Tom And Jerry - Classic Collection

Customer Reviews:

A DVD of two contrasting halves.......2007-08-03

The Tom & Jerry Classic Collection covers 159 of the 161 cartoons in chronological order, thus the first half of the DVD covers the remaining Hanna-Barbera era cartoons that weren't covered in Volumes 1-4.

The cartoon series was in decline by this point, and for whatever reasons, the CinemaScope cartoons were put into pan-and-scan meaning you sometimes miss a little of the action. However, this notwithstanding, many of the cartoons are good.

The second half features all of the cartoons from the Gene Deitch era, hence the sharp drop in quality. It didn't help that MGM gave the Czech team a very limited budget. In general these cartoons are creepy, unsettling, contain one-dimensional and evil characters, and laughs are few and far between. I don't think the cartoons themselves are terrible- to my mind they range from 'passable' to 'rather poor', but they suffer somewhat by comparison with the Hanna-Barbera era, and to a lesser extent the Chuck Jones era.

Overall, four stars for the first half, but only two stars for the second half, so three stars overall.

If you own Volumes 1-4 and are a Tom and Jerry fan, you may as well pick up Volumes 5 and 6 and have the complete collection- they're not bad considering the price. Otherwise, you're probably better off sticking with the earlier volumes.

The end of an era.......2004-09-16

I have bought every one of the DVDs in this series, up to Volume 5. Although this DVD contains some funny episodes, the cartoon duo were steadily running out of ideas, and needed (the producers thought), a new direction. We see this sudden change on this DVD, where Fred Quimby's guidance over the project is taken over.

At the beginning of the second side of the DVD, the episodes become suddenly unfunny, and seem to have *lost* any direction, rather than moving away in another. The result is that you are paying twice as much for the DVD, just to get a few decent episodes.

I can see that Fred Quimby's cartoons were slowly declining in quality, but what has happened here is sacrilege. After the failure of William Snyder's cartoons, Chuck Jones, who masterfully directed the Roadrunner cartoons, also somehow managed to produce a similar-fated series which also lacked the brilliant score and ingenious humour of the original cartoons.

I feel disappointed with how few quality episodes are present on this DVD, but as a Tom & Jerry fan, I don't think that I've wasted my money here.

I won't be buying Volume 6, though.

The last of the best!.......2004-08-31

This series seems to progress in chronological order, and Volume 5 is probably the last of the T&J cartoon series worth watching. There are several cartoons shot in CinemaScope which are good (e.g. The Vanishing Duck - one of the few T&J cartoons where Tom actually has the last laugh), but after these it's downhill fast under the hand of producer William J. Snyder. A sad decline starts here to what was a legendary cartoon series.

The cartoons in this volume are:-

Tops With Pops, Timid Tabby, Feedin' The Kiddie, Mucho Mouse, Tom's Photo Finish, Happy Go Ducky, Royal Cat Nap, The Vanishing Duck, Robin Hoodwinked, Switchin' Kitten (this is where the rot sets in), Down And Outing, It's Greek To Me-ow, High Steaks, Mouse Into Space, Landing Stripling, Calypso Cat, Dicky Moe, The Tom & Jerry Cartoon Kit, Tall In The Trap, Sorry Safari, Buddies Thicker Than Water and Carmen Get It.

As with Volumes 1-4, this DVD is double-sided, so you have to eject the DVD & turn it over to see the rest of the cartoons; but on the plus side, there's very little mumbo-jumbo to wade through the get to the selection menus.

This volume is only worth buying if you're a T&J fan, and it's definitely not anything like on a par with Volumes 1-4!

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