Tom & Jerry: Spotlight Collection announced (1 Viewer)

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=12048

This 2-disc set features 40 restored and remastered shorts with the following features:
1.33:1 Full Screen
English Mono
English, French and Spanish subtitles
Additional Scenes:
Jerry Dances with Gene Kelly - excerpt from Anchors Aweigh (8mins)
Tom and Jerry Swim with Esther Williams - excerpt from Dangerous When Wet (7:44mins)
Commentary by Jerry Beck on: The Zoot Cat, Kitty Foiled and Heavenly Puss
Behind the Tunes: The MGM Orchestra - new documentary on the music of Tom and Jerry (20mins)
How Bill and Joe Met Tom & Jerry - new documentary on the origin of the series (27mins)

YES, FOLLOWED BY LOONEY TUNES IN NOVEMBER!!!!



I'M SO EXCITED, I CAN'T WAIT!!!

Not Bad, but that 1.33:1 spec better not apply to any of the Cinemascope shorts.

Let's fight about whether these are a TV show.

Not bad..

40 remastered shorts with an extra 47 minutes worth of bonus documentary footage, commentary tracks by Jerry Beck and bonus animated excerpts from classic animated film sequences... sounds damn good to me!

With the inclusion of 40 shorts, I would assume that there will be 2 more subsequent volumes to follow if WB plans to chronologize the complete MGM 1940-58 "classic" years. That would leave an additional 74 theatrical shorts to cover.

I expect that we will see the following films included in this set...



01 - Puss Gets the Boot (1940)

02 - The Midnight Snack (1941)

03 - The Night Before Christmas (1941)

04 - Fraidy Cat (1942)

05 - Dog Trouble (1942)

06 - Puss 'n' Toots (1942)

07 - The Bowling-Alley Cat (1942)

08 - Fine Feathered Friend (1942)

09 - Sufferin' Cats (1943)

10 - The Lonesome Mouse (1943)

11 - The Yankee Doodle Mouse (1943)

12 - Baby Puss (1943)

13 - The Zoot Cat (1944)

14 - The Million Dollar Cat (1944)

15 - The Bodyguard (1944)

16 - Puttin' On the Dog (1944)

17 - Mouse Trouble (1944)

18 - The Mouse Comes to Dinner (1945)

19 - Mouse in Manhattan (1945)

20 - Tee For Two (1945)

21 - Flirty Birdy (1945)

22 - Quiet Please (1945)

23 - Springtime for Thomas (1946)

24 - The Milky Waif (1946)

25 - Trap Happy (1946)

26 - Solid Serenade (1946)

27 - Cat Fishin' (1947)

28 - Part Time Pal (1947)

29 - The Cat Concerto (1947)

30 - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse (1947)

31 - Salt Water Tabby (1947)

32 - A Mouse in the House (1947)

33 - The Invisible Mouse (1947)

34 - Kitty Foiled (1948)

35 - The Truce Hurts (1948)

36 - Old Rockin' Chair Tom (1948)

37 - Professor Tom (1948)

38 - Mouse Cleaning (1948)

39 - Polka Do Puss (1949)

40 - The Little Orphan (1949)

Nice.

Tom & Jerry own all toons.

YESSS!

These are NOT TV shows, by the way. They are films...but lets not get into that again.

Im so excited, I can hardly wait...

Finally my favorite cartoon series getting a decent DVD release, I'll be preordering these

I would hope these are chronological, but you never know. Also "restored and remastered" better mean full original and uncut versions. Maybe now that it's announced Jerry Beck can come forward and spill the beans on the set. But I'm ecstatic about this, what news to go to bed to. And October 19th is the date for Fire in the Sky, another hugely long-awaited title of mine. Damn this fall is gonna be just wallet-pain.

You better hope they aren't the censored versions!

Even the supposedly "uncut" and "uncensored" Laserdisc boxed sets had some censoring applied.

Nobody should buy this set if MGM has screwed them up.

The CinemaScope cartoons will be OAR and with the original stereo when applicable.

Boy, that's a great price!!! I can't wait to own this set.

Chris

Finally, the world's greatest cat and mouse duo get what looks to be a decent DVD release, unlike the censored, zero-extras DVDs that Warner have seen fit to release in the UK. This new R1 release should be all about treating these classic 'toons with the respect they deserve, and with any luck I'll be able to retire my 'Art of Tom and Jerry' laserdiscs soon enough. And I hope that the CinemaScope shorts (on subsequent releases) are presented in remastered anamorphic widescreen. That would kick serious ass.

Jerry Beck indicated at his forums months back that these would be presented in chronological form, that was actually the only comment he was allowed to make.

Many if not all of the Tom and Jerry Cinemascope cartoons do mention Perspecta sound in the opening titles. While not true stereo sound, it did have directional information for the three front stage channels.

I thought that Jerry Beck mentioned maybe one of the cartoons would be in stereo.

I don't think that they are chronological, not if the 40 contain "nine Academy Award nominees and seven winners which, like the Looney Tunes, were preserved in numerous TV series featuring the famous cat-and-mouse duo." as indicated on tvshowsondvd.

It's all very well Warner boasting that the Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry Sets are "uncut and uncensored" when they don't actually include any of the notorious cartoons in the first place - they're still censoring by omission. The first Looney Tunes set didn't have any standout uncut moments, apart from perhaps excessive gunplay which has been trimmed in the past, and this upcoming set doesn't seem to have anything too notorious on it either. Where's the Bosko or Buddy shorts? Or Inki and the Minah Bird? Or Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips? I know some of this was covered in the supplements of the set, but they're sort of hidden away. I'm not convinced the US set will include any of the notorious Tom and Jerry shorts. I'm certainly not expecting it to contain His Mouse Friday for example, and I doubt the next set will, or even the one after that. That way they can boast about it being unedited, without restoring anything likely to be taken as too offensive.

The UK releases aren't that bad. They duplicate the UK Cartoon Network showings and most of the shorts are not infact censored. A lot more has got through the UK PC police than the US PC police. For example, His Mouse Friday appears to be totally uncut, and numerous blackface and racial stereotyping (indian, oriental) are intact. No one hates revisionist filmmaking as much as me, but it does seem odd to excessively celebrate this fact. All in all, I would have prefered some Maltin type introductions to some of the shorts.

However, the 'scope pictures are cropped, and Mammy's voice may have been replaced - I'm not familiar with the original recording (or the altered ones come to that).

James, the context of the listed shorts was discussed at ToonZone and Jerry's forums and it's been said that these releases will in fact be in a chronological fashion, however similair to the 'Mickey Mouse In Black & White' series (i.e. They have Puss Gets the Boot first and then Night Before Christmas next, going in chronological order but skipping The Midnight Snack.) as opposed to a complete comprehensive catalogue release. According to the last HTF chat with Warner Bros. though, it had been promised that we would see every single classic MGM Tom & Jerry theatrical film released between 1940-1958 on DVD. I know that is Jerry Beck's intentions, I have confidence that such will be the case with his involvement.

So if they're following the MM/BW examples we still don't know what will happen to the more notorious shorts. It seems odd to release so many Award Winners and Nominees on the first set, what are they going to do in the future? Surely a chronological release would be more fitting - especially if they do intend to release them all? There's much less T&J cartoons than Looney Tunes, and they all feature Tom and Jerry, so its not like a chronological release pattern would omit most people's favourite characters, as Looney Tunes would.

There is still some question of the second MM/BW set will include shorts such as Trader Mickey and Mickey's Melladrammer. Personally I think it's absolute nonsense if these shorts can be released, but Song of the South is still kept AWOL, but I'm expecting them to be on.

So we still don't know what will happen to cartoons like His Mouse Friday, or any of the Inki shorts on the Looney Tunes sets.

Well considering WB decided to squeeze 40 shorts onto two discs along with commentary tracks and extra features, it's a good indication that there should be more to come. As I posted before, there would still be a remaining 74-75 shorts left to be released I believe, which seems convenient in context of WB's proposed 40 per set release pattern as that would make for a clean and easy issue of 2 subsequent volumes. Releasing all of the academy-award winning films on the first set does seem somewhat suspect and I'm not sure why WB would have chosen to package this as such, perhaps to better market the series? It would have made more sense however, from WB's standpoint, to either spread the contents out over more discs like some of their other releases or perhaps release less shorts on this set in order to follow it up - if they didn't plan on issuing any other T&J cartoons afterwords. I asked Jerry about all of this at his website so I'm hoping he can shed some more insight...

Oh so they'll be random shorts, but just sorted chronologically. Well that's not very chronological at all. Nevertheless, I can't wait to own this set! I'm sure Jerry Beck knows what he's doing.