Let me take you back a bit, to a more innocent time when the world seemed so big, you could be anything you wanted and the cold reality of money making the world go around was a thing. One of the place's our family frequented either on Sunday's or any day that we were craving southern food, we went to Cracker Barrel (yeah, remember how it felt to sit in a restaurant and not just order it and take it home, or be sat in a half filled room to ensure no one gets ill, god I hope the end of the tunnel is right ahead of us.) The food was fine (granted as a kid, anything sounded tasty that was not green.) The real draw was the store that you spent time in either waiting for a seat or just to browse real quickly before leaving. It was like stepping into a time machine with the toys, the candies and the DVD's they had on them. One such visit I spotted a dvd for two animated characters that were Tom and Jerry. I knew Tom and Jerry, cat and Mouse duo, one chases after the other, gets hurt more often than not for his actions or the latter just enjoys screwing with him, when you grow up with cartoon network/boomerang you have watched a good chunk of the Hannah-Barbara and Warner Brothers cartoon catalog from their golden years. But here it was a rather skinny, lanky man and a rather rotund, shorter fella and my young mind didn't know what to make of this, was this related to the Tom and Jerry I knew, of course I had to have it to see what this was about and after I asked my parents, the dvd was in my hand and soon found its way into a small dvd player, and that night I experienced many first, my first black and white cartoon, first cartoon with no real dialogue, and my first exposure to blackface...man my parents really did not want to explain that one to me.
An page from a picture book done by the animation studio
So this Tom and Jerry does not have any relation to the more iconic cat and mouse pair, this Tom and Jerry were a series of short animations released between 1931 and 1933 by animation studio Van Beuren, the studio had started life in 1920 when the Keith-Albee Organization set it up for animator Paul Terry, a man who even Walt Disney himself admired, wanting to make cartoons as funny as he did, which is ironic considering his reputation for cheap animations. and for 8 years that was fabled studios primary output, but in 1928, all of that changed when one of the producers at the studio, Amadee J. Van Beuren bought out the studio and renamed it after himself, because when you have the money to buy something out, you are probably important enough to have stuff named after you.
Van Beuren's full purchase of the company was due to the new advancements in film entertainment happening at the time, by the end of the 1920's, picture's with synchronized sounds, or talkies were picking up in popularity thanks in part to the release of 1927's Jazz Singer and people were wanting more of these talkies, no more music played over a picture, people wanted that synchro sound and Amadee wanted to bring the new Van Beuren into the future. One problem, that being the studio's lead animator, Paul Terry. Paul was not as sold on the idea about sound in animation as he saw it adding more time and complications to the animated process, he had already been active in the animation industry for over a decade and was not keen on moving along with the times, he even stated that if Walt Disney was Tiffany's, he was Woolworths, which basically stated they did the fancy cleaned up stuff and he was the five and dime shop where you get what you stuff on the cheap.
Despite continued resistance, Amadee finally got Paul to work on a sound cartoon and on September 1st, 1928, the...second attempt at synchronized sound in cartoon was attempted Dinner Time, the actual first attempt at synchronizing sound to animation was two year's prior with Fleischer animations My Old Kentucky Home, which saw the star of the cartoon a dog, speak the words "Follow the ball, and join in, everybody" while remarkable for the synchronization of the voice to the animation, it was only for that one line and focus was entirely on the lips.
But yeah as far as a first attempt at synchronized sound through the entire picture...yeah it does feel like the first attempt, the big thing was that it felt as if the entire thing was out of synch with the animation and audience members were not impressed at all, most damingly of all was Walt Disney, who said it was the worst Fable he had ever seen, and he had seen every one of them, Dinner time is nothing more than an interesting piece of the history of animation, a footnote of animation that would be forgotten when Disney himself released Steamboat Willie 4 months later and everyone kind of forgot about Dinner time and many people label it as the first fully synchronized cartoons.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, Mockie and Monney Mouse
Despite the failure of Dinner Time, Amadee did want to move foward with more sound cartoons much to the chagrin of Paul Terry who spent much of his remaining time at Van Beuren ignoring his boss. Unsurprisingly this got him fired and he would start his own studio where he wouldn't have to yield to the progress of time unless the people funding him threaten him to do it. Anyway, following Terry's departure, Amadee promoted John Foster as head of the animation department and soon after Foster attempted to give Van Beuren a defining character that people would remember them by, the first attempt was... let's just say a bit too close to Mickey and Minney mouse and that was dropped quickly, following that was a series that served as the prototype for our titular duo, Waffles the Cat and Don Dog. The duo had 4 shorts released throughout 1930 and if you go back and watch this alongside the tom and jerry cartoons, you can see where they are coming from, but enough about the history of the studio and the characters, lets get into the cartoons themselves.
Tom and Jerry well followed...well, a duo called Tom and Jerry, a long lanky dude and a shorter pudgier guy and their many misadventures either travelling the world or doing jobs. Yep its standard early cartoons alright, light on plot and mostly focusing on gags. Characterization is light here but there is a bit, Tom is the terrified guy who hopes to make something of himself, while Jerry is his more cool and level headed buddy. That's if they are showing that kind of personality and are not just there for recognition. The duo is based off another comedy duo that was also popular at the time , Mutt and Jeff.
Oh boy, more history, so Mutt and Jeff was a very popular newspaper comic (Yeah remember those) That featured a tall and meek character and a more stoic shorter rotund individual and their many misadventure of Mutt's get rich quick schemes, it is considered one of the first comic strips ever created.
Van Beuren's third cartoon duo, and their most remembered
Yeah just based off of their design it was very clear to many people in the 30's who their were inspired by and their first and to say that their first cartoon may have had some other influences. In it the duo find themselves in a haunted castle terrorized (okay, more specifically tom is terrified) by the creatures of the house and ends with the two of them being turned into skeletons because...because...because they wanted a tip, really that is about the only reason you can think of. While it is not as iconic Fleischers own Swing your sinners it is a good cartoon in its own right, it has some imaginative moments throughout, gives the basic personality of both characters through their actions, tom's scaredy cat nature and Jerry's more stoic nature. But that also leads to a issue of personality more specifically, a lack of personality.
While some shorts do follow these established personalities, sometimes they are complete blank slates and literally lacking in any personality. The most definitive example of their lack of a personality is in Pots and Pans where the duo is running a diner cart serving up the customers, and really this could've been anyone, this could've been two no names and it have the same effect because the previously established personalities are sidelined for granted some interesting scenarios which is often the savior of some shorts. I will give credit that they do a whole lot in their 3 years and 26 cartoons, from plumbers to attorneys. Journeying to the north pole and Africa, heading to the old west or working as piano tuners, and their is a lot put into the animation. On initial inspections you may think you are watching a slightly lower budget Fleischer, to a point that potentially Fleischer's own animators were moonlighting at Van Beuren and it does often look great. That being said their are some times where you an tell a character is part of the background like in the Bag where a group of cowboys are completely motionless, they also did reuse a gag from one short to another but outside of that their is some really solid visual humor here.
Can you tell which one is Van Beuren and which is Fleischer. (WIthout looking it up)
In terms of shorts that I really did like Trouble had me laughing at a few moments, Joint Wipers is a great musical cartoon and also is really solid, Spanish Twist is my personal favorites and Hooks and Ladder Hokum also carries some solid laughs. As for so lesser ones, not fond of Pots and Pans for how little personality it gives its leads, Pencil Mania wastes a rather inventive idea and one of the few times the duo is antagonistic to one another on some 1890's short being cut in for some reason. Rocketeers starts strong but falls flat after it heads underwater and it is a shame considering some of the other shorts more surreal moments and Happy Hoboes is so unbelievably boring and generic I really can't say much about so we will just leave it at that.
Of course the one short on VB tom and jerry that confused me as a child was Plane Dumb, in which Tom and Jerry are making a non-stop filght to become heroes (early 1900's, flying was still this new and shiny means of transportation.) When Jerry states that they won't be safe in Africa, Tom pulls out a bucket of black paint and the two do blackface to disguise themselves...yep, and they also completely changed personalities as Tom is now a tough cynic and Jerry is now a cowardly figure. The reason behind this is that it was not inintally meant to be a short for Tom and Jerry, rather Amadee had envisioned the cartoon as starring cartoon versions of comedy duo Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, this never happened and was refitted into a tom and jerry short since they looked similar, except that they kept the same personalities so neither Tom and Jerry could be in character since. Look the practice of Blackface was awful, it appropriated black people and their culture and stereotyped them, yes it could be counted as introduced black culture to white but it is just another example of white's exploiting black culture for their own gain, the short is perfectly fine outside of the really outdated ideas even if it makes no sense how the paint also gave them the lips. Okay, now that we got through that moving on.
But despite that, it was hard to get around the fact that, its titular duo was often not the most interesting, as stated eariler, the personalities often didn't exist and they didn't have the most iconic of designs just two random dudes who didn't look any different from a good chunk of background characters and that these were basically rip-offs of an already existing iconic comedy duo that was still running in the papers, people were going to realize what the studio was trying to do. That was the weakness of Van Beuren they had animation that was surreal and imaginitive, but with no real Mickey Mouse or Betty Boop, they really couldn't recapture the days of Fabled studios.
Despite being its most iconic characters, the duo was still not capable of bringing in any kind of success and so after 3 years and 26 shorts, the shorts were discontinued to give the animators the time to focus on other projects. Notably midway through tom and jerry's run Foster was fired and replaced with George Stallings and began the major quest to find the definitive mascot which includes the iconic character you probably have never heard of Cubby Bear, who if you couldn't tell what he was meant to be based off of his design, well, it is less of a major rip off of another character unlike the last attempt and following that was adaptation of radio and comic strips Amon n' Andy and The little King that also didn't convert the studio back into namesake of its time
With these failure's Van beuren sought something new and in this case, he ended up getting a pretty big name for the time, Burt Gillett. At the time he was the director of the Silly symphonies Three little pigs which was big, even after its initial release theatres continued to play the shorts. Van beuren immediately recruited him after the shorts success as it also was a short that had well developed characters (for the time, the three pigs had distinction between them aside from being a slightly different pig) so seeing as how Van beuren wanted to get that iconic character, Gillett seemed like a good new lead for the company.
And Gillett brought a lot with him, Disney animators, techniques from Disney like the pencil test but despite that, once again nothing was resonating with audiences initially, Toddle Tales was a disappointment and it seemed like the studio couldn't catch a break. That was until the studio finally decided to go all in on color cartoons. The studio's Rainbow parade finallly began to resonate with audience, the first since the changeover to the Van beuren name, and yeah the shorts post Gillett are the most visually impressive of the Van beuren catalog, and it finally seemed like things were looking up for the little studio. And then it all came crashing down spectacularly.
In 1936, RKO decided to stop distributing Van beuren's cartoons, who did they decide to distribute for now, Disney, the exact same company who Van beuren recruited Gillett from. Van beuren tried to find a new distributor but was unable to and the studio after nearly a decade, 6 years and hundreds of shorts, Van beuren animation closed its door. following its closure the shorts they created were sold to Offical shorts who changed the name of certain cartoons and started airing them on television. But that was the end, after years of trying to get success with it finally in hand it all got taken away from him.
Truthfully, this was just meant to be an article over Tom and jerry but I ended up finding out a lot of more interesting things about the studio, what seemed like a very basic lower end studio somehow involved numerous rip offs, notable people within the animation industry and some wacked out animation and to end off this bittersweet story, we have one more notable face in animation. You see in 1932, a young man began working at Van beuren as an animator and story board artist, when the company closed down in 1936 he moved on to terrytoons and soon to mgm's new animation studio, where he would meet with a William Hannah and realized they worked very well together and their most famous creation, his name was Joseph Barbera, one half of the famous Hanna-Brbera who would go on to create the Flintstones, the Jetsons, and most ironically for Joseph, Tom and Jerry.
Quite the weird way everything comes full circle
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