Tom & Jerry: Golden Collection, Vol. 1 [Blu-ray]

The REAL cartoons for serious collectors
I made no secret of my distaste for the censored version of the Tom and Jerry shorts available on the Tom and Jerry - Spotlight Collection DVD. Not only was history whitewashed to satisfy the PC Brigade (just who ARE these people anyway?) they were also in shocking condition with lots of dirt and scratches and generally terrible picture quality.

All is now fixed for this Blu Ray release from Warner, presenting the first 37 shorts, in chronological order, with brand new 1080p transfers from the best 35mm materials, Dolby 5.1 sound (HD sound is not confirmed at the time of writing, but these cartoons WERE released in Mono anyway and DD 5.1 is still a notable upgrade) and, most importantly, UN-EDITED AND UN-CENSORED. You will finally be able to see the REAL Mammy-Two-Shoes voiced by Lillian Randolph, and various other 'racially inflammatory' visual jokes.

The cartoons included are:...

Finest home video release the esteemed cat and mouse team has received
Clark Douglas, DVD Verdict --The first attribute is the chronological structure, which I imagine many fans (myself included) will be thrilled about. The first 37 Tom and Jerry theatrical shorts (beginning with their 1940 debut "Puss Gets the Boot" and continuing through the 1948 installment "Professor Tom") are presented in order over two Blu-ray discs, and it finally gives us an easy way to observe the subtle evolution of the characters over the years. The first impression one gets from watching these early Hanna-Barbera installments is that the famously antagonistic dynamic between the characters was firmly in place from the very beginning; there aren't any of those odd early shorts in which the characters feel like mere shadows of the icons they would eventually become (despite the fact that Tom looks a little strange and is named "Jasper" in his very first outing).

Animation purists will be pleased to note that this collection has indeed preserved the shorts as they...

How to determine which version you are watching.
**** - disc #1 (for both quality & content)
***** - disc #2 (for both quality & content)

Unlike Warner Brothers Cartoons that used the "Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodies" logo to tell you that you are watching a re-release print, MGM only put little clues into their titles to give a hint that you are not watching the original.
In this Blu-ray set you will see a variety of logos & title cards which is nice but it also tells us that this is not the way it originally was. Due to a fire in a film archive in the 1970's the original Nitrate Masters are lost, possibly forever. These versions are all that survive.

Here are some clues to look for, the MGM Logo is the biggest clue, followed by the use of the names TECHNICOLOR & PERSPECTA SOUND:

1934 to 1942 = The MGM logo is the regular MGM logo used in feature films,with a BLACK BACKGROUND, followed by a title card that says "AN MGM CARTOON IN TECHNICOLOR". 1960's re-prints dropped the name "TECHNICOLOR"...

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