After Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were given the ax on the Tom and Jerry shorts in the late 50's, MGM made a massive blunder in hiring Gene Deitch and William Snyder from the Soviet Prague to take their place when the studio wanted to make a new batch of T and J cartoons. The animation in Deitch's cartoons lacked any of the mannered and balanced feel of the Hanna-Barbara efforts or the timing of later Chuck Jones efforts, plus Deitch had all those irritating echoing sound effects that seemed out-of-place.
The one thing I always really hated about Deitch and his version of T and J was the disrespectful way he treated Tom. I have always liked Tom more than Jerry and some my favorite T and J shorts has Tom as the victor. Deitch never once showed Tom any of the dignity that Hanna and Barbera showed him or the way that Chuck Jones would later show him after Deitch was fired from the series. The character is ALWAYS making a fool of himself, getting beaten up for no reason, and is continuously getting one-upped by Jerry, usually with the mouse mean-spiritedly dancing and laughing in celebration nearby. Jerry was the winner in all 13 of Deitch's shorts, even at times when the little jerk clearly didn't deserve to win. However of all of the 13 pieces of crap that Deitch and Snyder put out,"Buddies...Thicker Than Water" was one of the only two decent cartoons that they made (the other being "Calypso Cat" with "Buddies" being the better of the two).
Here Deitch really did capture the feel of the H-B shorts and all of the tics that made those cartoons so great - Jerry can be generous at times and Tom can be selfish at times (and vice-versa), they get along for a few moments. As much as I dislike Jerry I will say that this was the only - and I do mean ONLY - Deitch short where I felt Jerry deserved to win and Tom to lose. The plot, as it goes, finds Tom in the freezing cold asking his chum Jerry for a warm place to sleep and eat. Jerry lives in a N.Y.C. penthouse and kindly lets Tom in. But then Tom double-crosses Jerry and gets the mouse thrown out in the cold so he can stay in the place instead. Jerry then enacts his "ghostly" revenge on the cat.
The one thing Deitch does well here is give this cartoon a real feel of horror as Jerry stalks Tom as a "ghoul". The echoing sound effects, blaring horns, and xylophones - the same crap that Deitch put in all of his "work" - doesn't get on your nerves like before. Instead here they work to the effect of the feel of the cartoon's weirdness (the scene where Tom and Jerry are giggling while getting drunk on a bottle of champagne sounds truly bizarre).
"Buddies...Thicker Than Water" truly stands out as one of the most weirdest and - if I can say this - freakiest of any the Tom and Jerry cartoons, a nice example of animated horror, and as I said above only one of two good cartoons by the worst director of the entire series.(Deitch even pompously believes his version of Tom and Jerry is better that the later Chuck Jones version. Yeah, like hell it is!) However I will say this, when they get around to putting out future volumes of Tom and Jerry on DVD I do hope that Warner Bros. and MGM puts a couple of Deitch cartoons in there. I don't really think that they should omit him completely because, like it or not, he IS a part of the T and J series as a whole. But I'll be really miffed if this cartoon isn't one of them.
The one thing I always really hated about Deitch and his version of T and J was the disrespectful way he treated Tom. I have always liked Tom more than Jerry and some my favorite T and J shorts has Tom as the victor. Deitch never once showed Tom any of the dignity that Hanna and Barbera showed him or the way that Chuck Jones would later show him after Deitch was fired from the series. The character is ALWAYS making a fool of himself, getting beaten up for no reason, and is continuously getting one-upped by Jerry, usually with the mouse mean-spiritedly dancing and laughing in celebration nearby. Jerry was the winner in all 13 of Deitch's shorts, even at times when the little jerk clearly didn't deserve to win. However of all of the 13 pieces of crap that Deitch and Snyder put out,"Buddies...Thicker Than Water" was one of the only two decent cartoons that they made (the other being "Calypso Cat" with "Buddies" being the better of the two).
Here Deitch really did capture the feel of the H-B shorts and all of the tics that made those cartoons so great - Jerry can be generous at times and Tom can be selfish at times (and vice-versa), they get along for a few moments. As much as I dislike Jerry I will say that this was the only - and I do mean ONLY - Deitch short where I felt Jerry deserved to win and Tom to lose. The plot, as it goes, finds Tom in the freezing cold asking his chum Jerry for a warm place to sleep and eat. Jerry lives in a N.Y.C. penthouse and kindly lets Tom in. But then Tom double-crosses Jerry and gets the mouse thrown out in the cold so he can stay in the place instead. Jerry then enacts his "ghostly" revenge on the cat.
The one thing Deitch does well here is give this cartoon a real feel of horror as Jerry stalks Tom as a "ghoul". The echoing sound effects, blaring horns, and xylophones - the same crap that Deitch put in all of his "work" - doesn't get on your nerves like before. Instead here they work to the effect of the feel of the cartoon's weirdness (the scene where Tom and Jerry are giggling while getting drunk on a bottle of champagne sounds truly bizarre).
"Buddies...Thicker Than Water" truly stands out as one of the most weirdest and - if I can say this - freakiest of any the Tom and Jerry cartoons, a nice example of animated horror, and as I said above only one of two good cartoons by the worst director of the entire series.(Deitch even pompously believes his version of Tom and Jerry is better that the later Chuck Jones version. Yeah, like hell it is!) However I will say this, when they get around to putting out future volumes of Tom and Jerry on DVD I do hope that Warner Bros. and MGM puts a couple of Deitch cartoons in there. I don't really think that they should omit him completely because, like it or not, he IS a part of the T and J series as a whole. But I'll be really miffed if this cartoon isn't one of them.