Getting thrown out of a “Magpie Hotel” just minutes into their first cartoon should have been an indication of what was to come with Heckle and Jeckle.
Eventually, the identical magpies would evolve into a different mischievous pair, one with a British accent, one with a note of New York in his voice. Still, they were different in their debut, The Talking Magpies, from Paul Terry’s Terrytoons, which was released eighty years ago this week on January 4, 1946, and featured a prototype for what would eventually become Heckle and Jeckle.
As the short opens, a magpie husband and wife couple (voiced by Dayton Allen and Tom Morrison) spot the “Magpie Hotel.” Even though there’s a sign that reads “No Vacancies,” they barge in and are thrown out immediately.
After attempts to take over nearby nests don’t work, they arrive at a real estate office, where the agent (Allen, sounding a lot like comedian Hugh Herbert) rents them a nest that’s right outside the window of Farmer Al Falfa (an already established Terrytoons star, voiced by Roy Halee) and his dog, Dimwit (Allen). “Duh, say fellas, the boss asked me if I’d ask you if you’d mind being a little more quiet,” Dimwit innocently asks.
When that doesn’t work, the Farmer takes things into his own hands, first throwing a bowl of water, which is then thrown back, and also results in a broken window.
One of the magpies then sneaks into the house and inside the radio, pretending to be a broadcaster asking the question, “Do you have a magpie problem?” The Farmer listens to the faux broadcast exalting the virtues of magpies.
The magpie then pops out of the radio, infuriating the Farmer, who gives chase with his shotgun. Meanwhile, the two magpies lift Dimwit by his ears and tail and land him on the roof. He slides off, crashing on top of Al Falfa.
The magpies now yell from their nest for quiet, and the Farmer climbs a ladder to get them, but a mallet to the head from the magpies knocks him back down. One of the magpies attempts to sell him aspirin for a headache he’s about to have, thanks to another mallet hit.
The Farmer and Dimwit eventually attempt to chop down the tree, but the two magpies, joined by the residents of the hotel, swarm. They all fly inside the house, where the Farmer and Dimwit chase them.
Heckle and Jeckle – still billed as “The Talking Magpies” in their third cartoon, McDOUGAL’S REST FARM (1947)
Directed by Mannie Davis and written by John Foster, The Talking Magpies came about because Paul Terry had an idea for shorts featuring twin characters. The first short planted a seed for what audiences could expect from future Heckle and Jeckle cartoons. They would transition away from the husband-and-wife personas and more to their familiar personalities in The Uninvited Pests, which was released in November of 1946.
Still in The Talking Magpies, there was a lot in place that would become the paradigm for future Heckle and Jeckle shorts, where the two birds would annoy their adversaries throughout, using a variety of well-placed jokes and sight gags.
The Talking Magpies contains a number of these clever moments, including one where the Farmer and Dimwit attempt to hit the magpies as they fly through a door. The Farmer and dog wind up hitting each other on the head, and as they fall to the floor, the magpies come back and say, “That was fun! Let’s do it again!,” and hand them the sticks back.
After their debut, Heckle and Jeckle would star in over 50 shorts for Terrytoons. In 1955, Terrytoons was sold to CBS, and a year later, the debut of The Heckle and Jeckle Cartoon Show aired until 1966, introducing the characters to a whole new generation.
Numerous pieces of merchandise and the cartoons airing in syndication for years after have continued the characters’ popularity.
Today, Heckle and Jeckle have become one of the icons of the golden age of animated cartoon shorts, all thanks to The Talking Magpies, which now celebrates its 80th anniversary.
In Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons, Leonard Maltin summed up the magpies’ long-lasting career by stating that “…Heckle and Jeckle were the first Terry ‘stars’ who were basically antagonistic. Perhaps they were the studio’s answer to the brash, bombastic cartoon stars at Warner Brothers, MGM, and Walter Lantz during the 1940s. Whatever the reason, their mischievous nature immediately set them apart from such gentle predecessors as Puddy the Pup, Gandy Goose, and even Mighty Mouse.”
Michael Lyons is a freelance writer, specializing in film, television, and pop culture. He is the author of the book, Drawn to Greatness: Disney’s Animation Renaissance, which chronicles the amazing growth at the Disney animation studio in the 1990s. In addition to Animation Scoop and Cartoon Research, he has contributed to Remind Magazine, Cinefantastique, Animation World Network and Disney Magazine. He also writes a blog, Screen Saver: A Retro Review of TV Shows and Movies of Yesteryear and his interviews with a number of animation legends have been featured in several volumes of the books, Walt’s People. You can visit Michael’s web site Words From Lyons at: 
I would consider these two talking magpies to be my favorite cartoons from the Paul Terry Studios, except that there are so many others. This is a good entryway for those who don’t know about this cartoon studio from New York and would like to get a small taste. These are probably among the best animated of all the cartoon characters, except that mighty mouse definitely has a place there. This is my often expressed hope that these come to physical media real soon in fully realized, restored print quality. They need to be rediscovered fully!
“The Heckle and Jeckle Cartoon Show” along with “Mighty Mouse Playhouse” were still running when I was a small child, thus making the Terrytoons a recognizable commodity. Despite their mischief-making, the two birds had winning personalities that assured their status as protagonists, with their matter-of-fact attitude toward whatever adversary they encountered, and their usual awareness that they were operating within the scope of an animated cartoon. A frequent type of exchange would involve Dimwit the Dog, in which he would state, “I’ll teach you birds to make a fool out of me,” and they would reply: “You don’t have to!” “We already know!” They seemed always to come out on top, and on those rare occasions when they didn’t, one had the feeling that their setback would be of short duration.
Heckle and Jeckle were the headliners in the New Terrytoons comic book for years, although occasionally supplanted by Deputy Dawg or Mighty Mouse. But it was the magpies who brought in the biggest laughs, and I remember laughing out loud at their antics in print. Whatever havoc they wrought, they were always so polite about it!
Heckle & Jeckle in “The Power Of Thought” remains a favorite that expresses the essence of cartoondom.
I grew up on The Heckle & Jeckle Show on Saturday mornings. That’s when I first became aware of the impressive voice talents of Dayton Allen and the zany art of cartoonist Jim Tyer. The original incarnation of the Taking Magpies never made a bad short. In 2018 I chose Heckle & Jeckle as the introductory post to my FB page TOONS THAT TIME FORGOT. They are still there holding the fort there as the featured post 8 years later.
Heckle and Jeckle were not the first twin cartoon characters conceived by Paul Terry. The last Terrytoon produced in black and white, “Ickle Meets Pickle” (1942), starred another pair of identical characters with contrasting voices, though given their fastidious politeness Ickle and Pickle have less in common with Heckle and Jeckle than they do with the Goofy Gophers. Their debut cartoon was also their finale, but its bouncy musical theme was later reused in the opening of “CBS Cartoon Theatre”.
Farmer Al Falfa and Dimwit returned in the second H&J cartoon, “The Uninvited Pests”. In this one, however, the magpies both speak with New York accents until the very end, when they deliver their final lines in affected posh British accents! From there it was just a short step to assigning a particular accent to each character, giving the pair a more cosmopolitan tone.
I’ve been told that in the Spanish language dub, the magpies (Tico y Tuco) both speak with Mexican accents, but one of them is meant to be older than the other.
Fans of the magpies may be surprised to learn that no less a personage than country music legend George Jones paid tribute to them in a song, mistitled “Heckel and Jeckel”, that he recorded in 1991. “We’re like Heckel [sic] and Jeckel [sic], Jeckel [sic] and Hyde, Frankie and Johnny, Bonnie and Clyde….” Yes, I know, Jekyll and Hyde were opposite facets of the same person, and Frankie murdered Johnny, but so what? It’s George Jones, singing about Heckle and Jeckle!
A pet peeve of mine is the constant mislabeling of both of them as crows. Maybe it’s because crows had been a constant presence in cartoons for decades, usually as corn-stealing pests. I remember hearing voice-overs from local station announcers along the lines of “Stay tuned for the wacky adventures of those crazy CROWS, Heckle and Jeckle, next.”