Tom and Jerry: 80 years of cat vs. mouse(bbc.co.uk) |
Tom and Jerry: 80 years of cat vs. mouse(bbc.co.uk) |
As a child I sided with Jerry, but as I grew older I’ve come to a different conclusion: Jerry is a jerk
In nearly every episode he is the instigator and Tom simply wants to be left alone. He’ll be sleeping or trying seduce Toodles, and Jerry will come and steal his food, wake him up, or mess up his chances. There is only a handful of episodes where Tom directly starts the confrontation.
The life lesson is that in a David v Goliath situation, it’s not always the big guy in the wrong.
Haha, indeed. They have a few episodes (maybe two or three) in which Tom wins in the end. I loved those.
* The neighbor’s bulldog is chained up.
* Tom figures out how long the chain extends and draws a line on the ground there.
* Tom taunts the bulldog and the bulldog runs to the end of his chain.
* Tom uses the dog’s blurred biting and scratching motions to carve a bat out of a 2x4.
* Tom beats him over the head with the bat.
* Then Jerry secretly erases the line and redraws it closer to the dog.
* Tom taunts the dog again and this time the dog jumps right into his lap.
* Tom literally leaps out of his skin, which the dog holds like a coat and hands back to him.
If anyone knows the name of this episode I would be much obliged since it may be the funniest thing I’ve ever seen on television.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Above_and_the_Mouse_Be...
A YouTube clip:
I love the medium, I trained to work in it. I have watched a lot of old cartoons. There is some stunning work by masters of the form at the peak of their powers that is also incredibly racist by today’s standards; it’s worth preserving this work, but Cartoons Are For Kids, and if something needs context you have to scream about this to keep distracted parents from just putting it on for their kids.
On the other hand, the article makes it seem like Tom and Jerry came about as a desperate bid to have something as lucrative as Looney Tunes or Disney, so maybe my impression is right on?
There were multiple monitors showing silent Tom and Jerry cartoons. No one was particularly watching, they were just ... on. I was told that T&J was sort of a 'thing' in Russia, but I wasn't there long enough (and didn't speak enough Russian) to ask much about it. What struck me, which I hadn't really realized as a kid, is that... it's basically silent anyway - there's no talking/voice, it's just antics, with music. Maybe there were some episodes later where they talked, but none I can remember. Very different from the Looney Tunes where the voices were half the fun. Still love me a good... I say I still love me a good Foghorn Leghorn voice.
In fact, my favourite Looney Tunes cartoon was always Roadrunner vs Coyote, for the same reason.
I always wondered what animation technology was used in these new episodes. Apparently Adobe's Flash Animation was used for many cartoon series:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Flash_animated_telev...
> When their department was closed down in 1957, Hanna and Barbera set up their own production company.
> But only a few years later, MGM decided to revive Tom and Jerry without its original creators. In 1961 they outsourced to a studio in Prague to save on costs. Chicago-born animator Gene Deitch was tasked with heading the remake, but struggled with a tight budget and staff with no knowledge of the original.
> His studio also secretly made episodes of other cartoons, including Popeye. Czech names were Americanised on the credits to stop viewers associating the shows with Communism.
So much in here. I hope we also remember these instances when we talk about copyright, trademark or stealing IP.
I like both.
Is it? Where?
I’m not saying watching Mammy Two-Shoes shuck and jive her way through a couple of setups for Tom and Jerry to engage in a few minutes of slapstick comedy is going to turn you racist. I’m saying that times have changed and that stuff falls flat now, and that no matter how hard people campaign for animation as a medium appropriate for adults, there are still a lot of people who think that any animation is appropriate to plop unsupervised kids in front of, and is it such a terrible idea to mark some old cartoons as Not To Be Watched Without Context?
Is “making it hard to acquire eighty year old cartoons that get really racist is a terrible idea” really a hill you wanna die on?
And, yes, I am all for banning the Confederate flag. Assholes would find new symbols to rally around, but depriving them of the ability to call it “tradition” sure won’t help their cause.