Joe Barbera tosses in a second cat into the Tom and Jerry battle in “Sufferin' Cats” (1942). The plot’s simple. The cats battle each other while trying to chase the mouse. It has all the stuff that make the Tom and Jerry series lots of fun for a number of years—subtle pantomime by Jerry, thrashings of long limbs by the felines (all that movement is so exaggerated it doesn’t slow down the picture, even though the cats really aren’t getting too far), and poundings of Tom. Or, in this case, an anonymous cat.
Tom has a frying pan.
Down it comes.
Then the background changes to a solid colour to emphasize the impact.
Fans of Tom and Jerry are so used to the same animators, it seems odd finding these names on an early title card.
George Gordon moved on to John Sutherland, Wilson (Pete, not Peter) Burness to Warners and then UPA, Jack Zander headed back East to commercial house Transfilm and eventually opened his own studio.
George Gordon also worked at Hanna-Barbera in the late 70s as director.
ReplyDeleteOut of the early animators, Pete Burness is the least obscure one. During the final years of WWII, he was always credited. Jack Zander and George Gordon on the other hand are more unknown T&J animators, since they were mostly uncredited. Jack and George have been credited only three times,although Jack's final credit (in The Yankee Doodle Mouse) was unfortunately removed in 1951. George's credit was still there, however.
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