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Chapter 14: The Terry-fying Challenge
Flebus Flebus was created by Ernie Pintoff, another new talent I had recruited. He came in from UPA Hollywood. He originally called the character "Willy," but I didn't think that name funny enough. On my way to work one day I heard a talk on my car radio about the disease, Phlebitis. Never having suffered from the pain of that ailment, I thought the word was funny, and suggested the name Flebus as a funny and original non-sequiter name. Ernie suddenly left the studio while the film was still in the early pencil test stage, so I had to take over and finish it according to the color models Ernie had left. Jim Tyer did some of the funniest animation in the film, and of course it was a totally new image for Terrytoons. Weiss hated it.
Ernie was a "Rara Avis" in the Terrytoons studio. He had little to talk about with the majority of the old guard, and pretty much kept to himself in his little director's cubicle.
He always had his trumpet with him at work, and would play the blues, while waiting for inspiration. Of course I didn't care how crazy or other-worldly he seemed to the older animators. What was important to me was the new breath of creativity he brought to the place. One animator with whom he bonded, and who caught the challenge Ernie presented, was Jim Tyer. Jim did the key animation on Flebus.
I was saddened when Ernie suddenly decided to leave. I took over the Flebus project, and even over Bill Weiss's dead body I was determined to see it brought to completion just as Ernie had laid it out. I still feel it was one of our landmark productions at CBS-Terrytoons (1957).
It was the CBS name and image that drew me to take up the offer to join Terrytoons, One of my first jobs after WWII was as assistant art director at CBS Radio in Hollywood. They had a magnificently modern building, and the highest graphic standards in the business, guided by their great art director, William Golden, designer of the famous CBS-eye logo. I was proud to work for CBS. I had always held them in awe. Times change, and they let me down at Terrytoons, siding with Weiss, a man of the past, rather than with the promise of the future I was building for them.
With the mighty CBS backing us, we were easily in a position to be ready for the possibility of prime time animation when the time came. We coulda bin a contendah, with something on the level of The Simpsons. We actually had in preparation, at the time of my ouster in 1958, a brilliant serial being worked up by Jules Feiffer. It was about a group of tiny kids with large perceptions, forty years in advance of The Rugrats. I was a great fan of ragtime music, and had a ragtime musical theme planned for them, so I named the serial after a Scott Joplin piece, The Easy Winners. But as with me at that moment, it was a loser - a great loss for the development of TV animation. I don't say this with any satisfaction at all, but Terrytoons did decline and die, perhaps for a variety of reasons... "apres moi."
In 1958 Jules Feiffer drew a marvellous gag storyboard for a "documentary on the aging Tom Terrific." I rescued it from his Terrytoons office wall. It has never before been published, and I present it here for the first time.
ICXbEx
gtHxTsM
Though your tenure at Terrytoons was not commercially successful, I think you did succeed in making some ground-breaking films. I remember seeing some of your Terrytoons with Clint Clobber, John Doormat, Sidney and others on cable well over a decade ago and I wish I could see them again. ("Another Day Another Doormat" I remember being particularly good.)It's a shame old treasures like these are not preserved on video or DVD. Maybe someday we'll all be pleasantly surprised.
Wow, I can thank you at last.
I grew up in Victoria BC, the usual Saturday morning cartoon fan.
I watched a LOT of cartoons, like most of my generation. There is none that comes close for me to John Doormat. I remember seeing two of them and howling through them. I've never seen them since and would buy them if I could.
You're a flipping genius mate.
Cheers
John deBoer
I GREW UP WITH ALL THE GREAT CARTOONS FROM THE LATE 50'S AND UP. I STILL LOOK FOR ANY OF YOUR WORK TERRY TO SHOW MY KIDS. BELIEVE IT OR NOT THE WATCH IT MORE THAN THE JUNK THEY MAKE TO DAY. IT'S HAD TO FIND ALOT OF THE OLD CARTOONS UP HERE IN BOOKS OR VIDEOS, SO WHEN I FIND THEM I GET THEM TO SAVE FOR THE FUTURE. I DO ALOT OF VOL. WORK AT 3 SCHOOLS AND I TRY TO REINTRODUCE THE OLDIES TO THE CHILDREN. DON'T EVER STOP MAKING THE CLASSICS,AND IN MY EYES YOU NEVER FAILED IN YOUR WORK. THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU HAVE DONE.
When I was 4 years old, I believed that *I* was Tom Terrific and could change into any shape and be anything I wanted to be. Your Tom Terrific cartoon was a wonderful gift to the world, and sparked the budding imaginations of countless children. I would love to see it again, how??
Just another Tom Terrific lover, chiming in. He's one of my fondest memories of childhood.
Jim
TOM TERRIFIC WAS APTLY NAMED, SINCE IT'S ONE OF THE MOST UNUSUAL, MOST ORIGINAL, MOST CLEVER CARTOONS EVER PRODUCED. THE OPAQUE CHARACTERS, THE VERBAL PUNS, THE MINIMALIST MUSICAL SCORE, AND THE "SERIAL" PACKAGE ALL ADDED UP TO ANIMATED NIRVANA. THE MIGHTY MANFRED WAS A WONDERFUL, LOVABLE SIDEKICK (AND CUNNING COMIC RELIEF), AND DO-BADDIE CRABBY APPLETON EVEN INSPIRED A SUCCESSFUL ROCK BAND OF THE SAME NAME. THANK HEAVENS NOBODY'S EVER MESSED WITH "TOM TERRIFIC"!! HE'S ONE OF THE ALARMINGLY FEW CARTOON STARS WHO HASN'T BEEN DEGRADED IN THE HANDS OF A NEW STUDIO OR A NEW CAMPAIGN. YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MESS WITH PERFECTION!!!
My first animating stint was on TOM TERRIFIC, Gene, and what a pleasure it was working with you and Connie Rasinski, Bob Kuwahara, and Jim Tyer directing. I pass the old Terrytoons building nearly every day here in New Rochelle...(it's now a huge fresh fruit and veggie outlet)...and I swear that on some beautiful terrific days I can hear Tom saying..."You're TERRIFIC, Manfred !!!" And Manfred of course responds, "No...YOU'RE TERRIFIC, TOM".
45 years later, I'm still animating, and I can't think of another character that I enjoyed working on quite as much as TOM.
Thanks for letting the world know about Bill Weiss. When I'd been working at TERRYTOONS for eight years, out of a clear blue sky (I had finished my animation apprenticeship and was due to be classified a "master animator" with a $30 dollar a week raise to $176...) he fired me on an overcast Thanksgiving Eve. What a thoughtful, considerate, wonderful guy !!!
It was a pleasure and an inspiraton working with you, Gene....and altho Eli, and Connie and Bob and Jim and Lars and Artie Bartsch are gone, I'm so glad to see that YOU are -- not only still around, but still full of the fire and enthusiasm of old.
Thanks, Gene !
"So it was just another failure..." TOM TERRIFIC? Never. That sentence cannot stand. Not in ANY context. Granted, in a just world, the character would be referred to as "Gene Deitch's TOM TERRIFIC," and Mr. Deitch would be receiving royalties from Viacom's extensive but tasteful exploitation and licensing of the character in new cartoons, vidcassettes, dvds, t-shirts, graphic novels and off-broadway musical. Believe me, though the world seems to be run by the descendents of Bill Weiss and Crabby Appleton, TOM TERRIFIC was no failure. Not possible. No way. I mean no disrespect, but please delete the sentence; it is misleading, offensive and disturbing in its inaccuracy.
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