The News

The DVD
The Cartoon is 62 minutes long
2 Vintage Tom and Jerry 'toons: The Flying Sroceress and The Haunted Mouse
Behind-The-Sences stuff
Some History/trivia stuff
Games for the kids
English, Spanish, French language options
No widescreen, present in Standard fromat :-[

The Casual Viewer
Ok, first off, I was a little worried about this toon. After the Tom and Jerry Movie I was leary about another attempt at a new cartoon. My apprehension was thrown out the window when I started watching this. I laughed! There were some really hysterical parts in it that I couldn't help but laugh out loud. The animation was smooth. You can kinda get into the show and have fun watching it. I think the kids would love this cartoon. All the major players from Tom and Jerry's earlier cartoons show up. I was wondering if they were going to throw some characters in and sure enough they did. I enjoyed watching cartoon and it was only an hour long. A big bonus is that Tom and Jerry DID NOT TALK!!!

The Purist Review
Ok, this is where I will rip the toon to shreds from the perspective of one who has grown up with the classics and has a certain level of expectations for new Tom and Jerry cartoons. Spoiler Warnings, I will reveal certain aspects of the story and the characters that show up. Note that these are my opinions. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed watching the Magic Ring but I have a few problems with it and most of it is nitpicky stuff. So take this review with a grain of salt.

The chases seemed a little forced. Usually with the classics the was a reason a chase started. Most of the time it felt as if they were chasing for the sake of chasing each other. I think that the creators of this cartoon needed to study the classics a little more for reference on the chases. I did feel that the chases had the later Hanna-Barbera Tom and Jerry flavor to them. The interaction between Tom and Jerry was a little stiff. In the classics the relied on the characters body language to convey a wide range of emotions and expressions. In The Magic Ring the realied on more vocal expressions, though they didn't talk per say, they still used vocal sounds (when you see it you'll understand by what I mean).

The Cameos...great! I was happy to see that the classic characters showed up, those being: Spike and Tyke, Butch, Nibbles and Muscles. However, Butch didn't look like butch or sound like Butch at all. Muscles was not portrayed as Jerry's cousin and his name was Freddie. Both Muscles/Freddie and Spike and Tyke acted more like thugs than what they were normal portrayed as in the classics. Another shocking cameo was that of Droopy and the Irish-accented Bulldog (Droopy's nemesis in a few of the Droopy cartoons, his name is Spike as well). WHY? Why are these two in this movie. I thought is was kinda cool, but Droopy and the Bulldog were never in any Tom and Jerry Cartoon. One, they may have been done at MGM but Droopy was all Tex Avery. Now, there may be those that mention Droopy being in the later Hanna-Barbera cartoons, but from those later ones that I've seen, Tom and Jerry and Droopy never share screen time.

I am stoked that they released 2 Vintage Tom and Jerry, however, The Flying Sorceress was released in widescreen when I was first released. The showed the opening and closing credits in widescreen but the cartoon was presented in standard. I was not happy about that...I want it in widescreen dagnabit! But beggers can't be chosers and I'm glad that they release a couple more classics. I can only hope that they will release the rest of the Classics on DVD. Hopefully, UNCUT!

So this is my rant, don't let my few gripes prevent you from watching this new Cartoon, it was fun and entertaining.

I have the three sets, sp-3, sp-4, & sp-5. They are edited, mostly to remove blackface gags. They don't have all the edits that the Cartoon Network versions have, but they are not uncut. Some edits are done by the Cartoon Network for broadcast. These were not included on the dvd set. The cuts made by Turner, who owns or owned Tom and Jerry, were included. The Little Orphan, The Milky Waif, A Mouse in the House, Old Rockin' Chair Tom, Part Time Pal, and others are all cut. The Little Orphan has the same cut that the American dvd has. I've counted about 10 of them so far with edits(I haven't watched all of them yet).You can go to: http://tomandjerrycartoons.com/tjedits.html to see a list of most of the edits made to Tom and Jerry, then compare them with the shorts on the Japanese set.

Thanks, Dan, for pointing that out to me!

The first milestone was reached in January. It was the four year anniversary of this site! I didn't make a big deal of this, because, well, I'm a guy(stereotype warning). Dates and anniversaries are lost on me :-]

The other milestone was reached last month. Tom and Jerry Online received more than a MILLION hits last month! I still can't believe it. Thanks guys for supporting this site and all the great emails that I keep getting!

I'll try to get some info up about him. If you want to send a tribute to Chuck Jones head over to the BBC: Send your tributes to Chuck Jones.

By the way, I'll be working on putting his obituaries up today...so things might get a little messy on the Obituaries page :-]

Sidenote: Work is slow so I was able to get the obituaries up for Chuck Jones...man I'm depressed.

I got a few emails regarding the Auction link that I posted last week. This email, from Sung, pretty much explains what is up with the Tom and Jerry DVD's:

...The set is from Japan. Japanese people love Tom and Jerry. The DVDs however are Region 2 meaning they can only be played in Asian DVD players. When you first get a DVD player, you set the region when you play a DVD to American (region 1) and from then on you can only play North American DVDs. You can also buy a DVD player just for the Asian DVD watching and just set that DVD to Region 2. Or get a DVD kit (such as Eagle modification kit) and modify your DVD player to become region free or you can go and buy a region free DVD player from a place like http://www.dvdoverseas.com if you don't already own a DVD player. (a little more expensive but well worth the extra dollars)

I have found a website that sells these DVDs http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/Listups/anime/tom-and-jerry.html The prices are very reasonable and they have some special T& J DVD sets. In the link that I gave you, the DVDs are all scattered everywhere. So I have organized them (with catalog numbers) for easier viewing.

(This is the Best Deal)

Tom & Jerry Set 1 [Disc 1-4] $38.82 SP-3
Tom & Jerry Set 2 [Disc 5-7] $38.82 SP-4
Tom & Jerry Set 3 [Disc 8-10] $38.82 SP-5

Tom & Jerry DVD Academy Collection $15.59 DL-65465 (13 academy award winning episodes)
Tom & Jerry DVD Academy Collection /w limited edition Tom stuffed doll /w gown ($32.74) SD-17
Tom & Jerry DVD Academy Collection /w limited edition Jerry stuffed doll /w gown ($29.62) SD-18
Tom & Jerry DVD Academy Collection /w limited edition Tom stuffed doll w/o gown ($29.62) SD-21
Tom & Jerry DVD Academy Collection /w limited edition Jerry stuffed doll w/o gown ($29.62) SD-22

Tom & Jerry Encore Box Vol. 1-5 ($93.54) First Pressing limited edition Tom-1 (out of print)
Tom & Jerry Encore Box Vol. 6-10 ($93.54) First Pressing limited edition Tom-2 (out of print)

Tom & Jerry Vol. 1 HB-59919 $15.59
Tom & Jerry Vol. 2 HB-50146 $15.59
Tom & Jerry Vol. 3 HB-50298 $15.59
Tom & Jerry Vol. 4 HB-50298 $15.59
Tom & Jerry Vol. 5 HB-53922 $15.59
Tom & Jerry Vol. 6 HB-53923 $15.59
Tom & Jerry Vol. 7 HB-54584 $15.59
Tom & Jerry Vol. 8 HB-54585 $15.59
Tom & Jerry Vol. 9 HB-54586 $15.59
Tom & Jerry Vol. 10 HB-54587 $15.59

(This was the one that was for sale on Ebay)

Tom & Jerry Vol 1 & 2 Box (First Limited Edition) TJ-1 ($37.42)
Tom & Jerry Vol 3 & 4 Box (First Limited Edition) TJ-2 ($37.42) (this is not in stock)
Tom & Jerry Vol 5 & 6 Box (First Limited Edition) TJ-3 ($37.42)
Tom & Jerry Vol 7 & 8 Box (First Limited Edition) TJ-4 ($37.42)
Tom & Jerry Vol 9 & 10 Box (First Limited Edition) TJ-5 ($37.42)

All these episodes are uncut and unedited and many of them have bonus features. These are not the Cartoon Network ones so they weren't butchered in any way. I also went to tomandjerrycartoons.com and they talk about the Encore box 1-5 and 6-10. but it said it was 280 dollars when it is really 180. but it's out of print.

Thanks again Sung!

A fellow Tom and Jerry fan emailed me this little link: http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1504920601. They are autioning off the 5 DVD set for Tom and Jerry! Last I checked the bidding for this was at $190.50. With 12 hrs remaining in the auction. I've not heard of this set, nor do I know where the guy got the discs. Thanks Sung for the tip!

Winners were notified today via email. Please note that if I don't hear back from any of the winners by the 21st of January a new winner will be chosen.