Few duos in any form of entertainment media have been around as long as Tom & Jerry. Perhaps not as widely recognizable as Bugs Bunny, MGM’s Tom and Jerry have nonetheless carved a considerable mark for themselves in animation history. While their heyday may be over, new Tom and Jerry features are in the works, and old school fans and animation collectors will find a lot to like about this first volume of the Golden Collection.
As with any release that is split into volumes, especially cartoons, one of my first concerns is how the studio decided to organize the contents of the release. In years past, we’ve seen all kinds of undesirable releases that were missing episodes, had them out of order, were edited or censored, or was otherwise lacking something that kept you from calling the release definitive. Warner did things right here, by taking the first thirty-seven shorts, in chronological order, and packing them onto two discs in unedited, uncensored form.
True, this does result in a forty-five second disclaimer that pops up every time you start up either disc, informing you that some of these shorts may have some racially insensitive content that was just a sign of the times when they were first produced. You can’t skip the disclaimer, and before long you just accept that it is what it is. If Warner felt that strongly about putting up such a long, unskippable disclaimer, than I will grant them that for all of the other merits and “good” decisions they made in this set otherwise.
Being a two disc set, you’ll find the content is pretty much equally split between the two discs. The first disc contains the following shorts; the listings with an asterisk next to them have an audio commentary track as well by various animation experts such as Michael Mallory or historian Jerry Beck:
*Puss Gets The Boot
The Midnight Snack
*The Night Before Christmas
Fraidy Cat
Dog Trouble
Puss N’ Toots
The Bowling Alley Cat
Fine Feathered Friend
Sufferin’ Cats
The Lonesome Mouse
*The Yankee Doodle Mouse
Baby Puss
*The Zoot Cat
The Million Dollar Cat
The Bodyguard
Puttin’ On The Dog
*Mouse Trouble
The Mouse Comes To Dinner
Mouse in Manhattan
Tee for Two
The first disc also contains a pencil test of “The Midnight Snack.” The pencil test runs 9m41s, and is presented in SD. It’s essentially the whole cartoon, just in pencil, no inks.
The second disc contains the other portion of the thirty-seven shorts and several other extra features. The shorts are:
Flirty Birdy
*Quiet Please!
Springtime For Thomas
The Milky Waif
Trap Happy
Solid Serenade
Cat Fishin’
Part Time Pal
*The Cat Concerto
*Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Mouse
Salt Water Tabby
A Mouse In The House
The Invisible Mouse
*Kitty Foiled
The Truce Hurts
Old Rockin’ Chair Tom
Professor Tom
As with the first disc, I marked the episodes with audio commentary with an asterisk. Other extra features found on disc two include:
-How Bill and Joe Met Tom and Jerry (27m8s, SD) – Plenty of clips from various Tom and Jerry episodes are shown while Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera reminisce about the origins of Tom and Jerry. It’s a good historical feature that is a must see for any T&J fan.
-Vaudeville, Slapstick, and Tom and Jerry (22m47s, HD) – Abbott and Costello and other comedy stars of the time are featured along side Tom and Jerry in a comparison and of the comedic similarities.
-The Comedy Styling of Tom and Jerry (5.5m, SD) – Various comedians talk about the comedy style of Tom and Jerry.
-The Worry Song from Anchors Aweigh (1945) (8m11s, SD) – Tom and Jerry are featured in part of this song performed on Anchors Aweigh.
Both discs include English, Spanish, and French audio, with English and French subtitles. The audio quality is mono, 1.0, but that shouldn’t be too surprising given the age of the material. Regardless, it sounds just fine and is not a detractor from the quality of this set. In terms of image quality, it too is very good, with some forgiveness given the age and quality of the source material. Some episodes look a little flatter, in terms of color vibrance than others, but for the most part they’re all very clean transfers. All episodes are also shown in full, 1:33:1 ratio, too.
Warner did a very good job with this release overall, from the packaging to the menus, to the presentation quality and how they handled the content, too. While those who bought the Spotlight Collection may feel a bit gipped, hardcore T&J and animation fans will see a tremendous amount of value in this release.
To the summary…
