History and evolution

History and evolution

The Hanna-Barbera years
William Hanna and Joseph Barbera were both part of the Rudolf Ising unit at MGM's animation studio in 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 which was a cat-and-mouse cartoon called Puss Gets the Boot (completed in late 1939, and released to theatres on February 20, 1940), Puss Gets The Boot centers around Jasper, a gray tabby cat trying to catch Jinx, a cute little mouse, but without breaking anything; Jasper's owner Mammy has threatened to throw Jasper out ("O-U-W-T, out!") if he breaks one more thing in the house. Naturally, Jinx uses this to his advantage, and begins tossing wine glasses, ceramic plates, tea pots, and any and everything fragile, so that Jasper will get 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, said many of the MGM staffers, haven't there been enough cat-and-mouse cartoons already?

The pessimistic attitude towards Jasper and Jinx 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. Another competitor for the award was Tex Avery's Merrie Melodies cartoon A Wild Hare, which featured the first appearance of the mature form of Bugs Bunny. Both nominees lost to another MGM cartoon, Rudolph Ising's The Milky Way.

However producer Fred Quimby, who ran the MGM animation studio, quickly pulled Hanna and Barbera off of 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; animator John Carr won with his suggestion of "Tom and Jerry." The Tom and Jerry series went into production with The Midnight Snack in 1941, and Hanna and Barbera never helmed anything but the cat-and-mouse cartoons for the rest of their tenure at MGM.

Academy Award winning cartoon The Cat ConcertoTom'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; Jerry stayed essentially the same for the duration of the series. By the mid-1940s, the series had developed a quicker, more energetic (and violent) tone, thanks to inspiration from the work of MGM Animation colleague Tex Avery, who joined the studio in 1942.

Even though the basic theme of each short is virtually the same, Hanna and Barbera found endless variations on that theme. Barbera's storyboards and rough layouts and designs, combined with Hanna's timing, resulted in the most popular, successful, and highly acclaimed series the MGM animation department ever had. 13 entries in the Tom and Jerry series (excluding 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.

Tom and Jerry remained popular throughout their original theatrical run, even when the budgets began to tighten a little 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; but after the MGM accountants 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 animation department 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 started their own television animation studio, Hanna-Barbera Productions, in 1957, which went on to produce such popular shows as The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and Scooby-Doo.

The Gene Deitch era
In 1960, MGM decided that they wanted to produce new Tom and Jerry shorts again, and had producer William Snyder make an arrangement with Czech animation director Gene Deitch and Deitch's studio, Rembrandt Films, to make the films overseas in Prague, Czechoslovakia. The Deitch/Snyder team turned out 13 shorts: Switchin' Kitten, Down and Outing, and It's Greek to Me-ow! in 1961 and The Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit, Tall in the Trap, Sorry Safari, Mouse Into Space, Landing Stripling, High Steaks, Dicky Moe, Carmen Get It!, Calypso Cat and Buddies... Thicker Than Water in 1962. The Deitch shorts are generally considered as being the worst of the Tom and Jerry theatrical shorts, although some have an affinity for their surreal qualities.

Since the Deitch/Snyder team only saw a handful of the original Tom and Jerry shorts, the films that resulted from the arrangement were considered unusual and, in many ways, bizarre. The characters' gestures were often performed at high speed, often resulting in heavy motion blur. The soundtracks featured sparse music, spacey sound effects, dialogue that was mumbled rather than spoken, and featured heavy uses of reverb.

Also notable is the fact that these shorts are the only Tom and Jerry cartoons not to carry the phrase "Made In Hollywood, U.S.A." at the end. Due to Deitch's studio being behind the Iron Curtain, the production studio's location is omitted entirely.

The Chuck Jones era
After the last of the Deitch cartoons were released, MGM turned to American director Chuck Jones, who had just ended his thirty-plus year tenure at the Warner Bros. Animation Department and started his own animation studio, Sib Tower 12 Productions, with partner Les Goldman. Jones and Goldman went on to produce 34 more Tom and Jerry shorts starting in 1963, all of which carried Jones' distinctive style (and a slight psychedelic influence), but with varying degrees of critical success. Jones co-directed the majority of the shorts with Maurice Noble; the remaining shorts were directed by Abe Levitow and Ben Washam, with Tom Ray directing two clip shows built around footage from the Hanna/Barbera era. MGM ceased production of animated shorts in 1967, by which time Sib Tower 12 had become part of MGM, and Jones had already begun to move on to television specials and the feature film The Phantom Tollbooth.

Home | Page1 | Page 2 | page3