Though I like watching Disney’s animation and Looney Toons, Tom and Jerry is my favourite TV show since I was young. Same as the other two, Tom and Jerry is a animated series of comedy short films. It is created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera in 1940 under the name of MGM cartoon studio. The main characters are Tom, the cat, and Jerry, the mouse. The shorts are mainly talking about the rivalry between them, inspired in real life at that time that cats were kept for catching mice. Each short usually center on Tom’s numerous attempts to catch Jerry and the mayhem and destruction that follows behind. The ending usually depicted Tom’s another failed attempt to catch Jerry because of Jerry’s cleverness, skilled abilities to escape and luck. However sometimes, the show depicted Tom and Jerry together to solve issues or have interactions with other characters, a friendship between Tom and Jerry sometimes being told too.
Not only the plots are fun to watch, the music plays a big role in the show too. The newer spin-offs of the show has less music and with more dialogues of the characters other than Tom and Jerry which I really don’t like about, probably because I lived my childhood with them not talking but it is just my personal opinion. The original show didn’t have too much dialogues in them. The whole show is driven by musics and sounds, like the most old animations we have watched in class. Even though it is an American show, as a kid, I could still understand what happened in general and enjoyed the laughter it gave to me. I am a grown-up now but whenever I get a chance to watch an episode again, it is still enjoyable to watch. I think this is a key as a successful cartoon : Never get bored and memorable.
Is Tom and Jerry your childhood cartoon show too?
ANIM223 - HISTORY OF ANIMATION - FALL 2019 