Toby the Pup is an animated cartoon character created by animators Sid Marcus, Dick Huemer, and Art Davis. He starred in a series of early sound shorts produced by Charles Mintz's Screen Gems for RKO Radio Pictures. The series lasted from 1930 to 1931. Twelve cartoons were produced, though some are still considered to be lost. The character was voiced by Dick Huemer. All of the character's cartoons fell into the public domain in the 1950s due to the copyrights not being renewed.
History
In 1930, Charles Mintz, while simultaneously producing the Krazy Kat cartoon series for Columbia, decided to create an additional series to be distributed through RKO Radio Pictures. He hired two Fleischer animators, Dick Huemer and Sid Marcus, and assigned them to work with Art Davis to create the new series. Marcus, who worked for the Mintz studio when it was still located in New York City, devised Toby the Pup. Toby was very similar to Fleischer's Bimbo in both personality and character design. He wore a custodian hat and a pair of shoes that looked like dog feet.
Despite the series' success, it concluded after only twelve films; most likely because of RKO's ties with the Van Beuren studio. However, by the time the series ended, Mintz was already negotiating with Columbia for backing on a second cartoon series to be headed again by Huemer, Marcus, and Davis. For this series, Huemer devised a new character, a small boy named Scrappy.
Today, only eight of the Toby cartoons are known to exist.
A fragment of The Museum is held by the Library of Congress. Prints of the short have turned up in a few private film collections in the United States and four were discovered in Europe.
Cartoon Factory, a syndicated compilation of public domain cartoons distributed throughout Europe by Lobster Films, features three Toby cartoons: The Milkman, Down South, and Halloween.
In 2005, a full 16mm print of The Brown Derby was found in a private collection in San Marcos, Texas, by Toby Heidel. The print is currently housed at UCLA and restoration is being attempted by Jere Guldin.
A substantial fragment of The Showman has also surfaced.
In 2016, Inkwell Images issued a Blu-Ray release of the five existent Toby cartoons, "The Museum," "The Milkman", "Down South", and "Halloween" through an arrangement with Lobster Films, and "Circus Time" through UCLA Film Archives.
In 2024, a French print of "The Fiddler" was discovered by Thunderbean, who unofficially released it on one of their special Blu-Rays, "Thunderbean Sneak Preview Blu-Ray 2024", which was only available for purchase for one week. It was leaked online later that year, but was taken down.
In 2016, the company Inkwell Images attempted to Trademark "Toby the Pup" for exclusive use on home video. This effort, after several revisions, failed. This attempt was likely done to prevent other companies from releasing a Toby the Pup home video.
Exists in a complete sound print with french titles. A silent print with no opening or ending titles was found in 2010, A nitrate cartoon reel with a sound fragment of the film was found later on by Cartoon98100 which was donated to Thunderbean Animations and was included in the Special Disc "Cartoons Most Wanted".
