Tom and Jerry show review

I loved the swing jazz in the original Tom and Jerry show! What makes Tom and Jerry special is the music. Though the Tom and Jerry show had little to no dialogue, you can feel the characters talking to you through the mostly instrumental music. It's the music that expresses the characters' excitement, curiosity, sadness, joy, etc. It shows you what they're doing. The music makes the characters look like heroes. The music constantly shifted from style to style. It could be melodic and full of energy only to abruptly stop then play at a slower tempo. The Tom and Jerry soundtrack had no set structure. It felt chaotic and improvised which brought the show to life!   

The overall theme of the Tom and Jerry show is life is chaotic. Tom and Jerry appeal to me so much because there are technically no heroes or villains. Tom and Jerry both have heroic and villainous traits. Both have the same goals but different means of achieving them. Jerry might be small but he's intelligent. Tom might be big but he's not as intelligent as Jerry. They might be friends one day but enemies the next. Life's not what it seems.    

Overall, I felt Hanna and Barbera's Tom and Jerry was a classic masterpiece! Tom and Jerry show is a must-have collection, especially for fans of animated cartoons! I highly recommend buying the Tom and Jerry show on DVD!            

The animation in Hanna and Barbera's Tom and Jerry show was spectacular! I loved the classic feel of Tom and Jerry even though it had a "foggy" texture. I loved how the characters could take different shapes and colors! I loved how the animation changed slightly in some episodes.    

Gene Deitch's version of the Tom and Jerry show had the worst animation. Almost everything looked awful and poorly designed with some exceptions.

The cinematography in the Tom and Jerry show was good. I loved how in many episodes, the camera was at a perfect angle. The camera wasn't too far away or too close. It was at mid-range where you could see the background and characters. It made you feel they were constantly at war with each other. I think we rarely (if ever) got a close-up or wider camera shot. The cinematography was fairly consistent in all of the Tom and Jerry versions.  

The plot in the Tom and Jerry show is extremely simple revolving around a cat chasing a mouse. Nonetheless, the Tom and Jerry show amazingly managed to add a ton of creativity to the story! Tom and Jerry could be exciting and suspenseful due to its unpredictability! The anticipation of what you knew was going to happen filled you with dread. When other characters were introduced, the Tom and Jerry show became more interesting as Tom had to try different approaches to catch Jerry! I loved how the pacing of Tom and Jerry was chaotic. Sometimes, characters moved at a slow pace. Other times, they moved very fast only to stop completely and move at a slow or medium pace.   

The Tom and Jerry show is extremely violent. It's one of the most violent children's shows I ever saw! There are a bunch of sodomy scenes. In one episode, Tom swallows a woodpecker then it drills small holes all over his stomach. If I remember correctly, Tom swallows the woodpecker again then it busts out of his eardrum. The woodpecker drills a huge hole through his teeth. I was shocked and felt Tom's pain as it was inflicted on him! There were subtle references to death. What makes Tom and Jerry so brutally violent is not just the violence but the concept of seemingly endless torture. I felt Tom was in hell in the sense he couldn't truly die and was constantly suffering in all aspects. 

I disliked how Tom and Jerry talked sometimes. It didn't feel like they would authentically talk. It feels like they were forced to because the creators couldn't think of nonverbal ways of expressing themselves. 

Gene Deitch's Tom and Jerry stayed true to the original to some degree while adding a new interpretation to the show. Tom's owner was really disturbing! He was brutal and sadistic. He made the show more dreadful to watch!    

Chuck Jone's version of the Tom and Jerry show was probably the weakest of them all. Some episodes were good and funny but they didn't have the same energy as the original. I love Chuck Jone's other works such as Looney Tunes but I didn't think he was suitable for Tom and Jerry. His version of Tom and Jerry felt more like Looney Tunes. Chuck Jones' specialty is Looney Tunes. I felt Tom and Jerry didn't have strong nonverbal communication in Chuck's version compared to previous versions. The pacing of Tom and Jerry in Chuck Jones' version felt too consistent compared to the original. Chuck's version didn't feel as chaotic as the original Tom and Jerry show.