
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 8, 1990                   TAG: 9006080155
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TO BE REALLY BIG, A MOVIE HAS TO SELL T-SHIRTS

You can tell it's summer when you can read what's playing at your neighborhood theater on somebody's T-shirt.

So, today we're inaugurating a new genre of film called the T-shirt movie. "Batman" may be the all time T-shirt movie champion. But "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" has to be a contender and "Dick Tracy" wants to be one.

To qualify for the genre, a movie has to be lightweight. It helps for its source to be a comic strip, comic book or TV cartoon. It has to lend itself to hype. And it has to be promising fad material. If some latter-day Richard Lester (the Beatles' cinematic Boswell) decides to construct a movie about the adventures of "New Kids on the Block," that movie will gain instant T-shirt status.

T-shirt movies are geared to sell much more than polyester and cotton, however, as the upcoming "Dick Tracy" proves.

Just check the action at your local mall.

In the book store, there are at least three books based on the movie based on the venerable Chester Gould cartoon. If they're not in racks already, there soon will be at least three records featuring Madonna, who stars as Breathless Mahoney in the movie.

Among other "Dick Tracy" items will be shower curtains, toy wrist-radios, key chains, dolls, back packs, mugs, fedoras and evening wear.

McDonald's is offering a Dick Tracy game for McDiners who flock to the golden arches.

But getting back to T-shirts.

The Disney studio and its distributor, Buena Vista, are embarking on an unusual promotional gimmick and they're using - are you ready - T-shirts.

Only those who buy $12 T-shirts from theaters showing the movie will get to see the preview of "Dick Tracy" at midnight next Thursday. Tanglewood Mall Cinema is showing the movie exclusively in Roanoke and the T-shirts will be stamped with the theater's name allowing the wearer into the midnight show.

Manager Jeff Carpenter says there has been some interest but that the T-shirts aren't going as rapidly as he had hoped because Disney's promotional campaign hasn't been in full swing. Then, too, the awareness of the 1930s detective isn't as high among younger children as some other comic heroes. However, I know first hand of one seven-year-old who is itching to see the movie and to acquire all the other stuff solely on the basis of the TV ads. Last year, $3 billion worth of merchandise inspired by movies and TV was sold.

Which proves that Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a window on the future when he told an insecure actress not to worry, "it's just a movie."

It isn't just a movie anymore. It's a mammoth money-making machine that spews forth huge amounts of objects destined to be the detritus of pop culture as soon as another hype-driven money making movie machine comes along.

by CNB