Paul Terry Presents "The Talking Magpies"

Paul Houlton Terry (February 19, 1887 - October 25, 1971) was an American cartoonist, screenwriter, film director and one of the most prolific film producers in history. He produced over 1,300 cartoons between 1915 and 1955 including the many Terrytoons cartoons.

Farmer Al Falfa (also known as Farmer Alfalfa), the quintessential grizzly old farmer type, is an animated cartoon character created by American cartoonist Paul Terry. He first appeared in 1916 in a series a shorts produced by the John R. Bray Studios. After leaving Bray, Terry retained the character and used him frequently during the 1920s for his Aesop's Film Fables series, the character's most prolific period. When Terry made the transition to sound, so did the farmer. The first publicly released sound cartoon, Dinner Time, featured Farmer Al Falfa as an irritable butcher who had to fend off a pack of hungry hounds. However, the short failed to grasp the public's interest like Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie, released one month later.

This cartoon later developed into the famous "Heckle & Jeckle", (but at this time it was a couple, a male and female magpie).

Heckle and Jeckle is a theatrical cartoon series created by Paul Terry, and released by his own studio, Terrytoons. The characters were a pair of identical magpies[citation needed] who calmly outwitted their foes in the manner of Bugs Bunny, while maintaining a mischievous streak reminiscent of Woody Woodpecker. However in a number of their cartoons (Moose On The Loose, Free Enterprise) their foes win in the end. Their names were inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's famous novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. They are generally seen as the most entertaining and even funniest characters from the Paul Terry cartoons.

Terrytoons was an animation studio founded by Paul Terry. The studio, located in suburban New Rochelle, New York, operated from 1928 to 1968. Its most popular characters included Mighty Mouse, Gandy Goose, Sourpuss, Dinky Duck, Deputy Dawg, Luno and Heckle and Jeckle; these cartoons and all of its others were released to theatres under the studio's solitary Terrytoons banner by 20th Century Fox.