TOM & JERRY: DELUXE ANNIVERSARY EDITION (MGM 1940-65) Warner Home Video

The cat and mouse that defied studio convention, and, gave Disney animation a real run for its money in the mid-1940’s, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera's Tom & Jerry (1940-1958) forever defined and endeared the eternal struggle between polar opposites. Determined to compete in the increasingly popular realm of cartoon shorts, MGM – the king of features - commissioned their own cartoon franchise in the mid-1930’s through their Rudolf Isling unit where both Hanna and Barbera worked. Joe Barbera, a story man with a passion for character design, pitched the concept of a cantankerous cat and mischievous mouse to William Hanna over lunch in the MGM commissary. The rest, as they say, is history – although in retrospect, it was a history that almost did not happen. Despite the successful debut of Puss Gets The Boot in 1939, studio response to Hanna and Barbera's clever comedy duo was tepid at best. In fact, Metro’s raja, L.B. Mayer was downright indifferent to continuing on until overwhelmingly enthusiastic inquiries from distributors began pouring in with calls for more. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was as enamored, nominating Puss Gets The Boot as Best Short Subject, an honor it lost to another Isling cartoon - The Milky Way in 1941. Nevertheless, Mayer knew a good thing, and ordered Hanna and Barbera to stay the course. It was kismet. In all, Tom & Jerry would receive 13-Oscar nominations, winning 7 throughout their nearly 20-years, effectively ending Disney's exclusivity in the cartoon short market.

The die was cast after animation producer, Fred Quimby commissioned Hanna and Barbera to rechristen their cat and mouse (in Puss Gets the Boot, Tom is named Jasper and Jerry has no name at all). While Jerry's physicality remained relatively unchanged throughout the series, Tom's appearance went through several major overhauls to streamline his look and make him easier to animate. Over the next decade, Tom & Jerry reigned supreme at MGM, winning an unprecedented 4-consecutive Oscars. By the mid-1940’s, Tex Avery's inimitable brand of sight gags made the series one of the most celebrated - and most violent, even eclipsing Warner Bros. Looney Tunes for sheer mayhem. The duo became so popular, MGM afforded them cameo appearances in two of their major musicals; Anchors Aweigh (1945), in which Jerry would dance with Gene Kelly and Dangerous When Wet (1953), where Tom and Jerry both swam with Esther Williams. With the advent of television and more stringent economical concerns throughout the mid-1950s, MGM elected to retire its animation division, realizing they could simply recycle old Tom & Jerry shorts in theater and achieve the same box office response. Although the studio would eventually farm out the franchise, first to Rembrandt Films in 1960, and then, to Chuck Jones' Sib-Tower 12 Productions in 1963, the golden age of the cat and mouse effectively ended after 114 shorts in 1957 and 'Tot Watchers' - the last of the original Hanna and Barbera comedy capers.

Viewed today, Tom & Jerry contains its share of racial insensitivity - commonplace in the stereotype of the mammy and several brief off-handed references to the ‘then’ popularized art form, known as 'black-face'. To their credit, Warner Bros., the studio currently in charge of redistributing these classic cartoons on home video, has seen fit to reissue them with their original content unedited, choosing instead to tag the series with a disclaimer that neither promotes nor endorses the stereotypes featured within. Warner Home Video's latest trip down the mouse hole; Tom & Jerry: The Deluxe Anniversary 2-disc set is not nearly as 'deluxe' as one might expect. In fact, it is rather scant when compared to previously issued 'Spotlight Collections' Vol. 1 and 2. On this outing, we get 20 vintage cartoons from the Hanna/Barbera years, coupled with 3 shorts made much later by Chuck Jones' for TV, after the franchise went cheap and easy in the late 1970’s. The classic shorts have been given a modest upgrade in their video masters, but are plagued by age-related artifacts, including scratches and color fading. Several shorts suffer from an overwhelming amount of edge enhancement - particularly in their title sequences. By now, authoring issues such as edge enhancements ought to be obsolete. That these shorts continue to exhibit their distracting anomaly is regrettable and, at least by my way of thinking, unacceptable! These are not baked-in and age-related, but the result of slip-shod mastering efforts. Badly done! The audio on all is Dolby Digital 1.0 mono as originally recorded. Extras include a very brief retrospective on the evolution of the characters, as well the aforementioned animated sequences, excised from Anchors Aweigh and Dangerous When Wet. Bottom line: if you already own Vol. 1 and 2 of the earlier released Spotlight Collections pass on this re-packaged effort. It brings nothing fresh or even new to this lovable cat and mouse.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

3

VIDEO

3

EXTRAS

2