The Morning Line: The Secret Files of "Judge Parker"

"Judge Parker's" Dewey Cheatham has been toe-tagged for days now, but as witnessed by today's strip, the details around this gruff duffer's life are still vague. Who was Dewey Cheatham, exactly, and more important: what shortcomings caused this golfer to become so obsessed with being the longest driver off the tee?

Some say ever-greedy Dewey Cheatham also tried to trademark the phrase, "Over my dead body." (NAS) Enlarge Comic

The strip's excruciatingly slow pace leaves us to imagine just what IS his backstory? Was he born in Yonkers? Did he make his first million by getting the dirt on somebody at Smith Barney? And did all that success come from publishing "Rude, Stogie-Chewing Golf for Dummies."

Surely, the reading public of "Judge Parker" must know more about this mystery figure. Please shed light and let us know because, at this rate, the strip won't tell us till '09.

SIDENOTES:

When Ted is not mightier than Hilary's Samurai sword. (KFS) Enlarge Comic

SALLY FORTH: We have mercilessly mocked Ted Forth on previous occasions for his "lady hands" and general wussydom. Today, though, we'd like to think that cartoonist Francesco Marciuliano is subversively mocking Girly-Man Ted far more than we'd ever dared. There is Ted, weeping into his lady-digits over the story of "Wall*E," while Hilary envisions Samurai scenes with Toshiro Mifune. We instantly think two things:
1. The contrast is played to genuinely funny effect.
2. Hilary may look eerily like Pops, but she apparently inherited none of his mental DNA. Thankfully.

No ensemble is complete without chives. (UFS) Enlarge Comic

PEARLS BEFORE SWINE: By Pig donning a potato costume, what he does not realize -- and Rat surely does -- is that Pig himself has immediately become the world's largest Bacon-Bit.