Tonight's smokin' Saturday Night Special is Episode 19 of Season 2 of the 1950 TV show "Dick Tracy!" Dick Tracy is/was so popular, that many songs have been made with just his name for the title, and they are not even all the same song!
From 1961, here's The Chants with "Dick Tracy."
Don't call him Richard!
Here's the 1966 Smash single by The Spotlights!
Lois (Daughter Of The Jungle) Hall is the hapless woman named Cherry who is seemingly in the wrong place at the wrong time!
Dabbs Greer is a guy named Shaky who just got out of prison, and his pal played by Richard Reeves is Buck!
Out of his 319 credits, Dabbs was in two of the scariest 50's Sci-Fi classics "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers," and "It! The Terror From Beyond Space." He was also in two of "The Twilight Zone" episodes, and two of "The Outer Limits" episodes! Richard Reeves managed to wrack up 226 credits, and although he only lived to be 54, he was on almost every TV show in the 50's and 60's!
Shaky and Buck were tearing into some chairs left by a former tenant that had a map in that showed where he stashed a hundred grand before Dick Tracy caught up with him. Buck is a big dummy and let his tongue slip, so they had to try and kill Cherry by closing all the windows and turning the gas on. Luckily, Tracy and Sam got there just in time!
The map was gone because the chair had been re-upholstered, so Shaky and Buck go visit Mr. Barksdale to find out what he knows about it!
It's a little mysterious but they manage to figure it out!
Sam was left back to watch after Cherry, so now they have to try and get a hold of Tracy via the two-way wrist radios that Sam and Dick both have!
Unfortunately, Tracy was knocked out and left in a closet!
Sam Catchem was played by Joe (Mighty Joe Young) Devlin!
Barksdale, the furniture re-upholsterer caught wind of where the cash was stashed and decides to help himself to the spoils! Barksdale was played by Stephen Carr who was also the dialogue director on 16 of these "Dick Tracy" episodes, and 47 episodes of "The Adventures Of Superman!"
Interesting enough, this single and the one by The Spotlights were both produced by Leon Russell!
Well it turns out that Cherry was not nearly as sweet and innocent as she was pretending to be!
I love it!
A cast of six, and that was all that they needed!
There's no place to begin or end properly with a subject like Dick Tracy.
This record was from a Command Performance of a 55-minute musical adaptation of Dick Tracy, that was broadcast on the radio in 1945.
This was a 6" flexi-disc put out by The Ideal Toy Company in 1961.
This was a 78 from 1947 featuring one of the major characters from the Dick Tracy comics, Sparkle Plenty!
And this was a single by Ice-T put out in 1990!
Love it! Those early '50s Dick Tracy TV episodes are great fun! Cheap, film noirish, and a blast to watch!
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