Here is some presentation art from a pitch we did at
Spumco in the mid 90s. I wanted to get Paramount to let me revive the
Terrytoons characters. I would have shown some of this stuff earlier but it had all suffered water damage. But now, thanks to Alex, Jojo and Tommy, some of it has been restored through the magic of insufferable digital technology.
These guys here are "The Catnip Gang" who appeared in at least 2 of the original
TT Mighty Mouse gang. I think that was drawn by Mike
Fontanelli. Possibly inked by Shane
Glines and I don't remember who colored it. Looks like water colors?...Hey I bet it was Rick Altergott! Famous creator of "Doofus".
I added another character called "The Big Puss" (originally "The Big Pussy" but everyone talked me out of that). The Big Puss is the head of the crime syndicate in
Catville. He is the Catnip Gang's boos and we never actually see all of him at once. Usually we just hear his
gutteral grumbles from behind an imposing door in his office. Once in a while we will see just his face pressing against the frame of his open door. Jim Smith drew a hilarious storyboard about the Big Puss sending the Catnip gang on an impossible mission - to steal the shorts of Mighty Mouse. He figures that the shorts are magic and that is where Mighty Mouse gets his power from. I used this story idea later for "The Ripping Friends".
Richard
Pursel had an especial fondness for these bedfellows and dubbed them "
Gandy and Sourpuss: Wards Of The State". We wrote stories about them being on the dole and getting into tiffs with their unemployment officers and stuff.
Of course I included some of the characters we created for the
Bakshi version of Mighty Mouse. Here's Petey Pate in his insane glory. In this story he steals all the eyebrows from the mice in
mouseville and Mighty Mouse has to come save the day.
Here are his witless thugs who fear nothing - except insanity. The broken mind instills the fear of God in these poor crooked souls.
Here are my favorite characters from the
Bakshi show.
These look like they also might be drawn by Mike
Fontanelli.
I love the ignorant - and so did Rich. The original Deputy
Dawg cartoons are pretty terrible, even for
Terrytoons, but the characters are great.
Rich came up with a story about nearsighted Vincent Van Gofer marrying Deputy
Dawg's pants. The set up was: Deputy, Musky and the gang are skinny dipping at the old swimming hole, when Vincent Van Gofer ambles up to the edge of the pond and sees Deputy's pants hanging over the branch of a tree. Through his blurry eyes he sees a beautiful apparition of female gofer loveliness and he whisks the pants away to the Sheriff's office for a quick wedding. Wedding bliss turns out to be less than he'd hoped for and the marriage soon sours. Meanwhile, Deputy
Dawg has no pants and has to do his job while moving his hands back and forth really fast in front of himself to maintain the picture's family rating. That no-account egg-
stealin' rascal, Musky takes advantage of the situation with zany-ass results.
I have lots more of this stuff if anyone else likes
Terrytoons as much as I do.
