When cartoon studios in a major filmmaking city like Los Angeles closed in the 1960s and 1970s, it rarely received press attention in newspapers like the Los Angeles Times. In contrast, a studio operating out of New Rochelle, New York received coverage for multiple days about its closing. The story broke on November 29, 1972, that Terrytoons–the studio responsible for Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle, and Deputy Dawg–intended to shut down operations in its facility on 38 Centre Avenue and transfer to an office run by the studio’s owner Viacom in New York City. A few papers in cities near New Rochelle reported that news the next day. Then, a new wave of reports began on January 4, 1973, announcing that Terrytoons had indeed closed. The coverage is revealing in that it offers a glimpse into the state of animation at the time and a look at what happens when an animation studio shuts down.

The November 1972 reports noted that shortly before the studio’s decision to close, Bill Weiss, who succeeded founder Paul Terry as head of Terrytoons, had retired in September 1972, but Viacom had retained him as a consultant for the studio. The New Rochelle Standard-Star said that the studio at its peak had employed ninety people, and it mentioned that the studio’s building had three floors. Most revealing is that Terrytoons admitted to not having actually made new cartoons for a while. “The firm’s operations … in recent years consisted mainly of sales and servicing for existing cartoons,” stated the Standard-Star. To add insult to the injury of the studio’s demise, the headline out of the White Plains Argus of November 30 had a cartoon reference from another studio: “That’s All Folks! Terrytoons Closing.”

The story of January 4, 1973, was more reflective, an obituary for Terrytoons as it had existed in New Rochelle since 1934. Weiss made sure to emphasize that Terrytoons continued to exist as a part of Viacom but not for active cartoon production. Interestingly, he did not completely rule out the studio’s resumption of production, but he said that such a reopening would be in much different circumstances. “If our production of cartoons were to resume again, and it might someday, we’d probably have to open on the west coast,” he predicted. Ironically, animation production featuring Terrytoons stars did take place out west later in the decade, but Filmation–not Terrytoons–made the cartoons.

On January 5, 1973, the final story about Terrytoons’ shuttering appeared in the Standard-Star. This time it was a joint interview with Weiss and longtime studio employee Tommy Morrison. The article physically describes Morrison as a “thin, ruddy-faced man” with “light blue eyes and quick movements.” As Weiss and Morrison were interviewed, they “sat in their New Rochelle office, amidst cartons and furniture labeled for shipment to New York.” The interview itself took place on January 3, and Viacom’s sale of the New Rochelle building on December 29, 1972, had necessitated the packing away of the studio’s property.

When asked that day about animation’s future, Weiss replied that computer animation was the future. “They’re now working on a way to produce animated work by computer.” Morrison, however, sharply responded, “Never!” He added, “It won’t be animation if the human intelligence, the creativity is taken out of it.” Of course, Weiss’s prediction proved correct, but Morrison’s response showed how much he cared for animation as it had existed exclusively from the hands and minds of New Rochelle’s artists for so many years.