Tom & Jerry: Golden Collection, Volume One (1940-1948) re-issued

[BouCoupDinkyDau]

I'm glad they are going in chronological order. I can stop collecting once they release all 114 Hanna/Barberra episodes.

[BouCoupDinkyDau]

Originally Posted by dana martin

serious animation fan, just wish Universal would follow this and start on all the lance toons as well, woody and the rest never get the same kind of push that WB does with it's animation, but woody is great , he is like a small devil with a beak at times

I'd buy a WW bluray collection.

[The Blu Knight]

Pre-order up and at less than the DVD MSRP at $24.49.

Tom and Jerry: Golden Collection (Volume 1)

[kashif]

Originally Posted by McCrutchy

Wow Wow Wow. Cant wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PS: Is there anyway to know before the release that if its Region free or locked A?

[Rudeboy2025]

Can't wait after those posts!

And I apologize for saying Fred ****by rules. I did not know about his lack of contribution to the shorts. So I guess it's more accurate to say the cartoons that have the big title screen saying "Produced by Fred ****by" rule! The animators and Scott Bradley along W&H Barbara are awesome!

[J. J. Hunsecker]

Originally Posted by Tom Servo

Mouse cleaning was the last one from 1948, so it wouldn't make sense to hold it over until the next volume.
Well, true enough about the iron curtain situation, but the creator stated that he never liked the Mamie stereotype character, and the senseless violence. Then he went on to make them even more violent, with Tom getting pulverized in hideous ways by his owner. Go figure. But political correctness had begun to rear up in the 60's if not earlier, nothing like today of course.

Well, that certainly sounds like Gene Deitch. Certain animation artists, like Deitch and those at UPA, had a disdain towards the typical slapstick Hollywood cartoon. If you've ever seen Deitch's Terrytoons from the late '50s, you can see how dissimilar his cartoons were from those of MGM or WB.

[dana martin]

Well maybe this post will stick this time, minus the minimal dialogue in any of these original shorts, outside the original creators Hanna-Barbera, Scott Bradley deserves so much credit, the music at times has a life of it own and becomes central of every short. Much like all the outstanding work at WB by Carl Staling Project. Original material mixed with classic music, how many people listen to classical music that doesn’t realize that they associate it with the cartoons that it has played in the background.

The Gene Dietch toons are a different perspective, and while not 100% certain about it, I do believe that that version is the basis of Itchy and Scratchy, yes we lost the MGM gloss or sheen, of the earlier HB productions, but there is humor to be found in them as well.

as for the complaint of mouse cleaning not being included in this very first volume, yes there is a span of years, but that doesn’t meant that the next volume cant start the same year as this one leaves off, and read deeper, to make it easy

They found a negative of Mouse Cleaning and it is being prepped, a negative!!! Not some second generation material and from my understanding its not the only one!!!!!!. For most that don’t know, most of the original negatives for the earlier Tom and Jerry shorts do not exist, think fire and film, not a great mix, so I am ready to really see it for the first time.

One of the things is how many volumes this could turn out to be, in all honesty, the reasons after the originals were modified, due to "political correctness" and yes this happened long before that phrase was thought and used the way it is today. the redrawing over Mammy Two Shoes, changing the legs and shoes and then having the great and talented June Foray come in and revoice the character, the odd point of that being they were trying to get away from racial stereotypes, the odd part is that they ended up doing the exact same thing by having it come out as a serious Irish brogue rolling off the tongue.

So in all actuality, those could be utilized as extras.

[jaaguir]

Originally Posted by J. J. Hunsecker

Those Prague animators didn't steer the cartoons away from "political correctness" (that concept didn't even exist in the early '60s), because they had never seen a Tom & Jerry cartoon before. They were trying to recreate a Hollywood style cartoon in a vacuum. Their version of Tom & Jerry was just as violent, so you can't say it's "politically correct". (The 1975 Hanna-Barbera Saturday Morning version was, though.) They just aren't good.
It's also not fair to call them communists, since it wasn't their fault that Czechoslovakia was taken over by the Russians. There was a coup d'etat in Czechoslovakia a few years after WWII. Those that tried to escape the country faced persecution.

The new Tom & Jerry set presents the first 37 cartoons in chronological order, so "Mouse Cleaning" would not make the list. It would be included in a 2nd volume, if there is one.

List of Tom & Jerry Cartoons

According to Jerry Beck "Mouse cleaning" is being held for the second volume because the negative was found recently, not in time to include in this release.

[jaaguir]

Originally Posted by kashif

PS: Is there anyway to know before the release that if its Region free or locked A?

Warner releases are always Region free. Otherwise the only way would be to watch out for the first reviews, I guess. But I would be very surprised if this wasn't region free.

[kashif]

Originally Posted by jaaguir

Warner releases are always Region free. Otherwise the only way would be to watch out for the first reviews, I guess. But I would be very surprised if this wasn't region free.

Thanks

[BouCoupDinkyDau]

Originally Posted by dana martin

One of the things is how many volumes this could turn out to be...

Probably four vols for all the H/B stuff, and that's where my collecting will probably come to an end.

Bring on Droopy after this. Maybe even some Chilly Willy.

[Daikichi Kawachi (河地大吉)]

I keep checking every morning to see if it will appear in my goldbox to no avail. I'm definitely going to buy this collection.

[gregmasciola]

I can't wait for this set. This could be very good news for these kind of shorts on Blu. I hope Disney ends up re-releasing all of their shorts on Blu as well.

[MrHT]

Wow!! I'm definitely going to buy these on Day 1.

[gpn]

I haven't seen this mentioned yet, so excuse if this is old information, but it looks like we'll be seeing a Looney Tunes Platinum Collection on Blu-ray this fall. I noticed this in a panel listing for San Diego Comic-Con:

3:00-4:00 Classic Warner Bros./Hanna-Barbera Cartoons Going Blu-ray— Animation historian Jerry Beck and Warner Archives' George Feltenstein lead a panel of renowned animation and restoration experts, including Spike Brandt (The Looney Tunes Show), Tony Cervone (The Looney Tunes Show), and Paul Dini (Lost, Tower Prep), in presenting and discussing selected vintage cartoons from Warner Home Video's fall 2011 Blu-ray release of the newly remastered Tom and Jerry Golden Collection and Looney Tunes Platinum Collections.

[Coveragentcov]

I hope you guys can help me with this question:
Will the this volume also be released in Europe? If so, when do you guys think this will happen. What is WB like, when it comes to releasing this outside the US? Does it take a long time?

[Paulo Elias]

I couldn't agree more with Bluray.com member Dana Martin postings regarding the realization of Tom & Jerry cartoons as made by Hanna and Barbera, and as opposed to those that were made later.

There were a number of things that went wrong in the first DVD set. Apart from three CinemaScope shorts, most of the rest was transferred with a deplorable sound quality and, needless to say, no picture restoration whatsoever!

Well, as a matter of fact, I actually saw the T&J shorts in the Metro-Tijuca theater back in the mid 1950's sunday festivals. I even wrote an article for my column about it last year. In my manuscript I made an attempt to explain why T&J was so successful with kids, especially in view of later revelations made by the artists who made those shorts and from observations on my own account.

As for myself, it is still hard to explain the thrill that I felt as a kid, even to my own son and daughter. The Metro-Tijuca was a state of the art, palace theater, installed and managed by M-G-M. Their projection and sound system were one of the best that cinema audiences could achieve. It was simply flawless!

And this is the reference I have for all those shorts. When the DVD containing the Spotlight Collection was in production I had the chance to write to Jerry Back regarding Scott Bradley who still is, in my humble opinion, one of the unsung heroes of the M-G-M lot. Mr. Beck said he was in fact doing a small documentary on Bradley, and indeed it was, with all due respect to Mr. Beck, quite small. Personally, I would have hoped to see more about Bradley and the rest of the T&J talented creators.

More importantly, when the Spotlight DVDs were released, I complained to Mr. Beck in a personal message about the quality of the picture and sound of the transfers. Apparently, Mr. Beck had no control over the "restoration" of the shorts because if he did I am sure that he would not allow that disgraceful disregard to the original pictures.

With today's lab resources it is somewhat irrelevant if the original negatives were lost in a fire. In addition, I remember someone from another forum saying the original sound elements were very much alive.

A lot of those T&J shorts were released to theaters in the Perspecta sound format, which was not really stereophonic, but were nonetheless an improvement over optical mono sound. In fact, M-G-M would record the sound elements separately, and that alone would allow modern technicians to derive a reasonably mixed stereo track. At any rate, mono or stereo, sound from those cartoons should have sounded right in the Spotlight Collection, but regrettably, they did not!

I have a hope now that those censored, badly transferred, unrestored to video shorts will be a thing of the past.

These are priceless segments of the cartoon artistry made in Hollywood during the 1930's/1040's/1950's. They are now pieces of historical documents to be carefully preserved and commented by experts for new generations to appreciate the creativeness of the original artists. Screw, I say, political correctness. The shorts must be presented on video as they were intended. By all means, display a warning slide or whatever for those who do not want to be offended by stereotypes, but leave those shorts intact!

[#Darren]

Originally Posted by Farid

It's His Mouse Friday that is edited. You can read all about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Mouse_Friday

Thanks, I hate this sort of revisionism. I am against meanness to other races, but this is going too far. They should not try to rewrite history.

Originally Posted by McCrutchy

Impressed!

[Weirded Wonder]

I still cherish my laserdisc box sets and every bit of news regarding this release has sold me into buying this blu ray.

You guys are great with your knowledge and information on the subject. Please, keep it coming.

[lkmg]

I had something similar on DVD previously but had sold it away. Not sure if I want to buy it in blu now...