The Cat Above and the Mouse Below (1964)

 

The Cat Above and the Mouse Below was the second Tom and Jerry cartoon to be directed and produced by Chuck Jones and one of the best. 

In this short film, Tom is a famous opera singer about to give a major concert. However, Jerry is underneath the stage, Tom is performing on and is trying to get some sleep. When Tom's singing wakes Jerry up, Jerry does everything he can to make the concert end early. 

This is a bit of an oddball entry in the Tom and Jerry series. While cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck or Mickey Mouse play human type roles in their films, Tom has always been treated as a real cat not a humanoid one. The idea of Tom being an opera singer is also a strange one as in most cartoons Tom doesn't speak. It is no secret that when he took over the series, Chuck Jones molded Tom and Jerry into more typical Chuck Jones characters. This is probably the most extreme example of that. 

Just because this doesn't feel like a typical Tom and Jerry short does not make it a bad cartoon. On the contrary, this is a great cartoon. Everything about this film simply works. The opening scenes with Tom arriving for his concert are my favorite part of the film. These scenes make for a wonderful satire on celebrities and high culture. These scenes take the concept of high culture to a ridiculous extreme. From the exaggerated extravagance of Tom's limo to a group of women fighting over a flower that Tom throws, this is a truly hilarious satire made funnier by the dignified and nonchalant facial expressions on Tom. After these opening scenes the film morphs into a more typical Tom and Jerry fight. While this may not be as funny as the earlier scenes, the slapstick moves at a fast pace and is a lot of fun. Meanwhile the opera singing itself is fantastic and compliments the slapstick perfectly. I don't know why cartoon slapstick and classical music work so well together, but they do. 

The opera singing is provided by Terrence Monk (sometimes spelled Terence Monck). Born on January 10, 1936 (in Long Beach, California), Monk was a trained opera singer studying at UCLA and Juilliard as well as the San Francisco Opera. In 1964 (the year this cartoon was released) he won the San Francisco Opera auditions. Over the course of his career, he had appeared with such stars as Judy Garland, Shirley Jones, Carol Lawerance, Anne Bylth and Barbara Eden. He would appear in such productions as My Fair Lady, Panama Hattie, Mack and Mabel, I Do, I Do!, See-Saw. He would also appear in soap operas including Days of Our Lives. He would go on to provide Tom with a singing voice in one more cartoon Cat and Dupli-cat (1967). Despite his impressive career it is these Tom and Jerry cartoons that he is best known for. He passed away on January 3, 2003 (in Long Beach, California) at the age of 67 from lung cancer. 

Maurice Noble gets a co-director's credit. Tom Ray, Dick Thompson, Ben Washam, Ken Harris and Don Towsley. The music is credited to Eugene Poddany. Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese (who collaborated on some of the greatest Looney Tunes) share a writing credit. This was the first Tom and Jerry film of 1964 and the 129th Tom and Jerry cartoon overall. The film is available on the DVD sets, Tom and Jerry: The Chuck Jones Collection, Tom and Jerry: Classic Collection Volume 6, Tom and Jerry: The Deluxe Anniversary Collection as well as the Laserdisc set The Art of Tom & Jerry: Volume III: The Chuck Jones Cartoons.

Here is part of the storyboard for this film. 

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used

https://tomandjerry.fandom.com/wiki/The_Cat_Above_and_The_Mouse_Below

https://variety.com/2003/scene/people-news/terrence-monk-1117885275/

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/255233906/terence-monk

Pent-House Mouse (1963)

 

Pent-House Mouse marks the first Tom and Jerry film to be directed and produced by Chuck Jones. After Chuck Jones was fired from Warner Brothers for essentially moonlighting (working on the feature film for UPA, Gay-Purr-ee (1962)), he formed his own studio called Sib Tower 12 Productions. After Gene Dietch was removed from making Tom and Jerry films, MGM hired Chuck Jones' studio to continue to make the series. Like with Gene Deitch, Tom and Jerry was not a passion project for Chuck Jones. Jones personally said, "I accepted solely because the budgets I submitted would allow me to continue with full animation." With a budget of $42,000, these films were made for $12,000 more than some of Chuck's last Warner Brothers projects. Unlike Gene Deitch who set out to make his Tom and Jerry shorts feel like those of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, Chuck Jones modified the characters to his own personal style. His Tom and Jerry cartoons focused less on the fast-paced slapstick action and more on being a showcase for strong character animation. The designs were made to make them look more like Chuck Jones characters and more capable of making the type of subtle facial expressions (that helped define Chuck's personal style). Because of this the character animation and facial expressions can feel more like Chuck's Warner Brothers character, Wile E. Coyote than like Tom and Jerry. Because of these changes Chuck's Tom and Jerry fans remain decisive among fans. Some love the character animation and this unique take on the characters. Others dislike that the new designs, the slower pace and feel that this era is lacking in laughs. Film historian and critic Leonard Maltin's opinion was a mixture of these two types of thought. Leonard wrote, "The results are, without question, the handsomest cartoons of the 1960's - and among the most strikingly designed cartoon shorts ever made. The only problem was that they weren't funny." To make these changes more complete Chuck Jones brought many of those who had worked with him at Warner Brothers to work on these films. This included writer Michael Maltese, layout artist Maurice Noble, background artist Philip De Guard and animators Ken Harris, Ben Washam, Richard Thomas and Tom Ray. 

In this short film, Tom is relaxing on top of a penthouse. He is very happy, except for one little thing, he is hungry. We he sees Jerry on a nearby construction site; he decides Jerry would make a perfect lunch. 

This first film is typical of Chuck's Tom and Jerry cartoons. It is very charming, but it is not really that funny. Though the designs may be quite different from the Tom and Jerry, we are used to, they work very well. These designs are very pleasant to look at and allow for some very expressive and subtle character animation. This character animation makes these characters feel more real to us than they ever felt in the Gene Deitch era. The background art is very handsome and simply a joy to look at. There are also some very clever filmmaking touches here. I love the bit of Tom and Jerry doing math in their head, including uses of a thought bubble above them. However, this delightful moment also shows the biggest fault of this cartoon. This type of gag is very clever and charming, but it doesn't exactly make you laugh. This would become reoccurring theme in these cartoons. The Chuck Jones Tom and Jerry cartoons are full of gags that are simply more clever than actually funny. 

The credited animators on this film are Ken Harris, Tom Ray, Dick Thompson and Ben Washam. Chuck Jones would get a directing credit and Maurice Noble would get a co-director credit. The story credit would go to Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese. This is the 128th Tom and Jerry cartoon and the only one released in 1963. It is available on the DVD sets Tom and Jerry: The Chuck Jones Collection, Tom and Jerry: Classic Collection Volume 6 and Tom and Jerry: The Deluxe Anniversary Collection as well as the VHS set Tom & Jerry Volume 6 Much Ado About Mousing and the Laserdisc set, The Art of Tom & Jerry: Volume III: The Chuck Jones Cartoons. 

There would later be an episode of TV's Tom and Jerry Kids also called Penthouse Mouse (1992). In this episode Tom and Calaboose Cal (a character created for the TV series) are hired by a penthouse owner to rid her penthouse of Jerry. 

Resources Used

Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin

https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/tom-jerrys-greatest-hits/

https://tomandjerry.fandom.com/wiki/Pent-House_Mouse

 

Carmen Get It! (1962)

 

Carmen Get It! marked the end of another era for our favorite cat and mouse duo. It would be the final Tom and Jerry cartoon directed by Gene Deitch. The next year the theatrical cartoon series would be taken over by animation legend Chuck Jones. Though Deitch respected some of Jones' other work, he felt that his Tom and Jerry cartoons were in fact superior to Jones' work with the characters. The reason for this is that he felt that his films followed the groundwork William Hanna and Joseph Barbera had set for the series, while Chuck simply remade the series into something completely different. Deitch has written "Today, our T&Js are mixed right in with the earlier Hanna-Barbera's on the Cartoon Network, and I am confident that few viewers find them that much out of synch with the originals, whereas Chuck's are easily spotted as odd. Chuck himself wrote me that he simply remade the characters as his own." He would also write "...  my T&Js are not really up to the standards of the originals, though better than the Chuck Jones later versions." 

As to how his run of Tom and Jerry films came to an end, Deitch felt that this was because of movie mogul Joe Vogel, no longer being in charge of MGM. About Vogal he stated, "But even though our Tom & Jerrys were never good enough for the animation history mavens, Joe Vogel and his MGM team were well-satisfied with our results." He would go on to state, "Before we had even finished our first 12 cartoons, Joe Vogel, who had seemed to me to be the very symbol of the powerful movie studio tycoon, was booted out of MGM. Thus, we lost our T&J patron. The new bosses wanted the production closer to home. So just as we felt we were beginning to get the hang of T&J, we were not allowed to develop further, as had the original Hanna and Barbera crew. Just look at the first 12 Tom & Jerry films they did and tell me they were hilarious classics!" Deitch was not however bitter by the end of his run with Tom and Jerry. About them he stated, "It was OK when it ended. That was a great learning experience, but it was not my kind of thing" as well as "And hey, they sure did work for me. Our T&J tenure was wholly supported by the then head honcho of MGM, Joe Vogel. When he was ousted, so were we. But the project had served its purpose for me. Along with the following Popeye and Krazy Kat series for King Features TV, it kept me in Prague long enough to marry Zdenka [who he would remain married to until his death in 2020] and assured us of enough work to keep me busy here quite possibly forever!" Though his Tom and Jerry cartoons are disliked by many cartoon fans (me included), Deitch kept a certain pride about them. Deitch would later gladly point out, "A wonderful sidelight to my Tom & Jerry films occurred in the year 2000, when I was told that an 11-year-old American boy named Pietro Shakarian actually put up a web page honoring my T&Js, pronouncing the 'best of all.'" And would also take every opportunity to defend his Tom and Jerry films and state how it is truly incredible that they turned out as well as they did consider all that was stacked against him.  

In this last Deitch directed shot film, Tom is chasing Jerry around the streets of New York. Jerry runs into an opera house unnoticed, but Tom is thrown out by a guard. To get in Tom disguises himself as a musician and Tom and Jerry end up wreaking havoc on a performance of Carmen. 

 This film contains nearly all the major flaws of the other Gene Deitch Tom and Jerry films. The animation once again feels stilted and there are some poor drawings found here. None of the gags elicit even the slightest laughter. The sound effects are bizarre and often ill fitting. The European art style is often at odds with the American slapstick characters of Tom and Jerry. The opera singer is stylized in both design and movement. While this could work in a more European flavored film, she simply does not belong in the same cartoon as Tom and Jerry. The conductor is slightly better as his movement isn't as stylized. Still his odd coloring and very stylized design does not belong in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. 

The saving grace for this film is the music. Using music from Carmen, the score is lovely to listen to and actually fits what is happening on screen quite well. This is a departure from previous Gene Deitch Tom and Jerry cartoons, where the music sounds good but feels at odds with the action on the screen. 

As well as a director's credit, Gene Deitch receives a story credit. Štěpán Koníczek receives a music credit and Wáclaw Bedřicz receives credit for animation direction. This marked the 127th Tom and Jerry cartoon. The film is available on the DVD sets, Tom and Jerry: The Gene Deitch Collection, Tom and Jerry: Chaos Concerto, Tom and Jerry's Musical Mayhem and Tom and Jerry: Classic Collection Volume 5. 

Gene Deitch would later write about the soundtracks of his Tom and Jerry cartoons and this one in particular. "What I couldn’t tell anybody at the time is that I brought my own Ampex 1/4” tape recorder into the studio, and recorded the orchestras myself, with little more than a volume control and only two microphones, all my own property! The engineers here thought I was crazy, but I got brighter results than they did. (They had only one-channel mono recording. I recorded all the tracks in stereo. Stereo did not exist here at all in 1961! I also created all the sound effects at home, except the sounds Tod Dockstader made, and sent me on quarter-inch tape! I can only imagine how far we would have gotten, if a half-century ago MGM knew that the entire soundtracks of our Tom & Jerry soundtracks, including the symphony orchestra for Carmen Get It, were recorded on an Ampex 601-2 recorder, no bigger than a carry-on suitcase! And that all my tracks were edited and mixed in our tiny bachelor apartment in communist Prague!" 

The Tom and Jerry Wiki states, "This is the fourth and final cartoon to feature The Ants who previously appeared in Cat Napping, Pup on a Picnic, and Barbecue Brawl." Saying that these are the exact same ants that appeared in those William Hanna and Joseph Barbera directed shorts seems like more than a small stretch. Still, this is the fourth Tom and Jerry cartoon to end with a gag involving ants. 

-Michael J. Ruhland 


Resources Used

Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin

https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/tom-jerry-the-gene-deitch-collection/

https://www.awn.com/genedeitch/chapter-twentyone-tom-and-jerry-the-first-reincarnation

https://www.tcj.com/the-gene-deitch-interview/2/

https://tomandjerry.fandom.com/wiki/Carmen_Get_It!

Buddies Thicker Than Water (1962)

 

Buddies Thicker Than Water is the 12th out of 13 Tom and Jerry cartoons directed by Gene Deitch and the 126th Tom and Jerry cartoon overall. 

In this short film, Jerry is living in a mouse hole in nice apartment, while his friend Tom is outside freezing. Jerry lets him in the house to warm up. When the lady of the house comes home and finds Tom there, Tom pretends to have caught Jerry and throws Jerry out in the cold. The woman appreciates this and makes Tom her pet. However, Jerry seeks out revenge on his ex-pal. 

This is one of the better Gene Deitch directed shorts. This is because rather than focusing on slapstick (which has always been a weak point for Deitch), it focuses on telling a story. The story itself is quite well written, and we sympathize and understand both Tom and Jerry. The shattered friendship between the two allows for some sentimentality that works surprisingly well. The short does not have any real laughs in it but because it is not a gag fest like most Tom and Jerry cartoons this is no big problem. 

However, this film still does have some of the same issues that plague other Gene Deitch shorts. The soundtrack is awful. The sound effects are bizarre, ill-fitting and annoying. The music also never fully fits the action. There are also some poor drawings here and a strange rubbery feel to the characters. 

The credited writer is Larz Bourne. Wáclaw Bedřicz receives an animation credit. The music is credited to Štěpán Koníczek. This marks the last Tom and Jerry short to use Scott Bradley's original version of the Tom and Jerry theme. The next cartoon would use a new version that incorporates elements of the opera Carmen, and the Chuck Jones cartoons would feature a new version of the classic theme. This film is available on the DVD sets Tom and Jerry: Classic Collection Volume 5, Tom and Jerry's Winter Wackiness and Tom and Jerry: The Gene Deitch Collection. 

-Michael J. Ruhland