16 interesting facts about the animated series “Tom and Jerry” (24 photos)

Many of us grew up on stories about the eternal confrontation between Tom the cat and Jerry the mouse. I suggest you learn a few facts about the animated series "Tom and Jerry", which is considered one of the greatest television shows of all time.





1. In the first episodes, the cat and mouse looked a little different, and the cat was called Jasper, and not Tom, as we are used to.

It turns out that the cartoon was originally called not “Tom and Jerry”, but “Jasper and Jinx”. But after the cartoon about a cat and a mouse began to gain wild popularity, it was decided to change their names to more memorable ones.



Studio bosses even held a competition for new names for the main characters with a prize fund of $50. In the end, animator John Carr won, who suggested calling the cat Tom and the mouse Jerry.

But as it turned out, he did not take these names out of thin air. The fact is that back in the 19th century, a certain magazine called “Life in London” was published, where the main characters were two restless people called Tom and Jerry. These names, by the way, later became memes of sorts and became popular among the people.

2. Back in 1931, the first black and white animated series “Tom and Jerry” was released, which again had nothing to do with the childhood cartoon series. The main characters were again two restless young men who constantly got involved in adventures. The series itself lasted from 1931 to 1933 and consisted of 26 episodes.





But the most interesting thing is that the animator of this animated series was Joseph Barbara, one of the creators of the future animated series “Tom and Jerry” about a cat and a mouse.

Only in 1940, Joseph Barbara, together with William Hanna, created a separate animated series for the MGM studio about a cat and a mouse, who were initially called differently, but in the end they received the same names as the characters in the cartoon on which Joseph Barbara worked.



William Hanna and Joseph Barbera

The cartoon series "Tom and Jerry" (the one about a cat and a mouse) became so popular that it was decided to rename the characters from the 1930s cartoon series Dick and Larry so that there would be no confusion among viewers.



3. As for the animated series "Tom and Jerry", the history of its creation was no less interesting. The fact is that the animated projects of MGM (Metro Goldwyn Mayer) were not in demand, while Mickey Mouse (Disney) and Buggs Bunny (Merrie Melodies) were extremely popular.

Then MGM studio producer Rudolf Eising decided that he needed to create a series of short cartoons that could compete with Mickey Mouse and Buggs Bunny. He entrusted this task to William Hanna, who worked on the creation of cartoons about Buggs Bunny, and Joseph Barbara, who worked at Van Beuren Studios, which produced the same black and white cartoon series “Tom and Jerry” that I mentioned earlier .

William and Joseph threw out several ideas, one of which was a confrontation between a fox and a dog, but all these ideas were pushed back. Then a classic confrontation between a cat and a mouse was proposed, which the bosses also didn’t really like due to the lack of originality, but nevertheless it was decided to bring this idea to life.



As a result, the first episode, entitled “The Cat Gets a Kick,” became so popular that the cartoon was even nominated for an Oscar. It was thanks to this that it was decided to continue filming the series.



4. In the first seasons, Tom looked more like an ordinary cat and moved mainly on all fours, while in later episodes he was made more humanized. He began to dress, read books and newspapers, play instruments, and so on.



5. The cartoon "Tom and Jerry" was filmed at a time when African Americans had no rights and were considered second-class citizens. Moreover, they were often ridiculed using the so-called "Blackface", when white comedians covered themselves with shoe polish while impersonating black people.

Only inIn the late 50s, blacks received equal rights with whites, after which the topic of racism began to arise. This also became a problem for the animated series “Tom and Jerry”, because there, too, moments associated with blacks were periodically played out.

For example, Tom's owner was a large black woman nicknamed "Mommy Two Slippers", whose image was inspired by Mammy from the 1939 cult film Gone with the Wind.



In addition, the same “Blackfaces” that ridiculed blacks were repeatedly shown in the animated series.



And what do you think? In the mid-60s, the animated series was accused of racism, which is why MGM studios had to redo many scenes. Blackface was replaced with dirt, and "Mommy Two Slippers" was replaced with a slender white woman with an Irish accent.



But the most interesting thing is that it was the MGM studio that became the first Hollywood studio to hire a black animator Frank Braxton.



Over time, many black actors, including Whoopi Goldberg, defended the cartoon, saying that they did not see anything racist in it, and that the cartoon remains their favorite animated project to this day.



6. Remember how heart-rendingly Tom screamed in many episodes? This scream is forever etched in our memories. Do you know who voiced him at that moment? One of the creators is William Hanna. William was so embarrassed by this that he tried to hide this fact. Only after a while did he admit that it was he who was responsible for Tom’s cry.



7. Despite the fact that Tom and Jerry practically do not speak, as many as 31 actors were involved in their voice acting throughout the creation of the classic animated series (20 actors for Tom and 11 for Jerry).

It was especially funny to see the surprise of the characters in the full-length cartoon "Tom and Jerry" (1992) when they learned that they could talk.

8. The classic cartoon series "Tom and Jerry" ran from 1940 to 1958. During this time, 114 episodes were filmed. The latest of these was an episode called "Watchers", where Tom and Jerry teamed up to save a baby who had been neglected by a chatty young nanny.



After this, two more spin-off series were released about the bulldog Spike and his son Tyke, where Tom and Jerry were no longer present. Well, then William Hanna and Joseph Barbara stopped working on the creation of the animated series, and the show was closed.



In addition, in 1955, a separate spin-off series called “Message to Humanity” was released, in which an old mouse told the little mice about the horrors of war, when people killed each other until they simply exterminated each other.

9. But the show was closed for a short time, since in 1961 MGM decided to revive the animated series, giving it to the Czechoslovak studio Rembrandt Films, which released 13 new episodes of the animated series. True, due to the lower budget, the art was simpler and less interesting, as were the plots of the episodes themselves.



But even after this, interest in “Tom and Jerry” did not fade away. New episodes were released from other studios, full-length cartoons were shot, and in 1990 even the animated series “Tom and Jerry as Children” was released. And I’m already silent about toys, video games and the popular magazine with stickers from the Panini company, which almost everyone who grew up in the 90s had. At least in my circle, this magazine was very popular and almost everyone had it.



10. Over the entire period, individual episodes of the animated series “Tom and Jerry” received 7 Oscars.

11. One of the episodes (Blue cat blues) tells about Tom in love, who doesn’t have a penny to his name, but who wants to win the heart of a cat, who is being chased by a rich cat.

To buy a car, which is actually a wreck, Tom takes out a loan. As children, we didn’t think about this, since we didn’t know English, and in principle we couldn’tDid the children understand anything about the credit system? Meanwhile, this series is a harsh satire on the banking credit system, which can leave the client without pants.



If we look at the terms, we can clearly see that Tom is taking out a loan at 112% per annum for 312 months, which is 26 years. Moreover, he gives the bank his arm and leg as collateral, and also falls into slavery for 20 years.



12. The theme of death was raised more than once in the cartoon. Tom alone died 5 times throughout the entire period. Moreover, the episode when Tom is not allowed into Heaven after death until Jerry signs a document that he forgives the cat, became the most terrible in the opinion of Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons and Futurama.



13. Of the 114 episodes, three were repeats of previous episodes, that is, the so-called widescreen versions. They differed from the original in stereo sound, a brighter and richer picture, some background changes, as well as some cut scenes.





14. In the 40s and 50s of the 20th century, the premiere of each episode took place in the cinema before the screening of any full-length film. Therefore, in order to wait for a new episode of the animated series, we had to wait a lot of time. But today we can watch all the episodes of this classic animated series in a couple of days.

15. In the early 50s, people still didn’t really understand what the Earth looked like from space, since the first pictures were not as detailed as we would like, and good and full-fledged shots of the Earth from space appeared only in 1961.

What am I talking about? Moreover, in the series “Jerry and the Goldfish,” which was released in 1951, Tom “flies” straight into space and sees our planet from a great height. True, instead of black space, for some reason the Earth is surrounded by a clear sky and white clouds.



16. We have already talked about racism, but in 2006 the cult cartoon faced a new problem - smoking and alcoholism. Yes, in some, or rather in many episodes, we are shown how Tom (and sometimes Jerry) smokes or drinks.

In 2006, the British authorities considered it unacceptable that children's cartoons show these bad habits of the main characters. Therefore, it was decided to cut out unwanted moments. But there were so many such moments that it was easier not to broadcast the classic episodes at all.