Richie Rich Profits #13

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As it turns out, I was able to find one (1) Harvey Comic in mostly intact condition in my collection. It's Richie Rich Profits #13, from 1976.

For you young'uns, Harvey Comics were once huge, putting out an average of thirty titles a month, four in the Sad Sack family alone. Richie Rich was the story of a boy from an emormously wealthy family, up in the Scrooge McDuck category. Despite being wealthy enough to buy a small country with pocket change, the Riches were refreshingly kind and egalitarian types. Especially Richie, who loved to hang out with his proletarian friends. (They were usually okay with taking advantage of Richie's generosity in sharing his nice things, but too proud to accept money or permanent gifts.)

And being both fantastically wealthy and nice, the Riches had some of the coolest servants around as well, as we will see in this issue.






The Riches' butler was Cadbury, "the perfect butler." He wasn't quite on the combat level of some other butlers, but in his context, he's still awesome enough to hang out with Alfred, Jarvis, Jeeves and other butlers of legend. This story focuses on his relationship with Richie. (five scans from a fifteen-page story.)





Richie, as it happens, is a boy of habit. Mr. Cone, the owner of the ice cream shop, is surprised to hear Richie order his usual, a chocolate-vanilla-strawberry-cherry-pistachio-tutti-frutti cone. Because he already ordered such a tower an hour ago. Cadbury orders a five-scoop cone, all vanilla. Mr. Reade, the owner of the local newsstand, is happy to sell Richie his usual order of Timely, Weeknews, Billionaire's Fortunes and Casper the Friendly Ghost. A bit puzzled as to why the boy would want second copies of each, though.

A man in dark glasses and a mustache drives by in a cab, and later is seen lurking behind a telephone pole.

Cadbury points out that Richie should remember that the world is always watching (and this is back in the days before paparazzi became such a household word.) Richie frets that everyone knows all his secrets, but Cadbury assures him that while public behavior may be known to all, there are things only a friend would know, and one or two that no one else knows.



I don't know about Cadbury's secret, but this isn't the only time Richie's inability to say "ventriloquist" comes up. And it's a sign of Richie's superior education that he doesn't have to reminded which American song "God Save the Queen" has the same tune as.

Cadbury promises to keep Richie's secret, they shake on it and Richie declares them "buddies." They then head on to their main errand, purchasing stamps. Mr. Post is surprised that Richie needs another ten thousand stamps so soon...as in an hour. Cadbury laughs it off in front of the civil servant, but outside suggests that they get back home quickly. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but three times is enemy action. And the mysterious cabbie decides it's time to make his move.

This involves whistling, the signal for a marching band to go into action. This is, of course, an evil marching band. Richie and Cadbury are knocked silly by the base drummer and a majorette, respectively. The cabbie then instructs two people who look exactly like Richie and Cadbury to "make the switch." Fake Cadbury hails the evil cabbie's taxi for Real Richie, while Fake Richie bundles the dazed Real Cadbury into another cab, each scene concealed from the other by the capering musicians.

Each of the real duo realizes something is suspicious about their companion, and use their newfound knowledge to expose the imposter. The Richies leave their respective cabs with the Cadburys in hot pursuit, eventually slamming into each other in a mirror image panel. the Cadburys smack into each other as well, leaving a heap of concussed duplicates. Mr. Skeem, the malignant cabbie, has the marching band haul everyone back to the airfield (no one notices anything odd about the musicians carrying along unconscious people.) At the airfield, Mr. Skeem has the band dump the duplicates in a hanger, then wait aboard a jumbo jet. He then wakes the sleepers.

Mr. Skeem is kind of miffed his plan has gone awry. He'd combed the earth to find exact doubles of the entire Rich family and Cadbury. The idea was to get Richie and Cadbury to an isolated tropical island where the fake parents would create the illusion that this was a vacation.



The doubles fight, and Mr. Skeem tries to figure out who's who--if he makes a mistake, the real ones could go free and tell the cops. Speaking of which, they arrive. But both the real and fake Richies and Cadburies act in perfect unison--how are we going to sort this out?




Irona comes from the era when robot maids were made in Detroit, not Akihabara, but I suspect she was responsible for a few boys discovering a fetish in her time.



And now, a text feature for you older fans.




See how many you can answer without asking me to reveal the truth!


And now, Cadbury in a solo adventure. (One page)





How about a one-page adventure of Casper the Friendly Ghost?






However, not all of the Rich relatives were salt of the earth types. Some, in fact, lived down to the worst stereotypes of the wealthy. Such as this fellow. (1 and 1/2 pages of five.)





Reggie may be a cad, but he's not going to bail on babysitting. That would be wrong.

Reggie proceeds to tell a series of tall tales, talking himself into a corner each time. Fortunately for him, his sister's infantile antics give him ideas on how to satisfactorily end each tale.

The younger children take their leave.





Hope you've enjoyed this look into the lives of the rich and famous. Your thoughts and comments?

More British comics will be coming up in the next few weeks.

Comments

[skjam]

For purposes of the story above, let us presume that Cadbury's double has been equally trained in an identical form of combat, thus their stalemate.