> "I think most people can identify with little Jerry because there's always an oppressor in our lives," he says.<p>As a child I sided with Jerry, but as I grew older I’ve come to a different conclusion: <i>Jerry is a jerk</i><p>In nearly every episode he is the instigator and Tom simply wants to be left alone. He’ll be sleeping or trying seduce Toodles, and Jerry will come and steal his food, wake him up, or mess up his chances. There is only a handful of episodes where Tom directly starts the confrontation.<p>The life lesson is that in a David v Goliath situation, it’s not always the big guy in the wrong.
I clearly remember one sequence from Tom & Jerry I watched while waiting for a plane in London (I guess because of the violence it must be one of the originals?):<p>* The neighbor’s bulldog is chained up.<p>* Tom figures out how long the chain extends and draws a line on the ground there.<p>* Tom taunts the bulldog and the bulldog runs to the end of his chain.<p>* Tom uses the dog’s blurred biting and scratching motions to carve a bat out of a 2x4.<p>* Tom beats him over the head with the bat.<p>* Then Jerry secretly erases the line and redraws it closer to the dog.<p>* Tom taunts the dog again and this time the dog jumps right into his lap.<p>* Tom literally leaps out of his skin, which the dog holds like a coat and hands back to him.<p>If anyone knows the name of this episode I would be much obliged since it may be the funniest thing I’ve ever seen on television.
My favorite Tom and Jerry is episode from 1964 produced by Chuck Jones where Tom is a famous baritone singing “Figaro!”:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Above_and_the_Mouse_Below" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Above_and_the_Mouse_Be...</a><p>A YouTube clip:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdVUdB1PjmQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdVUdB1PjmQ</a>
To call a cartoon racist based on a minor character that barely appears in some episodes is ridiculous. Just about every show back then that had non white people was racist. The whole society was racist, just as it is now. Frankly, it's ludicrous to focus on such a small, mostly irrelevant part of the show in light of the context.
When I was a kid, Looney Tunes felt like home and Tom and Jerry felt like a slightly flat off-brand. I say this not to judge their fans or even the cartoons themselves, but I’m curious if “Tom and Jerry” people come from different regions of the country or world, different cultures, or different socio-economic backgrounds (I grew up poor and quasi-Catholic, splitting my time between Florida and the rust belt).<p>On the other hand, the article makes it seem like Tom and Jerry came about as a desperate bid to have something as lucrative as Looney Tunes or Disney, so maybe my impression is right on?
> A new version of the show, animated by flash instead of being hand-drawn, has been broadcast since 2014.<p>I always wondered what animation technology was used in these new episodes. Apparently Adobe's Flash Animation was used for many cartoon series:<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Flash_animated_television_series" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Flash_animated_telev...</a>
Tom and Jerry is one of my favorite cartoons and I still watch them once in a while.<p>> When their department was closed down in 1957, Hanna and Barbera set up their own production company.<p>> But only a few years later, MGM decided to revive Tom and Jerry without its original creators. In 1961 they outsourced to a studio in Prague to save on costs. Chicago-born animator Gene Deitch was tasked with heading the remake, but struggled with a tight budget and staff with no knowledge of the original.<p>> His studio also secretly made episodes of other cartoons, including Popeye. Czech names were Americanised on the credits to stop viewers associating the shows with Communism.<p>So much in here. I hope we also remember these instances when we talk about copyright, trademark or stealing IP.