First introduced to the public in 1978 as “Laser Vision,” it has taken three decades to finally see the format come to an official end. Pioneer, the last manufacturer of LaserDisc players, has just announced that it is stopping production of them. Unbeknownst to many of us in the Western world, Pioneer had still been making three newer models of LaserDisc players right into early 2009, chiefly for the Japanese market. Many of today’s home video enthusiasts, never mind the general public, have never even heard of LaserDiscs; but to many of us, there is no small amount of sentimentality about them. And, though many collectors got rid of their collections since DVD arrived on the scene, a few of us still cling to a few dozen, or several hundred, LaserDiscs due either to silly nostalgia, or because some titles simply have never landed on DVD. That list of DVD no-shows includes a number of very cool animation releases. With the last LaserDisc player finally coming off the assembly line, this seemed like a grand time to review some of that format’s greatest animation releases.

LaserDisc: A Brief History

For the uninformed, a quick history is in order. (A fuller history is provided on our site in the article LaserDisc Archives: A Primer On The LD Format. Links to other LaserDisc Archives articles will be provided where appropriate.) LaserDisc technology was first demonstrated in 1969, and later was introduced to the media in 1972, at a demonstration held at Universal City, California. At the time, the LaserDisc was seen to be the front-running technology for the proposed home video market, due to its low cost relative to videotape. A consortium that included MCA, Philips, IBM, and Pioneer developed the technology for LaserDisc. There were two competing disc technologies at the time, but they were both based on older technologies similar in some respects to vinyl records, as opposed to laser optics. Early home theater buffs, as well as large industrial companies, latched onto LaserDiscs as the most promising new format of the late 1970s.

Unfortunately, the format was dogged by poor quality control, lower-than-anticipated marketplace acceptance, and the unfortunate decision by MCA to put the name “DiscoVision” on all of its software. Ironically for LaserDisc, just as its quality vastly improved and its popularity began to increase (and the DiscoVision name was dropped from LaserDisc covers), VHS won the videotape wars and its ability to record made it the better choice for consumers. LaserDisc became a niche product compared to the enormous popularity of VHS, but those niche consumers were treated to the better video and audio that LaserDisc provided. (LaserDiscs in North America offered 400 lines of resolution, almost twice as good as videotape!) LaserDiscs also allowed one to go directly to a chapter in a film, and later on they often contained bonus features. Yes, LaserDisc was the first format to feature audio commentaries, deleted scenes, isolated soundtracks, still galleries, and the like. The most-loved LaserDiscs were from the Criterion Collection, who began their extensive line of special editions with King Kong and Citizen Kane. By 1988, MGM started putting out letterboxed films on LaserDisc, further establishing LaserDisc as the format of choice for true film connoisseurs.

Of course, DVD changed all that. DVD offered even better technical specifications (albeit with digitally compressed video, unlike LaserDisc’s uncompressed analog video), interactive menus, a smaller size and more. Of course, it also sometimes offered frustratingly impossible-to-skip FBI warnings and trailers, but nothing’s perfect. Within a couple of years of DVD’s 1997 launch, LaserDisc production in the United States stopped.

A moment of silence.

Sure, some might say “Good riddance!” LaserDiscs were bulky and expensive, and they had to be flipped over in order to play each side (unless you had a player that could play both sides, but there was still a pause while the player did the switch). They also, particularly the older discs, sometimes suffered from “laser rot,” a condition whereby the image deteriorated over time into a mess of colored speckles. But they were the best that we had, for a long while, and most of my discs still look pretty darn good. There are still items that I hold in my collection that I will not part with, titles that have yet to grace DVD. Among these are Muppet Musicians Of Bremen, the 1990 Captain America film (love those rubber ears!), George Pal’s vastly under-appreciated Doc Savage: Man Of Bronze, and a widescreen copy of The Shadow.

Ah, but it is the animation sets that are nearest and dearest to my heart. A number of these have never been suitably reproduced on DVD, and in any event they look very cool on a shelf. Keep in mind that LaserDiscs were twelve inches wide, just like LP records, so the boxes for multi-disc sets were quite impressive. This was especially true if they needed to accommodate books or other ancillary materials like prints or CDs.

Disney Exclusive Archive Collections

Very few LaserDisc sets could compare with these beauties. Some were called by the classy “Exclusive Archive Collection” name, while some went by the simpler title “Deluxe Edition.” Whatever the title, they set the standard. My very first LaserDisc purchase was the combined set for Three Caballeros and Saludos Amigos. It took me days to get through all the video and audio bonus material on this set, chronicling Walt’s efforts to assist with the United States’ friendship overtures with Latin America in the 1940s. Historically fascinating and artistically groundbreaking, these films were an important part of the studio’s development, and yet they have never been treated on DVD like they were on LaserDisc.

Pinocchio is finally coming to Platinum Edition DVD and Blu-ray in 2009, after being criminally and inexplicably overlooked for far too long. Fortunately, I have had the Pinocchio: Deluxe Edition LaserDisc set to enjoy for quite some time now, which includes copious extras. It even comes with a soundtrack CD! Cinderella and Snow White got hardcover books packaged in their boxes, and these as well as Alice In Wonderland got extensive audio supplements not heard from on DVD. The modern films Lion King, Pocahontas and Hunchback Of Notre Dame also have many bonuses not seen on DVD, and many of the boxes have gorgeous, exclusive covers. Sleeping Beauty and Hunchback are my favorite covers.

The Nightmare Before Christmas also falls in this category, though at the time it was considered a “Touchstone” release. The LaserDisc box has the complete hardcover “Making Of” book, plus a number of Henry Selick shorts that MTV had not given them permission to use (hence their non-inclusion on the DVD and Blu-ray editions). Pixar’s Toy Story got similar treatment, with tons of bonus features, a massive metallic foil box, frameable lenticular artwork, and a softcover Art Of Toy Story book. Even with retail prices between $100 and $125, collectors were happy back then to pay the price for such beautiful editions. (As I was late to the game, I got a lot of mine either on the used market or during closeouts in the waning days of LaserDisc.)

Mickey Mouse also got his own box set, collecting many of his black and white cartoons for the first time, a momentous thing back in 1993 when the box was released. I remember being so excited when I first saw that set being advertised. Though the contents were largely reproduced in the first Mickey Mouse In Black And White Walt Disney Treasures DVD, the LaserDisc set is still worth holding onto for the attractive 12” square 8-page booklet that holds a wealth of liner notes, photos, and artwork. Donald Duck got his own box exclusively in Japan, with a selection of his best and most important shorts (it was the first time that I got to see his debut in The Wise Little Hen, or the classic The Band Concert.)

Another Disney set that animation fans had to love was The Disneyland Anthology. This four-disc box contained eight episodes of Disney’s Disneyland show, several of which have not yet been seen on DVD. The cartoon highlight is A Day In The life Of Donald Duck, but Adventures In Fantasy and Mars And Beyond are pretty cool too.

Other Disney

Naturally, there were many more LaserDiscs of note that came from Disney. Chief among these is Song Of The South, a title which has never had an official home video release in North America due to concerns over racial sensitivity. I prize this LaserDisc, as not only does it give me the chance to see a classic Disney film of the 1940s, it confirms that it is not nearly so offensive as many have suspected. In fact, the black people in the film come off way better than the white folk. I have the Japanese disc, which has a few subtitles imprinted on the image (during titles and songs), but there is also a Hong Kong LaserDisc which has no subtitles at all and is therefore highly prized by collectors.

At Home With Donald Duck was another Disneyland episode, from 1956. This was a relatively early DiscoVision title, and as such it is unfortunately suffering from laser rot, but my copy is still playable. There also many collections of shorts, the greatest of which (for me) were those that collected the Silly Symphonies series. For years, this was the only way that I could enjoy those fabulous short films, and so I treasured those LaserDiscs. I still have them, though most have outlived their usefulness in this DVD age. However, it is nice to have the original version of The Three Little Pigs, as the Silly Symphonies DVD set that includes this cartoon has Walt’s re-done version (with the “censored” section available as only its own separate clip).

MGM Cartoons

There have been so few MGM cartoons that have made it to DVD, that many people would be surprised just how big an animation studio they were over the years. Cartoon pioneers Hugh Harmon and Rudolph Ising created the first MGM cartoons under the Happy Harmonies banner, and dozens of these were collected into the LaserDisc set MGM Cartoon Classics: Happy Harmonies, along with a few cartoons that they did during their second stint with the studio. Their cartoons were technically proficient, though generally mediocre otherwise. Still, they are beautiful cartoons from the golden age of animation, and as such this box is one of my favorites. Much more entertaining, however, is The Compleat Tex Avery, which collects all of the MGM cartoons done by the master animation director. You would think that this set would have a great chance of coming to DVD, but only his Droopy cartoons have come out so far. Animation fans know that these are some of the greatest cartoons ever made, so unlike many other LaserDiscs, this one can still fetch decent bids on eBay.

The Art Of Tom & Jerry was a three volume set, the first two of which had every single one of the original Hanna-Barbera shorts unedited— certainly better than what Warner managed to put out on DVD. I’m not the biggest Tom & Jerry fan, but there is no doubting the historic significance of this popular series, and these LaserDisc sets are the best way to view them. The third volume contains all of the Tom & Jerry shorts directed by Chuck Jones. While many see the Jones efforts as lacking, there is no doubting that they contain recognizable Jones traits, and even weak Jones is way better than a lot of what else is out there. It’s great to be able to see these shorts, which are not yet on DVD, so I don’t have to take the word of others who would tell me that they lack entertainment value. I think Jones brought a lot to the series, even if it was different than the Hanna-Barbera version.

Warner Bros.

I have adored the Looney Tunes DVD sets like anyone else, but they still haven’t quite reached the depth of what was available on LaserDisc. The DVD sets have brought us fewer than 400 beautifully restored cartoons, while I have well over that number on LaserDisc. The most notable discs came in five multi-disc volumes of The Golden Age Of Looney Tunes, 24 LaserDiscs in total (the last volume had four discs, compared to five discs in the others). The larger sets had about 70 cartoons each, generally arranged by subject matter. These cartoons were solely from the period 1933-1948, and contain many of the shorts that did not feature the well known Looney Tunes characters. The DVD sets were just starting to scratch the surface of this particular territory, so if you want to see lots of Friz Freleng musicals and Tex Avery travelogues, then the LaserDisc sets are the way to go.

Almost as cool were the many individual discs that were released, which covered later years. In these discs, you could find many of the well-known Chuck Jones 1950s classics, for example, but also a few wonderful surprises that still haven’t found their way onto DVD. The LaserDiscs either featured a particular star like Bugs or Porky, or they had cartoons grouped by theme. This makes these LaserDiscs ideal for a theme night, as I can (for example) easily pull a few theater-based classics, fairy tale stories, or horror cartoons out of the same disc— in order, Curtain Calls, Wince Upon A Time, and Looney Tunes After Dark.

A couple of unique Looney Tunes box sets were also produced in Japan. The first one reproduced the Stars Of Space Jam VHS series, which had some decent cartoons but also some of the later, weak Looney Tunes of the 1960s. The same type of mix is found on the second volume, Bugs & Friends (aside from some good theatricals and lesser-known eyesores, the biggest prize here was the made-for TV sequel Duck Dodgers And The Return Of The 24 1/2th Century). The special packaging alone, with unique art and an Ubi strip, makes the Japanese sets quite attractive.

Fleischer

Nowhere else will you find so many classic Betty Boop cartoons as on the two volumes (eight discs) of Betty Boop: The Definitive Collection. Each volume had four discs, and together they comprise all but a few of the Betty Boop cartoons. The main issue with these sets is the excessive Digital Video Noise Reduction used, which destroys some of the animation, though less discerning viewers don’t notice it. For me, I’m just glad to have over 100 of the Boop cartoons for my enjoyment, including dozens that have never appeared on VHS or DVD.

I never did pick up a laserdisc of Fleischer’s Gulliver’s Travels (they were rare and expensive at the time), but I was ecstatic to purchase a copy of Hoppity Goes To Town on LaserDisc. Okay, it does have the re-release title, instead of the original Mr. Bug Goes To Town, but regardless it’s a nearly forgotten masterwork. The LaserDisc image looks surprisingly sharp, too. If Mr. Bug Goes To Town hadn’t been released at the same time that Pearl Harbor was getting bombed, it might have had a real shot at stardom. As it is, it’s a gem that LaserDisc owners can savor. (There has been a DVD release of this film recently, under the tile Bugville, but its legality is under question.)

Hanna-Barbera

For years, LaserDisc was my primary way of enjoying Hanna-Barbera classic TV shows. In the past several years, many of their shows have seen complete series DVD sets put out, so I have let some of my LaserDiscs go. However, there are a few that I still need to hang on to. Chief among these are some of the “Hanna-Barbera Personal Favorites” discs. Now, these were also available on videotape, but I certainly prefer to own them on LaserDisc. This series had Hanna and Barbera on camera making brief introductions to personally selected cartoons, making it a unique opportunity for collectors to see them talk about their work, even if in a superficial way. The most notable release, to me, was Animal Follies, which features cartoons of several characters that have not yet made it, and maybe never will, onto DVD. This includes their first TV stars, Ruff and Reddy, as well as Yippee, Yappee, and Yahooee; Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy; and Touché Turtle. Also, a Huckleberry Hound And Friends edition of this video series has more H-B stars. The Scooby Doo “Personal Favorites” even has Scoob and the gang meeting Sonny and Cher, from an episode of The New Scooby Doo Movies that did not show up on the DVD set.

There were also LaserDiscs produced for The Atom Ant And Secret Squirrel Show, with each character starring on his own disc. Like Ruff And Reddy, there is no DVD in sight for this show. I have also hung onto a box set for The Flintstones, which has the first fourteen episodes of the show. I have them on DVD now too, but the LaserDisc set allows you to watch some of them with or without the laughtrack. Even better are the booklet that comes with the set, and numerous bonus features never seen on the DVD sets, including the infamous cigarette commercials featuring Fred and Barney!

Other Titles

Then there are other titles I still treasure for various reasons. Underrated films like Cats Don’t Dance and Balto came to DVD in unremarkable and insultingly “full screen” transfers, but on LaserDisc we got the complete widescreen image. Even Richard Williams’ mangled masterpiece known on video as The Thief And The Cobbler got special love on LaserDisc with a proper CinemaScope 2.35:1 letterboxed transfer that puts the “full screen” DVD to shame. (A Goofy Movie is another film that got a widescreen LaserDisc and a 4:3 DVD, though I never picked the movie up in either format.) The George Lucas-produced Twice Upon A Time came to LaserDisc in all its wonderful, experimental glory, though its transfer was 4:3 (which may have been its original aspect ratio). TUAT is still waiting for its DVD release.

On a related note, stop-motion animator and special effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen also got a couple of special LaserDisc releases that have not been reproduced on DVD. The documentary Aliens, Monsters And Me, Ray Harryhausen was a special, rare find for me, and of course there was the Criterion edition of Jason and the Argonauts, with Ray’s commentary and more.

That’s a lot of coolness, I’m sure you’ll agree. With all of these treasures in my collection, can you blame me for hanging on to my LaserDisc player? I have greatly enjoyed DVDs and am ecstatic about Blu-ray, but I still don’t think my LaserDisc collection has worn out its welcome. Even though the digital revolution came years ago, the analog world still has its unique pleasures.

With the majority of the cat ‘n’ mouse’s oeuvre still to debut on DVD, what better time is there than now to take a look back almost 15 years (!) to when animation historian Jerry Beck co-produced a trilogy of fine LaserDisc box sets starring the bickering duo.

MGM/UA Home Video’s early 1990s collectors anthologies were grand affairs, counting among them sets devoted to the Happy Harmonies, Tex Avery, The Golden Age Of Looney Tunes and, of course, the celebrated team of Thomas, the cat, and his nemesis Jerry, the mouse. These collections, under the banner of The Art Of Tom And Jerry, brought together all of their motion picture appearances, including original CinemaScope shorts and sequences from other feature films, save their short lived (and best forgotten) European series and the 1990s update movie.

THE ART OF TOM AND JERRY: VOLUME THREE rounds off this series, with a collection of the later Chuck Jones-produced films, in another three CLV disc set. With MGM having shut down their animation department and thinking that older, catalog shorts could generate just as much revenue as new cartoons, they soon found that there was still much demand for freshly created films from theater exhibitors, who balked at paying good money for the same old product twice. Now that Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera had left to begin their prolific television output, the Studio decided a cheap way of continuing the cartoons without the need to actually run a cartoon unit was to lease the characters to Czech animator/director Gene Deitch, who created a short-lived series of such lacklustre shorts that they were all but disowned by the company.

Around this time, and with the closure of the Warner Brothers cartoon outfit, Chuck Jones had set himself up in business as Tower 12 Productions, and MGM tapped the director with the proposition of redesigning their famous cat and mouse duo for a re-vamped series. Jones accepted the not so easy task and re-defined their personalities in a Road Runner/Coyote-type light, and their characteristic visual appearance also changed a little to reflect the wry look Jones fans will recognise from such characters as Wile E Coyote and Pepe Le Pew. The cartoons were only moderately successful, but did the job of keeping Tom and Jerry in the public eye, even if nowadays this series is very rarely seen. That’s a shame, as some of these cartoons contain really good gags and develop the characters beyond the simple chase genre that gave the H-B cartoons their spark.

Here Tom and Jerry are more mischievous, with careful plotting taking the place of a quick and painful revenge. Certainly, these cartoons are of their time, the mid-1960s, but within that range there were also some new things brought to the shorts, such as the idea of spoofing popular trends and other films, which was a popular movie concept at the time when the comic Cat Balloo aped epic westerns and In Like Flint was the Austin Powers of its day, turning the James Bond phenomenon on its head. Jones was always at the forefront of animated parody, and kept this up through this series.

As this set kicks off, with Pent-House Mouse (1963), one notices that one remaining element that has not changed in the Jones shorts is Scott Bradley’s unmistakable theme (though actual scoring duties would be taken over by Eugene Poddany). Over the years this theme has accompanied Tom And Jerry’s many title card picture switches (the biggest swap came with the jump to CinemaScope) and here they now have an entire animated sequence that opens each film, with Tom replacing Leo, the celebrated lion in the MGM logo, sniffing and growling as best he can, while Jerry floats down and plumps himself cosily on top of his name, sliding into the final letter like it was a cocktail glass. It’s a great opening and firmly sets this series up as something new.

Though previous cartoons in the T&J series had been made in widescreen CinemaScope, the Deitch cartoons (none of which are presented in any of these Art Of sets) resorted to the full-frame 1.33:1 ratio. Jones’ cartoons fall somewhere in-between, coming at a time when the majority of films were photographed to a full-frame negative and then matted to a 1.85:1 ratio in theaters. Most of these cartoons are visibly framed so as not to lose any vital picture information if cropped, but thankfully, and quite rightly, this set presents the films with the full negative exposed, so as to see the entire image.

Jones kept many of his Warner Brothers associates on with him at Tower 12, including storyman Michael Maltese, designer/co-director Maurice Noble, animator Ken Harris, director Abe Levitow and voice artists June Foray and, of course, Mel Blanc (although T&J still rarely speak in these films). Pent-House Mouse looks and feels like a 1950s Warner Bros cartoon, in particular One Froggy Evening. We find Tom lazing about in his stylish top-floor apartment, acting very suave in typical Chuck Jones fashion. Poor Jerry on the other hand, is desperate for food, so when he spots a workman’s lunch on a nearby construction site, he tucks in. Unknown to Jerry, the lunch pack gets towed up on a beam destined for the top of the high rise, but it falls off, landing on Tom’s head. And so begins the battle between Jones’ take on Tom and Jerry…

With 1964’s The Cat Above And The Mouse Below, Jones invokes his taste for classical music when “Thomasino CattiCazzaza” attempts to sing the Rigoletto to a packed house, not realising that Jerry is trying to sleep beneath the stage (the cartoon also recalls the earlier 1949 WB short Long Haired Hare). Is There A Doctor In The Mouse? features some great gags when Jerry concocts a potion that gives him super fast speed and Tom tries to catch him on film – the “slow-mo” replay with the action all mapped out is a very funny touch. A Spike replacement (looking very much like a certain canine from the WB films) appears in Much Ado About Mousing, Jones’ first beach-set short, in which Jerry is protected from Tom’s fishing by the dog, who gives him a whistle to blow if he gets into trouble – a very similar set up to the earlier Fit To Be Tied.

Snowbody Loves Me (which has the most random “what the?” ending to any T&J cartoon) also returns to the basic H-B formula: stuck outside in the cold, Jerry tries every trick in the book to get in and munch on the Swiss cheese that Tom has inside, while The Unshrinkable Jerry Mouse has Jerry protecting a little kitten from Tom. It’s cartoons like these that reinforce the view that the more things change, the more they stay the same, and although Poddany’s scores don’t play with including recognisable themes as much as Bradley used to (he has a tendency to strongly “Mickey Mouse” the action), these films are still Tom And Jerry in look and feel. The first side is completed with Ah, Sweet Mouse-Story Of Life (1965), another short that demonstrates Jones’ ability to provide new visual twists on older gags, and so keeping the tradition of the series going.

Tom-Ic Energy (don’t you just love these title puns?) takes T&J out of the house and places them in the big city to continue their chase, with all that that entails, and starts side two off with cosy familiarity. Animation conventions are played with in Bad Day At Cat Rock, which returns us to the building construction site for some more clever visual tricks, and The Brothers Carry-Mouse-Off has Tom donning a mouse disguise so as to get closer to Jerry in another film that retains the atmosphere of the H-B shorts, though this one was only produced by Jones, being directed instead by storyman Jim Pabian. In Haunted Mouse, things get a little more inventive when Jerry’s magician mouse cousin (another one?!) comes to stay. Obviously Tom mistakes the trickster for Jerry, leading to some comic complications when the mouse conjures up a group of rabbits to mystify Tom. A fun diversion, this short isn’t the most densely plotted of Jones’ films, and fills out some extra seconds at the end by having the final title appear, for no other apparent reason, in several different languages!

Side two finishes up with two more shorts. The first, I’m Just Wild About Jerry, reminded me very much of the type of gag that Jones would use in his earlier Road Runner chase cartoons. One recurring joke in particular will stand out to fans of the Coyote: on chasing the mouse on roller skates, Tom’s journey eventually comes to a halt on a set of railway tracks – just in time to get a front seat view of the train’s headlights running straight for him! Finally, Of Feline Bondage plays with the old H-B idea of invisibility as seen in their earlier films The Invisible Mouse and The Vanishing Duck. This time around, Jerry’s fairy Godmouse takes pity on the poor little rodent after one too many beatings from Tom and gives him a potion that makes him disappear. You can imagine what comes next, though Jones’ slightly tamer direction means that some of the gags do not play off so well as those in the earlier versions, and the animation seems to make the objects come to life themselves, as opposed to the clever way the H-B cartoons really made the audience feel that they were still really “seeing” Jerry in a scene.

Side three finishes off 1965’s helpings with The Year Of The Mouse (Jerry and friend convince Tom that he’s a nut, only to get their own comeuppance in the end), The Cat’s Me-Ouch (featuring a tiny but dangerous mouse-sized bulldog) and Jerry-Go-Round, set in a circus and directed by Abe Levitow (though the “stop-start” nature of the opening titles is pure Jones). 1966 would prove to be Chuck’s major year with the cat and mouse, producing or directing eleven cartoons in the series. Duel Personality has an entire “pre-credits” sequence, leading to a very funny short in which the weapons of choice grow larger and more lethal as the film progresses! This one is also noteworthy for the fact that scoring duties are taken over by Dean Elliott who, while retaining Bradley’s theme in the openings, tries to bring some new recurring musical motifs to the series. The little mouse attacks Tom in his sleepwalking state in Jerry, Jerry, Quite Contrary, and in Love Me, Love My Mouse, Jones is joined in directing by Ben Washam. The two fashion perhaps the most surreal cartoon in the collection, with backgrounds reminiscent of What’s Up, Doc? as Tom floats over to his sweetheart to propose – only to have her take pity on Jerry! Puss ‘N’ Boats, directed again by Levitow, is another ship-set cartoon, with Tom not only after Jerry, but also having to safe himself from a hungry shark!

Over the course of the cartoons, one can see that Jones was itching to do other things just through reading his involvement in the credits themselves. He had already began to share direction with others on his crew, most notably Abe Levitow, and the cartoons began to hark back to the H-B films in story as well as theme as the ideas seemingly dried up. This becomes most apparent with the shorts on side four which, while not straight remakes, recycle many elements from earlier cartoons. In Filet Meow, Jerry befriends and saves from Tom a little goldfish (a similar concept to the aptly named Jerry And The Goldfish from 1951), and Matinee Mouse, directed by Tom Ray, becomes the first “highlights” cartoon in this collection, being made up of clips from Love That Pup and Jerry’s Diary (itself a compilation) from 1949, The Truce Hurts (1948), The Flying Cat (1952) and The Flying Sorceress from 1956. Hanna and Barbera are quite rightly given due credit, but it’s a little odd to see these clips re-scored and with new sound effects, though the concept of T&J going to a movie house to see their old films works well enough, even if the theater does show one of the CinemaScope cartoons in a pan-and-scan version!

Levitow’s The A-Tom-Inable Snowman is an Alps set chase, featuring a really fun co-starring St Bernard who comes to Tom’s aid with a beverage or two when Jerry gets the better of him. Jerry pits Tom’s wits against another cat in Catty-Cornered (another Levitow short, but scored this time by yet another composer, Carl Brandt), and the same cat joins Tom again to fight over Jerry in Cat And Dupli-Cat, this time directed by Chuck himself, who was attracted to the musical theme of the short, with Eugene Poddany back as composer.

As Jones spent more and more time on other projects, he only contributed some gags and a producer role to the remaining cartoons in the series. Now mostly directed by Abe Levitow, these were a mixture of “tried and tested” routines and the “outrageously desperate”. Two films that smack of this are O-Solar-Meow, which places T&J on a space station of all things, and Guided Mouse-Ille (or, Science On A Wet Afternoon), where another set of high-tech gadgets play their part in the ensuing violence. There is nothing actually wrong with either of these two films, and they are very funny cartoons in their own right, but just do not feel like the traditional Tom And Jerry we’ve come to expect, though the Solar short does predate 2001: A Space Odyssey in some ways and also Star Wars by over ten years! The 2565-set Guided film also has some neat ideas, but there is something comforting about seeing T&J smashing the heck out of each other in a normal home that doesn’t quite work when they are substituted by futuristic robot version of themselves doing essentially the same thing.

Perhaps one of the most seen of these particular Chuck Jones films is Rock ‘N’ Rodent, which kicks off side five’s final set of cartoons from 1967. Directed by Levitow, it sets up that old chestnut where all Tom wants is a quiet night’s sleep, only to find that Jerry’s jazz band concert is to be held in Tom’s basement. Cannery Rodent (great title!) is another seafront set toon, directed by Chuck, and basically works as a continuation of the earlier Cat And Dupli-Cat, with a similar shark still pursuing Tom. Spoofing the hit television show The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is Levitow’s The Mouse From H.U.N.G.E.R. – which if not the all time best cartoon in this set, is most certainly one of the most re-watchable. The short has plenty of fun with spy-film conventions, setting up Tom as an ultimate agent from an Evil Enemy Agency. With more pace and sheer “zip” than many of the other Jones cartoons, this one is simply great fun, with Dean Elliott’s score easily bringing the U.N.C.L.E. theme to mind (that show was produced by MGM’s live-action division) and providing a smile on its own!

Purr-Chance To Dream, directed by Ben Washam, sees the return of Jerry’s mouse-sized pet pooch and for all intents and purposes is a sequel to The Cat’s Me-Ouch, while Levitow’s Surf-Bored Cat is set back on the beach, where T&J’s attempts to catch a wave are foiled by each other – not to mention an annoying octopus and that hungry shark back for more! Although we’ve seen this situation countless times before, this is probably the best of Chuck’s sea/beach films. Washam’s Advance And Be-Mechanized takes us, as the liner notes say, “back to the future” where Tom’s “robot-cat” takes another beating from Jerry’s mechanical mouse, in another cartoon that, despite its futuristic setting somehow feels among the most dated among this collection.

The series came to a natural end with Shutter Bugged Cat, a final “highlights” short (directed again by Tom Ray) that allows another look back through the concept of the duo checking through old film footage. Interestingly, the Jones team did not include any of their own recent offerings, relying instead on clips from the Oscar winning H-B directed Yankee Doodle Mouse (1943), Heavenly Puss (1949) and Designs On Jerry (1955), integrating them rather well with their new animation. Though it is not known if it was intentional or not, it does feel right to end the series with a film containing footage from the Yankee Doodle short as this was an early highlight itself, being the first Academy Award winning T&J film, and somehow brings everything around full circle even if, as before, watching these classics with Dean Elliott’s new music does feel a little uneven.

Fluidly animated, funny, and expanding on the original potential of the characters, many of the Chuck Jones Tom And Jerry shorts feel fresh and funny. They are a different take on the cat and mouse to be sure, but in re-mixing the formula a little, Jones revitalised the series and stopped it from outliving its welcome. Treating Tom and Jerry as almost human characters, such as Bugs, Daffy and Wile E Coyote, enabled the animators to place them in new situations rather than confine them to mostly just chasing around the house, though the future-set films possibly take it a little too far and lose a little of what we love about the characters.

These cartoons, though they may be slightly less frantic and not as fast-paced, look great here and have the finest prints in any of the three volumes. Sound, which is uniformly solid throughout all the sets, is also exceptional here, with many of the cartoons having the illusion of a real presence across the front channels. The Jones series ran for only five years, but they have been given the respect they deserve with this collection, rightly described by a Leonard Maltin quote in the liner notes as “the handsomest cartoons of the 1960s”, and certainly standing up to looking as “modern” in technique as today’s television animation.

Eventually, Chuck Jones’ Tower 12 was bought out by MGM and was re-branded as their own in-house animation production facility, MGM Visual Arts. After the Tom And Jerry cartoons ran out of steam, Jones developed his own ideas, winning an Oscar for his classic The Dot And The Line, as well as several collaborations with the UPA Studio (he had already written the feature Gay Purr-ee for them in 1962). At MGM, he created the highly successful TV specials The Grinch (1966) and Horton Hears A Who (1970), leading to his writing and co-directing the animated feature The Phantom Tollbooth, also in 1970. This feature would unfortunately do nothing to lift MGM’s ailing fortunes (the rest of the company was in a bad shape as well) and the Studio decided to permanently close down the animation department and cease all animation production for good.

For many, the magic of the Tom And Jerry shorts ended when Joe Barbera and Bill Hanna left the studio. While that is not entirely fair on the Jones films, it has to be said that theirs are the shorts and attitudes we think of when we see “A Tom And Jerry Cartoon” blaze upon the screen. Jones’ reinvention of the characters revitalised them for the time, but now remain slightly obscured by the renaissance of the original cartoons. Personally, I like the Chuck Jones shorts. I think they often feel more contemporary and fresh than some of the routine “beat ’em ups” of the H-B period. But at the end of the day, the cat and mouse were created by Hanna-Barbera and were best handled by them. These LD sets capture that essence better than any “greatest hits” compilation could ever hope, and certainly provide the kind of entertainment value and loyalty to the characters that one expects, and which was sorely missing from the flat and drab 1990s movie version and the insipid Tom And Jerry Kids TV project.

It would have been nice for completion’s sake to have had the handful of European cartoons included on a final disc in the third set, but the decision to omit these is overall a perfectly understandable one, and to be honest they are not terribly missed. It will, however, be very interesting to see how Tom and Jerry continue to make it to DVD. As we’ve seen with the Looney Tunes sets and the first volume of cat and mouse escapades, things do not seem to be chronological (or fully uncut for that matter), whereas part of the fun is in watching how these characters develop through their films. There are certainly some shorts in these sets (particularly the first) that I would be surprised to see re-issued fully uncut, and some if at all, as we have seen in the recent announcement that a fair few are to be withdrawn from television circulation. As for quality and quantity, well, I am sure that the DVDs would ultimately beat the spots off these earlier masters in terms of modern remastering techniques. But there is something pretty cool about knowing that you own every single Tom And Jerry theatrical short ever made, and in their proper ratios to boot. Watching them all in as few as sittings as possible, however, is an entirely different matter!

LaserDisc Archives: The Art Of Tom And Jerry – Volume One

LaserDisc Archives: The Art Of Tom And Jerry – Volume Two

With the majority of the cat ‘n’ mouse’s oeuvre still to debut on DVD, what better time is there than now to take a look back almost 15 years (!) to when animation historian Jerry Beck co-produced a trilogy of fine LaserDisc box sets starring the bickering duo.

MGM/UA Home Video had started to gain something of a reputation for itself with the issues of a collection of its earliest animated shorts, under the title MGM Cartoon Classics: Happy Harmonies (which contained many of the Hugh Harmon-Rudy Ising cartoons), and the first couple of volumes of their then-owned pre-1948 Warner Bros catalog, titled The Golden Age Of Looney Tunes. Even long after these sets finally become reincarnated on the smaller, and more handy DVD sized discs, LD fans will still cherish these original compilations and they are sure to remain collectors items due to their deluxe packaging and the many toons that will surely remain only available in these sets (at least for a good few years).

Although a total of five Looney Tunes sets would emerge from the MGM vaults, as well as a single-disc nod to sister company United Artists’ success with the Pink Panther and another entire set dedicated to the genius of Tex Avery, their celebrated team of Thomas, the cat, and his nemesis Jerry, the mouse, were given three such fully packed sets to shine in. These collections, under the banner of The Art Of Tom And Jerry, brought together all of their motion picture appearances, including original CinemaScope shorts and sequences from other feature films, save their short lived (and best forgotten) European series and the 1990s update movie.

THE ART OF TOM AND JERRY: VOLUME ONE, an epic five CLV disc set, kicks off in ultimate style with, as one might expect, the very first T&J cartoon, Puss Gets The Boot (1940). All the cartoons on these sets are presented in their original theatrical editions, with main and end title cards, and in their intended aspect ratios (all of the shorts in this set are framed correctly at 1.33:1). Hanna and Barbera had been at the MGM studio by this time for a few years, and had already produced a number of stand-alone shorts. Puss Gets The Boot was to be one just like any other, although the immense success of the film and the pressure from distributors for more cat and mouse war meant the development of the series.

In Puss Gets The Boot (which comes so early in H-B’s MGM careers that it is labelled as a Rudolf Ising production), neither character is named as we know them. The cat is actually called “Jasper” and has a distinctly more tabby appearance, while the mouse already has the features that we recognise as Jerry (in fact, he would be the character who, over the years, changed least). It starts off with a great gag: in close up we see the mouse running from his opponent. The camera cuts back and we see that the cat has already caught the mouse and he is running on the spot, his tail held by the cat’s claw! While the cat toys with his prey, the mouse gets away, leading to a number of gags which result in the breaking of a vase. Mama, the house maid (no mention is made in the sets to her racial stereotype, and no changes have been made to the cartoons themselves, so we’ll also leave this subject alone here) chastises the cat, stating that if anything gets broken, he’ll be sent out. Naturally, this is an opportunity that the mouse cannot pass up and a battle of wits that would last for decades begins for the first time…

Nominated for an Academy Award, Puss Gets The Boot really is a great cartoon, setting up the situation and playing it off to perfection, and it’s easy to see how the duo were awarded their own series. As with all the prints in this first set, a true digital restoration would work wonders, but as they are the colors are vibrant (the result of extensive grading and remastering) and the sound clear as a bell. Many of the shorts have their title cards windowboxed within an appropriately colored border, a popular way of preserving ratio and picture information at the time as opposed to the plain black of today, and overall are very fine representations of these classic shorts. The collection continues with 1941’s The Midnight Snack, the first “true” Tom And Jerry cartoon, as announced by the title card and Hanna-Barbera’s directing credit. The preoccupation with food makes an appearance in this one, when Tom catches Jerry raiding the refrigerator, and the short has all the production values we expect from a cartoon of this period. Tom’s look is a little more rounded and it is clear that there is a lot of mileage to be had from these characters!

Another Oscar nomination was due their way with The Night Before Christmas, a classic that still gets a lot of airings today, from the December of 1941. The film begins with Tom’s usual pursuit of Jerry, this time under the Christmas tree, but ends happily when the grouchy cat is touched by the holiday spirit. The film has a great look to it, with some simply stunning pre-CGI snow falling and delicate animation throughout, also having fun with the classic title poem along the way! This short is also marks the first appearances of unsung composer Scott Bradley’s memorable Tom And Jerry Theme music. A number of his musical cues come to prominence in this cartoon, and they point out just how much Bradley’s scores contributed to each film, pushing the action ahead and utilising the vast library of MGM catalog tunes to musically illustrate a point or hit a beat. Listen out throughout the set for such cues as Sing Before Breakfast from Broadway Melody Of 1936, The Trolley Song from Meet Me In St Louis, and We’re Off To See The Wizard and Over The Rainbow from The Wizard Of Oz, among many others.

1942 saw the series swing into full action with no less than five animated shorts! Fraidy Cat has Jerry acting on Tom’s scared nature after listening to a spooky radio show, while Dog Trouble sees the first appearance of the dog from next door, Spike. In later cartoons the dog would more often than not be on the side of the mouse, but in this one he is brought into the house itself, so both Tom and Jerry team up to take him on – finally getting him thrown out. Puss ‘N’ Toots, another play on words title, has Tom trying to romance a pretty female feline, while Jerry sabotages his attempts by rigging a record player to malfunction with Tom stuck to it! This exhaustive first side ends with another all time classic, The Bowling Alley Cat, still one of the most seen of the early T&J cartoons, and one of the most brutal, but funniest! Set inside a closed bowling club, the action gets fast and furious as Tom sets out to stop Jerry’s private game – print wise this looks great and is one of the best designed cartoons in the set.

On side two, 1942 came to a close with Fine Feathered Friend, another good looking print. It was around this time that the “fade out” was used to bridge from one situation to another (usually an explosion of some sort), and soon after the films became a series of non-stop gags rather than narrative storylines. The rest of this side offers Sufferin’ Cats! from 1943 (in which Tom has a rival after Jerry) and The Lonesome Mouse. In this one, Jerry finally gets Tom thrown from the house but soon becomes bored with the quiet life, so the two join forces to get Tom back in and up to their old ways. After a couple of attempts, a T&J cartoon finally won an Academy Award with Yankee Doodle Mouse. This print comes from a reissue later in that same year which announces the win in the title card, and though I found this to be a quite routine short, the wartime bent, clever army parallels and simply hysterical sound effects probably had something to do with its win.

Baby Puss, also from 1943 in which Tom is teased by three other cats and Jerry when he has to don a baby disguise to entertain a little girl, comes next, while the first of 1944’s efforts begins afterwards with Zoot Cat. Contrary to popular belief, Tom And Jerry did speak, albeit briefly, in a number of their animated films, and here is where you’ll hear them utter their first words, as Tom tries to impress his feline beau again, without much help from Jerry! Next up is yet another popular cartoon, and not just affectionately known by T&J fans. The Million Dollar Cat puts a twist on things by having Tom refrain from harming any living creature – including Jerry – so that he can get his hands on his eccentric Aunt’s inheritance. Needless to say, things do not pan out that simply, especially when Jerry does everything he can to annoy Tom (who by now goes by the smoother appearance that we associate with this era’s shorts).

1944 continues on side three with The Bodyguard, the one where Spike (voiced by Billy Bletcher, who also provided Pete’s growls in the Disney cartoons) comes to Jerry’s aid to beat Tom up every time he uses the magic whistle, Puttin’ On The Dog, where Tom chases Jerry into a dog pound and must disguise himself as a pooch, and Mouse Trouble – another Oscar winner, and very much in the style of stable-mate Tex Avery’s films in terms of pace and gags. This time, Tom takes tips from the book How To Trap A Mouse (a Random Mouse publication, naturally) but finds it no use when up against a mouse of Jerry’s strength and will. In The Mouse Comes To Dinner, it’s a table full of food that becomes the focus of dispute between feline and rodent, and in Mouse In Manhattan, a rare mouse-only cartoon, Jerry heads for the big city in a short reminiscent of Disney’s The Country Cousin (available on the Silly Symphonies DVD set) from 1936, which features a number of similarities with the later T&J films. In proof that this set comes uncut, there is one “blackface” gag that will probably be deleted by the time this one hits DVD, though the perspective backgrounds are very effective and reminded me of the detail put into the layouts for Max Fleischer’s 1941 feature Mr Bug Goes To Town.

The wide wide world of sports makes its first appearance in a T&J cartoon with Tee For Two, a golfing escapade in which Tom’s game is disrupted by a number of terrific gags perpetrated by a woodpecker, a swarm of bees and Jerry, of course. Flirty Bird has Tom in a rare role trying to save Jerry from a tough eagle, and the side finishes with yet another Oscar winner, Quiet Please! which plays on a similar premise as Million Dollar Cat by having Spike warn Tom against making any noise while he tries to get some shut-eye. Obviously with a set up like that, Jerry can only but try and wake the bulldog up and get Tom into more trouble! Side four begins with a line-up from 1946: Springtime For Tom, The Milky Waif (introducing the little mouse Nibbles), Trap Happy and Solid Serenade, all of which provide variants on previous cartoons in the series. A personal favorite of mine is Cat Fishin’ from 1947, which I still have my original 16mm copy of. In this one, Tom uses Jerry as bait to catch a shark, but the mouse refuses to stay hooked, and fishes up some real trouble of his own. In Part Time Pal, Tom gets drunk as he watches guard over the refrigerator and tries gives the house maid a piece of his mind while befriending Jerry.

Several ideas from the T&J cartoons would later be used by both Hanna-Barbera themselves and by other animators, but the series also “borrowed” much from other studios. I’ve personally never understood why the next cartoon, The Cat Concerto, went on to win an Academy Award (their fourth!) and become one of the most cherished cat and mouse shorts when it is a direct copy of the Bugs Bunny cartoon Rhapsody Rabbit, directed by Friz Freleng the year before. The basic set up for both cartoons is simple: Bugs/Tom portrays an acknowledged master pianist primed to give his greatest performance of Liszt’s Second Hungarian Rhapsody (forever to be associated with the manic cartoon output of animation houses everywhere). As he prepares and finally settles down ready to play, a little mouse makes things impossible for him by pulling on the strings inside the piano, slamming the shutter on his hands and generally running amok. While I agree that the concept is best suited to the Tom And Jerry double act, the fact that this cartoon came so close to Bugs’ first and better effort and then went on to steal an Oscar puts me off the short, and however funny it may be, the Freleng version remains the more frantic and heated battle.

In Dr Jekyll And Mr Mouse, the inevitable happens when Tom mixes Jerry a potion to teach him a lesson about drinking his milk. Things don’t quite work out for Tom, and Jerry’s potion turns him into a super-strong giant mouse who is only able to cause Tom more pain! Tom continues to try and impress a female kitty, this time at the beach, in Salt Water Tabby, and in Mouse In The House Tom is joined by a rival cat in trying to catch Jerry – loser is thrown from the house. Some inventive situations are developed in The Invisible Mouse, another popular short, which has Jerry submerged in invisible ink that allows him to torture Tom in a whole new way. Some of H-B’s best work is in this one, with some neat effects and perfect camera staging – you’ll actually believe that Jerry really is there!

Perhaps, as the liner notes say, the next film, Kitty Foiled from 1948, is the most “pure” Tom And Jerry cartoon in that it is straight action from start to finish, without any pause for breath, the “plot” being that Jerry is being helped to keep safe from Tom by a little canary (who would go on to make a number of his own MGM appearances) in a very Avery-esque short. The Truce Hurts is another classic, being the one where Tom, Jerry and Spike sign a pact of friendship and vow to end their bickering ways. That is, until the promise of a meaty steak comes between them… Cat and mouse join up again in the following cartoon Old Rockin’ Chair Tom to outwit a super-duper mouse catcher named Lightnin’, and in Professor Tom, his learnings go amiss when a kitten he is teaching decides to take Jerry’s side of the battle!

More outlandish physical gags are to be found in 1948’s Mouse Cleaning, in which Tom has to keep the house clean, and the incredible seven cartoons released in 1949: Polka Dot Puss (Jerry “nurses” Tom when he gets “sick”), Hatch Up Your Troubles, The Little Orphan, Heavenly Puss (where Tom has to get a signed forgiveness from Jerry after he uses his ninth life trying to catch him), The Cat And The Mermouse (an underwater chase), Love That Pup (the introduction of the bulldog’s puppy son), Jerry’s Diary (a “highlights” clip package) and Tennis Chumps. The Little Orphan won T&J yet another Oscar, and is a great example of a Tom And Jerry cartoon working well on all levels, also featuring little mouse Nibbles, and once again bringing food into the equation.

Well over half-way through now, and side seven continues with the introduction of another favorite T&J character, the unnamed little duckling who takes a fondness to Jerry, in Little Quacker, the first of 1950’s eight cartoons. This next batch developed T&J’s world a little more, opening up possibilities and placing them in new locations. Saturday Evening Puss has Tom’s rowdy friends disturbing Jerry’s sleep, and Texas Tom places the duo out west in another popular favorite (and is one of the cartoons recently announced for digital tweaking or being pulled from TV distribution due to Tom’s now very un-PC rolling of a cigarette). Jerry And The Lion sees the mouse joining up with an escaped circus lion, Nibbles re-joins the cast for a Fourth Of July spoof Safety Second which has its own fireworks, and Tom And Jerry At The Hollywood Bowl does exactly what its title suggests, putting Tom at the head of an all-cat orchestra that goes into battle at Los Angeles’ famous landmark against rival conductor Jerry. Side seven ends with The Framed Cat, a cartoon with a pretty basic set up: Spike warns Tom not to touch his dinner bone, meaning of course that Jerry will do anything to frame his feline adversary.

Apart from Cue Ball Cat, another sports skit that places Jerry on the table as the ball in a brutal billiards game, the rest of the shorts on side eight come from 1951. All now firmly in the established T&J tradition, there is noting particularly special about any of these shorts, but they are all animated to the same high quality standard and are all very funny. Titles featured, in original release order, are Casanova Cat, Jerry And The Goldfish, Jerry’s Cousin (worth a mention for Tom’s mistaking Jerry for his cousin, Muscles Mouse), Sleepy Time Tom, His Mouse Friday (set on a cannibal island!), Slicked-Up Pup (this time Tom has to keep Spike’s son clean) and Nit-Witty Kitty, another favorite that gets much replay value out of the fact that Tom is hit on the head and begins to act like a mouse – hysterical sound effects and a great visual makeover for Tom!

Tom And Jerry battle over who gets to use a hammock in Cat Napping, the first cartoon on side nine, and the canary character makes a return in The Flying Cat when Tom fashions himself a pair of wings to help him catch the bird and the mouse. 1952 proved a very successful year for the Hanna-Barbera team, and as well as The Flying Cat, they turned out an amazing ten animated shorts. A redesigned little duckling reappears in The Duck Doctor, and Nibbles returns for one of T&J’s most lushly designed cartoons, The Two Mouseketeers. Again a fight over a table choc full of food, this deserved Academy Award winner has our principal cast all dressed up in Musketeer outfits for an epic banquet battle! Smitten Kitten is another “highlights” episode, which this time around recounts Tom’s attempts at wooing the opposite sex. Triplet Trouble finds Tom with orders to care for a naughty bunch of kittens, and another circus animal escapes to their house in Little Runaway, which makes great use of a subtitle gag. Side nine ends with the much shown and ever popular Fit To Be Tied, in which Spike is halted by a new leash law that stops him from protecting Jerry from Tom.

Coming near the end of this first set (I had long since given up any sanity I had!) I was relieved to be in the final stretch (you just try 77 cartoons in one sitting)! An obvious scenario is finally brought into play in Push Button Kitty when Tom is replaced by a “robo-cat” named Mechano, and Tom’s job as ship’s cat is at stake in Cruise Cat if Jerry is found on board. Rounding off this collection are the 1953 shorts The Dog House, The Missing Mouse, Jerry And Jumbo (another circus intrusion), Johann Mouse, That’s My Pup and Just Ducky (probably the best known of the duckling cartoons, it certainly has the best gags). Worthy of mention are The Missing Mouse, which makes the most out of its “threat on the loose” concept, and Johann Mouse, another piano-playing Academy Award winner, and one that has very nice watercolor production values. Set in the very home of the composer of The Blue Danube, it’s also no surprise that this is what Tom decides to play in a bid to lure Jerry from his mouse hole – in a style only he can, of course!

With seven Academy Award winning cartoons, plus two additional nominated shorts, this packed collection sets up the Tom And Jerry collaboration very well and provides many of their landmark and most memorable moments. The cartoons are in overall good shape and much better than some of the television prints I’ve seen over the years. Due to having these extensive collections, I passed on the DVD releases so can not comment on whether any further restoration has brought these cartoons up the digital standards we have come to expect for such programming, but there is really not anything inherently wrong with the prints on offer here, given their age. Color is stable throughout and the sound is strong. I would advise dipping in and out of this set, however, as Bradley’s incessant musical cues can become the most tiring thing about watching a cat and mouse beating the heck out of each other!

LaserDisc Archives: The Art Of Tom And Jerry – Volume Two

LaserDisc Archives: The Art Of Tom And Jerry – Volume Three