Tom Terrific

For the baseball player who went by the nickname, see Tom Seaver.
Tom Terrific
GenreAnimated television series
Created byGene Deitch
Developed byGene Deitch
Written byWilliam Bernal, Phil Eastman, Bud Evsalin, Bob Kuwahara, Ralph Newman
Directed byGene Deitch
StarringLionel Wilson
Theme music composerThomas Lee Morrison, Philip A. Scheib
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes26
Production
Executive producerWilliam M. Weiss
ProducerGene Deitch
EditorJack MacConnell
Production companyTerrytoons
Original release
NetworkCBS
ReleaseJune 10, 1957 (1957-06-10) –
1959 (1959)
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Tom Terrific is a 1957–1959 animated series on American television, presented as part of the Captain Kangaroo children's television show.[1]

Created by Gene Deitch under the Terrytoons studio (which by that time was a subsidiary of CBS, the network that broadcast Captain Kangaroo), Tom Terrific was made as twenty-six stories, each split into five episodes, with one five-minute episode broadcast per day. The first thirteen stories were filmed in 1957, with the second set in 1958. Captain Kangaroo continued to rerun the episodes for many years. Starting in 1962, Captain Kangaroo broadcast Tom Terrific every other week, alternating with Terrytoons' Lariat Sam.[2]

Drawn in a simple black-and white style reminiscent of children's drawings, the show features a gee-whiz boy hero, Tom Terrific, who lives in a treehouse and can transform himself into anything he wants, thanks to his magical funnel-shaped "thinking cap", which also enhances his intelligence. He has a comic lazybones of a sidekick, Mighty Manfred the Wonder Dog, and an arch-foe named Crabby Appleton, whose motto is, "I'm rotten to the core!"[3] Other foes include Mr. Instant the Instant Thing King, Captain Kidney Bean, Sweet Tooth Sam the Candy Bandit, and Isotope Feeney the Meany. Some of the dialogue was written by cartoonist Jules Feiffer.[4]

Gene Deitch adapted the feature from his earlier newspaper comic strip, "Terr'ble Thompson!" distributed during the 1950s by United Features Syndicate.[5] Terr'ble Thompson was a six-year-old boy who imagined himself to be the "Hero of Hist'ry" and freely travelled back in time to assist historical figures. An illustrated book reprinting the adventures of this precursor to Tom Terrific was published by Fantagraphics Books.

All the voices were performed by Lionel Wilson (who later voiced Eustace Bagge from the Cartoon Network series Courage the Cowardly Dog).

The character Tom Terrific was ranked #32 by TV Guide magazine on its 2002 list of "50 Greatest TV Cartoon Characters".[6]

  1. ^ Woolery, George W. (1983). Children's Television: The First Thirty-Five Years, 1946-1981, Part 1: Animated Cartoon Series. Scarecrow Press. pp. 295–296. ISBN 0-8108-1557-5. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  2. ^ Hamonic, W. Gerald (2018). Terrytoons: The Story of Paul Terry and His Classic Cartoon Factory. John Libbey Publishing Ltd. pp. 289–290. ISBN 978-0861967292.
  3. ^ Perlmutter, David (2018). The Encyclopedia of American Animated Television Shows. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 653. ISBN 978-1538103739.
  4. ^ Erickson, Hal (2005). Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949 Through 2003 (2nd ed.). McFarland & Co. pp. 862–863. ISBN 978-1476665993.
  5. ^ Terrible Thompson strip
  6. ^ "TV Guide's 50 greatest cartoon characters of all time - July 30, 2002". CNN.com. Retrieved 2022-06-11.