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Terrytoons, Inc. was an American animation studio headquartered in New Rochelle, New York, which was active from 1929 until its closure on December 29, 1972 (and returned between 1987 and 1996 for television in name only). Founded by Paul Terry, Frank Moser, and Joseph Coffman, it operated out of the "K"
/ref> The studio created many cartoon characters including Fanny Zilch, Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle, Gandy Goose, Sourpuss, Dinky Duck, Little Roquefort, the Terry Bears, Dimwit, and Luno; Terry's pre-existing character Farmer Al Falfa was also featured often in the series.
The "New Terrytoons" period of the late 1950s through the mid-1960s produced new characters such as Clint Clobber, Tom Terrific, Deputy Dawg, Hector Heathcote, Hashimoto-san, Sidney the Elephant, Possible Possum, James Hound, Astronut, Sad Cat, The Mighty Heroes, and Sally Sargent. Also during that time, Ralph Bakshi got his start as an animator, and eventually as a director, at Terrytoons.
Terrytoons shorts were originally released to theaters by 20th Century Fox from 1935 until 1973. After Terry had retired, Terrytoons was sold to CBS, which would later purchase the entire library. Paramount Pictures would eventually take theatrical rights ownership of the Terrytoons library in 1994 (which was then already purchased by Viacom), and would purchase CBS in 2000. As of 2019, Paramount Pictures has owned the rights to the studio and its library following the re-merger of CBS Corporation and Viacom that would become known as Paramount Global (now known as Paramount Skydance).
Around 1921, Terry founded the Fables animation studio, named for its Aesop's Film Fables series, in conjunction with the studio of Amedee J. Van Beuren. Fables churned out a Fable cartoon every week for eight years in the 1920s.
In 1928, Van Beuren, anxious to compete with the new phenomenon of , released Terry's Dinner Time (released October 1928). Van Beuren then urged Terry to start producing actual sound films, instead of post-synchronizing the cartoons. Terry refused, and Van Beuren fired him in 1929. Almost immediately, Terry and much of his staff started up the Terrytoons studio near his former studio. One staff member during that time was Art Babbitt, who went on to become a well-known Disney animator.
Paul Terry took pride in producing a new cartoon every other week, regardless of the quality of the films. Until 1957, screen credits were very sparse, listing only the writer (until 1950, solely John Foster; then Tom Morrison thereafter), director (Terry's three main directors were Connie Rasinski, Eddie Donnelly, and Mannie Davis), and musician (musical director Philip A. Scheib). Terrytoons' first distributor was Educational Pictures, specialists in short-subject comedies and novelties. Audio-Cinema in the early 1930s backed the production of Terrytoons, and distributed the Educational library internationally, except in the United Kingdom and Ireland where the library was distributed by Educational and Gaumont-British in partnership with the Ideal Film Company.
The Fox Film company then released Educational shorts to theaters in the 1930s, giving the Terry cartoons wide exposure. Following the merger between Fox Film and 20th Century, the newly formed 20th Century Fox later withdrew its support from Educational Pictures in 1938 thanks to the latter’s financial troubles, and afterwards, the company both backed and distributed Terrytoons. Farmer Al Falfa was Terry's most familiar character in the 1930s; Kiko the Kangaroo was spun off the Farmer Al Falfa series. Most of the other cartoons featured stock generic animal characters and designs, one of which was a scruffy dog with a black patch around one eye; Terry ultimately built a series around this character, now known as Puddy the Pup.
Paul Terry may have realized that Educational was in financial trouble because he found another lucrative outlet for his product. In 1938, he arranged to release his older cartoons through home-movie distributor Castle Films. Educational went out of business within the year, but 20th Century Fox continued to release Terrytoons to theaters for the next two decades. With a new emphasis on "star" characters, Terrytoons featured the adventures of Super Mouse (later renamed Mighty Mouse), the talking magpies Heckle and Jeckle, the silly and flamboyant Gandy Goose and his partner Sourpuss, the unusually unlucky Dinky Duck, the mischievous mouse Little Roquefort, and The Terry Bears.
Despite the artistic drawbacks imposed by Terry's inflexible business policies, Terrytoons was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Animated Short Film under his tenure: All Out for V in 1942, My Boy, Johnny in 1944, and Mighty Mouse in Gypsy Life in 1945.
Deitch significantly shifted the studio's direction away from its roots and instead focused on a style more reminiscent to UPA's cartoons. His most notable works at the studio were the Tom Terrific cartoon segments for the Captain Kangaroo television show. He also discontinued the Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle cartoons to instead put focus a number of new characters, such as Sidney the Elephant, Sidney the Elephant at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on January 20, 2015. Gaston Le Crayon, Gaston Le Crayon at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on April 16, 2012. John Doormat, and Clint Clobber. Clint Clobber at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on April 16, 2012. One of Deitch's Sidney cartoons, Sidney's Family Tree, would be nominated for an Academy award in 1958.
Before Deitch was fired in 1959, Bill Weiss took complete control of the studio. Under his supervision, Heckle and Jeckle and Mighty Mouse went back into production. Besides the three core directors of the Terry era who were still involved as animators and directors, two Famous Studios stalwarts joined the crew, Dave Tendlar and Martin Taras. Other new theatrical cartoon series included Hector Heathcote, Luno and Hashimoto San. The studio also began producing the Deputy Dawg series for television in 1959. Another television production for the Captain Kangaroo show was The Adventures of Lariat Sam, which was written in part by Gene Wood, who would later become the announcer for several TV gameshows including Family Feud.
Phil Scheib continued as the studio's musical director through the mid-1960s when he was replaced by Jim Timmens and Elliott Lawrence.
The best-known talent at Terrytoons in the 1960s was animator/director/producer Ralph Bakshi. Bakshi started his career in Terrytoons in the 1950s as an opaquer, but would climb the ranks and eventually helmed the Mighty Heroes series, as well as a series of cartoons starring his creation Sad Cat. Bakshi left Terrytoons in 1967 for Paramount's Famous Studios, which closed its cartoon unit later that year. He would later go on to produce for television in 1987, which was also produced by future Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi.
On July 4, 1971, Viacom Enterprises spun off from CBS; neither Viacom Enterprises nor CBS had any interest in Terrytoons. The Terrytoons film library was still regularly re-released to theaters by Fox. The studio's final short was an unsold TV pilot called Sally Sargent, about a 16-year-old girl who is a secret agent. Soon after Sally Sargent was completed, Viacom International ended their relationship with Fox and re-releases ceased. Terrytoons’ existence soon came to an end.
Art Bartsch, who kept the studio running after Bakshi left, would soon die along with Connie Rasinski, and Bob Kuwahara, reducing the studio to a ghost studio with executive producer Bill Weiss and story supervisor Tom Morrison; Viacom kept the studio open until 1972. By October 1972, Viacom International announced that Terrytoons would leave New Rochelle and relocate to Viacom International's office in New York City. By December 29, Viacom sold the now abandoned New Rochelle studio, and the company's fate was forever sealed.
In the late 1970s, Filmation licensed the rights to make the new Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle series from Viacom International. The series was The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle and aired from 1979 to 1980 on CBS.
Bakshi would later produce in 1987, which lasted for two seasons. Bakshi and his friend John Kricfalusi inspired the staff to try to get as much Jim Tyer-style drawing in the show as possible. Tyer, a stand-out Terry animator of the original cartoons with a unique style, became a strong influence on the artists of the Bakshi series, such as now recognizable writers, artists and animators—Bruce Timm, Doug Moench, Andrew Stanton, Rich Moore, Lynne Naylor, Jim Reardon, Tom Minton, and Bob Jaques.
Many of the characters (such as Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle, Dinky Duck, Deputy Dawg, and others) were slated to make cameos in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but only Oscar the Timid Pig, Looey Lion, and a character resembling Gandy Goose appeared. They can all be seen during the film's finale. They were also planned to appear in the deleted scene of Marvin Acme's funeral. In 1994, Fox (a studio in which already had rebound its success in the animation industry on television with The Simpsons) would sell its Terrytoons theatrical distribution to Paramount, which was then purchased by Viacom that same year, and would go on to purchase CBS six years later in 2000.
Through the years that have followed since the last Terrytoons TV series material in 1988, the rights have been scattered as a result of prior rights issues and the corporate changes involving Viacom and CBS, especially in 2005. Since CBS Corporation re-merged with Viacom to form ViacomCBS (Paramount Skydance as of August 2025), reuniting CBS with Paramount, on December 4, 2019, and CBS Films was folded into CBS Entertainment Group after releasing Jexi on the same day, Paramount Pictures now owns the theatrical distribution on behalf of Paramount Animation and CBS Entertainment Group, while CBS Media Ventures (formed in 2006) owns the television distribution on behalf of CBS Eye Animation Productions to the Terrytoons film library. However, some Terrytoons shorts are believed to be in the public domain and have either been issued on low-budget VHS tapes and or have been uploaded on sites such as Internet Archive. On January 5, 2010, the first official release of any Terrytoons material by CBS DVD was issued in the form of the complete series of Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures.
In 1999, animation historian Jerry Beck attempted to revive the Terrytoons characters as a pitch pilot to Nickelodeon under its in-house studio called Curbside. It would have been a parody of late-night talk shows with Heckle & Jeckle serving as hosts, along with Dinky Duck as their assistant, and would have featured new cartoons featuring Terrytoon characters such as Deputy Dawg, Sidney the Elephant and Mighty Mouse. It also featured brief cameo appearances from other Terrytoon characters—Gandy Goose, Sourpuss, Tom Terrific and Luno the White Stallion. The pilot featured talented voices of Toby Huss and Bobcat Goldthwait as Heckle & Jeckle, Dee Bradley Baker as Mighty Mouse and Gandy Goose, Cree Summer as Dinky Duck, Billy West as Deputy Dawg and Sourpuss, Charlie Adler as Sidney the Elephant, Haley Joel Osment as Tom Terrific, Jennifer Love Hewitt as Luno the White Stallion, and additional voices of Baker, West, Adler, Jess Harnell, Kevin Michael Richardson, Maurice LaMarche, and Rob Paulsen. Beck would leave the project early on after Nickelodeon secured the rights to the characters, and the pilot was never picked up, making it the only Terrytoons show that was never officially released. Beck would later express dissatisfaction with the pilot due to its misunderstanding of Terry's characters. He would later create the short Hornswiggle in 2008 as part of Random! Cartoons for Nicktoons, which was initially conceived as a Sidney the Elephant cartoon.
Between 2001 and 2002, the Terrytoons characters returned to television in original commercials for Brazilian blue cheese (for what is now America's Dairy Farmers) and fine wine. One such infamous commercial was the Mighty Mouse ad (entitled "Dining With Cheese") dining calmly on cheese in a restaurant, utterly unconcerned with a scene of chaos and terror visibly unfolding in the street outside. That said commercial was then pulled from airing following the September 11th attacks.
In 2004, a supposed live-action/animated hybrid Mighty Mouse film adaptation was announced for Nickelodeon Movies and Paramount Pictures with Steve Oedekerk of Omation Animation Studio to produce and direct, but was cancelled and has been in development hell since then. However, development later revived in April 2019 for Paramount Animation with Jon and Erich Hoeber to write the screenplay and both Karen Rosenfelt and Robert W. Cort to produce. Here They Come, To Save The Day: Jon & Erich Hoeber To Script ‘Mighty Mouse’ For Paramount Animation It was later announced that in November 2024, Paramount Animation was associated with Maximum Effort, with its co-founder Ryan Reynolds as a producer and Matt Lieberman as a writer.
In 2025, it was announced that MeTV Toons will air all the classic Terrytoons cartoons starting on November 2, making their return to TV in decades.
The lead title, Terry-Toons Comics, was published by Timely from Oct. 1942–Aug. 1947. "Terry-Toons Comics", Grand Comics Database. Accessed May 25, 2018. With issue #60 (Sept. 1947), publication of the title was taken over by St. John Publications, which published another 27 issues until issue #86 (May 1951). "Terry-Toons Comics", Grand Comics Database. Accessed May 25, 2018. The series continued in 1951 (with duplicate issues #85–86) as Paul Terry's Comics, publishing another 41 issues until May 1955, when it was canceled with issue #125. "Paul Terry's Comics," Grand Comics Database. Accessed May 25, 2018.
Timely launched the Mighty Mouse series in 1946. The first St. John Terrytoons comic was Mighty Mouse #5 (Aug. 1947), its numbering also taken over from the Timely run. That series eventually ran 71 issues with St. John, moving to Pines for 16 issues from Apr. 1956 to Aug. 1959, to Dell for 12 issues from Oct./Dec. 1959–July/Sept. 1962, and Western for 17 issues from Oct. 1962 to Jan. 1980 (with a hiatus from Sept. 1965 to Mar. 1979), finally ending with issue #172.
St. John's Terrytoons comics include the field's first Stereoscopy comic book, Three Dimension Comics #1 (Sept. 1953 oversize format, Oct. 1953 standard-size reprint), featuring Mighty Mouse. According to Joe Kubert, co-creator with the brothers Norman Maurer and Leonard Maurer, it sold an exceptional 1.2 million copies at 25 cents apieceJoe Kubert interview, "A Myth in the World of Comics" , UniversoHQ.com, n.d. WebCitation archive. at a time when comics cost a dime.
Dell Comics published eight issues of a New Terrytoons title from June/Aug. 1960 to March/May 1962.
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