 Hey guys, welcome back to Come Again TV, the only place on YouTube where all geek culture collides. If you're new to the channel, welcome. Don't forget to subscribe and click on the notification bell so you don't miss out on that single video. Making his debut on Sunday, October 4th, 1931 in the Detroit Mirror and distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York New Syndicate, Dick Tracy created by Chester Good, was based on U.S. Federal Agent Elliot Ness and originally named playing close Tracy until Joseph Metal Patterson of the Chicago Tribune New York New Syndicate suggested changing his name to Dick Tracy. Tracy joined the police force after his girlfriend's father was murdered by robbers. Tracy used forensic science, advanced gadgetry and wits in an early example of the police procedural mystery story, even though stories often ended in gunfights. Our hero eventually adopted an orphan boy he ended up naming Dick Tracy Jr., but simply called him Jr. Most of the strips characters were often characters of celebrities of the time. Tracy's trademark wrist radio became a mainstay in the strips, worn by him and his fellow police officers from January 13, 1946, but was upgraded to a two-way wrist TV in 1964. The strip was instantly popular and soon appeared in newspapers across the nation. Strips popularity resulted in the creation of a lot of Dick Tracy merchandise. And I'm talking a massive amount of merchandise like novelizations, toys, games, magazines, comics, posters, movies, and when the film came out in the early 90s, they even made Dick Tracy lottery tickets. Lottery tickets. In April, 1937, a poll of adult comic strip readers in fortune voted Dick Tracy their third favorite comic strip after little orphan Annie and Popeye. But Dick Tracy was also attacked by some journalists as being too violent a criticism that would dog good throughout his time on the strip. The characters in the story were modeled after celebrities of the time, such as Breathless Mahoney being a caricature of Veronica Lake and Mumbles being a representation of one of my favorite performers being Crosby. In late 1948, a box security detail led to the death of semi-regular character, the blind inventor of the two-way wrist radio Brilliant, whereupon police chief Brandon, a presence in the strip since 1931, resigned in shame as such Pat Patton, who was previously Tracy's buffoonish partner, was promoted to police chief. A new character was introduced named Sam Ketchum to take Patton's place as Tracy's sidekick. Good incurred some controversy when he had Tracy live in an unaccountably ostentatious manner on a police officer's salary and responded with a story wherein Tracy was accused of corruption and had to explain the origin of his possessions in detail. In his book-length examination of the strip, Dick Tracy the official biography, J. Mader suggests that Good's critics were unsatisfied by his explanation, even so the controversy eventually faded and the cartoonists reduced exposure to Tracy's home life. As technology advanced, the methods that Tracy and the police used to track and capture criminals took the form of increasingly fanciful, atomic-powered gadgets developed by Dias Smith Industries. This eventually led to the 1960s advent of the Space Coupe, a spacecraft with the magnetic propulsion system, which started this strip's space period. During this time, Tracy went on adventures in outer space, encountered extraterrestrials and used moon technology. In the 1970s, Good modernized Tracy by giving him a longer hairstyle and mustache as well as adding a hippie sidekick, Groovy Grove. Shortly before his retirement, Good drew a strip in which Sam, Liz and Groovy held Tracy down to shave off his mustache. Chester Good retired from comics in 1977 with his last Dick Tracy strip appearing in print on Sunday, December 25th, Christmas Day of the same year. The following Monday, Dick Tracy was taken over by Max Allen Collins and longtime Good assistant Rick Fletcher. Good's name remained in the byline for a few years after his retirement as a story consultant. The Dick Tracy radio show aired weekdays on NBC's radio stations from 1934 to the ABC Network in 1948. Bob Burlin was the first radio Tracy in 1934 and others heard in the role during the 1930s and 40s were Barry Thompson, Ned Weaver and Matt Crawley. The early shows all had 15 minute episodes. Tracy made his first comic book appearance in 1936 as one of the features included in the first issue of Dell's popular comics. These were reprints from the newspaper strip, reconfigured to fit the pages of the comic book. This was the case with most Tracy comic book appearances. Tracy remained a regular feature in popular comics through the publication's 21st issue. The first comic book to feature the character exclusively was the Dick Tracy feature book published in May 1937 by David McKay Publications, which were magazines that rotated several popular characters from comic strips through 1938. Three more McKay's feature books starred Tracy in the following months. In 1939, Dell started a comic magazine series called Black and White Comics, which six of the 15 issues featured Tracy. In 1941, Dell's Black and White series was replaced by the large feature books, the third issue of which featured the character. As with the McKay series, the Dell, Black and White and Large Feature series were a bridged reprints of the strip. Tracy was frequently featured in comic books used as promotional items by various companies. In 1947, for example, Sieg Fautwanger produced a comic book that was a giveaway prize in boxes of Quakerpuff wheat cereal sponsored by the popular Dick Tracy radio series. In January 1948, Dell began the first regular Dick Tracy comic book series named Dick Tracy Monthly. The series ran for 145 issues, the first 24 of which were published by Dell, after which it was picked up by Harvey Comics. Continuing the same number, Harvey published the series until 1961. Dick Tracy was revived in 1986 by Blackthorne Publishing and ran for 99 issues. Disney produced a series of three issues as a tie-in for their 1990 film. This mini-series True Hearts and Tommy Guns was drawn by Kyle Baker and edited by Len Nguyen. Third issue was a direct adaptation of the film. In 2018, IDW Publishing announced a new Dick Tracy comic book by Mike, Lee, and Laura Alred as well as Rick Tommaso. Dick Tracy made his film debut in Dick Tracy from 1937 in a 15-chapter movie serial by Republic Pictures starring Ralph Byrd. In 1990, Warren Beatty directed and starred as the title character in the live-action all-star cast film, along with Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, and Madonna. Beatty was a lifelong Tracy fan and wanted to create a movie that would do the character justice, something Hollywood could learn a lot from today. He produced, directed, and starred in the film. The film depicts the detective's romantic relationships with breathless Mahoney and Tess Trueheart, as well as his conflicts with crime boss Alphonse Big Boy Caprice and his henchmen. Tracy also begins fostering a young street urchin named Kid. Walter Hill originally came on board to direct with Joel Silver as producer, approaching Warren Beatty for the title role. Pre-production had progressed as far as set-building. But the film was stalled when artistic control issues arose with Beatty, who as mentioned was a fan of the Dick Tracy comic strip. Hill wanted to make the film violent and realistic, while Beatty envisioned a stylized homage to the 1930s comic strip. The actor also reportedly wanted $5 million plus 15% of the box office gross. A deal which Universal refused to accept, Hill and Beatty left the film, which Paramount began developing a lower-budget project with Rich Benjamin directing. The film rights eventually reverted to Tribune Media Services in 1985, however Beatty decided to option the rights himself for $3 million, along with the cash-up script, when Jeffrey Kasenberg moved from Paramount to the Walt Disney Studios. The movie resurfaced with Beatty as director, producer and leading man. And I mean, let's face it, to us 80s and 90s kids, when we think of Dick Tracy we picture Warren Beatty in the classic Yellow Trenchcoat and Fedora. Early in the development, Beatty decided to make the film using a palette limited to just seven colors, primarily red, green, blue and yellow, to evoke the film's comic strip origins. With each of the colors to be exactly the same shade. Disney modeled its marketing campaign after the 1989 success of Batman, which was based on high-concept promotion. This included a McDonald's promotional tie-in and a Warren Beatty interview conducted by Barbara Walters on 2020. Attempting to market Dick Tracy to young children, Disney added a new Roger Rabbit cartoon short, Rollercoaster Rabbit, and made two specific television advertisements, centered on the kid, played by Charlie Corzmill. You know, Peter Pan's son and Hook and Richard Dreyfus' son and what about Bob? This kid made a killing in the 90s, playing the son or at the very least adopted son of each movie star. In fact, he played both Peter Pan's son and Hook's adopted son in the movie Hook. In total, Disney commissioned 28 TV advertisements. Playmates Toys manufactured a line of 14 Dick Tracy figures, with the blank action figure only being released in Canada. Roger Ebert, who actually grew up about 45 minutes north from where I live, gave the film four stars in his review, arguing that Warren Beatty succeeded in creating the perfect tone of nostalgia for the film, mostly praising the matte paintings, art direction and prosthetic makeup design. Dick Tracy is one of the most original and visionary fantasies I've seen on screen. He wrote, while other critics were mixed in their reviews. Disney had hoped Dick Tracy would launch a successful franchise, but his disappointed box office performance halted Disney's plans. Executive producers Art Linson and Floyd Mitricks sued Beatty shortly after the release of the film, alleging that they were owed profit participation from it. Beatty commented that he had a very good idea for a sequel, but believed Tribune violated various notification procedures that clouded the title to the rights and made it commercially impossible for him to produce one. He approached Tribune in 2004 to settle the situation, but the company said they had met the conditions to get the rights back. Disney, which had no intention of producing a sequel, rejected Tribune's claim and gave Beatty back most of the rights in May 2005. The lawsuit was eventually resolved in Beatty's favor, with the U.S. District Judge ruling that Beatty did everything contractually required of him to keep the rights to the character. In June 2011, Beatty confirmed his intention to make a sequel to the 1990 film, but refused to discuss details saying, I'm gonna make another one, but I think it's dumb to talk about movies before they're made. I just don't do it. It gives you the perfect excuse to avoid making them. When asked when the sequel would get made, he replied, I take so long to get around to making a movie that I don't know when it's gonna start. So I'm gonna end the video here, as there's such a long history of the character that it would be nice and impossible for me to create a video talking about it all in a timeframe that I like. So if you'd like to see a part two to the history and origins of Dick Tracy, let me know in the comments below. If you enjoyed that video, make sure you hit the subscribe button right there, so you can stay up to date on all things geek culture. Also, go ahead and check out one of these two playlists on the side. For more videos, just like the one you just watched, I'm Shannon from Comic NTV, the only place on YouTube where all geek culture collides. Take care, geeks.