Tom & Jerry: The Golden Collection Volume Two Blu-ray
Posted February 5, 2013 10:52 AM by Webmaster
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has officially announced and dated the Blu-ray release of Tom & Jerry: The Golden Collection Volume Two. The second 2-disc collection of remastered classic shorts arrives on Blu-ray on June 11th. Volume One is already available for purchase.
Official synopsis: Tom and Jerry have chased their way over the funnybones and into the hearts of moviegoers, TV viewers and Internet users for generations, and the iconic team's adventures are unleashed inside this delightful 2-Disc Collection of 42 Remastered Shorts, plus Fun Bonus Features. Created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the beloved cat and mouse appeared in "Puss Gets the Boot" (in which Tom was called Jasper and Jerry went unnamed) and became instant stars whose hilariously diabolical rivalry delighted everyone.
Among these golden nuggets are three are Academy Award winners (Best Short Subject: Cartoons), including "The Little Orphan," in which Jerry takes care of Nibbles, a hungry little mouse who causes chaos at the Thanksgiving table; "The Two Mousketeers," which features Jerry and Nibbles as two mousketeers who try to help themselves to a banquet that Tom is guarding; and lastly, "Johann Mouse," which stars Jerry as a music-loving, little mouse who lives with composer, Johann Strauss in Vienna. The collection also showcases two Academy Award-nominated shorts: "Hatch Up Your Troubles," which features a baby woodpecker who thinks Jerry is his mother, and "Jerry's Cousin," which has Jerry summon the help of his cousin, aptly named Muscles, to show him how to defend himself against Tom.
Other featured cartoons include "Just Ducky," in which Jerry teaches Quacker, a darling baby duckling, how to swim, and "Smitten Kitten," which features Tom, who falls head over heels for a beautiful feline, prompting his losing all interest in chasing after Jerry. The tussling twosome conduct an orchestra in "Tom and Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl." In "Saturday Evening Puss," Jerry's beauty sleep is interrupted when Tom invites his buddies over for a party that includes plenty of loud music. In "Tennis Chumps," all sorts of bad things happen to Tom; his racket catches fire, he becomes tangled in the net and swallows a bunch of tennis balls before he looses the match to Jerry, who wins a trophy.
Bonus materials include six new audio commentaries and an all-new featurette, "Animal Antics: The Friends and Foes of Tom and Jerry." Each cartoon has been re-mastered from the best surviving/earliest generation film elements, in order to create a reproduction that is most faithful to the original. Shorts include:
Disc 1
1. Polka-Dot Puss
2. The Little Orphan
3. Hatch Up Your Troubles
4. Heavenly Puss
5. The Cat and the Mermouse
6. Love that Pup
7. Jerry's Diary
8. Tennis Chumps
9. Little Quacker
10. Saturday Evening Puss
11. Texas Tom
12. Jerry and the Lion
13. Safety Second
14. Tom and Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl
15. The Framed Cat
16. Cue Ball Cat
17. Jerry and the Goldfish
18. Jerry's Cousin
19. Sleepy-Time Tom
20. His Mouse Friday
21. Slicked Up Pup
Disc 2
1. Nit-Witty Kitty
2. Cat Napping
3. The Flying Cat
4. The Duck Doctor
5. The Two Mouseketeers
6. Smitten Kitten
7. Triplet Trouble
8. Little Runaway
9. Fit to Be Tied
10. Push-Button Kitty
11. Cruise Cat
12. The Dog House
13. The Missile Mouse
14. Jerry and the Jumbo
15. Johann Mouse
16. That's My Pup!
17. Just Ducky
18. Two Little Indians
19. Life with Tom
20. Puppy Tale
21. Posse Cat
My initial view was YES!!!!! FINALLY!! Now, however, I am pissed. They skipped over short #38 "MOUSE CLEANING"!!!
It was omitted from Volume 1 and if I remember, I read somewhere an official response was that it was being restored "at great expense" for Vol. 2. My dreams of a complete box set are probably not realistic, but these Volume editions are silly if they don't include ALL of them. If this is some new political correctness crap, then why put "His Mouse Friday" on it unless we are getting a butchered version there too?
Someone at Warner Brothers needs to address this glaring omission- pronto! I see a lot of NO SALES over this. Please let this be an error of early news...
SECOND OMISSION: OK folks, it must be official political correctness here... ANOTHER short, #55 "Casanova Cat" has not appeared in the list between "Cue Ball Cat" and "Jerry and the Goldfish"... see Wikipedia's list of T+J shorts here:
BOTH episodes are listed as being left off the Spotlight DVD collections for taboo content. This makes me doubt that "His Mouse Friday" will be uncut as in "full Jerry vocals" and no cropping the native's big lips at the end sequence... it will likely be one or the other like on previous editions.
Let's do this to music next.. No "Brown Sugar" for the Rolling Stones on a complete box set?
Hopefully those two shorts are part of the "Fun Bonus Features". I could see WB not wanting them to be on the "main list" and also wanting to have a separate, PC-explanation before those shorts play. *crosses fingers*
They make me sit through that minute long scolding about how insensitive I am, every time I watch my first set, and then they're going to further infantilize me. Great.
This is a load of B.S. These Blu-Ray's are supposed to be aimed squarely at collectors (unlike the earlier Spotlights and the glut of Wal-Mart-friendly compilations). We should be over the missing cartoons thing already.
The bigger question for me is, did they include better quality audio this time? I waited for the the Looney Tunes and other animated collections to enter the bargain bin before I bought because of the DVD-quality audio. While I don't expect DTS-HD 1.0 on every short, at least 320kbit/sec Dolby Digital mono like Disney does on their "classic" shorts would be better than what we're getting.
I *still* can't believe they released 'What's Opera, Doc?' with such a low quality audio encode.
@Matt - the recordings of the shorts are not of very high fidelity. Even in lossless, the bitrate required isn't much more than the lossy versions. An example: the movie "Chinatown", recorded in 1974, the 2.0 lossless TrueHD mono track averages only 331kbps! That's with Jerry Goldsmith's evocative score!
Boycotting these releases because of lossy audio isn't a good reason: your ears aren't missing anything. This is important, especially since overall sales count towards Warner deciding whether to continue releasing these cartoons at all. While I prefer lossless, I'd rather have these on Blu-ray in lossy than not at all.
Say they add the two omitted shorts as bonus features... THAT would be better than nothing but still it is both further "scolding" to tuck it away and annoying when you want to watch them in chronological order. This continues to encourage end users to take matters into their own hands and rip disc contents to hard drives... chronological episodes, no 1 minute nag screen, etc. Unfortunately, this also then makes it easier to share said content to the rest of the frustrated world... these companies bite the hand that feeds. The "it's better than nothing [regarding the other included 42 shorts]" believers may be the first in line for said sharing. The UK DVDs have them, and people imported them so your hands are clean WB.
I'm NOT buying this otherwise wonderful looking set. WB, here's what you do to fix it... the music world offers an explicit and clean version of albums [i.e. Avril Lavigne] no? Why not release two sets and let the buyer dictate what they want to buy so you don't have to worry about PR, legal, or 1 minute nag screens.
Unless fans refuse to buy and hit them in the wallet, this BS continues... MTV's "The State" DVD debacle was absurd considering what "Freaks and Geeks" paid for music rights, etc. I'm not in the "it's better than nothing" camp. Fans will pay for what they remember...
ACTUAL bonus features I hope for are the two alternate versions of Saturday Evening Puss...they are "less than" to me but for posterity I'd include them:
1. Same animation but re-dubbed Mammy Two Shoes,
2. The reanimated version with the 50's teen white chick babysitter.
Why is this being released in canada on march 19 ! and the us version on june 11 ???????? the complete set till 1958 cinemascope shorts should all have been available by now !!!! 2012 nothing why ?????? unhappy collector WB !!!! Boooooooooo!!
I, for one, welcome cleaned up high def versions of these classics and will be pre-ordering. I have a DVD box with all the unedited originals and while I don't agree with the PC crap either I'll be happy to own whatever ends up on this set.
I say release them ALL! Are we that insecure, that everything has to be "sterilized"? These episodes were created in a
different time period, and we can't keep revisiting history. If anything, those episodes will show how far we've come!
I have the Laserdisc set, and never bought into the DVD's. Glad to see them on BD. I agree about the historic aspect of these shorts. They should be included. I think most people are "adult" enough to know that this is NOT how people think today!!
I really wanted these BD sets but I'm certainly not buying until Warner wake up to reality - if they're too yellow to release the proper versions of these sets then why don't they sub-license them to a smaller independent company who would be willing to take whatever 'risk' Warner think is associated with this?
Unfortunately here in the UK we got the heavily sanitised versions on DVD - they seem to sell well but mainly because most buyers are ignorant to what they're picking up (or they don't care). I personally left my money in my bank account.
So.. anyone care to speculate WHY they spent the cash (if they truly did for the print, AND truly restored it), if they don't intend to release it? Is it maybe for some "Censored 11" type of compilation MOD release? Maybe they will call it "The Censored 8"
I love the mentality that studio employees can watch and restore controversial footage but belong to a superhero level of tolerance and understanding that we the collectors couldn't nearly obtain or comprehend.
SERIOUSLY, IS THERE AN OFFICIAL WB REP OR CONTACT WE CAN TALK TO FOR SOME ANSWERS HERE?
UPDATE: If you want to contact Warner Bros. (Hersin Magante in particular), call or write:
Phone Number: 818-954-6000
Address Location:
Warner Home Video, Inc.
4000 Warner Boulevard
Burbank, CA 91522-0001
If calling, press 1 to search for an extension and enter "Magante Hersin". You'll get his voice mail. Leave him a voicemail regarding the absence of "Casanova Cat' and "Mouse Cleaning" on the "Tom and Jerry Golden Collection Blu-Ray". Be polite!
Perhaps the best way to get Warner's attention is to email their marketing director, Hersin Magante, directly. He is the person to contact. I do not know his email address, but if anyone finds it, please reply with it here. It is important to contact anyone at Warner Bros. Entertainment who will listen, and the only way to make SURE they listen is to bombard them with feedback. The bottom line? We need to let Magante and others at WB know, loudly but politely, that we care about these classic animated films and want them released properly for us to enjoy. Find his contact info, and we may find our solution.
Delete | Edit
After sifting through the first batch of 34 or so Amazon pre-order comments, I found this interesting tidbit:
"contact Jerry Beck on facebook and send him a message"
" S. A. Costa says:
I did contact Jerry via his e-mail. he told me that he wrote the liner notes for both cartoons and that they were supposed to be included in the set. Apparently someone at Warner Home Video has appointed themself "political commissar" and INTERFERED with the production of this set by omitting the two cartoons in question. BIG corporate mistake and it will cost them big too. I am boycotting this set until it is made right. "
The combination of this info and contacting Hersin Magante (THANKS FOR THAT CONTACT!!!) should be a step in the right direction. Though many want to vent, I second the request to please be respectful. Hersin may likely NOT be "the one" that made the decision making. Still, I would:
1. Make you points firm and clear.
2. ASK questions to prompt action... "When can we expect an update on our request?" "Who are the direct people to contact?"
3. The pressure should also be high in REQUESTING INFORMATION ON RETURNS/REFUNDS for VOL. 1. There should be a return program on the basis of false/misleading promises.
THAT might get them to throw their hands up and say "Fine.. give them what they want." I'd like to think MOST companies are not George Lucas. I still feel bad for those in the Rhino days who bought the GI Joe sets and got left hanging with no final set(s). If I find out more I will continue to update.
