Alt Name: | The New Tom and Jerry Show |
Creator: | William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
Theme Music Composer: | Hoyt Curtin |
Opentheme: | "The Tom & Jerry Show" |
Endtheme: | "The Tom & Jerry Show" (Instrumental) |
Composer: | Hoyt Curtin |
Country: | United States |
Network: | ABC |
Producer: | Iwao Takamoto (creative producer) |
Num Episodes: | 16 (48 segments) |
Runtime: | 23 minutes (7 minutes per segment) |
Related: | The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show (1980) |
The Tom & Jerry Show is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in association with MGM Television. Based on the Tom and Jerry theatrical cartoon series, which was created by H-B co-founders and former MGM cartoon studio staff William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the show originally aired on ABC from September 6 to December 13, 1975 (for a total of 16 episodes) as the first half of The Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape/Mumbly Show, with The Great Grape Ape Show representing the series' second half and The Mumbly Cartoon Show representing the series' third half.[1] This series marked the first time that Tom and Jerry appeared in animated installments produced specifically for television.[2]
Unlike other incarnations, Tom and Jerry are shown as friends instead of enemies, and this series did not use the slapstick chases and the violence central to the theatrical shorts, due to concerns at the time regarding such material on children's programming.[3]
A total of 48 seven-minute Tom & Jerry shorts were produced in 1975[3] and originally aired in these following formats on ABC Saturday morning:
Immediately following the end of the original ABC run, these cartoons were edited within the main and end title credits and added to run with theatrical-era MGM Tom and Jerry cartoons from 1940 to 1967 for syndication by MGM until 1986 (H-B retained ancillary rights to the Mumbly and Grape Ape segments, with syndication rights to those segments going to Worldvision Enterprises from 1979 until 1991). Some independent television stations in the 1980s have aired the Tom and Jerry segments without the Mumbly and Grape Ape segments in their syndicated Tom and Jerry package as part of some stations' lineup, such as WFLD in Chicago and WYAH in Portsmouth, Virginia.
Since 1986, it has been rebroadcast on TBS, Cartoon Network, Boomerang and Canada's Teletoon and Teletoon Retro (the former three networks are part of Warner Bros. Discovery's Warner Bros. Discovery Networks, which Turner Broadcasting System purchased the pre-1986 MGM library in 1986 and Hanna-Barbera in 1991).
The cartoons have been shown with the main and end title credits intact on TBS, Boomerang streaming service, and Cartoon Network.
From 1985 until 1995, ATN, later Seven Network (the Australian "American Broadcasting Company") aired the show in Australia.
The premiere episode (show #TJGA-1, September 6, 1975) of The New Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape Show was released as part of Warner Home Video's Saturday Morning Cartoons – 1970s Volume 2 on October 27, 2009;[4] it marked the first home video release of the 1975 made-for-TV version of Tom and Jerry. Another cartoon, episode #80-15, "Cosmic Cat and Meteor Mouse", is included as part of the , which was released by Warner Home Video on June 22, 2010.[5] The episode (show #TJGA-11, November 15, 1975) of The New Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape Show was released as the digital version of Tom and Jerry: School's Out. 2 episodes was released as the digital version of Tom and Jerry: House Pests. Most episodes of this incarnation, with exceptions of "Gopher Broke", "Grim and Bear It", "The Flying Sorceress", "The Egg and Tom and Jerry", and "The Lost Duckling", are available on the Boomerang streaming service.[6] A complete series DVD set has not yet been announced.
When Joseph Barbera was asked in 2000 by The Guardian if public pressure had resulted in Tom and Jerry being less violent in this show, he said that the same arguments were going on 50 years ago.[7]