Heckle and Jeckle

Heckle and Jeckle is a series of animated short subjects starring two titular magpies. The original shorts were produced by Terrytoons from 1946 to 1957, followed by a series of 8 new shorts from 1959 to 1966. Most of the plots revolve around Heckle and Jeckle going against their adversaries, such as Dimwit and the bulldog. Some of them feature the talking magpies in different situations, such as fighting over a girl for romance and stopping a criminal with their job as home wreckers. While being disdained as knock-offs of Bugs Bunny, the two originated the idea of screwball duo characters (predating the Goofy Gophers by a year).

Filmography

 * The Talking Magpies (Mannie; January 4, 1946)
 * The Uninvited Pests (Connie; November 29, 1946)
 * McDougal's Rest Farm (January 31, 1947)
 * Happy Go Lucky (February 28, 1947)
 * Cat Trouble (April 11, 1947)
 * The Intruders (May 9, 1947)
 * Flying South (August 15, 1947)
 * Fishing By the Sea (September 19, 1947)
 * The Super Salesman (October 24, 1947)
 * The Hitch Hikers (December 12, 1947)

Why It Rocks

 * 1) 20th Century Fox animation in its purest form.
 * 2) Heckle and Jeckle are two endearing characters with two distinctive accents: Brooklyn (for Heckle) and British (for Jeckle). Jeckle is the smart, yet sophisticated one and Heckle is the cocky and street-smart one.
 * 3) * Like the mascot of Warner Bros., Bugs Bunny, Heckle's accent was pure Brooklyn.
 * 4) * Dimwit and the bulldog make good adversaries for both magpies, reminiscent of Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam from Looney Tunes of the Warner Bros. fame.
 * 5) Great writing talents from John Foster (a previous director from the Van Beuren Studios in the early 30s) and Tom Morrison.
 * 6) Incredible Looney Tunes-esque animation from Carlo Vinci, Reuben Timmins, Larry Silverman, Connie Rasinski (who is also the director of the shorts) and most notably Jim Tyer.
 * 7) Impressive Famous Studios-style backgrounds, from the Paul Terry era.
 * 8) Jazzy soundtrack from Philip A. Scheib, typical of Golden Age Terrytoons at the time.
 * 9) Compared to the Mighty Mouse shorts, the series is far from formulaic and the two talking magpies are put in a variety of situations besides pestering their adversaries.
 * 10) The New Terrytoons era shorts and the Filmation reboot are very good.
 * 11) The amazed Bob Clampett-style gags and very unique Tom and Jerry-esque jokes.
 * 12) Wonderful voice talents of Sid Raymond, Ned Sparks, Dayton Allen and Roy Halee.
 * 13) Plenty of underrated gems, such as:
 * 14) * The Talking Magpies (which starts the series in a high note)
 * 15) * Flying South
 * 16) * The Power of Thought
 * 17) * House Busters
 * 18) * Messed Up Movie Makers (which proudly ended the classic series in a high note, and was a very great way to celebrate the duo's 20th anniversary)
 * 19) It spawned a comic book series, especially with stories written and drawn by Jim Tyer himself.
 * 20) While rarely seen on television today, their existence was proudly kept alive by Jerry Beck in a collection of Terrytoons shorts on DVD from the early 2000s.
 * 21) Their success led to an anthology television series of their own from 1956 to 1971.
 * 22) Dimwit stole the show, and gained his very own spin-off series (in a similar manner to Disney's Goofy shorts).
 * 23) The colossal idea and the global success of screwball duo characters led to the creation of the Goofy Gophers, Mac and Tosh (from Looney Tunes of Warner Bros.) and the chipmunk duo of Chip 'N Dale (of Disney).
 * 24) The re-releases of the Heckle and Jeckle are very neat, from early January 1963 to late December 1974. In fact, 20th Century Fox decided to re-release 13 Heckle and Jeckle cartoons each year.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The duo never appeared in the Gene Deitch era, that is until 1959.
 * 2) Their portrayals in "mh:terribletvshows:Curbside" were much different from the cartoons they were based on. Jeckle is now the goofy prankster and Heckle is the comic foil. They were also changed from magpies to crows.
 * 3) Some scenes (animated by John Foster and Mannie Davis) can be considered jarring in the original era of shorts, being timed like the early sound era of the late 1920s-early 1930s.

Trivia

 * Heckle and Jeckle made non-speaking cameos in an episode of Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, entitled "Mighty's Wedlock Whimsy".
 * The entire series has yet to be digitally restored, and has yet to be released on Blu-ray and DVD.