Monday, March 14, 2016

Toon Sports: Tom & Jerry take up tennis (1975)

Tom & Jerry hit the tennis court in this 1975 short, "The Tennis Menace". The writers were bent on having Tom be a feline Dick Dastardly, since they couldn't do the same things that made their classic MGM shorts so great. Unfortunately, like Dastardly, Tom's underhanded success is kept short-lived.



Doesn't Big Bertha look like Spike's twin sister?

Rating: B.

2 comments:

Goldstar said...

This was during the 1970s, when organizations such as Action for Children's Television (ACT) were clamping down on the broadcast networks in an attempt to make Saturday morning TV as non-violent as possible. Since Tom and Jerry weren't allowed to chase each other on SatAM, the shows' writers would instead have T&J occasionally compete against one another in sports competitions (with Tom typically taking the Dick Dastardly role as the cheater who never prospers). Otherwise, the ABC cartoons would just have T&J hanging out and being buddies with each other, making "The Tom & Jerry Show" more reminiscent of H-B's Ruff & Reddy.

hobbyfan said...

Let's see. We've seen them bowl and play tennis. There's also a ski episode or two.