Tom and Jerry (Chuck Jones era, 1963-1967)

The charm is back thanks to good ol' Chuck Jones.

In 1963, after leaving Warner Bros., Chuck Jones of the Looney Tunes fame, together with business partner Les Goldman, started an independent animation studio, Sib Tower 12 Productions, and brought on most of his unit from Warner Bros., including Maurice Noble and Michael Maltese. That same year, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contracted with Sib Tower 12 to have Jones and his staff produce new Tom and Jerry cartoons as well as a television adaptation of all Tom and Jerry theatricals produced to that date.

Shorts

1963

• "Pent-House Mouse" (Jones; July 27)

1964

• "The Cat Above and The Mouse Below" (Jones; February 25)
• "Is There a Doctor in the Mouse?" (Jones; March 24)
• "Much Ado About Mousing" (Jones; April 14)
• "Snowbody Loves Me" (Jones; May 12)
• "The Unshrinkable Jerry Mouse" (Jones; December 8)

1965

• "Ah, Sweet Mouse-Story of Life" (Jones; January 20)
• "Tom-ic Energy" (Jones; January 27)
• "Bad Day at Cat Rock" (Jones; February 10)
• "The Brothers Carry-Mouse-Off" (Pabian; March 3)
• "Haunted Mouse" (Jones; March 24)
• "I'm Just Wild About Jerry" (Jones; April 7)
• "Of Feline Bondage" (Jones; May 19)
• "The Year of the Mouse" (Jones; June 9)
• "The Cat's Me-Ouch" (Jones; December 22)

1966

• "Duel Personality" (Jones; January 20)
• "Jerry, Jerry, Quite Contrary" (Jones; February 17)
• "Jerry-Go-Round" (Levitow; March 3)
• "Love Me, Love My Mouse" (Jones; April 28)
• "Puss 'n' Boats" (Levitow; May 5)
• "Filet Meow" (Levitow; June 30)
• "Matinee Mouse" (Ray; July 14)
• "The A-Tom-Inable Snowman" (Levitow; August 4)
• "Catty-Cornered" (Levitow; September 8)

1967

• "Cat and Dupli-cat" (Jones; January 20)
• "O-Solar Meow" (Levitow; February 28)
• "Guided Mouse-ille" (Levitow; March 10)
• "Rock 'n' Rodent" (Levitow; April 7)
• "Cannery Rodent" (Jones; April 14)
• "The Mouse from H.U.N.G.E.R." (Levitow; April 21)
• "Surf-Bored Cat" (Levitow; May 5)
• "Shutter Bugged Cat" (Ray; June 23)
• "Advance and Be Mechanized" (Washam; August 25)
• "Purr-Chance to Dream" (Washam; September 8)

Why This Era Deserves A Piece Of Cheese

1. This era is a major improvement over the Gene Deitch-era, with improved writing and storylines, as well as bringing back the charm of the classic era (1940-1958).
   • If anything, Chuck Jones was the perfect choice to take over from where William Hanna and Joseph Barbera left off, unlike Gene Deitch.
2. The opening sequence is creative with Tom replacing Tanner the Lion in the MGM logo and meows in a similar fashion to a lion roaring.
3. It's a unique era for Tom and Jerry, as it has the same style as Chuck Jones' Looney Tunes cartoons.
   • This era even uses some of the Looney Tunes gags, and it shows that Chuck Jones and crew had a lot of fun with Tom and Jerry.
4. Tom and Jerry's revised character designs as well as other characters are impressive.
   • Tom now has big bushy eyebrows, a darker grey coat, furrier cheeks, and a longer tail, making him similar to Sylvester, plus Mel Blanc using his character's voice.
   • Jerry now has bigger ears.
   • Toodles Galore is given more cat-like features than in the Hanna-Barbera era (albeit still anthropomorphic), with two longer whiskers, puffier cheeks, and her tail is seen. She retains her white fur and blue eyes.
   • The Goldfish has an even cuter design than in Jerry and the Goldfish.
5. Great animation that is a huge step up from that of the Gene Deitch era. It also captures and replicates the style of a 1950s Looney Tunes cartoon.
6. Great music composed by Eugene Poddany, and it truly fits the 1960's era for the original theatrical cartoons.
7. They got Mel Blanc and June Foray to do the voice work.
   • In addition, the era made sporadic use of William Hanna's voice in certain shorts, unlike the previous era.
8. Tom and Jerry's chase sequences are fun to watch as usual.
9. Introduces some new characters, such as the Tiny Bulldog who serves as Jerry's bodyguard or mouse-sized pet and the Porpoise who appears as a new antagonist for Tom and Jerry.
10. A few characters return in this era, such as Toodles Galore in Love Me, Love My Mouse, Goldie the Goldfish in Filet Meow, Lightning in Catty-Cornered, and Spike and the Cuckoo the Canary in Matinee Mouse despite being stock footage).
    • St. Bernard Dog, a minor dog character from Puttin' on the Dog, was also given his first major role and given more personality in The A-Tom-Inable Snowman
11. Many great and memorable shorts to come from the era, such as:
    • Pent-House Mouse
    • The Cat Above and The Mouse Below (considered the best one)
    • Snowbody Loves Me
    • Bad Day at Cat Rock
    • Of Feline Bondage
    • Duel Personality
    • The Mouse From H.U.N.G.E.R
    • I'm Just Wild About Jerry
    • Rock 'n' Rodent
    • The A-Tom-Inable Snowman
    • Surf-Bored Cat
12. While Gene Deitch already put in new ideas of having Tom and Jerry no longer taking place in a house, this era did it much better since not only did it execute the new ideas much better, some of them are wasted potential since a lot of the shorts with the new ideas used it well to a lot of comedic gags, well.. almost.

Bad Qualities

1. Mostly due to Gene Deitch-era's "slapstick", Chuck Jones' slapstick, sadly, oftentimes play it too safe.
2. Some scenes aren’t friendly.
3. Some episodes had tons of animation errors, likes Jerry, Jerry, Quite Contrary, where Jerry's nose suddenly disappears.
4. Shutter Bugged Cat, Matinee Mouse, The Brothers Carry-Mouse-Off, Jerry-Go-Round, Puss 'N' Boats, Guided Mouse-Ille and Advance and Be Mechanized were arguably the weakest episodes of the era, as most of them have very wasted potential and used some recycled footage from older Tom and Jerry shorts.
   • Bad Day at Cat Rock, in particular, is a rehash of the Looney Tunes cartoon To Beep or Not to Beep but with less charm.
   • The Year of the Mouse is a rehash of Looney Tunes cartoon Mouse Wreckers
5. While some characters from the classic era returned in this era, many other characters, such as Butch, Tyke, Nibbles, etc. don't appear in this era, which is a complete missed opportunity given by the fact this era ran for a time period during a decade that is marked the end of the Golden Age of American Animation (meaning all nickelodeon theaters would be closed in favor of cartoons going into television).
   • Nibbles could've made an appearance in The Year of the Mouse, but a similar unnamed mouse (just without a diaper and much older in appearance) appears in there instead of him. It's unknown if they appeared or not because they were given new designs, which can be hard to recognize.
6. Some of the titles aren't relevant to the shorts themselves, an example of this would be Bad Day at Cat Rock: The title is a pun on the western film Bad Day at Black Rock, but the short itself is set in a construction site.
7. After the 1960s, the Golden Age of American Animation (1928-1969), and Chuck Jones' time with Tom and Jerry, the franchise went downhill again during the 1970s and the 1980s.
   • Thankfully, Tom and Jerry went back up in quality again starting in the 1990s with Tom and Jerry Kids and has never lost its identity ever since.
8. While it's nice to hear Mel Blanc and June Foray (who also worked in the Hanna-Barbera era) in Tom and Jerry, Blanc's screams as Tom is not as iconic as William Hanna's, sounding more like combo of Allen Swift's Tom and a mute version of Sylvester.

Trivia

• Almost all of the shorts in this era have aired on Boomerang, Duel Personality was the only one that didn't.
• William Hanna and Joseph Barbera did come back to work on Tom and Jerry during this era, but only two or three shorts were made.

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