Dick Spanner, P.I. was a 1986 British stop-motion animated comedy series which parodied Chandleresque detective shows. The titular character and main protagonist was Dick Spanner, voiced by Shane Rimmer, a robotic private detective who works cases in a futuristic urban setting. The show made frequent use of puns and visual gags.
The series consisted of 22 six-minute episodes, covering two story arcs of equal length: "The Case Of The Human Cannonball" and "The Case Of The Maltese Parrot". The programme was originally broadcast in the UK as a segment of the Sunday morning show Network 7 on Channel 4, and was later repeated on the same channel in a late night spot.
Produced by Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson, the series was created and written by Terry Adlam, who had previously worked on effects for Anderson's Terrahawks.
Genre: Animation, Children, Science-Fiction