{"id":779,"date":"2025-10-06T00:01:27","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T07:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.wordpress.com\/?p=187"},"modified":"2025-10-05T16:43:36","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T23:43:36","slug":"terrytoons-barker-bill-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/terrytoons-barker-bill-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Terrytoons &#8220;Barker Bill&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"background-color: lightyellow; color: black; padding: 4px; border: 4px solid black;\"><strong><u>EDITOR&#8217;S NOTE:<\/u><\/strong> This is a repost &#8211; by &#8220;popular demand&#8221; &#8211; of one of my earliest articles on the then &#8216;newly revamped&#8217; &#8220;Cartoon Research&#8221; blog, in February 2013. Every once in a while I will be reposting favorite posts from the past &#8211; some by me, and perhaps a few by our late colleagues (Jim Korkis, Fred Patten), but only when I have an &#8220;opening&#8221; in the schedule. This post features the COMMENTS from the original posting &#8211; but feel free to add to it with any observations, additional information, corrections. Enjoy.<\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n<p>\n<p>Today we&#8217;ll gaze into the hypnotic image of Terrytoons&#8217; long-forgotten animated cartoon host, Barker Bill. <\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/02\/barker_bill_frames.jpg\" alt=\"barker_bill_frames\" width=\"470\" height=\"175\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-224\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>\n<p><em>Barker Bill&#8217;s Cartoon Show<\/em> is considered one of the first network television weekday cartoon series. It aired on CBS from 1953 to 1955 &#8211; before Paul Terry sold his studio and film library in its entirety to the network. <\/p>\n<p>According to Wikipedia, <em>Barker Bill<\/em> was a 15-minute show, broadcast twice a week, on Wednesdays and Fridays at 5pm Eastern (although some local stations showed both episodes together as a single 30 minute show). Here is the original musical opening of the show, which would lead right into some delightfully creaky 30s Terrytoon (in this case <em>Hook and Ladder #1<\/em> from 1932). <\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/t7miXyvGvX8?si=Fwms97L3jTG8f5wC\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>\n<p>Unlike the other animation studios, who tread cautiously into the world of television, Paul Terry embraced this new market for his ancient backlog of shorts. And he clearly had high hopes for his ringmaster, Barker Bill. This painting was probably proudly hanging in the lobby &#8211; it was fished out of the trash in the mid-sixties, mold and all&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/02\/barker_bill_painting.jpg\" alt=\"barker_bill_painting\" width=\"470\" height=\"547\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-210\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>\n<p>Terry had advertised the show with full page ads in <em>Terrytoon<\/em> comic books in the 1950s:<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/02\/barkerbill_ad.jpg\" alt=\"barkerbill_ad\" width=\"470\" height=\"581\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-213\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>\n<p>Terry also promoted the show via a daily and Sunday comic strip (1954-55) drawn by animator Bob Kuwahara. I don&#8217;t think it was widely syndicated. <a TARGET=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/itsthecat.com\/blog\/?s=Bob+Kuwahara\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mark Kausler<\/a> posted the only examples of the strip he could locate, from the <em>The Winnipeg Free Press<\/em> (via Newspaper Archive.com), <em>The Boston Globe<\/em> (via Proquest) and the <em>Greensburg Daily Tribune<\/em> (via Yahoo news). Below is a typical daily strip and a Sunday page (<em>click to enlarge<\/em>). Check <a TARGET=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/itsthecat.com\/blog\/?s=Barker+Bill\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mark&#8217;s blog<\/a> for many more Barker Bill strips:<\/p>\n<p><center><a TARGET=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/02\/barker_bill_comic.jpg\" rel=\"prettyphoto[779]\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/02\/barker_bill_comic_470.jpg\" alt=\"barker_bill_comic_470\" width=\"470\" height=\"141\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-215\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>\n<p><center><a TARGET=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/02\/bill_strip_large.jpg\" rel=\"prettyphoto[779]\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/02\/bill_strip_sunday470.jpg\" alt=\"bill_strip_sunday470\" width=\"470\" height=\"231\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-240\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>\n<p>In case you haven&#8217;t heard the <em>Barker Bill<\/em> theme song enough, here is the full length version recorded by Mitch Miller for Little Golden Records:<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/02\/barkerbill_78rpm.jpg\" alt=\"barkerbill_78rpm\" width=\"470\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-212\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F79312114\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Lest you think Paul Terry spared no expense to create this new character &#8211; Barker Bill was really a retread, originally designed (by Charles Thorson) for the 1942 theatrical cartoon, <em>Happy Circus Days<\/em>. Here&#8217;s the model sheet (<em>click to enlarge<\/em>):<\/p>\n<p><center><a TARGET=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/02\/barker_model_large.jpg\" rel=\"prettyphoto[779]\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/02\/barker_model470.jpg\" alt=\"barker_model470\" width=\"470\" height=\"369\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-234\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>\n<p>And here&#8217;s the film itself: <\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GbkGSURFzzk\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>\n<p>For the sake of completeness, here is Thorson&#8217;s models for the kid and dog in <em>Happy Circus Days<\/em> (<em>click to enlarge<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p><center><a TARGET=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/02\/happycircusdays_large.jpg\" rel=\"prettyphoto[779]\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/02\/happycircusdays470.jpg\" alt=\"HappyCircusDays470\" width=\"470\" height=\"350\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-231\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>\n<p>And now you know everything you ever wanted to know about <em>Barker Bill<\/em> &#8211; whether you were afraid to ask, or not. <\/p>\n<p><em>(Thanks, Mark Kausler and Mark Newgarden)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today we&#8217;ll gaze into the hypnotic image of Terrytoons&#8217; long-forgotten animated cartoon host, Barker Bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":92383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[31,32,33,34],"class_list":["post-779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animation-history","tag-barker-bill","tag-bob-kuwahara","tag-charles-thorson","tag-paul-terry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92382,"href":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions\/92382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}