Classic cartoon music - Tom & Jerry DVD

[Woochifer]

For Christmas, I got the Tom & Jerry DVD set. I grew up on the old MGM cartoons (the Hanna-Barbera Tom & Jerry, and Tex Avery toons), and they were a fixture in my weekday afternoon TV viewing all the way through college. It's been a few years since I've regularly seen some of these cartoons and in viewing the DVD, it just reinforced why I love golden age animation. The frantic pacing, the visual humor, the creative violence (always wondered how these cartoon characters had such easy access to explosives and weapons), and just in general the craft of visual storytelling (consider that most of the MGM-era Tom & Jerry cartoons used no dialog). All in all, a great collection of toons (unfortunately, the image quality is spotty)

But, one underrated aspect of these golden age cartoons I think is the music. A great extra with this DVD is a feature on Scott Bradley who wrote the music for the MGM cartoons. It goes into how cartoon music really pushed the envelope in how it grew to emulate and match the action on the screen and mixed together different music styles inside a seven-minute short. I'd read before that musicians regarded Scott Bradley's music in particular as very difficult movie music to play because of its frantic timing and abrupt changes. The feature on the Tom & Jerry DVD traces how cartoon music in general evolved into its own genre. Very interesting stuff, well worth checking out.

[N. Abstentia]

What Tom & Jerry DVD set? Complete and uncut??

[Woochifer]

Yes, it's a two-disc set that Warner issued about two months ago. Has over 40 cartoons on it, with a pretty good spread across the Hanna-Barbera MGM era. A lot of classic titles are in the set, and a lot of others aren't. This is probably the first of many Tom & Jerry releases. They are supposed to be uncut, but some people have pointed out that the versions for a couple of the cartoons on this set are indeed the edited versions, so Warner will have a replacement disc program up and running soon. (Don't you wish that Lucas could be this forthcoming about the defective Star Wars discs?)

The DVD has two documentaries, one about how Hanna and Barbera teamed up and created the Tom and Jerry characters, and the other one is the aforementioned biography of Scott Bradley's music for the MGM cartoons, which I regard as some of the best movie music ever done. The DVD also has some bonus cuts from two of the MGM musicals that featured Tom and Jerry with live actors -- one musical number with Gene Kelly, the other with Esther Williams.

Now, if Warner can do a similar treatment for the Tex Avery MGM shorts (which I regard as the best of the golden age animated shorts), I will be a very happy camper. I can only hope that the image quality steps up a bit from the Tom & Jerry set, because the image quality is not that great with some of the cartoons.

[Worf101]

and I liked them because Jerry didn't "always" win all the time. There were the occaisions when Tom got his licks in. I also liked how Tom and Jerry stayed "topical" or hip as it were. The Zoot Suit cartoon is one of my faves. I will admit I like Warner Bros better however as Bugs and Daffy were/are just amazing If you knew how much WB dialogue I spout each and every day. They have warped my fragile little mind.

"Shovin' right off again... shovin' right off again, shovin' right off again ... phew!!!!"

Da Worfster

[Woochifer]

and I liked them because Jerry didn't "always" win all the time. There were the occaisions when Tom got his licks in. I also liked how Tom and Jerry stayed "topical" or hip as it were. The Zoot Suit cartoon is one of my faves. I will admit I like Warner Bros better however as Bugs and Daffy were/are just amazing If you knew how much WB dialogue I spout each and every day. They have warped my fragile little mind.

"Shovin' right off again... shovin' right off again, shovin' right off again ... phew!!!!"

Da Worfster

Actually, I just liked the mindless violence (among other things of course)! I'll have to scan the image from the inside sleeve of the DVD -- picture of Tom standing outside of Jerry's hole with dynamite, bombs, a mousetrap, beartrap, knives, etc. it just so encapsulates Tom & Jerry.

The zoot suit cartoon is actually on the DVD set, and the hilarious part of it is the hipster dialog. The amazing part of the Tom & Jerry cartoons though is that they relied strictly on visual humor and sound effects, with minimal dialog.

I also like the WB cartoons, but my favorites were always the best of the MGM cartoons because they had more of a manic edge to them, especially the stuff from Tex Avery which followed a basic formula of cramming 30 gags into an 8-minute cartoon. (stuff like "Red Hot Riding Hood," "Bad Luck Blackie," "The Cat That Hated People," "Swing Shift Cinderella," and "Rock-A-Bye Bear") Add to that the genius of Scott Bradley's music and it was a great way to pass half an hour every afternoon when I got home from school.

It was the Hanna-Barbera MGM cartoons that seemed to have the best balance between when Jerry bested Tom and vice versa. When Chuck Jones took over the series in the early-60s, I thought that he made Tom less of a sympathetic character and more of a dufus bully.

Things declined even more when the 70s-era Saturday morning Tom & Jerry cartoons that Hanna-Barbera did on their own put those stupid bowties on them made them buddies. Those cartoons were innocuous, but not particularly funny or well paced.

The series that Filmation did in the mid-80s was one of the absolute worst cartoon series ever conceived. Jerry in that one was just a smarmy, devious troublemaker. Unlike the MGM cartoons when Tom would get his comeuppance after picking on Jerry one too many times, in this series Tom's just minding his own business and Jerry's just stirring up trouble for him with no rhyme or reason. Lame stories, horrible pacing, and not even funny, just meanspirited. I have no idea who the hell thought those cartoons would be funny or even mildly entertaining. In those cartoons, I wished that Tom would catch the little brat, claw him into shreds, eat the carcas, and be done with that particular series!

I heard that another series was done after the Filmation series that featured Tom & Jerry TALKING! OMG! I remember that there was a Tom & Jerry movie with them talking as well, and it's supposed to be equally horrible.

I mean, the golden age shorts got it right, why the hell did anyone in their right mind think that they needed to make these dumb changes? Oh well, at least we got those classic cartoons for posterity.

[N. Abstentia]

40 cartoons on the Tom & Jerry set? My DVD set has 180..it's a total of 11 DVD's

I also have a Tex Avery DVD set with 93 cartoons, 5 DVD's. You just can't beat those old Tex Avery cartoons.

[twochannelsonly]

So great thought above, but you know what came to my mind was when Daffy Duck, stopped Bugs Bunny from playing the piano(that was rigged with TNT) pushing Bugs out of the way (since he was 1 note off try after try) and says

NO...NO... NO you dumb bunny this is how it goes ...dee da..dee..da dee... ... ... da dee dee BOOM ...

Sorry guys couldnt help myself

[RGA]

I like how the Simpsons pay tribute to Tom and Jerry with Itchy and Scratchy -- now these are over the top sickening but damn funny - I always think of Tom and Jerry.

I liked almost everything these cartoons did -- not a big fan of Bugs bunny though. He seemed sleazy to me. I like Daffy duck and whatever cartoon it was where at the end he says " I may be a coward but I'm a greeeeeeeeedy coward" -- I like Marvin the Marshian as well.

But my favs were always that stupid Coyote and the Road Runner. With all the money Wiley spent at Acme he could have purchased a nice Road Rinner meal at a top restaurant -- Stupid Coyote! I always loved the umbrella and that poor look he gave us before plummeting a thousand feet.

And the Dog and the wolf dressing up as a sheep to get the sheep. Didn't really like Sylvester and Tweety much -- maybe because I had a cat and hated when the cat lost...damn annoying Tweety!!

[kexodusc]

As much as I loved the Tom & Jerry rivalry, WB will always be #1 in my heart. Disney had it's moments, but never really captured the same type of humor. Except Donald Duck, man that guy was funny...especially with those pesky chipmunks...that poor bastard.
When I was a kid we had cool, masculin, cartoons too...G.I. Joe, Transformers, Voltron, etc. Cartoons really were much cooler back then...no freakin' Japanese love stories thrown in with mythological cuteness...yuck. I'm still waiting for seasons 1 & 2 of He-Man to come out in a few months....

[Kam]

don't forget thundercats.

i also remember a LOT of classical music being used in cartoons. everything from the william tell overture opening for any morning scene (so much to make it a cliche) to the 1812 overture, to beethoven's 9th to wagner's ring of the nebulung (sp?) with the classic 'kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit!'

growing up on great cartoons helped my imagination immensely. i dread to find out what pokemon does for this next generation, while still hoping its good for the imagination, i just can't see it. i can look back as an adult (well, in age at least) to those classic cartoons and STILL appreciate and enjoy them for 'serious' storylines (the problems of cross-species dating, retelling classic movie plots and hell... Ride of the Valkyrie!!, the problems of cross-dressing, the problems of defying the laws of nature, etc) and classical music, i look at pokemon and think this can't be good for epileptics.