Last updated • 10 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
1949-1951 American children's television show
Telecomics (also known as Tele-Comics and NBC Comics) is the name of two American children's television shows broadcast from 1949 to 1951. Along with Crusader Rabbit and Jim and Judy in Teleland, the Telecomics broadcasts were some of the earliest cartoon shows on television, although they were essentially a representation of comic strips on screen, with a narrator and voice actors talking over still frames, with only occasional moments of limited animation.
The 1949 show, Tele-Comics, was syndicated by Vallee-Video as a 15-minute show made up of four three-minute segments: Joey and Jug, Sa-Lah, Brother Goose, and Rick Rack, Secret Agent.[1]
The second show, initially broadcast as NBC Comics from September 1950 to March 1951, was created by cartoonist Dick Moores and Disney animator Jack Boyd, who founded the company Telecomics, Inc. in 1942.[2] The NBC version introduced four new stories: Danny March, Kid Champion, Space Barton, and Johnny & Mr. Do-Right.[1] After the show was cancelled, the existing episodes were distributed in syndication as Telecomics through the end of the 1950s.[3]
During the 40s, there were several other similar attempts to present static cartoon images in early television; in fact, in 1947, Billboard reported that there were five different production companies all trying to produce similar shows, including a second company called Telecomics, Inc., run by syndicator and licensed-character magnate Stephen Slesinger.[4]
These three companies—Moores & Boyd's Telecomics, Inc.; Slesinger's Telecomics, Inc.; and Vallee-Video—are often confused by animation historians, who claim that Tele-Comics and NBC Comics were produced by the same company.[2]
Dick Moores and Jack Boyd, 1942–1945
In 1942, cartoonist Dick Moores, known at the time for the 1936-1942 crime comic strip Jim Hardy,[5] teamed up with Jack Boyd, an effects animator at Walt Disney Studios, to form the company Telecomics, Inc. Their intention was to produce a television show that would present still panels from a comic strip on television, with a narrator and voice actors performing the characters' voices. While they were developing the idea, Moores took a job with the comics department at Walt Disney Studios, working on several Disney comics properties, including the Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse comic strips.[6]
In 1945, Moores and Boyd produced a pilot, Case of the Missing Finger, Chapter 4: The Belt of Doom, starring a character named Peril Pinkerton.[2] The pilot was not picked up, and the enterprise was dormant for a couple more years.
Telecomics test, 1945
Also in 1945, the Newspaper Enterprise Association syndication service tested out the Telecomics concept on W6XYZ, an experimental station in Hollywood. A 1945 article in Advertising & Selling magazine reported:
Labeled by Fred S. Ferguson, president of NEA, as only an experiment to test out the possibilities of television as a syndicate market, the Telecomics test puts eight NEA Sunday pages on the air for a half-hour weekly. Panels, unanimated, are separated and transferred to film without balloons. Background character voices dramatize the dialogue, while a narrator supplies supplemental explanation and sound effects are added. The comics being used are Boots and Her Buddies, Freckles, Brenda Breeze, Our Boarding House, Captain Easy, Carnival, Mister Merryweather and also Otis.[7]
Stephen Slesinger, 1945–1947
Meanwhile, another Telecomics effort was beginning in 1945, headed by Stephen Slesinger, who created the comic strips Red Ryder and King of the Royal Mounted, and held the licensing rights for Winnie-the-Pooh, Tarzan, Buck Rogers and Alley Oop. In 1945, Slesinger announced that he was founding two companies: Tele-Comics, Inc., of New York, which would bring nationally syndicated comic strips to television and 16mm film, and Telepictures, Inc., of Hollywood, which would produce 16mm film of popular children's book properties.[8] Slesinger intended to use Red Ryder, King of the Royal Mounted, Ozark Ike and Winnie-the-Pooh as his first slate of strips.[9]
In April 1946, Slesinger demonstrated his approach at the annual convention of the American Newspaper Publishers association. In his film, the comics panel first appeared with no speech balloons, but as the off-screen narrator began voicing the dialogue, the balloons would appear. The New York Times described the demonstration:
In two fifteen-minute exhibitions, a film version was presented depicting the current happenings of such comic attractions as Dick Tracy and Otto, the King [sic], as well as a synoptic version of a popular children's book. No attempt to televise the film, which was in color, was made, but Stephen Slesinger, president of the group sponsoring the demonstration, said that experiments had been carried on through that medium successfully on the West Coast since 1944.[10]
In April 1947, Slesinger signed a deal with the N. W. Ayer & Son advertising agency for television rights of the King of the Royal Mounted comic, serialized in five-minute episodes. At the time, they had produced 150 episodes, with production continuing. An article in The Billboard reported:
Technique involved in producing the filmstrip also is heralded as ushering in new potentialities for television sponsors. David Gudebrod, manager of Ayer's motion picture and television bureau, expressed his enthusiasm by saying it may "greatly ease current agency-sponsor video problems." Aside from audience participation and sports shows, he said that most video today costs too much for what a sponsor can get out of it. Films for television also cost too much for most sponsors, what with studio, technical and talent expenses involved. Technique used for King, however, reportedly introduces new methods at costs far below those of the past. Process used by Telecomics makes use of special optical effects, camera movements, fades, dissolves and wipes which give the semblance of animation without using expensive animation technique."[11]
In November 1947, The Billboard reported that five organizations were vying to produce a Telecomics-like presentation for TV, including two different companies named Telecomics, Inc. — Slesinger's company, which was promoting the King of the Royal Mounted show, and Dick Moores and Jack Boyd's company, now run by agent Jimmy Saphier, which was offering Jim Hardy and a new strip, Kid Champion.[4]
Conflict over use of the Telecomics name this week drew a protest from the Slesinger subsidiary, which may be a prelude to legal conflict over its use. John Howell, veepee of the firm, said they have been protected both copywise and titlewise for nearly a year, and intend to investigate any transgression of the rights.[4]
Despite these threats, the legal action never transpired, and as late as 1951, both companies called Telecomics, Inc. were still active—Slesinger's in New York City, and Moores/Boyd's company in Hollywood.[7]
However, Slesinger did get the honor of reaching the airwaves first. In December 1947, two Slesinger Telecomics Christmas specials billed as "Television Fantasies"—Gingerbread Man and Santa and the Angel—aired on Christmas Eve and again on Christmas Day on WCBS-TV in Chicago.[12]
Tele-Comics, 1949
In 1949, a syndicated show finally got on the air: Tele-Comics, produced by singer Rudy Vallée's short-lived television production company, Vallee-Video.[3]
Tele-Comics was fifteen minutes long, presenting four three-minute comic strip stories:[6]
Rick Rack, Secret Agent by Miles Pike and Pete Burness
Sa-Lah by AJ Metcalf.
The strips were voiced by Jack Kirkwood, Lilien Leigh and Bill Grey.[2] The show did not last for long, and there are no surviving episodes.
NBC Comics, 1950–1951
Meanwhile, Dick Moores and Jack Boyd were trying to sell Telecomics to a network, including Moores' comic Jim Hardy. A November 16, 1949 article in the Pasadena Independent told their story:
An example of a good TV show going begging is Telecomics. Some seven years ago, Jack Boyd and Dick Moores started adapting comic strip techniques for use on TV. For the past two years they have been trying to sell their Telecomics to TV. Boyd and Moores have produced a five-day-a-week package show, employing strictly comic strip art, but filmed in such a way that the viewer gets a distinct illusion of movement.
A serial chapter in one of their series, Jim Hardy, has a runaway streetcar sequence in which the individual drawings are put together on film so cleverly that the viewer is not conscious of the fact that he is looking at a strip of still pictures. There is actually no animation, but the effect is practically the same to the eye. Dialogue is taken care of by a narrator...
Moores and Boyd are both confident that video is a natural for Telecomics. Advertising agency men and TV broadcasters unanimously have told Boyd and Moores that they have something. So, like the inventors of the zipper, the Telecomics creators are waiting for someone who has the money and courage to "discover" them.[13]
On August 7, 1950, Daily Variety announced that NBC picked had picked up Moores and Boyd's show, retitling it NBC Comics.[14]NBC Comics debuted as a weekday show on September 18, 1950, in the 5:00-5:15pm slot, following Kate Smith.[15] The show was sponsored by Standard Brands, and produced by Don Dewar.[6]
NBC Comics included four three-minute segments:[1][2]
Danny March: Danny, an orphan raised by his uncle in Metro City, grows up on the streets. He applies for a job as a police officer, but is rejected for being too short. Danny becomes a private eye, and is hired as the Mayor's personal detective.
Kid Champion: Young Eddie Hale is pressured into becoming a boxer by his prize-fighter father, but wants to pursue a career in music. Mistakenly believing that he's killed a gas station attendant, Eddie gets a job with fight promoter Lucky Skinner, changes his name to "Kid Champion" and refuses to talk about his past.
Space Barton: Horace Barton Jr., college football star, enlists in the U.S. Army Air Corps and tests the first jet airplane. He meets an astronomer, Professor Dinehart, who's built a rocket ship. Barton and Dinehart blast off, taking Barton's kid brother Jackie as a stowaway. On Mars, Barton gets involved in a civil war against a group led by an insane Earth scientist who'd reached Mars first.
Johnny and Mr. Do-Right: A young boy is scolded by his talking dog, Mr. Do-Right, who teaches him about health and safety tips. Several of these episodes were combined to make a short film, "Good Health Habits".[16]
The show was dropped on March 30, 1951,[21] because Lever Brothers wanted the 5:00-5:15 timeslot.[20] 165 episodes were produced.[2] NBC made back its cost very quickly, and syndicated the episodes as Telecomics.[3] The show aired on WCBS-TV in New York from 1952 to 1953.[1] The episodes were acquired for distribution in 1954 by the newly-formed National Telefilm Associates,[22] and they aired through the end of the 1950s.[3]
Continued work, 1951
After NBC Comics was cancelled, Moores, Boyd and Dewar continued working on the concept. An Associated Press article in April 1951 reported:
The partners started with a series for NBC... Once you got interested in the story you forgot the lack of action — almost. But the partners considered this too static. Now in a new series being readied, they think they've gone about as far as you can go with a TV cartoon, considering time and money limitations.
There'll be action in this one. When a character talks, his lips will move, although the rest of his face may not. He'll walk or throw things, if necessary. Cars and trains will move. There'll be motion, but not the continuous flowing motion of a movie cartoon.
"Television will probably never have completely animated cartoons," says Dewar, "unless Disney and other producers release their old ones, which isn't likely. Their processes are too costly. Why, we can turn out a feature for a fiftieth as much and in a fraction of the time. Let's face it, TV is a quantity medium, not quality."[23]
In June, Billboard reported that Dewar was pitching a 15-minute show featuring Peril Pinkerton to advertisers.[24] The new show never made it to air.
The Katzenjammer Kids is an American comic strip created by Rudolph Dirks in 1897 and later drawn by Harold Knerr for 35 years. It debuted on December 12, 1897, in the American Humorist, the Sunday supplement of William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal. The comic strip was turned into a stage play in 1903. It inspired several animated cartoons and was one of 20 strips included in the Comic Strip Classics series of U.S. commemorative postage stamps.
Dick Tracy is an American comic strip featuring Dick Tracy, a tough and intelligent police detective created by Chester Gould. It made its debut on Sunday, October 4, 1931, in the Detroit Mirror, and it was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate. Gould wrote and drew the strip until 1977, and various artists and writers have continued it. Dick Tracy has also been the hero in a number of films, including Dick Tracy in which Warren Beatty played the lead in 1990. Tom De Haven praised Gould's Dick Tracy as an "outrageously funny American Gothic", while Brian Walker described it as a "ghoulishly entertaining creation" which had "gripping stories filled with violence and pathos".
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends is an American animated television series that originally aired from November 19, 1959, to June 27, 1964, on the ABC and NBC television networks. Produced by Jay Ward Productions, the series is structured as a variety show, with the main feature being the serialized adventures of the two title characters, the anthropomorphic flying squirrel Rocket J. ("Rocky") Squirrel and moose Bullwinkle J. Moose. The main antagonists in most of their adventures are the two Russian-like spies Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale, both working for the Nazi-like dictator Fearless Leader. Supporting segments include "Dudley Do-Right", "Peabody's Improbable History", and "Fractured Fairy Tales", among others. The current blanket title was imposed for home video releases more than 40 years after the series originally aired and was never used when the show was televised; television airings of the show were broadcast under the titles of Rocky and His Friends from 1959 to 1961, The Bullwinkle Show from 1961 to 1964, and The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show in syndication.
"Saturday-morning cartoon" is a colloquial term for the original animated series and live-action programming that was typically scheduled on Saturday and Sunday mornings in the United States on the "Big Three" television networks. The genre's popularity had a broad peak from the mid-1960s through the mid-2000s; over time it declined, in the face of changing cultural norms, increased competition from formats available at all times, and heavier regulations. In the last two decades of the genre's existence, Saturday-morning and Sunday-morning cartoons were primarily created and aired to meet regulations on children's television programming in the United States, or E/I. Minor television networks, in addition to the non-commercial PBS in some markets, continue to air animated programming on Saturday and Sunday while partially meeting those mandates.
Crusader Rabbit was the first animated series produced specifically for television. Its main characters were Crusader Rabbit and his sidekick Ragland T. Tiger, or "Rags". The stories were four-minute-long satirical cliffhangers.
The Green Hornet is a superhero created in 1936 by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker, with input from radio director James Jewell.
Red Ryder was a Western comic strip created by Stephen Slesinger and artist Fred Harman which served as the basis for a wide array of character merchandising. Syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association, the strip ran from Sunday, November 6, 1938, through 1965.
The Family Circus is a syndicated comic strip created by cartoonist Bil Keane and, since Keane's death in 2011, is written, inked and rendered (colored) by his son Jeff Keane. The strip generally uses a single captioned panel with a round border, hence the original name of the series, which was changed following objections from the magazine Family Circle. The series debuted on February 29, 1960 and has been in continuous production ever since. According to publisher King Features Syndicate, it is the most widely syndicated cartoon panel in the world, appearing in 1,500 newspapers. Compilations of Family Circus comic strips have sold more than 13 million copies worldwide.
Hopalong Cassidy is a fictional cowboy hero created in 1904 by the author Clarence E. Mulford, who wrote a series of short stories and novels based on the character. Mulford portrayed the character as rude, dangerous, and rough-talking. He was shot in the leg during a gun fight which caused him to walk with a little "hop", hence the nickname.
King Features Syndicate, Inc. is an American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles, and games to nearly 5,000 newspapers worldwide. King Features Syndicate also produces intellectual properties, develops new content and franchises, like The Cuphead Show!, which it produced with Netflix, and licenses its classic characters and properties.
The Archie Show is an American musical animated sitcom television series produced by Filmation for CBS. Based on the Archie Comics, created by Bob Montana in 1941, The Archie Show aired Saturday mornings on CBS from September 1968 to 1969. The show featured the main characters in the Archie series, including Archie Andrews, Jughead Jones, Reggie Mantle, Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge.
King Leonardo and His Short Subjects is a 1960–1963 American Saturday-morning animated television series that aired on NBC, sponsored by General Mills. It was created by Total Television and is among the first Saturday-morning cartoon programs.
Saban Entertainment, Inc. was a worldwide-served independent US-Israeli television production company formed in 1980 by Haim Saban and Shuki Levy, which was originally founded as a music production company under the name, Saban Productions. The first TV show produced by Saban is the live action/animated show Kidd Video.
The Marvel Super Heroes is an American animated television series starring five comic book superheroes from Marvel Comics. The first TV series based on Marvel characters, it debuted in syndication on U.S. television in 1966.
Richard Arnold Moores was an American cartoonist whose best known work was the comic strip Gasoline Alley, which he worked on for nearly three decades.
Wee Pals is an American syndicated comic strip about a diverse group of children, created and produced by Morrie Turner. It was the first comic strip syndicated in the United States to have a cast of diverse ethnicity, dubbed the "Rainbow Gang".
Reg'lar Fellers is a long-running newspaper comic strip adapted into a feature film, a radio series on the NBC Red Network, and two animated cartoons. Created by Gene Byrnes (1889–1974), the comic strip offered a humorous look at a gang of suburban children. Syndicated from 1917 to January 18, 1949, Byrnes' strip was collected into several books. Branding also extended to such items as baseball bats and breakfast cereal.
Stephen Slesinger was an American radio, television and film producer, and creator of comic strip characters. From 1923 to 1953, he created, produced, published, developed, licensed or represented several popular literary characters of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.
Jim Hardy is a 1936-1942 American adventure comic strip written and drawn by Dick Moores and distributed by United Features Syndicate. It was Moores' first solo comic strip work, before he gained renown for his work on Gasoline Alley. The strip told the story of Jim Hardy, a down-on-his-luck "man against the world".
Fabulous Funnies is a 1978–1979 American Saturday morning animated TV series produced by Filmation. The show aired for one season from September 9, 1978, to December 1, 1978, on NBC, airing 13 episodes.
↑ Holtz, Allan (2012). American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. p.214. ISBN9780472117567.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
