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 il gatto (1972).
