Warner Bros. // 1940 // 322 Minutes // Not Rated
Reviewed by Judge Sandra Dozier (Retired) // March 21st, 2005
"Producing Tom and Jerry cartoons...for 20 years was for me one
continuous labor of love."
-- William Hanna
By the time 1940 rolled around, the idea of a cartoon about a cat and a mouse was probably old hat to most animators and producers, and especially to the top brass at Metro Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), where the bottom line was everything. However, two enterprising animators, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, decided that they had a hit with a cat-and-mouse duo, then named Jasper and Jinx. They produced one cartoon and were about to see their pet project get scratched when the studio got a letter from a distributor asking when they were going to get more of that "wonderful cat and mouse" cartoon. Thank goodness, because otherwise we would not have the Tom and Jerry we know and love today.
Of the 114 shorts that Hanna and Barbera produced for MGM between 1940 and 1957, 40 make it onto this two-disc set. There are at least two shorts selected for each year from 1943 on, in their original Academy Standard (1.37:1, or basically fullscreen) aspect ratio, and the last three are Technicolor CinemaScope shorts from the fifties, preserved in their 2.35:1 aspect ratio and presented in this collection in anamorphic widescreen format.
Disc One
* "Yankee Doodle Mouse" (1943; Academy Award
winner)
Jerry wages war on Tom with "hen grenades" (eggs) and
other common household items. Blink and you'll miss a poster on Jerry's wall
that says "That Friendly Rat May Tell The Cat!"
* "Sufferin' Cats!" (1943)
Tom and another cat fight over
who will eat Jerry tonight.
* "Baby Puss" (1943)
Tom's owner likes to dress him as a
baby, causing Jerry to summon Tom's alley cat friends so they can ridicule
him.
* "The Zoot Cat" (1944)
Tom is in love with a stuck-up hip
cat around the corner, but she rejects him for being a dandy. A radio ad
convinces him that a zoot suit will improve his chances for romances, but not if
Jerry has his way. This is one of the few episodes in which the characters (both
Tom and Jerry) speak.
* "Million Dollar Cat" (1944)
Tom has been left a million
dollars, but only if he can avoid harming any living thing, even a mouse.
Jerry, of course, is going to put him to the test.
* "The Bodyguard" (1944)
Jerry helps Spike the bulldog out
of a spot of trouble with the dog catcher, and Spike promises to be Jerry's
bodyguard whenever he whistles for help. Tom figures out that tricking Jerry
with a paste gumball will solve that little problem.
* "Mouse Trouble" (1944; Academy Award winner)
Tom gets a
manual to help him catch mice, but the tips and lessons don't work the way they
promise to. Blink and you'll miss the publisher of the manual: Random
Mouse Books.
* "Tee For Two" (1945)
Tom, not the world's best golfer,
puts Jerry to work as the tee when Jerry sabotages a shot, but Jerry gets his
revenge.
* "Flirty Birdy" (1945)
A chicken hawk wants to eat Jerry,
but Tom won't stand for the competition, so he dresses up as a female bird to
lure the dumb guy away.
* "Quiet Please!" (1945; Academy Award winner)
Spike wants a
nap, if only Tom and Jerry will quiet down, so he tells Tom that he'll skin him
alive if he doesn't keep things down. Unfortunately for Tom, Jerry overhears and
decides to make a racket of his own. More talking from Tom.
* "The Milky Waif" (1946; edited)
Jerry finds a baby mouse
named Little Nibbles on his doorstep, and has more than he can handle when the
constantly hungry mouse recklessly forages for food too near a sleeping Tom.
* "Solid Serenade" (1946)
Tom wants to visit his girl, but
Spike (here named "Killer") is guarding the yard. He thinks he's taken
care of the threat until Jerry is disturbed by his loud serenading. More talking
here by Tom.
* "Cat Fishin" (1946)
Spike guards a property that has a
prime fishing hole that Tom wants to get to.
* "The Cat Concerto" (1946; Academy Award winner)
Tom is at
the piano playing "Hungarian Rhapsody" and unknowingly wakes Jerry
from a sound sleep on the hammers inside the piano. This starts an escalating
exchange of blows, all to music. Blink and you'll miss Jerry riding one of the
hammers like a mechanical bull.
* "Kitty Foiled" (1947)
Jerry forms a partnership with a
clever canary after the two discover a mutual foe in Tom. Blink and you'll miss
an homage to George Raft's character in Scarface (1932) as Tom
"dies" (from a faked gunshot wound) and flips a coin a few times just
before he hits the floor.
* "The Truce Hurts" (1947; edited)
Spike (here called
"Butch"), Tom, and Jerry are in an all-out war when Spike suggests
they all try to be friends, even writing up a peace treaty that they all sign,
which completely confuses all the neighborhood animals.
* "Salt Water Tabby" (1947)
Tom is at the beach when he sees
a gorgeous girl, but Jerry crashes their party.
* "The Invisible Mouse" (1947)
Jerry dives into a jar of
invisible ink and finds that Tom can't see him, so he decides to have a little
fun with Tom.
* "The Little Orphan" (1947; edited; Academy Award winner)
Nibbles is back, giving Jerry more gray hair as he recklessly consumes any food
sitting out, even the milk under Tom's nose.
* "Heavenly Puss" (1947)
Tom's pursuit of Jerry leads him to
the pearly gates, but they won't let him in unless he gets Jerry to sign a form
saying that he forgives Tom for tormenting him. A not-so-funny scene has a bag
of drowned kittens (Fluff, Muff, and Puff) that are granted passage into heaven
before Tom gets his evaluation.
Disc Two
* "Texas Tom" (1950)
Tom is on a Texas
dude ranch when he meets a gorgeous cowgirl. He tries to impress her, which only
gets him in a heap of trouble.
* "Jerry and the Lion" (1950)
A "ferocious lion"
escapes from the circus and is hiding in Tom and Jerry's cellar. Jerry helps the
lion get back to the jungle, but only after the lion helps him with Tom
first.
* "Hollywood Bowl" (1950)
Tom is conducting at the Hollywood
Bowl, but Jerry wants some of the spotlight for himself, so he removes the
musicians one by one, forcing Tom to play their parts so Jerry can conduct.
* "Jerry and the Goldfish" (1951)
Tom hears a tasty-sounding
fish recipe on the radio and decides to use the family goldfish as his main
ingredient, but Jerry isn't about to let his friend wind up as the main
course.
* "Cueball Cat" (1950)
Jerry has decided to live in the
corner pocket of Tom's favorite pool table, which gets him into all kinds of
trouble when Tom finds him.
* "Slicked-up Pup" (1951)
After dunking Spike's son Chip in
a mud puddle, Tom is threatened (within earshot of Jerry) with grievous bodily
harm if Spike returns to find him dirty again. Blink and you will miss a funny
shot of Tom flinching back from a filthy Chip so violently that he twists
himself up like a rag being wrung out.
* "Jerry's Cousin" (1951)
Jerry's tough cousin Muscles Mouse
comes to his aid when Jerry writes that he is having trouble with Tom.
* "Cat Napping" (1951)
Tom wants to nap in his hammock, but
Jerry has beat him to it and doesn't want to be usurped.
* "The Flying Cat" (1951)
Tom is after Jerry's canary friend
again.
* "The Two Mouseketeers" (1952; Academy Award winner)
Tom
and Jerry are presented as if they were Musketeers in France: Tom is guarding
the house against "mouseketeers" who want to eat the fancy banquet
that has been laid out.
* "Smitten Kitten" (1952)
Tom is in love again, which makes
Jerry jealously recall all of the past occasions when Tom has fallen in love and
forgotten about Jerry.
* "Johann Mouse" (1953; Academy Award winner)
Jerry is
living in the home of Johann Strauss and is so mesmerized by his music that he
waltzes out of his mouse hole whenever the master is playing. Tom learns how to
play in order to lure Jerry to them, and the two wind up performing when the
house staff notice.
* "Two Little Indians" (1953)
Two little orphans (from the
same Bide-a-Wee orphanage that Nibbles came from) show up on Jerry's doorstep,
dressed as Indians and shooting everything in sight (including Tom) with their
arrows.
* "Baby Butch" (1954)
Butch the cat gets wise to Tom and
Jerry's plush situation, so he decides to dress as a baby and appear on their
doorstep. Tom takes him in and gives him a bottle, but Butch has his eyes on the
big ham in the fridge.
* "Mice Follies" (1954)
Jerry and Nibbles flood the kitchen
and freeze the water solid so they can ice skate.
* "Designs on Jerry" (1955)
Tom is building a better mouse
trap, but the mouse in the design breaks free (while Tom is sleeping) and warns
Jerry.
* "The Pecos Pest" (1955)
Stuttering Uncle Pecos visits
Jerry, but keeps breaking his guitar strings as he tries to sing. His solution
is to take one of Tom's whiskers as a replacement.
* "Touché, Pussy Cat!" (1954)
We are back in France
with Tom and Jerry. Nibbles wants to be a mouseketeer, but he doesn't prove
himself until Tom attacks Jerry and Nibbles saves the day.
* "The Flying Sorceress" (1956; widescreen)
After being
scolded by his owner, Tom answers an ad placed by an elderly woman who wants an
intelligent cat for a traveling companion. When he meets her, she turns out to
be a witch, and when he steals her flying broom, things get worse from there.
Blink and you'll miss Jerry tossing away a piece of cheese he is eating as if
it's a stiff drink when he sees Tom fly by on the broom.
* "Blue Cat Blues" (1956)
Tom's heart is broken over a
spoiled love affair and he is sitting on the train tracks, ready to end it all.
Jerry "narrates" this story (with the strange choice of smooth-voiced
Paul Frees as Jerry's narration voice) as he observes Tom waiting for the
end.
Tom and Jerry was appealing because of a perfect combination of slapstick comedy and fantasy -- cartoon cats could get chopped into tiny little bits and get up again, so the possibility for dangerous and violent slapstick was virtually limitless, and audiences (mostly adults) ate it up. It's funny as long as it's make-believe. Also, rather than being humans barely disguised as a cat and a mouse, as most cartoon characters seemed to be, both characters were very animalistic in nature and usually did not even speak. They didn't dress in human clothing (except in a few rare instances as part of a story), and their only conceit was that Jerry walked upright all of the time and Tom most of the time. Tom was an opportunist whose single goal was to make a meal of Jerry, and Jerry was clever and vindictive, using his smarts to turn the tables on Tom whenever he could. The funny irony is that neither actually wanted to see the other dead, they just wanted to torment each other until the end of time.
Anyone familiar with the Signature Collection series from Warner Bros. knows that these sets are usually scaled-down versions of their Golden Collection cousins, often with no extras and a somewhat questionable taste in cartoon selection. That is not the case with The Tom and Jerry Signature Collection. As the first Tom and Jerry classic collection to be released (there is no Tom and Jerry Golden Collection as of this writing), it has some excellent extras that fans are sure to enjoy, as well as a good selection of favorite cartoons that got heavy play on Saturday morning shows along with some golden oldies that weren't seen as often. The set includes 40 episodes selected from the 1940-1957 Hanna-Barbera years when the duo produced theatrical shorts for MGM's animation studio. When MGM abruptly shut down production in 1957, Hanna and Barbera moved on to create their own studio and didn't revisit the cat-and-mouse show until 1975.
My particular hook into the series is that I love to hear Tom scream. It makes me laugh every time. He sounds so surprised and outraged, like he didn't have it coming the whole time. It's gold. And the thing that surprised me the most? That's Bill Hanna. Yep, the co-creator of Tom and Jerry did all those wonderful screams. I wouldn't have known this if I hadn't watched "How Bill and Joe Met Tom and Jerry," a 30-minute featurette about the animation duo that was produced for this boxed set. It features older interviews with Hanna and Barbera talking about their years at MGM, and recounts the history of their collaboration and eventual development of the Tom and Jerry series. This featurette is packed with information, looks marvelous, and is slickly produced.
The other major extra is the 17-minute "Behind the Tunes: The MGM Orchestra," which focuses on Scott Bradley's contributions to Tom and Jerry -- he arranged and scored the music for all of the shorts, originally suggesting that they get the music done first, then time the animation accordingly, which was innovative thinking in the animation medium. This documentary can be a little dry for anyone who isn't musically inclined or interested in how Bradley did his thing, because there are readings from several of his own essays on the subject, but I was entertained by the cartoons shown to accompany the reading and found it fascinating to see his techniques and ideas demonstrated on screen. My favorite musical cue was the short blatting horn sound whenever a character was surprised or brutally clobbered.
In addition to these two featurettes are two excerpts from motion pictures in which Tom and Jerry appeared. First is the "Worry Song" from Anchors Aweigh! where Jerry dances with Gene Kelly, and the second is from Dangerous When Wet with Esther Williams, where Tom and Jerry swim with her. These are both a treat to have on the DVD, and are presented in their original Academy aspect ratios. Animation historian Jerry Beck also provides commentary for three shorts ("The Zoot Cat," "Kitty Foiled," and "Heavenly Puss"), in which he mainly discusses the various animators and what segments of each episode they worked on. These commentaries will appeal to fans who follow specific animators, but they don't offer much in the way of historical reference points or behind-the-scenes information for fans of the characters themselves. Finally, there are some sneak peeks at other cartoon collections by Warner Bros., namely the boxed sets for Wacky Races, Looney Tunes, Top Cat, The Flintstones, and Codename: Kids Next Door.
Image quality for the Tom and Jerry shorts differs according to age and preservation. The liner notes for the collection say that the episodes have all been remastered, and indeed most of them look much brighter and more colorful than I remember. However, most of the prints (with the exception of the nearly mint-condition widescreen Technicolor shorts) have spotting, grain, color bars, or other wear on the image. Nevertheless, the image in almost every short is very sharp and looks better than I have ever seen it, with no softness or darkness that might indicate an across-the-board color process. Overall, I was very impressed with the image quality, despite the dirt. The sound quality is also pretty good, allowing for the mono source, but some of the older episodes show their age with slightly muddy sound. It's also worth mentioning that the packaging for this set is also quite nice -- the plastic outer sleeve has attractive screened art of Tom and Jerry that is duplicated on the cardboard inside, so it has the appearance of depth. The plastic sleeve also protects the set from obvious wear and tear, so there is no obstacle to multiple viewings or loans to friends. Inside, the fold-out case is compact and attractive, with an episode list printed onto the packaging, and clear plastic disc mounts that show the box design behind them. All in all, an attractive library volume.
Let's talk about censoring, shall we? For this Spotlight Collection, the good news is that most of the scenes are intact. Case in point: In "Kitty Foiled," a scene where Jerry dresses himself as an Indian to fool Tom is usually cut, but it appears in this collection. Similarly, "Mouse Trouble" still has a disturbing scene where Tom mails himself to Jerry, who, suspicious, cuts the package in half, then looks in and holds up a sign that says, "Is there a doctor in the house?" However, in "The Little Orphan," a scene is cut in which a candle falls onto Tom's tail, burning him to a uniform dark shade and turning his feathered Indian headdress into cornrow braids that stick straight up from his head. The result is that the candle lands on Tom's tail, he looks at it, and then we cut to the next scene. Nearly all of the bits in which the characters end up in blackface are excised ("The Truce Hurts" and "The Milky Waif" are two more examples), with the lone exception being a scene in "Yankee Doodle Mouse" where Tom puts his head in a tea kettle with live dynamite and ends up looking like a flower when it explodes, with a dark face and red lips instead of white.
I'm not a purist who demands that the original scenes be left in and completely untouched; I actually approve of removing stereotyped images, especially if these cartoons are going to be shown to children (they were originally intended for adults as an opener to movies in theaters). However, what I do want to see is some effort to either clean up the animation, if possible, or at least avoid disturbing the continuity of scenes where material is cut. For instance, in the "Little Orphan" example, at some point in the past, Warner Bros. reworked the animation so that Tom keeps his headdress but it burns to a crisp, and they toned down the blackface aspect of the segment so the overall effect is that he just looks burned. This was a good compromise, so I'm not sure why they had to go ahead and cut the entire scene for DVD release. Also, in "The Milky Waif" they attempt to cut in some earlier footage of Jerry and Nibbles running away from Tom to explain why it suddenly goes from looking at Nibbles to being smashed in the face with a frying pan, but it still seems abrupt and obvious. They could have spent the money to rework the animation or perhaps insert a new transitional scene.
Because its audience is mostly kids, Cartoon Network has been the most ruthless about editing Tom and Jerry cartoons, but (with the exception of stereotyped blackface gags and dialogue from Mammy-two-shoes) most of the edits seen on Cartoon Network are not reflected in official Warner Bros. releases. This is probably because the studio assumes that the adult who purchases the DVD will be present for explanations, should any be required, and because they know that a good chunk of their audience will be adults wishing to see unedited cartoons as they remember them from their own childhood. That said, the instances of censoring are not too numerous, and although a couple of the edits are abrupt, for the most part they don't take away from enjoying these spots.
On a possibly related note, it's strange that the original Jasper and Jinx short, whose characters eventually turned into Tom and Jerry, isn't included. It would have provided a good historical context and made this set a little juicier for fans who only remember this short from Saturday morning reruns. Part of the problem might be that the part of Mammy-two-shoes (so named because we only ever saw her feet) is a badly dated stereotype, but in a move similar to the reworking of the burnt headdress in "Little Orphan," the short has since been redubbed with a less offensive voice performance and could have been included that way.
This is a Signature Collection worth getting, especially since no Golden Collection of Tom and Jerry is currently out, and this volume sports a set of very nice extras that make it stand alone as a worthwhile purchase for fans.
We won't play cat and mouse with you -- The Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection is hereby given a full pardon.
Review content copyright © 2005 Sandra Dozier; Site layout and review format copyright © 1998 - 2013 HipClick Designs LLC
Scales of Justice
Video: 65
Audio: 75
Extras: 85
Acting: 90
Story: 90
Judgment: 90
Perp Profile
Studio: Warner Bros.
Video Formats:
* Full Frame
Audio Formats:
* Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono (English)
Subtitles:
* English
* French
* Spanish
Running Time: 322 Minutes
Release Year: 1940
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Distinguishing Marks
* "How Bill and Joe Met Tom and Jerry" Featurette
* "Behind the Tunes: The MGM Orchestra" Featurette
* Tom and Jerry Swim With Esther Williams
* Jerry and Gene Kelly Dance
* Commentaries by Animation Historian Jerry Beck
Accomplices
* Unofficial Fan Site
http://www.tomandjerryonline.com/
* TV Tome Guide
http://www.tvtome.com/TomandJerry/