Mar 27, 2014

The Tom & Jerry Show" premieres April 9 on Cartoon Network

"The Tom and Jerry Show" will premiere on Cartoon Network on Wednesday, April 9 at 5:30 PM ET/PT. The Tom and Jerry Show will air as "a new take on the iconic Frenemy while retaining the look, central characters, and sensibility of the original theatrical shorts...Unlike the original six- to seven-minute theatrical shorts produced in the 1940s and '50s, the new episodes will be 11 minutes each. [Warner Bros. Animation executive (and former Cartoon Network vice president) Sam Register will executive produce, with Warner Bros. Animation collaborating with Renegade Animation producers Darrell Van Sitters and Ashley Postlethwaite.

This new film will be produced by Warner Bros.

The new series will obviously not be as good as the original theatrical shorts by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, but hopefully it will at least match or exceed the quality of "The Tom and Jerry Story," the last reboot using these characters, which premiered in 2006. I would expect it to be. Unfortunately, from the sizzle reel above, it doesn't seem to be in that league.

The preview released by Warner Bros. is aesthetically uninspiring from top to bottom. The characters lack volume, structure, and charm, the animation and gags are indecipherable and poorly timed, and the art direction and layout are indescribably amateurish. How could the following layouts even make it through the production pipeline? The composition is so awkward that the viewer cannot even tell that Tom is lying on the ground. In fact, Jerry's body passes under Tom's, implying that Tom is floating in the air:

This living room layout features a piano that defies the laws of gravity and stands upright despite the misalignment of its legs. One could argue that this is a stylistic choice and that it is certainly possible to push the layout further, but the picture, with its full margins and difficult perspective, suggests that whoever painted this scene was struggling with a challenge:

If this is Cartoon Network's Sizzle Reel then I shudder to think what does not deserve a sizzle reel. What is on display in this reel does not demonstrate the basic graphic capabilities expected of a professional studio production in 2014.