Hear Ye, Hear Ye

Saturday Leftover Day.

One of the more remarkable strips I found on Geneolygy.com was this short running gem credited to Paul Terry, but obviously drawn by someone else. I have not yet found out who did it, but will add this infromation as soon as I have. A very charming strip, but it was gone within a year. 

Here is the first info I found: Barker Bill was the last cartoon show Paul Terry produced before selling out his studio. Here's what Wikipedia says. I am not surprised it mentions Ala Holtz, who did not miss it either. 

"Barker Bill's Cartoon Show was the first network television weekday cartoon series, airing on CBS from 1953 to 1955.^[1] The 15 minute show was broadcast twice a week, Wednesdays and Fridays, at 5pm Eastern, although some local stations showed both episodes together as a single 30 minute show.^[2]

Barker Bill was a portly circus ringmaster with a long black handlebar mustache and dressed in the traditional costume - a fancy suit with white gloves and a top hat.

The show was hosted by a stationary picture of the Barker Bill character with an off-camera announcer introducing the cartoons. The show featured old black and white cartoons obtained from Terrytoons. These were mostly older cartoons from the 1930s, like Farmer Al Falfa and Kiko the Kangaroo, not the more current and better known series such as Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle.

Barker Bill did not appear in cartoons, but was briefly featured in a newspaper comic strip series from September 1954 to 1955.^[3]

Terrytoons was the first major animation studio to give television a license to show its library of old black and white cartoons. The Barker Bill series was so successful that CBS offered to buy the Terrytoons studio, including its production facilities and library of cartoons. Paul Terry accepted the offer and retired in 1955."

Alan Holtz does not have a seperate entry for Barker Bill, but it does get mentioned in Bob Kuwahara's  Inkslinger's Profile: https://strippersguide.blogspot.com/search?q=barker+bill. Though this profile is not credited all of the later ones are by Alex Jay, so I am assuming he did this one as well. Maybe he can confirm this next time he visits.

Looking through Geneology.com, the last entry seems to have been February 27, 1955. I will go and look for some of the later weeks.