!![=YMMVs=] in the comic strip:
* {{Anvilicious}}: Chester Gould's stories got really bad for this during TheSeventies, with Tracy frequently going on [[AuthorFilibuster lengthy speeches about how the law should operate]]. Mike Kilian had a tendency to do this as well (most infamously with the movie piracy story), though to a much lesser extent than Gould.
** Dick Locher's strips completely averted this, oddly enough, though presumably as a famed political cartoonist Locher had another outlet for that sort of thing.
* CreatorsPet: Moon Maid, who during her appearances under Gould was given a range of powers that many Golden Age superheroes would be envious of, and was frequently applauded for taking the law into her own hands.
* DorkAge: Arguably from the start of the "Space Era" in the 1960s until Max Allan Collins took over as writer, and ''definitely'' Dick Locher's era as writer.
* EnsembleDarkhorse: The Blank; though he only appeared in one story, he's largely one of the more memorable villains Tracy fought.
** Toss in Flattop; originally a one-shot character, he proved to be so popular that not only did Gould keep bringing him back, but once he killed him off, introduced his family to continue his legacy.
** And Mumbles. Popular enough to [[NotQuiteDead be brought back from the dead TWICE]].
** And Moon Maid.
* NightmareFuel: The Blank's real face.
** Also the general freakish nature of most of Tracy's rogue gallery.
** The Brow had a ColdBloodedTorture device consisting of a small mechanical iron maiden that closed around the victim's leg. [[spoiler:Eventually the villain gets caught in it ''by the head.'' He has no choice but to ''tear'' his bleeding head out of it before it can close on him completely.]]
* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: Moon Maid since her resurrection under Staton and Curtis, which saw her powers greatly toned down and her actions being viewed in a somewhat more realistic manner by the other characters.
* SoBadItsGood: The Moon Period stories can actually be a lot of fun if you enjoy the very pulpiest of pulp science fiction. They're utterly ridiculous and out of place, but they're fun for ''exactly those reasons.'' And Gould's artwork during this period is ''gorgeous,'' arguably the best he ever did; he very clearly enjoyed getting to draw stuff so radically different from the normal restrictions of the strip's genre. Some even consider this period to be outright VindicatedByHistory, especially compared to the Locher era, and since Moon Maid's return under Curtis and Staton.
* TakeThatScrappy: The "Mr. Crime" storyline that ran in 2011-2012 revealed early on that there was a mole inside the police department. To the surprise of very few readers, this turned out to be Lt. Teevo, the one recurring character that had been introduced by Dick Locher, and at the conclusion of the storyline he ended up being fed to a giant, carnivorous plant.
* VindicatedByHistory: As mentioned above, many fans now consider the Moon stories to be this. In addition, Mike Kilian's writing has started to be looked on more favorably by fans in the years since his death, with many feeling that his work actually stacks up pretty well compared to most other contemporary adventure strips, and that if anything he probably had an impossible task in trying to replace Max Allan Collins (the manner in which Collins got forced off the strip likely didn't help Kilian's job, either).
** In the case of Moon Maid and her era, the people who really hated it tended to be older fans, including those old enough to write published articles and books about Dick Tracy, which was pretty much the only way a fan could publicly express their opinion in those pre-Internet days. By the time Dick Tracy became available on the Internet, Moon Maid had been dead for decades and almost never even mentioned since then by Collins or his successors, so there just wasn't much occasion to talk about her. When Curtis & Staton began to revive her, it brought out into the open a fandom for Moon Maid that had always been there, but had never had much opportunity to express itself until then.

!![=YMMVs=] in [[{{Film/DickTracy}} The Movie]]:
* HamAndCheese: DustinHoffman only played Mumbles because Warren Beatty dared him to.
* JerkSue: There's no denying his honesty and courage, but Dick Tracy can be quite arrogant and brutal in his treatment of suspects - particularly when he waives their constitutional rights out of sheer spite.
* NightmareFuel: the general freakish nature of most of Tracy's rogue gallery, where with the exception of the Breathless Mahoney (who [[spoiler: designed the Blank costume/persona to wear so that she could go around killing people without anyone suspecting her]]), the costume designers went overboard to portray all of Tracy's villains as the grotesque looking freaks they were in the comics. Even Big Boy Caprice.
** So many of the gangsters (Pruneface, Influence, and Steve the Tramp, to name just three) are so unbelievably ugly (courtesy of some truly pull-out-all-the-stops movie makeup) that the average 6- or 7-year-old's reaction is less likely to be "Hee-hee, they're funny-looking" to "Mommy, make the scary people go away...."
** A surprisingly high body count for a PG-rated film, with seven men being killed in the first 10 minutes alone.
** Lips Manlis pathetically begging for his life as cement slowly covers him.
** Big Boy Caprice's lethal temper and chronic fondness for [[KickTheDog Kicking The Dog]].
** The Blank's [[EvilSoundsDeep inhuman - even reptilian - hiss of a voice]].
** The final gun battle on the street, with [[spoiler: Influence]] and [[spoiler: Flattop]] shown getting shot in disturbing close-ups. ([[spoiler: Flattop's]] spasmodic death throes, his tommy gun firing wildly as his fingers lock on the trigger in a death grip, is virtually guaranteed to be the stuff of nightmares.)
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: The five card players shot and killed by Flattop within the first two minutes were all significant characters in the strip. The Brow is widely regarded as one of Chester Gould's greatest villainous creations, who ranks with among others, Flattop himself; Little Face was one of the first "Grotesques" introduced into the strip; Shoulders and Stooge both appeared twice in the strip's canon (a rarity for Dick Tracy villains); and the Rodent was one of the last great grotesques of the 1950s.
* VisualEffectsOfAwesome: [[UncannyValley Creepy as they may be,]] you can't deny the sheer quality of the makeup design. They actually look realistic to a degree. Add to that the set design and color scheme throughout, this is one good looking movie!
!![=YMMVs=] in the AnimatedAdaptation:
* DesignatedHero: The ONLY thing Dick Tracy does in almost every episode is call in someone to essentially do his job and shows to arrest the criminal, while doing very little actual work.
* EthnicScrappy: Joe-Jitsu and Go-Go Gomez in one of the animated series. Think about the worst way you could animate an Asian and a Mexican while still having them be good guys. That's about it.

!![=YMMVs=] in the video games:
* GoddamnedBats[=/=]DemonicSpiders: The snipers in the NES game.