tom and jerry

The point of this edition of The Five, besides giving me yet another chance to talk about cartoons, is to examine those weird quirks that set certain cartoon characters apart from their constituents. That is to say, something beyond the usual bulging eyes, springing hair, unraveling tongues, mallet-induced head lumps and stars and birdies that twirl about the head whenever they crash through a wall. I'm interested in quirks and traits a character possesses that no other character does. Some of these are easy: Fred Flintstone's "Yabba Dabba Doo!," Bugs Bunny's various catchphrases like "What's up, doc?" and "Of course you know, this means war!," so I tried to delve a little deeper and come up with some oddities only incredible nerds like myself would notice.

Maybe this will make more sense if I just jump right into it:

A few years ago I received a Hanna Barbera three-disc set of cartoon themes, comedy bits and sound effects. I have the content of all three albums on my iPod, which is quite entertaining when the iPod is on shuffle. After every few songs there will be a short clip of some wacky sound effect. Trust me, you've never heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit" until you've heard it followed by Fred Flintstone yelling "yabba dabba doo!"

I like cartoon music, that's my point. So this caught my interest, naturally. Scott Bradley was the musical composer for MGM animation, scoring Tom and Jerry cartoons and the works of Tex Avery. The first three-disc volume covers the 1950s and is limited to 3000 copies. If enough people show interest in the project, other volumes will follow, covering other decades. I suppose people like myself would love to have something like this, but I think even cartoonphiles have to admit that what made these soundtracks so great was seeing them paired up with the cartoons themselves. The next time you catch Tom and Jerry, pay close attention to the music: it stops, starts, takes weird detours, adds subtle gags to the scene, and twists and contorts to fit the action. Some of the most talented musicians in the business worked on those old cartoons, but I get the feeling that hearing the music by itself might leave one as half empty as watching the same cartoon with the mute button pressed.

[via Toon Zone]

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In 1951 Hanna Barbera created a Tom and Jerry short called "His Mouse Friday" that was later banned from television for its racist content. In the cartoon, which you can watch here, Tom is stranded on an island and Jerry paints himself up with black soot to resemble a cannibal and scare Tom. You'll notice that Jerry's dialogue and the dialogue of the island natives is muted. I'm not sure why that is, but based on what I found while scrounging for information on this cartoon, the dialogue was removed because of offensive slang. That information doesn't come from any official source, so take that for whatever it's worth. Questionable content aside, I don't think this is the best Tom and Jerry I've ever seen, though the scene where Tom is cooking in the stew pot and throws away the onion is pretty funny. And if nothing else, it's a nice little piece of animation history for fans of the medium.

John K wrote this on his blog recently: "The style of every scene in every cartoon I do depends on who is drawing the scene (both storyboard and layout), who painted the background and what the scene is about and how the artist and the characters are feeling at the moment."

Every animation studio seems to have its own unique style, whether it's Spumco, Disney, or Warner Brothers, but in reality, those cartoons are the work of several people who each bring their own unique style to the whole. Sixteen-year-old Thad K has set up a very cool blog dedicated to recognizing the styles of different animators. He already has two lengthy posts (including YouTube clips) dedicated to Tom and Jerry and Woody Woodpecker. Thad breaks the shorts down into segments, pointing out what each animator brought to the short. Perhaps going over these classic bits of animation with such a fine tooth comb extracts some of the fun from watching these cartoons, but I think it nicely reveals a depth these cartoons have which perhaps isn't as evident when viewing them casually.

Joseph Barbera returning to Tom and Jerry to direct a brand new short got me thinking about all my favorite episodes of Tom and Jerry from the past. The famous duo starred in a ton of cartoons together, so I had to leave a few out. At any rate, here's five of my faves, friends. Grab a stick of dynamite and join in the fun:

On Friday, January 27 at 9 p.m., Cartoon Network will debut a brand new Tom and Jerry short, titled "The Karateguard." The short, directed by Joseph "I Thought He Was Dead" Barbera, will pit Jerry the Mouse against the tenacious Tom... well, it's a Tom and Jerry cartoon for crying out loud, they pretty much all follow the same basic plot. Tom and Jerry, like most cartoons from that era, were created as theatrical shorts to be shown before MGM films (much like Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies were shown before Warner Brothers films). Barbera created the cat and mouse duo sixty-five years ago with the late William Hanna.

[via Cartoon Brew]