Cartoons on TV in the 1950s?

[FedoraFan112390]

A question:

My grandmother claims that my great grandfather (her father in law) used to chastise my grandfather for preferring to stay home on a Saturday and watch cartoons rather than go out. My great grandfather died in June 1956. I'm curious--what cartoons would've been on TV in the ealy-mid 50s, and on what channel?

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Well..I was born in 1947...and watched carttoons in the '50s. Tom & Jerry..Casper...Disney cartoons...Heckle&Jeckle...etc. Kiddie shows like Howdy Doodie..Pinky Lee...Fran&Ollie..Winkie Dee...and more. Westerns were popular on Saturday mornings. Roy Rogers..Gene Autry..Hoppa Long Cassidy...etc. Back then it had to be ABC..NBC..or CBS (or maybe a small local channel)..that's all there was. We got our first TV in 1951.
HD

 

[Talbot]

Add also Warner Bros Looney Tunes, Beanie & Cecil

 

[LizzieMaine]

The most common cartoons on television during this period were "orphan" cartoons made by companies that had gone out of business in the thirties --- the Van Beuren Corporation's products were especially popular, bought out and distributed everywhere by a company called Official Films: Cubby Bear, Dick and Larry, The Little King, Molly Moo-Cow, and other legendary personalities. The independent productions of Ub Iwerks -- Flip the Frog, Willie Whopper, and his fairy-tale shorts -- were also widely seen in the early fifties.

Silent cartoons were also very common, since they could be bought very cheaply from the same sort of two-bit distributors. Felix the Cat, Aesop's Fables (the Paul Terry version), Farmer Al Falfa, and the early Fleischer products enjoyed a renaissance during this period.

It took a while before the big names in cartoons got into television. Warner Bros. sold its pre-1948 backlog to two different distributors -- a company called Guild Films bought the black-and-white Warner cartoons in 1954, and it wasn't until 1956 that the rest of the company's pre-1948 cartoons, the ones made in color, were sold to Associated Artists productions, allowing Bugs Bunny to finally make his TV debut. Paramount sold its backlog of Popeye cartoons to AAP the following year, after selling the rest of its pre-1948 backlog, including the Fleischer talkies, to U. M. & M. TV Company in 1955. CBS bought out Paul Terry in 1955 as well, getting control of Terrytoons sound library.

Disney remained above it all -- and the only place you'd see Disney shorts on television was on Disney-controlled productions. Walter Lantz tried to follow this same pattern for a while, but eventually released his product for local syndication as well.

 

[Gregg Axley]

Some of these can be found on DVD now.
One collection is of some very popular Looney Tunes cartoons, remastered on Blu Ray.
The colors are very sharp and absolutely incredible, as well as the sound which is in Dolby 5.1 surround.
Brings back lots of memories....

 

[gear-guy]

Hey don't forget Huckleberry Hound, and Yogi and Boo Boo. Remember when you had to get up and change the channel by hand? all three channels! Black and white, rabbit ears and in our home sometimes turning a fan on behind the t.v. so the tubes would stay cool to keep the picture going. Oh the good old days?

 

[FedoraFan112390]

My family's TV--sometime between 1954 and 1958.

Another TV set--perhaps earlier in the decade? Later?

 

[dhermann1]

We got our first TV in 1951, too. At that time they showed lots of silent cartoons from the 20's with music. As a 4 year old, I was perfectly satisfied. They showed a LOT of Farmer Gray cartoons, with those pesky little mice driving him crazy. And I LOVED Out of the Inkwell, with Bosco the Clown. The animation where he actually comes out of the inkwell, totally hypnotized me. Later we had Crusader Rabbit (first cartoon made for TV), and lots of others. But Farmer Gray and Bosco were the first I remember.

 

[scottyrocks]

Hey don't forget Huckleberry Hound, and Yogi and Boo Boo.

I believe that Hanna-Barbera cartoons were the created-for-tv type, as the company was founded in 1957, and that's where their titles ran right from the beginning.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

We got our first TV in 1951, too. At that time they showed lots of silent cartoons from the 20's with music. As a 4 year old, I was perfectly satisfied. They showed a LOT of Farmer Gray cartoons, with those pesky little mice driving him crazy. And I LOVED Out of the Inkwell, with Bosco the Clown. The animation where he actually comes out of the inkwell, totally hypnotized me. Later we had Crusader Rabbit (first cartoon made for TV), and lots of others. But Farmer Gray and Bosco were the first I remember.

Yep..you are certainly jogging my memory!
HD

 

[Jaguar66]

We got our first TV in 1951, too. At that time they showed lots of silent cartoons from the 20's with music. As a 4 year old, I was perfectly satisfied. They showed a LOT of Farmer Gray cartoons, with those pesky little mice driving him crazy. And I LOVED Out of the Inkwell, with Bosco the Clown. The animation where he actually comes out of the inkwell, totally hypnotized me. Later we had Crusader Rabbit (first cartoon made for TV), and lots of others. But Farmer Gray and Bosco were the first I remember.

You are confusing Bosco with KoKo the clown. I remember watching these black and white cartoons in the mid 50s. Oswald the Rabbit was another, along with the Popeye cartoons. Betty Boop was another. A lot of these were old 30's and 40's black and white cartoons. As I recall the Looney Toons (Bugs, Daffy and Sylvester), came on TV later in the 50's.
[video=youtube;7FRn7BQ_8rI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FRn7BQ_8rI[/video]
[video=youtube;y8Db5FpopU0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Db5FpopU0[/video]
[video=youtube;oR067Tv7-SI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR067Tv7-SI&feature=related[/video]
[video=youtube;6_wC0f0KxX4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_wC0f0KxX4&feature=related[/video]

 

[Atticus Finch]

This one was my favorite. Clutch Cargo. Began in 1959. I can still hear the jungle drums in the theme song. When characters spoke, a moving human mouth was somehow superimposed on the cartoon face. Kinda creepy, actually.

AF

 

[Worf]

We got our first TV in 1951, too. At that time they showed lots of silent cartoons from the 20's with music. As a 4 year old, I was perfectly satisfied. They showed a LOT of Farmer Gray cartoons, with those pesky little mice driving him crazy. And I LOVED Out of the Inkwell, with Bosco the Clown. The animation where he actually comes out of the inkwell, totally hypnotized me. Later we had Crusader Rabbit (first cartoon made for TV), and lots of others. But Farmer Gray and Bosco were the first I remember.

Crusader Rabbit and Rags... sigh... that brings back memories though by the time I came along he was relegated to the time right after "The Farm Report". I liked early cartoons. "Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse", all the Fleisher and WB stuff. Did love the early Japanese offerings as well "Astro Boy", "Gigantor" and of course "Speed Racer". Back when they still had violence and a fair amout of off-colour humor in them. I'd about grown out of it all by the time lame ass Scooby Doo came along. Sleep mattered more by then than cartoons, besides they'd neutered em of all violence anyway.

Worf

 

[GoldenEraFan]

I wasn't around in the '50s, but being an animator I've studied up on animation history. Anyone watch Hanna Barbera's first TV cartoon in 1957 "Ruff and Reddy"?

 

[Benzadmiral]

I wasn't around in the '50s, but being an animator I've studied up on animation history. Anyone watch Hanna Barbera's first TV cartoon in 1957 "Ruff and Reddy"?

I remember the title, and watching it on Saturday mornings in the early Sixties. The giant supermarket we went to had a TV lounge, and Mom would occasionally park me there while she shopped, and I'd watch R & R. Don't recall anything about the show, though.

The cartoons I recall were those shown locally between about 4:30 and 6 Central Time. Local news was about 15 minutes long, and so was national; and prime time began at 6:30. So from 5 to 6 we had local kids' hosts like the Great MacNutt and Bozo, showing classic Bugs Bunny, WB cartoons, and early Looney Tunes (not to mention the Stooges!).

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I'd love to ask my grandparents about this. They also bought their first TV set in 1951, an Admiral console with the built in radio and record player. I think Grandpa said it was a blonde finish, too. Gosh, I wish I had it now.