Introducing Tom and Jerry

Introduction

Cat: The big blue cat, with the light of socialism always shining in its eyes, hunched aside, waiting for an opportunity to attack.

Rat: The little brown mouse always looks at you teasingly and often plays with the big gray cat inadvertently.

Their names are Tom and Jerry, the most famous cat and mouse in the world, and also the longest-lived couple - they have survived for 68 years.

When William Denby Hanna and Joseph Roland Barbera created this pair of living treasures, they probably did not realize how great their contribution would be. This pair of natural enemies were destined to bring laughter to the world from the moment they were born. If you are of the generation who get up at nine o'clock in the morning and wait to watch cartoons, then you must have a deep resonance with what I said. If you are not, it doesn't matter, because Tom and Jerry will not fade over time. On the contrary, the longer they soak in the long river of time, the more charming they will appear, and the more you will be moved. Compared with those so-called deep and meaningful animations nowadays, the 10-minute clip of Tom And Jerry seems to be more brilliant.

The father of "Tom and Jerry" is the "legendary" William Hanna in the Hollywood animation industry (William Hanna: died on March 22, 2001, at the age of 90). He worked with Joseph Barbera *** also created famous cartoon images such as "Tom and Jerry", "The Flintstones", "Hound Huckleberry", and "Yogi Bear".

William Hanna was originally a colorist in the Warner Animation Department and wrote many songs and jokes. Nassophine Barbara came from New York. In 1945, MGM established an animation department, with William Hanna and Barbara as presidents. In 1955, due to factors such as the rising cost of animation production, MGM decided not to do animation anymore. William Hanna and Barbara founded their own company, called HannaBarbera, and they became the founders and leaders of Hanna Barbara Studios. William Hanna's story is good, and Barbara's drawings are great, especially the expressions. In "Tom and Jerry" created at that time, the cat was named Jasper and the mouse was named Jinx. That's the Tom and Jerry we met today. The cartoon "Tom and Jerry" produced by Hanna-Barbera Studios at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer aired its first episode in 1940. It quickly became popular and was once broadcast for 11 hours a week, bringing their fame to the peak.

Overview

The "Tom and Jerry" cartoon was created in 1939 by producer Fred Quimby, directors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera . Following the success of the first animated short film "Cat Gets Boots", Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced more than 100 "Tom and Jerry" cartoons in 25 years. This cartoon series is completely characterized by slapstick, and the plot is very hilarious.

"Tom and Jerry" (also translated as "Tom and Jerry" Tomamp; Jerry) is a world-famous cartoon today. Its creators William Hanna and Joseph Barber Joseph Barbera is a "legend" in the American Hollywood animation industry. William Hanna was born in Melrose, New Mexico, and moved to California with his parents when he was seven. When he grew up, he studied engineering, journalism, and music. During the Great Depression in the United States in the 1930s, he worked odd jobs as a story editor in an animation studio. His employer quickly discovered his talent, and he was continuously promoted until he became an independent cartoon director.

Cartoonist Joseph Barbera was born in New York and had a talent for drawing since he was a child. He first worked in a bank and was obsessed with animation creation in his spare time.

His unusual talent and hard work soon led him to find his favorite job in an animation studio. Hanna and Barbera first met in 1937 at the MGM animation studio. In 1938, Hanna was working on the cartoons "Looney Tunes" and "Merrie Melodies" while Barbera was drawing the cartoon "Terrytoons". Hanna had a talent for comedy and the organizational talent of a famous director, and Barbera had an outstanding talent for painting. They both realized that they should form a cooperative relationship, and decades of successful cooperation began. In 1939, they both directed the animated film "Puss Gets the Boot" for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. At that time, the cat in the cartoon was named Jasper and the mouse was named Jinx. Hanna's story is very vivid, and the image of Barbera is very well drawn, especially the expressions of cat and mouse are full of touching humor. After the first episode of this cartoon came out in 1940, it became a big sensation and was well received. Welcomed by countless spectators.

Because Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer didn't like the names of the two protagonists in the cartoon, they held a readers' election and finally changed it to the current Tom and Jerry. "Tom and Jerry" features pure slapstick and a very intense plot. Tom is a common gray and white domestic cat. He has a strong desire to catch Jerry, the mouse that lives in the same room with him but is difficult to catch. He constantly tries to drive away these annoying tenants, but is always beaten. fail. In fact, the fun he got from chasing far exceeded catching the mouse. Even if he caught Jerry by chance, he didn't know what to do with the mouse!

"Tom and Jerry" uses the archetype of Tom and Jerry. Their pranks are very funny. No matter how intense the game is, Jerry knows that no real harm will come to him, and Tom always It is inevitable to suffer some physical pain. Jerry lives in the mouse hole of this family with Taffy, the diaper squirrel. It seems that he is being monitored by Tom, but Jerry is very clever and can always make Tom's cunning tricks backfire and always make it reap its own consequences. This story of a clever mouse and a stupid cat is comparable to the story of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. There is no cruelty of bullying in the animal world, only the daily chores and disputes between two neighbors, such as the little mouse Jerry stealing Tom's cheese, Tom putting the mousetrap at the door of Jerry's hole, etc., interspersed with Countless pranks and humorous clips make people feel the long-lost innocence and joy. The relationship between them often changes in an instant - they turn enemies into friends or they are incompatible with each other: when they are enemies, they rack their brains and refuse to give in to each other; when they are friends, they are as close as brothers and no one holds grudges.

"Tom and Jerry" has 116 comic images. In each episode, 2 to 3 images with different personalities are selected and paired together to tell a "gimmick" story. Its story content is simple, always unexpected, but reasonable, reflecting the author's superhuman wisdom. It adopts the form of pantomime, relying entirely on funny actions without dialogue. Compared with "Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck", it is sometimes not easy to figure out what the latter's story expresses, while the pantomime of "Tom and Jerry" It is clear and intuitive and leaves an extremely vivid and profound impression on the audience. "Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck" has been popular around the world for decades. Its styling, dubbing and strong publicity played an important role. However, "Tom and Jerry" has almost no dialogue and relies entirely on vivid images, plot twists and imagination. Rich story. "Tom and Jerry" has produced more than 200 cartoons, including "Yankee Mouse" (1943), "Quiet Please" (1945), "Cat Concerto" (1947), "Cleaning" "Rat" (1948), "The Two Catalans" (1952) and "Mouse John" (1953) won Oscars, "Christmas Eve" (1941), "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse" (1947) was nominated, and it is the animated film that has won the most Oscars in the history of Hollywood animation.

Early birth

——Hanna-Barbera era (1940-1958)

William Danby Hanna was born on July 14, 1910. He went to college during the Great Depression and studied architecture. But the good times did not last long, and financial difficulties caused him to drop out of school early. His talent for animation led him to a job at the Harman-Ising animation studio in 1930, where he worked for seven years.

Another producer, Joseph Roland Barbera, was born in New York in 1911. Although he had always loved animation, he studied at the American Banking Institute and started working as an accountant. As tragic as William Danby Hanna was, Joseph lost his job during the Great Depression. After working for a while in a magazine's comics section, he joined VanBeurenstudio in 1932, where he began to conceive of the Tom and Jerry story. The main characters of the story conceived by Joseph at VanBeurenstudio are actually two people, two clown-like funny characters. In future "Tom and Jerry" stories, we can still see shadows of this early concept. In 1937, Joseph joined the then newly established MGM animation department, and his initial job was script design. As one of the earliest employees in the animation department, William worked with another animator William Allen to create a cartoon called "Captain and Kids".

It was not until 1938 that William and Joseph began to collaborate for the first time, and their first work was called "Gallopin Gals". In 1939, they collaborated again, and this time, they finally created a pair of the most famous characters in the animation industry, "Tom Thecat and Jerry Themouse." It was February 10, 1940. This "Puss Gets the Boot", which was about 9 minutes and 15 seconds long, became the first cartoon of "Tom and Jerry". From then on, whether it was the two creators or the cat and mouse, they could no longer be separated.

In the next 18 years, they jointly created more than 200 Tom and Jerry animations and won 7 Oscars. In 1940, the cat-mouse pair and Gene Kelly starred in the movie " Danced together in "Anchorsaway", "Invitationtodance", and then danced with Estner Williams in "Dangerouswhenwet". In fact, if this pair of cats and mice were actually paid, they might be the richest pair of animals. When Fred Quimby of MGM's animation department left, they became the two directors of the animation department.

Hard Times

——The Gene Deitch Era (1961-1962)

Just when this pair of living treasures were at their peak, in 1957, MGM was not The animation department was disbanded without any advance notice, and Joseph and William were also unemployed. They left MGM with unfinished drafts and regrets. It was perhaps the darkest period in animation history. Almost no company is willing to take them in. Just like Tom in the film, they are kicked out of their homes by their owners and wander on the streets. "We had nothing to do." William recalled years later. "In fact, we already had quite good films, but we were pessimistic about the fact that no one might want these films anymore."

In an extremely critical moment, William and Joseph made a decision that affects today: to produce animation for the then emerging industry - television.

At that time, the influence of television was far less than it is now. Television is regarded as a spin-off industry to movies. Almost all resources are concentrated on movies, while TV only shares a pitiful share of the pie. At that time, the TV station could only pay 3,000 yuan for a 5-minute cartoon, while the price for a movie was 45,000-65,000 yuan. We can see that if MGM hadn't fired everyone in the animation department, they wouldn't have bothered to invest in television. On the other hand, the rapid popularity of television has also allowed "Cat and Mouse" to quickly spread to the world. If we stick to movies, maybe Tom and Jerry are not well known now. William and Joseph seemed to have grasped a life-saving straw, clutching it tightly in their hands. The financial difficulties forced them to consider how to reduce expenses and improve the comedy of the animation. In this case, limited activities are created. Limited movement means "you can fix the character's body, but other parts must have independent activities. For example, when the character blinks, other parts of the body must remain fixed. When the arm reaches out to pick up something, the body is fixed and only the arm move". This concept not only greatly reduces the repetitive work of animation, but also has an unexpected effect. In current animations, we can still see the application of this concept.

In 1960, the stupid MGM company finally realized: "It turns out that this pair of cat and mouse can make a lot of money!" They then started to produce "Tom and Jerry", but the producer was not William and Joseph, but Gene Deitch. Gene Deitch's original animation creations include Captain Kangaroo and the Oscar-winning Munro. Although he was a good animator, he and his Czech animation team did not continue the glory of William and Joseph. In 1961-1962, their team produced 13 Tom and Jerry series animations. Although there were some good works, they were generally not successful. Their images of Tom and Jerry are not as eye-catching as before. They have become just two people passing by on the screen. Tom's cleverness and Jerry's cuteness are all missing. All we see is the cat and mouse throwing plates boringly again and again.

Fortunately, they did not continue to produce for long. When their one-year contract was up, MGM also kicked them out.

The End of Cat and Mouse

——The Chuck Jones Era (1963-1967)

When another stupid company, Warner Bros., closed its animation division, MGM made a smart move at this time, and they successfully recruited Chuck Jones, one of the world's most famous animation masters. Chuck Jones once created many immortal images for Warner Bros., such as Bunny Rabbit and Daffy Duck! (I always thought Bunny's action of eating carrots was very sexy.) After entering MGM, Chuck Jones immediately began to clean up the mess left by his predecessor Gene Deitch. He began to redesign the main images of the two protagonists. For Tom, he gave him thicker and bigger eyebrows to show his fierce look, and a big tail that often caused him trouble. As for Jarry, Chuck gave it a Japanese cartoon image: big eyes! (Someone has done statistics to compare the proportions of Jerry's eyes between the William and Joseph era and the Chuck Jones era. Surprisingly, Jerry's eyes have increased by 20%.) And bigger and straighter ears. All this makes Jerry become a girl's beloved pet. In fact, Jerry turned into a Barbie.

There is also a change in the title. The original title was replaced with a new title, and the music should also become tinkling music. That MGM iconic opening "Lion's Roar" was adapted into Tom's yell.

It all seemed novel and interesting.

Although all this shows the new style of the new working group, Chuck Jones did not bring any miracles to Tom and Jerry. Chuck Jones's style is to highlight the character's pose and personality, but the story line is not strong. We often see a situation where the beginning is good and then becomes weaker and weaker later on. This has worked well in Chuck Jones's other works, but unfortunately it didn't succeed in Tom and Jerry.

After producing 34 Tom and Jerry stories, MGM finally made the final decision: to close the struggling animation production team. Maybe this is because MGM cannot see the potential of the future animated short film market, but I think this decision is more because MGM hates Tom and Jerry!

Tom and Jerry were finally sealed in the dusty video library.

The Return of the King

——Post-Cat and Mouse Era (1975 to present)

After Cat and Mouse were locked in the library for eight years, they The creators of , William and Joseph finally decided to re-create this best pairing on the screen. And their target is Saturday Morning Television (the generation we talked about at 9 o'clock on Saturday morning at the beginning).

This is not an easy idea. First of all, the person in charge of the TV station is a fan of Tom and Jerry. But he told William and Joseph that today's parents are different. They like to show their children more and more simple animations that lack violence. Some of the early cat-and-mouse animations were too violent, such as hitting each other on the head with various objects until big bumps appeared. So he proposed to reduce the hostility between cat and mouse in animation.

Tom and Jerry may be good friends in private, but this time it is different. They also have to express their friendship on screen. So in the post-Cat and Mouse era, we often see scenes of cats and mice joining hands to explore or sitting on the beach and talking. In Selden's fairy tale "The Adventures of Cricket", we can actually see this cat and mouse party scene...

This pair of cat and mouse attracted the attention of many viewers.

In 1989, William and Joseph created another series "Tom & Jerry Kids" for Saturday Morning TV, which is also the kitten in the hat and the smaller mouse we saw.

On March 23, 2001, William died at his home in Los Angeles at the age of 90. The Flintstones, ScoopyDoo and Yogi were mentioned in the news, but TomAndJerry was not mentioned. Maybe Tom and Jerry are really buried in people's memories.

On February 23, 2002, Chuck Jones passed away at the age of 89. Similarly, people mentioned his creations of Bunny Rabbit and Buffy Duck, but did not mention Tom And Jerry, which he once tried to continue.

Perhaps, those two figures, one big and one small, should really be sealed in the memory. They should be accompanied by musictowatchgirlsby, fairy tales and all the things from the old era. After all, their time has passed.

The latest third part/special/index_1791936.html Winter Carnival ***12 episodes

Q version of Tom and Jerry "Tom and Jerry Kids"

— —The last version of the "Tom and Jerry" series

More than 40 years after its birth, "Tom and Jerry" was created by original authors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera for Saturday Morning TV in 1989.

Cat and Mouse

There is a family in Tongjiang who has two cats. The owner loves them very much and takes them with him when sitting, lying and walking. During the day, the owner must watch them eat and care about their hunger and fullness. At night, the owner must have them lie on the pillow so that the owner can sleep peacefully. Sometimes, the owner would hold the two cats in his arms and stroke them, and always ask his maid to keep an eye on them when he went out.

Once, a mouse stole food from a rice vat and could not get out. When the maid saw it, she quickly reported it to her master. The owner was very happy to hear this, so he brought a cat and put it in the tank. When the mouse saw the cat, it jumped up and down in fright, squeaking and screaming, but the cat turned a blind eye. Halfway through

Tmall jumped out of the tank. The owner smiled when he saw this, took the other cat, put it in the tank, and it also jumped out.

At this time, there were several chickens chasing and playing in the yard. The cat pounced on them and killed one of them. The maid borrowed a cat from a neighbor's house and wanted to put it in the tank to bite the mouse. Unexpectedly, the neighbor's cat came to the edge of the tank and saw a mouse inside. It was so frightened that it grabbed the maid's clothes and died

I couldn’t live any longer, and even scratched my sleeves and injured my arms. The mice in the tank were very proud at this time, eating a lot of food in it, and no longer panicked when someone came.

This lasted until the next day. The maidservant was so angry that she had no choice but to take a wooden stick and put it into the tank to hit the mouse. As soon as the wooden stick was inserted in, the mouse immediately climbed up. The maidservant was frightened and quickly dropped the stick, and the mouse ran away.

——"Yi Jian Zhi" by Hongmai of Song Dynasty