Customer Reviews

The Dick Tracy Show: The Complete Animated Crime Series

5 star:		(5)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

When I saw this DVD set, I just had to pick it up for nostalgia sake. One reviewer was a bit harsh but admitted that they did not see the show when originally aired in the 60's. What's the saying? Sometimes you "just had to be there" in order to find appeal in DVD releases of old TV shows such as this. As is often the case it is far more about simple nostalgia and fond recollections than perceived quality.

As a kid in the 60's, the "Dick Tracy Show" was a favorite and after popping in the first disc and seeing that high overhead street scene with the traffic parting and that music...a flood of memories came back. Of course looking at it now with my adult eye it was pretty cheesy stuff. I had totally forgotten that Dick Tracy doesn't really do anything other than hand off the assignments in the opening scene and check in at the end. I wonder why? Is it that Tracy was drawn too seriously and wasn't meant to be funny and therefore let his cartoon-like "crime-busting pals" take over? Funny, as an adult, and why I would even notice such things, I found myself picking up mistakes, errors or things that don't make sense. Geez, it's a cartoon, but I noticed that there is no nameplate on Tracy's desk when facing him but with the angle from behind it suddenly appears...and the nameplate is facing him! Things like this only add to the appeal. OK, this is sad. What's next? I'm going to notice Deputy Dog and Yogi Bear don't have pants on...or the fact that they talk?

Anyway, though I am not sure I can sit through all 130 episodes, it is a hoot to catch up with ol' Mumbles, Flattop and Pruneface as well as GoGo Gomez, Joe Jitsu and of course, Heap O'Callory! Get it? A rather plump cop named "Heap O'Callory". It went over my head as a kid and I just made the connection watching it as an adult.

Good fun if you grew up watching this show or if you have young kids in the house. For me, since the entire series is on one attractively priced DVD set, it was an easy choice.

At last on DVD, here are all 130 UPA five minute cartoons. Hailing from 1961, this series was created with Dick Tracy creator, Chester Gould as consultant. However, it's a very light, slapstick-style cartoon with the modernistic, minimal look UPA was known for. In the late '50s- early '60s this was all the rage, as animators tried to find limited animation techniques to fit TV's limited budgets. At the same time, they had to compete with stock theatrical cartoons making their way to the small screen, which had lavish studio facilities and bottomless wallets.

Hanna-Barbera would be the winner in the TV sweeps, offsetting limited animation techniques like characters running past the same tree or barber pole again and again and reusing heads and bodies by animating in layers (cels), with sparkling dialogue, top notch voice actors, whimsical character design, bold graphic style and a new paintbox of bright colors.

UPA is better-known for Mr. Magoo, whom UPA successfully transferred from award-winning theatrical cartoons to a number of TV series (which have yet to make DVD). Shown initially in syndication and later as The Dick Tracy Show, this UPA series was extremely popular. Tracy has an office job in this show, merely dispatching jobs to his team of crime fighters: Joe Jitsu, Go Go Gomez and Hemlock Holmes (a British bulldog). They may be considered stereotypes by some viewers, but the idea was to pit diverse and exaggerated good guys against the outlandish bad guys who people Gould's comics. Usually cartoons took these ideas straight across from the movies. Joe Jitsu is part crime-solver par excellence Mr. Moto, and incorporates the then-current rage for ju-jitsu. The Retouchables, the theme music cues us, recall the Keystone Kops. Rather than the dark tone of Gould's strip, however, the series has the light, slapstick tone echoing kids' TV of the time.

The packaging is an attractive album which opens to reveal four one-sides discs. Mine came packaged with a free 64 page black and white comic of Gould's first three Dick Tracy adventures (which have nothing in common with the cartoon) advertising the plan to reprint Gould's entire comic series. That may be a limited-time premium. At any rate, here's UPA's first entry on DVD; let's hope Mr. Magoo isn't far behind.

Tracy's Animated Crew, September 3, 2006
Reviewer: Bennet Pomerantz "Bennet Pomerantz, AUDIOWORLD" (Seabrook, Maryland) - See all my reviews
Chet Gould's classic comic strip Dick Tracy got a make over in the 1961 animated cartoon series.

Dick Tracy was the point man of this cartoon series. He assigned cases to his junior detective/comic sidekicks Joe Jitsu (a karate Charlie Chan wannabe) and Go-go Gomez (a speedy quick Mexican detective). Both sidekicksa are voiced by Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny). These junior detectives combat cases with classic rogues' gallery of Tracy's villains like Flattop, Itchy, Mumbles, Prune face, etc.

These so-called sidekicks were so much stereotypes. However this was theideal of most 1960's animation and cartoons. The aninmated stereotypes were normal for TV at that time

The animation is good and crisply done for 1960 TV animation, unlike the 1960's Marvel moving pictures or filmation stuff with DC heroes (with Superman, Batman ,etc). It is fair in animated standards, not just lips moving like Clutch Cargo. It was UPI Studios who also did Mr Magoo cartoons, so there was a sense of quality to it. In my opinion, It fared better than most of today's stuff tv animation has to offer other than Hanna Barbara animation , which to me was and is the gold standard of cartoon excellence. I think Ed, Edd and Eddie for an example of the worse of today's animated stuff. This DVD has no extra features, just good clean family fun. It is worth getting for a keepsake of great 1960's animation.

However if you want good animated TV Tracy adventures, I am holding out and waiting for TV Funnies with eight minute Tracy Episodes (which are unavailable for DVD at this time). Until then, this will have to do for my TRACY fix.

Bennet Pomerantz, AUDIOWORLD

It is GREAT to have these and I love the original cartoons un-edited and uncut! It appears that CLASSIC MEDIA made a small goof though. The back cover says it includes Tracy's CRIME STOPPER TIPS (The short inbetween segments from the original show) BUT unless they are a REALLY well hidden EASTER EGG, I haven't been able to find them. Other than that, I am glad this set was released Un-Censored!

I remember a long time ago when my mom rented these cartoons on video for me back in the early 1990s. These cartoons have been in my mind for a very long time. Now that they are on dvd it,s a great blast of the past. All the cartoons are entertaining and funny too. Even though I don,t see the crimestopper tips the cartoons are still good as can be.

Excellent packaging and condition of prints. (Would have liked to have the episodes listed in a booklet, as there were 130, and the only way to know what was where was put each disk in and go through tedious rounds of menues).
However, I was very pleased to see all the episodes intact, including full begin themes, (unlike the disappointing releases of Batfink without its begin song).
Well worth buying for fans of Dick Tracy. See all the famous villains, and the rotating cast of Tracy's support characters: GoGo Gomez, Hemlock Holmes, Jo Jitsu, Heap O'Callory etc.
Great stuff

These cartoons are great fun. Our family really enjoys the cartoons from the 1940's thru the 1980's. The characters and their descriptive names make these cartoons alot of fun. However since they were made so long ago, they may not be exactly considered to be politically correct. There are some stereotypical characters that are still entertaining, but might make some overly sensitive people uneasy. For that reason I would recommend that the be enjoyed by older children and adults.

Although these cartoons are most likely politically incorrect, I shill like them, I used to watch them when I was a kid. I knew other kids my age that watched them, some from other ethnic groups, I never heard a bad thing about them. Enough of that stuff, I love these cartoons. Thank You.
Chris.

I had totally forgotten that signature call sign, but it jumped out at me in a brain flash as soon as Tracy signed off his two-way wrist radio in this classic(???), offbeat cartoon series.
Being nearly 50 years since I had seen any of this foolishness, what did I remember before viewing the dvds?
1). That I didn't like this show very much, especially the talking dog and his Keystone Kops team. Even as a kid I wanted a more serious show.
2). That Tracy appeared only at the beginning and end of each cartoon, dispatching some cartoon cronie to do the field work.
3). That Tracy said at the beginning of each show, " Ok Chief, I'll get on it right away."
4). That Go-Go Gomez and Joe Jitsu were regulars, rounding up Tracy villains such as Flat Top, The Brow, Mumbles, The Mole, Pruneface and others.

After viewing more than my fair share of THE DICK TRACY SHOW, I will say that this show is not very funny. I didn't laugh a whole lot. But I did find myself thinking that these cartoons weren't too bad, at least not as bad as I thought they were going to be. I liked the modernist look and especially the opening credits as the squad car speeds along. And there's an abundance of well-timed quips from heroes and villains alike. Even the dog character, Hemlock Holmes, didn't really bother me now, and he and his Retouchables squad provided the funniest cartoons of the set, though that may be stretching it a bit.
The one character that I had completely forgotten was the Andy Devine take-off, Heap O'Calory, but it all came back to me when he got his tips from the bongo playing beatnik, Nick.

This is really a great set for what you get: 4 dvds containing all the TRACY cartoons ever made and a nice comic book! But it's hard to get through any more than a half dozen of these cartoons in one sitting, and although they're quick paced and contain some zippy one-liners, they're really not all that funny and are best enjoyed for nostalgic purposes only.

With over 100 short episodes contained in this DVD collection obviously I'm not going to even attempt to review much of the episodes. I bought this DVD set because like others have mentioned I also liked this show when I was younger. I saw the cartoons for the first time in the early 1990's...and I believe it was in 1990 and 1991 right around the time the Warren Beatty DICK TRACY movie was a big hit. Anyway...I liked what I saw and never seen the cartoons again after the channel took them off the air once the movie's popularity started to die down. So, when I saw this DVD available I bought it. I've watched all 4 of the DVD's and I often rotate between DVD #3 and #1 more than I do #2 and #4 but they're all good.

One disc is devoted almost entirely to adventures featuring Joe Jitsu while another has a majority of Go-Go Gomez adventures. Heap O'Callory isn't featured nearly as much while Hemlock Holmes is confined mostly to the first and second disc. In one of the episodes Hemlock Holmes and the Retouchables have to be rescued by Joe Jitsu...marking one of the rare moments where two of Tracy's underlings are featured in the same episode. The Retouchables are a spoof of The Untouchables but with a comedic twist inspired by the Keystone Cops. One of the running gags is how the Retouchables can never remember their orders. For example: suppose there's a robbery at a shoe store on piper street. Well, the Retouchables in unison would mangle their orders by saying something like "there's a pipe robbery at a shoe story" and another may 'correct' that description by saying "no, there's a pipe store being robbed on shoe street", etc. etc.

In almost every instance they take off in their car, filled with the brim and full of excitement, totally forgetting about their leader, Hemlock Holmes, who is always seen chasing the car with his arms flailing around hollering for them to stop.

Most people perhaps don't know that pretty much all of the villains and the underlings who worked for Tracy had voices based on celebrities, both fictional and non-fictional, of the time period. Paul Frees often provided the voice for Flat-Top and Go-Go Gomez but the characters were also voiced infrequently by Mel Blanc but it was Frees who handled most of the episodes with those specific characters. Benny Rubin, a veteran actor from vaudeville and radio with a long run on Jack Benny's program, provided the voice of Joe Jitsu.

Flat-Top's voice is patterned after Peter Lorre; Joe Jitsu's voice is patterned after Charlie Chan; B.B. Eyes has a voice similar to Edward G Robinson; Brow's voice is patterned after James Cagney; Prune Face's voice is patterned after Boris Karloff to some extent; Itchy's voice can be interpreted as an exaggeration on Joe Besser; Hemlock Holmes' voice, of course, is patterned after Cary Grant; Heap O'Callory's voice is based on Andy Devine; Stooge Villar's voice is a run of the mill "tough guy" one may hear on old-time radio's Damon Runyon Theatre. Oodle's voice is the stereotypical dumb guy voice while The Mole has a voice which makes one feel as if the character has dirt stuffed up his nose from all the digging that he does. Sketch Paree has the debonair suave voice patterned after stereotypical French villains. The most bizarre voice, of course, is the one from Mumbles.

I found the cartoons to be completely entertaining...I loved them as a kid/teenager in the early '90s but seeing that I'm a bit older now I get the biggest kick out of the vocal work and the culture references. The banter between Prune Face and Itchy is hilarious as well. "Itchy, STOP that scratching!!" is something of a catchphrase. Another recurring feature is the "HALT!!" scene where the cop on patrol can freeze time, typically at a crucial part of the story, in order to call in to Tracy with an update. After the phrase "six-two and even, over and...out!" is said the action resumes.

Each short cartoon features almost the exact same opening scene...with Tracy at his desk wrapping up a conversation with his boss and then alerting one of his underlings via the wrist watch radio what the next assignment is going to be. This is a great collection of Dick Tracy cartoons.