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The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show

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The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show
Also known asThe New Adventures of Tom and Jerry
Genre
Based on
Creative directorDon Christensen
Voices of
Theme music composerRay Ellis (as "Yvette Blais" and "Jeff Michael")
ComposersRay Ellis (as "Yvette Blais" and "Jeff Michael")
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes15 (45 segments)
Production
Producers
Running time21 minutes (3 7–minute segments)
Production companies
Original release
NetworkCBS
ReleaseSeptember 6 (1980-09-06) –
December 13, 1980 (1980-12-13)
Related
The Tom & Jerry Show (1975)
Tom & Jerry Kids (1990–1993)

The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show (also known as The New Adventures of Tom and Jerry) is an American animated television series produced by Filmation for MGM Television featuring the popular cartoon duo Tom and Jerry. The show first aired on September 6, 1980 on CBS and continued until December 13 the same year.[1] Its episodes were eventually added to syndicated Tom and Jerry packages in 1983.[2] The series was broadcast on Pop in the United Kingdom in October 2013.[3] Episodes of the show also occasionally appeared on Cartoon Network and Boomerang.

Production

[edit]

The series is the fifth incarnation of the popular Tom and Jerry cartoon franchise, and the second made-for-television production. The series was notable in being the first attempt since the closing of the MGM studio in the 1950s to restore the original format of the cat and mouse team. After the original 114 theatrical shorts run of the William Hanna and Joseph Barbera-directed series, the characters were leased to other animation studios, which changed the designs and eliminated all of the supporting characters. The previous made-for-TV series, The Tom and Jerry Show, was produced in 1975 by Hanna and Barbera under their own studio under contract to MGM, but it had made the cat and mouse friends in most of the episodes due to the reaction against violence in cartoons. MGM did not like what Hanna and Barbera had done with the characters, so they came to Filmation and asked the studio to do a new series and try to bring some life back to them. This series was able to restore the familiar slapstick chase format, though with Tom and Jerry as competing rivals rather than enemies, and reintroduced not only Spike and Tyke and Nibbles (here named "Tuffy"),[2][4][5][6][7][8] but not Mammy Two Shoes who was retired from the cartoons in 1953 for portraying a Mammy archetype.[9] Half-hour episodes consisted of two Tom and Jerry shorts in the first and third segments, plus one Droopy short in the middle segment, also often featuring some other classic MGM cartoon characters such as Barney Bear. Where the original series and the third series by Chuck Jones occasionally had favorable endings for Tom, this series followed the second series by Gene Deitch in almost never having definite "wins" for Tom (although he won at the end of "Most Wanted Cat" (with Jerry) and "Superstocker" and they ended off mutual in "When the Rooster Crows" and "A Connecticut Mouse In King Arthur's Cork"). Spike from Tom and Jerry was used in many of the Droopy episodes as well, filling in for the other "Spike" bulldog created by Tex Avery for the old Droopy films, who was not used as a separate character here. The villainous wolf from the classic series was also included, and named "Slick Wolf";[4] however, as the series was produced under the "Seal of Good Practice" code, the title character from "Red Hot Riding Hood", where the Wolf debuted, did not reappear. The Droopy episodes usually featured Slick and sometimes Spike as antagonists. Barney had miscellaneous roles, such as being Droopy's boss at a movie studio in "Star-Crossed Wolf" and a frightful companion in "Scared Bear".

The show's opening begins with Tom chasing Jerry through a blank yellow screen. They continue chasing, as all of the other stars build a giant "Tom and Jerry" sign (similar to the second opening of Tom & Jerry Kids). The familiar rotating executive producer credit of Lou Scheimer and Norm Prescott briefly runs as Tom chases Jerry past the screen, knocking things over and running over others along the way. After the opening sequence, the wraparound segments, hosted by Droopy, would begin. He would start by painting the whole background with a single large brush stroke and he and the other speaking characters would engage in brief comedic sketches (like Droopy's opening poem in one of them "Roses are red, violets are blue, painting's my job, that's what I do; cute and somewhat wet").

Filmation hired John Kricfalusi in the layout department headed by Franco Cristofani. There were two layout units, and Kricfalusi was in Cristofani's working on the Droopy episodes. The studio's character designer, Alberto De Mello, had recently discovered construction model sheets of classic cartoon characters from the 1940s, which showed artists how to draw the characters by dividing them into their basic shapes, like in Preston Blair's animation instruction books. Eddie Fitzgerald or one of the storyboard artists had shown him the Preston Blair book and some original studio model sheets, much to De Mello's excitement.[10][11][12] The animators had to draw Alberto De Mello's model sheets, which Kricfalusi described as "wildly elaborate, yet nonsensical", with the characters "being made up of frightening balloon-like shapes and sausage fingers and toes". He refused to draw them this way, using the old model sheets instead.[13][11] Working with the high-energy MGM characters seemingly created similar manic energy in Filmation's staff, for the writers were suddenly able to come up with the laughs needed to make the show work. A lot of the scripts were written by Coslough Johnson or Jack Hanrahan, but others such as animators Steve Clark and Jim Mueller contributed so much to the stories that they got their names added to the credits. Due to the series' low budget, Filmation could not put the same quality of animation that they had done for the theatrical shorts, but did try to let animators go wild as much as possible and add a lot of slapstick.[14] Kricfalusi and some of the animators, including old animators who had worked on classic 1930s-1940s cartoons like Tom Baron, Ed Friedman, Dick Hall, Don Schloat, Larry Silverman, Kay Wright, Lou Zukor, Ed DeMattia, Lee Halpern, Alex Ignatiev, Jack Ozark and Curt Perkins, wanted to rebel against Filmation's mandates of reusable animation and their strict "on-model" policies where model sheets had to be traced, and sneak in some fluid animation, as seen in episodes such as "Scared Bear" and "Jerry's Country Cousin".[15][16] The working environment came to resemble that of the MGM animation studio, as Fitzgerald, Tom Minton and many other storyboard artists drew some funny and lively storyboards as reference for the animators, developing unscripted sight gags as part of a genial rivalry with the writing staff.[2] Kricfalusi found layout work to be much easier than creating storyboards. All the staging was already figured out, and Kricfalusi could draw bigger and concentrate more on the poses and expression of the characters. He always hoped for Fitzgerald's boards because they were the easiest and most fun to work from, with clear staging, and dynamic, direct, funny poses. He copied Fitzgerald's poses, making them bigger, drawing them tighter and adding more details to the expressions. He also started to add more poses on his own to break down the actions. Filmation only wanted one pose per scene, but drawing the characters acting was where Kricfalusi could get creative and enjoy himself. The other layout artists in the department would come over to see and admire his work, which he described as "livelier than the typical TV layout drawing".[13][11] After Kricfalusi did the layouts, Lynne Naylor, who was in the animation department, would animate the Droopy episodes. According to Kricfalusi, this was the way that everything would get through the pipeline without being watered down.[17][11] At the same time Kricfalusi was still discovering old cartoons that he had never seen before, and tried to put elements of them into his layouts. There was one particular scene of a cartoon that he was doing a layout for, where a character had to do a fast zip pan from one area to another. Kricfalusi had been studying Chuck Jones' The Dover Boys at Pimento University, and saw abstract background pans that did not make sense but propelled the movement along. He drew a long panning shot where each end of the pan was a normal background, but filled the middle with crazy, abstract shapes and floating eyeballs. A few days later, the head of the background department, Erv Kaplan, had a fit upon discovering Kricfalusi's eyeball pan and refused to paint it. Kricfalusi started talking about The Dover Boys to Kaplan, but he did not want any part of it, telling him never to put eyeballs or abstract shapes in the backgrounds again.[13][11] Naylor would never try to offend anyone, but she apparently offended Lou Scheimer one time. He had seen a section of "Pest in the West" at the Moviola, which was full of "smear frames". He threatened to fire Naylor over her use of them, but the head of the animation department went to bat for her and managed to calm Scheimer down. Naylor kept her job, but was more cautious after that episode.[17][11]

In addition to the use of limited animation, the show was characterized by a very limited music score. The particular genre of music used in the show was ragtime, in an attempt to mimic the classic cartoons (which used swing music, big band and funk music, but not ragtime). All of the shorts, both the Tom and Jerry and Droopy segments, used the same stock music, mostly created new for the series but consisting of only a handful of largely synthesized tunes, either with minor variations or played at different speeds or pitches. This did match the chase scenes, but gave the episodes a very monotonous soundtrack, making these episodes "stand out" to many Tom and Jerry viewers when they aired.

The show was called The Cat and Jam Comedy Show in an animation cel.[18]

Voice cast

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Frank Welker and Filmation producer Lou Scheimer provided the voices for the first six episodes; Welker voiced Tyke (in "The Puppy Sitter"; the character was silent in the wraparound segments) and Droopy, and Scheimer voiced Tom and Jerry, with both alternating the voices of Spike, Tuffy (Scheimer erroneously gave him an adult voice, although his voice sounded appropriately higher and childlike in the wraparound segments before "Droopy's Restless Night", "Pest in the West", "Old Mother Hubbard" and "The Great Mousini"), Slick, Barney and Tom's owner and voicing other characters in the wraparound segments and episodes. When a Screen Actors Guild strike hit, Welker was unable to continue work, so Scheimer had to fill in as a voice actor.[2][19][20] Despite this, Welker's voice was still heard as Droopy from the seventh episode onward, as well as in the eighth, 12th, 13th and 14th episodes as Tuffy, Slick, Barney and other characters. Additional voices were done by Linda Gary, Alan Oppenheimer, Diane Pershing, Jay Scheimer and others.

  • Frank Welker – Spike and Tyke (episodes 1–6), Tuffy (episodes 1-2, episode 8), Droopy, Slick (episodes 1–6, episode 12, episode 14), Barney Bear (episodes 1–6, episode 8), additional voices (episodes 1–5, episode 8, episodes 13–14)[21]
  • Lou Scheimer (uncredited) – Tom, Jerry, Spike (wraparound segments, episodes 6–15), Tuffy, Slick (wraparound segments, episodes 7–15), Barney Bear (wraparound segments, episode 4, episodes 7–15), additional voices
  • Linda Gary (uncredited) – Additional voices (episodes 1–2, episode 14)
  • Jay Scheimer (uncredited) – Additional voices (episode 2, episode 6, episode 12)
  • Alan Oppenheimer (uncredited) – Additional voices (episode 3, episode 5, episode 14)
  • Diane Pershing (uncredited) - Additional voices (episode 6, episode 10, episode 12, episode 14)

Episodes

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No.TitleWritten byOriginal air date
1a"Farewell, Sweet Mouse"Jack Hanrahan & Steve ClarkSeptember 6, 1980 (1980-09-06)
On a rainy night, while being disrupted by Jerry, Tom throws him out. Believing him to be dead, Tom is tricked into thinking Jerry is a ghost.
1b"Droopy's Restless Night"Jack HanrahanSeptember 6, 1980 (1980-09-06)
Slick Wolf is the construction foreman on a building. Droopy and Spike are his workers. Droopy keeps getting Spike in trouble with the boss all day. Droopy falls asleep, and as he sleeps, Spike has him finish the building. Slick comes in the next day and congratulates Droopy, while Spike is stuck behind a brick wall.
1c"New Mouse in the House"Jack HanrahanSeptember 6, 1980 (1980-09-06)
Tom uses a remote control female mouse (voiced by Frank Welker) to lure and trap Jerry, but his plans backfire and his owner kicks him out.
2a"Heavy Booking"Mike JoensSeptember 13, 1980 (1980-09-13)
Tom chases Jerry in a library where Jerry tries to make noise to wake the enormous sleeping librarian named Hilda (voiced by Linda Gary) and a baby named Junior (voiced by Lou Scheimer), whom Hilda is babysitting.
2b"Matterhorn Droopy"Charlie HowellSeptember 13, 1980 (1980-09-13)
Droopy wants to be a rescue dog. Pretending to own the rescue dog school, Slick Wolf takes his money and tries to do him in without any success.
2c"The Puppy Sitter"Jack Hanrahan & Steve ClarkSeptember 13, 1980 (1980-09-13)
While Tom is left with Spike's little son Tyke, trying to keep him amused, Jerry tries to make Tom's job difficult.
3a"Most Wanted Cat"Jack Hanrahan & Steve ClarkSeptember 20, 1980 (1980-09-20)
Tired of Jerry toying with him, Tom leaves the house. Jerry tries hard to get Tom back before his owner calls pest control.
3b"Pest in the West"Coslough JohnsonSeptember 20, 1980 (1980-09-20)
Droopy is a stagecoach driver. Slick Wolf and Spike make several attempts to rob the coach (with Spike frequently dressing in drag to stop the coach), but they are not successful, and they eventually land in jail.
3c"Cat in the Fiddle"Jack Hanrahan & Tom MintonSeptember 20, 1980 (1980-09-20)
Tom plays a violin, but Jerry tries to stop Tom due to his cacophonic tunes and they trash the orchestra.
4a"Invasion of the Mouse Snatchers"Eddie FitzgeraldSeptember 27, 1980 (1980-09-27)
Tom tricks Jerry into thinking he is an alien that is going to blow up Earth. Jerry gets revenge by activating his secret weapon.
4b"The Incredible Droop"Coslough JohnsonSeptember 27, 1980 (1980-09-27)
An Oriental mad scientist (voiced by Frank Welker) has invented a mystery ray gun. He tells Droopy and Barney Bear to guard it from people. Droopy must protect it from falling into the wrong hands by using a rather unusual method: a Jekyll and Hyde formula. Slick Wolf tries to steal it, but Droopy keeps turning into a large monster, who then beats him up. Droopy frees himself and Barney from Slick's trap, and chases Slick away.
4c"The Plaid Baron Strikes Again"Coslough Johnson & Mike JoensSeptember 27, 1980 (1980-09-27)
Tom chases Jerry as he flies in a model airplane, destroying Spike's big model airplane in the process.
5a"Incredible Shrinking Cat"Coslough Johnson & Mike O'ConnorOctober 4, 1980 (1980-10-04)
Jerry gets hold of a mad scientist's (voiced by Frank Welker) size modifier in order to shrink Tom and enlarge himself.
5b"Scared Bear"Coslough JohnsonOctober 4, 1980 (1980-10-04)
Droopy and Barney explore an old house looking for treasure. Slick Wolf decides to scare them off by disguising himself as a ghost.
5c"When the Rooster Crows"Coslough JohnsonOctober 4, 1980 (1980-10-04)
Jerry uses a stranded circus rooster (voiced by Lou Scheimer) to rudely awaken Tom, but it gives itself away with an intensified crowing.
6a"School for Cats"Jim Mueller, Jack Hanrahan & Wendell WasherOctober 11, 1980 (1980-10-11)
Tom is sent to a military school for cats, coached by Spike. Jerry makes Tom's rigorous training a torment.
6b"Disco Droopy"Jack HanrahanOctober 11, 1980 (1980-10-11)
Droopy enters a disco contest at the Slipped Disco nightclub. His opponent is a conceited Slick Wolf, and the master of ceremonies is Spike. Despite Slick's many attempts to beat Droopy, he loses the contest and Droopy wins.
6c"Pied Piper Puss"Coslough JohnsonOctober 11, 1980 (1980-10-11)
Tom is sent to catch Jerry and Tuffy using a flute to lure them, until Tuffy gets a hold of it.
7a"Under the Big Top"Coslough JohnsonOctober 18, 1980 (1980-10-18)
Jerry gets Tom involved in a circus act and proceeds to make his act a dangerous and humiliating performance.
7b"Lumber Jerks"Coslough JohnsonOctober 18, 1980 (1980-10-18)
Droopy and Slick Wolf are competing against each other in a series of lumber-related games.
7c"Gopher It, Tom"Jack Hanrahan & Steve ClarkOctober 18, 1980 (1980-10-18)
Tom is sent by his master to catch a gopher (voiced by Lou Scheimer) eating the garden vegetables, but Jerry thwarts his efforts.
8a"Snowbrawl"Jack Hanrahan & Jim MuellerOctober 25, 1980 (1980-10-25)
On Christmas Eve, Tom and Jerry outsmart each other to get one of them locked outside the house.
8b"Getting the Foot"Jack HanrahanOctober 25, 1980 (1980-10-25)
Droopy and Slick Wolf are photographers for the Daily Bugle. They are assigned to get a picture of Bigfoot (voiced by Lou Scheimer), and Slick tries various schemes to sabotage Droopy's pictures, including dressing in drag as a female Bigfoot. Droopy ends up getting his pictures, and Bigfoot throws Slick in the newspaper press.
8c"Kitty Hawk Kitty"Jack HanrahanOctober 25, 1980 (1980-10-25)
In 1908, Tom was chosen to be the test pilot of the Wright Brothers' (voiced by Lou Scheimer) airplane, but Jerry was credited for a successful flight.
9a"Get Along, Little Jerry"Coslough JohnsonNovember 1, 1980 (1980-11-01)
Tom chases Jerry on a Texas ranch, where he causes inconvenience for Spike and gets entangled in cowboy events.
9b"Star-Crossed Wolf"Jack HanrahanNovember 1, 1980 (1980-11-01)
Slick Wolf tries to get in a Hollywood movie studio known as Behemoth Studio, only to be foiled by security guard Droopy.
9c"Spike's Birthday"Jack HanrahanNovember 1, 1980 (1980-11-01)
Jerry takes advantage of Tom, who is left to guard Spike's party food, and Tom barely escapes his predicament.
10a"No Museum Peace"Coslough JohnsonNovember 8, 1980 (1980-11-08)
Tom chases after Jerry and Tuffy around a museum to get his fish back, but Spike keeps kicking him out.
10b"A Day at the Bakery"Jack HanrahanNovember 8, 1980 (1980-11-08)
Droopy and Spike work in a bakery managed by Barney. When they are assigned to make a cake for a female movie celebrity named Farah Wolfhound (voiced by Lou Scheimer), they compete to design the best cake. Eventually, Spike delivers the cake to Farah, who is surprised by seeing Droopy inside the cake.
10c"Mouse Over Miami"Jack HanrahanNovember 8, 1980 (1980-11-08)
Spike restricts Tom from catching Jerry, but Tom tries to anyway and Spike sends Tom back to his house in the middle of winter.
11a"The Trojan Dog"Coslough JohnsonNovember 15, 1980 (1980-11-15)
Jerry uses a robot dog to scare off Tom and access the fridge. Tom tries to use a Trojan dog to get at Jerry, but the plan backfires.
11b"Foreign Legion Droopy"Coslough JohnsonNovember 15, 1980 (1980-11-15)
Droopy is sent out on a dangerous assignment: he must track down the wolf in sheik's clothing!
11c"Pie in the Sky"Jim MuellerNovember 15, 1980 (1980-11-15)
A peckish Tom chases Jerry around a construction site, getting pinned down by Spike.
12a"Save That Mouse"Coslough JohnsonNovember 22, 1980 (1980-11-22)
Tom's owner's sister (voiced by Diane Pershing) mistakes Jerry for a hamster and will not let Tom touch him.
12b"Old Mother Hubbard"Jack HanrahanNovember 22, 1980 (1980-11-22)
Droopy is in Storybook Land. Red Riding Hood (voiced by Diane Pershing) is delivering food to Grandma's house, and Slick Wolf tries to steal the food. Droopy foils Slick, and he goes to visit Goldilocks (voiced by Diane Pershing). She lives with three gorillas (subletted from the Three Bears) (voiced by Lou Scheimer), and while Slick looks for food to steal, the gorillas return and chase him away.
12c"Say What?"Jack HanrahanNovember 22, 1980 (1980-11-22)
Tom's owner has received a parrot named Bertram (voiced by Lou Scheimer). When Tom rounds on him, Bertram and Jerry work together to make Tom's chase into double trouble.
13a"Superstocker"Coslough JohnsonNovember 29, 1980 (1980-11-29)
Tom chases Jerry in a supermarket in order to protect the food products. They both end up trashing the place.
13b"Droopy's Good Luck Charm"Coslough JohnsonNovember 29, 1980 (1980-11-29)
Slick Wolf sells Droopy a good-luck charm for $5. Spike tells him that it was really a good-luck charm, and the two try various ways of getting it back, with their attempts backfiring each time. Spike offers to buy it back for $10, and Droopy sells it back to him. Slick and Spike see a sidewalk salesman (voiced by Lou Scheimer) selling about 30 of them, and Slick chases after Spike for wasting their money.
13c"The Great Mousini"Jack HanrahanNovember 29, 1980 (1980-11-29)
Jerry joins a circus as the escape artist Mousini with Tom as his co-star. They lose their jobs after their latest performance.
14a"Jerry's Country Cousin"Jack HanrahanDecember 6, 1980 (1980-12-06)
Jerry's identical, yet strong cousin (voiced by Lou Scheimer) comes to visit. Tom retreats after Jerry's cousin ruins his mistress' daughter's wedding buffet with a sounder of pigs.
14b"The Great Diamond Heist"Coslough JohnsonDecember 6, 1980 (1980-12-06)
Inspector Droopy searches for a stolen diamond.
14c"Mechanical Failure"Coslough JohnsonDecember 6, 1980 (1980-12-06)
Tom's owner has brought a robot maid (voiced by Linda Gary), which Tom and Jerry use against each other until it goes out of control.
15a"A Connecticut Mouse In King Arthur's Cork"Coslough JohnsonDecember 13, 1980 (1980-12-13)
Tom dreams his chase with Jerry as a medieval quest scenario.
15b"The Great Train Rubbery"Jack HanrahanDecember 13, 1980 (1980-12-13)
Droopy is the mail clerk on a train out West, and receives a package to deliver to a bank. Slick Wolf hears this, and he proceeds to try and steal it, figuring that it must be money. After a number of attempts, he succeeds, but is arrested by the sheriff. The package contains not cash, but "Wanted" posters for Slick Wolf. Droopy receives the reward for his capture.
Note: This is the final Droopy short.
15c"Stage Struck"Coslough JohnsonDecember 13, 1980 (1980-12-13)

Jealous of Spike's appreciation for Jerry's dance talent, Tom tries to interfere, but they go along with their performance.

Note: This is the final Tom and Jerry short and the final segment of the series overall.

Home media

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The rights to The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show were currently owned by Warner Bros. through its Turner Entertainment Co. banner. However, due to the show's negative reception and legal issues involving MGM outsourcing the animation to Filmation (whose library is owned by DreamWorks Animation),[22] Warner Bros. has no plans for a DVD box set of the show. However, one episode, "Jerry's Country Cousin", did surface on the 70th anniversary DVD collection in 2010.[23] In late 2022, another episode, "Snowbrawl", was included as one of the 3 bonus cartoons on the Tom and Jerry: Snowman's Land DVD. . All 30 Tom and Jerry segments of this incarnation (along with 8 Droopy segments) were available on the Boomerang app.[24]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "TV schedule (9/6/1980 at 8:30)". The Kingman Daily Miner. 1980-09-05. Retrieved 2019-07-07.
  2. ^ a b c d Erickson, Hal (2005). Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949 Through 2003 (2nd ed.). McFarland & Co. pp. 858–862. ISBN 978-1476665993. Tom and Jerry were rechanneled into "safe" rivalry: athletic events, competition at the workplace, and the like. Filmation also brought back from the Void several other MGM favorites of the 1940s and 1950s, who appeared in component cartoons: Droopy the Dog (see Droopy, Master Detective), his nemesis The Wolf, here named "Slick," and father-and-son canines Spike and Tyke. Tom and Jerry remained as silent as ever, while Frank Welker did the vocal honors on the remaining component characters (except during a 1980 industry strike, at which time all voices were provided by Tom and Jerry Comedy Show co-producer Lou Scheimer). Filmation chroniclers Michael Swanigan and Darrell McNeil have reported that the series generated an esprit de corps in the Filmation headquarters, with many artists developing unscripted sight gags right on the storyboards as part of a genial rivalry with the writing staff. This overall sense of euphoria carried over into the cartoons themselves: Though hobbled by stock footage, limited animation and network censorship, The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show was, for Filmation at least, a remarkably fast-moving and funny program. It wasn't the "true" Tom and Jerry, and never would be, but it was an acceptable bush league facsimile. As the many Tom and Jerry TV cartoons from both Hanna-Barbera and Filmation ran their network course, they were absorbed into Turner Television's MGM package along with the theatrical originals.
  3. ^ "TV Guide - New Adventures Of Tom and Jerry". POP. Archived from the original on November 10, 2013. Retrieved November 26, 2024.
  4. ^ a b Scheimer, Lou; Mangels, Andy (December 15, 2012). Creating The Filmation Generation. TwoMorrows. p. 173. ISBN 9781605490441. Retrieved November 17, 2024. Probably the strangest choice for a show for us to do for television was The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show because the characters were created by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbara! That was MGM's decision. They didn't like what Hanna-Barbera had done with the characters in their last series, The Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape/Mumbly Show—which went through a variety of title permutations from 1975-1977. So, they came to us to do a new series, to try to bring some life back to the characters. But the network Standards and Practices really didn't like the violent cat versus mouse aspects of the series, so we had to come up with something new. We made the characters more rivals than enemies, and had them competing all the time. We also removed the damned red bowtie from Jerry, which was one of those Hanna-Barbera animation shortcuts that allowed them to only animate a head from the tie up. There were two seven-minute shorts per show of Tom and Jerry. The other component of the show, in a single seven-minute short, was "Droopy", a sad-sack dog character created by Tex Avery for MGM theatrical cartoons back in 1943. The character hadn't had any new shows since 1957, but we really liked him and wanted to use him. It was fun to pit him against the villainous wolf character, who one of our artists named "Slick". We also used other old MGM characters such as a bulldog named Spike and his son Tyke, plus Barney Bear and Tuffy.
  5. ^ Perlmutter, David (April 1, 2014). America Toons in: A History of Television Animation. McFarland & Company. p. 187. ISBN 978-0786476503. Much like Hanna and Barbera, the 1980s also marked Lou Scheimer's swan-song period as a television animation producer. However, in his case, this was due to forces beyond his control more than a simple desire to retire, as it had been with his longtime friendly rivals. In the period just prior to the sale of the company to Westinghouse (see Chapter 4), Filmation remained hard at work creating television animation product for the networks as it had in the previous decade. The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show, debuting on CBS in 1980 and produced in collaboration with MGM, was another attempt to resurrect the latter studio's venerable creations for a new time period. Repudiating the Hanna-Barbera "friendship" concept imposed five years earlier, Tom and Jerry were again rivals, though in "safer" contexts such as athletic and workplace competition. Supporting them were Droopy, his old nemesis The Wolf, and Tom's bulldog enemy Spike, and his lookalike nephew, Tyke. Something about working with the high-energy MGM characters must have created similar manic energy in the Filmation staff, for the usually weak-on-comedy writers were suddenly able to come up with the laughs needed to make the show work. The working environment came to resemble that of the theatrical animation studios of yore, as "many artists [developed] unscripted sight gags right on the storyboards as part of a genial rivalry with the writing staff." While no latter-day imitators could fully recapture the feel and style of the old MGM cartoons, the Filmation staff certainly did its best.
  6. ^ Sfetcu, Nicolae (April 29, 2014). About Cats. Nicolae Sfetcu. p. 293. ISBN 978-6060335726. In 1980, Filmation Studios (in association with MGM Television) also tried their hands at producing a Tom and Jerry TV cartoon series, this one called The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show and also featuring new cartoons starring MGM cartoon star Droopy, and supporting characters such as Spike and Barney Bear, not seen since the original MGM productions. Although they returned Tom and Jerry to the original chase formula, the Filmation cartoons were of noticeably lesser quality than Hanna-Barbera's efforts; this incarnation lasted on CBS Saturday Morning from September 6, 1980 to September 4, 1982.
  7. ^ Sfetcu, Nicolae (2021). About Cats. Nicolae Sfetcu. p. 293. ISBN 978-6060335726. Retrieved 26 November 2024.
  8. ^ McGowan, David (February 26, 2019). Animated Personalities: Cartoon Characters and Stardom in American Theatrical Shorts. University of Texas Press. ISBN 9781477317440. Retrieved November 1, 2024. A subsequent revival of the stars by the cartoon studio Filmation in 1980 did return the characters to their mutual antagonism, but this was still dampened by censorship. As Hal Erickson states, "Tom and Jerry were rechanneled into 'safe' rivalry: athletic events, competition at the workplace, and the like" (2:860-861).
  9. ^ Perkins, Anne (2014-10-02). "The Tom and Jerry racism warning is a reminder about diversity in modern storytelling". The Guardian. Retrieved 2020-08-29.
  10. ^ Kricfalusi, John (2010). The Art of Spümcø and John K. IDW Publishing. p. 56. ISBN 1613774907. Retrieved November 17, 2024. The year after Filmation produced Mighty Mouse, they decided to follow up with a show based on Tom and Jerry and Droopy. They re-hired me in the layout department headed by Franco Cristofani. The layout department was in an annex away from the main offices. There were two layout units, and I was in Franco's working on Droopy cartoons. The studio's character designer, Alberto De Mello, had recently discovered construction models of classic cartoon characters from the 1940s. These model sheets that showed the artists how to draw the characters by dividing them into their basic shapes, like in Preston Blair's famous animation instruction books. I imagine that Eddie or one of the storyboard artists had shown him the Preston Blair book and some original studio model sheets from the past. Alberto had never drawn like this before. He was very excited about this new way of drawing—and completely misunderstood it.
  11. ^ a b c d e f "The Art of Spümcø and John K." DOKUMENT-PUB. Archived from the original on September 8, 2024. Retrieved November 17, 2024.
  12. ^ Hendershot, Heather (February 2004). Nickelodeon Nation: The History, Politics, and Economics of America's Only TV Channel for Kids. NYU Press. pp. 166–167. ISBN 978-0814736524. Kricfalusi's work on such projects as the Filmation Droopy series in 1980, and his later experience on the Ralph Bakshi and Jim Hyde-produced series Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, beginning in 1987, must have seemed ideal for this corporate strategy. The Droopy cartoons were a bland retreading of the classic Tex Avery M-G-M cartoons, subject to all the limitations of Filmation's low-budget and dim imagination style.
  13. ^ a b c Kricfalusi, John (2010). The Art of Spümcø and John K. IDW Publishing. p. 58. ISBN 1613774907. Retrieved November 17, 2024. We had to draw Alberto De Mello's wildly elaborate, nonsensical model sheets of characters made up of balloon-like shapes and sausage fingers and toes. I refused to draw them this way, keeping the old model sheets at my desk and using those instead. I found layout work to be much easier than creating storyboards. All the staging was already figured out, and I could draw bigger and concentrate more on the poses and expression of the characters. I always hoped for Eddie's boards because they were the easiest and most fun to work from, with clear staging, and dynamic, direct, and funny poses. I copied Eddie's poses, only bigger. I drew them tighter and added more details to the expressions. I also started to add more poses on my own to break down the actions. Filmation only wanted one pose per scene, but drawing the characters acting was where I could exercise some creativity and have a good time. The other guys in the department would come over to see what I was doing because it was so much livelier than the typical TV layout drawing. Even Alberto would pull up his chair behind me, giggle, and say, "Oh, I love the way you move your pencil. Let me hold your wrist while you draw so I can see how it feels." Doing layouts at Filmation gave me the foundation to later build on my own TV animation system. At the same time I was still discovering old cartoons I had never seen before, and tried to put elements of them into my layouts. I remember one particular scene of a cartoon I was doing a layout for, where a character had to do a fast zip pan from one area to another. I had been studying Chuck Jones's The Dover Boys, and saw all these abstract background pans that didn't make any sense but propelled the movement along, and I thought that was really neat. So I drew a long pan scene where each end of the pan was a normal background, but I filled the middle with crazy shapes, floating eyeballs, and weirdness. A few days later, Franco came in and said there was a big problem downstairs with one of my scenes. The head of the background department, Erv Kaplan, who painted everything pink-purple-and green, was having a fit. He had just discovered my eyeball pan and refused to paint it. Franco sent me down to speak with him. I didn't know what to say, and expected to get fired. I sheepishly went into his office and saw him sitting there in a pink, purple, and green-stained smock. He was in a real huff. I asked him why he didn't want to paint the background, and the only answer he had was that he didn't like it and it made no sense. I started talking about The Dover Boys to him, but he didn't want any part of it. Erv said, "No more eyeballs or abstract shapes in the backgrounds!" And that was the end of that.
  14. ^ Scheimer, Lou; Mangels, Andy (December 15, 2012). Creating The Filmation Generation. TwoMorrows. p. 173. ISBN 9781605490441. Retrieved November 17, 2024. Due to the budgets, we couldn't put the same quality of animation that they had done for the theatrical shorts, but we did try to let our people go wild as much as possible and add a lot of slapstick. A lot of the scripts were written by Coslough Johnson or Jack Hanrahan, but animators Steve Clark and Jim Mueller—among others—contributed so much to the stories they got their names added to the credits.
  15. ^ Scheimer, Lou; Mangels, Andy (December 15, 2012). Creating The Filmation Generation. TwoMorrows. p. 165. ISBN 9781605490441. Retrieved November 17, 2024. By the way, due to one of our previously mentioned studio training programs, run by Don Christensen, we brought a lot of new people in and gave them their start in animation on this show, Fat Albert's "Brown Hornet", and others. Because we rigidly kept all our work in America, we were hiring more than any other company and teaching working animation to the next generation. A lot of the young folk wanted to break the rules, not understanding the limitations put on by network strictures and economic realities. Some became more famous than others, and some eventually understood why we did what we did because they would go up against the same walls in their future at other companies. Two other members of the "young folk" who worked on Mighty Mouse were board artists Tom Minton and Eddie Fitzgerald. Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi got his start on "Quacula" too, and our Tom & Jerry show the following season, Kricfalusi later became an ungrateful jerk, ragging on Filmation publicly and saying he wasted his time there. He didn't have to accept a paycheck or get a start in the industry through us, but he did both.
  16. ^ "TOM BARON". alberto's pages. Retrieved November 19, 2024.
  17. ^ a b Kricfalusi, John (2010). The Art of Spümcø and John K. IDW Publishing. p. 58. ISBN 1613774907. Retrieved November 17, 2024. We also had to deal with notes from the network executive, Faith Heckman. One note furiously said: "These storyboards are too violent! Why do the characters have to make threatening gestures all the time? You will traumatize the poor innocent frail children in the audience." We looked through the boards and couldn't find the violence she was referring to; there were big takes and wacky action, but no physical threats. Someone called Heckman to ask her to tell us exactly what panels had threatening gestures. She gave us a list. We looked and found that they were the scenes where characters were anticipating before zipping off screen. Characters would make fists as they anticipated forward movement. Faith explained that these fists were a terrible example of violence for the children, and from then on made us draw the fingers spread out whenever a character zipped off screen. Sometimes we'd get lucky. Eddie would do the board for a Droopy cartoon, I would do the layouts, and Lynne Naylor, who was in the animation department, would animate it—that way everything, for once, would get through the pipeline without being watered down. Lynne is the nicest person in the world, and would never try to offend anyone, but she apparently offended Lou Scheimer, the owner of Filmation. He had seen a section of a Droopy cartoon, "Pest in the West", at the Moviola and it was full of "smears", those stretchy in-betweens we all loved in The Dover Boys. Lou started yelling, "Who did this? Who did this? Find him and fire him!" The head of the animation department went to bat for Lynne and managed to calm Lou down. Lynne kept her job, but was more cautious after that episode.
  18. ^ "Tom and Jerry Cat and Jam Comedy Show Original Cel". WorthPoint. Retrieved May 1, 2019.
  19. ^ Scheimer, Lou; Mangels, Andy (December 15, 2012). Creating The Filmation Generation. TwoMorrows. p. 173. ISBN 9781605490441. Retrieved August 6, 2023. The Tom and Jerry cartoons had almost no voices, but the "Droopy" cartoons did. Frank Welker did the first six shows for us, but when a Screen Actors Guild strike hit, he couldn't continue work. I had to come in and do all the voices as the producer.
  20. ^ "The Voice Artist's Spotlight on Twitter: "Certainly the first of many Filmation examples we'll have in terms of bad voice acting. Filmation founder Lou Schmeier did most of the voice work in his cartoons". Twitter. Retrieved April 16, 2021.
  21. ^ "The Tom & Jerry Comedy Show". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
  22. ^ "1980 Tom and Jerry Comedy Show – DVD potential?". Anime Superhero Forum. 13 September 2013. Retrieved 1 August 2019.
  23. ^ "Tom & Jerry: Deluxe Anniversary Collection". DVD Talk. Retrieved 1 August 2019.
  24. ^ Garun, Natt (April 12, 2017). "Boomerang now offers unlimited classic cartoons for $5 a month". The Verge. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
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