Felix the Cat is the first television series featuring the famous cartoon character Felix the Cat. In 1954 Otto Messmer retired from the Felix daily newspaper strips, and his assistant Joe Oriolo took over. Oriolo struck a deal with Felix's new owner to begin a new series of Felix cartoons on television. Oriolo went on to star Felix in 260 television cartoons distributed by Trans-Lux. Like the Van Beuren studio before, Oriolo gave Felix a more domesticated and pedestrian personality, geared more toward children, and introduced now-familiar elements such as Felix's "Magic Bag of Tricks", a satchel that could assume the shape and characteristics of anything Felix wanted.