In researching this DVD release a bit while watching the shorts, I found it interesting that Deitch worked with William Synder and Czechoslovakia-based Rembrandt Studios for the majority of the animation work seen in these thirteen shorts. In the the “Tom and Jerry…and Gene” extra feature, Deitch talks about how the artists at Rembrandt had no concept of how to animate Tom and Jerry for an American audience, and he had to thoroughly explain to him the principles of animation, etc.
Even for a non-animation historian and expert like me, it was interesting to hear Deitch, a famous and successful man in his field, discuss these ideas and memories in a recent, well-produced interview — more details on that a bit later. Now, truth be told, before watching this DVD I could not have picked out the Deitch cartoons from the Hanna Barbera ones nor the Chuck Jones ones. Passionate fans have their favorites, but I’m more of a casual fan of Tom and Jerry. Personally, I was always a Looney Tunes fan growing up (and to this day), but the production quality of the Deitch shorts is certainly appreciable. The music and aural cues are not to be forgotten, much like in classic Tunes, the value of the audio cannot be understated. Deitch explains in the extras that he focused on this heavily. Although, and this is very random and nit-picky, the sound of Tom being stuck and making that muffled sound of being trapped (like at the start of the first short, Switchin’ Kitten) is, well, disturbing. The use of muting the audio at times will catch your attention too. The first time this happened I thought my DVD player paused or something, but in the context of the animation, muting the audio makes sense, and is a nice attention-getter for the audience, too. Anyway, I found both the audio and image quality of the shorts found on this DVD to be of fine quality, especially give the age of the source material (1961-1962). There is some variance in the volume of audio from one episode to the next, but nothing concerning. The image quality maintains a smooth, artifact-free quality that is pleasing to the eyes.
A complete list of the thirteen shorts can be seen in the picture of the back of the DVD shown above. As you can surmise from the titles, the wacky duo of Tom and Jerry take their constant battling all over the place, from an ancient Greek setting to a concert hall, to space, even on safari or on a fishing trip with Tom’s owner. The most famous short is probably the one based off of Moby Dick, called Dicky Moe. Overall, I can’t say I found any single episode to be head and shoulders above the rest. They’re entertaining, and have a unique place in the history of animation and T&J specifically, but these did not make me like or dislike T&J anymore than I already did, which just is what it is.
Two really nice extra features compliment the remastered shorts. First up is “Tom and Jerry…and Gene,” which runs for eighteen minutes. It features some clips from the shorts, but it’s mostly Gene discussing his work and memories. It’s well worth a watch to get his perspective on sound and atmosphere (and how he was putting a lot of effort into these to supplement the animation), the comical violence and how he was always ensuring that the violence was kid-friendly, and the critical reception of his shorts from years past. Many considered his cartoons to be the worst of the lot from T&J, but overtime, this has changed.
The second extra feature is “Much Ado About Tom and Jerry.” It runs just shy of nineteen minutes and is narrated by Peter Thomas. It provides a nice history of T&J, including vintage photos, interviews with some of directors, and lots of clips of the franchise over the years.
About the only gripe I would have about the DVD production is just the generic looking menu screen, but, this is a minor point really. The buttons used for the menu look very basic, but hey, it’s functional and how often are you in the menu anyway? And on that note, let’s get to the summary…