In 1967, most of the folks who brought you the Batman TV show tried to bring you a Dick Tracy series. This is the pilot that didn't make it…with the too-timely title of "The Plot to Kill NATO." A gent named Ray MacDonnell — who later had a 40 year run as a character on the soap All My Children — had the title role. It ain't bad but I'm not sure its makers were really certain how much they were ridiculing the source material, as they did with the Adam West Batman — and how much to play it straight. To me, it kinda doesn't work either way.
The most interesting thing to me is that the end credits say it's based on the character created by Chester Gould and Henry G. Saperstein. Gould, who wrote and drew the Dick Tracy newspaper strip, I can understand…and all the elements of the show seem to have come from that strip. But Henry Saperstein was the owner of the U.P.A. cartoon studio which had made the Dick Tracy cartoon studio in 1961. I suspect his co-creator credit had to do with him having some control over the TV rights to the property and I wonder if he contributed anything else.
Here's the show. If you make it all the way through, lemme know what you think. And hey, I promised I'd post another unsold pilot tonight and I made it with seconds to spare…