action figure: Dick Tracy: The Tramp

Dick Tracy is an American comic strip featuring Dick Tracy, a tough and intelligent police detective created by Chester Gould. The strip debuted on October 4, 1931 in the Detroit Mirror. Gould produced the strip until 1977. Dick Tracy has also been the hero in a number of films, including the 1990 film in which Warren Beatty played the crime fighter. In 1990, a national toy-store chain pulled Disney's Steve the Tramp action figure from shelves. The figure was part of Playmates series Coppers and Gangsters which also featured Dick Tracy, The Brow, Lips Manlis, Prunface, and Rodent, among others. The packaging for Steve the Tramp described him as an "ignorant bum...dirty and scarred from life on the streets. You'll smell him before you see him." Dozens of homeless people and their advocates picketed outside of the Stamford Town Center to protest the sale of the toy because it degraded the homeless.