Toby the Pup is an

animated cartoon Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anima ...

character Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

created by animators Sid Marcus,

Dick Huemer Richard Huemer (January 2, 1898 – November 30, 1979) was an American animator in the Golden Age of American animation, Golden Age of Animation. Career While as an artist-illustrator living in the Bronx, New York City, Huemer first began his ...

, and

Art Davis Arthur David Davis (December 6, 1934 – July 29, 2007) was a double-bassist, known for his work with Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner and Max Roach. Biography Davis was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United Stat ...

. He starred in a series of early sound shorts produced by Charles B. Mintz for

RKO Radio Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orph ...

. The series lasted from 1930 to 1931. Twelve cartoons were produced, though only seven still survive today. The character was voiced by Dick Huemer. Toby can be seen dancing in one of the scenes of the movie, ''

Cool World ''Cool World'' is a 1992 American live-action/animated black comedy fantasy film directed by Ralph Bakshi and written by Michael Grais and Mark Victor. Starring Kim Basinger, Gabriel Byrne and Brad Pitt, it tells the story of a cartoonist w ...

''.

History

In 1930, Charles Mintz, while simultaneously producing the Krazy Kat cartoon series for Columbia, decided to create an additional series to be distributed through RKO Radio Pictures. He hired two Fleischer animators, Dick Huemer and Sid Marcus and assigned them to work with Art Davis to create a new series. Marcus, who worked for the Mintz studio when it was still located in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, devised Toby the Pup. Toby was very similar to Fleischer's

Bimbo Bimbo is slang for a conventionally attractive, sexualized, naive, and unintelligent woman. The term was originally used in the United States as early as 1919 for an unintelligent or brutish man. As of the early 21st century, the "stereotypic ...

, in both personality and character design. He wore a custodian hat, and a pair of shoes that look like dog feet. Despite the series' success, it concluded after only twelve films; most likely because of RKO's ties with the

Van Beuren studio The Van Beuren Corporation was a New York City-based animation studio that produced theatrical cartoons as well as live-action short-subjects from the 1920s to 1936. History In 1920, the Keith-Albee organization formed Fables Pictures for the ...

. However, by the time the series ended, Mintz was already negotiating with Columbia for backing on a second cartoon series headed again by Huemer, Marcus, and Davis. This time, Huemer devised a new character, a small boy named

Scrappy Scrappy is a cartoon character created by Dick Huemer for Charles Mintz's Screen Gems Studio (distributed by Columbia Pictures). A little round-headed boy, Scrappy often found himself involved in off-beat neighborhood adventures. Usually paired ...

. Today, some of the Toby cartoons are known to exist. Only a fragment of ''The Museum'' exists in the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

. Prints of the short have turned up in a few private film collections in the United States and four were discovered in Europe.

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

currently owns a sound print of ''Circus Time''. Cartoon Factory, a syndicated compilation of public domain cartoons distributed throughout Europe, featured three Toby cartoons, ''

The Milkman ''The Milkman'' is a 1950 American comedy film directed by Charles Barton and starring Donald O'Connor, Jimmy Durante and Piper Laurie. Plot Roger Bradley is denied a milkman job at his father's company because of his postwar trauma; when he ...

'', ''Down South'', and ''Halloween''.

Lobster Films Lobsters are a family (Nephropidae, synonym Homaridae) of marine crustaceans. They have long bodies with muscular tails and live in crevices or burrows on the sea floor. Three of their five pairs of legs have claws, including the first pair, ...

, the company behind the program, currently holds these titles. A substantial fragment of ''The Showman'' has also surfaced. In 2005, a full 16mm print of ''The Brown Derby'' was found in a private collection in San Marcos, Texas, by Toby Heidel. The print is currently housed at UCLA and restoration is being attempted by Jere Guldin.

Filmography

1930

1931

References

* Maltin, Leonard (1987): ''Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons''. Penguin Books.

External links