Dick Tracy: The Midget and the Fat Woman Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. In the "Dick Tracy" comic strip, Tracy is trying to restore Mary X's memory. He takes Mary X and Mason to the machine shop of Mason & Freez. Mason pulls a chain hoist which is directly over Mary X's head. The hit on the head doesn't kill her, it restores her memory. She was Mason's secretary and says she saw Mason kill Freez. As Mason declares his innocence, what unexpected thing happens next?

Answer: Mason is shot dead

Mary X's name is Leota Sunny. Mason was a crook and killed Freez when he discovered Mason was using their company for cover.
Mason was shot from an upper window in the machine shop. A clarinet reed is found outside the window. This implicates Rudy Seton, Tracy's friend. However Tracy also finds the imprint of a cufflink in the snow on the windowsill where the shot came from. Initials on the cuff read JD. He also finds a piece of skin stuck to the window.
Dick Tracy tells Leota Sunny to watch for a man with JD cuff links and a sore lip while she is singing in Seton's club. She spots the man and after a brief scuffle, Junky Doolb is arrested.

2. In "Dick Tracy" a midget with a Saint Bernard calls on Junky Doolb in his jail cell claiming to be his lawyer. Against the orders of the police, he takes the dog to see Doolb, who says the dog is his pet. Doolb pats the dog on the head but as soon as the policemen's backs are turned, he produces a gun and demands the keys to the cell. The midget jumps on the dog's back and rides away. How did Doolb get the gun?

Answer: It was in the dog's mouth

The midget, Jerome Trohs, leaves Doolb to shoot it out with the police. Doolb's gun snaps twice before Tracy and the police shoot him down, indicating the gun wasn't loaded. A very clever way to have the police do your killing for you.
Trohs is back home with his overweight wife, Mamma, and the rest of the Doolb gang. Anything Trohs wants, Mamma is at his service. She wears diamonds and eats chocolates as well as being the 'bouncer' for Trohs.

3. After taking over the former Doolb gang, Jerome Trohs demands his men kidnap Dick Tracy. To question his authority is to get kicked in or have chocolate squashed in their face. They kidnap Tracy, put him out with chloroform and Trohs brings out a vise. What do they do to Tracy?

Answer: Crush his gun hand in the vise

Tracy is found in a Keep the city Clean box during the night. He spends the rest of the story with his arm in a sling.
Pat Patton has found a clue, however. A chocolate cup from the Dee-Light Candy Shop was stuck to Tracy's back. He goes to the store and recognizes Mamma from Tracy's description. Pat cuffs himself to her but she takes him outside and throws him around like a doll. The cuffs break, throwing Pat through the plate glass of a lingerie shop.
A funny sidestory shows the city's two top detectives beaten up by the Trohs gang while Chief Brandon fumes about it: Tracy with his arm in a sling and Patton with bandaged head and black eye.
In the meantime, the Trohs gang strikes again. Hiding in a suitcase, the midget and gang hold up a hotel.

4. Mamma takes the dog Tip for a walk in the "Dick Tracy" comic. Entering a dog food store, they find Junior Tracy and his dog Oscar. The dogs growl at each other and Mamma sets her big dog on Oscar. She knocks the clerk out when he tries to intervene. After Mamma takes her dog out the sobbing Junior finds something on the floor that he thinks will interest Dick. What did he find?

Answer: Tip's dog license

This gives Tracy and the police an address to work with. The license had not been renewed. They rode to the house in the dog catchers truck and found Mamma outside walking Tip. The police tackle her and put the cuffs on.
"I know this isn't polite and it isn't a nice way to treat a lady, but duty is duty," Tracy explains.
"Wait till Jerome and the gang get their hands on you! Nobody will even know where the bones are!" Mamma screams.
Tracy's response? "Gag her, boys."
In the meantime, Trohs and his gang have robbed an armored car using a Molotov Cocktail. Coming up the stairs to their room, the Trohs gang is trapped between the police below and Tracy and Patton upstairs.

5. In the "Dick Tracy" comic strip, Jerome Trohs and his gang are at gunpoint with the armored car money in bags on the table. Suddenly the midget jumps on his Saint Bernard, Tip, grabs a bag of money and off they go. In one room and back out toward the door, with Tracy hesitant to shoot the dog, the midget hops off before the dog jumps off the second story fire escape onto a nearby shed. Where did the midget go?

Answer: Down the laundry chute

Jerome Trohs hides out under laundry in the basket for a few hours while the police search the neighborhood. He leaves the house intending to get out of town.

6. Jerome Trohs has escaped the police with a bag of money from the armored car robbery. The "Dick Tracy" comic strip sees him hopping a train heading west. But this is not just any train. What is the train carrying?

Answer: Montana Joe's Rodeo Circus

This provides the humor in the strip that Chester Gould had been trying to incorporate for so long. Montana Joe is elated to have 'Joe Atom' in his rodeo. Trohs is happy making a clean getaway, but soon gets tired of the rodeo trade.
At one point the midget pulls a gun on Montana Joe, admits to robbing an armored car and demands the train be stopped. The result? Montana gives him a big bear hug thinking he is quite an actor.
Turns out Trohs is terrified of horses too. After his first unsuccessful ride, he thinks he would be better off in prison and considers giving himself up.
When they get to Dogie City, Montana, where the rodeo winters, a huge crowd watches as 'Joe Atom' makes his first appearance. Trohs is taken through a fence and far down the road by his wild bronc. He is just happy to get away from the rodeo. But there was a movie camera filming the scene.
And in case you're wondering, no, I don't know if Montana Joe had a son who played football or a daughter who was a singing star.

7. In the "Dick Tracy" comic strip, Mamma is in prison fuming about Jerome taking off and leaving her to the police. Tracy tells her to calm down, they would find her 'pocket edition'. She sees the film of Trohs and his runaway horse and calls Tracy. He is unconvinced that the midget in the film is Trohs, but will look into it. Back in her cell, Mamma is impatient and begins steaming her face and complaining of pain in her side. What do the guards think is wrong with her?

Answer: Appendicitis

Even though they give Mamma a hypo, when she is taken by ambulance to the hospital, she overpowers one of the orderlies and escapes in his clothes.

8. Mamma has escaped from prison in "Dick Tracy". She sees a semi carrying new cars stopped at a stop light and climbs in one of the cars unnoticed, riding west in comfort. When the driver stops at a hamburger joint, one of Mamma's weaknesses get the best of her. What does she see that brings her out of her comfortable car?

Answer: Candy bars

Mamma grabs all the candy bars she can get and drives off in the semi, eating on the run. Nearing Dogie City, where Trohs was filmed on the wild bronco, she then steals a woman's car as she is crossing a stream and takes her clothes.

9. The wild bronco gives Jerome Trohs a long ride in "Dick Tracy". Finally it takes to the woods and leaves him hanging on a tree branch. He stumbles onto a tourist camp high in the mountains. The owners are lamenting the camp's being too far from the highway to attract visitors. Trohs spends the night, then buys the camp from the old couple who are delighted to sell. As the couple are leaving, Trohs does something incredibly stupid which calls attention to him. What does he do?

Answer: Picks the man's pocket

When they return looking for their money, they are met by the midget with a gun telling them to get off his land. They go straight to the sheriff, who has gotten a visit from Tracy who thinks Trohs might be in the vicinity. As the sheriff is making plans with Dick Tracy to raid the tourist camp, the woman whose car Mamma stole walks in and they now realize both the midget and Mamma are in the area. In the meantime, Mamma has heard of a 'little feller' up in the tourist camp, and gets there before the lawmen. Believing he is alone, Jerome sees an outdoor shower and decides to clean up. Mamma locks him inside and hooks the hose up to the hot water furnace. With a look of absolute glee, she shovels the coal into the heater, then goes out and sprays the steaming water into the shower. Tracy and the sheriff arrive and Tracy follows Mamma into one of the cabins.

The sheriff, realizing the badly scalded midget might be dying, goes back to town for the doctor.

10. While the Sheriff goes back to town to get the doctor for the dying midget, Dick Tracy and Mamma fight it out in the cabin. Tracy tosses his gun out the window so neither of them will be tempted to use it. Mamma slugs him repeatedly, stomps on him and seems to have the upper hand. Then Tracy comes at her, swinging his arm that is in the cast. He misses, but something happens which turns the battle around. What happened?

Answer: The sling draped around Mamma's neck

Tracy gets a table in between Mamma and himself, and chokes her into submission. In the meantime, the sheriff and doctor check on Jerome, but it's too late. He was scalded to death by his wife. Gould suddenly changed from melodramatic stories to non stop action, sometimes allowing the reader to follow two or three stories at one time.

The criminals are sometimes turned from cold blooded killers to sympathetic victims, as Jerome Trohs was. The tough guy who took over the Doolb gang so cleverly was shown dying of scalds inflicted by his own wife. Mamma showed little or no remorse when told of his death.

Source: Author knto

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor kyleisalive before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Chester Gould takes his very popular comic strip to new heights by suddenly changing from melodramatic stories to great characters, fast action and black humor. Enjoy the quiz.

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