Terrytoons, Inc. was an American animation studio headquartered in New Rochelle, New York, which was active from 1929 until its closure in December 1972 (and briefly returned between 1987 and 1996 for television in-name only).

The "New Terrytoons" period of the late 1950s through the mid-1960s produced such characters as Clint Clobber, Tom Terrific, Deputy Dawg, Hector Heathcote, Hashimoto-san, Sidney the Elephant, Possible Possum, James Hound, Astronut, Sad Cat, The Mighty Heroes, and Sally Sargent.

Through much of its history, the studio was considered one of the lowest-quality houses in the field, to the point where Paul Terry noted, "Let Walt Disney be the Tiffany's of the business.

While its graphic style remained remarkably static for decades, it actually followed the sound cartoon trend of the late 1920s and early 1930s very quickly.

The Fox Film company then released Educational shorts to theaters in the 1930s, giving the Terry cartoons wide exposure.

Despite the artistic drawbacks imposed by Terry's inflexible business policies, Terrytoons was nominated four times for the Academy Award for Animated Short Film: All Out for V in 1942, My Boy, Johnny in 1944, Mighty Mouse in Gypsy Life in 1945, and Sidney's Family Tree in 1958.

The studio was sold outright by the retiring Paul Terry to CBS in 1955, but 20th Century Fox (TCF) continued distribution.

Deitch's most notable works at the studio were the Tom Terrific cartoon segments for the Captain Kangaroo television show.

He also introduced a number of new characters, such as Sidney the Elephant,[6] Gaston Le Crayon,[7] John Doormat,[citation needed] and Clint Clobber.

Another television production for the Captain Kangaroo show was The Adventures of Lariat Sam, which was written in part by Gene Wood, who would later become the announcer for several TV gameshows including Family Feud.

The studio's one of the last short was an unsold TV pilot called Sally Sargent, about a 16-year-old girl who is a secret agent.

[9] In the late 1970s, Filmation Associates licensed the rights to make the new Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle series from Viacom International.

Tyer, a stand-out Terry animator of the original cartoons with a unique style, became a strong influence on the artists of the Bakshi series, such as now recognizable artists and animators—Bruce Timm, Doug Moench, Andrew Stanton, Rich Moore, Lynne Naylor, Jim Reardon, Tom Minton, and Bob Jaques.

However, some Terrytoons shorts are believed to be in the public domain and have either been issued on low-budget VHS tapes and DVDs or have been uploaded on sites such as Internet Archive.

On January 5, 2010, the first official release of any Terrytoons material by CBS DVD was issued in the form of the complete series of Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures.

Curbside features talented voices of Toby Huss and Bobcat Goldthwait as Heckle & Jeckle, Dee Bradley Baker as Dinky Duck, Mighty Mouse and Sidney the Elephant, Billy West as Deputy Dawg, Haley Joel Osment as Tom Terrific, and additional voices of Baker, West, Charlie Adler, and Rob Paulsen.

[10] Between 2001 and 2002, the Terrytoons characters returned to television in original commercials for Brazilian blue cheese (for what is now America's Dairy Farmers) and fine wine.

[11] In 2004, a supposed live-action/animated hybrid Mighty Mouse film adaptation was announced for Nickelodeon Movies and Paramount Pictures with Steve Oedekerk of Omation Animation Studio to produce and direct, but was cancelled and has been in development hell since then.

[12] However, development later revived in April 2019 for Paramount Animation with Jon and Erich Hoeber to write the screenplay and both Karen Rosenfelt and Robert W. Cort to produce.

[13] It was later announced that in November 2024, Paramount Animation was associated with Maximum Effort, with its founder Ryan Reynolds as a producer and Matt Lieberman as a writer.

The company's characters — including Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle, Dinky Duck, Gandy Goose, and Little Roquefort — were initially licensed to Timely, a predecessor of Marvel Comics, in 1942.