The New Adventures of Heckle and Jeckle

The New Adventures of Heckle & Jeckle and Mighty Mouse is an American animated television series featuring newly produced Heckle and Jeckle, Quacula (which was an original segment) and Mighty Mouse cartoons. The series was produced by Filmation, and aired from September 1979 to December 1979 on CBS during Saturday mornings (and later Sundays in reruns until 1980). This article will focuse on the Heckle and Jeckle segments.

Why It's The Next Generation of the Talking Magpies

 * 1) It stays clearly faithful to the classic series.
 * 2) It became one of television's very first reboots.
 * 3) The show celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Terrytoons studios in an extremely high note.
 * 4) The humor matches the original spirit of the classic theatrical Terrytoons cartoons, and is very sophisticated at times.
 * 5) The character designs accurately match the style of their original designs.
 * 6) Decent voice acting, notably from Frank Welker.
 * 7) Ray Ellis does a very good job with the soundtrack, noticeably the extremely catchy theme music.
 * 8) The animation is appealing, similar to the Terrytoons theatrical cartoons (typical of the style of the Golden Age of Animation). However, the animation can also be an upgrade to the limited animation from early animated TV programs, as well as early Filmation shows.
 * 9) Many funny moments from each episode.
 * 10) The "Homonyms" segements are very humorous and educational.
 * 11) Memorable characters, especially Heckle and Jeckle themselves.
 * 12) The Hanna-Barbera-esque backgrounds look appealing.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) It can get very corny with its jokes. For example, in the episode "The Magic Egg", which is a retelling of "Jack and the Beanstalk", the giant is portrayed as a dim-witted fool whose communcation skills consist of quotes from fairy tales and one from Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies that was later reused for The Flintstones.
 * 2) The pacing is slow compared to the original shorts.
 * 3) While the animation is decent, it has a tendency to get washed-out and stiff.
 * 4) The overuse of Hanna-Barbera sound effects can get distracting and annoying at times.

Reception
The show generally received mostly positive reviews, and became the most-watched CBS Saturday morning program of the late-1970s and the early-1980s.