Over the years, Paul Terry's cartoon studio produced hundreds of what they called Terrytoons — first for theatrical release and later, after Terry sold out and retired, for television. With the possible exception of Columbia, no animation company of the period managed quite as poor a track record. There were occasional joys to be found in the adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle but you don't exactly see film historians lining up to praise the work; not the way they salute Warner Brothers, Disney or even MGM cartoons.
Maybe the best thing to ever come out of the operation was a TV cartoon produced on the lowest-possible budget. How low was the budget for Tom Terrific, which ran from 1957 to 1959 on the Captain Kangaroo show? Well, the music was done by one guy with an accordion, backgrounds were practically non-existent, and the entire voice cast was a man named Lionel Wilson. He performed the roles of Tom, Mighty Manfred the Wonder Dog, mad scientist Isotope Feeny, chief badguy Crabby Appleton and everyone else. It was a pretty good show and obviously, Mr. Wilson was one of the main reasons it was so entertaining. I never crossed paths with him but he appeared on other cartoon shows, including The Mighty Heroes and the recent Courage the Cowardly Dog, and always did fine work. Sad to see his obituary in tomorrow morning's New York Times but it's nice they noticed.
(More info on Tom Terrific, Terrytoons, and the world of animation can be found over at the website of Gene Deitch, the animation producer-director who was running Terrytoons during Tom's era. There's also an amazing treasure trove there for fans of John Lee Hooker. Mr. Deitch has also posted a book he wrote about animation over at this website. It's full of info on his career — before, during and after Terrytoons — including production breakdowns on Tom Terrific.)