The Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit

Plot synopsis:
The cartoon begins with a demonstration for the Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit, with which "anyone can now enter the lucrative field of animated cartoons." The items in the kit include the following:
"One mean, stupid cat" (Tom)
"One sweet, lovable mouse" (Jerry)
"Assorted deadly weapons" (a knife, a hammer, and a stick of dynamite)
Coffee and cigarettes (removed from kit and described as being "for the cartoonists")
A slice of watermelon
The narrator says, "First, put the sweet, lovable mouse into a simple situation expressing a natural human need, such as eating a slice of watermelon contained in our kit. The result may not make sense, but it will last long enough for you to be comfortably seated before the feature begins." This statement refers to the original theatrical exhibition of the cartoon, in which it ran ahead of a feature film.
At first, Jerry eats the watermelon and spits the seeds out, hitting and waking Tom, who initially grabs the hammer to hit Jerry but instead flicks him in the back of the head. Jerry swallows the seeds by accident, causing him to turn green for a moment and then make sounds like a maraca when he moves, and goes into a lively dance until Tom traps him in a metal can. Tom uses Jerry as a maraca for his own dance; when the effect suddenly stops, Tom peeks inside only to get a mouthful of seeds spat into his face. He devours the rest of the watermelon and turns his head into a cannon to fire blasts of seeds at Jerry, who takes cover in the kit box just before Tom hits it, destroying the stick of dynamite and damaging the box.
Jerry winds up lying beneath a book named Judo for Mice, studies it, and emerges with enough fighting skill to easily overpower Tom. Even a stint of training at a boxing gym and use of the knife do not give Tom any advantage against Jerry. Finally Tom goes to a judo school in order to face him again. The two have a breaking contest, in which each tries to outdo the other: Jerry with a wooden board, Tom with a brick, then Jerry again with a cement block. The contest ends abruptly when Tom tries to break a huge block of marble, which crashes through the floor and takes him with it.
An unconscious Tom ends up in the battered box. Jerry replaces the lid and the narrator said, "Our next film will be for the kiddies, and will demonstrate a new poison gas. Thank you and good night." On the lid are the words "The End, an MGM cartoon". The music winds to stop as if it was being played on a slowing phonograph record and Jerry bows to the audience in typical Japanese fashion.

Tags: psychedelic

Review:
When I saw this cartoon on Cartoon Network, I saw the credits the dreaded words "directed by Gene Deitch" - I thought, this was going to be another stupid Deitch T&J short.Actually, it's a somewhat UNDERSTANDABLE toon that is the best of the Deitch era of T&J - and that's saying something.Sure the Eastern European animation is not up to par with the Hanna-Barbera era (watch a scene set in judo school), but the bizarre sound effects used in the other Deitch T&J's that can put any sane toon nut insane are barely noticed.
The storyline is actually good.
It's too bad that the other Deitch shorts were full of bad stories and bizarre sound effects, which led to MGM dismissing him after only thirteen shorts.Still I prefer the Hanna-Barbera days of T&J..
The ONLY Gene Deitch-produced T & J worth seeing.
Gene Deitch could ruin ALPO.
But, he managed to breathe some fresh air into the vastly overrated TOM and JERRY series, but only in this single cartoon.
Its premise is that ANYONE (even himself, I suppose) could make cartoons.
The bit about coffee and cigarettes for the animators is the best part of the cartoon.
Other than that, it's the same old "Mouse beats up stupid cat" theme that was already years past anything original or valid.Deitch's style is way too eerie and absurd (see his Popeye cartoons--they ain't much better), and should NEVER have been used for a "serious" studio's product.
This is the sole example of where it seemed to work..
Probably the best of the Gene Deitch era, which isn't saying much..
Fans claim that Chuck Jones' Tom and Jerry cartoons were the worst, but for my money the theatrical lowpoint for the cat and mouse were when MGM contracted Gene Deitch and William L.
Snyder to direct and produce a series of low-budget, low-quality Czech-animated adventures.
"Landing Stripling," "Switchin' Kitten," "Sorry Safari," "Buddies...Thicker Than Water," "Down And Outing," "Dicky Moe," "Calypso Cat" ...
painful to behold, all.
(Although they're still better than Filmation's horrid "The Tom And Jerry Comedy Show.")Only two of them are halfway watchable, "Tall In The Trap" and this one, "The Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit" (any relation to Bob Godfrey's "Do-it-Yourself Cartoon Kit"?), which supplies animators with a mouse, a cat, and assorted deadly weapons ("The coffee and cigarettes are for the cartoonist"), and leaves them alone to muck about for a few minutes.
Basically, this is Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer admitting that anyone could do better than the lot they had under contract, and while it's not very clever and as sloppily animated by Vaclav Bedrich and company as ever, it passes the time less painfully than the others.You should still take the ones made before the 1960s, though.
Creepy, and not very funny..
When I was a kid, I would watch hours of Tom & Jerry every day (between TBS and the local stations, I could probably have spent 12 hours a day watching Tom & Jerry).
I didn't know much about the history of animation, but I figured out a few "styles"...
Early Hanna-Barbera, 50's Hanna-Barbera, Chuck Jones-style, 60's style, Filmation, and...
the Gene Deitch ones.I instinctively didn't like the Filmation ones, but the Gene Deitch vignettes...
these are the things the nightmares of children are built upon.I don't know how to properly convey how weird these things are in the pantheon of Tom & Jerry cartoons.
Gene Deitch was a master animator, but of avant-garde subjects; his angular, flat style just doesn't work- it feels like you're watching a badly dubbed cartoon, rather than new-style animation.
It actually felt like I was watching a cartoon done in a third-world country that "appropriated" the T&J characters- Stalinist cartoons, perhaps.The sounds, too...
Tom & Jerry always had creepy bits (who doesn't remember "Don't you believe it!" after Tom gets blown up by the atomic white mouse?) but the Deitch shorts...
the sf/x all sound synthesized and strange.
If Jerry is confused, what do you hear?
Not a tiny voice going "Hmmm", but a wobbling-sheet-metal sound, as if it were being done in an echo chamber.The over-all effect is the same feeling I get when watching Italian horror/sexploitation flicks, or Jorge Buttgereit's work (Nekromantik, Der Todesking)- this is *definitely* not what I should feel like when watching a Tom & Jerry cartoon....
not that bad.
not that bad.
Okay so it's pretty far out there, but it isn't as bad as the safari one or the one where the same guy is barbecuing.
Those are really, really wretched.
Almost as bad as the series where Tom and Jerry are actually friends.
I don't know maybe I just appreciate weird, but I thought there were a few cool moments in this one..
One of only three Gene Dietch Tom and Jerry cartoons worth watching....
Though that is not saying much, this cartoon is mediocre.
However, along with Tall in the Trap and Calypso Cat it is one of the more tolerable Tom and Jerry cartoons that Gene Dietch made, I can't stand the rest.
The animation is not great but it is better than the animation in the likes of Switchin' Kitten and Sorry Safari, as the colours are not as flat and the backgrounds not quite as static.
The story is also an improvement, it is standard, but it is not non-existent or disturbing.
And Tom and Jerry themselves are at least okay.
However, the music is still rather creepy, the pace is uneven often feeling rushed and the sound effects are bizarre.
While I raised a smile a few times, there was nothing I would deem as hilarious.
Overall, this is not saying much but for me when it comes to Gene Dietch this is one of the better ones.
5/10 Bethany Cox. Ghastly cartoon....
A toy set contains implements for a Tom & Jerry cartoon, including Tom andJerry themselves (hence the title).
The cat and mouse come to life and usevarious items in the kit to outdo one another.That's basically it, and as usual Gene Deitch fluffs it up in spectacular fashion with his barely-fluid animation; diabolical, tinny sound effects and uninteresting story (and when it's not dull it's just plain stupid in a way that even being a cartoon cannot rectify).
And I just wanted to shoot that narrator...URGH!
I can't even imagine kids liking this..
Backgrounds who needs 'em?.
As the voice-over for director Gene Deitch's The Tom & Jerry Cartoon Kit explains: "Anyone can now enter the lucrative field of animated cartoons".
We know, Mr. Deitch—you're living proof!This one does away with a plot entirely, the cartoon consisting of totally random and surreal action, and keeps the need for drawing to an absolute minimum by making all of the backgrounds flat colour.
Pure white backgrounds?
That would keep the costs down even further.Others here on IMDb seem to like The Tom & Jerry Cartoon Kit slightly more than Deitch's other efforts, but I don't get it, finding this just as wretched..
This one's even creepier without narration..
Growing up, I didn't realize that this short had narration.
When I was watching the same short in another state years later, I suddenly noticed the narration (especially the coffee and cigarettes part) but every time I saw this on the WPIX NY station, there was only music and sound fx.
That made for a trippy ride.
But then again, I grew up on a lot of cartoons that were considered trippy.
A lot of cartoons today are either too talky or everyone's shouting.
But it does raise the question, why was there a version of this without narration?
But this is one of the Gene Deitch T&J cartoons that I remember the most.
It looked like it was set in some sort of two dimensional Be-bop Jazz world, which actually worked for the music that was playing.
It never occurred to me that these were not American made, only that they were different from the Chuck Jones cartoons as much as the Chuck Jones toons were different from the Hanna Barbera (40s-50s) versions.
Of course the classic HB shorts are the best, but I would put the Deitch versions a close second just because I like the atmospheric mood.
It's just too bad that Gene Deitch hasn't been more prolific.
His trippy style, while admittedly unusual for T&J, would have been ideal for serious science fiction adventure cartoons..
Needed more attention to detail animation-wise.
"The Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit" is an American/Czechoslovakian cartoon from 1962, so this one had its 55th anniversary last year and despite the age, it is still among the later Tom and Jerry works.
This is also proven by Gene Deitch having taken over at that point already from Hanna Barbera in this MGM production that runs for a bit over 6.5 minutes as they always do.
I would say that story-wise and comedy-wise it isn't too bad and probably not worse than some of the weaker HB original T&J cartoons, maybe even better.
The melon scenes were kinda okay and the martial arts judo stuff wasn't too shabby either, at least at the very end when the ground breaks under Tom. The title is really random though as it only refers to the first minute.
And Jerry must be quite a talented fighter if he picks up all these amazing skills from a book without actual training.
The film's biggest weakness though was not just the background animation, but the complete lack thereof and the longer it goes the more painful it becomes to see.
Eventually it is just the two central characters in front of one background color.
Essentialism is one thing, but I just cannot approve of that.
A bit of a pity as plot- and comedy-wise it was solid for the most part, but the lows are lower than the highs are high, so I give this one a thumbs-down and recommend skipping the watch here.