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72-445: On a farm, Daffy Duck eagerly awaits his new Dick Tracy comic book, rushing to read it as soon as it arrives. Knocking himself out while imagining himself as "Duck Twacy," he embarks on a comical detective adventure. Mistaking ordinary objects for criminals, like a mousehole for the hideout of "Mouse Man," Daffy finds himself pursued by a colorful array of villains, including Snake Eyes, 88 Teeth, Neon Noodle, Batman and Rubberhead. In

144-513: A 10-hour recharge but according to Cooper, "The battery lifetime wasn't really a problem because you couldn't hold that phone up for that long!" By 1983 and after four iterations, the handset was reduced to half its original weight. Cooper is the lead inventor named on "radio telephone system" filed on October 17, 1973, with the U.S. Patent Office and later issued as U.S. Patent 3,906,166. John Francis Mitchell , Motorola's Chief of Portable Communication Products (and Cooper's Manager and Mentor) and

216-587: A base station Motorola had installed on the roof of the Burlington House (now the AllianceBernstein Building ) and into the AT&;T land-line telephone system. Reporters and onlookers watched as Cooper dialed the number of his chief competitor Dr. Joel S. Engel at AT&T. "Joel, this is Marty. I'm calling you from a cell phone, a real handheld portable cell phone." That public demonstration landed

288-478: A chaotic showdown, Daffy manages to outwit the villains with slapstick tactics, including turning Neon Noodle into a neon sign. Finally, he recovers the stolen piggy banks, including his own, and wakes up on the farm, unwittingly kissing a real pig. Recoiling in horror, Daffy flees, leaving the enamored pig declaring her love for him in amusement. Animation historian Steve Schneider said of this picture: ...Bob Clampett's forever priceless The Great Piggy Bank Robbery

360-513: A few exceptions, such as Big Boy , a fictionalized version of Al Capone and the strip's first villain. Tracy contended with a series of big-time mobsters in the 1950s, such as the King, George "Mr. Crime" Alpha, Odds Zonn, and Willie "The Fifth" Millyun, after events like the Kefauver Hearings . As Tess faded into the background, Tracy took, as his assistant, the rookie policewoman Lizz Worthington,

432-409: A financial reorganization of their comic strip holdings, and Tribune staff writer and columnist Mike Kilian took over the writing. Kilian continued until his death on October 27, 2005. Dick Locher was both author and artist for over three years, beginning on January 9, 2006. On March 16, 2009, Jim Brozman began collaborating with Locher, taking over the drawing duties while Locher continued to write

504-550: A long run on radio, from 1934 weekdays on NBC's New England stations to the ABC network in 1948. Bob Burlen was the first radio Tracy in 1934, and others heard in the role during the 1930s and 1940s were Barry Thomson, Ned Wever and Matt Crowley . The early shows all had 15-minute episodes. On CBS, with Sterling Products as sponsor, the serial aired four times a week from February 4, 1935, to July 11, 1935, moving to Mutual from September 30, 1935, to March 24, 1937, with Bill McClintock doing

576-486: A longer hairstyle and a mustache and added a hippie sidekick , Groovy Grove, to appeal to young audiences. Groovy's first appearance in print, as it happened, occurred during the same week as the Kent State shootings . Groovy remained with the strip on and off until his death in 1984. Shortly before his retirement, Gould drew a strip in which Sam, Lizz, and Groovy held Tracy down to shave off his mustache. At this time,

648-408: A new hairstyle that covered her antennae and she was ultimately phased out of the strip. Junior later married Sparkle Plenty (the daughter of B.O. and 'Gravel' Gertie Plenty), and they had a daughter named Sparkle Plenty Jr. Sparkle had been divorced by her cartoonist husband Vera Aldid, who was thus also removed from the cast. Collins felt that their original marriages were a mistake on Gould's part. In

720-543: A normal part of the process which he could manage. Extreme technology was phased out, such as the Space Coupe, in favor of more realistic advanced tools such as the Two-Way Wrist Computer in 1987. New semi-regular characters introduced by Collins and Fletcher included: Dr. Will Carver, a plastic surgeon with underworld ties who often worked on known felons; Wendy Wichel, a smarmy newspaper reporter/editorialist with

792-424: A number of relatives, all with his characteristic head structure and facial attributes, who turned up one by one to avenge their ancestor on Tracy. Rick Fletcher died in 1983 and was succeeded by editorial cartoonist Dick Locher , who had assisted Gould on the strip in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Locher was assisted by his son John, who died in 1986. Max Allan Collins was fired from the strip in 1992, following

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864-534: A person instead of to a place. Bell Labs had introduced the idea of cellular communications in 1947, but their first systems were limited to car phones which required roughly 30 pounds (12 kg) of equipment in the trunk. Motorola gained Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval for cellular licenses to be assigned to competing entities and prevented an AT&T monopoly on cellular service. Cooper worked at Motorola for 29 years; building and managing both its paging and cellular businesses. He also led

936-459: A photographer who becomes a highly capable police officer, which was a rare female character type for its time. From 1956 to 1964, the Dick Tracy Sunday page was accompanied by a topper humor strip called The Gravies and drawn by Gould and his assistants. The 1950s are often considered the strip's artistic and commercial prime, which is thought to come to an end with the 1959 story with

1008-567: A police officer's salary, and he 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 , Jay Maeder suggested that Gould's critics were unsatisfied by his explanation. Nevertheless, the controversy eventually faded, and the cartoonist reduced exposure to Tracy's home life. Tracy's cases generally incriminated independent operators rather than organized crime—with

1080-520: A product in less than 90 days. That original handset, called the DynaTAC 8000x (DYNamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage) weighed 2.5 pounds (1.1 kg), measured 10 inches (25 cm) long and was dubbed "the brick" or "the shoe" phone. A very substantial part of the DynaTAC was the battery, which weighed four to five times more than a modern cell phone. The phone had only 30 minutes of talk time before requiring

1152-445: A significant mainstream media event, with spinoff merchandising and magazine coverage. The Plenty family appeared with Tracy in a story that occurred in a bank, where "B.O." found a way to prevent thieves from snatching an envelope of money from a counter. In the 24 April 2011 strip, B.O. and Gertie had a second child, Attitude, a boy who is as ugly as Sparkle is beautiful. His face has yet to be shown. Beginning September 11, 1949,

1224-526: A strong anti-Tracy bias in her articles; and Lee Ebony, an African-American female detective. Vitamin Flintheart reappeared occasionally as a comic-relief figure, the aged ham actor created by Gould in 1944 who had not been seen in the strip for almost three decades. The Plenty family (B.O., Gravel Gertie, and Sparkle) were also brought back as semi-regulars. Original villains seen during this period included Angeltop (the revenge-seeking, psychopathic daughter of

1296-552: A submarine officer during the Korean War . In 1957, he earned his master's degree from IIT in electrical engineering and in 2004 received an honorary doctorate degree from IIT. He serves on the university's board of trustees. Cooper left his first job at Teletype Corporation in Chicago in 1954 and joined Motorola, Inc. ( Schaumburg, Illinois ) as a senior development engineer in the mobile equipment group. He developed products including

1368-490: A third Harvey in the same category, becoming one of only three strips to win in three consecutive years. On November 6, 2016, at their panel at Akron Comicon, Mike Curtis and Joe Staton were each presented with an Akron Comicon Excellence Award. The inscription on the plaques reads: "2016 AKRON COMICON EXCELLENCE AWARD PRESENTED TO MIKE CURTIS AND JOE STATON FOR THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO ONE OF THE LONGEST RUNNING NEWSPAPER STRIPS IN THE HISTORY OF NEWSPAPER COMICS!" Dick Tracy had

1440-452: Is clearly a work of the highest cinematic poetry, for prompting the film's manic hilarity are a sequence of images that remain among the most indelible in cartoon history. Animator John Kricfalusi (creator of Ren and Stimpy ) called The Great Piggy Bank Robbery his favorite cartoon: "I saw this thing and it completely changed my life, I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen, and I still think it is." The Great Piggy Bank Robbery

1512-442: Is repeatedly interrupted as Tracy chases after one villain after another. In the strip, his marriage wasn't until 1950 and his honeymoon was disrupted by his going after Wormy . Jim Ameche portrayed Tracy in a two-record set recorded by Mercury Records in 1947. The record sleeves were illustrated with Sunday strips reprinted in black-and-white for children to color. Tracy made his first comic book appearance in 1936 as one of

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1584-525: Is still part of the strip. After Gould's retirement, Collins initially replaced the Textbook with "Dick Tracy's Rogues Gallery," a salute to memorable Tracy villains of the past. Chester Gould retired from comics in 1977; his last Dick Tracy strip appeared in print on Sunday, December 25 (Christmas Day) of that same year. The following Monday, Dick Tracy was taken over by Max Allan Collins and longtime Gould assistant Rick Fletcher . Gould's name remained in

1656-558: Is the first complete end-to-end value-added service provider in the cellular industry to focus on simplicity with its primary emphasis on senior citizens. In 1992 Cooper co-founded Arraycomm a developer of software for mobile antenna technologies. Under his leadership, the Company grew from a seed-funded startup in San Jose, California, into the world leader in smart antenna technology with 400 patents issued or pending, worldwide. Cooper joined

1728-651: The Baltimore Comics Convention , Dick Tracy was awarded the Harvey in the "Best Syndicated Strip or Panel" category. Tracy was simultaneously the oldest continually running strip and the first adventure strip ever to win the Harvey Award in this category. On September 6, 2014, Tracy was awarded a second Harvey Award in the newspaper strip category, becoming one of only three strips to win in this category in consecutive years. On September 26, 2015, Tracy won

1800-705: The Reuben Award for the strip in 1959 and 1977. The Mystery Writers of America honored Gould and his work with a Special Edgar Award in 1980. This was the first time MWA ever honored a comic strip. In 1995, the strip was one of 20 included in the Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative postage stamps and postcards. On May 2, 2011, the Tennessee Senate passed Resolution 30, congratulating Mike Curtis and Joe Staton on their professional accomplishments, including Dick Tracy . On September 7, 2013, at

1872-534: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission and the United States Department of Commerce . In 2010, Cooper was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for leadership in the creation and deployment of the cellular portable hand-held telephone. Cooper was born in Chicago to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. He graduated from Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in 1950 and served as

1944-459: The rights of the accused and any new restraint on police practices no matter how justified, while his grotesque style for his villain characters began to alienate contemporary readers enough to prompt newspapers to drop the strip. As technology progressed, the methods that Tracy and the police used to track and capture criminals took the form of increasingly fanciful atomic -powered gadgets developed by Diet Smith Industries. This eventually led to

2016-419: The rights of the accused , which often involved Tracy being frustrated by legal technicalities. For example, having caught a gang of diamond thieves red-handed, Tracy was forced to let them walk because he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the diamonds were stolen. As he saw the thieves get off without penalty, Tracy was heard to grumble, "Yes, under today's interpretation of the laws, it seems it's

2088-509: The 1940s. Martin Cooper (inventor) Martin Cooper (born December 26, 1928) is an American engineer. He is a pioneer in the wireless communications industry, especially in radio spectrum management , with eleven patents in the field. On April 3, 1973, he placed the first public call from a handheld portable cell phone while working at Motorola , from a Manhattan sidewalk to his counterpart at competitor Bell Labs . Cooper reprised

2160-489: The 1950s; elements of soap opera depicted Dick, Tess, and Junior (along with the Tracys' baby daughter Bonnie Braids) at home as a family. Depictions of family life alternated with the story's crime drama, as in the kidnapping of Bonnie Braids by fugitive Crewy Lou, or Junior's girlfriend Model being accidentally killed by her brother. Gould incurred some controversy when he had Tracy live in an unaccountably ostentatious manner on

2232-650: The 1960s advent of the Space Coupe, a spacecraft with a magnetic propulsion system. This marked the beginning of the strip's "Space Period," which saw Tracy and friends having adventures on the Moon and meeting Moon Maid , the daughter of the leader of a race of humanoid people living in "Moon Valley" in 1964. After an eventual sharing of technological information, Moon technology became standard issue on Tracy's police force, including air cars, flying cylindrical vehicles. The villains became even more exaggerated in power, resulting in an escalating series of stories that no longer resembled

The Great Piggy Bank Robbery - Misplaced Pages Continue

2304-484: The 1990s, Tracy's son Joseph Flintheart Tracy took on a role similar to Junior's in the earlier strips. In addition, Collins removed other Gould creations of the 1960s and 1970s (including Groovy Grove, who was gravely wounded in the line of duty and later died in the hospital; Lizz married him before his death). On a more philosophical level, Collins took a generally less cynical view of the justice system than Gould; Tracy came to accept its limitations and requirements as

2376-451: The DynaTAC on the July 1973 cover of Popular Science Magazine. As Cooper recalls from the experience: "I made numerous calls, including one where I crossed the street while talking to a New York radio reporter – probably one of the most dangerous things I have ever done in my life." That first cell phone began a fundamental technology and communications market shift to making phone calls to

2448-570: The Friendly Ghost . Their first Dick Tracy strip was published March 14, 2011. Until Staton's retirement in October 2021, Staton and Curtis were assisted by Shelley Pleger, who inked and lettered Staton's drawings, along with Shane Fisher, who provides the coloring on the Sunday strips. After Staton's retirement, Pleger took over his artist duties, too, having previously substituted for him in 2017. Pleger

2520-695: The Jumbler. They also brought back all the gadgets and plot elements of the 1960s space era, starting in early 2013, although the reintroduced Moon Maid is not the same as the original; rather, she is a human genetically modified to resemble the original Moon Maid and, thus, is christened Mysta Chimera and placed under Diet Smith's care. They have also done crossovers, with cameos from Popeye , Brenda Starr, Reporter , Funky Winkerbean , Fearless Fosdick , The Spirit , The Green Hornet , For Better or For Worse , Friday Foster , and several long sequences involving Little Orphan Annie . Chester Gould won

2592-407: The Sunday strip included a frame devoted to a page from the "Crimestoppers' Textbook", a series of handy illustrated hints for the amateur crime-fighter. This was named after a short-lived youth group seen in the strip during the late 1940s, led by Junior Tracy, called "Dick Tracy's Crimestoppers." This feature ended when Gould retired from the strip in 1977, but Max Allan Collins reinstated it, and it

2664-637: The U.S. Department of Commerce Spectrum Advisory Committee that advises the Secretary of Commerce of the United States on spectrum policy and the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Technological Advisory Council. In 1986 Cooper co-founded Cellular Payphone Inc. (CPPI), the parent company of GreatCall, Inc., Innovator of the Jitterbug cell phone (in partnership with Samsung ). GreatCall

2736-506: The board of directors from 2015 to 2019. Cooper found that the ability to transmit different radio communications simultaneously and in the same place has grown at the same pace since Guglielmo Marconi 's first transmissions in 1895. This led Cooper to formulate the Law of Spectral Efficiency , otherwise known as Cooper's Law . The law states that the maximum number of voice conversations or equivalent data transactions that can be conducted in all of

2808-461: The byline for a few years after his retirement as a story consultant. In one of Collins' first stories as the strip's writer, the gangster known as "Big Boy" learned that he was dying and had less than a year to live. Big Boy was still seeking revenge on Tracy, who had sent him up the river to prison,?and he wanted to live just long enough to see Tracy's death. He put out an open $ 1 million contract on Tracy worth, knowing that every small-time hood in

2880-401: The cellular phone should be a "personal telephone – something that would represent an individual so you could assign a number; not to a place, not to a desk, not to a home, but to a person." Top management at Motorola supported Cooper's mobile phone concept, investing $ 100 million between 1973 and 1993 before any revenues were realized. Cooper assembled a team that designed and assembled

2952-526: The character on U.S. federal agent Eliot Ness , Gould drafted an idea for a detective named "Plainclothes Tracy" and sent it to Joseph Medill Patterson of the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate . Patterson suggested changing the hero's name to Dick Tracy, and he also put forward an opening storyline in which Tracy joined the police after his girlfriend's father was murdered by robbers. Gould agreed to these ideas, and Dick Tracy

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3024-461: The city would take a crack at the famous cop for that amount of money. One of the would-be collectors rigged Tracy's car to explode, but inadvertently killed Moon Maid instead of Tracy in the explosion. A funeral strip for Moon Maid explicitly stated that this officially severed all ties between Earth and the Moon in the strip, thus eliminating the last remnants of the Space Period. Honeymoon received

3096-402: The creation of trunked mobile radio, quartz crystal oscillators , liquid crystal displays , piezo-electric components, Motorola A.M. stereo technology and various mobile and portable two-way radio product lines. Cooper rose to Vice-President and Corporate Director of Research and Development at Motorola. In addition to his work on the mobile cellular phone, he was instrumental in expanding

3168-552: The engineers who worked for Cooper and Mitchell are also named on the patent. On April 3, 1973, Cooper and Mitchell demonstrated two working phones to the media and to passers-by prior to walking into a scheduled press conference at the New York City Hilton in midtown Manhattan. Standing on Sixth avenue near the Hilton , Cooper made the first handheld cellular phone call in public from the prototype DynaTAC. The call connected him to

3240-780: 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 a comic book, as 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 Tracy exclusively was the Dick Tracy Feature Book , published in May 1937 by David McKay Publications . McKay's Feature Books were magazines that rotated several popular characters from comics strips through 1938. Three more of McKay's Feature Books starred Tracy in

3312-493: The first cellular-like portable handheld police radio system, produced for the Chicago police department in 1967. By the early 1970s, Cooper headed Motorola's communications systems division. Here he conceived of the first portable cellular phone in 1973 and led the 10-year process of bringing it to market. Car phones had been in limited use in large U.S. cities since the 1930s but Cooper championed cellular telephony for more general personal, portable communications. He believed

3384-501: The first handheld cellular mobile phone (distinct from the car phone ) in 1973 and led the team that re-developed it and brought it to market in 1983. He is considered the "father of the (handheld) cell phone ". Cooper is co-founder of numerous communications companies with his wife and business partner Arlene Harris ; He is co-founder and current Chairman of Dyna LLC, in Del Mar, California . Cooper also sits on committees supporting

3456-515: The following months. In 1939, Dell started a comic magazine series called "Black and White Comics," essentially identical to McKay's "Feature Books." 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 Tracy. As with the McKay series, the Dell "Black and White" and "Large Feature" series were abridged reprints of

3528-557: The former villain Bob Oscar ("B.O."), along with Gertrude ("Gravel Gertie") Plenty. Gravel Gertie was introduced as the unwitting dupe of the villain the Brow, who was on the run from Dick Tracy. The family provided a humorous counterpoint to Tracy's adventures. The Plenty sub-story was decades long and saw Sparkle Plenty grow from an infant to a young married lady, eventually becoming a beautiful fashion model. Sparkle Plenty's 30 May 1947 birth became

3600-456: The music theme of "Toot Toot, Tootsie" for its 30-minute Saturday ABC series from October 6, 1945, to June 1, 1946. Sound effects on ABC were supplied by Walt McDonough and Al Finelli. On February 15, 1945, Command Performance broadcast the musical comedy Dick Tracy in B-Flat with Bing Crosby as Tracy, Bob Hope as Flattop, Dinah Shore as Tess Trueheart, among the cast. Dick Tracy's wedding

3672-540: The new companies, Subscriber Computing Inc., Cellular Pay Phone, Inc. (CPPI), SOS Wireless Communications and Accessible Wireless; the later two of which together created the underpinning for the creation of GreatCall , were all launched from Dyna LLC. From his Dyna headquarters Cooper continues to write and lecture about wireless communications, technological innovation, the Internet and R&D management. He serves on industry, civic and national governmental groups including

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3744-671: The police force and a presence in the strip since 1931, resigned in shame and Pat Patton was promoted to police chief in Brandon's place on Tracy's recommendation after declining promotion himself, previously having been Tracy's buffoonish partner. A new character was introduced in December of 1948 named Sam Catchem to take Patton's place as Tracy's sidekick. Gould introduced topical story lines about television, juvenile delinquency , graft , organized crime , and other developments in American life during

3816-461: The police who are handcuffed!" The strip was criticized for advocating violence. For instance, Moon Maid, incensed at a woman being attacked by a criminal and no one helping her in an obvious reference of the Murder of Kitty Genovese , becomes a mysterious murderous vigilante to Dick Tracy's open approval in violation of his profession's ethics In 1968. On June 7 — the day after Senator Robert F. Kennedy

3888-489: The slain Flattop), Torcher (whose scheme was arson-for-profit), and Splitscreen (a video pirate). Collins brought back at least one "classic" Gould villain or revenge-seeking family member per year. The revived Gould villains were often provided with full names and marriages, as well as children, and other family connections were developed, bringing more humanity to many of the originally grotesque brutes. "Flattop", particularly, had

3960-531: The sound effects. NBC's weekday afternoon run from January 3, 1938, to April 28, 1939, had sound effects by Keene Crockett and was sponsored by Quaker Oats, which brought Dick Tracy into primetime (Saturdays at 7 pm and, briefly, Mondays at 8 pm) with 30-minute episodes from April 29, 1939, to September 30, 1939. The series returned to 15-minute episodes on the ABC Blue Network from March 15, 1943, to July 16, 1948, sponsored by Tootsie Roll , which used

4032-609: The spring of 1969, Tracy was offered the post of Chief of Police in Moon Valley. However, he ended up back on Earth when the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 showed that the moon was barren of all life. Many of the accoutrements of the space period stories remained for many years afterward, such as the Space Coupe and much of the high-tech gadgetry. Moon Maid receded from the storyline. The stories of this period took an increasingly condemnatory tone pertaining to contemporary court decisions concerning

4104-463: The standard publication size and space of newspaper comics was sharply reduced; for example, the Dick Tracy Sunday strip , which had traditionally been a full-page episode containing 12 panels, was cut in size to a half-page format that offered, at most, eight panels—these new restrictions created challenges for all comic artists. The Plenty family was a group of goofy redneck yokels headed by

4176-441: The strip until 1977, and various artists and writers have continued it. Dick Tracy has also been the hero in a number of films, including Dick Tracy (1990) in which Warren Beatty played the lead. Tom De Haven praised Gould's Dick Tracy as an "outrageously funny American Gothic", while Brian Walker described it as a "ghoulishly entertaining creation" which had "gripping stories filled with violence and pathos". Basing

4248-459: The strip. In 2005, Tracy was a guest at Blondie and Dagwood's 75th anniversary party in the comic strip Blondie . Later, Dick Tracy appeared in the comic strip Gasoline Alley . On January 19, 2011, Tribune Media Services announced that Locher was retiring from the strip and handing the reins to artist Joe Staton and writer Mike Curtis . The new creative team has previously worked together on Scooby-Doo , Richie Rich , and Casper

4320-435: The strip. In 1938, Tracy became one of several regular newspaper strips featured in Dell's regular monthly Super Comics , remaining a regular part of that publication until 1948. In 1939, Tracy was the sole feature in the very first issue of Dell's Four-Color Comics , which put out more than 1,300 issues starring hundreds of characters between 1939 and 1962. Tracy was featured in seven more Four-Color issues throughout

4392-471: The technology of pagers from use within a single building to use across multiple cities. Cooper also worked with inventor Clifford L. Rose to fix a flaw in quartz crystals used in Motorola's radios which encouraged the company to mass-produce the first crystals used in wrist watches. Cooper and his wife Arlene Harris founded Dyna LLC in 1986 as a home base for their developmental and support activities for

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4464-533: The urban crime drama roots of the strip. During this period, Tracy met famed cartoonist Chet Jade, creator of the comic strip Sawdust , in which the only characters are talking dots. One of the new characters, Mr. Intro, was only manifested as a disembodied voice. His goal was world domination in the vein of a James Bond villain. Tracy eventually used an atomic laser beam to annihilate Intro and his island base. Junior married Moon Maid in October 1964. Their daughter Honey Moon Tracy had antennae and magnetic hands. In

4536-698: The useful radio spectrum over a given area doubles every 30 months. "The Myth of Spectrum Scarcity" Position Paper, March 2010. "Mobile WiMax – Fourth-Generation Wireless," Bechtel Communications Technical Journal, September 2007. "The Need for Simplicity," in the anthology "Mobile Persuasion: 20 Perspectives on the Future of Behavior Change," published by Stanford University in 2007. "Personal Communications in 2025" for Eta Kappa Nu Electrical and Computer Engineering Honor Society, Autumn 2005. "Antennas Get Smart" in Scientific American, July 2003. "Everyone

4608-472: The villains The Fifth and his colleague, Flyface. In that story, The Fifth was Gould's criticism of the constitutional right to silence with the gangster invoking that right for any question, which his cohort and legal representation, Flyface, was a caricature of lawyers as a repellent man constantly swarmed by flies as was most of his family as well. In that story, Gould's creative weaknesses began to become more obvious with his vitriolic overlong condemnation of

4680-462: Was also attacked by some journalists as being too violent, a criticism that would dog Gould throughout his time on the strip. On January 13, 1946, the two-Way Wrist Radio was introduced; it would become one of the strip's most immediately recognizable icons. This radio wristwatch, worn by Tracy and members of the police force, inspired Martin Cooper 's invention of the mobile phone and may have inspired later smartwatches . The two-Way Wrist Radio

4752-502: Was first published on October 4, 1931. The strip was instantly popular and was soon appearing in newspapers across the United States. The strip's popularity also resulted in the creation of numerous Dick Tracy merchandise, including novelizations, toys, and games. 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 . However, Dick Tracy

4824-515: Was hopelessly outmatched. In 1994, it was voted No. 16 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field. Dick Tracy Dick Tracy is an American comic strip featuring Dick Tracy , a tough and intelligent police detective created by Chester Gould . It made its debut on Sunday, October 4, 1931, in the Detroit Mirror , and was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate . Gould wrote and drew

4896-459: Was in turn succeeded by Charles Ettinger in February 2024. Chicago-area police sergeant Jim Doherty provided "Crimestopper" captions for the Sunday strips and acted as the feature's technical advisor . Doherty also introduced a new feature, "Tracy's Hall of Fame" (which replaces the "Crimestopper" panel approximately once each month), in which a real-life police officer is profiled and honored. Doherty

4968-438: Was killed by an assassin — the strip's final panel announced, "Violence is golden, when it's used to put down evil." The strip was obviously prepared weeks before the assassination, but the timing of the strip's publication attracted negative attention. Some newspapers dropped the strip as a result. From 1960 to 1974, the strip's newspaper coverage dropped from 550 to roughly 375 In the 1970s, Gould modernized Tracy by giving him

5040-421: Was replaced in 2016 by police lieutenant Walter Reimer, who introduced the "First Responders Roll of Honor", which honors real-life police officers, firefighters, and paramedics who died on duty. Staton and Curtis reintroduced many of the characters of the ‘40s through the ‘60s, including a second Mr. Crime and a reformed Mole, while introducing more deformed and grotesque villains such as Abner Kadaver, Panda, and

5112-496: Was the first of several cartoons in which Daffy Duck would do a parody of a well-known character, but the only one in which he was actually competent. In other take-offs, such as The Scarlet Pumpernickel , he was somewhat buffoonish, though still able to intimidate the villains. But, in later stories such as Stuporduck , Boston Quackie , Robin Hood Daffy and Deduce, You Say? (in which he played "Doorlock Holmes"), Daffy

5184-497: Was upgraded to a two-Way Wrist TV in 1964. This development also led to the introduction of an important supporting character, Diet Smith, an eccentric industrialist who financed the development of this equipment. In late 1948, a botched security detail led to the death of the semi-regular character Brilliant, the blind inventor of the Two-Way Wrist Radio (among other devices) whereupon Chief Brandon, Dick Tracy's superior on

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