This entry is part 18 of 29 in the series Nostalgic Showcase Presents

If you attended my Mid-Century Cartoons program earlier this year, you might have noticed a theme- there’s so much to discuss during that period of animation history! From the first wave of Saturday Morning Cartoons, to the different studios making cheap, limited animated shows, to the cultural history and background, I could make a whole series of programs based on this topic alone. Yet, when it came to the program, two studios came to mind, and for good reason. If it wasn’t for these two studios, the animation industry might have ceased to exist- at least, in the way that we view short form, episodic, children’s cartoons. From two sides of the USA, here’s the stories behind UPA and Terrytoons!

Disclaimer: Some of the shorts and films created by these studios may depict outdated and harmful stereotypes, messages and story lines.

Terrytoons

Silent Films and Cartoons

Roll the clocks back to 1916, a young Paul Terry is working for Bray Pictures on early experiments on this new thing called animation. He’s rubbing shoulders with other young entrepreneurs in this fresh industry, specifically Max and Dave Fleischer. He has to work for Bray Pictures because Bray has the copyright over cel animation, a type of animation method that uses clear celluloid sheets directly instead of drawing on animation paper, and Terry favors this method. While employed at Bray Pictures, Paul Terry creates Farmer Al Falfa, an animated character set in rural farming country filled with lively animals and wacky situations. In 1917, Terry would leave Bray Pictures, taking his character with him, and created Paul Terry Productions, where he would produce a handful of animated shorts, and one Farmer Al Falfa short, before enrolling in the US Army for World War 1.

When Paul Terry returned from the war in 1920, the animation industry was starting to be less experimental and more competitive. Partnering with Amedee J. Van Beuren and distribution provided by Pathé, Paul Terry’s second studio venture would be called Fable Studios. This studio produced mainly animation adaptions of various children’s fables and fairy tales, shorts that played alongside local news reels. The returning Farmer Al Falfa shorts would be popular enough for Fable Studios that over the next ten years, 191 original shorts would be produced featuring the character- all silent, all black-and-white, and mostly, lost media. Terry would be contracted by other smaller studios to produce animated shorts as well, continuing his Fables series and other fairytales for theaters. Meanwhile, Walt Disney just returned home from his stint in World War 1 in 1919, and started his first (short lived) animation studio in Kansas City producing similar fable-based animated films set in rural America. Both Disney and Terry would compete for similar audiences during these early years, but while Disney strived for quality and improvements, Terry leaned on quantity- producing one cartoon short every other week, practically unheard of.

Synchronized Sound and Technicolor Cartoons

1928. Synchronized sound has entered film, and animation studios are, for the most part, interested in experimenting with this new and developing technology. Fable Studios released Dinner Time (1928), one of the first animated shorts to be released with sound-on film technology, nationwide, one month before Disney’s Steamboat Willie. Yet, it would be Disney’s little short featuring Mickey Mouse, Minnie, Pete, and a hodgepodge of different musical animals, that made more of a cultural splash. Terry was aggravated with the outcome of Dinner Time, and when Van Beuren pushed for more cartoons with synchronized sound, Terry refused. This led to Van Beuren firing Terry from Fable Studios, and as result, Terry and his team left Van Beuren and Fable Studios, forming Terrytoons in 1929.

Unfortunately, this part of Terrytoons’ history is lesser known or written about. At this time, the studio is based in Long Island, New York, and moves numerous times around New York from 1930 through 1949. Their animated shorts, Farmer Al Falfa cartoons and adaptions of fables, are distributed by Educational Pictures from 1930 to 1935, with funding supplied by Fox Films. When Fox Films and 20th Century Pictures merged in 1935, forming 20th Century Fox, the company withdrew support from Educational Pictures, and focused on distributing the Terrytoons cartoons directly. In 1930, Van Beuren starts producing Farmer Al Falfa shorts without Paul Terry’s involvement; this is quickly shut down when Terry threatens to sue Van Beuren over copyright. Two characters spun off from Terry’s Farmer Al Falfa series in the 30s- Kiko the Kangaroo (featured in 10 shorts from 1936-1937) and Puddy the Pup (in 13 shorts from 1935-1942). In 1938, Terrytoons released its first technicolor cartoon String Bean Jack, long after Disney’s Flowers and Trees (1932); Terry wasn’t in a rush to adapt to the newest technologies, especially after he was burnt with sound-on film a decade prior. Paul Terry was famously quoted as saying “Disney is the Tiffany’s in this business, and I am the Woolworth’s”, and he was proud to produce cheaper shorts than anyone else in the industry. Later in 1938, Terry would sign a contract with home-movie distributor Castle Films to distribute his older cartoon shorts, while 20th Century Fox would continue to distribute and license the new shorts. Educational Pictures would go out of business later that year.

Funny Animals and Paul Terry’s Retirement

By the early 1940s, 20th Century Fox wanted more funny animal cartoons in theaters, and with the Farmer Al Falfa series crawling to an end (with only eight shorts produced from 1940 to 1956), Terry and his animation crew came up with an assortment of different star characters. This funny animal line-up would include Gandy Goose in Gandy the Goose (1938); Sourpuss the cat in The Owl and the Pussycat (1939), Dinky Duck in The Orphan Duck (1939); Super Mouse (later renamed Mighty Mouse) spoofing superhero shows common in radio and books, premiering in The Mouse of Tomorrow in 1942; and finally, comedy pair Heckle and Jeckle would join the line-up in 1946 in The Talking Magpies. In 1950, Little Roquefort, Terrytoons’ second mouse character, premiered on the silver screen in Cat Happy, and ending the line of funny animals, the mischievous Terry Bears pair would premiere in Tall Timber Tale (1951). These characters and their shorts would get mixed receptions- Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle would be adapted into television shows, comic books and merchandise, and became icons of Saturday Morning Cartoons, while the rest of the cast faded into obscurity.

Paul Terry had been in the animation industry since the mid-1910s and had been running his own studio since 1929. His animation team had produced in that time nearly a thousand animated original shorts, entertaining America and Britain over three decades and one World War. In 1955, after a lengthy career, Terry sold his Terrytoons studio to CBS, with 20th Century Fox still distributing shorts. This transference would also give CBS Terrytoons filmography of shorts, which they re-released in theaters into 1973 and on television blocks from the 1950s-1970s. The remaining Terrytoons crew would be managed by Gene Deitch, who was used to limited animation and tight budgets, and the animation department would produce Tom Terrific shorts for Captain Kangaroo. Other notable characters and shows produced during Deitch’s tenure at Terrytoons would be Sidney the Elephant, Gaston Le Crayon, John Doormat, and Clint Clobber. In 1959, Bill Weiss would join Terrytoons, Deitch would be fired, and Weiss would gain complete control over the studio. In the 1960s, Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle would return in a couple different Saturday Morning Cartoon shows produced by Filmation, and Terrytoons produced original content, like Deputy Dawg (1960-1964) and James Hound (1966-1967). Some animated shows produced by Terrytoons during this period would start as theatrical releases, and then go on to syndication on television.

In 1956, a young Ralph Bakshi is hired on the Terrytoons studio, cleaning off dust and fingerprints from the cels. A few months later, he would be promoted to a cel painter, but he wanted to be an animator for Terrytoons. During the back end of the 50s, he honed his animation skills with help from Connie Rasinski, Manny Davis, Jim Tyer, Larry Silverman, and Johnnie Gentilella, established animators at the studio. Bakshi would run up the ranks of the animation department, becoming an in-between animator, a layout artist, and finally promoted to a director in 1963. In 1965, his first animated series Sad Cat premiered in theaters, but he would lose the rights to the character and concept when he left Terrytoons in 1967. Bakshi would go on to create some of the rawest and original animated features of the 70s and 80s, reflecting underground culture and the underbelly of US society… Terrytoons would slow production down to a crawl, leaning heavily on syndication of their popular shows. CBS closed Terrytoons studio officially in 1973.

What Happened to the Cartoons?

As a result of the FCC banning TV networks from owning cable television and syndication of television programs, CBS created Viacom Enterprises to handle all network programs beyond TV production and network broadcasting, including all of the Terrytoons cartoons produced under CBS. In 1971, Viacom spun off from CBS, and neither business had interest in the Terrytoons. 20th Century Fox still had distribution rights for the cartoons, but the television rights to the cartoons would be sold to USA Network in 1989. In the late 1970s, FIlmation would pick up the licensing rights to bring back Heckle and Jeckle and Mighty Mouse for a series, producing The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle from 1979 to 1980. Seven years later Ralph Bakshi would return to the world of Mighty Mouse with newcomer animator John Kricfalusi with the short-lived Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures (1987-1988). John Kricfalusi, known in the industry as John K., would go on create Spümcø with Lynne Taylor, Bob Camp and Jim Smith in 1988.

In 1994, Fox 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. Unfortunately, the licensing rights, theatrical distribution and syndication have crossed hands numerous times over the past thirty years, leading to a massive headache trying to unravel who owns the rights to each short, each character, and each franchise created by Terrytoons over its forty-five years of active production. Many cartoons have been lost in the dust, lapsed into the public domain, or forgotten by history. The oldest cartoons Paul Terry produced are, for the most part, gone. As a hobbyist animation historian, it’s almost painful to see how many of these cartoons, no matter how low the quality, have become lost media through the past century or locked in a vault because the companies that own the rights don’t see the point in a wide release. In 2010, the first and (as of the writing of this article) only official release of Terrytoons materials by CBS was the complete series of Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures on DVD; any past releases were on VHS in the ’90s. You can find some of the remaining Terrytoons cartoons on sites like the Internet Archive, but without interest from CBS/Paramount/Viacom, we may never see these wonderfully hilarious and entertaining shows again on syndicated television.

United Pictures of America

Animators Strike for Experimental Animation

1941, Burbank, California. A group of Disney animators and staff decide to go on strike, for a variety of reasons, but mainly because of inequities of pay and privileges within the company, wanting to be a part of a union, and the realistic style of animation Disney was pushing for. Animation produced at Disney had been leaning more into realism after Snow White, and Walt Disney himself was becoming more interested in live action films, documentaries, and the beginnings of his “theme park project”. It was clear that if you wanted to be more free creatively in the cartoons and produce shorts and movies with wild expressions, poses, and styles- Disney would not be the place to work. Ultimately, this protest worked and Walt Disney Studios would sign a contract with the Screen Cartoonist’s Guild later that same year, but it also led to one of the biggest lay-offs at Disney at that point; various artists, animators, and story writers that would go on to create bigger and more impressive portfolios and resumes after their careers ended at Disney.

For David Hilberman, Zack Schwartz and Steve Bosustow, three animators at Disney, being fired because of the strike was the fuel they needed to make their own studio, Industrial Film and Poster Service. The goal of the studio was simple; create animated shorts that were different stylistically and artistically than anything produced by other studios at the time. This meant experimenting with limited animation, fluid animation, perspective, character design, differing frame rates, color palettes, and different soundtracks, songs and voice actors. But first, they needed to get some funding. World War II propaganda could be produced quickly in the animation medium, and while Warner Bros had Private Snafu and Disney had Donald Duck fighting for the Allied Forces… Industrial Film and Poster Service would be contracted to produce Hell-Bent for Election in 1944. This short film would double as an advertisement for FDR’s re-election during the war. Like most animation studios during this era, this funding helped the studio float during the war and saved animators and artists from being drafted into the war, instead creating shorts that could entertain and motivate soldiers on the war front. Following the completion of Hell-Bent for Election, Industrial Film and Poster Service would change their name to United Productions of America, or UPA for short. In the second half of the 1940s, McCarthyism struck Hollywood, and the US Government started to sever ties with Hollywood; while this didn’t directly impact UPA’s work or any of the artists employed at the studio, it did mean that they needed to pivot into a different demographic.

UPA’s Tenure into Theatrical Cartoons

We return, yet again, to the theatrical short cartoon. Columbia Pictures was looking for a new group of artists and animators to replace their Screen Gems studio, which, despite owning the rights to numerous characters like Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Krazy Kat and Scrappy, was falling far behind the other animation studios at the time. The amount of studios producing animated shorts for theaters was overwhelming, and it was necessary to create something unique that could stand out enough against Warner Bros’ popular Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series and MGM’s Tom and Jerry shorts, and Disney’s feature animated films. The world was still grieving over the atrocities of World War II and cartoons could provide a form of escapism and comedy when audiences needed it the most. UPA reached out to Columbia Pictures for a contract, and it was a perfect fit. The animation studio picked up production on Screen Gems’ Fox and Crow series, with two shorts nominated for an academy award. Although these shorts – Robin Hoodlum (1948) and The Magic Fluke (1949) – were stylistically more similar to a Looney Tunes cartoon, UPA’s experimental style, spearheaded by John Hubley, started to take form.

UPA would get their first big assignment from Columbia Pictures following the two nominations: create an original character. The cartoon market was overwhelmed with funny animal cartoons, so UPA came up with a human character- the nearsighted, crotchety, old Mr. Magoo. He would make his premiere in Ragtime Bear (1949) and his popular expanded in the coming decade, starring in fifty-seven theatrical shorts. Dr. Seuss, writer and artist, had been working in the animation industry during the wartime, creating eccentric poems for the Private Snafu shorts. He had produced a record about a boy who didn’t speak with words but with sounds instead, perfect for an animated short. With Columbia Pictures funding and distributing UPA’s shorts, they picked up the rights to Suess’ rhyming story and adapted it into Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950). Gerald McBoing-Boing would earn UPA’s first Academy award, followed by two Mr. Magoo shorts, When Magoo Flew (1954) and Magoo’s Puddle Jumper (1956). From 1949 to 1959, UPA’s animated shorts would receive a total of fifteen Academy Award nominations, all for Best Animated Short Films.

In the 1950s, UPA would continue to produce some experimental short films, although their main focus was on producing Mr. Magoo cartoons. Shorts like Rooty Toot Toot (1951), is a jazzy retelling of a fictious court case full of scandal; The Tell-Tale Heart (1953) is an atmospheric and dark adaption of Edgar Allen Poe’s short story; and, The Unicorn in the Garden (1953) is a hilarious parable on believing others no matter how crazy they sound. Meanwhile, they helped produce public safety announcements (like 1952’s Man Alive! Seven Signs of Danger) and commercials (1955’s Kia-Ora Suncrush). UPA’s best animated shorts were iconic, eye-catching, unique, and became synonymous with Mid-Century cartoons.

So, what happened to UPA?

Tune in to Television

1957. William Hanna and Joseph Barbera just formed Hanna-Barbera, an animation production studio. Creators of the Tom and Jerry cartoons for MGM, Hanna and Barbera wanted to experiment with limited animation and create cartoons for television, which had just become widely available across the USA. Partially inspired by UPA’s work on Mr. Magoo, which balanced basic re-used animation with design-heavy contrasting backgrounds, Hanna-Barbera created and premiered The Ruff and Reddy Show on December 14, 1957. In the following year, their biggest breakout characters – Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Boo-Boo, Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinks, premiered in The Huckleberry Hound Show. The Flintstones would premiere two years after that, in 1960, and was swiftly followed by a multitude of different animated shows covering a wide range of genres, age groups, and IPs, solidifying Hanna-Barbera’s long-lasting legacy as the kings of Saturday Morning Cartoons.

Meanwhile, UPA had tried, attempted, and failed, at bringing Gerald McBoing-Boing to the silver screen, in The Boing-Boing Show (1956-1957), considered lost media with only a handful of segments released on VHS. Mr. Magoo‘s made-for-television shorts did better, lasting from 1960-1965, and UPA produced an animated adaption of Dick Tracy, but had to deal with a tighter budget and more rigid deadlines. Once reveled for their creativity and inventive cartoons, UPA started to lose the one thing that made their shorts stand out – originality. Bigger studios started to shut down their animation departments, commissioning studios overseas to produce original content for television- and UPA was on the cutting block. In a last ditch effort to keep the animation studio going, two full feature animated pictures were produced by UPA- 1001 Arabian Nights (1959) featuring Mr. Magoo and original Gay Purr-ee (1962), written by Chuck Jones and heavily inspired by expressionist paintings. Just as Fleischer Studios had ended with a whimper, UPA had fallen far from the limelight, its competition excelling in the exact things that made the studio stand out just a decade prior. In 1970, Columbia Pictures shut down UPA’s animation studio, leaving it with a small distribution branch, and UPA’s complete filmography rights given to Columbia Pictures. UPA would continue to live as a distributer for live action kaiju (monster) films by Toho Studios in Japan, a far cry from their original mission, and would be known as Toho’s only distributer until 2017.

If you’ve read my article on Harvey Comics/Famous Studios, you might know how this story ends. Columbia Pictures sold the TV cartoon library licensing rights to Classic Media, which was then sold to DreamWorks Animation in 2012, which was then acquired by NBCUniversal in 2016. Works not produced under Columbia Picture’s contracts remain owned by the initial distribution companies (Gay Purr-ee, for example, is owned by Warner Bros.) These transfers of copyrighted films are fantastic- if done correctly. Thankfully, Classic Media have released the Mr. Magoo shorts into multiple DVD and VHS sets, allowing them to be loved and shared for years to come. In 1997, Mr. Magoo would be adapted into a forgettable live action film, which was a critical and commercial flop starring Leslie Neilson; Gerald McBoing-Boing would return again to television in his own original show, on Cartoon Network, from 2005 to 2007. For animation fans, like myself, UPA’s iconic style continues to be seen, in the visual language of modern cartoons, creative stories and unique soundtracks… all because of a union strike in 1941.

Alright folks, I hope you enjoyed stepping back in time and revisiting these iconic studios of yesteryear! A special thanks to those who have showed up to my live programs; writing these often feels like I’m writing into the abyss, but seeing and hearing your positive feedback makes all the work worthwhile. Have a great day, and watch vintage cartoons!

Check back next month for a very special entry in the Nostalgic Showcase Presents series!