A DICK TRACY ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL: Old-time radio shows and their comics connections…
By PETER BOSCH
Welcome back, fellow Four Color Radio connoisseurs. This month – this day, actually – is very special because October 4, 2026, is the 95th anniversary of the first Dick Tracy newspaper strip (debuting in 1931), which you can read about here. So there is no better time to showcase the Dick Tracy radio show, plus two very special broadcasts involving America’s favorite flatfoot!
Two Quaker Oats 1939 premiums for the Dick Tracy radio program
The Dick Tracy radio show debuted just three years after the comic strip started. The program’s early broadcasts in 1934 were heard over NBC’s New England radio stations. CBS was next in line and they took it nationally for the first half of 1935, then it was off to the Mutual radio network for almost three years. Following Mutual, it returned to NBC from Jan. 3, 1938, to September 30, 1939, at first five times a week for 15-minutes episodes and then once a week at 30 minutes.
The show went off the air for a few years but returned March 1, 1943 – this time on the Blue Network/ABC… and that is where it stayed until the final Dick Tracy radio broadcast on July 16, 1948.
The first radio actor to play Tracy was Bob Burlen in 1934. Following Burlen were Barry Thomson, Ned Wever, and Matt Crowley, who was the longest running of all the radio Tracys. If the Crowley name sounds familiar, you might be remembering the article I wrote about The Adventures of Superman radio show earlier this year. Crowley was one of the actors to play Batman on it, as well as Inspector Henderson — and if you were to tune into other shows at the time, you would find he played Mark Trail, Jungle Jim, and Buck Rogers!
Dick Tracy’s sweetheart Tess Trueheart was voiced by Helen Lewis throughout the series. Also appearing in various parts was Mercedes McCambridge, who went on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in All the King’s Men (1949).
The major sponsor for the Dick Tracy radio program was Quaker Oats. (Tootsie Roll sponsored it for the 1944 season.) As a side note: When you listen to the announcer saying that Quaker Oats’ products were shot from cannons, you may think it pure malarkey. Actually, it was true… in a way. The grain was sealed inside long metal cylinders that were set above a high-heat source. When the cylinder was opened, the water inside the grain was subject to a sudden drop in temperature, causing the kernels to “explode” with an enormous bang sound. The metal cylinders were nicknamed… wait for it… “cannons.”).
Rare Quaker Oats 1939 poster promoting various Dick Tracy radio premiums.
Fans could collect excellent Dick Tracy radio premiums from Quaker Oats, but you had to buy a lot of Quaker Puffed Wheat and Quaker Puffed Rice in order to get enough box tops to send in for them. Below is just a tiny selection of the more than 50 premiums:
Regretfully, of all the Dick Tracy radio episodes that were broadcast over the years, there are now only about 74 left. Here’s a link to where you can listen to them.
To escape the gloom of the shows that no longer exist, here is a special broadcast that will make you laugh, a musical satire of Dick Tracy. It was broadcast February 15, 1945, over the Armed Forces Radio Network’s program Command Performance, and was called “Dick Tracy in B-Flat” (subtitled “Or, for Goodness Sake, Isn’t He Ever Going to Marry Tess Trueheart?”).
The stars appearing were astounding: Bing Crosby as Dick Tracy! Dinah Shore as Tess Trueheart! Frank Sinatra as Shaky! Judy Garland as Snowflake Falls!
But that’s not all. Check out these folks, including Bob Hope and Jimmy Durante:
Frank Morgan as Vitamin Flintheart, Garland, possibly an Andrews Sister as one of the Summer Sisters, Cass Daley as Gravel Gertie, Shore, Bob Hope as Flattop, Jerry Cologna as Chief Brandon, Jimmy Durante as the Mole, and Sinatra.
To finish off this month’s Four Color Radio, a special treat:
In July 1945, New York City was the site of a major strike by newspaper delivery workers and it left many comic strip readers high and dry. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia had a solution: He used his regular Sunday “Talk to the People” radio broadcasts to read aloud the Dick Tracy and Little Orphan Annie Sunday strips — and with great enthusiasm! Below is a video clip of LaGuardia doing so. (The people you see lining up at the beginning of the clip are at the newspaper building to buy the paper since that was their only option.)
Here is the actual Sunday page from which he was reading:
Until next time, happy listening!
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MORE
— DICK TRACY: 95 YEARS of Crime-Busting Adventure and Vile Villains. Click here.
— FOUR COLOR RADIO: The All-Time Classic CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT. Click here.
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13th Dimension contributor-at-large PETER BOSCH’s first book, American TV Comic Books: 1940s-1980s – From the Small Screen to the Printed Page, was published by TwoMorrows. (You can buy it here.) A sequel, American Movie Comic Books: 1930s-1970s — From the Silver Screen to the Printed Page, is out now. (Buy it here.) Peter has written articles and conducted celebrity interviews for various magazines and newspapers. He lives in Hollywood.
October 4, 2026
That photo of matt crowey looks a lot like bud collyer.
October 4, 2026
Agree, both had similar looks and both wore bowties.