Ernie Comics #24

When Ernie gets pushed into joining the track team to impress a girl named Teddie and prove himself against the arrogant Carl Clubhead, he agrees to a five-mile cross-country race with high stakes—the winner gets exclusive dates with Teddie for a month. But between a car that won't start, a woman with a sprained ankle, another woman with a flat tire, and Carl's sneaky shortcuts through the woods, Ernie's got more obstacles than just the finish line to worry about. Can he stay focused long enough to win, or will one disaster after another knock him off course?

Shy Ernie wants nothing to do with kissing, but his scheming friends Teddie and Billie have other ideas—they secretly enter his limerick into a dog biscuit contest, hoping to engineer a smooch with celebrity endorser Betty Sable. When Ernie wins and discovers the prize is indeed a kiss from the glamorous starlet, he bolts, only to find himself accidentally entering contest after contest, each one somehow landing him right back in Betty Sable's pursuits, no matter how far he runs.

Lily Belle wants to enter the Northrop Beach Beauty Contest, but her father, Colonel Cornpone, forbids it—his Southern pride won't allow his daughter to compete in anything run by Yankees. When her friends scheme to get her out of the house and into the contest anyway, they spark a comedic chain of misadventures involving a rigged duel with water pistols and a nearsighted judge who can barely see the contestants. It all comes down to whether Lily Belle can claim her prize before her father finds out what really happened.

When Ernie's friend pressures him to enter a museum's adolescent art competition, the stakes skyrocket—Teddie has wagered she'll go steady with rival Westbrook Van Dal if Ernie's entry doesn't beat his. Desperate to prove himself despite never having painted before, Ernie struggles to create something worthy while Westbrook takes his own shortcut, determined that money and connections will guarantee his victory. As the competition day approaches, chaos erupts in ways neither boy could have predicted, setting the stage for a surprising turn of events in the art world.

Orville, a soda jerk with big dreams, invents the "Rainbow Special"—a miraculous eleven-flavor concoction that unexpectedly cures a perpetually cranky customer's chronic headaches. When Orville can't remember the exact recipe and accidentally serves up the wrong mix, he finds himself caught between an irate Mr. Morris, an exasperated boss, and his girlfriend Kewpie, who's growing tired of his mishaps. As Orville frantically tries to recreate the magical formula, chaos and comedy collide at every turn in this 1949 tale of one boy's struggle to keep his newfound success from slipping through his fingers.