| Tom and Jerry - Spotlight Collection | 
| Directors: Tex Avery, Joseph Barbera, William Hanna, Michael Lah Actors: Tex Avery, Joseph Barbera, Billy Bletcher, Daws Butler, Bill Cole (iii) Studio: Warner Home Video Category: DVD
List Price: $19.98 Buy New: $8.00 You Save: $11.98 (60%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $7.36
Avg. Customer Rating:   (59 reviews) Sales Rank: 1394
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Ntsc Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled) Rating: NR (Not Rated) Media: DVD Running Time: 322 minutes Number Of Items: 2 Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2 Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: WARD65878D ISBN: 0790786516 UPC: 012569587823 EAN: 9780790786513 ASIN: B0002MFGCI
Release Date: October 26, 2004 Theatrical Release Date: May 18, 1946 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Description The Tom-and-Jerry legacy chases through every nook and cranny of the classic animation pantheon, spanning six decades and several famous directors. Looney Tunes icons Friz Freleng, Tex Avery and Chuck Jones all played their part. But the enduring cat-and-mouse team was the brainchild of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Their first short Puss Gets the Boot (in which Tom was called Jasper) was released with little fanfare. Fellow animators did not consider a cat-pursuing-mouse scenario too exciting or original. But when unleashed on exhibitors and audiences, their hilariously diabolical rivalry delighted everyone. This 2-disc set of 40 restored and remastered shorts (along with fabulous celebratory bonuses) includes nine Academy Award nominees and seven winners. And with this in hand, you're a winner too!
Amazon.com Tom and Jerry, the animation franchise, lasted six decades and saw several geniuses of the form--Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, and Friz Freleng--have a hand in updating and refreshing the series in later years. But Tom and Jerry: The Spotlight Collection, Premiere Volume celebrates the original mastery of producer-directors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, who took the familiar cat-chases-mouse concept and slowly turned it into witty, unpredictable, and sometimes ironic entertainment. The Spotlight Collection offers 40 restored, remastered shorts beginning with 1943's handsome, Oscar-nominated "Yankee Doodle Mouse" and ending with the fantastic, widescreen 1956 "Blue Cat Blues," very similar to the exaggerated look and feel of former cartoonist-gagman Frank Tashlin's live-action comedies (Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?) from the same period. What strikes one about every episode on these discs is the lavish care Hanna-Barbera paid to Tom and Jerry, not only drumming up new, sometimes exotic settings (such as the swashbuckling "The Two Mousketeers," or for the Old West adventure "Texas Tom") but also consistently turning out gorgeous and wildly creative backgrounds, where straight lines rarely exist and the palette of a night sky includes multiple, dreamy shades of blue and green. Technicolor and novel visual ideas (e.g., shooting a scene through the tunnel-like view of a hollowed-out bread loaf) are sometimes more pleasing than the combative relationship between the two leads. But their rivalry is often renewed in very interesting ways, such as the wonderful "Tom and Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl," in which the pair play competing conductors against a lovely backdrop of L.A. landmarks. Special features include the Anchors Aweigh dance sequence featuring Jerry and Gene Kelly, and a featurette, "How Bill and Joe Met Tom and Jerry." --Tom Keogh
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| Customer Reviews: Read 54 more reviews...
  Five stars for the cartoons, minus infinity for the DVD October 14, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
We all know how great Tom and Jerry can be, so I won't waste anyone's time praising them with sentences that have no doubt been written many times on this website already.
What I WILL say is that Warner ought to be ashamed for putting out such a shoddy product. The cartoons are in a terrible condition, with muck, filth, dust and cigarette burns flickering around in every frame. They have also been censored to appease the PC brigade and narrow-minded, ignorant parents who want to airbrush history to make it seem like the world has always been at peace.
Mammy-Two-Shoes, a stereotypical black character for the 1940s, has been dubbed over to sound less 'racist' (yeah right) in most of her appearances. And all jokes in which Tom or Jerry are blown up and appear in 'blackface' have been rudely cut out. A couple of Native American references have been cut off also.
If we accept this, then what's the next stop for these PC nut-jobs? Editing Gone with the Wind to give it a happier ending? Equal rights for zombies? I am not a liberal loon, and I am not the type who would let rapists live in women's changing rooms, but to think that some people somewhere are ACTUALLY offended by a harmless cartoon older than my grandmother frightens me.
Buy if it is very, very cheap. Otherwise, don't bother. After the extensive restoration we've seen of other cartoons, especially the Disney Treasure box sets, there's no reason why something as popular as Tom and Jerry should be released in such shocking condition.
  Decided not to buy based on reviews October 1, 2008 2 out of 2 found this review helpful
After reading the reviews here I've decided not to buy this disk and just keep watching them on youtube where they are mostly unedited.
Which is a shame because it would be nice to sit on the couch and see them on the big screen.
I'm generally not so picky about things, but think it's crazy that these cartoons are being edited, and really underestimates the intelligence of most viewers.
These are works are art, only we tend not to view them that way because they are cartoons and most of us adults watched them on TV on Saturday mornings. But when you consider not only the animation--which is as good as it gets--but the music, the cultural references, they really do stand out as important works of art.
We don't edit offensive things in art museums, or important novels because it would be like altering history. Please stop editing the old classic cartoons.
  Great entertainer July 31, 2008 I bought this for my granddaughter to watch on a road trip. She loves Tom and Jerry...they're her favorite! Great entertainment!
  So much fun! July 25, 2008 Just like how i remembered these cartoons to be! I love them! Too bad, that there is only 2 spotlight collection and not more...
  Re-living my childhood March 9, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Looney Tunes, Droopy and Tom & Jerry were some of my favorite cartoons when I was growing up and it's great to see that they're finally getting released on DVD sets since they're not shown on TV anymore. None of these newer cartoons even compare to these and probably none ever will. These classics are definately worth picking up and definately have alot of replay value.
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