Charlie Chan is a fictional Honolulu police detective created by author Earl Derr Biggers for a series of mystery novels.

Chan was seen as an attractive character, portrayed as intelligent, heroic, benevolent, and honorable; this contrasted with the common depiction of Asians as evil or conniving which dominated Hollywood and national media in the early 20th century.

Despite his good qualities, Chan was also perceived as reinforcing condescending Asian stereotypes such as an alleged incapacity to speak idiomatic English and a tradition-bound and subservient nature.

[8] In the novel, Chan is described as "very fat indeed, yet he walked with the light dainty step of a woman"[9] and in The Chinese Parrot as being " … an undistinguished figure in his Western clothes.

[12] A year later Universal Pictures followed with The Chinese Parrot, starring Japanese actor Kamiyama Sojin as Chan, again as a supporting character.

Oland, who claimed some Mongolian ancestry,[16] played the character as more gentle and self-effacing than he had been in the books, perhaps in "a deliberate attempt by the studio to downplay an uppity attitude in a Chinese detective.

[22] Toler's Chan was less mild-mannered than Oland's, a "switch in attitude that added some of the vigor of the original books to the films.

"[17] He is frequently accompanied, and irritated, by his Number Two Son, Jimmy Chan, played by Victor Sen Yung,[23] who later portrayed "Hop Sing" in the long-running Western television series Bonanza.

"[24] African American comedic actor Mantan Moreland played chauffeur Birmingham Brown in 13 films (1944–1949) which led to criticism of the Monogram films in the forties and since;[24][25] some call his performances "brilliant comic turns",[26] while others describe Moreland's roles as an offensive and embarrassing stereotype.

[27] Keye Luke, missing from the series after 1938's Mr. Moto rework, returned as Charlie's son in the last two entries.

[5] In Neil Simon's Murder by Death, Peter Sellers plays a Chinese detective called Sidney Wang, a parody of Chan.

In 1980, Jerry Sherlock began production on a comedy film to be called Charlie Chan and the Dragon Lady.

(Coalition of Asians to Nix) was formed, protesting the fact that non-Chinese actors, Peter Ustinov and Angie Dickinson, had been cast in the primary roles.

While this Charlie Chan was to be "hip, slim, cerebral, sexy and... a martial-arts master," and portrayed by actor Russell Wong, nonetheless the film did not come to fruition.

[36] Walter Connolly initially portrayed Chan on Esso Oil's Five Star Theater, which serialized adaptations of Biggers novels.

Leon Janney and Rodney Jacobs were heard as Lee Chan, Number One Son, and Dorian St. George was the announcer.

"[39] Valentine Davies wrote a stage adaptation of novel Keeper of the Keys for Broadway in 1933, with William Harrigan as the lead.

[40] A Charlie Chan comic strip, drawn by Alfred Andriola, was distributed by the McNaught Syndicate beginning October 24, 1938.

In March through August 1989 Eternity Comics/Malibu Graphics published Charlie Chan comic books numbers 1 - 6 reprinting daily strips from January 9, 1939 to November 18, 1939.

Critic John Soister argues that Charlie Chan is both; when Biggers created the character, he offered a unique alternative to stereotypical evil Chinamen, a man who was at the same time "sufficiently accommodating in personality... unthreatening in demeanor... and removed from his Asian homeland... to quell any underlying xenophobia.

"[49] Critic Michael Brodhead argues that "Biggers's sympathetic treatment of the Charlie Chan novels convinces the reader that the author consciously and forthrightly spoke out for the Chinese – a people to be not only accepted but admired.

Biggers's sympathetic treatment of the Chinese reflected and contributed to the greater acceptance of Chinese-Americans in the first third of [the twentieth] century.

"[50] S. T. Karnick writes in the National Review that Chan is "a brilliant detective with understandably limited facility in the English language [whose] powers of observation, logic, and personal rectitude and humility made him an exemplary, entirely honorable character.

"[26] Ellery Queen called Biggers's characterization of Charlie Chan "a service to humanity and to inter-racial relations.

"[59] In June 2003, the Fox Movie Channel cancelled a planned Charlie Chan Festival, soon after beginning restoration for cablecasting, after a special-interest group protested.

"[18] Yunte Huang manifests an ambivalent attitude, stating that in the US, Chan "epitomizes the racist heritage and the creative genius of this nation's culture.

[63] Chan's character has also come under fire for "nuggets of fortune cookie Confucius"[64] and the "counterfeit proverbs" which became so widespread in popular culture.

Like the "signifying monkey" of African American folklore, Huang continues, Chan "imparts as much insult as wisdom.