In 1940, a cat-mouse team debuted in a theatrical short entitled Puss Gets the Boot. They weren’t even named Tom and Jerry yet, but it was the birth of one of animation’s most enduring properties. They were the creations of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, who would go on to become animation legends, first in the realm of theatrical shorts but eventually conquering TV animation for decades, and establishing a presence that still reverberates.
Warner Archive brings the complete classic Tom and Jerry (1940-1958) to Blu-ray with extras in a definitive release. This set represents the era of MGM’s cartoon studio, which shut down in 1958.
Much of the series’ charm comes from the fact that Tom and Jerry are rivals as much as they are antagonists. Sometimes they are even depicted as allies or friends, or at least ultimately caring about each other beneath their constant fighting.
There are some truly memorable and beloved shorts in this collection, full of sight gags and slapstick violence. Some of these include Tom’s zoot suit dance (The Zoot Cat), a trip to the Afterlife (Heavenly Puss), musical showcases with Tom and Jerry as conductors or pianists (eg The Cat Concerto, The Hollywood Bowl), travelogues (Mouse in Manhattan, Neapolitan Mouse), Wild West adventures (Texas Tom, Posse Cat), sports-driven episodes (eg Tennis Chumps, Cue Ball Cat), an entire run of Cinemascope shorts, and of course lots of fun with other supporting animal characters like bulldogs Spike and Tyke, Jerry’s nephew Nibbles, Tom’s rival Butch, duckling Quackers, and Tom’s various femme-feline love interests.
Racial Controversy
It’s impossible to discuss Tom and Jerry cartoons without acknowledging their racial content. For better or worse, this collection represents the original cartoons are they were shown theatrically. This is an important point because later versions were often edited, sanitized of certain controversial elements.
Tom & Jerry was an interesting property in racial terms. There are some progressive elements for the 1940s, but a lot of it has aged very poorly. In most of the cartoons Tom is owned by a black woman named Mammy Two-Shoes. Per cartoon tropes, we only see her lower body, but her depiction plays into negative stereotypes, a large woman who speaks with a pronounced drawl. In most appearances, she is depicted as a maid, at other times the lady of the house.
On the one hand, she is a very likeable character and I’m inclined to feel her presence was a net positive, normalizing black presence in suburban life, and the implication in some episodes that she is a black female homeowner, whose house seems just like any other residence in your typical neighborhood. I appreciate that Mammy’s appearance evolves and she’s later depicted as quite stylish, slimmed down and wearing colorful clothes and a lot of jewelry, though this was perhaps simply poking fun at jazz-era culture. Personally the most unfortunate or offensive aspect of Mammy is her name, which plays right into antebellum stereotypes.
One of the new on-disc featurettes, Lady of the House: The Story of Mammy Two-Shoes, explores her character and the show’s controversial racial dynamics. It’s a pretty thoughtful analysis and does help to put these cartoons into context, and its inclusion is both welcome and necessary. In later years, many of these cartoons were edited, removing Mammy or replacing her with a white woman, to remove the negative black stereotypes – and I’m not sure I agree that was such a great solution, replacing a black character (one with a great deal of agency, no less) with a white one. For better or worse, this collection features the restored original Mammy as she originally appeared.
Aside from the character of Mammy, there’s some other racial stuff that pops up that’s frankly much worse. I was astonished that the original versions of these cartoons have numerous blackface gags, either applied as disguise or because something blew up in a character’s face. These depictions include some appalling “pickaninny” stereotypes and in at least one case they follow through on the gag by having the character speak Stepin Fetchit-esque dialogue.
Similar cultural gags also riff on Asian and Native depictions.
I generally enjoy Tom and Jerry but every time one of these racist gags occurs it’s painful to watch, and a reminder not only of the attitudes that informed these depictions, but the shared historical lineage between animation, comedy, vaudeville, and minstrelry in American entertainment.
Release Notes
There have been a couple prior smaller Blu-ray releases of some of this era’s material, which are duplicated here:
- Golden Collection Volume One (2011) – 37 shorts and bonus features
- The Complete Cinemascope Collection (2025) – 23 Shorts and 3 bonus spin-off shorts
The Golden Era Anthology includes all the previously released cartoons and extras from these two sets, and then roughly that doubles that content by folding in the rest of the entire 1940s-1950s run, as well as a couple of new bonus features. You can see my detailed review of the Cinemascope Collection (including numerous screenshots) here.
Compared to the Cinemascope collection, which is some of the best Tom and Jerry material after it had kind of cast off some growing pains and gelled into a concentrated form, this is by definition a much shaggier set which shows a lot of growth and change. You can see how character designs and dynamics are refined over time – the earliest episodes look “off model” but within a few years are honed to what has become the familiar look of the characters, as well as the addition of recurring supporting characters.
This release might sting a bit for previously purchasers of the previous sets, especially those who might feel punished for picking up the Cinemascope Collection just a few months before. Warners could have put out a “Golden Collection Volume Two” to collect the balance of cartoons, but opted instead to go big with a complete collection.
Disc-wise, everything is newly authored for this edition, nothing herein is a direct repackage of a prior disc. The Cinemascope shorts, previously separated into their own set, have been reintegrated sequentially. All extras have been separated for their own disc, and all menus are updated to the new motif.
As I discovered while trying to review this, it’s an incredibly beefy package, 114 cartoons spanning five discs, plus a sixth disc for the extras. The runtime is listed as 817 minutes. (While I viewed the majority, I actually gave up on trying to watch them all before publishing this review, as it just kept delaying this post later and later).
The Golden Era Anthology is definitely a dream for completionists, but for casual fans, and especially for family viewing, the Cinemascope Collection might be a better purchase, an dcertainly an easier recommendation. It’s a collection of some of the duo’s best, most refined toons, and sidesteps the awful racist stuff that mars this experience. Furthermore its widescreen format is perfect for modern TVs.
What’s NOT included in the Golden Age Anthology?
- Re-edited or censored shorts. Many shorts were later changed to remove racist references and other controversial elements. These sanitized versions, generally more palatable for family viewing, are not included.
- This shorts series caps off at 1958, so it doesn’t include later shorts like my personal favorites, the delightful 1960s Chuck Jones run (available on DVD but out of print).
- The original 1930s Van Beuren Tom & Jerry cartoon (featuring human characters) is a separate property from the cat & mouse duo and is definitely not included – but it is available on Blu-ray.
Special Features and Extras
New Featurettes
Two brand new half hour featurettes gather animation historians and experts to discuss aspects of Tom and Jerry‘s legacy.
- Lady of the House: The Story of Mammy Two-Shoes (27:41) – Discusses Mammy’s character in a larger historical context of Hollywood mammy stereotypes, censorship and revisionism, and the larger question of viewing vintage entertainment with modern sensitivities. Absolutely a critical component of this release. I recommend watching this before digging into the cartoons.
- Animal Hijinks: The The Friends and Foes of Tom and Jerry (30:58) – Exploring Tom and Jerry’s retinue of recurring supporting characters
Returning Extras
As far as I can tell, this set includes all additional extras which been included in prior Blu-ray releases.
- 20 Commentaries by Animation Experts
- The Midnight Snack Pencil Test – Side by Side (9:01)
- Cat and Mouse: The Tale of Tom and Jerry (31:39)
- Tom and Jerry: Behind the Tunes (17:09)
- Animators as Actors (7:15)
- Excerpt from Dangerous When Wet (1953) (7:50)
- How Bill and Joe Met Tom and Jerry (27:12)
- Vaudeville, Slapstick and Tom and Jerry (22:47)
- The Comedic Stylings of Tom and Jerry (5:30)
- “The Worry Song” from Anchors Aweigh (1945) (9:08)
- Bonus Shorts:
- Good Will to Men (1955) (8:30)
- Give and Tyke (1957) (6:39)
- Scat Cats (1957) (6:30)
The Package / Unboxing
The six-disc set includes a glossy slipcover and booklet.
The booklet is 32 internal pages (36 with covers), printed on glossy stock and packed with production images, a timeline, and character studies. Because it’s quite thick, the booklet doesn’t sit perfectly inside the set and comes packed in the slipcover alongside the Blu-ray case, rather than inside the case.
The booklet is thicker at the spine so having it abut the clasp makes it difficult to close the case. However I found that if you put the booklet in the the case face-down (with the booklet’s spine side aligned to the case spine), it seats comfortably and you can close the case, so this is ultimately how I will store it.
A/V Out
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