That’s evidently what we get in Calypso Cat, where Tom attacks Jerry with a mould of gelatin dessert.
No, Tom, don’t play with your food! It’s dangerous.
The weird off-modelness of this scene can mean only one thing—it was produced by Gene Deitch.
Steven Konichek’s music certainly doesn’t sound like anything you’d hear in a cartoon. Or anywhere else, really. He starts the scene with an echo-ey vibraphone which gets suddenly cut off and replaced with a solo piano and flute while Tom fingers the Jello, which is interrupted by a squeak toy noise and some other odd sound when Jerry bites Tom. It then jumps into a jazzy number with vibes, drum/cymbal and a horn (maybe a trombone) for a few seconds. Later, we get a violin accompanied by a ratchet. There are continual tempo changes. A melodic score it’s not. And the acoustics sound like something in a subway tunnel.
Freelancer Larz Bourne came up with a story reminiscent of the Hanna-Barbera unit shorts where Tom is pining over Toots and ignoring Jerry. At least Joe Barbera’s stories had likeable characters and some laughs. This has Tom turned into a vibrating turtle.
For Gene Deitch, this Tom isn’t terrific.
Perhaps you'd prefer...Jello, with ALVIN in it!
ReplyDeleteThey should have had a spot where Clyde Crashcup invented Jell-O.
DeleteI was pretty tolerant of old theatrical cartoons when I was a kid. I'd even sit patiently through Happy Harmonies and mid-'30s Merrie Melodies, hoping for something better to come along afterward, but I couldn't stand those Dietch Tom and Jerry's. They were definite channel-changers.
ReplyDeleteDicky Moe! Dicky Moe!
DeleteI like them. Mid-30s MMs are intolerable, personally.
DeleteLooks like Deitch's Czech animator (Vaclav Bedrich, perhaps?) was channeling Jim Tyer, poorly.
ReplyDeleteLeonard Maltin wrote that the music for these cartoons "sounded like it was recorded in a lavatory," and I can only agree. The music scores were veering into a kind of Harry Partch vibe.
Unlikely he knew who a Jim Tyer was
DeleteThe Gene Dietch Tom and Jerrys were post-UPA Eastern European graphic style, which hasn't aged well. At least they, like the later Chuck Jones T&J's, avoid the impeccably rendered welts and bruises of the earlier cartoons (the ones that won Oscars). "Calypso Cat" is redeemed by its music track--also a product of its time.
ReplyDelete