In a perfect world, you’ve ordered this already for yourself, your children, grandchildren yet unborn, and random neighbors, but just in case you haven’t, I’ll do my best to convince you. This is simply one of the most astonishing releases – make that the most astonishing release – of classic cartoons I’ve ever seen, better than 13 hours of classic cartoons and all the bonus material you could hope for. Over the years, it seems with every cartoon compilation release for home video, somebody is whining that they’re not a complete set, or not uncut, or not in chronological order, or not the finest available versions, yada yada yada. Well, as if to shut those people up (and can we?) these are all 114 theatrical Hanna-Barbera Tom & Jerry cartoons, in chronological order, complete and uncut, in the finest available versions, packed with bonus material. It’s as if a magic genie granted the wish of Tom & Jerry fans.
Of which, frankly, I was not one. A Tom & Jerry fan, I mean. Truth is, they didn’t play on television when I was a kid so I never grew the attachment to them that I did to Popeye, Huckleberry Hound, Astro Boy, King Leonardo, et al. Through the bonus material on this set and Greg Ehrbar’s essential Funtastic World of Hanna & Berbera podcast, I learned that T&J didn’t make their TV debut until a Saturday morning network show in 1965 and didn’t get syndicated until a decade later, so I was outside playing for the former and had outgrown cartoons for the latter, although with the advent of home video and my Friday Night Films parties (now in their 40th year) my love of classic cartoons has long since been rekindled.
There were DVDs and a Blu-ray set of Tom & Jerry cartoons with their earliest shorts (beginning in 1940 with Puss Gets the Boot, starring a Tom that’s named Jasper and a Jerry that’s named… well, if he’s named anything, I missed it) but plans for further releases were cancelled, reportedly because of racial insensitivities when the cartoons were made, which brings us to Mammy Two Shoes, the human character who likes to swat “Thomas” with a broom. In the 1960s, she was actually redrawn as a Caucasian and the voiced over-dubbed by June Foray with an Irish accent! Unbelievable. The original character was voiced by a fine comic actress named Lillian Randolph, a veteran of numerous radio, TV, and movie appearances (that’s her as Annie, the housekeeper saving up her money for a divorce in case she ever gets married in It’s a Wonderful Life). I know all this because there’s a new 27 min. featurette that covers this topic in the new Blu-ray set, along with a 32 min. one that introduces and catalogs the various friends and foes of T&J that pop up throughout the series. Other bonus materials are ported over from previous releases, including 20 commentary tracks and featurettes. As if THAT isn’t enough, we get three bonus cartoons plus cartoon sequences with our heroes and Esther Williams in Slippery When Wet and Anchors Away with Gene Kelly.
So, on to the cartoons. They best of them, and there are an awful lot in that category, are fast and furious and funny. While I generally agree with the fans that think the post-war cartoons, from the mid-1940s to about 1951 or ‘52, are the best, my taste in these generally doesn’t seem to match a lot of people’s – for example, I love all the cartoons with that good-natured little duck, probably a throwback to my youth, when Yakky Doodle, pretty much the same character, was a favorite of mine. If your memory of Tom & Jerry is that they were overly violent and that Tom had murderous intent in his eyes when chasing Jerry, you’re going to be surprised: you are probably thinking of Herman and Katnip, the Paramount knockoffs. I’d say T&J more or less have a friendly rivalry going, and it doesn’t take much for them to band together to tackle a common foe.
The set includes an essential 32-page full color book, The Art of Tom and Jerry, with a timeline of their achievements (they won SEVEN Academy Awards!) and examples of the artwork from many of their cartoons, but shockingly, there’s no guide whatsoever to the 114 theatrical cartoons included herein. You can find them listed here. You’re welcome.
As eluded to above, Tom & Jerry weren’t part of my formative years, so the majority of these cartoons are new to me and rather than binging them chronologically, I’ve been dipping in and out, so I’m not ready to proclaim any real “favorites” just yet, although I seem to lean towards the more musical ones and the cartoons where a third party tries to interfere with the perfect comic symmetry between our two stars. I should mention that Mammy Two Shoes doesn’t bother me; I’ve seen enough films of that era to know how embarrassing those stereotypes are, and I have enough respect and love for Lillian Randolph to enjoy her in these. I haven’t yet come across the previously-censored cartoons with Tom & Jerry in blackface, so I have no comment on those. And it’s worth mentioning that one of my best friends lives in Nanjing, China, and she was delighted to learn that I’ve been studying up on and watching these cartoons: apparently, they’re phenomenally popular over there, which was reiterated in these bonus materials. Because they don’t speak (much), the films were shown all over the world and have proven as popular (or more so) around the globe as in their native U.S.
The cartoons have been remastered and restored from the best possible materials, which isn’t always perfect (nitrate fires have taken away some of our most treasured materials) but in every case has been cleaned up beautifully without over-scrubbing, which ruins cartoons and other vintage films, and at this point, let me just reiterate something I’ve been saying since In The Balcony started 20 years ago last September: we do not distinguish between theatrical features, shorts, and cartoons. Some readers are always surprised when my lists of “best films of all time” include things like One Week with Buster Keaton, Liberty with Laurel & Hardy, or Bimbo’s Initiation with Betty Boop. Our Friday Night Films parties have always included a feature, two cartoons, a serial chapter, and a comedy short, plus novelties from Pete Smith or Robert Benchley, etc., and they’re all equally entertaining to us and part of our grand love of the movie experience.
We’re looking forward to adding these wonderful, colorful, funny cartoons into the mix courtesy of this must-own set.
