Prime Time Terry

Animated cartoons on prime time television?

You can go back to the early 1930s to find them. In the late 1940s, as television expanded beyond nine stations, ancient cartoons (including Van Beurens in the public domain, and silents with newly-added stock music) were put on the schedule and lapped up by kiddies. That sent stations looking for any available animated material, and syndicators snapping up TV rights for out-of-date shorts from movie studios which, with an incredible lack of foresight, were aghast at having anything to do with television, and let other companies rake in profits from their shelved, black-and-white cartoons.

However, one independent producer saw money, money, money in television. He was Paul Terry.

There’s a real irony. Terry once said he was the Woolworth’s of the animation; Disney was the Tiffany. So what did he do? He struck a deal with television’s self-proclaimed Tiffany network—CBS. First, he sold TV rights to a number of his old shorts that began turning up on the Barker Bill Show twice weekly beginning in November 1953. Then the network concocted the Mighty Mouse Playhouse, starting December 10, 1955. About two weeks later, Terry sold his entire studio and its cartoons to CBS for just under $5,000,000.

The question at 485 Madison Avenue became this: what should we do with all these cartoons?

The answer was to get the most out of their investment by plopping the cartoons in prime time. And they found a job for a chap who had begun hosting CBS’ The Morning Show on July 18, 1955 only to be replaced the following February 17—Dick Van Dyke.

His hiring made the press around May 14, 1956 and the show debuted on Wednesday, June 13, 1956 over some of the CBS television network, 7:30 p.m. in New York and 6:30 in Los Angeles (the show was not cleared on WBBM-TV in Chicago).

The programming department at CBS decided to put Cartoon Theatre up against the most venerated name in animation—Tiffany himself, Walt Disney. While Disneyland wasn’t a cartoon show, the Terry shorts (sorry, fans) looked pretty shabby next to Uncle Walt’s.

Here’s Variety’s review of the debut show, published June 20.

CBS CARTOON THEATRE
With Dick Van Dyke
Producer: Michel M. Grilikhes
Director: Howard T. Maywood
Writer: Bill Gammie
30 Mins., Wed., 7:30 p.m.
Sustaining
CBS-TV (film)
With Walt Disney obviously still a problem to CBS on Wednesday nights, Columbia decided on a try at fighting fire with fire. Having acquired 1,100 of Paul Terry’s cartoons in its purchase of Terrytoons, Inc. last fall, the network decided to collect them into half-hour form with Dick Van Dyke, ex of the ex-“Morning” show, as host and integrator.
Show, tabbed the “CBS Cartoon Theatre,” was installed last week with the hope that it might latch onto a sponsor and become a regular entry for the fall, thus relieving the CBS program and sale boys of a major headache (“Brave Eagle” ran in the same time slot all last season as a sustainer). Well, the program boys and salesmen will just have to take another Bromo—“Cartoon Theatre” just doesn't have it.
First off, the cartoons themselves weren’t particularly good—certainly not Terry’s best. Of the four, one was okay—the “Heckle & Jeckle” a weakie, the Dinky Duck” a bore and the “Gandy Goose” rather dull. Not a very good selection, even if Terry’s “Mighty Mouse” character can’t be used because it’s the basis of another CBS show.
But even assuming that there’s better fare available in the huge library, the show’s troubles aren’t over by a long shot. Van Dyke integrates the sequences in an unusual manner—but it doesn’t come off. He’s filmed in front of a tv set, and converses with the animated characters as they appear on the screen. But both the dialog and the business are strained; Dyke looks and feels uncomfortable and rather silly. So it boils down to a question not only of content but of format, with an entire revamp in order, if “Cartoon Theatre” is to make it through the summer, let alone into the fall. Chan.

The review in Broadcasting-Telecasting of July 2 isn’t too favourable, but the anonymous writer is evidently not as much of a Tom and Jerry fan as he or she thought.

CBS CARTOON THEATRE
AS LIGHT (and lightweight) summer fare, CBS-TV's newest venture into cartoonland is not likely to create any stir around network quarters or any qualms in the Disneyland camp.
Its June 20 CBS Cartoon Theatre offered viewers a group of Paul Terry cartoons, including Gandy Goose, Heckel and Jeckel [sic], plus those two delightful hellions, Tom and Jerry, pieced together with pattern by Dick Van Dyke. He commented on the authenticity of historical characters, inserted a plug for The Adventures of Robin Hood (also a CBS-TV series) and gave water safety tips for the small fry. Mr. Van Dyke has a pleasant and smooth manner about him which, far from being condescending, appears a bit too lofty for the juvenile audience.
Slated opposite ABC-TV's full-hour Disneyland for the summer, Cartoon Theatre is not apt to win many viewers during the 7:30-8 p:m. slot, any more than Arthur Godfrey is during the second half of Disneyland. Nor is it likely to influence advertisers (Cartoon Theatre is aired on a limited CBS-TV network, sustaining). It's hard to envision it as a tv staple.
This reviewer, an old Tom & Jerry fan, concedes that cartoons are popular, but isn't there a glut of them on tv already? And don't they belong on local stations instead of in prime network time?
Production costs (gross): $25,000.
Telecast June 20 by CBS-TV, 7:30-8 p.m. (EDT), sustaining.
Announcer: Dick Van Dyke; producer: Michael Grilikhes; director: Howard Magwood; writer: Bill Dammie.

While the show was intended as a summer replacement, it still had life after leaving prime time. It was given a more appropriate time slot. The series was replaced on the Wednesday night schedule with a news-quiz show hosted by Walter Cronkite.

Variety of September 5 filled in its readers.

Tootsie to Roll With CBS Cartoons
“CBS Cartoon Theatre," which has been riding the Wednesday night 7:30-8 spot as a sustainer but must make way for the Westinghouse election-themed “Pick the Winner" and subsequently the General Mills “Giant Step" quizzer, has found a new home and a sponsor to boot. CBS-TV is moving the show to Sunday at 1 p. m., starting in October, and Tootsie Roll is coming in as alternate-week sponsor.
Series is being retitled “Heckle & Jeckle," after the magpie characters of the Terrytoons cartoon series, and will also be televised in color, since the cartoons themselves were originally filmed in tint. Tootsie, incidentally, picked up half of “Tales of the Texas Rangers” last week, hence the alternate-week by on “Heckle," but CBS is reportedly close to another sponsorship deal on the show. Tootsie Roll is also using the Terrytoons facility in New Rochelle for its new animated commercials as well.

The last Cartoon Theatre aired September 12.

Van Dyke didn’t accompany the show to Sundays. Variety announced on November 21 that he would be a panellist on a new CBS game show, Nothing But the Truth. He was dumped after five shows. (The person who really got screwed was the man Goodson-Todman wanted to host it: Walter Cronkite. After a programming conflict stopped Mike Wallace from being the emcee when the show debuted as To Tell the Truth, the network told Cronkite that it was against CBS policy for him to appear on an entertainment programme {New York Times, Dec. 10, 1956}. Days later, Bud Collyer was hired for the job).

As for cartoon-starved kids, there was still something for them on Wednesdays, at least in New York. WABD had Warners cartoons from 6:30 to 7, and WOR-TV aired Crusader Rabbit from 7 to 7:30. And Uncle Walt still held court at 7:30 on the ABC network (on Sept. 19, with an animated documentary on the history of the cat, including Lambert, the Sheepish Lion).