When we first met Blondie Boopadoop
in 1930, she had a lot of screwball boyfriends hanging around. One young man, Dagwood Bumstead, was so smitten with her that
he went on a 28-day hunger strike to win her hand. He was four
slices short of a full loaf, but Blondie loved him enough to
say "I do" and give him two beautiful children --- a boy, Baby Dumpling,
later renamed Alexander (after creator Chic Young's assistant Alex Raymond
who went on to create Flash Gordon), and a girl, Cookie, named by a fan of
the comic strip. But life was one misadventure after another. If Dagwood
didn't run over some luckless mailman in his path every morning he ran afoul
of his cruel boss, J.C. Dithers. The poor boob's elevator never went all
the way up.When the comedy reached the big screen, radio and television, Penny Singleton (the voice of Jane in The Jetsons) played Blondie and Arthur Lake played Dagwood. Today, thanks to Chic Young's son, Dean, the comedy continues daily and Sundays in 2000 comic strips for King Features Syndicate.