"Spade. Samantha Spade. Private Investigator." I was standing in the mirror practicing my introduction when a clamor of bangs and whirrs outside of my door caught my attention. My star witness had arrived, a key Loony Labs scientist, who I was confident had all of the answers I've been searching for. His name? Doctor Dimm.



I opened the door to let the clever duck in. "Hey, why is it black and white in here? And how did you manage to get that mirror around your waist?" he asked with a puzzled expression. He was good. Too good. I knew this duck would be tough to quack, but his expertise fit the bill.

I sat him down and pointed my interrogation lamp on him. The bulb had burned out, but it was tradition. Despite being a member of Doctor Surlee's S.I.L.L.I. Team (Scientists Interested In Laff Levels Increasing), not once had I ever spotted Doctor Dimm throughout all of my investigations. Where had he been during all of this? That was the first question I decided to ask.

"Where have I been? Where HAVEN'T I been? Well, I guess I haven't been watching TV as much as I used to. I even had to come in on a Saturday and missed an episode of DuckTales! I heard it was a good one too, something about Gyro Gearloose's robots taking over a town... What was the question again?"

The scientific genius dodged my question like a low level drop gag. He knew us ducks couldn't resist a good talk about DuckTales, but I had to stay strong. I pushed him further, and asked why he hadn't been working on the Silly Meter with Doctor Surlee.

"I tried to help, you see, but they just didn't trust my spring-loaded wacky wrench! Apparently the wackiness whacked the machine a bit too much for them. They assigned me on another part of the project, developing a device for the Shticker Book to keep track of the Silly Meter. It's batty!"

I told Dimm that I didn't think it was all that batty to be afraid of a spring-loaded wacky wrench, fearing that I'd soon be dealing with murder rather than mystery.

"No, no, I said batty!" he exclaimed, as if he had said anything at all differently than before. It took roughly 20 minutes of back and forth batty chatty before I found that Dimm's Shticker Book device is in fact named the B.A.T.T.Y. Device (Basic Aerial Transmissions To You), and he had at no point been trying to say the word "batty."

We were no closer to discovering what Doctor Surlee and Doctor Fissionton's Final Plan is, when suddenly, my door burst open. A tall fella walked in, covered in Cog oil. The poor Toon looked worse than a grease monkey on Grand Prix Monday. He handed me a note, trembling, and said with a gasp: "The Hollywoods."  

We've got trouble. If you’ll excuse me, it looks like I’ve got a case that I can't refuse.