Bronze Age Babies: Discuss: Dick Tracy

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Discuss: Dick Tracy

Doug: Interpret today's topic as the comic strip, comic book iterations, or the 1990 film. Have at it!

17 comments:

Anonymous said...: The Dick Tracy comic strip was a regular feature for many years in one of the local newspapers down here. LIke Batman, a great part of his appeal was his colourful rogues gallery.

As for the 1990s movie, all I remember was that Madonna was in it!

Mike "where's my two way wristwatch radio?" from Trinidad & Tobago.; July 11, 2013 at 7:39 AM
Edo Bosnar said...: Never read the strip or any comic book iterations of the character, nor even watched the cartoons.
Just saw the movie, and like Mike from T&T, I hardly remember much of it, except for Madonna and a rather miscast and apparently uninterested Warren Beatty, but really well done scenography: I loved how the sets were made to evoke the look of a comic strip, and the costumes were also really well done. The movie may have been generally forgettable, but there were many visually striking scenes.

By the way, I always loved that Loony Tunes Dick Tracy spoof/homage "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery" starring Daffy Duck. Here's a clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ly35NQfZw8; July 11, 2013 at 8:42 AM
Anonymous said...: Never thought much of the Dick Tracy newspaper strip until I picked up a copy of "The Dick Tracy Casebook", a sampler volume that features one complete storyline from each decade from the '30's thru the '80's. Granted this is a "best of" but it gave me a greater appreciation of the strip by Gould and his successors.; July 11, 2013 at 8:57 AM
J.A. Morris said...: I used to read the Sunday strip when it was published here, but I was never a huge fan. I thought the movie did a great job depicting the villains, but not much else. Pacino should've gotten an Oscar for his role as Big Boy Caprice, not for 'Scent Of A Woman' (a "lifetime achievement"Oscar if there ever was one):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV-Z2hEQV7Q

Like Anonymous at 8:57, I recently picked up a nice reprint of the early Chester Gould stories and I like what I've read so far.

I also bought this a while back knowing it would be unintentionally funny:
http://www.comics.org/issue/358700/cover/4/; July 11, 2013 at 10:06 AM
david_b said...: I recall finding an OLD '50s hard cover 'Dick Tracy' book (story, no comic strips..), and loving it as a 6yr old, so my parents bought me this beautiful hardcover back in '71..:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/THE-CELEBRATED-CASES-OF-DICK-TRACY-HARDCOVER-DUST-JACKET-1970-/360685735147?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item53fa8b8ceb

Just a beautiful collection of both color/b&w strips, huge coffee table book. I was surprised that Tracy was still in some larger city papers Sunday editions (Chicago Tribune..?) back in the early '70s, but I know Gould didn't like the newer stories back then because the writers who replaced him were too 'soap operish' in his opinion.

All in all, I'm a Tracy fan, but didn't spend any $$ on seeing the film back then. Sounds like I didn't miss much. I did like watching the animated cartoon done in the early '60s despite some of the now-frowned upon depictions of Asian people (since the term 'orientals' is now boo-cooed as well..).; July 11, 2013 at 11:24 AM
Anonymous said...: The Celebrated Cases of Dick Tracy reprinted the daily strips from the Flattop serial, and DC's tabloid reprinted the Sunday strips, and each seemed complete without the other. That was one cool thing about Gould: he wrote the strip so that if you missed one or the other it still made sense. Jim Steranko, in his History of Comics, said that at the time, his family could not afford both a daily and Sunday newspaper, but that he remembered the Flattop arc vividly.; July 11, 2013 at 12:10 PM
Anonymous said...: I remember the UPA cartoons from the early 1960's. I'm afraid the ethnic stereotypes would be politically incorrect by today's standards. There was also a Dick Tracy TV cartoon series on CBS in the early 1970's. It was a segment of the anthology show Archie's TV Funnies, which also featured Broom Hilda and the Katzenjammer Kids. The Tracy episodes were freely adapted from the comic strip stories and used most of the familiar characters, although some of the secondary characters like B.O. Plenty and Gravel Gertie sometimes seemed to have been tossed in at random.; July 11, 2013 at 12:21 PM
david_b said...: Anyone ever recall that attempt at a Dick Tracy live action show in '67..? Here's the pilot opening/closing..:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8QOyLSjM-U

Shades of Camp, Batman..!! Dozer strikes again!

Actually, I've mentioned this before, but obviously the Tracy movie was on the coattails of Burton's Batman success. What would have been a MUCH better idea would have been the Green Hornet script Eddie Murphy was making the studio rounds with to make. Having Murphy as a black Hornet would have been SO cool.. One, Murphy was still smokin' hot at the box office; second, it would have done great business if done straight like Burton's film (non-comedy); and third it would have been a fresh take on the Hornet. Nevermind the 'comedian-as-leasing-man' argument, since the decision to cast Keaton as Batman was lambasted until the Burton movie came out, then everyone thought it was brilliant.; July 11, 2013 at 2:25 PM
david_b said...: Ah, guess this is the actual pilot, just found it.. (with MST3 commentary unfortunately..)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62nH8JnGwPA; July 11, 2013 at 2:28 PM
Garett said...: Eve Plumb is in that Dick Tracy intro--isn't she one of the Brady Bunch?

I always want to like Dick Tracy, but it hasn't hit me yet. I pick up the comic...ok...watched the movie...ok. With all the colorful characters, I should like it much more than I do. Maybe it's the creative teams--Frank Miller could do a cool dark and nasty Dick Tracy. Or on the other hand, someone like Joe Staton could do a fun cartoony version.

I do remember watching the quick cartoon and liking it, along with Bat Fink, but it was on right before school in the morning, so I caught some of at my friend's house on the way to school.; July 11, 2013 at 2:58 PM
Pat Henry said...: Even as a kid, I used to delightedly mock the DT daily strip. Its Moon People, etc. There were always these little Chester Gould cliches throughout, like “He made the mistake. He shot first.” Like the alternative is better?! I liked the revamp that appeared shortly after Gould died, which jettisoned a lot of the BO Plenty stuff and got back to police work.

Al Cap's Fearless Fosdick was fabulous satire. I wonder if Gould appreciated it?

Always thought Tulsa Tuva Haf-and-Haf was a shameless rip-off of Two Face. But perhaps the osmosis ran the other way?; July 11, 2013 at 3:51 PM
david_b said...: Sorry, meant to say 'leading-man' not 'leasing-man',

Sorry, busy day in military duds today..; July 11, 2013 at 4:08 PM
Anonymous said...: I do remember that some of the old black and white RKO Dick Tracy movie serials were aired many years ago on local TV. One episode had a villain who wore a gadget which rendered him invisible; another had a masked villian who was fried on some high tension wires. I remember these more than the 1990 movie! Has anyone else ever seen these old black & white serials?

Mike "snake eyes" from Trinidad & Tobago.; July 11, 2013 at 5:44 PM
Anonymous said...: I've never seen the 1930's serials, but I've seen the late 1940's "B" feature films on TV. "Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome" is probably the best known, mainly because Boris Karloff plays the villain.; July 11, 2013 at 6:59 PM
fantastic four fan forever said...: I love the original comic strips! There are complete collections by Fantagraphic Books, the publishers of The Comics Journal. Like their Charlie Brown hardcover collections, this one is re-printing the entire run of the Chester Gould comic strip. Sunday editions and all. As far as the movie is concerned, it wasn't that good.; July 11, 2013 at 9:01 PM
Fred W. Hill said...: I read the strip in papers throughout the '70s, when it was a weird mix of police detective and sci fi. Can't say I was a big fan but I kept up with it. Seems Dick Tracy's rougues gallery was inspired by the various colorfully named real life gangsters of the '20s & 30s and in turn DT's villains inspired Batman's and at least a few of Spider-Man's, but many of the sci-fi trappings of the comic books likely inspired Gould. I can only wonder how older fans took to those changes in the strip from fairly realistic to more fantasy related.; July 11, 2013 at 10:26 PM
Edo Bosnar said...: Garett, Joe Staton is in fact the artist for the current Dick Tracy newspaper strip.; July 12, 2013 at 3:30 AM