Deitch states that, being a member of the
United Productions of America (UPA), he has always had a personal dislike of
Tom and Jerry, citing them as the "primary bad example of senseless violence – humor based on pain – attack and revenge – to say nothing of the tasteless use of a headless black woman stereotype house servant."
[12] Štěpán Koníček, a student of
Karel Ančerland conductor of the Film Symphony Orchestra, and Václav Lídl provided the musical score for the Deitch short, while Larz Bourne, Chris Jenkyns, and
Eli Bauer wrote the cartoons. The majority of vocal effects and voices in Deitch's films were provided by
Allen Swift.
[13]
For the purposes of avoiding being linked to Communism, Deitch altered the names for his crew in the
opening credits of the shorts (e.g., Štěpán Koníček became "Steven Konichek", Václav Lídl became "Victor Little").
[12] These shorts are among the few
Tom and Jerry cartoons not to carry the "Made In Hollywood, U.S.A." phrase at the end.
[12] Due to Deitch's studio being behind the
Iron Curtain, the production studio's location is omitted entirely on it.
[12] In the midst of production, Joe Vogel, the head of production, was fired from MGM, who ordered Deitch and his team to finish the shorts and rush them out to release. The contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer expired,
[12] and the final of the thirteen shorts,
Carmen Get It!, was released on December 1, 1962.
[9]
Tom pokes Jerry in
High Steaks, one of the 13 films produced by the Deitch/Snyder team.
Since the Deitch/Snyder team had seen only a handful of the original
Tom and Jerry shorts, and since Deitch and Snyder produced their cartoons on a tighter budget of $10,000, the resulting films were considered unusual, and, in many ways, bizarre.
[9][12] The characters' gestures were often performed at high speed, frequently causing heavy motion blur. As a result, the animation of the characters looked choppy and sickly. The soundtracks featured sparse music, futuristic
sound effects, dialogue that was mumbled rather than spoken, and heavy use of
reverb. Fans that typically rooted for Tom criticized Deitch's cartoons for never having Tom become a threat to Jerry, mainly due to the constant intervention of his replacement owner – a corpulent, grumpy middle-aged white man (with serious temper problems, often going red in the face similar to Deitch's earlier "Clint Clobber"
[14] character at
Terrytoons), whom was also more graphically brutal in punishing Tom's mistakes as compared to Mammy Two-Shoes, by beating and thrashing Tom repeatedly, searing his face with a grill, and forcing Tom to drink an entire carbonated beverage. Despite their large lack of popularity, the Gene Deitch
Tom and Jerrycartoons are still rerun today on the Cartoon Network and Boomerang channels on a semi-regular basis.
[12]
Deitch's
Tom and Jerry shorts have seen limited release outside of
Europe and
Asia; all thirteen shorts are currently available in
Japan, where they have been ported to the
Tom and Jerry & Droopy laserdisc and VHS, and the
United Kingdom, where the shorts are available on the B-side of the
Tom and Jerry: Classic Collection volume 5 DVD. The only three shorts to have seen DVD release in the
United States are
The Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit,
Down and Outing, and
Carmen Get It!, where they are included on the
Paws for a Holiday VHS and DVD,
[15] Summer Holidays DVD and
Musical Mayhem DVD.
All thirteen shorts were commercial successes; in 1961, the
Tom and Jerry series became the highest-grossing film series of all-time, dethroning the
Looney Tunes series which had held the position for sixteen years; this success was repeated once more in 1962.
[11] However, unlike the Hanna and Barbera shorts, none of Deitch's films were nominated nor did they win an
Academy Award.
[11] The episodes created by Deitch have generally been less favorably received by audiences. In his review for
Tom and Jerry: The Chuck Jones Collection, Paul Kupperberg of Comicmix called the shorts "perfectly dreadful" and "too often released", as well as a result of "cheap labor".
[16] Deitch has frequently defended his films; in an interview with the
New York Times, when asked about working on the
Tom and Jerry series, Deitch responded "All the experts say [my shorts are] the worst of the 'Tom and Jerry', [...] I was a UPA man – my whole background was much closer to the Czechs. 'Tom and Jerry' I always considered dreck, but they had great timing, facial expressions, double takes, squash and stretch," all of which the interviewer stated were "techniques the Czechs had to learn," adding, "The Czech style had nothing in common with these gag-driven cartoons."
[17]
