Biography

February 7, 1904 · Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA

March 23, 1976 · Fairfield, Connecticut, USA

James Harold Tyer

Dopey characters having a snaggle tooth sticking out when speaking.

Extremely fast paced rubbery animation.

Characters heads shrinking when reacting in shock.

Dust cloud effects when a character runs out of frame or is sent flying out of the frame.

Off-model characters

Jim Tyer is a cult figure among animation buffs for his distinctively silly style in Terrytoons cartoons of 1940s and 50s. His character drawings are off-model, rubbery and sloppy looking, a sharp contrast to the typical bland animation from that studio; but they make inventive use of movement and are always funny. When handing them in to Ink and Paint he'd say, "Now don't try to make it look nice, ladies. The color will hold it together". Tyer could only have gotten away with flexing his creative personality at low-budget Terrytoons, where stylistic continuity was not an issue as long as the daily footage quotas were met. Ralph Bakshi, who worked with Tyer in the late 1950s, looked up to him as a hero and later employed him on his animated feature Fritz le chat (1972).

At Terrytoons there was much grumbling and backbiting over Tyer's crazy style, but producer Paul Terry refused to fire him because he drew 60 feet of footage per week - more than any animator at the studio. Terry even posed for a publicity photo with Tyer, something he did with his staff favorites.

Was an effects animator at Disney in the 1930s, which influenced his later character drawing.

Tyer came out of retirement to work on Fritz le chat (1972). He animated parts of the Harlem sequence, but as a devout Catholic he found the material increasingly objectionable. He finally quit the film in a rage and retired for good.

Hey Ralph, stop worrying. Everything moves, so put it down, have fun and go home.