''Mighty Mouse Playhouse'' is an American Saturday morning television anthology series featuring animated short films starring

Mighty Mouse Mighty Mouse is an American animated anthropomorphic superhero mouse character created by the Terrytoons studio for 20th Century Fox. The character was originally called Super Mouse, and made his debut in the 1942 short ''The Mouse of Tomorro ...

. The series aired on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

from 1955 to 1967. The series was credited with both popularizing the Mighty Mouse character in popular culture far beyond what the original film shorts had done and putting Saturday morning cartoons on the map.

was not extraordinarily popular in theatrical cartoons, but was still

Terrytoons Terrytoons was an American animation studio in New Rochelle, New York, that produced animated cartoons for theatrical release from 1929 to 1973 (and briefly returned between 1987 and 1996 for television in name only). Terrytoons was founded by ...

' most popular character. What made him a cultural icon was television. Most of the short film studios, both live-action and animated, were in decline by the 1950s, pressured both by the loss of film audiences to television as well as the increased popularity (and financial benefits) of low-budget, stylized,

limited animation Limited animation is a process in the overall technique of traditional animation that reuses frames of character animation. Early history The use of budget-cutting and time-saving animation measures in animation dates back to the earliest commerci ...

. Most of the studios cashed out of the short-film production business and began licensing or selling their back catalogs to television. Paul Terry went as far as to sell the entire Terrytoon company to

in 1955. The network began running ''Mighty Mouse Playhouse'' in December 1955. It remained on the air for nearly twelve years (and featured ''

The Mighty Heroes ''The Mighty Heroes'' is a Saturday morning animated television series created by Ralph Bakshi for the Terrytoons company. The original show debuted on CBS, on October 29, 1966, and ran for one season with 20 episodes.

'' during the final season). Mighty Mouse cartoons became a staple of children's television programming for a period of over thirty years, from the 1950s through the 1980s. Terrytoons, under CBS ownership, produced only three further Mighty Mouse theatrical cartoons in the 1959–1961 time frame (this was in marked contrast to other animated cartoon lines such as '' Looney Tunes'', ''

Tom & Jerry ''Tom and Jerry'' is an American Animated cartoon, animated media franchise and series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Best known for its 161 theatrical short films by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the series c ...

'' and ''

Woody Woodpecker Woody Woodpecker is an animated character that appeared in theatrical short films produced by the Walter Lantz Studio and distributed by Universal Studios between 1940 and 1972. Woody, an anthropomorphic woodpecker, was created in 1940 by ...

'', all of which continued to produce new film shorts for nearly a decade after licensing their library to television). The company evidently believed that the existing library of shorts was enough to keep youngsters tuning into CBS every Saturday morning; the library consisted of 80 shorts, enough for 26 half-hour episodes. Some early vinyls credit the original 1955 ''Mighty Mouse Playhouse'' theme song to The Terrytooners,

Mitch Miller Mitchell William Miller (July 4, 1911 – July 31, 2010) was an American choral conductor, record producer, record-industry executive, and professional oboist. He was involved in almost all aspects of the industry, particularly as a conductor ...

and Orchestra, but recent publishing has generally credited

The Sandpipers The Sandpipers were an American easy listening trio who carved a niche in 1960s folk rock with their vocals and innovative arrangements of international ballads and pop standards. They are best remembered for their cover version of " Guantanamer ...

Cast

*Tom Morrison as voice of

(in TV program wraparounds and shorts filmed after 1955) * Arthur Kay as

Gandy Goose Gandy Goose is a Terrytoons cartoon character who first appeared in the 1938 short ''Gandy the Goose''. He is frequently paired with Sourpuss, a cat, beginning in the 1939 short ''Hook Link and Sinker''. Sourpuss' first appearance was in the 193 ...

Carol Lawrence Carol Lawrence (born Carolina Maria Laraia; September 5, 1932) is an American actress, appearing in musical theatre and on television. She is known for creating the role of Maria on Broadway in the musical '' West Side Story'' (1957), receivin ...

as Pearl Pureheart (1950's)

References

External links

* 1955 American television series debuts 1967 American television series endings 1950s American animated television series 1960s American animated television series 1950s American anthology television series 1960s American anthology television series American children's animated action television series American children's animated adventure television series American children's animated anthology television series American children's animated superhero television series Animated television series about mice and rats CBS original programming Television series by CBS Studios Television series by Terrytoons {{animation-tv-prog-stub