A recent book by former City Police dispatcher and lovable lady fuzz Rosemary claims that, even though she received tip-off after tip-off about the "growing danger" the Gum Drop Kid represented, City Police and their resident superhero, Hong Kong Phooey, failed to comprehend the threat he and his gang represented.

"Basically, we didn't have a strategy for dealing with the Gum Drop Kid," Rosemary said: "We were more focused on dealing with Dr. Tornado and the Gasket Gang. That and ordinary crooks. People like that."

In fact, according to her book - "You Don't Say?" - even up to the day of the 03/02/01 Disaster, in which over 2000 of The City's inhabitants lost their lives at the hands of the Gum Drop Kid's radical followers, City Police were focusing on a long-term plan to combat the Incredible Mr. Shrink, instead.

"We knew the Gum Drop Kid was dangerous. We knew his recent conversion to Wally-Gatorism made him more unpredictable than ever before. But for some reason we kept dismissing him as a two-bit crook with a gimmick and a costume, rather than seeing him for the deadly foe he was becoming.

"So when the Huey Louie Gooey Gumdrop Factory exploded, and coated five blocks of The City with hot, steaming gumdrop goo, we were as surprised as anyone."

The Gum Drop Kid remains at large, in spite of a three-year manhunt and a million-clam reward for his capture.

While Rosemary says that City Police should take the brunt of the blame for this intelligence failure, her book claims that Hong Kong Phooey has to share a major part the fault as well.

"It's time to tell the awful truth, and that truth is that Mr. Phooey has always been a complete and total bimbo," she says in one particularly scathing passage: "If it wasn't for my tip-offs, he wouldn't have known what was going on at all, and half the time he was still very slow to react on them. He usually caught crooks by accident and solved crimes through sheer luck.

"Take away his fancy car, his costume and that stupid book he got through the mail, and all you have is a clumsy oaf who shouldn't even make it onto the Police force, much less be revered by them."

However, due to the "Cult of Popularity" that is afforded superheroes, and the police departments they work with, the blame is not being laid and "the right questions aren't being asked."

Police Commissioner Flint, Hong Kong Phooey's direct liaison to City Police, refused to directly rebut Rosemary's claims, saying that she was a "disgruntled former employee."

"We finally had to let her go in '02, after we discovered she was making long-distance calls to her boyfriend on city time," Flint explained: "One month she racked up over a thousand clams talking to the Wonderland Zoo.

"She tried to tell us it was professional interest, but you should have heard her and that beatnik bear carry on."

Further doubt has been shed on Rosemary's claims when it was revealed that, as recently as last year, she was describing Hong Kong Phooey in "glowing" terms. Other employees of Police Headquarters have also come forward to say that she always described him as "dreamy," "wonderful," "handsome" or "a real darn guy."

And in 2003 she wrote a wedding invitation to Phooey, thanking him for his "years of wonderful service to this city." Phooey did not attend her nuptials to Hair Bear, citing the need to bust Rhinestone Shady once and for all.

When confronted with these previous statements, Rosemary said "You don't say... you don't say..." She then said she had nothing more to say.

Hong Kong Phooey's publicist said that Mr. Phooey had no comment on the book, as he was too busy delivering "Hong Kong Phooey Chops to evildoers everywhere, and especially the Gum Drop Kid."

Hong Kong Phooey has had his share of good and bad fortune since his first appearances in the 1970's. While he managed to keep The City relatively crime-free into the 80's, the life of a superhero took its toll. His high-profile marriage to Judy Jetson failed, and in the 90's he was forced to check himself into the Huckleberry Hound Clinic due to a debilitating opium addiction.

After the 03/02/01 Disaster, Phooey tried to makeover his public appearance, unleashing amazing new powers and a more brutish, less campy look. However, this didn't last long, and within the year he was inexplicably back to his normal self.

Phooey, as usual, provided only cryptic commentary as to the startling transformation: "The Hong Kong Book of Kung Foo says... 'if it doesn't work, try it again... if it still doesn't work, do something else... if that doesn't work, go to lunch!'"

This isn't the first time a former associate of Hong Kong Phooey has written a tell-all book that presented him in a bad light. In 1990, prior to a failed career resurrection of his own, cold war super-spy Secret Squirrel wrote "Under The Bullet-Proof Coat."

The book not only detailed the extent of Phooey's opium habit at its worst, but outed Squirrel's former partner Morocco Mole as a homosexual and raised charges (since dismissed) that Dynomutt was a Soviet spy made with stolen Israeli parts.

Secret Squirrel lambasted many other heroes of his era as "drug-addled, stupefied and amoral fools who couldn't find truth and decency if you handed them a map."

He was sought for comment on Rosemary's book, but was unreachable due to his serving time for multiple counts of indecent exposure and soliciting prostitutes.

"We're nothing, and nothing will help us / Maybe we're lying / then you better not stay / But we could be safer / Just for one day"

Heroes - David Bowie