Switchin' Kitten

Three years after shutting down their animation department, MGM contracted studio Rembrandt Films to produce thirteen Tom and Jerry shorts, all to be directed by Gene Deitch, the first of which was Switchin' Kitten, in which Tom pays a visit to a creepy castle where a mad scientist and his mouse assistant (Jerry) perform mind-swapping experiments on animals.

Produced on a tight budget, Deitch's animation is much cruder than that of Hanna and Barbera, with jerky movement and backgrounds rendered in a simpler style; also serving to make the films less satisfying than its predecessors is the sparse soundtrack that consists of bizarre electronic sound effects with heavy reverb.

Switchin' Kitten features some nice ideas (I like Tom being sucked through the glass scientific equipment, and his discovery of the subjects of the scientist's previous experiments), but lacking the charm and sophistication of Hanna-Barbera's work, Deitch's cartoon is, for the most part, quite painful to watch (and listen to).

I'm going to put this as politely as possible! IT SUCKS! Seriously had Gene Dietch ever even seen a Tom and Jerry cartoon?! Boy did he really mess it up. This is simply just a horrible short! I'm glad Chuck Jones later took over and fixed things up!

Zero(0)out of 4(****)stars

After the very crappy and lame Tom and Jerry shorts animated by CinemaScope, Gene Deitch decided to revive Tom and Jerry with an awesome cartoon.

This episode is very good and funny! I love the "brain switched" gags in this episode. The music is great, kinda weird, but good. The sounds effects are also weird. But this was an awesome cartoon

The only problem with this episode is the animation, Tom and Jerry looked a bit ugly for me in these shorts.

Anyways, in general, a good and funny Tom and Jerry cartoon. 10/10.

In the early 1960s, some evil trolls at MGM decided to revive the Tom and Jerry series but wanted it done with practically no budget at all. So, the cartoons were farmed out to be done in Czechoslovakia by people that had hardly any notion of who the characters were. As a result, they didn't look all that much like Tom and Jerry and they acted nothing like the originals. Apparently, the staff hadn't really seen the cartoons before but that didn't stop them! This cartoon isn't interesting at all. In fact, it's downright boring. And its production values are abysmal. It's really a shame as classic Tom and Jerry cartoons of the 40s and 50s were great cartoons. MGM in 1960-61 chose to abandon its fans and serve up this horrid mess! For shame, MGM.

This premiere episode of the Gene Deitch era of Tom and Jerry scores major points for its nice backgrounds and story. Where this episode fails is in its execution. The events of the story unfold in a very boring way and the animation is very poor. The character designs of our titular duo are horrendous in most instances. A few fleeting moments in the short , they look just like their Hanna Barbara counterparts. The music by Victor Little (aka Vaclav Lidl) is a triumph and far superior to that of his replacement on this series. Stephen Konicek. All gags in this episode fall flat except for that strange flower gag.