The Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit

A toy set contains implements for a Tom & Jerry cartoon, including Tom and

Jerry themselves (hence the title). The cat and mouse come to life and use

various items in the kit to outdo one another.

That's basically it, and as usual Gene Deitch fluffs it up in spectacular fashion with his barely-fluid animation; diabolical, tinny sound effects and uninteresting story (and when it's not dull it's just plain stupid in a way that even being a cartoon cannot rectify). And I just wanted to shoot that narrator...

URGH! I can't even imagine kids liking this.

The Tom and Jerry Cartoons produced in Czechoslovakia in the early 60s were a downturn from the Original Era, the Plots were simplified and became repetitive and somewhat strange, the Animation became aberrational with Monotone colors and ugly Character Designs that achieved reaching the edge of the Disturbing, It was certainly not a good time for the cat and mouse duo, the low budget with which these short films were made was noticeable, but this one stands out among the others because it manages to fulfill its purpose, that is, to make laugh, the plot is not strange and monotonous as in other shorts and becomes quite acceptable although a little out of the ordinary, but really this short along with Buddies Thicker Than Water stand out and manage to be better than the rest of the cartoons of the time.

The short stands out because it is usually based on happy moments instead of petty moments full of abuse as in other shorts, the plot is Standard and although the Animation and Sound Effects are still Uneven, the Cartoon rewards with a Couple of Ideas Creative with some memorable and funny scenes.

Not much can be said about the Animation, it is still quite limited as well as strange but in itself, it is Slightly better than in other shorts, obviously, visually the cartoon is lousy, the Colors are too Dark and the Backgrounds are Non-existent, the little that There is not much detail and there are some weird colors, the Character Designs also look weird especially Tom, who looks a little bigger and has a little more detailed expressions but due to the limited animation he tends to deform quite a bit when about to look creepy.

The Music is a Great Improvement over the Previous Cartoons, I can finally call the music "Decent" since it is true, the Music in this short is much more Animated than in other shorts of the era and although it retains a Surreal setting, it's pretty decent and nice to listen to.

The Sound Effects still retain a Surreal Quality and sound too rudimentary, they are clearly not overused and not that annoying, the Voice Acting is Miraculously Acceptable, Allen Swift provides Decent Narration and his voice to Tom is not that Scary.

Tom and Jerry luckily here have a very similar behavior to their Original Hanna Barbera Counterparts, Jerry is not so Cruel to Tom and the Duo continues to hurt each other but in a more animated and caricatured way.

"The Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit" is an interesting cartoon that explores a rather strange but at the same time original theme, we see Tom and Jerry in different backgrounds fight with a limited amount of weapons but with that reduced amount we see that the duo can still to be funny, the Short and its Plot are very well carried out, the Plot although a little out of the ordinary is Interesting plus the Surreal Setting make this short film Unique and one of the Few of Gene Deitch that I can call "Good".

I like this short, its Surreal Sense of Humor plus the Incredible use of Music result in several memorable gags and even a Funny ending and not at all Petty!, Unfortunately, the other Gene Deitch cartoons were not like that, but as I said , the Cartoon carries a unique and fun sense of humor that differentiates it from the others, here the Cat and the Mouse are given prominence, but the one that stands out the most is Tom, who is obviously Jerry's punching bag but in a way funny, When I was a child, the Short always caught my attention because of how different it was besides Deitch's strange Style, so I never understood it until I grew up and knew the Story of the Cat and Mouse Duo, The Shorts Produced in Czechoslovakia They were mediocre?, not really, they used to be different but as long as Tom's owner wasn't there they were entertaining.

In itself, This is Possibly the Best Cartoon of Gene Deitch besides being the one that stands out the most, It has mediocre animation but good use of Music and has original and interesting ideas, it has always made me laugh and it feels like a true cartoon of Hanna Barbera but the problem is obvious, Deitch's style doesn't really fit with Tom and Jerry, but that doesn't matter here! The Short is entertaining and I recommend you take a look at it if you want to know the Czechoslovak era of the cat and mouse duo.

Fans claim that Chuck Jones' Tom and Jerry cartoons were the worst, but for my money the theatrical lowpoint for the cat and mouse were when MGM contracted Gene Deitch and William L. Snyder to direct and produce a series of low-budget, low-quality Czech-animated adventures. "Landing Stripling," "Switchin' Kitten," "Sorry Safari," "Buddies...Thicker Than Water," "Down And Outing," "Dicky Moe," "Calypso Cat" ... painful to behold, all. (Although they're still better than Filmation's horrid "The Tom And Jerry Comedy Show.")

Only two of them are halfway watchable, "Tall In The Trap" and this one, "The Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit" (any relation to Bob Godfrey's "Do-it-Yourself Cartoon Kit"?), which supplies animators with a mouse, a cat, and assorted deadly weapons ("The coffee and cigarettes are for the cartoonist"), and leaves them alone to muck about for a few minutes. Basically, this is Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer admitting that anyone could do better than the lot they had under contract, and while it's not very clever and as sloppily animated by Vaclav Bedrich and company as ever, it passes the time less painfully than the others.

You should still take the ones made before the 1960s, though. We all should.

Gene Deitch could ruin ALPO. But, he managed to breathe some fresh air into the vastly overrated TOM and JERRY series, but only in this single cartoon. Its premise is that ANYONE (even himself, I suppose) could make cartoons. The bit about coffee and cigarettes for the animators is the best part of the cartoon. Other than that, it's the same old "Mouse beats up stupid cat" theme that was already years past anything original or valid.

Deitch's style is way too eerie and absurd (see his Popeye cartoons--they ain't much better), and should NEVER have been used for a "serious" studio's product. This is the sole example of where it seemed to work.

Growing up, I didn't realize that this short had narration. When I was watching the same short in another state years later, I suddenly noticed the narration (especially the coffee and cigarettes part) but every time I saw this on the WPIX NY station, there was only music and sound fx. That made for a trippy ride. But then again, I grew up on a lot of cartoons that were considered trippy. A lot of cartoons today are either too talky or everyone's shouting. But it does raise the question, why was there a version of this without narration? But this is one of the Gene Deitch T&J cartoons that I remember the most. It looked like it was set in some sort of two dimensional Be-bop Jazz world, which actually worked for the music that was playing. It never occurred to me that these were not American made, only that they were different from the Chuck Jones cartoons as much as the Chuck Jones toons were different from the Hanna Barbera (40s-50s) versions. Of course the classic HB shorts are the best, but I would put the Deitch versions a close second just because I like the atmospheric mood. It's just too bad that Gene Deitch hasn't been more prolific. His trippy style, while admittedly unusual for T&J, would have been ideal for serious science fiction adventure cartoons.