Little-Mikey I remember watching this cartoon weekday afternoons just before supper. It was 1961 and I was about 7. I was in the First Grade and had just started to learn to read. So what captured my curiosity with my newly acquired reading skills? You got it,the Sunday Funnies! I asked my mother what comics she liked to read. She liked to read DICK TRACY.So when DICK TRACY came on TV, I thought my mother would enjoy seeing her comic strip come alive on TV. Maybe she saw one episode. I don't remember. What I do remember is that she was always too busy to watch DICK TRACY on TV.Thirty five years later, I saw this cartoon on TV and now I can understand why my mother was always too busy to watch this cartoon. It was bad, really bad! Joe Jitsu, complete with his slant-eyes and buck teeth was such an offensive Japanese stereo-type that you don't even have to be Japanese to be offended. Then there is Go-Go Gomez! Given the choice between watching this horrible cartoon or slaving over a hot stove, my mother wisely chose the hot stove. I rest my case!

theowinthrop The television generation grew up with one innovation that it's predecessor did not have - cartoons from Windsor McKay through Walt Disney, through Walter Lanz, Chuck Jones, Tex Avery and the rest were meant for adults. They were designed to appeal (with in jokes and commentaries) about current events. When Bugs Bunny confronts a gremlin in a U.S. bomber the gremlin is trying to destroy, Bugs looks at the camera (figuratively speaking) and says (while the gremlin is sneaking in the back), "You don't suppose that is a "gremlin"?" The gremlin grabs one of Bug's ears, and yells, "WELL IT AIN'T WENDELL WILKIE!!". The fact is that an audience of kids born from 1945 onward would never hear of the Republican Presidential Candidate, until he or she took an in depth 20th Century American History Course.The baby boomers did enjoy the knockabout and silliness of Woody Woodpecker, or Bugs Bunny, or Donald Duck and Goofy. But the shows that were on television in the daytime to comfort the kiddies did have jokes that were twenty years old or so. So new cartoons were needed, and for the first time the cartoons were designed for kids.Unfortunately, this meant that the producers, directors, and writers of cartoons (thinking they were doing something good) "dumbed down" the cartoons. Not all of them. There was the marvelous Rocky and Bullwinkel . Some of the Heckyll and Jeckyll were good. But Harvey's dismal Casper, Wendy, Herman and Catnip, Little Lotta cartoons repeated the same stupid situations again and again. And they were not alone. I hate to add that Hanna Barbera did trends (imitaing classic comedians like Joe E. Brown as "Peter Potomus" or Bert Lahr as "Snagglepuss) that were tiresome after awhile. But then there were occasional glimmers of originality by H-B. They did create the first cartoon series (and successful one) that played at night - THE FLINTSTONES. But even that was a cartoon version of THE HONEYMOONERS* (*To be fair, Chuck Jones did a series of cartoons about mouse characters like Ralph, Alice, Norton, and Trixie. It was set in Brooklyn, and called THE HONEYMOUSERS. But it was only three cartoons, for theatrical release.) This series appeared in 1961, and it was good for the undemanding infant, like myself. In retrospect, after reading the old Chester Gould comic strips, it was dreadful. As was pointed out in another reviews the characters of the villains were all lone wolves against the police. And with good reason - they had different criminal activities. The Mole (before he reformed) kept an underground hiding place for fugitive criminals. Pruneface (and separately, the Brow) were Nazi agents (the Brow would be killed when he was impaled on a flagpole with an American flag on it - quite symbolic). Flattop (named for the nicknames of the aircraft carriers of World War II) was the first killer for hire in a detective comic strip. Beebee Eyes was running a stolen rubber business (it was war time - and rubber was a commodity the government needed). In trying to flee from Tracy, Beebee Eyes hides on a barge, and when the garbage is dumped a tire falls around his arms, pinning them to his side - so that he drowns.The most odd change (actually by Gould) was Stooge Villiers. Originally he was a highly skilled pickpocket hired to frame Tracy for theft. Then he became a rival for Tess Truheart - but he gradually is exposed, but instead of dropping his rivalry he kept returning, as a bigger and bigger criminal. It never really made sense.Gould was trying to make his comic a weekly morality story, where crime does not pay. The results were quite good, even if his names resembled the stick figures of John Bunyan's PILGRIM'S PROGRESS (for example, a man who gets his way by giving money to politicians is Mr. Bribery).The show dumbed down the comic considerably. Besides pairing off the criminals, the detectives were never Tracy, but four caricatures that were silly. Hemlock Sholmes (a talking British dog - he sounds, badly, like Cary Grant), Joe Jujitsu (a Japanes Detective who was a whiz at judo), Go - Go Gomez who was a super-fast Mexican (complete with sombrero). He was a steal from Chuck Jones' Speedy Gonzalez, although Speedy was a mouse. Finally there was Heep O'Calorie, a fat cop who used his prodigious belly as a weapon,(his voice sounded like Andy Devine). With Sholmes, there was a "Keystone Cops" group who "aided" him. Tracy would (as was mentioned on this thread elsewhere) get an assignment on his intercom from an unnamed chief, and pass it to one of the four detectives via his two way radio. They always beat the bad guys - but that was expected for the cartoons for the kiddies.I saw it when Chuck McCann was doing a Sunday morning show for kids in the New York Metropolitan area. McCann's show, LET'S HAVE FUN, had these cartoons, the Three Stooges, Abbott and Costello, and other programs mixed in. And he would come out (for the Dick Tracy segment) as Tracy, to a theme song: "Dick Tracy. He's got a bulldog jaw. Dick Tracy. For he's the arm of the law. Dick Tracy. You must do what he'd say: Crime doesn't ever pay." That was not the theme of the DICK TRACY SHOW, but it was for McCann, who would shake his finger at the viewers when they were told that Crime never paid. These days it seems rather feeble, but McCann was enjoying his performance, and it did lead into the cartoons. Fortunately they ended soon enough to make way for Bud and Lou or Moe, Larry, and Curley.Hardly great cartooning. Hence it's lack of revival on television.

F Gwynplaine MacIntyre I acquired a complete run of this cartoon series on standard-8mm film, as part of a swap with someone at Blackhawk Video. Lucky me? Not likely! This television series is INCREDIBLY bad, with lackadaisical animation that makes 'Clutch Cargo' look high-tech.Having read the entire run of Chester Gould's 'Dick Tracy' strips (and some of his successors' work), I'm deeply familiar with the original 'Dick Tracy'. One of its great strengths was the cast of supporting characters: Tess, Junior, Sam, Lizz, Diet Smith, Vitamin Flintheart, Chief Brandon, Chief Patton, B.O. Plenty, Gravel Gertie, and the unfairly maligned Moon Maid. None of them are on offer here, possibly because Gould would have wanted more money. Dick Tracy himself is only barely seen at the start and finish of each episode, offering spoken set-ups and wrap-ups that don't interact with the (minimal) action.Any positive notes? Aye, just barely. The opening credits are impressive, with a catchy crime-marches-on music theme while Tracy fires his pistol directly at the viewer, and we see captioned head shots of the various villains, so we'll know their names. (None of them move ... except Itchy, who scratches himself.) The good news is that these are all classic villains from the peak years of Tracy's strip. Even more intriguingly, we actually get TWO villains per episode, working as a team. The bad news is that the team-ups are completely arbitrary, and -- having been made by whoever set up this series -- the arbitrary team-ups remain in place for every subsequent cartoon. So, f'rinstance, Sketch Paree is ALWAYS paired with the Mole, and Stooge Viller is ALWAYS paired with Mumbles. (The single most interesting thing about this series is voice-artist Paul Frees's performance as Mumbles: he speaks his lines in a weird hyperactive quack that sounds like Donald Duck on helium.) Some of the pairings make no sense: in the original strip, Sketch Paree (a one-off villain) was a delusional psychotic artist, while the Mole (a recurring character who eventually reformed) was a dissociated murderer who lived underground: why would these two men team up on an ongoing basis? As depicted here, the Mole is a genial Buddy Hackett-like schlub who enjoys digging tunnels with his bare hands.The biggest problem with this awful series is that Tracy doesn't do the actual detecting, and the characters who do the sleuthing -- created for these cartoons -- are awful. Each toon begins identically to all the others, with Tracy at his desk speaking into a phone: "O.K., Chief. I'll get on it right away." (We never see this chief: is it Chief Brandon? Chief Patton? Big Chief Wahoo?) Tracy then rings off the phone and uses his wrist TV to summon one of his three detectives, whom he briefs on this episode's case.Oo-er! Those detectives! The least painful of the lot is Joe Jitsu, a Mr Moto-ish Japanese midget who signs off each of his episodes by saying 'Sayonara!' (In one episode, he tried to hypnotise a Siamese cat: the cat hypnotised him back, and then the CAT said 'Sayonara!') Jitsu has the ability to subdue much larger opponents by seizing their wrists and casually pounding their heads against the floor. Wish I could do that! The other two tecs are Go Go Gomez (a Mexican in sombrero, serape and sandals) and Hemlock Holmes. After the detective collars the villains, Dick Tracy briefly deigns to put in an appearance and offer a quick verbal wrap-up. Dick Tracy actually has more screen time in the opening credits than in any of the cartoons themselves.Apparently the Jitsu and Gomez episodes became taboo on Yank TV because these characters are allegedly ethnic stereotypes. It makes sense to take them off TV for being crap-awful, but not for being stereotypes: Jitsu and Gomez are both intelligent, brave and resourceful. True, they speak in (very dodgy) 'ethnic' accents, but we never hear any comments about them being unsanitary, stupid, work-shy, dishonest, nor any of the other negative traits attributed to minorities.FULL DISCLOSURE: I wanted to see these cartoons because the allegedly 'Japanese' Joe Jitsu was voiced by my friend the late Benny Rubin, a former vaudeville comic who had trouble getting on-camera acting jobs because of his extremely Jewish looks! So much for ethnicity...Hemlock Holmes is a talking bulldog in an old-fashioned constable's helmet, but otherwise naked. Neither Dick Tracy nor anybody else finds it odd that a talking animal has entered Chester Gould's universe. There are fewer Hemlock episodes than Jitsu or Gomez episodes, but (due to the ethnic stigma) these get televised more often. Holmes, unlike his efficient colleagues Jitsu and Gomez, is a bumbling idiot. Apparently it's wrong to depict Japanese and Mexicans as brave efficient police officers, but it's O.K. to slander talking bulldogs.A few of these episodes feature the Retouchables, a mob of stumblebum bobbies clearly based on the Keystone Cops. Mack Sennett should have sued.A distinctive motif of Chester Gould's strip was its chillingly accurate depictions of violence. This cartoon series was intended for kiddies, so the 'violence' was all very slapsticky and bloodless.What most horrifies me about this series is that Dick Tracy's voice is supplied by that great character actor Everett Sloane, formerly of 'Citizen Kane'. Sloane's eyesight was failing, and he committed suicide soon after making these Dick Tracy toons ... allegedly because he was going blind. I think he committed suicide out of embarrassment over these cartoons. Really, they're AWFUL!

Puck-20 This goes way back; I watched this in the very early 60's. It was quite faithful to the strip, as I remember. The episodes started out the same: Tracy calling one of his cops [Hemlock Holmes, more often than not] on his TV wristwatch. The episode would revolve around the not-too competent Hemlock and the Keystone Kops trying to get the bad guys, which they would invariably do. I still remember the final shot of the show, the timpani pounding out the theme, and a high overhead shot of a busy city intersection, looking at all the ant-like cars letting a police car go by...then continuing on their way as it passed.What made this show interesting were the voices. Everett Sloane [Citizen Kane] was Tracy...but it also had such greats as Mel Blanc and Paul Frees, Jerry Housner [I Love Lucy] and Benny Rubin [Citizen Kane]...I don't recall this show being shown since the mid-sixties. I hope they bring it back.