Tom and Jerry is a series of animated theatrical shorts Short subjects might be in the form of travelogues, human interest films or concert films. The form was so popular that virtually all major film production companies had fully-staffed special units assigned to develop and produce them, and many companies, especially in the silent and very early sound era, produced short subjects exclusively created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera Joseph Roland "Joe" Barbera ;(March 24, 1911 – December 18, 2006) was an influential American animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, and cartoon artist, whose movie and television cartoon characters entertained millions of fans worldwide for much of the twentieth century. Through his young adult years, Barbera lived, attended for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer Inc., or MGM, is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs that centered on a never-ending rivalry between a housecat (Tom) and a mouse A mouse is a small mammal belonging to the order of rodents. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (Mus musculus). It is also a popular pet. The American white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) and the deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus) also sometimes live in houses. In some places, certain kinds of field mice are also common (Jerry) whose chases and battles often involved comic violence. Hanna and Barbera ultimately wrote and directed one hundred and fourteen Tom and Jerry cartoons at the MGM cartoon studio in Hollywood, California Hollywood is a district in Los Angeles, California, United States, situated west-northwest of Downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word "Hollywood" is often used as a metonym of American cinema. The nickname Tinseltown refers to the glittering, between 1940 and 1957, when the animation unit was closed. The original series is notable for having won the Academy Awards for Best Short Subject (Cartoons) The Academy Award for Animated Short Film is an award which has been given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as part of the Academy Awards every year since the 5th Academy Awards, covering the year 1931-32, to the present seven times, tying it with Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney was a multiple Academy Award-winning American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur and philanthropist. Disney is famous for his influence in the field of entertainment during the twentieth century. As the co-founder (with his brother Roy O. Disney) of Walt Disney Productions, Disney became's Silly Symphonies Silly Symphonies is a series of animated short subjects, 75 in total, produced by Walt Disney Productions from 1929 to 1939, while the studio was still located at Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles. Unlike the Mickey Mouse series, to which it is a sister series, Silly Symphonies did not usually feature continuing characters as the most-awarded theatrical animated series.

Beginning in 1960, in addition to the originals MGM had new shorts produced by Rembrandt Films, led by Gene Deitch in Eastern Europe. Production of Tom and Jerry shorts returned to Hollywood under Chuck Jones Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio. He directed many of the classic short animated cartoons starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, the Road Runner & Wile's Sib-Tower 12 Productions in 1963; this series lasted until 1967, making it a total of 161 shorts. The cat and mouse stars later resurfaced in television cartoons produced by Hanna-Barbera Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. , was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century. The company was originally formed in 1944 by MGM animation directors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and live-action director George Sidney as Hanna-Barbera Enterprises in order to and Filmation Studios during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, a feature film, Tom and Jerry: The Movie, in 1992 and released domestically in 1993 and in 2000, their first made-for TV short, Tom and Jerry in: The Mansion Cat for Cartoon Network Cartoon Network is a cable television network created by Turner Broadcasting which primarily shows animated programming. The original American channel began broadcasting on October 1, 1992 with the Bugs Bunny short Rhapsody Rabbit being its first-ever aired program.[citation needed] Cartoon Network originally served as a 24-hour outlet for classic. The most recent Tom and Jerry theatrical short, The KarateGuard, was written and co-directed by co-creator Joe Barbera and debuted in Los Angeles cinemas on September 27, 2005.

Today, Time Warner Time Warner Inc. is the world's third largest media and entertainment conglomerate by market capitalization (behind News Corporation and The Walt Disney Company), headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. (TimeWarner.com Fact Sheet Page) Formerly three separate companies (and owns the assets of a fourth, Turner Broadcasting System, (via its Turner Entertainment Turner Entertainment Company, Inc. is an American media company founded by Ted Turner. Now owned by Time Warner, the company is largely responsible for overseeing its library for worldwide distribution division) owns the rights to Tom and Jerry (with Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. is one of the world's largest producers of film and television entertainment handling distribution). Since the merger, Turner has produced the series, Tom and Jerry Tales for The CW The CW Television Network is a television network in the United States launched at the beginning of the 2006–2007 television season. It is a joint venture between CBS Corporation, the former owners of United Paramount Network (UPN), and Warner Bros., former majority owner of The WB (Warner Brothers) Television Network (a network that has since's Saturday morning A Saturday morning cartoon is the colloquial term for the animated television programming which was typically scheduled on Saturday mornings on the major American television networks from the 1960s to the 1990s. In the United States, the generally accepted times considered to be Saturday mornings are 8 a.m. to noon Eastern. In addition, until the "The CW4Kids" lineup, as well as the recent Tom and Jerry short, The KarateGuard, in 2005 and a string of Tom and Jerry direct-to-video films - all in collaboration with Warner Bros. Animation.

There are a total of 162 theatrical shorts starring Tom and Jerry. For a list of all the Tom and Jerry theatrical shorts, see list of Tom and Jerry cartoons. For a list of all the Tom and Jerry Tales episodes, see list of Tom and Jerry Tales episodes.

Contents

Plot and format

The plots of each short usually center on Tom's numerous attempts to capture Jerry and the mayhem and destruction that ensues. Since Tom rarely attempts to eat Jerry and because the pair actually seem to get along in some cartoon shorts, it is unclear why Tom chases Jerry so much. Some reasons given may include normal feline/murine enmity, duty according to his owner, Jerry's attempt at ruining a task that Tom is entrusted with, Jerry eating Tom's master's food which Tom has been entrusted with safeguarding, revenge, Jerry saving other potential prey In ecology, predation describes a biological interaction where a predator feeds on its prey, the organism that is attacked. Predators may or may not kill their prey prior to feeding on them, but the act of predation always results in the death of the prey. The other main category of consumption is detritivory, the consumption of dead organic (such as ducks Duck is the common name for a number of species in the Anatidae family of birds. The ducks are divided between several subfamilies listed in full in the Anatidae article; they do not represent a monophyletic group but a form taxon, since swans and geese are not considered ducks. Ducks are mostly aquatic birds, mostly smaller than the swans and, canaries The Canary , also called the Island Canary, Atlantic Canary or Common Canary, is a small passerine bird belonging to the genus Serinus in the finch family, Fringillidae. It is native to the Azores, the Canary Islands, and Madeira. Wild birds are mostly yellow-green, with brownish streaking on the back. The species is common in captivity and a, or goldfish Goldfish are small ornamental freshwater fish that are commonly kept as pets. Goldfish were one of the earliest breeds of fish to be domesticated and are still one of the most commonly kept fish in aquariums and outdoor water gardens) from being eaten by Tom or competition with another cat, and attempts to seduce feline femme fatales, among other reasons.

The second Tom and Jerry title card, which was used from 1943 to 1944. These cards are no longer seen on re-issue prints or re-runs.

Tom rarely succeeds in catching Jerry, mainly because of Jerry's cleverness, cunning abilities, and luck. Interestingly enough, many of the title cards show Tom and Jerry smiling at each other which seems to depict a love-hate relationship A love-hate relationship is a personal relationship involving simultaneous or alternating emotions of love and enmity. Sometimes the person may love the other person/object, but hate oneself for it. This relationship does not have to be of a romantic nature, and may be instead of a sibling one. It may occur when people have completely lost the rather than the extreme annoyance each displays towards the other in each cartoon. There are also several instances within the cartoons where they display genuine friendship ("Springtime for Thomas") and concern for each other's well-being (such as in "Jerry and the Lion" where Jerry in one instance tricks Tom into thinking he has shot Jerry, and Tom comes running with the first aid kit).

Tom and Jerry title card used in the early 1950s, and some reissues of 1940s shorts. A modified version of this card was used on the CinemaScope releases in 1954 and 1955.

The short episodes are famous for some of the most violent gags ever devised in theatrical animation: Jerry slicing Tom in half, shutting his head in a window or a door, Tom using everything from axes The axe, or ax, is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood, harvest timber, as a weapon and a ceremonial or heraldic symbol. The axe has many forms and specialized uses but generally consists of an axe head with a handle, or helve, pistols A handgun is a firearm designed to be held and operated by one hand, with the other hand optionally supporting the shooting hand. This characteristic differentiates handguns as a general class of firearms from their larger counterparts: long guns such as rifles and shotguns , mounted weapons such as machine guns and autocannons, and larger weapons, explosives An explosive material is a material that either is chemically or otherwise energetically unstable or produces a sudden expansion of the material usually accompanied by the production of heat and large changes in pressure upon initiation; this is called the explosion. An explosive charge is a measured quantity of explosive material, traps and poison In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism. Legally and in hazardous chemical labelling, poisons are especially toxic substances; less toxic substances are labelled " to try to murder Murder, as defined in common law countries, is the unlawful killing of another human being with intent , and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide. All jurisdictions, ancient and modern, consider it a most serious crime and therefore impose severe penalty on its commission. The word murder is Jerry, Jerry stuffing Tom's tail in a waffle iron A waffle iron is a cooking home appliance used to make waffles. It usually consists of two hinged metal plates, molded to create the honeycomb pattern found on waffles. The iron is heated and batter is poured between the plates, which are then closed to bake the waffle. Most modern waffle irons are coated with a non-stick coating (and also into what it seems as an old washing machine once), kicking him into a refrigerator A refrigerator is a cooling appliance comprising a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump—chemical or mechanical means—to transfer heat from it to the external environment, cooling the contents to a temperature below ambient. Refrigerators are extensively used to store foods which spoil from bacterial growth if not refrigerated. A, plugging his tail The tail is the section at the rear end of an animal's body; in general, the term refers to a distinct, flexible appendage to the torso. It is the part of the body that corresponds roughly to the sacrum and coccyx in mammals and birds. While tails are primarily a feature of vertebrates, some invertebrates—including scorpions and springtails— into an electric socket, pounding him with a mace A Mace is a simple weapon or ceremonial club or virge that uses a heavy head on the end of a handle to deliver powerful blows. A development of the club, a mace differs from a hammer in that the head of a mace is radially symmetric so that a blow can be delivered equally effectively with any side of the head. A mace consists of a strong, heavy, club A club is among the simplest of all weapons. A club is essentially a short staff, or stick, usually made of wood, and wielded as a weapon or mallet A mallet is a kind of hammer, usually of wood, smaller than a maul or beetle and usually with a relatively large head, causing a tree A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to 6 m; some authors set a minimum of 10 cm trunk diameter or an electric pole to drive him into the ground, sticking matches into his feet and lighting them, and so on.[1] Despite all its popularity, Tom and Jerry has often been criticized as excessively violent.[2]:42[3]:134 Despite the frequent violence, there is no blood Blood is a specialized bodily fluid that delivers necessary substances to the body's cells — such as nutrients and oxygen — and transports waste products away from those same cells or gore in any scenes in the original cartoons that made the pair a household name. However, in a very rare instance, when Tom gets sliced into pieces in the opening credits of Tom and Jerry:The Movie, blood is clearly visible. A recurring gag involves Jerry hitting Tom when he's preoccupied, with Tom initially oblivious to the pain—and only feeling the effects moments later, and vice versa; and another involves Jerry stopping Tom in midchase (as if calling for a time-out), before he does something, usually putting the hurt on Tom.

Tom and Jerry title card used in 1956.

The cartoon is also noteworthy for its reliance on stereotypes A stereotype is a type of logical oversimplification in which all the members of a class or set are considered to be definable by an easily distinguishable set of characteristics. The term is often used with a negative connotation, as stereotypes can be used to deny individuals respect or legitimacy based on their membership in a particular group, such as the blackening of characters following explosions and the use of heavy and enlarged shadows (e.g., Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse). Resemblance to everyday objects and occurrences is arguably the main appeal of visual humor Humour or humor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. Many theories exist about what humour is and what social function it serves. People of all ages and cultures respond to humour. The majority of people are able to be amused, to laugh or smile at something funny, and thus they are in the series. The characters themselves regularly transform into ridiculous but strongly associative shapes, most of the time involuntarily, in masked but gruesome ways.

The final Tom and Jerry title card used in 1956 until the final Hanna and Barbera short in 1958, all shorts with this title card had their soundtracks recorded in Perspecta, other Hanna-Barbera shorts are mono.

Music Music is an art form whose medium is sound organized in time. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture. The word derives from Greek μουσική (mousike), "(art) of the Muses" plays a very important part in the shorts, emphasizing the action, filling in for traditional sound effects, and lending emotion to the scenes. Musical director Scott Bradley created complex scores that combined elements of jazz Jazz is a musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions. The style's West African pedigree is evident in its use of blue notes, improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation, and the swung note, classical, and pop music; Bradley often reprised contemporary pop songs, as well as songs from MGM films, including The Wizard of Oz The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical-fantasy film mainly directed by Victor Fleming and based on the 1900 children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. The film stars Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, and Frank Morgan, with Billie Burke, Margaret Hamilton, Charles Grapewin, Clara Blandick, and the Singer and Meet Me In St. Louis Meet Me in St. Louis is a 1944 romantic musical film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer which tells the story of four sisters living in St. Louis at the time of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair in 1904. Generally, there is little dialogue as Tom and Jerry almost never speak, however minor characters are not similarly limited. For example, the character Mammy Two Shoes has lines in every episode in which she appears except The Little Orphan. Most of the dialogue from Tom and Jerry are the high-pitched laughs and gasping screams, which may be provided by a horn or other musical instrument.

Before 1954, all Tom and Jerry cartoons were produced in the standard Academy ratio The Academy ratio is usually shortened to 1.37, and is often cited as 1.33 by laypeople, despite the fact that only silent films were shot in that ratio. The ratio can be expressed in integers as 11:8 and format; from late 1954 to 1955, some of the output was dually produced in both Academy format and the widescreen A widescreen image is a film, computer or television image with a wider and shorter aspect ratio than the standard Academy frame developed during the classical Hollywood cinema era. Silent film was projected at a ratio of four units wide to three units tall, often expressed as 4:3 or 1.33:1. The addition of sound-on-film soundtracks and a thicker CinemaScope CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used from 1953 to 1967 for shooting widescreen movies, and marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection. The anamorphic lenses theoretically allowed the process to create an image of up to a 2.66:1 aspect ratio, almost twice as wide as the process. From 1956 until the close of the MGM cartoon studio a year later, all Tom and Jerry cartoons were produced in CinemaScope, some even had their soundtracks recorded in Perspecta directional audio. The 1960s Gene Deitch and Chuck Jones shorts were all produced in Academy format, but with compositions that made them compatible to be matted to Academy widescreen format as well. All of the Hanna and Barbera cartoons were produced in three-strip Technicolor Technicolor is the trademark for a series of color film processes pioneered by Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation , now a division of Thomson SA. Technicolor was the second major color film process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color motion picture process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952. Technicolor became known and; the 1960s entries were done in Metrocolor.

Characters

Main Characters

Thomas "Tom" Cat.

Tom

Tom is a blue-grey tomcat The cat , also known as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from other felines and felids, is a small predatory carnivorous species of crepuscular mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and its ability to hunt vermin, snakes, scorpions, and other unwanted household pests. It has been associated with humans for at least 9,, who lives a pampered life, while Jerry is a small brown Brown paint can be produced by adding black or their complementary colors to rose, red, orange, or yellow colored paint. As a color of low intensity it is a tertiary color in the original technical sense: a mix of the three subtractive primary colors is brown if the cyan content is low. Brown exists as a color perception only in the presence of a house mouse The House Mouse is one of the most numerous species of the genus Mus commonly termed a mouse. It is a small mammal and a rodent who always lives in close proximity to him. "Tom" is a generic name for a male cat or tomcat The cat , also known as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from other felines and felids, is a small predatory carnivorous species of crepuscular mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and its ability to hunt vermin, snakes, scorpions, and other unwanted household pests. It has been associated with humans for at least 9, (the Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. is one of the world's largest producers of film and television entertainment cartoon character Sylvester Sylvester J. Pussycat, Sr., or simply, Sylvester the Cat, or Sylvester, or Puddy Tat or gringo pussy-gato (a sobriquet attached by another antagonist, Speedy Gonzales), is a fictional character, a three-time Academy Award-winning anthropomorphic tuxedo cat who appears in more than 90 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons made from 1945 to 1966, was originally called "Thomas"). Tom was originally called "Jasper" in the very first short, Puss Gets the Boot, while Jerry was named Jinx. Tom is very quick-tempered and thin-skinned, while Jerry is independent and opportunistic. Jerry also possesses surprising strength for his size, lifting items such as anvils with relative ease and withstanding considerable impacts with them. Despite being very energetic and determined, Tom is no match for Jerry's brains and wits. By the final "iris-out" or "fade-out" of each cartoon, Jerry usually emerges triumphant, while Tom is shown as the loser. However, other results may be reached; on rare occasions, Tom triumphs, usually when Jerry becomes the aggressor or when he crosses some sort of line (the best example of which occurs in The Million Dollar Cat where, after finding out that Tom's newly acquired wealth will be taken away if he harms any animal, including a mouse, he torments Tom until Tom finally loses his temper and attacks him). Sometimes, usually ironically, they both lose, usually when Jerry's last trap potentially backfires on him after it affects Tom (An example is in Chuck Jones' Filet Meow short where Jerry orders a shark to scare Tom away from eating a goldfish. Afterwards, the shark scares Jerry away as well) or when Jerry overlooks something at the end of the course. Sometimes, they both end up being friends (only for something to happen so that Tom will chase Jerry again). Both characters display sadistic tendencies, in that they are equally likely to take pleasure in tormenting each other. However, depending on the cartoon, whenever one character appears to be in mortal danger (in a dangerous situation or by a third party), the other will develop a conscience and save him. Sometimes, they bond over a mutual sentiment towards an unpleasant experience and their attacking each other is more play than serious attacks. Multiple shorts show the two getting along with minimal difficulty, and they are more than capable of working together when the situation calls for it, usually against a third party who manages to torture and humiliate them both. In one short, Tom shows genuine concern for Jerry when he believes that he has accidentally shot him and immediately rushes to get a first-aid kit.

Despite five shorts depicting Tom's apparent "death" at the end of the short, he never actually dies throughout the series, and even reads about a flashback of his own apparent death in Jerry's Diary. Tom died in Mouse Trouble because he was in heaven so it assumes that he died in the explosion. He possibly dies in an explosion in Yankee Doodle Mouse and he is beheaded offscreen at the guillotine in The Two Mouseketeers which makes him deaths count of 3.

Jerry

Jerry Mouse.

Although many supporting and minor characters speak, Tom and Jerry rarely do so themselves. Tom, most famously, sings while wooing female cats; for example, Tom sings Louis Jordan's "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby" in the 1946 short Solid Serenade. In a couple of shorts, Tom, when romancing a female cat, woos her in a French-accented voice similar to that of screen actor Charles Boyer. Co-director William Hanna provided most of the squeaks, gasps, and other vocal effects for the pair, including the most famous sound effects from the series, Tom's leather-lunged scream (created by recording Hanna's scream and eliminating the beginning and ending of the recording, leaving only the strongest part of the scream on the soundtrack) and Jerry's nervous gulp. The only other reasonably common vocalization is made by Tom when some external reference claims a certain scenario or eventuality to be impossible, which inevitably, ironically happens to thwart Tom's plans - at which point, a bedraggled and battered Tom appears and says in a haunting, echoing voice "Don't you believe it!", a reference to some famous World War II propaganda shorts of the 1940s. In one episode, Tom hires a mouse exterminator who, after several failed attempts to dispatch Jerry, changes profession to Cat exterminator by crossing out the "Mouse" on his title and writing "Cat", resulting in Tom spelling out the word out loud before reluctantly pointing at himself. One short, 1956's Blue Cat Blues, is narrated by Jerry in voiceover (voiced by Paul Frees). Both Tom and Jerry speak more than once in the 1943 short The Lonesome Mouse. Tom and Jerry: The Movie is the first (and so far only) installment of the series where the famous cat-and-mouse duo regularly speak to both humans and other anthropomorphic animals; it is possible that Tom and Jerry do have full speech capabilities, but choose not to use them aside from a few short phrases, preferring to leave the talking to other characters.

Recurring characters

Spike and Tyke

Spike the bulldog and his son Tyke, in the 1951 Tom and Jerry short Slicked-up Pup.

In his attempts to catch Jerry, Tom often has to deal with the intrusions of Butch, a scruffy black alley cat who wants to catch and eat Jerry, and Spike (sometimes billed as "Killer" or "Butch"), an angry, vicious guard bulldog who tries to attack Tom for bothering his son Tyke (sometimes called "Junior") while trying to get Jerry. Spike spoke often, using a voice and expressions (performed by Billy Bletcher and later Daws Butler) modeled after comedian Jimmy Durante. Spike's coat has altered throughout the years between grey and creamy pink. The addition of Spike's son Tyke in the late 1940s led to both a slight softening of Spike's character and a short-lived spin-off theatrical series (Spike and Tyke).

Butch and Toodles Galore

Butch and Toodles Galore, in the 1946 Tom and Jerry short Springtime for Thomas.

Tom changes his love interest many times. The first love interest is Sheikie and speaks in a haughty tone in The Zoot Cat, and calls him "Tommy" in The Mouse Comes to Dinner. The second and most frequent love interest of Tom's is Toodles Galore, who never has any dialogue in Tom and Jerry cartoons.

Mammy Two Shoes

Mammy Two Shoes, the black housemaid who made many appearances in the 1940s and early 1950s Tom and Jerry shorts, as seen in 1947's Old Rockin' Chair Tom. Over the years, Tom and Jerry cartoons featuring Mammy have been edited, modified, or withheld from broadcast in various ways.

From the beginning, Tom also has to deal with Mammy Two Shoes (voiced by Lillian Randolph), a stereotyped African-American domestic housemaid. In the earliest shorts, Mammy is depicted as the maid taking care of the often opulent home in which Tom and Jerry reside. Later Tom and Jerry shorts are set in what appears to be Mammy's own house. Her face is never seen (with the exception of 1950's Saturday Evening Puss, in which her face is very briefly seen as she runs towards the camera), and she usually wallops the cat with a broom when he misbehaves. When Mammy was not present, other humans would sometimes be seen, usually from the neck down as well. Mammy would appear in many cartoons until 1952's Push-Button Kitty. Later cartoons would instead show Tom and Jerry living with a 1950s Yuppie-style couple. Soon after, virtually all humans in the series had visible faces.

Tuffy, formerly Nibbles

Nibbles, the little orphan mouse, later named "Tuffy".

Quacker

Quacker at the end of That's My Mommy.

Another recurring character in the series was Quacker the duckling, who was later adapted into the Hanna-Barbera character Yakky Doodle. He appears in Little Quacker, The Duck Doctor, Just Ducky, Downhearted Duckling, Southbound Duckling, That's My Mommy, Happy Go Ducky and The Vanishing Duck. In addition. Butch also appeared as one of Tom's pals or chums as in some cartoons, where Butch is leader of Tom's buddies, who are Meathead and Topsy. The last recurring character is a small unnamed green devil that looks like Tom but has the size of Jerry. He only appears in two episodes: Springtime for Thomas and Smitten Kitten. Whenever Tom falls in love with a female cat, the devil advises Jerry to try to break the two apart.

History and evolution

Hanna-Barbera era (1940 – 1958)

Tom and Jerry creators/directors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, with the seven Academy Awards for Best Short Subject (Cartoons) their Tom and Jerry shorts won.

William Hanna and Joseph Barbera were both part of the Rudolf Ising unit at the MGM cartoon studio in the late 1930s. Barbera, a storyman and character designer, was paired with Hanna, an experienced director, to start directing films for the Ising unit; the first of these was a cat-and-mouse cartoon called Puss Gets the Boot. Completed in late 1939, and released to theatres on February 10, 1940, Puss Gets The Boot centers on Jasper, a gray tabby cat trying to catch an unnamed rodent, but after accidentally breaking a houseplant and its stand, the African-American housemaid Mammy (Later Tom's owner) has threatened to throw Jasper out ("O-W-T, out!" [as Mammy spells it]) if he breaks one more thing in the house. Naturally, the mouse uses this to his advantage, and begins tossing wine glasses, ceramic plates, teapots, and any and everything fragile, so that Jasper will be thrown outside. Puss Gets The Boot was previewed and released without fanfare, and Hanna and Barbera went on to direct other (non-cat-and-mouse related) shorts. "After all," remarked many of the MGM staffers, "haven't there been enough cat-and-mouse cartoons already?"

A screenshot from 1940's Puss Gets the Boot, the first Tom and Jerry cartoon.

The pessimistic attitude towards the cat and mouse duo changed when the cartoon became a favorite with theatre owners and with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which nominated the film for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons of 1941. It lost to another MGM cartoon, Rudolph Ising's The Milky Way.

Producer Fred Quimby, who ran the MGM animation studio, quickly pulled Hanna and Barbera off the other one-shot cartoons they were working on, and commissioned a series featuring the cat and mouse. Hanna and Barbera held an intra-studio contest to give the pair a new name by drawing suggested names out of a hat; animator John Carr won $50 with his suggestion of Tom and Jerry.[4] The Tom and Jerry series went into production with The Midnight Snack in 1941, and Hanna and Barbera rarely directed anything but the cat-and-mouse cartoons for the rest of their tenure at MGM.

Tom's physical appearance evolved significantly over the years. During the early 1940s, Tom had an excess of detail—shaggy fur, numerous facial wrinkles, and multiple eyebrow markings—all of which were streamlined into a more workable form by the end of the 1940s- and looked like a realistic cat; in addition from his quadrupedal beginnings Tom became increasingly, and eventually almost exclusively, bipedal. By contrast, Jerry's design remained essentially the same for the duration of the series. By the mid-1940s, the series had developed a quicker, more energetic (and violent) tone, due to the inspiration from the work of the colleague in the MGM cartoon studio, Tex Avery, who joined the studio in 1942.

Tom and Jerry in the 1946 Academy Award winning cartoon The Cat Concerto.

Even though the theme of each short is virtually the same - cat chases mouse - Hanna and Barbera found endless variations on that theme. Barbera's storyboards and rough layouts and designs, combined with Hanna's timing, resulted in MGM's most popular and successful cartoon series. Thirteen entries in the Tom and Jerry series (including Puss Gets The Boot) were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons; seven of them went on to win the Academy Award, breaking the Disney studio's winning streak in that category. Tom and Jerry won more Academy Awards than any other character-based theatrical animated series.

A screenshot from 1958's Tot Watchers, the final of the 114 Hanna and Barbera Tom and Jerry cartoon.

Tom and Jerry remained popular throughout their original theatrical run, even when the budgets began to tighten somewhat in the 1950s and the pace of the shorts slowed slightly. However, after television became popular in the 1950s, box office revenues decreased for theatrical films, and short subjects. At first, MGM combated this by going to all-CinemaScope production on the series. After MGM realized that their re-releases of the older shorts brought in just as much revenue as the new films, the studio executives decided, much to the surprise of the staff, to close the animation studio. The MGM cartoon studio was shut down in 1957, and the final of the 114 Hanna and Barbera Tom and Jerry shorts, Tot Watchers, was released on August 1, 1958. Hanna and Barbera established their own television animation studio, Hanna-Barbera Productions, in 1957, which went on to produce famous TV shows and movies.

Gene Deitch era (1960 – 1962)

Tom and Jerry
High Steaks, a 1961 Tom and Jerry short directed by Gene Deitch.
Directed by Gene Deitch
Produced by William L. Snyder
Written by Larz Bourne Chris Jenkyns Eli Bauer
Music by Steven Konichek
Release date(s) 1961 - 1962 (13 shorts)
Country United States{{{category|[[Category:American films</noinclude> Czechoslovakia
Language English

In 1960, MGM decided to produce new Tom and Jerry shorts, and had producer William L. Snyder arrange with Czech-based animation director Gene Deitch and his studio, Rembrandt Films, to make the films overseas in Prague, Czechoslovakia. The Deitch/Snyder team turned out 13 shorts, many of which have a surrealistic quality.

Since the Deitch/Snyder team had seen only a handful of the original Tom and Jerry shorts, the resulting films were considered unusual, and, in many ways, bizarre. The characters' gestures were often performed at high speed, frequently causing heavy motion blur. As a result, the animation of the characters looked choppy and sickly. The soundtracks featured sparse music, spacey sound effects, dialogue that was mumbled rather than spoken, and heavy use of reverb. Fans that typically rooted for Tom criticized Deitch's cartoons for having Tom never become a threat to Jerry; most of the time, Tom only attempts to hurt him when he gets in his way. Tom's new owner, a corpulent white man, was also more graphically brutal in punishing Tom's mistakes as compared to Mammy, such as beating Tom repeatedly, searing his face with a grill and forcing Tom to drink an entire carbonated beverage. Surprisingly, the Gene Deitch Tom and Jerry cartoons are still rerun today on a semi-regular basis.

These shorts are among the few Tom and Jerry cartoons not to carry the "Made In Hollywood, U.S.A." phrase at the end. Due to Deitch's studio being behind the Iron Curtain, the production studio's location is omitted entirely on it.

The episodes created by Dietch have generally been less favorable by the general audience than the rest of the series, mainly because of the sloppy animation.

Chuck Jones era (1963 – 1967)

Tom and Jerry
The title card for the Chuck Jones-produced Tom and Jerry cartoons.
Directed by Chuck Jones Maurice Noble Ben Washam Abe Levitow Tom Ray Jim Pabian
Produced by Chuck Jones Walter Bien Les Goldman Earl Jonas
Written by Michael Maltese Jim Pabian Bob Ogle John W. Dunn Irv Spector
Music by Eugene Poddany Carl Brandt Dean Elliott
Distributed by MGM Animation/Visual Arts (Sib Tower 12 Productions)
Release date(s) 1963 - 1967 (34 shorts)
Running time approx. 6 to 8 minutes (per short)
Country United States{{{category|[[Category:American films</noinclude>
Language English
Budget US$ 42000.00 (per short)

After the last of the Deitch cartoons were released, Jones, who had been fired from his thirty-plus year tenure at Warner Bros. Cartoons, started his own animation studio, Sib Tower 12 Productions, with partner Les Goldman. Beginning in 1963, Jones and Goldman went on to produce 34 more Tom and Jerry shorts, all of which carried Jones' distinctive style (and a slight psychedelic influence). However, despite being animated by essentially the same artists who worked with Jones at Warners, these new shorts had varying degrees of critical success.

Jones had trouble adapting his style to Tom and Jerry's brand of humor, and a number of the cartoons favored poses, personality, and style over storyline. The characters underwent a slight change of appearance: Tom was given thicker, Boris Karloff-like eyebrows (resembling Jones' Grinch or Count Blood Count), a less complex look (including the color of his fur becoming gray), sharper ears, and furrier cheeks, while Jerry was given larger eyes and ears, a lighter brown color, and a sweeter, Porky Pig-like expression.

Haunted Mouse, a Tom and Jerry short directed by Chuck Jones in 1965.

Some of Jones's Tom and Jerry cartoons are reminiscent of his work with Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, included the uses of blackout gags and gags involving characters falling from high precipices. Jones co-directed the majority of the shorts with layout artist Maurice Noble. The remaining shorts were directed by Abe Levitow and Ben Washam, with Tom Ray directing two shorts built around footage from earlier Tom and Jerry cartoons directed by Hanna and Barbera. Various vocal characterisations were made by Mel Blanc and June Foray. MGM finally ended production on Tom and Jerry in 1967, by which time Sib Tower 12 had become MGM Animation/Visual Arts, and Jones had moved on television specials and the feature film, The Phantom Tollbooth.

Tom and Jerry hit television

Mammy Two Shoes in Saturday Evening Puss was rotoscoped and replaced with a thin white woman in 1960's.

Beginning in 1965, the Hanna and Barbera Tom and Jerry shows began to appear on television in heavily edited form: the Jones team was required to take the cartoons featuring Mammy (such as Saturday Evening Puss), rotoscope her out, and replace her with a thin white woman, with Lillian Randolph's original voice tracks replaced by June Foray. However, in local telecasts of the cartoons, and in the ones shown on Boomerang, Mammy, featured in the other shorts, could once again be seen, and more recently, with a new, less stereotypical black voice supplied, which is done by Thea Vidale. Much of the extreme violence in the cartoons were also edited out. Starting out on CBS' Saturday Morning schedule on September 25, 1965, Tom and Jerry moved to CBS Sundays two years later and remained there until September 17, 1972.

Tom and Jerry's new owners

In 1986, MGM was purchased by WTBS founder Ted Turner. Turner sold the company a short while later, but retained MGM's pre-1986 film library, thus Tom and Jerry became the property of Turner Entertainment (where the rights stand today via Warner Bros.), and have in subsequent years appeared on Turner-run stations, such as TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, and Turner Classic Movies.

Tom and Jerry outside the United States

When shown on terrestrial television in the United Kingdom (from 1967 to 2000, usually on the BBC) Tom and Jerry cartoons were not cut for violence and Mammy was retained. As well as having regular slots, Tom and Jerry served the BBC in another way. When faced with disruption to the schedules (such as those occurring when live broadcasts overrun), the BBC would invariably turn to Tom and Jerry to fill any gaps, confident that it would retain much of an audience that might otherwise channel hop. This proved particularly helpful in 1993, when Noel's House Party had to be canceled due to an IRA bomb scare at BBC Television Centre - Tom and Jerry was shown instead, bridging the gap until the next programme. Recently, a mother has complained to OFCOM of the smoking scenes shown in the cartoons, since Tom often attempts to impress love interests with the habit, resulting in reports that the smoking scenes in Tom and Jerry films may be subject to censorship.[5]

Due to its lack of dialog, Tom and Jerry was easily translated into various foreign languages. Tom and Jerry began broadcast in Japan in 1964. A 2005 nationwide survey taken in Japan by TV Asahi, sampling age groups from teenagers to adults in their sixties, ranked Tom and Jerry #85 in a list of the top 100 "anime" of all time; while their web poll taken after the airing of the list ranked it at #58 - the only non-Japanese animation on the list, and beating anime classics like Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, A Little Princess Sara, and the ultra-classics Macross, Ghost in the Shell, and Rurouni Kenshin (it should be noted that in Japan, the word "anime" refers to all animation regardless of origin, not just Japanese animation).[6]

Tom and Jerry have long been popular in Germany. However, the cartoons are overdubbed with rhyming German language verse that describes what is happening onscreen and provides additional funny content. The different episodes are usually embedded in the episode Jerry's Diary (1949), in which Tom reads about past adventures.

In India, South East Asia, the Middle East, Pakistan, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, and other Latin American countries, even in the eastern Europe, such as Romania, Cartoon Network still airs Tom and Jerry cartoons everyday. In Russia, local channels also air the show in its daytime programming slot. Tom and Jerry was one of the few cartoons of western origin broadcast in Czechoslovakia (1988) before the fall of Communism in 1989.

Controversy

The scenes featuring Tom, Jerry or other characters in blackface are often edited. Screen capture from The Truce Hurts.

Like a number of other animated cartoons in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, Tom and Jerry was not considered politically correct in later years. There were at least twenty-four cartoons that featured either racism or with characters shown in blackface following an explosion, which are subsequently cut when shown on television today, although The Yankee Doodle Mouse blackface gag as well as another blackface gag at the end of Safety Second remain intact, depending on the country. The black maid, Mammy Two Shoes, is often considered racist because she is depicted as a poor black woman who has a rodent problem. Her voice was redubbed by Turner in the mid-1990s in hopes of making the character sound less stereotypical; the resulting accent sounded more Irish. One cartoon in particular, His Mouse Friday, is often completely out of television rotation due to the cannibals being seen as racist stereotypes. If shown, the cannibals' dialogue is edited out, although their mouths can be seen moving.

In 2006, United Kingdom channel Boomerang made plans to edit Tom and Jerry cartoons being aired in the UK where the characters were seen to be smoking in a manner that was "condoned, acceptable or glamorised." This followed a complaint from a viewer that the cartoons were not appropriate for younger viewers, and a subsequent investigation by UK media watchdog OFCOM.[5] It has also taken the U.S. approach by editing out blackface gags, though this seems to be random as not all scenes of this type are cut.

Later shows, specials and shorts

The title card for Hanna-Barbera's 1975 series, The Tom and Jerry Show, produced for the ABC network.

In 1975, Tom and Jerry were reunited with Hanna and Barbera, who produced new Tom and Jerry cartoons for Saturday mornings. These 48 seven-minute short cartoons were paired with The Great Grape Ape and Mumbly cartoons, to create The Tom and Jerry /Grape Ape Show, The Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape/Mumbly Show, and The Tom and Jerry/Mumbly Show, all of which ran on ABC Saturday Morning from September 6, 1975 to September 3, 1977. This is the first new Tom & Jerry cartoon series for TV in years afters the theatrical shorts shown on television. In these cartoons, Tom and Jerry (now with a red bow tie), who had been enemies during their formative years, became nonviolent pals who went on adventures together, as Hanna-Barbera had to meet the stringent rules against violence for children's TV. The Tom & Jerry Show is still airing on the Canadian channel, TELETOON, and its classical counterpart, TELETOON Retro.

Title card for Filmation's 1980 – 82 series, The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show, produced for the CBS network.

Filmation Studios (in association with MGM Television) also tried their hands at producing a Tom and Jerry TV series. Their version, The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show, debuted in 1980, and also featured new cartoons starring Droopy, Spike (another bulldog created by Tex Avery), and Barney Bear, not seen since the original MGM shorts. The thirty Filmation Tom and Jerry cartoons were noticeably different from Hanna-Barbera's efforts, as they returned Tom and Jerry to the original chase formula, with a somewhat more "slapstick" humor format. This incarnation, much like the 1975 version, was not as well received by audiences as the originals, and lasted on CBS Saturday Morning from September 6, 1980 to September 4, 1982.

The logo for Hanna-Barbera's 1990 – 93 series Tom and Jerry Kids, produced for the Fox Kids network.

One of the biggest trends for Saturday morning television in the 1980s and 1990s was the "babyfication" of older, classic cartoon stars, and on September 8, 1990, Tom and Jerry Kids, co-produced by Turner Entertainment and Hanna-Barbera Productions (which would be sold to Turner in 1991) debuted on FOX. It featured a youthful version of the famous cat-and-mouse duo chasing each other. As with the 1975 H-B series, Jerry wears his red bowtie, while Tom now wears a red cap. Spike and his son Tyke, and Droopy and his son Dripple, appeared in back-up segments for the show, which ran until October 2, 1993.

In 2000, a new television special entitled, Tom and Jerry in: The Mansion Cat premiered on Cartoon Network. It featured Joe Barbera (who was also a creative consultant) as the voice of Tom's owner, whose face is never seen. In this cartoon, Jerry, housed in a habitrail, is as much of a house pet as Tom is, and their owner has to remind Tom to not "blame everything on the mouse".

In 2005, a new Tom and Jerry theatrical short, entitled The KarateGuard, which had been written and directed by Barbera and Spike Brandt, storyboarded by Joseph Barbera and Iwao Takamoto and produced by Joseph Barbera, Spike Brandt and Tony Cervone premiered in Los Angeles cinemas on September 27, 2005. As part of the celebration of Tom and Jerry's sixty-fifth anniversary, this marked Barbera's first return as a writer, director and storyboard artist on the series since his and Hanna's original MGM cartoon shorts. Director/animator, Spike Brandt was nominated for an Annie award for best character animation. The short debuted on Cartoon Network on January 27, 2006.

Title card for Warner Bros.' 2006 – 08 series, Tom and Jerry Tales.

During the first half of 2006, a new series called Tom and Jerry Tales was produced at Warner Bros. Animation. Thirteen half-hour episodes (each consisting of three shorts) were produced, with only markets outside of the United States and United Kingdom signed up. The show then came to the UK in February 2006 on Boomerang, and it went to the U.S. on The CW4Kids on The CW.[7]. Tales is the first Tom and Jerry TV series that utilizes the original style of the classic shorts, along with the violence. This recently is the last Tom and Jerry-based cartoon show for television as the show ended on March 22, 2008.

Reception

In January 2009, IGN named Tom and Jerry as the 66th best in the Top 100 Animated TV Shows.[8]

In an interview found on the DVD releases, several MADtv cast members stated that Tom and Jerry is one of their biggest influences for slapstick comedy.

Feature films

Jerry and Gene Kelly in the 1945 musical film Anchors Aweigh.

In 1945, Jerry made an appearance in the live-action MGM musical feature film Anchors Aweigh, in which, through the use of special effects, he performs a dance routine with Gene Kelly. In this sequence, Gene Kelly is telling a class of school kids a fictional tale of how he earned his Medal of Honor. Jerry is the king of a magical world populated with cartoon animals, whom he has forbidden to dance as he himself does not know how. Gene Kelly's character then comes along and guides Jerry through an elaborate dance routine, resulting in Jerry awarding him with a medal. Jerry speaks and sings in this short film; his voice is performed by Sara Berner. Tom has a cameo in the sequence as one of Jerry's servants.

Tom and Jerry and Esther Williams in the 1953 musical film Dangerous When Wet.

Both Tom and Jerry appear with Esther Williams in a dream sequence in another big-screen musical, Dangerous When Wet. In the film, Tom and Jerry are chasing each other underwater, when they run into Esther Williams, with whom they perform an extended synchronized swimming routine. Tom and Jerry have to save Williams from a lecherous octopus, who tries to lure and woo her into (many of) his arms.

In 1988, the duo were lined-up to appear in the Oscar-winning Touchstone/Amblin Entertainment film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, a homage to classic American animation, but their inclusion in the film was scrapped due to legal complications.[9]

1992 saw the first international release of Tom and Jerry: The Movie when the film was released overseas to theaters in Europe of that year & then domestically by Miramax Films in 1993. Joseph Barbera, co-creator of the characters served as creative consultant for the picture, which was produced and directed by Phil Roman. A musical film with a structure similar to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's blockbusters, The Wizard of Oz and Singin' in the Rain, the movie was criticized by reviewers and audiences alike for being predictable and for giving the pair dialogue (and songs) through the entire movie. As a result, it failed at the box office.

In 2001, Warner Bros. (which had, by then, merged with Turner and assumed its properties) released the duo's first direct-to-video movie, Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring, in which Tom covets a ring which grants mystical powers to the wearer, and has become accidentally stuck on Jerry's head. It would mark the last time both Hanna and Barbera co-produced a Tom and Jerry film, as William Hanna died shortly after The Magic Ring was released.

Four years later, Bill Kopp scripted and directed two more cat and mouse features for the studio, Tom and Jerry: Blast Off to Mars and Tom and Jerry: The Fast and the Furry, the latter one based on a story by Barbera. Both were released on DVD in 2005, marking the celebration of Tom and Jerry's 65th anniversary. In 2006, another direct-to-video film, Tom and Jerry: Shiver Me Whiskers, tells the story about the pair having to work together to find the treasure. Joe came up with the storyline for the next feature, Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale, as well as the initial idea of synchronizing the on-screen actions to music from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. This DTV, directed by Spike Brandt and Tony Cervone, would be Joe Barbera's last Tom and Jerry project due to his passing in December 2006. The holiday-set animated film was released on DVD in late 2007, and dedicated to Barbera.

A new live action/CGI prequel is in development for 2011.[citation needed]

Other formats

Tom and Jerry began appearing in comic books in 1942, as one of the features in Our Gang Comics. In 1949, with MGM's live-action Our Gang shorts having ceased production five years earlier, the series was renamed Tom and Jerry Comics. The pair continued to appear in various books for the rest of the 20th century.[10]

The pair have also appeared in a number of video games as well, spanning titles for systems from the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super NES and Nintendo 64 to more recent entries for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Nintendo GameCube.

Main article: Tom and Jerry video games

Cultural influences

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (June 2009)

Throughout the years, the term and title Tom and Jerry became practically synonymous with never-ending rivalry, as much as the related "cat and mouse fight" metaphor has. Yet in Tom and Jerry it wasn't the more powerful (Tom) that usually came out on top. Palestinian President Yassar Arafat noted this fact and loved the cartoon show because "the little guy--the mouse and not the cat--always won"[11]

The Simpsons characters, Itchy & Scratchy, of the eponymous cartoon on the Krusty the Clown Show, are spoofs of Tom and Jerry--a "cartoon within a cartoon."[1] The extreme cartoon violence of the Tom and Jerry is parodied and intensified, as Itchy (the mouse) dispatches Scratchy in various gratuitous, gory fashions. In the Simpsons episode, Itchy and Scratchy and Marge Marge gets violence banned from TV and Itchy and Scratchy became friends (their whacking intro is replaced by gift-exchanging), causing the downfall of the series. It was later changed back to the way it used to be because Marge decided that art shouldn't be censored because she didn't want Michelangelo's David's nudity to be covered up. The Simpsons also parodied the Gene Deitch era cartoons. In the episode Krusty Gets Kancelled, the Itchy & Scratchy characters are replaced with the badly drawn Worker & Parasite.

The duo are also parodied in the original Sally the Witch anime (1966), the Fairly Oddparents TV movie, Channel Chasers (2004), and two episodes of Garfield and Friends.

An episode[which?] of Family Guy also parodied the Gene Kelly dance where Stewie takes the place of Jerry in the sequence.

An episode[which?] of Disney's Kim Possible also featured a parody of Tom and Jerry called Scamper and Mr. Bitey.

Tom and Jerry were mentioned in Baby Mama when Angie mentions Tom and Jerry as a partnership she and Kate should aim to work together like, and Kate points out that Tom and Jerry hate each other.

On an episode of TNA iMPACT!, wrestler Abyss (Chris Parks) confessed his recent discovery, that Tom and Jerry were actually friends and were only playing.

Author Steven Millhauser wrote a short story called "Cat 'n' Mouse," which pits the duo against one another as antagonist and protagonist in literary form. Millhauser allows his reader access to the thoughts and emotions of the two characters in a way that wasn't done in the cartoon.

Tom and Jerry on DVD

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be and removed. (June 2009)

There have been several Tom and Jerry DVDs released in Region 1 (the United States and Canada), including a series of two-disc sets known as the Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection. There have been negative responses to Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, due to some of the cartoons included on each having cuts and redubbed Mammy Two-Shoes dialogue. A replacement program offering uncut versions of the shorts on DVD was later announced. There are also negative responses to Vol. 3, due to Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat being excluded from these sets and His Mouse Friday having an extreme zooming-in towards the end.

There have been two Tom and Jerry DVD sets in Region 2. In Western Europe, most of the Tom and Jerry shorts have been released (only two, The Million Dollar Cat and Busy Buddies, were not included) under the name Tom and Jerry - The Classic Collection. Almost all of the shorts contain re-dubbed Mammy Two-Shoes tracks. Despite these cuts, His Mouse Friday, the only Tom and Jerry cartoon to be completely taken off the airwaves in some countries due to racism, is included, unedited with the exception of extreme zooming-in towards the end to avoid showing a particularly racist caricature. These are regular TV prints sent from the U.S. in the 1990s. Shorts produced in CinemaScope are presented in pan and scan. Fortunately Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat are presented uncut on as part of these sets. Tom and Jerry - The Classic Collection is available in 6 double-sided DVDs (issued in the United Kingdom) and 12 single-layer DVDs (issued throughout Western Europe, including the United Kingdom).

Another Tom and Jerry Region 2 DVD set is available in Japan. As with Tom and Jerry - The Classic Collection in Western Europe, almost all of the shorts (including His Mouse Friday) contain cuts. Slicked-up Pup, Tom's Photo Finish, Busy Buddies, The Egg and Jerry, Tops with Pops and Feedin' the Kiddie are excluded from these sets. Shorts produced in CinemaScope are presented in pan and scan.

The Chuck Jones-era Tom and Jerry shorts were released in a two-disc set entitled Tom and Jerry: The Chuck Jones Collection on June 23rd, 2009.[12]

Filmography

Notable shorts

For a list of theatrical Tom & Jerry cartoon shorts, see List of Tom and Jerry cartoons.

The following cartoons won the Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Short Subject: Cartoons:[13]:32

These cartoons were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons, but did not win:

These cartoons were nominated for the Annie Award in the Individual Achievements Category: Character Animation, but did not win:

Television shows

Packaged shows and programming blocks

Television specials

Theatrical films

Direct-to-video films

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ a b Whitworth, Melissa (2006-12-20). "Master cartoonist who created Tom and Jerry draws his last". The Daily Telegraph (LONDON): pp. 9.
  2. ^ Hanna, William; Joseph Barbera, with Ted Sennett (1989). The Art of Hanna-Barbera: Fifty Years of Creativity. New York, NY: Viking Studio Books. ISBN 0-67082-978-1.
  3. ^ Smoodin, Eric. "Cartoon and Comic Classicism: High-Art Histories of Lowbrow Culture". American Literary History (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press) 4 (1 (Spring, 1992)).
  4. ^ Barbera, Joseph (1994). My Life in "Toons": From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century. Atlanta, GA: Turner Publishing. pp. 76. ISBN 1-57036-042-1.
  5. ^ a b BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Smoke's no joke for Tom and Jerry
  6. ^ http://www.tv-asahi.co.jp/anime100/contents/ranking/cur/index.html
  7. ^ Kids' WB! on The CW Announces 2006-2007 "Too Big for Your TV" Saturday Morning Programming Schedule - Cartoons - ToyNewsI.com
  8. ^ http://tv.ign.com/top-100-animated-tv-series/66.html
  9. ^ Price, Jeffrey and Seaman, Peter S. (Sept. 6, 1986). Who Shot Roger Rabbit? [Screenplay]. The third draft of the Who Framed Roger Rabbit script calls for Tom and Jerry to attend "Toontown" owner Marvin Acme's funeral, a sequence ultimately not shot for the film.
  10. ^ [1]Tom and Jerry Comics
  11. ^ http://www.time.com/time/classroom/glenspring2005/pg26.html
  12. ^ Tom and Jerry: New 2-DVD set collects the Chuck Jones Shorts into One Package
  13. ^ Vallance, Tom (2006-12-20). "Joseph Barbera: Animation pioneer whose creations with William Hanna included the Flintstones and Tom and Jerry". The Independent (London).
Tom and Jerry
Characters Tom · Jerry · Mammy Two Shoes · Spike · Tyke · Butch · Tuffy/Nibbles · Quacker · Toodles Galore · Lightning · Topsy · Meathead · Joan and George
Theatrical shorts Tom and Jerry (1940–1958, 1961–1967 and 2005) · Spike and Tyke (spin-off, 1957)
Television shows The Tom and Jerry Show (ABC, 1975) · The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show (CBS, 1980–1982) · Tom & Jerry Kids (FOX, 1990–1993) · Tom and Jerry Tales (The CW, 2006–2008)
Packaged and programming Tom and Jerry (CBS, 1965-1972) Tom and Jerry's Funhouse on TBS (TBS, 1986–1989) · Cartoon Network's Tom and Jerry Show (Cartoon Network, 1992–2009)
Specials and feature films A Yabba Dabba Doo Celebration: 50 years of Hanna-Barbera (TNT special, 1989) · Tom and Jerry Halloween Special (TBS special, 1990) · Tom and Jerry: The Movie (Theatrical film, 1992) · Tom and Jerry in: The Mansion Cat (Cartoon Network special, 2000) · Tom and Jerry (Theatrical film, 2011)
Direct to video films Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring (2001) · Tom and Jerry: Blast Off to Mars (2004) · Tom and Jerry: The Fast and the Furry (2005) · Tom and Jerry: Shiver Me Whiskers (2006) · Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale (2007) · Tom and Jerry: A Little Learning (2009)
Other formats Tom and Jerry video games · Tom and Jerry comics · Tom and Jerry music
Related William Hanna · Joseph Barbera · Scott Bradley · MGM cartoon studio · Turner Entertainment

Categories: Animated film series | Animated television series | CBS network shows | 1940 television series debuts | 1958 television series endings | 1960 television series debuts | 1962 television series endings | 1963 television series debuts | 1967 television series endings | 2005 television series debuts | 2005 television series endings | Children's comedy series | Fictional duos | MGM animated shorts | Gold Key Comics titles | Dell Comics titles | Fictional cats | Fictional mice and rats | Tom and Jerry | Cartoon Network original programs | 1940 introductions | MGM cartoon characters

 

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