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 That sent stations looking for any available animated material, and syndicators snapping up TV rights for out-of-date shorts from movie studios which, with an incredible lack of foresight, were aghast at having anything to do with television, and let other companies rake in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).

A Terry Transformation

There’s some interesting morphing animation at the start of Bluebeard’s Brother, a 1932 Terrytoon.

A sometimes cross-eyed spider has killed his girl-friend. Since it’s a Terrytoon, she’s a mouse. As he growls to himself about the death, he turns into her. These are consecutive drawings.



Later, during a goofy walk cycle, he turns into a judge.



Frank Moser and Paul Terry got screen credits, but word is Bill Tytla is responsible for animating this odd scene. In fact, the whole cartoon is strange and seems to be about bats attaching a circus, and the deranged spider (Bluebeard’s brother?) kidnapping a girl fly. Only a TV print is available and it seems two minutes was cut for television.

Regardless, it’s worth seeing so you can ask “What did I just watch?” when it’s over.

Charlie Judkins tells me Terry voiced the spider.

Tomorrow on Tralfaz, a different Bluebeard.

How a Cat Wakes Up

Percy the cat is either awoken by the sound of Little Roquefort mixing a cake or Phil Scheib’s repetitious hippity-hop background music in Pastry Panic (1951).

Because Jim Tyer is at work here, Percy is roused like no other sleepy cat. First, his ear goes up, grows and shakes. The remaining drawings follow, ending in a shock take.



There’s more typical Tyer later in the cartoon, where body parts stretch like a balloon being pulled.

Manny Davis is the director and Tommy Morrison came up with the story with a sentimental ending which I liked.

Hey, I've Got a Gag

One of the big baseball stories of 1946-47, besides Jackie Robinson breaking the race barrier, was the attempt by the Mexican League to raid the majors of its players.

That was considered cartoon fodder for John Foster, who wrote Mexican Baseball for Terrytoons as a vehicle for that lovable two-some, Gandy Goose and Sourpuss.

And, in his own way, Foster conducted a raid of his own, lifting a joke from Mike Maltese at Warner Bros.

Warners had its own baseball cartoon, Baseball Bugs, released on February 2, 1946. In it, the Gashouse Gorillas smack the ball to the sound of “Ahi Viene La Conga,” then director Friz Freleng cuts to a conga line.



Mexican Baseball was released more than a year later, on March 14, 1947. Foster had loads of time to borrow the gag, with Phil Scheib providing a conga tune as the Mexican bulls bat around.



One thing the Terry cartoon has the Warners’ cartoon doesn’t is Sid Raymond voicing a number of parts.

Fans of the Terry Splash™ will not be disappointed in this cartoon.

Tendlar and Betty

In 1950, a local newspaper staff writer named Erma Bombeck told readers about alumni artists from Stivers High School in Dayton. First on the list was Milt Caniff. Second was an animator by the name of Dave Tendlar.

Tendlar’s career in animator stretched more than 50 years. He was cartooning a little before that. The Dayton Daily News of March 14, 1926 mentions he had been drawing for the student newspaper. A 1925 story mentions he was musically inclined, but didn’t state what instrument he played in the Stivers Orchestra.

His father was a tailor and by 1930 had moved the family to the Bronx, where the elder Tendlar was in the fur business. The Census that year lists Tendlar’s occupation as “cartoonist, movie.” He told the late Jim Korkis, quoted on Cartoon Research: “I started at Fleischer as a painter [in 1927]. It was opaqueing, but now they call it painting. I was there a very short time but they reorganized Fleischers so I went to Krazy Kat for a couple of years. And then I went back to Fleischer as an animator.” There was also a stop at the John McCrory studio in between.

Tendlar’s first screen credit was on the Betty Boop/Bimbo short Crazy-Town (copyrighted 1931 but released in 1932). He followed the Fleischers to and from Miami, where he was president of the Flippers social club (the club had a 40-page magazine called Flip. Oh, if copies survived!).

He was part of the staff when Fleischers became Famous. Evidently, he left the studio briefly, then returned, as the 1950 Census records him as “cartoonist, novelty films.” He was back at Famous that year. When Gene Deitch arrived at Terrytoons, Tendlar was hired to work for him. Near the end of the 1960s, he had moved west where he worked for Filmation and then Hanna-Barbera, where he was picked to train new animators, among other duties.

In 1936, the Dayton Herald announced he was coming to town to visit friends. The Daily News followed up with a story about him in its August 7, 1936 edition. He talks about the changes in Betty Boop's design.

Comic Movie Artist on Visit
David Tendlar, native of Dayton, but now one of the most interesting of the commercial artists in New York is home on a visit to family and former haunts. And with him is Mrs. Tendlar on her first visit.
Tendlar is the leading artist of a group of animators for the “Betty Boop” and “Pop-Eye” cartoons, seen in the movies. He spends a full working day either drawing one of the characters, depending upon which one is in production at the New York studios of Max Fleischer.

When interviewed at the Biltmore where he is domiciled while in Dayton, Tendlar, personable, jolly and interesting, said that the making of an animated cartoon such as those he works on was a great job. “An artist makes about four and one-half feet a day,” said he; “that is all he can do. The average visual length of a completed film is about six minutes on the screen. Ninety feet of film pass in one minute, so you see the cartoon is about 550 feet in length. Each move is a frame, and each frame is a separate shot for the photographer, and that makes more shots than one could figure up in a few moments.
“We sketch our figures on thin paper, and the first move is placed on another piece of paper, and so on and on. A bright electric light bulb is under our sketching desk, and in that way we watch the progress of the figure across the screen.
“The figures are then placed on transparent celluloid and colored, as the background is stationary for each scene, only the figures are changed.
“About 10,000 separate sketches are made for each cartoon,” and with that amazing statement Mr. Tendlar was asked to sketch the figures of the famous Betty and also Pop-Eye, Olive and Wimpy in the interviewers book which he did. Said the artist, “We have lots of fun with Pop-Eye, and we can make these figures do anything, fall down, hit each other, and indulge in all sorts of slap-stick comedy, hut it is different with Betty. She is always dignified. She must never fall, never be treated too roughly, and for that reason she is a very difficult character.”
Eagerly the idea to include Betty’s missing garter was made, but it seems that the censors preferred to have Betty eliminate that obsolete piece of apparel, and also to observe that the fashion trend was for an added inch or so on her skirt length, and so that is the reason why Betty flirts a longer skirt.
Tendlar went to Stivers high school, and was interested in art always. When quite a youngster he admits that he went in for cartooning and copying all sorts of pictures, and chose the wall paper (on the wall) for “bigger and broader fields.” Martha Schauer was the teacher of art at Stivers, and encouraged Tendler and Milton Caniff, also a Stivers student, when they sketched for the Stivers paper. Caniff lives in New York.
The first visit of Tendlar in some years is finding him visiting various places which he remembers most happily. For instance, Thursday afternoon was to be spent at Lakeside park and the Soldiers home. Tendlar wanted to see the lake, and the spots in Lakeside park in which he remembered having good times.
Max Fleischer owns Betty Boop, and has been making cartoons with this character for eight years, also with Pop-Eye, although the character is copyrighted by someone else.
Saturday Mr. and Mrs. Tendlar will complete a number of social gatherings which have feted them during the week of their visit in Dayton, and will then return to New York to start work on several technicolor cartoons.

Tendlar was 84 when he died in Los Angeles on September 8, 1993.

Horning in on a Gag

Here’s a stretch in-between drawing from the Little Roquefort cartoon, No Sleep For Percy (1955). The mouse is trying to jar himself loose after Percy the cat rolled up a car window, with Little Roquefort’s head stuck at the top.



The mouse lands on the horn. The sound is pretty weak, at least on versions of the cartoon in circulation. Maybe they didn’t want to drown out Phil Scheib’s atypical score.



The horn is evidently loud enough to wake Percy. Here are random frames of Jim Tyer’s spasmatic animation. Heads that shrink and expand (and do it several times for emphasis), expanded fuzzy fur, eyes that are different sizes, it’s all here.



Percy gets up to chase after the mouse. The cat’s butt is on the ground. Tyer gives him impossible anatomy.



This is just in case theatre audiences mistook this for Tom and Jerry.



This was the final cartoon with Little Roquefort and Percy. Connie Rasinski was the sole director for well over a year and a half and new characters, like Good Deed Daily, were being tried out. Paul Terry hadn’t sold out to CBS yet, but when that happened, Gene Deitch came in to run the creative part of the studio, and another set of new characters arrived.

Jim Tyer is Nuts

Can we all agree on this?

Here is Exhibit A: the third scene from the 1951 Terrytoon The Cat's Tale. He animates the first scene of the cat getting chased by mice. It's got frizzy tails and weird shapes that only Tyer would do.

Then his animation gets crazier as the cat frantically seals the door to his cave home to stop the mice from getting in. Look at the angles. They're insane.



Tyer animates parts of this scene on ones, so there’s no penny-pinching going on.

That’s not all. The next scene features weird pupil shapes as the cat pushes his head toward the camera. And there’s Tyer smear animation.



Tyer wasn't credited on this cartoon. None of the animators were until Paul Terry sold his studio and Gene Deitch was hired in 1956. Good for you, Gene!