The final Hanna-Barbera directed Tom and Jerry cartoon from the Golden Age is "Tot Watchers". All that would follow in the long career of the famous cat and mouse would pale in comparison to the films from 1940-1958.
A negligent babysitter (who is more interested in talking on the phone than watching the baby) continuously mistakes Tom's attempts at maintaining the child's safety as a threat.
Tom and Jerry working as a team never sits too well with me, since they make much better adversaries, but I guess it is nice to see that they can put aside thier differences for a moment when a baby's life is at stake.
The obligatory construction site is always the perfect place for two heros to prove how far they will go to keep a child safe. The typical violence is absent here (well, except for Tom's run-in with Spike, but the thrashing is left to our imaginations as it takes place off screen).
A weary Tom and Jerry return home with the baby, only to be blamed for his kidnapping, and they are carted off to jail.
Is this the end of our Tom and Jerry tribute? Nope. Come back and bear the pain with me as we continue on to a rather disturbing phase of the cat and mouse's career.
It's gonna be difficult highlighting those Gene Deitch shorts, is'nt it?
ReplyDeletePainful would be a better word for it, but at least I will only have to do two of them.
ReplyDelete