Paul Terry, born Feb. 19, 1897 in San Franscisco, California,
saw a presentation of of Winsor McCay's Gertie the Dinosaur and became fascinated.
Soon afterward, Terry started working for the New York Press as an illustrator.
Here he developed his first film character called Little Herman,
which he sold to Thanhouser
Company. Terry then signed on to produce a monthly short for John R. Bray's
screen magazine, Paramount Pictograph, where Terry created his Farmer Alfalfa
series, however, he quit in 1917 to go into the Army.
After the war, Terry came back and produced Farmer Alfalfa
cartoons for Paramount until 1920, where he teamed up with writer Howard Estabrook
and began making the Aesop's Fables series for Pathe.
Paul Terry was one of the only major animators not to
align with a large film studio in the early days of sound cartoons. He created
the Aesop's Fable series that was distributed through Pathe. Terry formed
Fable Pictures, Inc with Keith-Albee company owning the majority of the company.
This worked until 1928 when Keith-Albee sold their interests
to Amadee J. Van Beuren and his Van Beuren Productions, at which time the
name was changed to Fable Studios. Van Beuren wanted to be at the forefront
and up on the newest technology. Van Beuren pushed Terry to produce a new
type of cartoon. Aesop's Film Fable 'Dinnertime' was produced as the first
all-talking cartoon and released in New York on Sept. 1, 1928 -- 6 weeks before
Disney's release of Steamboat Willie. Unfortunately, Van Beuren and Terry
didn't agree on these new sound cartoons and Terry left Fable Studios.
Terry then teamed with animator Frank Moser and formed
a new company called Terry-toons. They released their product through Educational
Pictures, who in turn supplied the cartoons to the short-subject department
of Twentieth Century Fox.
Terry retired Farmer Alfalfa and created a complete
new group of characters, such as Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle and Gandy
Goose. These became extremely popular through the 1940s.
In 1952, Terry-toons became the first major studio to
sign up to provide cartoons for television. Farmer Alfalfa and other vintage
black and white Terrytoons product appeared on CBS-TV and became so profitable
for the network that, in 1955, they offered Terry $3.5 million dollars for
his company. Terry quickly accepted and retired a wealthy man. Terry's longtime
business manager, Bill Weiss, took over as Terrytoons executive producer.
Unfortunately, 20th Century Fox decided to only issue
stock posters for the Terry Toons. Here are Terry-toons
stock posters
Paul Terry characters BEFORE Terry-toons:
Aesop's Fables
Farmer Alfalfa (before and after Terry toons)
Terry-toon characters include:
Dinky Duck
Gandy Goose
Heckle and Jeckle
Mighty Mouse
Oil Can Harry and Pearl Pureheart
