!![[ComicStrip/DickTracy The Comic Strip]]
* CreatorBreakdown:
** Some fans felt Gould sending Tracy to the Moon in the early 1960s was an example of this. Then again, given the sheer volume of contempt Gould had towards various 1960s Supreme Court rulings regarding due process rights all criminals have, Gould may have thought turning the book into a sci-fi strip would be better for his mental health.
** Judging by the decline of the strip's artwork quality from 2006 to 2011, some fans consider Dick Locher to have suffered one of these, most likely because he experienced both the death of both his son (John Locher, who was co-artist in the mid-80s) and one of his closest friends (Mike Kilian, who was the writer between 1993 and 2006) while working on the strip. This seems likely especially when one gets a chance to read the one story Locher wrote in 1993 after Collins left and before Kilian was hired. That one 1993 story by Locher is actually pretty good, with none of the [[ArcFatigue pacing]], [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment repetition]], and [[DesignatedHero "cowardly Tracy"]] problems that plagued Locher's writing from 2006-11.
* CreatorsFavorite:
** The aforementioned Blackjack is a character that originally appeared in writer Mike Curtis' fan fiction. He is a huge fan of Dick Tracy and wants to join Tracy's Rogues Gallery, so he trains himself to become an expert marksman and starts robbing banks. But, he only robs banks that have engaged in unwholesome business practices. He never robs the bank patrons or shoots anybody, so he's not a BAD guy. He later shows up at a criminal bar and talk about how neat it is to be one of Tracy's foes. He eventually helps Tracy escape a death trap, and Tracy apparently lets him go free. He's clearly a character that Curtis loves and wants the readers to love, but he's so obviously not a threat to Tracy that he's impossible to take seriously.
** Although he was created by Chester Gould, Max Allan Collins really likes ham-actor Vitamin Flintheart (and in the introductions to many of the Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Books, he's pretty much out in the open about this). Gould created Flintheart in the mid 1940's, used him up until 1950, then never again for his entire run. Collins brought Vitamin back for his first story in 1978, then used the character in several stories up until his run ended in 1993.
* DiedDuringProduction: Three times. Rick Fletcher, who replaced Chester Gould as artist, died in 1983, and writer Mike Kilian died in 2005. Probably the most tragic instance came in 1986 with the premature death of John Locher, who was in the process of taking over the strip's art duties from his father.
* ExecutiveVeto: There was such a moment when the creator, Chester Gould, put Dick in a truly inescapable death trap. Gould was so stumped for a solution that he decided to have Tracy break the fourth wall and address Gould himself, who literally extends his hand to lift the detective out. His publisher, Joseph Patterson, rightly concluded that this was an unacceptable solution and ordered Gould to redraw the section into something else.
* HeAlsoDid: Mike Curtis, the current artist since the 2000s, worked previously on the UsefulNotes/FurryFandom, being the creator of ''ComicBook/ShandaThePanda'' and being the editor of ''ComicBook/{{Katmandu}}'' together with his wife, Carole, who was also the creator of the latter title.
* MoneyDearBoy: Whenever the intros to the Dick Tracy books and articles regarding Tracy talk about Chester Gould, they tend to point out that Chet did not see himself as an artist creating a fictional narrative to entertain audiences, but rather as a businessman creating a product designed to sell newspapers.
* OutlivedItsCreator: While Chester Gould had already retired from actively working on the strip the better part of a decade before his death, it's continued long past that point.
* ReferencedBy: [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ReferencedBy/DickTracy Now has its own page]].
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: Gould got the idea from reading how gangsters of the time like UsefulNotes/AlCapone were making the news and was disgusted at them becoming folk heroes. So, Gould thought of the idea of creating a comic strip of a police detective who lives to take those criminals down.
* ShownTheirWork: When Curtis came on as writer, he made a point of sitting down and reading the entire run of the comic from start to finish. Accordingly, his time as writer has been full of [[ContinuityNod Continuity Nods]] to the strip's long history.
* TechnologyMarchesOn:
** While some of the extreme examples like the Space Coupe with its magnetic propulsion system are straight examples, Tracy's various wrist communicators have always felt reasonably in line with the times with occasional upgrades over the years (the latest iteration being the Wrist Wizard).
** One villain who appeared in 1950 ran a protection racket targeting the ''television sets'' in bars. At the time, a TV set was a significant investment, costing up to $5000, a far cry from today when a TV costs a fraction of that and even the poorest household usually owns one.
* WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants: Standard writing style of Chester Gould, although he did write himself into a corner at least once (See Executive Veto above).

!![[Film/DickTracy The Film]]
* ActorInspiredElement: Creator/AlPacino actually designed Big Boy Caprice's make-up himself and completely re-imagined the character, who was originally big and fat in the comics with a little nose. Caprice's resulting film counterpart is of average height with enlarged hands, nose, and cheekbones, hence his street name.
* AllStarCast: Creator/WarrenBeatty, Creator/AlPacino, Music/{{Madonna}}, Creator/DustinHoffman, Creator/JamesCaan and Creator/DickVanDyke, although the last three have small roles with one or two scenes each.
* CopiouslyCreditedCreator: Creator/WarrenBeatty was the star, director and producer.
* DawsonCasting:
** While Tracy's age is never stated in the film, his date of birth is 1909 and the date on the deed of the Club Ritz (visible only in freeze-frame) is dated 1938, making him a 29-year-old character played by 53-year-old Warren Beatty.
** According to the comic book tie-in, Breathless Mahoney is 18. Her actress Music/{{Madonna}} was 32.
* DirectedByCastMember:
** The film was directed by Creator/WarrenBeatty, who also played Dick Tracy.
** In the Latin American Spanish dub, Jorge Santos was the ADR Director and the voice of the titular character.
** The Canadian French dub was directed by Vincent Davy, who also voiced Lips Manlis.
* FollowTheLeader: Although Beatty's development of the film had been in the works as long as Creator/TimBurton's ''Film/{{Batman|1989}}'', it still retained a lot of elements that drew comparisons since ''Batman'' was released a year earlier. Peter Travers of ''Rolling Stone'' noted that they both contained: "a loner hero, a grotesque villain, a blond bombshell, a marketable pop soundtrack and a no-mercy merchandising campaign." That also didn't factor in the Art Deco-insipired set design, the original working script being worked on by Tom Mankiewicz (both films would basically discard them), and Danny Elfman as composer (and Travers noted that his ''Tracy'' score was incredibly similar to his one for ''Batman'').
* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: The {{Novelization}} is easy enough to find, but its sequels, ''Dick Tracy Goes to War'' and ''Dick Tracy Meets His Match'', while decently regarded, only had one limited printing and are rare and expensive collector's items.
* PlayingAgainstType: Creator/DickVanDyke as D.A. Fletcher, who does the bidding of Caprice as a victim of extortion.
* PropRecycling: The ''Film/DirtyHarry'' city street set where the "Do I feel lucky? Well, do you, punk?" scene took place was repurposed for this film.
* SavedFromDevelopmentHell:
** Creator/WarrenBeatty, a fan of the original comic strip, first had the concept for a film in 1975. At the time, the film rights were owned by Michael Laughlin, who gave up his option from Tribune Media Services after he was unsuccessful in pitching the idea to Hollywood studios. Floyd Mutrux and Art Linson purchased the film rights from the Tribune in 1977 and in 1980, Creator/UnitedArtists became interested in financing/distributing. Tom Mankiewicz was under negotiations to write the script, based on his previous success with ''Film/SupermanTheMovie'' and ''Film/SupermanII''. The deal fell through when Chester Gould insisted on strict financial and artistic control.
** At one point, the film was going to be a musical version with Music/SonnyBono as Dick Tracy and Music/{{Cher}} as Tess Trueheart. Creator/RyanONeal also sought to play Tracy in the early 1980s.
** Mutrux and Linson eventually took the property to Creator/ParamountPictures, who began developing screenplays. Creator/StevenSpielberg was asked to direct, and he brought in Creator/UniversalPictures to co-finance. Universal then put Creator/JohnLandis forward as a candidate for director, courted Creator/ClintEastwood for the title role, and commissioned Jim Cash and Jack Epps, Jr. to write the screenplay. Cash and Epps' simple orders from Landis were to write the script in a 1930s pulp magazine atmosphere and center it with Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice as the primary villain. For research, Epps read every comic strip from 1930 to 1957. The writers wrote two drafts for Landis; Max Allan Collins, then-writer of the Dick Tracy comic strip, remembers reading one of them:
--->It was terrible. The only positive thing about it was a thirties setting and lots of great villains, but the story was paper-thin and it was uncomfortably campy.
** Following the accident on ''Film/TwilightZoneTheMovie'', Landis left the project. Creator/WalterHill then came on board to direct with Joel Silver as producer. Cash and Epps wrote another draft and Hill approached 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, 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 fifteen percent of the box office gross, a deal which Universal refused to accept.
** Hill and Beatty left the film, prompting Paramount to re-envision it as a lower-budget project with Richard Benjamin directing. Cash and Epps continued to rewrite the script, but Universal was unsatisfied. The film rights eventually reverted back to Tribune Media Services in 1985. However, Beatty decided to option the rights himself for $3 million, along with the Cash/Epps script. When Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner moved from Paramount to Creator/{{Disney}}, Dick Tracy resurfaced with Beatty as director, producer and leading man. Katzenberg considered hiring Creator/MartinScorsese to direct, changed his mind. Disney officially greenlit the film in 1988 under the condition that Beatty keep the production budget within $25 million. Principal photography began in February 1989 and ended in May of that year.
* SpoiledByTheMerchandise: In 1990, Creator/PlaymatesToys released an action figure line to coincide with the movie. "The Blank" was a Canada-exclusive figure [[spoiler: and if you pulled off the blank-mask, you revealed Music/{{Madonna}}'s face underneath]]. The novelization, by contrast, conceals the Blank's true identity.
* StillbornFranchise: Disney/Touchstone had hoped that Tracy would become the Franchise/IndianaJones of the '90s. However, while the movie did well at the box office (contrary to popular belief), there were legal issues between Creator/WarrenBeatty and Tribune Co. over who had the rights over the franchise that ensued for two decades, plus then-studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg was dissatisfied with the final results.
* StuntCasting: Creator/DustinHoffman as Mumbles, apparently on a dare.
** Also, Creator/JamesCaan as Spud Spaldoni, considering his history with Creator/AlPacino in Film/TheGodfather. An added joke is that they're minor antagonists to each other in this film, after previously playing brothers.
* ThrowItIn: The main reason that so many comic strip characters are featured in the film, and sometimes in alternate roles, (Flattop and Itchy being Big Boy's co-dragons, as an example, rather than independent villains like in the comic strip) was because Creator/WarrenBeatty was a big fan of the comic and wanted to include as many faces as he could should the film not receive a sequel.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** Creator/JackNicholson was originally offered the lead role, and he seriously considered it, being a lifelong fan of the comic strip. However, he turned it down, being already committed to his role in ''Film/{{Batman|1989}}''. Creator/RobertDeNiro refused the role for fear of being typecast as a grim, hardened tough guy similar to his Travis Bickle character in ''Film/TaxiDriver''. Creator/BruceCampbell, an avid fan of the comics, lobbied hard for the title role. However, Creator/WarrenBeatty thought Campbell was "too TV like" and was turned down. Couple years later, Campbell tried to adapt the comic book character to TV, but Beatty (who owned the rights to the character) declined unless he'd play the role. Other candidates included Creator/JamesCaan, Creator/HarrisonFord, Creator/RichardGere, Creator/MelGibson, Creator/PaulNewman, Creator/RobertRedford, Creator/GeorgeCScott and Creator/TomSelleck.
** Creator/KimBasinger, Creator/MelanieGriffith, Creator/MichellePfeiffer and Creator/SharonStone were considered for the role of Breathless Mahoney.
** Creator/MacaulayCulkin was considered for The Kid, but turned it down as he preferred to do ''Film/HomeAlone'' over this film.
** Creator/GeneHackman was offered the role of Lips Manlis, but he turned it down, because he couldn't bear being directed by Creator/WarrenBeatty again after his experience on ''Film/{{Reds|1981}}''.
** According to his autobiography, comedian Creator/GilbertGottfried was nearly cast as Mumbles based on his distinctive voice. He was perplexed that he and Creator/DustinHoffman would even be considered for the same role, joking that "the only way our names would appear together in the same Hollywood conversation would be in the sentence, 'I've seen Gilbert Gottfried's acting, and he's no Dustin Hoffman'."
** The producers lobbied for Former President UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan to play Pruneface but this was nixed by Beatty.
** Music/DannyElfman originally proposed a darker, more Gershwin-inspired score that was very different from the one heard in the movie proper. He later released it on Volume 1 of his compilation album, ''Music for a Darkened Theater''.
** Creator/SeanYoung was originally cast as Tess Trueheart but was replaced when Creator/WarrenBeatty felt she was not right for the role. She later accused him of firing her for not having an affair with him (Beatty had a reputation for being quite TheCasanova after all).
** Beatty originally wanted Creator/BobFosse to direct, but Fosse turned him down. Creator/MartinScorsese was also a fan of the comic strip and considered directing at one point, but he lost interest and chose to make ''Film/{{Goodfellas}}''. Creator/TimBurton was offered the job at one point but had to turn it down to focus on ''Film/EdwardScissorhands''.
** The filmmakers wanted to run the WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes classic ''WesternAnimation/TheGreatPiggyBankRobbery'' before the movie in theaters, but Disney balked and had a ''[[Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit Roger Rabbit]]'' cartoon preceding the film instead, which was originally going to be attached to ''Film/{{Arachnophobia}}''.
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