| Overview: | In the early 1950s, with the popularity of television threatening moviegoing, the Hollywood motion picture studios tried a variety of gimmicks (including 3D, Cinerama, and Smell-O-Vision!) to keep the audiences coming. Only the wide-screen anamorphic process, known as CinemaScope, is still used regularly today.
MGM embraced the new technology and began filming most features and shorts in CinemaScope by 1955. By this same time, Hanna and Barbera had also adopted the contemporary stylized appearance of the U.P.A. (United Productions of America) studio in their animated cartoons--sparse, colorful background art, less realistic character designs and settings, etc.--thus creating a new look for the later Tom & Jerry cartoons.
The widescreen format necessitated certain changes in production. Long pan backgrounds were common in animation for moving shots, but now extra wide background paintings had to be done for the simplest close-up. Animator Irven Spence recalled, "Even the in-betweens had to be even more accurate, because the screen was so large you'd see any little wiggle or jump in the line". The CinemaScope Tom & Jerry cartoons carried on the tradition of slapstick comedy into a new age. They are some of the funniest animated films of the 1950s--and some of the classiest.
Contains the following episodes:
- Nit-Witty Kitty (1951)
- Cat Napping (1951)
- The Flying Cat (1951)
- The Duck Doctor (1952)
- The Two Mouseketeers (1952)
- Smitten Kitten (1952)
- Triplet Trouble (1952)
- Little Runaway (1952)
- Fit To Be Tied (1952)
- Push-Button Kitty (1952)
- Cruise Cat (1951)
- The Dog House (1952)
- The Missing Mouse (1951)
- Jerry And Jumbo (1951)
- Johann Mouse (1952 - Academy Award Winner)
- That's My Pup! (1952)
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