He is inventive, courageous and stronger than he looks. Tom never gives up in his desire to catch Jerry, and Jerry never loses a fight. Tom almost chops Jerry in two with an axe in Sufferin' Cats (1943) Jerry seems to saw Tom in half in Mouse Trouble (1944). In their otherwise domestic life, war is a constant, and all weaponry, sharp or not, can be used. In the first cartoon, Jerry punches Tom directly in the eye – a sign of things to come. They stayed close to the rules of physics, aiming for realism but with exaggeration.īarbera and Hanna went for stylisation and more graphic violence. Disney's internal rules prohibited piercing of the cartoon body with sharp instruments. Depression-era audiences liked the more adult stories that Warners was putting out, in which firearms were often present (duck and "wabbit" hunting was a mainstay). In 1940, war had started in Europe and would follow for the US in December 1941.
So why did it become one of the most successful in cartoon history – winner of seven Oscars, more than any other series? Part of the answer is when, not how.
Tom from tom and jerry series#
Indeed, other MGM animators thought this new series was old-hat. There had been hundreds of these, even before Felix the Cat started in 1919. They rejigged one of the oldest ideas in the game – a chase format, featuring cat and mouse. Quimby put Hanna and Barbera together early in 1939 to come up with a new idea, which they did not. There were already two distinct streams in Hollywood animation – the sweeter, sentiment-laden Disney productions, and the harder-edged style of Warner Bros, where Chuck Jones and Tex Avery were developing Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and Porky Pig cartoons – all of which were wackier, more surreal and more violent than anything in the market. Fred Quimby wanted rowdier cartoons with more violence, and Rudy Ising had resisted him. When Harman-Ising broke with Warner Bros in 1933 to move to MGM, Hanna went with them.īarbera came west in 1937, as MGM was about to dump Harman-Ising. His talent for music and drawing got him into the Harman-Ising animation studio in 1930. The family moved to Los Angeles, where he dropped out of college and washed cars in the early years of the Depression. He grew up all over the western US, as his father built railroads and sewers. Hanna came from an Irish-American family of seven children – six girls and him. His humour was broad and wild, with an inclination towards violence. CinemaScope film poster for Tom and Jerry.īarbera was born on Delancey Street in New York, among the Sicilian migrants of Little Italy, but raised in Brooklyn.
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