When I first decided to write a series of essays about the cartoons that were most prevalent in my childhood, I knew from the very start that there would have to be a caveat: while it was primarily my goal to explore the influence of cartoons from that specific era, I was going to be sorely remiss if I didn't expand the scope to include Tom and Jerry.

Tom and Jerry cartoons -- created by the legendary William Hanna and Joseph Barbera for MGM Studios -- came about during the Second World War, and were designed for theatrical use, being paired with the feature films coming out of MGM. The franchise was in its heyday all throughout the late forties and fifties, and like the similarly-designed cartoons from Warner Brothers and Disney, would gradually find new life being aired on television, where many still continue to flourish even to this day.

It was in this capacity, of course, that I was introduced to them, and really, it's fair to equate Tom and Jerry to being something of a gateway drug. It was one of the first cartoon shows that I can actively recall watching -- it was airing regularly in the mornings at the time (after The Flintstones as I recall), and I would watch it every day at my grandma and grandpa's house, either during the brief layover between my mom dropping me off and my grandma taking me to preschool, or as the start of her keeping me for the day. (Unrelated note: I can also thank my Grandma Waltz for getting me hooked on The Price is Right, which as been another life-long televised vice.)

Looking at it from my eyes at the time, I loved it because it was wild, unpredictable, colorful, and fun. There's nothing that hyperactive kids can relate to quite as well as a quality chase cartoon -- an art form that arguably can still hold its own in modern times, even as generations from mine on are riddled with attention problems, brought on mostly by television. But most Tom and Jerry cartoons seem to almost transcend issues like this, as the perfected Hanna Barbera form is almost incomparable when it comes to the key element of timing -- each camera shot takes its time playing out, avoiding rapid cuts, but the action in each shot is timed with such elegance that it gives even the most spastic brain something to focus on.

Of course, I am given the luxury of understanding all of this approximately twenty-five years after the fact, when present day me is able to look back at his younger self eating really, really buttery toast, drinking hot chocolate, and watching The Tom and Jerry Show, which was the incarnation of the series at the time. (For those of you that may be trying to jog your own memories of this, it was the series that had opening credits of Tom warring with Jerry in a room full of toys, coming to the point of Tom chasing Jerry in a toy airplane.)

In preparation for writing this particular piece, I dropped $20 on the newly released Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection, which is a two-disc compilation of 40 shorts including all the Academy Award nominees and all seven of the winners in its category. Roughly 36 shorts later -- I skipped several toward the end for the sake of time -- I found that even though my much-older eyes, that Tom and Jerry can actually be compared to a really fine wine. It doesn’t necessarily get better with age, per se, but watching it at the age of twenty-nine, I can appreciate it on entirely new levels.

At the base level, it is and ever shall be a chase cartoon, to be sure -- but the thing you really come to appreciate about the pursuit is that it never quite seems to be the same chase twice. There's always an immersion into the environment, be it house, yard, golf course, or dude ranch. The writers pay much more attention to the smallish elements in each given space, so while yes, there's going to be the occasional lighting of a stick of dynamite, for every instance of that, there's a much more practical use of something like a piece of spouting, or a set of glassware on a side table. One short manages to spend almost its entirety with the principal prop being a hammock.

The shorts evolve with a level of finesse that you simply can't comprehend as a child. When young, you see Tom get hit with a frying pan, and you know his face is going to come away in the shape of that same pan. As an adult, however, you recognize that you see variations of the "shape of impact" gag a lot, but they always manage to be different. Gags don't seem so much repeated as they are reinvented.

The other component of this is the depth of the writing when it comes to taking the established box of a chase scenario and working around it, even a bit outside of it. Great examples of this are found in the shorts "The Truce Hurts," wherein Tom, Jerry, and occasional player Spike the Dog put aside their warring ways, and attempt to live in peace with each other only to renew the squabble over a steak, and "The Cat Concerto," which features Tom attempting to play the piano at Carnegie Hall, only to be foiled and upstaged by the piano-dwelling Jerry. "Truce" is a great example because it illustrates the importance of having the chase as the root of the cartoon without actually using it. "Concerto" serves as a standout example making the concept work in an unusual environment -- the two principals never leave the piano during the piece, and the direction of the animation employs facets of the piano wildly as an offensive tool on both sides, all while continuing the underlying action of the cat OR the mouse playing along with the orchestra. "Concerto" is one of the aforementioned Oscar winners.

Finally, the aspect that surprised me most -- watching many of the shorts in sequence largely revealed to me that the instigation of the feuding in each cartoon was actually divided with a measure of equality. For every time we were greeted at the beginning with Jerry being somehow abused by Tom, there seem to be just as many circumstances where Jerry either directly picks a fight and initiates the chase, or where he blatantly disregards the natural order of things and provokes Tom by stealing food from him. Also commonly seen is the device where Tom's ability to pursue Jerry is impeded in some way, and the mouse will always take advantage of the situation and rather than go about his mouse business, will purposely antagonize Tom until he is forced into his own defeat. Occasionally the conflicts ends in something resembling a draw, but Tom will never win outright. In many ways, the cat is an underdog.

Watching all of these shorts has really only served in the end to solidify my thought that the franchise is my favorite cartoon of all time. In fact, rather than have its age detract from my affection for it, it's really only served to enhance it. I fully intend to introduce my own (future) children to it, and if they don't like it as much as I do, I'm going to feel like someone's just dropped a bowling ball on my head from the top shelf of a closet.