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Director: Michael Lah
Release Date: February 7, 1958
Stars: Droopy, the Wolf
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
In ‘Sheep Wrecked’ Droopy is a sheepherder, or more clearly, a sheep dog guarding his flock inside a fenced pasture against the laid-back Southern wolf character ( in his last screen appearance).
‘Sheep Wrecked’ arguably is the most inspired of Michael Lah’s six Droopy films. The animation is fine, and the gags plentiful. Among the wolf’s attempts are him dressing up like a stork and like Bo-Beep, a gag harking all the way back to the Silly Symphony ‘Three Little Wolves‘ (1936). Both Droopy and the wolf are in fine shape in this cartoon.
Unfortunately, the pace is rather slow, and the best features of this Cinemascope cartoon are Scott Bradley’s very inspired music and F. MonteAlegre’s beautiful backgrounds, with their minimal indications of settings on a bright orange canvas. Remarkably, this Homer Brightman-penned story involves a very slow guided missile, very similar to the one in the Woody Woodpecker cartoon ‘Misguided Missile‘. ‘Misguided Missile’ was penned by the very same writer, and only released eleven days earlier.
Watch ‘Sheep Wrecked’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Sheep Wrecked’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Tex Avery’s Droopy – The Complete Theatrical Collection’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Release Date: December 6, 1941
Stars: Tom & Jerry
Rating: ★★★★½
Review:
Already in their third cartoon Tom & Jerry were given their own Christmas special.
The short starts with the narrator reciting the first two lines from the early 19th century poem ‘A Visit from St. Nicholas’: “‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse“.
Upon the last word we cut to Jerry who appears from his hole and goes exploring the Christmas setting. When Jerry mistakes Tom for a stuffed animal, a cartoon chase emerges, which is the more fun due to the Christmas setting. For example, we watch Tom inspecting a troop of wooden soldiers, and Jerry inviting Tom for a kiss under the mistletoe.
The chase ends when Jerry accidentally falls through the letter box outside in the snow. Relieved, Tom settles himself at the warm fire site, only to be plagued by remorse. Anxiously Tom rushes outside to retrieve a frozen Jerry from the snow. The cartoon ends with the broadest smile on Jerry possible.
‘The Night Before Christmas’ was only the duo’s third cartoon, but already Hanna and Barbera were able to play with the relationship between the cat and the mouse. Now they’re not only antagonists, they’re also friends, or at least ‘friendly enemies’, and their chase retains a playful attitude.
Jerry is animated outstandingly in this cartoon, and pulls several priceless faces, the last smile being a highlight among highlights. Tom’s finest moment is when he’s invited by Jerry for a kiss. The cat’s obstinate refusal turning into goodwill, followed by an embarrassed shyness is animation at its best.
Composer Scott Bradley provides a fantastically integrated score, weaving the Tom and Jerry themes with Jingle Bells to a great effect. In fact, one can listen to the score in its own right. The result is a cartoon of sheer delight, and ‘The Night Before Christmas’ easily is one of the best Christmas cartoons of all time.
Watch ‘The Night Before Christmas’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Tom & Jerry cartoon No. 3
To the previous Tom & Jerry cartoon: The Midnight Snack
To the next Tom & Jerry cartoon: Fraidy Cat
‘The Night Before Christmas’ is available on the European DVD set ‘Tom and Jerry Collection’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Release Date: July 19, 1941
Stars: Tom & Jerry, Mammy Two-Shoes
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
Following the success of ‘Puss Gets the Boot‘ it would take quite a while before the cat and mouse duo were given their own series. But one and a half year later ‘The Midnight Snack’ was released: Tom & Jerry’s very first official cartoon.
The duo was re-christened ‘Tom and Jerry’, which may have sounded right, as there had been a human cartoon duo before with that name (1931-1933). The looks of the cat and mouse were altered, too: Tom now has his characteristic black nose and thick black eyebrows, which make his facial expressions much stronger. Nevertheless, his features are still very complex. Jerry’s designs have remained the same, but he’s now animated much more consistently, rendering him less pudding-like.
The story of ‘The Midnight Snack’ feels like a variation on ‘Puss Gets the Boot’. Tom catches Jerry stealing cheese from the fridge, only to make a buffet out of the fridge himself. When Mammy awakes, Tom frames Jerry, but in the end it’s he who gets punished by the angry maid. The cartoon violence is still rather mild in this cartoon, the most conspicuous gag being Jerry pricking the trapped Tom with a large carving fork.
Composer Scott Bradley juxtaposes separate themes for the cat and the mouse against each other in a rather complex continuous cartoon score. Bradley used this composition method in the duo’s first cartoons to a great effect. Later, the frantic cartoon action called for more disjointed and less integrated musical scores.
‘The Midnight Snack’ shows the cat and mouse’s great appeal and potential. Yet, in Charles Solomon’s book ‘Enchanted Drawings – The History of Animation’ Joe Barbera reveals that ‘The Midnight Snack’ almost became the last Tom & Jerry cartoon; apparently producer Fred Quimby was opposed to make any more of them, until he got a letter from Texas asking for more of “these delightful cat-and-mouse-cartoons”.
Watch ‘The Midnight Snack’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Tom & Jerry cartoon No. 2
To the previous Tom & Jerry cartoon: Puss Gets the Boot
To the next Tom & Jerry cartoon: The Night Before Christmas
‘The Midnight Snack’ is available on the European DVD set ‘Tom and Jerry Collection’
Director: Rudolf Ising
Release Date: June 22, 1940
Rating: ★★★
Review:
1940 is arguably a turning year in the history of animation. This year marked the end of Disney’s domination, as the studio’s innovative Silly Symphonies series had stopped, while Disney’s ambitious, but expensive feature productions ‘Pinocchio‘ and ‘Fantasia’ had lost the studio dear money. These features plunged Disney brothers into huge debts, and forced them to go to the stock markets.
As to emphasize Disney’s loss, 1940 was also the first year in which a non-Disney cartoon won an Academy Award. In fact, in this year not a single Disney cartoon was even nominated. Moreover, among the nominations were two shorts that marked the strong debuts of characters that heralded a new era: Tom & Jerry in ‘Puss and Boots’ and Bugs Bunny in ‘A Wild Hare‘. These characters would dominate the 1940s, over Disney’s Mickey, Donald, Pluto and Goofy.
Yet, it was MGM’s ‘The Milky Way’, which won the Academy Award. To be frank, ‘The Milky Way’ is still firmly rooted in Disney-like 1930’s animation: it’s a Silly Symphony but in name, it features a saccharine song, and it borrows heavily from Disney’s ‘Wynken, Blynken, and Nod‘ (1939). Both cartoons feature three babies exploring the night sky. Such copycat behavior was all too typical for the Harman & Ising studio.
In ‘The Milky Way’ the main protagonists are the three kittens from the nursery rhyme. As they’ve lost their mittens, they aren’t denied pie, but a meal of milk, and sent off to bed without supper. With the help of balloons, the trio sails to the Milky Way, which turns out to be a Cockaigne of milk, with e.g. milk geysers and milk gas stations. However, the geyser milk gives one of the kittens a tremor belly, and soon the trio fall down back to earth.
‘The Milky Way’ is cute, lush and excels in high production values, even though it can’t compete with the stunning ‘Wynken, Blynken and Nod’. The short is also sugary and rather boring. The best part is the depiction of the fantasy world of the Milky Way. But the attention easily goes to the beautiful background art and to Scott Bradley’s excellent score. The designs of the kittens look forward to those of kittens in the Tom & Jerry series.
Watch ‘The Milky Way’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Milky Way’ is available on the DVD ‘Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection: 15 Winners’
Director: Friz Freleng
Release Date: January 28, 1939
Stars: The Captain and the Kids
Rating: ★
Review:
In ‘Seal Skinners’ a million dollar seal has escaped and a ten thousand dollar reward has been promised to anyone who can bring him back.
Somehow, both the captain and the kids, his arch rival Long John Silver and an unknown Eskimo are at the North Pole, waiting for the escaped animal. At one point Long John Silver dresses as a seal himself. When the captain and the kids discover the scam, they roll him into a barrel and shake him like a cocktail. This is arguably the best gag in an otherwise remarkably unfunny cartoon, which ends with no conclusion.
‘Seal Skinners’ features some excellent animation, and Scott Bradley’s score is pretty inspired, but these aspects cannot save the cartoon, which suffers from lack of inner logic, and an absence of appealing characters.
Watch ‘Seal Skinners’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Seal Skinners’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Six’
Director: unknown
Release Date: August 22, 1932
Stars: Flip the Frog
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
In ‘Stormy Seas’ Flip the Frog is a sailor, playing and dancing merrily with his fellow sailors, until their ship is caught in a thunderstorm. Soon Flip receives the S.O.S. of another boat in need, and he runs off to rescue a Honey-like female kitten in a long rescue scene.
There’s practically no dull moment in ‘Stormy Seas’, but the cartoon also demonstrates that Iwerks was looking back for inspiration, instead of forward. The scene in which Flip swims right through the waves is borrowed straight from the Mickey Mouse cartoon ‘Wild Waves‘ (1929), and the rescue scene borrows the lifeline gag from the Mickey short ‘The Fire Fighters‘ (1930). This type of gag borrowing would become worse in Flip’s next cartoon, ‘Circus’. Nevertheless, it should be mentioned that it had also occurred occasionally in the early Mickeys themselves, as they reused several gags from Mickey’s predecessor Oswald.
There’s a great deal of anthropomorphism of lifeless objects in this cartoon: the cloud, the radio and even Flip’s chewing tobacco become humanized. However, the cartoon is most noteworthy for its very inspired music. It’s undoubtedly by MGM composer Scott Bradley, for it displays his unique style of intertwining several melodies in a classical way, mixing the hornpipe and ‘My Bonnie’ with Richard Wagner’s ‘The Flying Dutchman’ to great effect during the storm scene. This is the first testimony of Bradley’s mature style known to me, and it anticipates his celebrated work of the 1940s.
Watch ‘Stormy Seas’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Flip the Frog cartoon No. 25
To the previous Flip the Frog cartoon: Room Runners
To the next Flip the Frog cartoon: Circus
‘The Office Boy’ is available on the DVD Cartoons that Time Forgot – The Ub Iwerks
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Release Date: July 7, 1945
Stars: Tom & Jerry
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
Tired of the country life, Jerry heads for Broadway, where he admires the big city.
Jerry’s luck is short-lived however, and after some bad experiences in the New York dumps (which involves hundreds of alley cats and scary subways), Jerry flees home, kissing a puzzled Tom in his joy.
‘Mouse in Manhattan’ is an outsider within the Tom & Jerry series, as it lacks the typical cat and mouse chase. Instead it focuses on Jerry’s journey, only. Nevertheless, it must be one of the most beautiful Tom and Jerry cartoons ever made. Jerry’s adventures in New York are accompanied by gorgeous and stunning backgrounds (most using a mouse perspective), and Scott Bradley’s particularly lush music. Bradley based his score on Louis Alter’s ‘Manhattan Serenade’ from 1928, which was also used in the MGM 1944 musical ‘Broadway Rhythm’, accompanying acrobatic stunts by the Ross Sisters. The music is so essential to the film, it almost seems the film was made for the score.
The cartoon is a sheer delight from the beginning to the end, but the highlight is Jerry’s dance with the female table figures on the roof of a very high hotel. This scene has the same class as its source of inspiration, the MGM musical.
Watch ‘Mouse in Manhattan’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Tom & Jerry cartoon No.19
To the previous Tom & Jerry cartoon: The Mouse Comes to Dinner
To the next Tom & Jerry cartoon: Tee for Two
Directors:William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Release Date: January 16, 1943
Stars: Tom & Jerry, Meathead
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
In ‘Sufferin’ Cats’ Tom and a red alley cat fight over Jerry.
‘Sufferin’ Cats’ introduces the red alley cat, who was Tom’s first rival in the series. The red cat would return in ‘Baby Puss‘ later that year, but soon he would be replaced by Meathead, a black cat.
‘Sufferin’ Cats’ is a wild and funny cartoon, which is considerably faster than all earlier Tom and Jerry shorts. The gags come in quick and plenty, and are supported by one of Scott Bradley’s all time best scores, in which Tom and Jerry’s musical themes build up to a frantic finale during the cartoon’s main chase. Metamorphosis now reaches greater heights than in ‘The Bowling Alley Cat‘, when the red cat changes into an ironing board when crashing into the gate.
With its increase in speed and violence ‘Sufferin’ Cats’ marks a new era in the Tom & Jerry Series: from now on the duo would be less cute, but much funnier.
Watch ‘Sufferin’ Cats’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Tom & Jerry cartoon No.9
To the previous Tom & Jerry cartoon: Fine Feathered Friend
To the next Tom & Jerry cartoon: The Lonesome Mouse
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Release Date: October 1, 1949
Stars: Tom & Jerry, Spike & Tyke
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
Tom’s chases of Jerry disturb Spike’s son Tyke. If Tom is at it again, Spike “will tear him apart”. Needless to say, Jerry takes advantage of this situation.
‘Love that pup’ is one of the most hilarious Tom & Jerry cartoons. The gags come in fast and plenty, and Scott Bradley’s music is particularly inspired, perfectly matching the fast action. Highlight may be the running gag involving Tom rushing into several garden tools.
‘Love That Pup’ marks Tyke’s debut. He has no name, yet. But then again, even Spike is still called Butch in this cartoon. Spike and Tyke would become Tom and Jerry regulars in the fifties, even starring two films without the cat and the mouse in 1957.
Watch ‘Love That Pup’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Tom & Jerry cartoon No. 44
To the previous Tom & Jerry cartoon: The Cat and the Mermouse
To the next Tom & Jerry cartoon: Jerry’s Diary
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Release Date: June 14, 1947
Stars: Tom & Jerry
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
This cartoon starts with Tom’s attempts to prevent Jerry from lapping his milk.
In ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse’ Jerry has attained a Droopy-like ability to be everywhere, giving Tom a hard time. In order to defeat the omnipresent mouse, Tom mixes a poisonous drink. Unfortunately, it renders the mouse muscular and extremely strong.
Later, Jerry tries to mix the same drink to get strong again, but it’s Tom who drinks it. However, it makes him smaller and in the final shot watch see Jerry chasing a tiny Tom.
‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse’ covers similar grounds as the Mickey Mouse cartoon ‘The Worm Turns‘ (1937), but with better results. The highlight of the cartoon is the animation of the effects of Tom’s potion on Jerry. Especially the animation of a threatening, marching muscular Jerry is grandiose, and in this scene Scott Bradley’s outstanding music is particularly powerful.
Watch ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Tom & Jerry cartoon No. 30
To the previous Tom & Jerry cartoon: Part Time Pal
To the next Tom & Jerry cartoon: Salt Water Tabby
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 