Gene Deitch on Tom and Jerry, Popeye, Krazy Kat and Pietro Shakarian

[J Lee]

In case you haven't seen his website, he has a long series of pages on his history in animation.

The Tom and Jerry pages, including his mention on Pietro, are here (http://genedeitch.awn.com/index.php3?ltype=chapter&chapter=20&page=1), while the section on making the King Features Syndicate Popeye and Krazy Kat cartoons are here. (http://genedeitch.awn.com/index.php3?ltype=chapter&chapter=21)

I think he goes a little bit overboard when he says:


Today, our T&Js are mixed right in with the earlier Hanna-Barbera's on the Cartoon Network, and I am confident that few viewers find them that much out of synch with the originals, whereas Chuck's are easily spotted as odd. Chuck himself wrote me that he simply remade the characters as his own.

Though he does say the staff was getting the hang of the cartoons when MGM canceled the contract, and I agree the last one, "Carmen Get It" was the best of the series.

[J Lee]

Whoops! Alomst forgot -- the Terrytoons sections are here (http://genedeitch.awn.com/index.php3?ltype=chapter&chapter=14) and here (http://genedeitch.awn.com/index.php3?ltype=chapter&chapter=15A) and here. (http://genedeitch.awn.com/index.php3?ltype=chapter&chapter=15B) Happy reading -- there are a lot of pages.

[Sogturtle]

John~

Thanks for the links to the Deitch pages, the Tom & Jerry pages were interesting. Buuuuuut Mr. Deitch's view of his ummmmm "eccentric" version of T&J is, I would adjudge much, much too rosy (bordering on the delusional). And to read his thinking that his Tom and Jerry films are much better than Chuck Jones... I don't think so!!! (A couple of his are better though than Abe Levitow's worst...for whatever that might be worth). Also is intriguing that he chooses to claim that he "...drew all of the key poses and layouts for our 12 Tom & Jerry films". He quite evidently has no memory whatsover that Lu Guarnier (WB Clampett veteran) and Gary Mooney drew the animation layouts for the first of "his" Tom and Jerry's, namely "Switchin' Kitten". Meaning that (besides some credited story input) his sole contribution to the directing of this cartoon was as "animation timer"... Also contrary to his recollection, Czech animator Vaclav Bedrich is credited by name on fully half of Deitch's Tom and Jerry toons.

As I remarked to J.J. Hunsecker privately a little while back, the Deitch runaway-MGM toons are the EXACT PARALLEL to what we are going to see with the new foreign-made Warner theatrical toons. Right down to lousy model sheets, crummy directing and cheapskate foreign animation... MGM in 1961 woke up and wisely pulled the plug on Deitch... Will Warner's wake up in 2003 and similarly nuke the Simpson's and Daria writers and foreign animated crapola???

(But to be fair there are some people who love the Deitch Tom and Jerry's, and that is fine. To each his own, that's how life should be).

[Daniel P]

It should also be known that his crew did 13 cartoons, not 12.

[Thad Komorowski]

Gee, has it ever come across anyone else (besides me and a few other TTTPers ;)) that it seems Deitch and his crew only watched two or three of the classic Tom and Jerrys by Bill and Joe, and formulated his series on those episodes? :confused: :o


Thad K

[Geezil]

Just My Opinion, but here's the closest-to-completely-fair way to look at the body of Gene Deitch's Terrytoons/MGM/King Features work: For MGM, he did the best he could with both hands tied; for King Features, one hand was freed to at least give him a small triumph with Krazy Kat; and at Terrytoons, he nearly always hit the bull's-eye, even if Bill Weiss never thought so. (Before reading Deitch's Terrytoons chapters, by the way, I'd never quite known that he personally took the handcuffs off of both Philip Scheib and Jim Tyer in their turn! A marvelous thing in itself.)

And, as anyone who saw and/or taped the early '90s syndicated Mighty Mouse and Friends half-hour (from Viacom, natch) will certainly recall, the CinemaScope versions of Clint Clobber and Gaston LeCrayon were very prominent in that mix! (Aside to any cable network staff members who might be reading this: Round up that series [if you can] plus "Totally Tooned In" [from Columbia/Tri-Star] and you'll have one solid killer hour of vintage animated shorts to plug into your schedule!)

(Sneaky, aren't I?) :D

[rodney]

I've only seen one Dietch T&J (Calypso Cat) and I thought it was awful. I've not much interest in seeing any of the rest.

[J Lee]

Well, I agree with Dietch that "It's a Living" was one of the funniest Terrytoons ever made, and certainly the most "adult themed" cartoon the studio ever did while using one of the original Terry characters. But I'd also assume that Gene has heard some bad reviews over the years for his T&J shorts, which may be why he went IMHO a little too far on the other side defending them.

He states in the chapter that he really wasn't fond of the Hanna-Barbera chase-and-painful-violence formula when it was foisted on him by producer William Snyder. Jones wasn't fond of it, either. But where Chuck avoided having to deal with the problem by remaking the characters into some sort of cross between the Road Runner-Wile E. Coyote and the Pussyfoot/Claude Cat/Mark Anthony series ("The Unshrinkable Jerry Mouse is virutally a direct steal from that series), Dietch tried to use the H-B formula, but his disdain for it comes out in a lot of the shorts, like "High Steaks," where the gags are just painful and not funny. (The problem of ex-UPAers having a general disdain/disinterest with using other popular Hollywood cartoon characters correctly would rear its ugly head again three years later when Rudy Larriva and crew got ahold of the Road Runner series)

"The Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit" must have been very carthetic for Deitch, since he got to lampoon the violence of the series while working with it at the same time, while as I said, the last cartoon of the series "Carmen Get It," was the best, so if the contract had been extended the level of the shorts might have gotten better (BTW -- It's interesting that both Dietch and Jones' best cartoons with T&J revolved around an opera setting, where they could make the violence link up to the music).

[simon]

Geezil, I remember the early '90s "Mighty Mouse & Friends", and even managed to tape about 8 hours' worth of it... I still have the tape now, but unfortunately it's pretty much on its last legs...

I really like Deitch's work at Terrytoons, in particular the Gaston Le Crayon series. One short, which I think is called "Gaston's Baby", is particularly fun, full of loopy Tyer animation and surreal gags...

Simon