Dan Tanna was a detective available for private hire. One of his chief clients was Phil Roth (Tony Curtis), aka Slick, the owner of the Desert Inn Hotel/Casino/Country Club in Las Vegas. Tanna was always called in when something was awry at the hotel. Many times this involved the criminal element, though he was sometimes brought in to investigate the absurd. One example included a nun who claimed to own the land on which the Desert Inn stood, when she was bequeathed an old deed from a prospector who died. (To further complicate matters, she initially wanted to turn the hotel into a convent.)
Tanna lived on the Las Vegas Strip next to Circus Circus Hotel/Casino, in a warehouse owned by the Desert Inn, which he converted into his living place. The design of Tanna’s pad (long before the popularity of loft space) allowed him to park his T-bird in his living room. Tanna also used gadgets that were very high-tech for the time (but are pretty commonplace today), such as a car-phone and an answering machine (that physically picked the phone up off the hook and the receiver spoke directly into the microphone of a tape recorder). This warehouse in reality no longer exists, as it has been replaced by a shopping center which includes Arby’s and a museum; which in turn has been replaced with a new high-rise condominium tower.
Tanna’s choice of weapon was a .357 magnum that he didn’t like to use, but would if the situation deemed necessary. Most often Tanna would use more non-lethal means, such as his fists.
Tanna often did battle with many of the various criminal element that would threaten the desert oasis. Some villains he faced include a psychopath who thought he was Wayne Newton (and subsequently Newton was impersonating him), as well as a mafia boss named Martin Gleaver (Tom Simcox) who blackmailed a magic sisters act with photographs of “all the sick/weird things they used to do” referring to when they used to host risque Hollywood parties.
Tanna was a veteran of the Vietnam conflict. This was illustrated through flashbacks in various episodes. It is curious, however, that during these flashbacks, he was participating in ground combat. In a later episode, where he gets mixed up with a case involving a defector from the Soviet Union, he shows up at Nellis Air Force Base in his old United States Air Force uniform. (The Air Force was rarely, but occasionally, involved in direct ground combat during Vietnam.) He is also referred to as “Captain Tanna”, indicating that he was an officer. He served with his best friends Harlon Twoleaf (Will Sampson), the chief of a local Native American tribe, and Mitch Costegian (Chick Venerra), a Vegas lounge singer. Twoleaf and Costegian would occasionally join Tanna in investigating various mysteries.
