Tom Terrific
Tom Terrific is a 1957-1959 animated series on American television, presented as part of the Captain Kangaroo children's television show.
Created by Gene Deitch under the Terrytoons studio, Tom Terrific was made as twenty-six stories split into five parts, with one five-minute episode broadcast per day. The first thirteen stories were filmed in 1957, with the second set in 1958. Captain Kangaroo continued to rerun the episodes for many years. Starting in 1962, Captain Kangaroo broadcast Tom Terrific every other week, alternating with Terrytoons' Lariat Sam.
Drawn in a simple black-and white style reminiscent of children's drawings, the show features a gee-whiz boy hero, Tom Terrific, who lives in a treehouse and can transform himself into anything he wanted thanks to his magical funnel-shaped "thinking cap," which also enhances his intelligence. He has a comic lazybones of a sidekick, Mighty Manfred the Wonder Dog, and an arch-foe named Crabby Appleton, whose motto is, "I'm rotten to the core!" Other foes include Mr. Instant the Instant Thing King, Captain Kidney Bean, Sweet Tooth Sam the Candy Bandit, and Isotope Feeney the Meany. Some of the dialogue was written by cartoonist Jules Feiffer.
Gene Deitch adapted the feature from his earlier newspaper comic strip, "Terr'ble Thompson!" distributed during the 1950s by United Features Syndicate. Terr'ble Thompson was a six-year-old boy who imagined himself to be the "Hero of Hist'ry" and freely travelled back in time to assist historical figures. An illustrated book reprinting the adventures of this precursor to Tom Terrific was published by Fantagraphics Books.
All the voices were performed by Lionel Wilson.
Tom Terrific was ranked #32 by TV Guide magazine among its "50 Greatest TV Cartoon Characters."
Episodes
- Each episode was shown in five installments, one per day, Monday through Friday.
| Episode | Title | Air Date |
| 1 | The Nasty Knight | |
| 2 | The Pill of Smartness | |
| 3 | Sweet Tooth Sam | |
| 4 | Snowy Picture | |
| 5 | Crabby Appleton's Dragon | |
| 6 | Captain Kidney Bean | |
| 7 | The Gravity Maker | |
| 8 | Scrambled Dinosaur Eggs | |
| 9 | Who Stole the North Pole | |
| 10 | Instant Tantrums | |
| 11 | Track Meet, Well Done | |
| 12 | The Great Calendar Mystery | |
| 13 | Elephant Stew | |
| 14 | The Missing Mail Mystery | |
| 15 | The Prince Frog | |
| 16 | Isotope Feeney's Foolish Fog | |
| 17 | Moon Over Manfred | |
| 18 | Go West, Young Manfred | |
| 19 | The Silly Sandman | |
| 20 | Crabby Park | |
| 21 | The Million Manfred Mystery | |
| 22 | The Flying Sorcerer | |
| 23 | The Big Dog Show-Off | |
| 24 | The End of Rainbows | |
| 25 | Robinsnest Crusoe | |
| 26 | The Everlasting Birthday Party |
Home video
There has never been an authorized VHS, DVD or Blu-ray release of the series.In popular culture
- The character also appeared in a comic book for six issues in 1957 from Pines Comics, with some stories drawn by Ralph Bakshi.
- Tom Terrific appeared in a few Wonder Books, an imitation of Little Golden Books.
- Crabby Appleton was the name of a rock group, which used the character's image on a 1971 album, ROTTEN TO THE CORE.
- In the introduction to his book, The Great Big Book of Tomorrow, Tom Tomorrow says that he chose his pseudonym through misremembering the name of Tom Terrific.
- Tom Terrific appeared in the 1999 pilot Curbside, voiced by Haley Joel Osment.
- American football player Tom Brady attempted to trademark the phrase for himself, but was turned down in August 2019, to prevent confusion with baseball player Tom Seaver.