About Tom & Jerry

Tom and Jerry

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the animal-cartoon series . For the earlier cartoon series whose focal characters are human, see Tom and Jerry (Van Beuren). For other uses, see Tom and Jerry (disambiguation).

Tom and Jerry
The four Tom and Jerry title cards
Genre	Slapstick Comedy
Created by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of episodes	162 (List of episodes)
Distributor	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Warner Bros./Turner Entertainment (current)
Broadcast
Original run	February 10, 1940 – September 27, 2005

Tom and Jerry is an American animated series of short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. It centers on a rivalry between its two main characters, Tom Cat and Jerry Mouse, and many recurring characters, based around slapstick comedy. Tom and Jerry has gained a worldwide audience and is one of the most popular and critically acclaimed cartoon series.
In its original run, Hanna and Barbera produced 114 Tom and Jerry shorts for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1940 to 1957. During this time, they won seven Academy Awards for Animated Short Film, tying first place with Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies with the most awards in the category. After the MGM cartoon studio closed in 1957, MGM revived the series with Gene Deitch directing an additional 13 Tom and Jerry shorts for Rembrandt Films from 1961 to 1962. Tom and Jerry then became the highest-grossing film series all of time, overtaking Looney Tunes. Chuck Jones then produced another 34 shorts with Sib-Tower 12 Productions between 1963 and 1967. Two more shorts were produced, The Mansion Cat in 2001 and The Karate Guard in 2005, for a total of 163 shorts. Various shorts have been released for home media since the 1990s.
A number of spin-offs have been made, including the television series The Tom and Jerry Show (1975–77), The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show (1980–82), Tom & Jerry Kids (1990–94), Tom and Jerry Tales (2006–08), and The Tom and Jerry Show (2014). The first feature-length film based on the series, Tom and Jerry: The Movie, was released in 1992 before ten direct-to-video films were produced between 2002 and 2013.
Numerous Tom and Jerry shorts have been subject to controversy, mainly over racial stereotypes which involves the portrayal of the recurring black character Mammy Two Shoes and characters appearing in blackface. Other controversial themes include cannibalism and the glamorization of smoking.

Contents

• 1 Plot
• 2 Characters
  • 2.1 Tom Cat and Jerry Mouse
    • 2.1.1 Tom and Jerry speaking
  • 2.2 Spike and Tyke
  • 2.3 Butch and Toodles Galore
  • 2.4 Nibbles
  • 2.5 Mammy Two Shoes
• 3 History and evolution
  • 3.1 Hanna-Barbera era (1940–1958)
  • 3.2 Gene Deitch era (1961–1962)
  • 3.3 Chuck Jones era (1963–1967)
  • 3.4 Tom and Jerry hit television
  • 3.5 Second Hanna-Barbera era: The Tom and Jerry Show (1975–1977)
  • 3.6 Filmation era (1980–1982)
  • 3.7 Tom and Jerry's new owners
  • 3.8 Third Hanna-Barbera era: Tom and Jerry Kids (1990–1994)
  • 3.9 Individual episodes (2001 and 2005)
  • 3.10 Warner Bros. era (2006–2008)
  • 3.11 Second Warner Bros. era (2014)
• 4 Tom and Jerry outside the United States
• 5 Feature films
• 6 Controversy
• 7 Other formats
• 8 Cultural influences
  • 8.1 In popular culture
• 9 Home media
• 10 Filmography
  • 10.1 Theatrical shorts
  • 10.2 Television shows
  • 10.3 Packaged shows and programming blocks
  • 10.4 Television specials
  • 10.5 Theatrical films
  • 10.6 Direct-to-video films
• 11 See also
• 12 References