Major Blog Post 7- The Golden Age of Animation

Posted on by Wendy Kong

The Golden Age of Animation is a period in the history of animation that began on November 18, 1928, with the release of Steamboat Willie, and strengthened by the growth of Warner Brother, Fleischer, and MGM in the following years. It ended in the early 1960s with the rise of television animation. Feature animation also began during this period including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Dumno, and Bambi. Other popular characters such as Tom and Jerry, Donald Durk, Betty Boop, and Mr.Magoo were created during this period. Snow White was an instant success when it was released in theaters in 1937, and became the most financially successful movie of its time. Therefore, almost every studio started to copy Disney’s work. Harman and Ising, former Disney’s employee, Walter Lantz, Van Beuren Studio and even the Ub Iwerks studio led by Disney’s best friend were trying to imitate Disney. All of their attempts failed since they did not import any of Disney’s storytelling skills.

The situation changed after the failure of Pinocchio and Fantasia in 1940. In the same year, Tom and Jerry and Bug Bunny got popular along with the releasing of Woody Woodpecker by Walter Lantz, Herman, and Katnip by Famous Studios, Fox and Crow by Columbia Cartoons, and many others. Even though the budget, resources and manpower constraints due to the war effort, many animation companies considered the 1940s to be the peak of animation in history.

Tom and Jerry is the first cartoon that I watched when I was a kid. I can still remember how the conflicts between them made me laugh so hard. The music and sound were well used throughout the whole series. Here is a video clip of Tom and Jerry. I hope you guys will enjoy watching it!!^^

Wendy Kong

Major Post 05 – Tom and Jerry

Posted on by Thang Tsz Ching, Janelle

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?