Tom and Jerry
I've been working this last half hour with my three and a half year old son sitting behind me watching Tom and Jerry. He is now a T & J connoisseur, having viewed each of the DVDs in this 10-DVD set umpteen times. What's more, as I bought the set on ebay from Taiwan, and these particular CDs have an audio soundtrack of Chinese and English, my son is clearly determined to master the Chinese (Mandarin) language. If I put the English audio track on, he insists, "No! I don't want it in English, I want it in C-H-I-N-E-S-E!!!" and promptly presses the remote control to change the audio channel...
Now of course the Chinese language option does not affect many of the episodes, there being little or no dialogue. The Cat Concerto has just finished and it is this particular episode which has prompted me to put pen to paper. One of my earliest childhood memories is this particular episode. The rarity of watching a MGM cartoon was of course an event in those days (early 1970s). In the UK there was no television at all in the morning. But i remember that around 1pm on a Saturday we were treated to a 5 minute cartoon. How each moment was savoured - and was exquisite was the sadness when the episode finished, perhaps never to be seen again. It was thus that i experienced The Cat Concerto. For anyone who has not seen it, the episode involves Tom - in full evening attire - performing Liszt's 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody, arranged for orchestra and piano. Unfortunately Jerry is asleep inside the piano, on the hammers in fact, and is distrubed by the playing. As Tom continues to play, Jerry tries to put Tom off, first by mocking him, but eventually by replacing some of the keys with mousetraps and so on... It's charming and beautifully choreographed to the music. I was perhaps 5 when I saw this and I never forgot the music. Whenever I heard that Liszt Rhapsody, I had forever a Pavlovian recollection of Tom and Jerry. Who knows, perhaps it even helped to form my taste in music... Repeat viewings of The Cat Concerto only confirm in my mind that this is film-making, animation and 'art' of the highest order.
I recently showed some of my psychology students the episode entitled That's My Mommy!, another highly intelligent piece of script-writing and/or story-boarding. Mozartian in its economy, there is not a wasted second in this little gem. Modelled loosely on the findings of Konrad Lorenz, the episode involves Jerry trying to save a newly-hatched duckling from being barbecued/roasted by the hungry Tom. It's a difficult task because the duckling is intent on escaping in order to find Tom again. The reason? The duck egg hatched underneath Tom and consequently the first living thing the duckling saw was Tom: a classic case of 'imprinting'. I find the humour gentle and a positive affirmation of life. I find the ending quite exceptional and heart-warming.
Of course, not all the episodes are as effective and perhaps it's true that the best episodes are from the Hanna-Barbera era, though the later episodes are not as bad as many say. Perhaps they are brasher, less subtle, but there are still some fine moments.
Many have commented on the violence in Tom and Jerry. Doubtless various Ph.Ds have been awarded from dubious institutions which consider the long-term effect of cartoon violence on the developing mind. But, to my knowledge, no one seems to have remarked on the amount of sex in Tom and Jerry. Tom often falls for a wickedly sexy 'dame' and sets about seducing her, in much the way a 60s film star might have done.
In the world of Tom and Jerry, beautiful women (or at least beautiful girl-cats) are only interested in men with fast cars, huge wads of cash, broad shoulders and fine clothes. Oh, and that 'cool' way of speaking, oft-imitated by adolescent boys... The extent to which Tom and Jerry imprinted itself on me as a wide-eyed five-year-old, I suspect I can never know.
Now of course the Chinese language option does not affect many of the episodes, there being little or no dialogue. The Cat Concerto has just finished and it is this particular episode which has prompted me to put pen to paper. One of my earliest childhood memories is this particular episode. The rarity of watching a MGM cartoon was of course an event in those days (early 1970s). In the UK there was no television at all in the morning. But i remember that around 1pm on a Saturday we were treated to a 5 minute cartoon. How each moment was savoured - and was exquisite was the sadness when the episode finished, perhaps never to be seen again. It was thus that i experienced The Cat Concerto. For anyone who has not seen it, the episode involves Tom - in full evening attire - performing Liszt's 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody, arranged for orchestra and piano. Unfortunately Jerry is asleep inside the piano, on the hammers in fact, and is distrubed by the playing. As Tom continues to play, Jerry tries to put Tom off, first by mocking him, but eventually by replacing some of the keys with mousetraps and so on... It's charming and beautifully choreographed to the music. I was perhaps 5 when I saw this and I never forgot the music. Whenever I heard that Liszt Rhapsody, I had forever a Pavlovian recollection of Tom and Jerry. Who knows, perhaps it even helped to form my taste in music... Repeat viewings of The Cat Concerto only confirm in my mind that this is film-making, animation and 'art' of the highest order.
I recently showed some of my psychology students the episode entitled That's My Mommy!, another highly intelligent piece of script-writing and/or story-boarding. Mozartian in its economy, there is not a wasted second in this little gem. Modelled loosely on the findings of Konrad Lorenz, the episode involves Jerry trying to save a newly-hatched duckling from being barbecued/roasted by the hungry Tom. It's a difficult task because the duckling is intent on escaping in order to find Tom again. The reason? The duck egg hatched underneath Tom and consequently the first living thing the duckling saw was Tom: a classic case of 'imprinting'. I find the humour gentle and a positive affirmation of life. I find the ending quite exceptional and heart-warming.
Of course, not all the episodes are as effective and perhaps it's true that the best episodes are from the Hanna-Barbera era, though the later episodes are not as bad as many say. Perhaps they are brasher, less subtle, but there are still some fine moments.
Many have commented on the violence in Tom and Jerry. Doubtless various Ph.Ds have been awarded from dubious institutions which consider the long-term effect of cartoon violence on the developing mind. But, to my knowledge, no one seems to have remarked on the amount of sex in Tom and Jerry. Tom often falls for a wickedly sexy 'dame' and sets about seducing her, in much the way a 60s film star might have done.
In the world of Tom and Jerry, beautiful women (or at least beautiful girl-cats) are only interested in men with fast cars, huge wads of cash, broad shoulders and fine clothes. Oh, and that 'cool' way of speaking, oft-imitated by adolescent boys... The extent to which Tom and Jerry imprinted itself on me as a wide-eyed five-year-old, I suspect I can never know.
posted by Egan Denham at 4:41 PM
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