Tom and Jerry’s Greatest Chases

Tom and Jerry will always remain favourites in the children’s animation world. Even at over 50 years old there cartoons will still get a laugh, even from the grown ups.

The combined relationship between the characters of friendship and even disrespect still gets a laugh even without the language and often-violent behaviour in characters in today’s short animations for children. Other than the classic Disney animations there aren’t a lot of classics left like Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny and even Porky Pig.

There are 14 different cartoons on offer here and each different in their own way and telling a different story. At the same time it is always Tom who gets the short end of the stick and his witty over the top action generates a multitude of entertaining chases.

So how does this transfer hold up?

Video Quality

All 14 cartoons are presented in a full frame format, which is to be expected of material of fifty years old.

There isn’t really too much to comment on here but basically the animation is your stock standard Hanna Barbera style. The images don’t have a lot of depth to them but animation wasn’t really at a stage where this was possible in the 1940’s.

The colour palette is still quite well rendered although at times seemed a little dull and could have a little more work in the transfer to digital media.

The overall image was not greatly sharp and did suffer from grain but again this is an inherent quality in the source material.

The only other major influence on the video transfer was the amount of film artefacts. This can be attributed to the source material but could have also been improved with a little more work.

Audio Quality

The Dolby 1.0 track was flat and lifeless as a mono track. Entirely based out of the front centre there is little to expect from this track. The composition varied only slightly between each cartoon, as each was mainly music and sound effects.

After a while this became quite repetitive but suits the style of animation.

The sound track is made of continuous tunes from around the 40’s era and some nice classical pieces.

There is little dialogue and that which we do get is dull and often hard to understand.

Features

Featurette: The Worry Song. This is a nice little video clip 8 minutes worth of Gene Kelly and Jerry in a dancing show.

Overall

This is certainly something you would only buy under pressure for the kids.

Review Equipment
TV: GE 68cm (16:9 selectable)

DVD: Pioneer 737

Receiver: Yamaha DTS RX-V595a

Speakers:-

Fronts: Wharfdale Diamond R6 (on a pair of custom made stands you'd KILL for)

Centre: Venturi

Rears: Sony bookshelf

Sub: M and K V75