Tuesday, October 03, 2006 07:34:08 AM
DVD PICK
The Dick Tracy Show
TAKE A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE
Dick Tracy has just turned 75. And you just can't help but wonder what piece
of modern-day gadgetry (iPods, Blackberries) would intrigue our animated hero,
he of the famous watch, the most.
To mark this milestone Classic Media has come out with a limited edition
four-disc set entitled The Adventures of Dick Tracy:
The Complete Animated Series.
It's hard to believe that the futuristic detective, the creation of visionary cartoonist
Chester Gould, first appeared in 1931 in the Detroit Mirror. The strip was later
picked up by the New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune before making
its way onto television in 1961. (Gould would continue to write the comic for the Tribune
Syndicate until 1977.)
The DVD contains a full 645 minutes of the 1961-64 television series.
In addition to featuring a number of local actors, the show also included
such voice luminaries as the great Mel Blanc.
Dick's dastardly foes comprise a true Rogues Gallery of miscreants: Pruneface,
a Nazi agent with a severely sun-damaged face; Mumbles, a singing conman with
the inability to speak coherently; and Flattop, a half-witted assassin with a
flat, misshapen skull. And who could ever forget Tracy's beloved, Tess Trueheart?
Some facts about Dick Tracy creator Chester Gould
The suave gumshoe was more than just a popular cartoon; it was Gould's creative
outlet that contained imaginative predecessors to real-life police tactics and equipment.
Gould created the Closed Circuit TV Police Showup in 1953, real suspect
lineups began in 1954; his Electronic Telephone Number Pickup was drawn in 1954,
the Caller ID was patented in 1982; and the most interesting of all of Gould's
inventions was the Magnetic Space Coupe which took Tracy to the moon in 1962,
seven years before the first actual moon landing in 1969.
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