Do you remember ‘Tom Terrific’ and ‘Manfred?’

The other day I came across a stuffed pink dog that my grandmother in Pennsylvania gave me when I was very little.

In fact, I was so little I really couldn’t remember why I loved to play with that funny looking pink dog when I went to visit her. I was talking about this with friends this week and they vaguely remembered him too. One of them looked it up on their cell phone.

We found out that “Tom Terrific” was a cartoon produced in the early days of television for CBS and appeared on “Captain Kangaroo” in a series of five-minute episodes. Created by Gene Deitch under the name of Terrytoons, the cartoon was adapted from a newspaper comic strip, “Terrible Thompson,” that was distributed by United Features Syndicate, the same group that distributed Charlie Brown and the gang knows as “Peanuts.”

The cartoon was a simple drawing of a super smart boy hero named Tom Terrific who could transform himself into anything from an airplane to a bumblebee and lived in a tree house. He wore a funnel shaped thinking cap on his head that enhanced his intelligence.

His comic lazy dog Mighty Manfred the Wonder Dog was always at his side. There was also a cast of characters such as Crabby Appleton, Mr. Instant, Captain Kidney Bean and Sweet Tooth Sam, the Candy Bandit. There was even a little theme song sang at the beginning of each episode, which of course was in black and white! Only in the comic books did you see that Manfred was actually pink.

The show started in 1957 and ran through 1959 and was rerun through the early 1960s. Only 26 episodes were produced. A line of comic books and a handful of toys were produced.

These were the “early” days of television, and marketing of toy-related products was not the mass moneymaker that it is today. Terrytunes Studios actually produced many popular cartoon characters in the early 1960s like Mighty Mouse and Nancy and Sluggo.

Tom Terrific and Mighty Manfred collectibles are not very collectible or expensive because the series was so short lived. It was hard to find many of these even on eBay. You could find a lot of things where Tom Brady or Tom Seaver were referred to by “Tom Terrific,” so you no know where that moniker probably came from!

Happy Collecting!

Jillinda Falen has been buying and selling antiques for over 30 years. She is a licensed REALTOR and estate liquidation specialist. You can contact her through the HHJ or via email at jcfalen@gmail.com.

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