Comments About the Closing of Terrytoons Studio

[musicradio77]

Ray Pointer, I looked up on Toon Tracker's website where they discussed "The End of Terrytoons". There was one description regarding about the studio "Terrytoons officially closed it's doors in 1971. The FCC decided that the major networks could no longer sell programming to independent TV stations. CBS Films was spun off and became Viacom. In an effort to cut costs, Viacom ceased Terrytoons animation production, content to just sell their inventory in syndication." That was what the Terrytoons studio closed its doors one last time and that was also the same year that Paul Terry died. Viacom was the company that started after spun off from CBS Films, now the company owns Paramount (along with the cartoons), Famous Music, Infinity Broadcasting, Nickelodean and MTV. I know all about the history of Terrytoons with the closing of the studio. Does 20th Century-Fox distributed the theatrical Terrytoons before it was shut down in 1971?

[Ray Pointer]

I'm not too sure about the continued theatrical relationship of Terrytoons and TCF into the 1970s, although according to sources such as Leonard Maltin, it may have. I can not recall seeing a Terrytoon in theaters, and since block booking was eliminated in the 1950s, there was no guarantee that the cartoons were booked with Fox features any longer. What did not go into wide distribution in North American was released in Europe and Asia. For the most part, the later Terrytoons went to television quickly as far as I know.

[JDWeil]

I did catch an Astronut episode being shown theatrically even though from 1968 on, Terrytoons was primarily a TV suppler so Fox and Terrytoons maintained thier relationship right up until the end of the studio. Terrytoons ceased producton in 1971 mostly due to attrition, all of their staff members had died or retired and no one was coming in to replace them. As far as I know, Terrytoons was never officially liquidated and Bill Weis continued to handle Terrytoons merchandizing well past 1971.

[Ray Pointer]

Terrytoons was still a CBS property up to the end, and apparently they just let it fade away. Terrytoons resurfaced for circulation under Viacom, and in a sense, the present Nickelodeon is the ancestor of Terrytoons, but somehow in all of the complications of the acquisitions, Paramount owns the theatrical rights to the Terrytoons characters now.:mighty: