EDITOR’S NOTE: Tomorrow is the release date for TOM & JERRY: THE GENE DEITCH COLLECTION. Considering the sorry state of the DVD business – at least among the major studios – this may be the last classic theatrical cartoon collection from Warner Bros. to feature restored cartoons and include a bonus documentary.

Gene Deitch has been candid about his work on these cartoons, as you will see on the bonus doc – and in the exclusive piece he has written for Cartoon Reseach below. For me – I’ll just say that there is much to enjoy in Deitch’s Tom & Jerry films. From the cock-eyed animation, to the voices of Allen Swift (“Dickie Moe” in particular). The prints of these cartoons in circulation for decades always looked like dupes of dupes – and I’ve accepted that because, heck, they were made in Prague and I figured we were watching some second generation version. The restorations on this DVD are surprising, as it is the first time we see them crystal clear and bursting with color. For that alone, it is worth having in your collection.

Here in his own words, Gene Deitch recalls his feelings about Tom & Jerry and his many memories of that production year. Thanks, Gene. – Jerry Beck

When I flew to Hollywood to present our first trial Tom & Jerry film, it was in fact a weird situation; as if we were speaking different languages. Our assignment was actually a test, to see if we would be awarded a contract for the full 13-film package. In spite of my negative feelings about the T&J cartoons, as being senselessly violent, and downright racist, I knew this was a crossroad, and though I hadn’t asked for this assignment, I was under pressure to accept it, and I became determined to make a success of it. Our career and personal lives were on the line; so I put everything I had into it.

When the lights came up in the other-worldly MGM executive screening theater, Head-Hocho Joe Vogel took a deep drag on his stogie, and said, “You don’t need to build such expensive sets! ‘Right away, it was clear that these 6-figure honchos didn’t have the faintest ideas how cartoon films were made. It didn’t cost a nickel more if our background painter put a castle or a hovel on the Strathmore background paper!

Vogel loved our effort, especially because he was proud that he had lucked onto a first rate foreign animation studio which could crank out such an elaborate T&J cartoon for half the H&B cost! So we got the job. He loved what we did. We could have continued on if Joe Vogel had stayed in charge. But he was de-Metro-ed, and as we were “his,” we went out with him. That’s how Hollywood worked, and still works

The fact that I was the very first director chosen to continue T&J, following the great successes of Hanna Barbera, and my episodes got loud laughs in the theaters, it didn’t cut any ice. The new executive leadership chickened out on a communist country issue, so the great Chuck Jones took over. Whereas I had scrupulously attempted to follow the H&B character model sheets, Chuck didn’t bother to, but made them his own.

The one and only issue I had with Joe Vogel was the title of our pilot episode. Over my bruised body, it went out with the totally idiotic title, Switchin’ Kitten. My original title was “Dog My Cats”. As the story centered on a mad scientist turning cats into dogs, I thought my title was funny and apt. Besides being a play on words, it was actually about the story! But the mighty Metro moguls simply didn’t get it.

I am painfully aware that my Tom & Jerry cartoons were savaged by most of the critics and hardcore H&B fans. I was the first animator to continue the series, and obviously I was in the line of fire. I had every possible disadvantage in producing these shorts; 1. my own negative T&J feelings at the time. 2. working in a foreign country, with the first non-USA, studio ever to tackle this hyper-American series, with a crew that was creatively isolated; way out of the helter-skelter, crash-bang American T&J cartoon culture, and 3. with a dollar budget half the amount of the original MGM series.

Not only had no one in the Prague animation studio ever even seen a Tom & Jerry cartoon, but I had never tried to draw the characters! They were out of my way of drawing. I did admire the skill of the Disney shorts, and I was a great fan of the brash comedy of the Warner Brothers output. But as gross as many of the Hannah Barberra cartoons were, the outrageous pain the Tom and Jerry characters inflicted on each other did make me laugh out loud.

Being assigned to recreate Tom & Jerry, I knew that I had a tough act to follow. I resolved to make them look as much like the late period Hanna Barberra originals as I possibly could. H&B themselves had of course altered the models and animation style as they went along. I tried to continue the look of their later series., using the final MGM model sheets as my starting point.. I was determined that audiences would accept my recreations as really being Tom & Jerry! I could not worry what the critics would think. Without question, times had changed, even in 1961. And some aspects of T&J had to change also. I drew the line at the H&B racial gaffs. I immediately retired the black housemaid. I tried for fresh venues in the stories. Fortunately, H&B had also ventured out of the household, with period pieces and exotic locations, so I did have some wiggle-room in stories.

In those early days for me in Prague, the studio was using architect’s translucent “vellum” for their animation drawings. You can tell by the yellowish color of the paper. The Czech artists claimed that the translucency help them with the animation. We in America had the opposite opinion, and this fragile paper was not worth the downside; the vellum was so brittle that every sheet required peg-hole reinforcements! The inbetweens could not be hand-flipped to test the action. I ultimately switched them to white bond paper, and right on the Tom and Jerry series they were gradually adapting to the paper every American animation studio was using.

Because of the difficulty of keeping the Czech animators on-model, I personally drew every key pose in the entire 13-film series. If they don’t look like Tom & Jerry, you can blame me! The movement was another thing. Sometimes the Prague animators got it, and sometimes they didn’t. We sweat-shopped the pencil tests to the maximum money and time would allow.

I often tell film students and others that I have always considered the soundtracks as at least 50% of the movies. Obviously, there was no digital recording anywhere in those days, but here is was dreadful, working with Soviet equipment! They used sprocketed 55mm East German coated sound film.

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 sound tracks, 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!

Here’s another sidelight that hasn’t come up before: In Buddies Thicker Than Water, the drunken giggling of both Tom and Jerry, as well as other coo-coo vocal effects throughout the series, are by me.

In conclusion – I didn’t seek the job. MGM picked me to do it, because I’d just made an Oscar-winning short and had a string of nominations – but mainly I suppose, because my producer Bill Snyder accepted their low, low budget! I hardly had a chance to succeed. They could all have been better animated – truer to the characters – but our T&Js were produced in the early 1960s, near the beginning of my presence here, over a half-century ago as I write this!

I actually received an unsigned death-threat from a furious Tom & Jerry fan, who wrote that I “deserved to die” for what I did to this noble duo! I hope by now that tempers have cooled!

BONUS MATERIALS

The Prague Tom & Jerry team, 1961

William L. Snyder contractor with MGM

Gene Deitch project director/designer*

The Prague studio staffers on our 1961 Tom & Jerry series:

Zdenka Najmanová* – project producer & managerLudvika Kopečná – assistant to producer

Václav Bedřich – animation group leader

Milan Klikar – animator

Zdenek Smetana – animator

Jindra Barta – animator

Antonin Bureš – animator

Mirko Kačena – animator

Věra Kudrnová – animator

Olga Šišková – animator

Věra Marešová – animator

Zdenka Skřipková – animator

Bohumil Šiška – background painter

Miluše Hluchoničová – assistant background painter.

Ludmila Kopecná – animation checker

Zdenka Navratílová – film assembling & editing, with Gene

Zdenka Hajdová – camera

Václav Lídl – composer of music

Stěpan Koniček – composer of music

Of the 13 core personnel on the Tom & Jerry project there was a large group of superb inkers & painters – all women – whose names I didn’t preserve. Sorry for that!

Aside from being the leader and editor of the writing staff, I also directed the voice actor, Allen Swift, and the musicians, composers and sound effects. The sounds were created by Tod Dockstader and me. I drew the production layouts, including all animation key poses, edited and mixed all the soundtracks, and generally swept up the studio after everyone went home.

* Zdenka Najmanová is now Zdenka Deitchová

INDIVIDUAL FILM CREDITS (in Production Order)

* Gene Deitch. I worked personally on every phase of the project, refining the submitted storyboards, designing the backgrounds, drawing all key animation poses, writing and directing dialog and narration., directing musical composing and recording, creating sound effects, voice recording, and mixing sound tracks.

SWITCHIN’ KITTEN 1960

Story Eli Bauer & Gene Deitch

Layout Lu Garnier & Gary Mooney

Sound Effects Tod Dockstader

Music Václav Lidl

1961Sound Effects Tod DockstaderVoice Allen SwiftMusic Stěpan Koniček

IT’S GREEK TO ME-OW! 1961

Voice Allen Swift

Sound Effects Tod Dockstader

Music Stěpan Koniček

HIGH STEAKS 1961

Story Larz Bourne

Voice Allen Swift

Animation Václav Bedřich*

Music Stěpan Koniček

MOUSE INTO SPACE 1961

Story Tod Dockstader

Animation Václav Bedřich

Music Stěpan Koniček

LANDING STRIPLING 1961

Story Eli Bauer

Animation Václav Bedřich

Music Stěpan Koniček

CALYPSO CAT 1961

Story Larz Bourne

Animation Václav Bedřich

Music Stěpan Koniček

SORRY SAFARI 1961

Story Larz Bourne

Music Stěpan Koniček

Voice Allen Swift

CARMEN GET IT! 1961

Story Gene Deitch

Music Stěpan Koniček

Czechoslovak Symphony Orchestra!

DICKY MOE 1961

Story Eli Bauer Gene Deitch

Voice Allen Swift

Animation Václav Bedřich

Music Stěpan Koniček

TALL IN THE TRAP 1961

Story Tedd Pierce Bill Danch

Voice Allen Swift

Music Stěpan Koniček

Guitar Jiří Jirmal

BUDDIES THICKER THAN WATER 1962

Story Larza Bourne

Music Stěpan Koniček

Annimation Václav Bedřich

THE TOM & JERRY CARTOON KIT 1962

Story Chris Jenkyns

Voice Allen Swift

Music Stěpan Koniček

Animation Václav Bedřich

*Bedřich was in fact Animation Group leader for all the films

MODEL SHEETS

I found these crumpled model sheets in my files. I probably intended to throw them away.