Oops, never noticed that ... so why didn't you tell him how to get it to work with sprites?
@Jim H,
Sprites, in their default setting, leave no trace on the background. If you have the backdrop on, they are overwritten with the blue you normally see. If you have the backdrop off, then the background will saved before displaying the sprite and replaced after - this is so you can move the sprite without having to redraw the background.
To get this working for you, just use two simple commands after you create the sprite:
dbSetSprite(1, 0, 1);
dbBackdropOff();
The middle number in the first commands sets the sprite backsave option to 'off' and disables the saving. The second command removes the backdrop - this means that you'll have to clear the backdrop yourself if you need that, using the dbCls function.