# Terrytoons **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** cartoons-animation\ **Created:** [September 22, 2020, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246 "2020-09-22T17:02:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![teelabrown](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teelabrown/32/8412_2.png) [@teelabrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teelabrown)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2020, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246/1 "2020-09-22T17:02:46Z")
I love old cartoons. I’ve located and watched almost every Loony Toon there is, so I was casting about for some other brand of 'toon. I came across the Terrytoons channel on youtube, and I’ve been bingeing on these. Sheesh, I hadn’t seen these since I was about eight years old. The characters and style are coming back to me - I can pick out and predict gags which I hadn’t seen since the early 60s. My taste hasn’t changed much since I was a kid. I found Mighty Mouse pretty dull, both then and now. Gandy Goose and Sourpuss are better. But the funniest, of course, are Heckle and Jeckle. I was playing several H&Js last night, and my husband was watching along and laughing a lot, and said that he had never seen these as a kid. I can’t remember what show I must have watched in the early 60s. I know there was a Mighty Mouse show - was there a Heckle and Jeckle show too? You can always tell when one particular animator takes over drawing a scene. His style is wild and crazy - stretchy, distorted, and hysterically funny. I think he did a few Popeyes at one point. I’ll have to look him up. There are hundreds of Terrytoons out there. Paul Terry started in the 1920s, making silent black and white cartoons, and kept making them all the way up to the early 1970s. So there are a lot of them on youtube for me to discover. Loads o’ fun! ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2020, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246/2 "2020-09-22T17:23:26Z")
Heckle & Jeckle were by far the best. Of theirs the highlight was The Power of Thought. They become aware they’re cartoon characters. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/VIpTVU3Ddlo/hqdefault.jpg "Heckle and Jeckle - The Power of Thought") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIpTVU3Ddlo) As it is from 1948, it predates by 5 years; Duck Amuck, a Looney Toon classic. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2020, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246/3 "2020-09-22T17:27:41Z")
> [@teelabrown](#): > > I love old cartoons. I’ve located and watched almost every Loony Toon there is, so I was casting about for some other brand of 'toon. See if you can find [ComiColor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ComiColor_Cartoons), they’re the ones who gave the world this bit of strangeness: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/1bduw0CO2Nc/hqdefault.jpg ""Balloon Land" by Ub Iwerks, 1935") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bduw0CO2Nc) ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2020, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246/4 "2020-09-22T17:32:49Z")
There’s also [Noveltoons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noveltoons), they animated [Harvey Comics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Comics) characters. Here’s one of theirs: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/oc6pncbmsPE/maxresdefault.jpg "The Goal Rush (1946)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc6pncbmsPE) ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2020, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246/5 "2020-09-22T17:37:48Z")
I remember watching the Mighty Mouse show Saturday mornings when I was three or four (1958–59). My mother made up a Mighty Mouse costume for me to wear while I was watching it. I think Heckle and Jeckle were featured on the same show. I definitely remember watching their cartoons in the late '50s, but suspect I missed a lot of the jokes. I remember being scared of the villain on Mighty Mouse—I think he was kind of wolfish and wore a stovepipe hat? I think he was always kidnapping Mighty Mouse’s girlfriend … Mitzi? Even at my tender age, I thought she was one hot item! 🥰 I know I could easily look all this up on the Internet, but I’m curious as to how much I remember without Googling it. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2020, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246/6 "2020-09-22T18:26:25Z")
I read this biography of Paul Terry a year or so ago: [https://www.amazon.com/Terrytoons-Story-Classic-Cartoon-Factory/dp/0861967291](https://www.amazon.com/Terrytoons-Story-Classic-Cartoon-Factory/dp/0861967291) Terry knew he wasn’t Disney or Fleischer or even Walter Lantz, and was content to be the “bargain basement” studio. There was, indeed, a Heckle and Jeckyll show – I remember it. In fact, according to wikipedia there were several: > [@](#): > > _The Heckle and Jeckle Cartoon Show_ premiered on CBS on October 14, 1956, and aired until 1966. The show also included shorts starring other Terrytoons characters, including Little Roquefort and Percy the Cat, [Gandy Goose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandy_Goose), [Dinky Duck](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinky_Duck) and the Terry Bears.[[6]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckle_and_Jeckle#cite_note-Daytime-6) > > After a hiatus, the show moved to NBC in September 1969, and aired until September 4, 1971.[[5]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckle_and_Jeckle#cite_note-Woolery-5) > > _The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle_ premiered on CBS on September 8, 1979. The show featured newly-animated 11-minute magpie cartoons, in which the characters were not as abrasive as their theatrical personas. The hour-long show featured two _Heckle and Jeckle_ cartoons. The show was cut to a half-hour for the 1980-1981 season, and featured one _Heckle and Jeckle_ cartoon.[[5]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckle_and_Jeckle#cite_note-Woolery-5) Terrytoons eased into the TV era by making small cartoons that showed on things like _Captain Kangeroo_ – Tom Terrific (And the Mighty Manfred) – or in syndication (Deputy Dawg, Sydney the Elephant, Hector Heathcote, Hashimoto Mouse) I was shocked to learn that Paul terry, the founder, basically screwed his employees by selling the studio to CBS against his promises. Fortunately CBS kept the studio pretty much intact, and Gene Deitch (who did the Captain Kangaroo deals, and who just died last April) and Ralph Bakshi and others kept it going. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2020, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246/7 "2020-09-22T19:30:04Z")
> [@](#): > > See if you can find [ComiColor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ComiColor_Cartoons), they’re the ones who gave the world this bit of strangeness: Thanks for that. Boy, that Pincushion Man sure was a p…(uh, was that for kids? Because the position of his appendage, and the fact that he kept putting it in his mouth, sure was suggestive.) For sheer surrealism, it’s hard to beat some of Max Fleischer’s Betty Boop cartoons, especially the ones with Cab Calloway (which mention drug use). [Minnie the Moocher.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7VUU_VPI1E&feature=emb_rel_end), with Cab Calloway as a moon-walking ghost walrus. [Snow White,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKOSJ5AAwfc), which for some obscure reason includes the _St. James Infirmary Blues_ [The Old Man of the Mountain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2g6Mo5PIr4) ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2020, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246/8 "2020-09-22T19:34:44Z")
In '42, Fleischer Studios reorganized into [Famous Studios](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famous_Studios) – the parent company of Noveltoons. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246/9 "2020-09-23T03:02:40Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > For sheer surrealism, it’s hard to beat some of Max Fleischer’s Betty Boop cartoons Yow. I’d heard of Betty Boop; I’d seen, I think, a few drawings, none of which looked like anything I felt like looking further into. I had no idea how _weird_ those cartoons were. Thanks for posting. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246/10 "2020-09-23T04:03:56Z")
[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/5ysCS1NB0zE/hqdefault.jpg "Koko's Earth Control") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ysCS1NB0zE) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246/11 "2020-09-23T05:00:39Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I had no idea how _weird_ those cartoons were. Thanks for posting. [Betty Boop](https://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/DizzyDishes9.jpg) actually started out as a dog, Bimbo’s girlfriend. Eventually her ears evolved into hoop earrings. And all the Fleischer cartoons, including Koko the Clown and Bimbo, were pretty weird, especially before the Hays Code in 1934 put damper on all the sex, drugs, and jazz music. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246/12 "2020-09-23T12:06:11Z")
I didn’t realize it as a kid, but the song Koko (transmogrified into some kind of ghost thing) in the Betty Boop Snow White cartoon – “St. James Infirmary Blues” - is a lament about the singer’s lover who died, according to one source, of venereal disease. [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFBx3qYGxL8) > **[St. James Infirmary Blues](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._James_Infirmary_Blues)** > > "St. James Infirmary Blues" is an American blues song and jazz standard of uncertain origin. Louis Armstrong made the song famous in his 1928 recording on which Don Redman was credited as composer; later releases gave the name Joe Primrose, a pseudonym of Irving Mills. The melody is eight bars long, unlike songs in the classic blues genre, where there are 12 bars. It is in a minor key, and has a 44 time signature, but has also been played in 34. > "St. James Infirmary Blues", sometimes known as ... There are images of skeleton and gambling in the background, and, in one memorable shot, the singer’s head forms into a bottle and pours out a shot as it sings “booze”. All that just washed over my young ignorance and innocence, but it was pretty obvious when I started watching the cartoons in retrospectives as an adult. Great stuff, those surreal Fleischer cartoons. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246/13 "2020-09-23T13:48:58Z")
Those toons are so WEIRD! Does anyone know of an accessible analysis of why they were made as they were? Just seems so odd that that sort of surrealism would have been widely disseminated as part of mass entertainment. How did it work? You’d go the movies to see Clark Gable, and beforehand, would be subjected to either a surreal cartoon, or a newsreel? Wild! ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246/14 "2020-09-23T14:00:09Z")
When you can spare 78 minutes, watch this full-length animated feature. I saw it at a Sunday morning Kinder Cinema at the University of Wisconsin back in the '80s, and was blown away. (It was advertised as _ **Hoppity Goes to Town** _, so i was expecting a Hoppity Hooper cartoon. Was I ever wrong!) As you watch it, pay close attention to all the background details. The creativity of the Fleischer artists is astonishing. It’s also voiced by the legendary Stan Freed. [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-1b_B96P1Y) ---
**Author:** ![nofloyd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nofloyd/32/2870_2.png) [@nofloyd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nofloyd)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246/15 "2020-09-23T14:07:32Z")
Surrealism as a movement was popular from the 1920s - 1950s 60s? It prob would have been more familiar to audiences during the cartoon heyday than today. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246/16 "2020-09-23T14:08:30Z")
Surrealism has long been part of cartoons. It comes, I think, from artists doodling things to try and get the most provocative and attention-grabbing things they can. (I’ve seen this sort of thing with newspaper cartoonists and their sketch pads. It explains why you get outrageous and often non-canonical sight gags). All the studios did it at one time or another – Disney had that weird imagery in _Fantasia,_ had _Mickey in Wonderland_ (and later did Alice), and even collaborated with Salvador Dali (talk about surrealism) in an unreleased cartoon. Warner Brothers gave us _porky in Wackyland_ long before _Duck Amuck_ and similar cartoons, and Tex Avery was doing similar cartoons at MGM when he got there. And, of course, there’s the Heckle and Jeckyll Terrytoons cartoon _Power of Thought_, where they realize that they’re cartoon characters and can do anything. (This was excerpted in the movie **The Twilight Zone** in the “It’s a GOOD Life” segment). But the Fleischer brothers got into this in a much bigger way in their 1930s cartoons. I don’t know why. Maybe it was because they were an urban bunch then (this was when their studios were in New York City, before they moved to Florida), whereas a lot of Disney’s crop were graduates of the bucolic Kansas City Film Ad Company. Maybe it was the Fleischer’s wholesale embrace of Jazz and jazz performers (along with the darker undertones of jazz lyrics – see what I say about Snow White anbove), while Disney tended to be more mainstream. Even when they brought in jazz (MusicLand, Donald in Mathemagicland, toot, whistle, Plunk, and Boom) it was instrumental, without those weird lyrics. Warner brothers cartoons with Jazz (I Like to Singa and others) made up their own songs. Of course, Fleischers didn’t need jazz – they could get plenty weird without that for inspiration. Have a look at _Bimbo’s Initiation_ [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/F7T7fOXxMEk/hqdefault.jpg "GameQBit.com | Betty Boop - Bimbo's Initiation - 1931") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7T7fOXxMEk) ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246/17 "2020-09-23T15:15:43Z")
Thanks for the analysis, Cal. Just stuck me as different from the middle-of-the-road nature of so much that is intended for general consumption these days. The closest analogy that comes to mind is when a theater presents trailers that supposedly appeal to the audience that came to see the feature film. Often the trailers cause me to wonder what I’m in for in terms of the film. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246/18 "2020-09-23T17:04:55Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > There are images of skeleton and gambling in the background, and, in one memorable shot, the singer’s head forms into a bottle and pours out a shot as it sings “booze”. All that just washed over my young ignorance and innocence, but it was pretty obvious when I started watching the cartoons in retrospectives as an adult. The songs also refer to drug use. In particular, the lyrics to Minnie the Moocher includes; _She messed around with a bloke named Smokey_ _She loved him though was cokey_ _He took her down to Chinatown_ _And he showed her how to kick the gong around_ So Minnie’s coke-head boyfriend was taking her to visit opium dens in Chinatown (“kicking the gong around”). In [_Ha Ha Ha_](https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/08/16/watch-betty-boop-cartoon-banned-for-drug-use-1934-2/) Betty and Koko get high on nitrous oxide. > [@nofloyd](#): > > Surrealism as a movement was popular from the 1920s - 1950s 60s? It prob would have been more familiar to audiences during the cartoon heyday than today. The 1920s were a lot like the 1960s in breaking conventions in art, music, and culture. Surrealism was seen in mainstream movies like [Buster Keaton comedies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo7rQNyIBfw), like this [dream sequence in _Sherlock Jr._](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRXkAhMYKEc). There were also the phantasmagoric nightmares of German Expressionism, like [_The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari._](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkPdvRontMc) ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246/19 "2020-09-23T17:28:06Z")
Rejected by the British Board of Film Classification (then called the British Board of Film Censors), supposedly for making too much light of hell: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/DBytluF3gIU/maxresdefault.jpg "Betty Boop - Red Hot Mamma - 1934 HD") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBytluF3gIU) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246/20 "2020-09-23T17:41:17Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > But the Fleischer brothers got into this in a much bigger way in their 1930s cartoons. I don’t know why. Maybe it was because they were an urban bunch then (this was when their studios were in New York City, before they moved to Florida), whereas a lot of Disney’s crop were graduates of the bucolic Kansas City Film Ad Company. Maybe it was the Fleischer’s wholesale embrace of Jazz and jazz performers (along with the darker undertones of jazz lyrics – see what I say about Snow White anbove), while Disney tended to be more mainstream. Another jazz performer they featured was Louis Armstrong, in some of his earliest footage, as a giant floating head chasing Koko and Bimbo in [_I’ll Be Glad When You’re Done You Rascal You._](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPMhTQ08HJg) (Although the cartoon has racist imagery, this was standard for the time, and the Fleischers supported black musicians by including live footage even though this might get the cartoons banned in the South.) Fleischer was also a technical innovator. Although other cartoons had mixed animation and live footage earlier, he made it a trademark. And he invented the Rotoscope. In fact, the ghost walrus in _Minnie the Moocher_ is rotoscoped from Cab Calloway’s performance. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrytoons/921246.md?page=2)