Paul Terry

Cartoon Carnival tells the story of the pioneering early days of the animated art-form and chronicles one film preservationist's quest to rescue pre-sound cartoons from obscurity and screen them to new, appreciative audiences.

The talking magpies, Heckel and Jeckle, crash a movie studio driving a papier-mache limousine, and have no problem eluding the studio watchdog by disguising themselves, at various times, as knights-in-armor, Romeo and Juliet and, then, a couple of penguins. After many defeats, the vigilant-but-dumb bulldog finally kicks them of the lot.

Mice, seeking shelter from a storm, enter Dr. Jekyll's house. His cat chases them, ultimately crashing into the lab, where he mixes up some of the potion. He transforms, then rounds up the mice. Mighty Mouse comes to the rescue; in the fight, the lab catches fire. The mice escape, but the house rockets into the sky.

Heckel and Jeckle decide it is too much trouble and time-consuming, not to mention wear-and-tear on their wings, to fly south for the winter, so they will pose as orphans and find some kindly old grandmother to take care of them when the snow flies. They do. But the kindly old grandmother turns out to be a disguised-wolf who has an appetite for magpie soup. This is not at all what they had in mind.

The superist hero of them all, Mighty Mouse, easily brushes aside molten lava and stems the tide of an island volcano, set off by the torrid dancing of Krakatoa Katy, the hottest dancer of them all. Then he carries all of the island natives to the safety of higher ground, where Katy leads them all in a jive-chanting jitterbug dance in tribute to their hero.

Farmer/Captain Alfalfa on a ship with his animals.

The Farmer is abducted by a capering Jungle Goddess. As pre-Code as a Terrytoon ever got. Most animation is by Frank Moser; with him are Art Babbitt, Jerry Shields, Bill Tytla and others.

A Terrytoons short.

Dimwit the hound is going fishing. Heckle and Jeckle are roommates in this one, sharing a single large birdhouse. They taunt Dimwit for no particular reason, then try to steal his catch of fish.

In this one, a community of mice and birds are living and playing peacefully until the arrival of the title character: a mechanical cat who wants to eat so he picks a bird to take to his castle.

An Aesop’s Film Fables cartoon.

A Terrytoons cartoon released 10 January 1936.

Dave the dog sells Farmer Alfalfa the back of a whale as an island. Farmer Alfalfa has a great deal of trouble keeping his land in one spot, while the farm animals and pests add to his woes.

A Terrytoons cartoon released 19 February 1937.

Heckle and Jeckle see a seemingly helpless baby bird (who keeps saying he is only three years old) in danger as a cat is trying to capture it.

Mighty Mouse rescues a Sultan and all his palace residents from an attack by evil cats on flying carpets.

A parody of the Greek myth of the conquering of the Trojan people featuring mice and cats.

Silent cartoon.

A colony of rabbits (and their newborns) is terrorized by a wake of marauding vultures (who fly around like bad enemy Second World War airplanes- even though they are supposed be an Indian tribe).

A cat and mouse nonchalantly dance on roller skates and comically harass Farmer Gray.