The Dick Tracy Show: The Complete Animated Crime Series provides hours and hours of enjoyment for children, and in short spurts can be moderately amusing for adults as well. This boxed set is meant to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Dick Tracy. This particular Tracy series originally aired in the early 1960s, and all the episodes are short, about 4 and a half minutes in duration.
The most distressing thing about the series, and one of the reasons it won’t necessarily work as well for adults as it will for children, is that Dick Tracy himself plays a miniscule role. Each episode starts off with Tracy ending a call with the Chief and then farming out the case to one of his men. From time to time, Tracy himself will arrive at the scene, but usually only with the paddy wagon or another vehicle to help escort the cro
oks off to jail. There are times when he does slightly more than this, but only slightly.
Tracy’s helpers include the stereotypes Joe Jitsu and GoGo Gomez. While today these characters are certainly offensive, there is a question as to whether or not leeway should be granted to the show as it was made over 40 years ago. The debate is quite long on both sides of the argument and not one I will enter into here (both sides do make good points). It is just something to be aware of should you be sitting your child down to watch; it’s a call for the parent to make.
Tracy’s other helpers are Heap O’Calorie (an overweight, bumbling detective) and Hemlock Holmes (a dog that sounds an awful lot like Cary Grant, though Grant does not provide the voice). On the whole, all of Tracy’s helpers are at turns funny, annoying, cute, and grating.
Article comments
1 - Joan Hunt
Congratulations! This article has been selected for placement on Advance.net