such huge breasts when she was conceptualized as a flapper?
Suppressed Mammaries. Since she's no longer really a flapper, she doesn't feel like taking the effort to hide 'em.
It's also not uncommon for a woman's breast size to change after bearing children.
Actually, she could have been wearing a bandeau (which was invented about that time), which kind of flattens the bust.
If Dagwood's boss can't stand his wife, then why did he marry her? In the first animated movie, he doesn't want her to kiss him. I find that strange.
The Ditherses are obviously older than Dagwood and Blondie, so presumably they have been married longer, and presumably Mr. Dithers loved Cora at least in the past.
Considering the time and their level of wealth, it is quite likely they were an arranged marriage. Even today, arranged marriages among the wealthy are not that uncommon.
Not just that, considering that they're older, the Dithers probably never considered a divorce because, well, back in their day, it was just something you just didn't do and getting one before 1969 was very difficult with the laws at the time (1969 was when the concept of "No Faults" divorces were introduced). However, another explanation would be is that they married more because it was practical (if their families didn't arrange their marriage).
I am aware in the comic strip Dagwood got disowned by his parents for marrying a flapper like Blondie (yeah the past was pretty dark) makes me question if Mr. and Mrs. Bumstead ever met their grandkids and since flappers are a thing in the 20's and this is 2017 how would their reason for disowning Dagwood be retconned...
The major reason wasn't that she was necessarily a flapper but that they assumed she was a gold-digger. That reason has never gotten old.
Dagwood's parents were presented as cold-hearted, loveless but wealthy people who tried to use their money to manipulate Dagwood for their own narcissistic purposes. The fact that Dagwood chose love over money and has never once regretted it is one of his most noble qualities.
How does Dagwood balance plates of food on his arms while holding them at about a 45-degree angle without dropping any of them? Especially since he's such a klutz when he's trying to do anything else!
Practice. Dagwood's a lazy Big Eater; of course he'd rather carry vast amounts of food all at once than have to make more than one trip to the fridge and back. Makes sense that the plate-balancing act would have become second nature to him.
Dagwood frequently crashes into the mailman on his way out the door, rushing off to work in the morning. Who gets their mail delivered at that time of day?
