This Cop’s for Sale : Marketing: ‘Dick Tracy’ doesn’t open until summer, but merchandisers are ready with an array of tie-in products. They’re hoping for a Batman-type bonanza.

Shiny handcuffs engraved with the Dick Tracy logo were recently sent to several dozen of the largest toy buyers in the world.

Things went slightly awry when Playmate Toys, which sent the keyless handcuffs as a promotional gimmick, received a frantic phone call from one of the buyers. “The guy called us and said he’d locked his wife to the refrigerator,” said Diane Horton, director of marketing for La Mirada-based Playmate Toys Inc. “I wonder if he was too embarrassed to tell us what he really locked her to.”

The local police eventually freed the woman from her predicament. But as far as Walt Disney Co. and its dozens of Dick Tracy licensees are concerned, nothing would be better than to handcuff the American public to the well-oiled Dick Tracy merchandising machine tied to the movie to be released in June.

In the good old days, Dick Tracy nabbed criminals. Now he is about to chase after the most elusive of all targets: the American consumer.

The Dick Tracy character probably won’t sell as many T-shirts, hats or watches as Mickey Mouse, whose mug has appeared on literally billions of dollars worth of merchandise over the years. But Disney thinks that Dick Tracy is very bankable. He joins the growing list of comic-strip characters that have ballooned the character-licensing business in the past few years into an estimated $50-billion-plus annual industry worldwide.

“There are lots of us who missed out on Batman,” said one top licensing executive whose company failed to board the Batman boat. “We don’t want to miss out on this one.”

Some skeptics, however, don’t think that Tracy has a prayer of catching the jet-powered Batmobile. “The wheels are all in motion for Dick Tracy to be this year’s Batman, but my gut feeling is that won’t happen,” said Larry Carlat, editor of Toy & Hobby World, the New York trade publication. “Sure, there’s going to be a lot of interest. But I’m not sure, in the long run, how much kids will care about Warren Beatty and Madonna. I’d say they care more about Barbie and Nintendo.”

Beyond that, there is a risk that all licensees face no matter which film they hitch their hopes to. “With any item tied to a movie, you’re jumping on a roller coaster and you’re going for a ride,” said Gary Roop, whose electronics firm, Ertl Co., made Batman merchandise and is making several Dick Tracy-related items. “When the fad dies, it will come straight down.”

But before the Batman fad finally began to fizzle after Christmas, experts estimated that Warner Bros. and its licensees already had pocketed more than $500 million in U.S. film revenues and product sales. Expectations already are running so high among many retailers, that if Dick Tracy merchandise somehow falls short of matching Batmania, it could be considered a failure.

“We expect Dick Tracy will be even bigger than Batman,” said Al Nilsen, director of marketing at Sega of America, which is making a video game based on the film. “Dick Tracy has broader appeal.”

Almost across the board, licensees generally say the best name behind the promotion isn’t Dick Tracy at all, but Disney. The name at once connotes quality, value and enchantment. “If you believe Disney knows how to promote movies,” said Roop, senior vice president of marketing at Ertl, “you also know they can move merchandise.”

What’s more, Disney’s time-tested marketing and merchandising formulas are still working. Disney’s 1988 film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” has grossed more than $155 million in just the U.S. market. And experts estimate that licensed Roger Rabbit dolls, T-shirts and accessories posted an additional $20 million to $40 million in sales.

Each of the licensees must pay Disney somewhere between 5% to 10% of the wholesale price of the items they make. That might not sound like much, but consider that the licensing division of Warner Bros.--Licensing Corp. of America--is said to have cleared more than $50 million in licensing royalties for Batman products.

Disney refused to comment on its merchandising plans for Dick Tracy.

But it is estimated by licensing experts that the company has already signed at least 65 licensees to make everything from Dick Tracy coffee mugs-on-wheels (modeled after cars used in the movie) to toy finger-printing kits for kids. The number of licensees could exceed 100 by the time the movie premieres.

The key, of course, is to stretch out consumer interest through the lucrative Christmas season. Analysts say that is one reason Disney, at least so far, has tried to keep the Dick Tracy hype to a minimum. It may be the movie of the summer, but retailers already are viewing it as the prize under the Christmas tree. Two weeks after one of the nation’s biggest retailers supposedly “closed” entries to its 1990 Christmas catalogue, it reopened them to include additional Dick Tracy merchandise.

Certainly, the Dick Tracy character has come a long way since he first appeared in 1931 as a plain-clothes detective in a comic strip created by Chester Gould. The film, which stars Warren Beatty as Dick Tracy and Madonna as seductress Breathless Mahoney, won’t be released until June 15.

But months ahead of that date, toy makers, apparel manufacturers and corporate sponsors are gearing up with blockbuster promotions. Analysts expect that Dick Tracy walkie-talkies and wristwatches may be among the hottest of the items. And McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and even Quaker Oats are expected to introduce yet-to-be-announced corporate tie-ins to the film.

The R. H. Macy & Co. department store chain is so sold on Dick Tracy that by mid-March--nearly three months before the film premieres--it plans to open special Dick Tracy departments in many locations.

“We’re hoping to become the Dick Tracy headquarters,” said David Nutterfield, children’s fashion director at Macy’s of California, which operates 25 stores in Northern California. “We’re planning on at least the same success that we had with Batman.”

Even some of the more traditional companies that usually shy away from retail fads have jumped on board the Dick Tracy express.

Timex, for example, plans to make 150,000 Dick Tracy watches that will sell for about $30 each. But Timex is one of the few licensees that isn’t outwardly projecting a retail bonanza. “The question is, will there be a second round of orders?” said C. Michael Jacobi, vice president of marketing and sales at Timex Corp. “Everything hinges on how well the movie goes.”

Can Dick Tracy chase Batman back to the bat cave?

“Retailers who bet on Batman now want to replace those dollars,” said Leslie Gross, director of product development at Applause Inc., a Woodland Hills licensee that is making everything from $3 Dick Tracy key chains to $25 vinyl dolls of Dick Tracy and Breathless. “And consumers who have grown bored with Batman want something new to look forward to.”

At least one Dick Tracy licensee said orders from retailers are unparalleled. “We don’t even plan to do any advertising,” said Roop at Ertl Co., which is making the Dick Tracy wristwatch-like walkie-talkies. “Why would we want to advertise these things if we can’t even make them fast enough to ship what’s on order right now?”

The walkie-talkies, which will retail for about $15, closely resemble the one used by Dick Tracy in the film. Ertl, which also was licensed to make Batman walkie-talkies, expects to sell about three times more of the Dick Tracy version.

Recently back from the Toy Fair in New York, several toy makers said retailer interest in Dick Tracy is flying higher than Batman ever did.

At the Playmate Toys booth, for example, the company came stocked with 2,500 Dick Tracy buttons (each about the size of a half dollar) that it expected to hand out during the course of the two-week show. The buttons were gone in two days. Disney shipped them many thousands more--and those were all snapped up too.

“When we put on our Dick Tracy presentations, we noticed the same buyers would show up two, three or even four times, just to hear it again,” said Horton, Playmate’s director of marketing.

Besides, she said, kids will be more attracted to Dick Tracy than to Batman. “Batman was a psychotic who fought one villain,” said Horton. “Dick Tracy is a good guy and all-round hero who takes on an array of bad guys.”

Some even wonder if the outlandish band of evildoers that Dick Tracy fights might not prove to be even more popular with kids than Tracy himself. That is why many of the toy makers and clothing companies are making just as many items featuring the faces of villains such as Flattop and Pruneface.

In all cases, Disney is said to be monitoring the Tracy merchandise closely. The movie is being filmed in just six comic-book-like colors. And all the merchandise must strictly adhere to the same color scheme of red, yellow, blue, green, black and white. That’s right: There will be no pink or purple Dick Tracy wristwatches.

But not everyone is predicting that Dick Tracy will set the retail world ablaze. Much depends on how effectively Disney marketing gurus are able to separate the public’s image of the square-jawed, cartoon strip crime-buster from the far more likeable Dick Tracy character that is expected to be portrayed in the film.

“The Dick Tracy character, which people know today from the comic books and cartoon strips, has little appeal to any segment of the population,” said Steven Levitt, president of Marketing Evaluations, a Port Washington, N.Y., research firm that specializes in measuring public attitudes toward celebrities and cartoon characters. “Of course, Walt Disney is a smart marketing company. They may do terrific things with Dick Tracy. They can spend millions of dollars and create interest. But if I was involved in making Dick Tracy merchandise, I wouldn’t bet the company store on it.”

Just how does Dick Tracy’s popularity compare to that of his cartoon-strip peers?

Not very well. In a study completed last May of 1,800 consumers nationwide, Marketing Evaluations found that Dick Tracy rated several notches below average. His popularity even fell below that of Wonder Woman, Howdy Doody and Archie.

Of course, months before the Batman movie opened, the same research company measured that cartoon character’s popularity as something less than that of Betty Boop. Yet once the movie hit the screens--and the massive marketing campaign began--the Batman character on the screen was suddenly a mega-hit. “If Disney does with the Dick Tracy movie what Warner did with Batman, anything could happen,” said Levitt.