Heckle and Jeckle

Heckle and Jeckle are postwar animated cartoon characters created by Paul Terry, originally produced at his own Terrytoons animation studio and released through 20th Century Fox. The characters are a pair of identical anthropomorphic yellow-billed magpies; they were voiced at different times by Sid Raymond (1946–47), Ned Sparks (1947–51), Roy Halee (1951–61), Dayton Allen (1956–66) and Frank Welker (1979).[1][2]

Heckle and Jeckle
Terrytoons character
First appearanceThe Talking Magpies
(Terrytoons, 1946)
Last appearanceThe New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle
(CBS, 1979-1981)
Created byPaul Terry
Voiced bySid Raymond (1946–1947)
Ned Sparks (1947–1951)
Roy Halee (1951–1961)
Dayton Allen (1956–1966)
Frank Welker (The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle)
Harry Shearer (The Simpsons)
Shinsuke Minami
Isamu Nagato (CR TerryToons)
In-universe information
SpeciesYellow-billed magpie
GenderMale

Production history
A still from "The Talking Magpies". This short featured prototypes of the duo.

The Talking Magpies, released January 4, 1946, was the first Terrytoons cartoon to feature a pair of wisecracking magpies. This was a husband-and-wife pair, not the pair of identical birds that they would become. Terry was taken with the idea of a pair of identical characters, and followed up with The Uninvited Pests (Nov 29, 1946), which established the pair as new characters.[3] Terrytoons made 52 Heckle and Jeckle theatrical cartoons between 1946 and 1966.[4]

Television shows

After Paul Terry sold the Terrytoons studio to CBS in 1955, the studio's cartoons were repackaged in different timeslots. In summer 1956, the premiere episode of the primetime CBS Cartoon Theater included the 1947 magpie short Flying South.[5]

The Heckle and Jeckle Cartoon Show premiered on CBS on October 14, 1956, and aired until 1966. The show also included shorts starring other Terrytoons characters, including Mighty Mouse, Little Roquefort and Percy the Cat, Gandy Goose, Dinky Duck and the Terry Bears.[6]

After a hiatus, the show moved to NBC in September 1969, and aired until September 4, 1971.[5]

The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle premiered on CBS on September 8, 1979. The show featured newly-animated 11-minute magpie cartoons, in which the characters were not as abrasive as their theatrical personas. The hour-long show featured two Heckle and Jeckle cartoons. The show was cut to a half-hour for the 1980-1981 season, and featured one Heckle and Jeckle cartoon.[5]

Heckle and Jeckle made a cameo in the 1988 Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures episode "Mighty's Wedlock Whimsy", alongside a few other Terrytoons characters.

In an unreleased 1999 Terrytoons pilot, Curbside, Heckle was voiced by Toby Huss and Jeckle was voiced by comedian Bobcat Goldthwait. They were also changed from magpies to crows.

Comic books and licensing
Gold Key Comics Heckle and Jeckle Issue 2, from February 1962

Heckle and Jeckle have been licensed for toys, T-shirts, puzzles, games, salt and pepper shakers, Halloween costumes, plush dolls, puppets, coloring books, cookie jars and other consumer products for decades, variously through Terrytoons, CBS Television and Viacom. Selected cartoons from the original series of 52 theatrical titles were briefly made available on VHS home video in the 1990s, but a major DVD release has yet to materialize. The characters also regularly appeared in comic books over the years, including "Mighty Mouse", "Terrytoons" and "Paul Terry's Comics", and even headlined a number of their own comic book titles:

Heckle and Jeckle were planned to have a cameo in the deleted scene "Acme's Funeral" from the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. [7]

Filmography

1946

  • The Talking Magpies (prototypes)
  • The Uninvited Pests (official debut)

1947

  • McDougal's Rest Farm
  • Happy Go Lucky
  • Cat Trouble
  • The Intruders
  • Flying South
  • Fishing By the Sea
  • The Super Salesman
  • The Hitch Hikers

1948

  • Taming the Cat
  • A Sleepless Night
  • Magpie Madness
  • Out Again in Again
  • Free Enterprise
  • Goony Golfers
  • The Power of Thought

1949

  • The Lion Hunt
  • The Stowaways
  • Happy Landing
  • Hula Hula Land
  • Dancing Shoes

1950

  • The Fox Hunt
  • A Merry Chase
  • King Tut's Tomb

1951

  • Bulldozing the Bull
  • The Rainmakers
  • Steeple Jacks
  • 'Sno Fun
  • Rival Romeos

1952

  • Off to the Opera
  • House Busters
  • Moose on the Loose
  • Movie Madness

1953

  • Hair Cut-Ups
  • Pill Peddlers
  • Ten Pin Terrors
  • Bargain Daze
  • Log Rollers

1954

  • Blind Date
  • Satisfied Customers
  • Blue Plate Symphony

1955

  • Miami Maniacs

1957

  • Pirate's Gold

1959

  • Wild Life

1960

  • Trapeze, Pleeze
  • Mint Men
  • Deep Sea Doodle
  • Stunt Men
  • Thousand Smile Checkup

1961

  • Sappy New Year

1966

  • Messed Up Movie Makers

References
  1. "The Heckle and Jeckle Show". Retrieved 2006-12-15.
  2. "Cartoon voice, actor Sid Raymond dead". CNN / AP. 2006-12-11. Archived from the original on 2006-12-12. Retrieved 2006-12-15.
  3. Hamonic, W. Gerald (2018). "Those Magnificent Mischievous Magpies". Terrytoons: The Story of Paul Terry and His Classic Cartoon Factory. John Libbey Publishing Ltd. pp. 225–229. ISBN 978-0861967292.
  4. Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 89–90. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  5. Woolery, George W. (1983). Children's Television: The First Thirty-Five Years, 1946-1981. Scarecrow Press. pp. 134–136. ISBN 0-8108-1557-5. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
  6. Hyatt, Wesley (1997). The Encyclopedia of Daytime Television. Watson-Guptill Publications. p. 210. ISBN 978-0823083152. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
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