Tom and Jerry

Logo from 1947-1953.

Tom and Jerry is 1940 comedy slaptick animated series made by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (Hanna-Barbera).

During its original run, Hanna-Barbera produced 114 episodes for MGM from 1940 to 1958. The first episodes were originally distribuited as theatrical short films before television existed.

Why It Deserves A Piece Of Cheese

1. MGM animation in its purest form.
2. Tom and Jerry are likable and well done protagonists. So much that they became one of the most famous animated slaptick duos of the world.
3. of the most famous slapstick duos of the animated world.
4. Memorable and likable characters such as Tom, Jerry, Spike, Butch, and Nibbles.
5. Despite them almost never talking, it was very easy to understand both Tom and Jerry's personalities.
6. Practically invented cartoon violence.
7. They were the only theatrical short series to tie with Disney's Silly Symphonies for most Academy Awards(Both series winning 7 awards each)
8. Clever use of Squash & Stretch to make the pain more credible.
10. Tom's famous screaming sound effect (which was done by William Hanna himself).
12. In several episodes, Tom and Jerry put their differences aside to achieve a certain goal, but only go back being arch rivals again.
13. Many hilarious chases involving not only Tom and Jerry, but with Spike and other characters as well.
14. The formula of slapstick and a cat and a mouse chasing and beating each other is handled very well.
15. It started a partnership between Hanna and Barbera that would last for nearly 60 years!!! Heck, many beloved franchises, such as Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Jonny Quest, The Flintstones, Top Cat, Jonny Quest, Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, The Banana Splits, Wacky Races, Quick Draw McGraw, SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron, Magilla Gorilla, Ruff and Reddy, Hong Kong Phooey, 2 Stupid Dogs, Josie and the Pussycats, The Smurfs, The Jetsons, and especially Scooby-Doo! would've never existed if it weren't for Tom and Jerry.
16. Tom is considered the most loved by fans.

Bad Qualities

1. Unfortunately, after the success of the very first Tom and Jerry cartoon, Puss Gets the Boot, the executive producer of MGM animation, Fred Quimby, does not like the cat and mouse duo. He told William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, not to create anymore cartoons involving both half-pint roughhousing, rampaging wild animals. But the following year, Quimby received the letter from the film distributor in Texas, saying that new cartoons be created with the cat and mouse. Fred Quimby later quickly changed his mind about cat and mouse cartoons.
2. The Gene Deitch0era from 1961-1962 was heavily panned by many fans and critics and is inferior to the classic era (1940-1967).
3. While not as bad as the Gene Deitch era, The Tom and Jerry Show (1975) or The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show, Tom & Jerry Kids is also inferior to the classic era (1940-1967).
   • The animation is poor, stiff, wonky, cheap, sub-par and bland, as per usual for a Hanna-Barbera cartoon (even though it was outsourced to Fil-Cartoons and Wang Film Animation).
     • The color scheme can be overly bright or oversaturated.
     • There is barely any movement in some scenes and most scenes look rushed.
     • The walk cycles can be awkward, even for 1990s standards.
   • Characters like Quacker, Topsy, Nibbles/Tuffy, Lightning and Toodles Galore are nowhere to be seen.
   • Poor grasp on the original source material, due to TV show regulations during the 1990s restricting the use of violence in children's television, if not outright banning it. The cartoon violence and slapstick humor are way too soft as a result of this restriction, which is absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable because Tom and Jerry is best-known for its use of heavy slapstick violence.
   • It's a very one-sided and one-dimensional TV show with a "no good deed goes unpunished" trope. Much like the Gene Deitch-era, Tom is overly-depicted as a punching bag who gets abused too far (rather than it being trivial, which kills the charm of the source material) for no discernible reason (which gets worst as the series progresses). Each episode usually ends with Jerry winning as well, even though it's mostly undeserved.
   • Whenever Spike appears, he is far more oblivious to see Tom and/or Jerry causing trouble for him.
   • The music never fits in with the Tom & Jerry feel. In addition, when the background music gets catchy, it stops by constantly repeating the same tune in a lot of episodes. Some find the music catchy, albeit in an aurally irritating way. The repetitive music score in general, combined with the stock sound effects used, means that the show tends to have an awful soundtrack.
   • Awfully written plots that feel they have no story at all.
   • The jokes and humor are both very poor and terrible, due to the reduced violence. They also fall flat or feel awkward due to the stiff and wonky animation.
   • This show was obviously made to cash in on the trend of Golden Age-style shows and baby spin-off series; those have little to no involvement with Fred Quimby or Chuck Jones and their cartoons, as they are more of a homage to them. In general, this show completely lackes the fun, care, and charm of those shows.
   • Animation errors: Tom's eyes are miscolored in a few episodes, despite them having a pre-established color palette, with his eyes getting miscolored white in certain frames.
   • The episode title cards are generic and uncreative.
   • The show uses all the gags, jokes and every element from the classic era of Tom and Jerry, all without actually understanding the context of each gags' usage or why Chuck Jones and Fred Quimby's wild comedic styles as a whole worked so well. The jokes themselves are also slow and awkward, which absolutely kills T&JK's potential with comedic timing.
     • In one episode ("Droopy of the Opera"), McWolf is shown lusting and doing wild takes exaggeratedly on Miss Vavoom just because the Wolf from Tex Avery's MGM cartoon "Red Hot Riding Hood" does that to Red in each one of his appearances with her. The writers don't even realize that McWolf is a lecherous villain in the show or that Miss Vavoom is a zoophile (given that she's a human and he's a wolf). Therefore, McWolf comes off as nothing but a lecherous, girl-crazy pervert towards Vavoom and an unlikable antagonist.
     • Episodes can get boring very quickly.
   • McWolf is a very poor representation of Tex Avery's Wolf and Chuck Jones' Wile E. Coyote. He is also a wild, wacky, hyperactive, unoriginal, obnoxious, "heroic" comic relief who comes off as more irritating than funny. This is a huge insult to Tex Avery and Chuck Jones' characters.
   • Quantity-Over-Quality: Hanna-Barbera didn't run this show properly, as all 195 segments of this show were produced in as little time as possible. hence why the production of each episode feels rushed and poor in execution.
   • The show overuses stock sound effects (mostly those from the Hanna-Barbera library). They may even be used at inappropriate times.
   • The non-Tom and Jerry segments are forgettable and unoriginal, as they copy other classic cartoons from the Golden Age and don't try many things to keep them from being too formulaic. Notably, the Droopy and Dripple segments rip off the Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner shorts from Looney Tunes.
   • Many of the new characters are either underdeveloped to the point where you can't remember them, annoying or both.
4. The series got a few spin-offs that ruined it.
5. Like many other American cartoons from the 40's-50's, some episodes have racist stereotypes, the most notable being the African-American maid Mammy Two-Shoes. These are often removed when they are shown on TV after segregation against black people in America had come to an end in 1965 with the help of Martin Luther King Jr.
   • The opposite effect also happens... by whitewashing Mammy Two-Shoes. Combating racism with racism is not really a thing kids Television does post-MLK death.
6. The theatrical feature film (despite being a cult classic), the crossover with The Wizard of Oz, and the crossover with Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory didn't do very well with both critics and fans.
7. The first two television programs in the franchise, 1975's The Tom and Jerry Show and Filmation's The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show were negatively panned by fans, who consider them the dark eras of the franchise.
8. There was an episode called Blue Cat Blues where Tom and Jerry commit suicide by letting a train run over them on railroad tracks because of the losses of their girlfriends. It is considered one of the WORST cartoons in the series. It also gave birth to an urban legend that it was originally supposed to be the final episode of the original series, but that was really a Creepypasta based on the cartoon.
   • In fact, some of the episodes actually had Tom die. Thankfully, there was no gore.
9. Aside from Tom's notorious owner from the Gene Deitch-era, there were other bad characters like Jeannie the Babysitter and Nancy (The girl from Baby Puss), along with some other bad episodes like Tot Watchers, one of the worst cartoon episodes to end the 1940-1958 era.

Trivia

• Tom and Jerry was also popular in Italy and Germany.

Reception

Tom and Jerry is one of the most popular animated franchises in existence and is still widely popular today.

The series won 7 Academy Awards/Oscars.