Tom & Jerry: Golden Collection, Vol. 1 [DVD]

Great

THIS is how classic cartoons should be treated in hi-def! Completely uncut and with all the beautiful film grain left intact. No grain- or lineart-erasing noise reduction and with a high bitrate to let all the grain and fine detail flourish. I feel like I'm watching actual film prints of these classic animated shorts. And best of all, the Tom and Jerry cartoons are finally being released uncut and in chronological order, including the very first official-nonofficial Tom and Jerry short, "Puss Gets the Boot", in which Tom is referred to as Jasper (and Jerry, while not named in the cartoon, is officially known as Jinx). Also, far as I can tell, the original title cards remain, although the unfortunate "Academy Award winner of 1943" card for "The Yankee Doodle Mouse" is still here; I'm unsure what the original card looked like.The only real big gripe I have are the "hairs" which frequently crop up in the gate. They can be a little bit distracting. The occasional dirt and emulsion scratches I can deal with, but gate hairs are a bit bothersome. Some manual cleanup work would have been appreciated, but I'd rather have untampered-with transfers than ones which were carelessly slapped with noise reduction. Guess we can't always have things perfect.This is the finest example of how classic cartoons need to be treated on Blu-ray: no "politically correct" editing and censorship (I could do without the preachy text introduction, but in today's sensitive world it is perhaps necessary) and brazenly showing their filmic roots. Disney really ought to take notes.Here's hoping this is the first in a trend of amazing WB animated Blu-rays. I really hope that the "Looney Tunes" collections look this good and that we'll be seeing a great number of Tex Avery and Bob Clampett cartoons looking like this on the format before long. (WB, if you're reading this, ya REALLY, REALLY need to redo all the Droopy cartoons in HD and with no art-destroying DNR.)Addendum: There is a noted issue of certain shorts (nine of them, I believe) looking a little on the dull side regarding color timing. It's the opposite of the Spotlight Collection DVDs, where these shorts were over-saturated and overbearingly colorful (Tom becomes blue instead of gray; on the Blu-rays, he's more of a really dark gray). A nice middle ground would have been ideal, especially for the preserving of some background art detail that unfortunately is affected, but it's not an issue that will lessen the quality of the product for most, nor is it a problem for myself; I prefer the way these shorts look on this Blu-ray set over the previous DVDs, just for the gain in overall detail and film-like appearance.

I have loved tom and jerry since I was a little kid and though I didn't bother buying the spotlight collections, I'm glad I bought this. All of the cartoons look amazing, plus the cartoons are in chronological order. The best part is that the cartoons are uncensored and uncut. After watching the censored versions on Cartoon Network for years and years, it is a welcome change to see the cartoons uncensored. Another huge plus is the fact that these cartoons feature Lillian Randolph as the voice of Mammy Two Shoes instead of the later voice of Thea Vidale. Randolph was the original voice and did a much better role. Be forewarned that the scenes that were censored may be offensive to some people. This collection contains two Tom and Jerry cartoons that I had never seen before: The Lonesome Mouse and A Mouse In The House. These two were never shown on Cartoon Network so for those like me who have never seen them, these two make the collection worth buying. Here is a complete list of the racist gags in this collection that were unfortunately prevalent in society at the time: a Chinese gag in Puss 'n Toots, a Hitler gag in The Lonesome Mouse, a blackface gag in The Yankee Doodle Mouse (which, strangely enough, is shown on Cartoon Network), an Indian gag in The Mouse Comes To Dinner, a blackface gag in Mouse in Manhattan, an Indian gag in Flirty Birdy, a blackface gag in The Milky Waif (where Jerry is voiced by Lillian Randolph), a blackface gag in A Mouse In The House, an Indian gag in Kitty Foiled, a blackface gag in The Truce Hurts, and a subtle racist gag in Old Rockin Chair Tom ("take good care of poor old uncle Tom"). This collection has a disclaimer at the beginning that cannot be skipped. The disclaimer simply warns that some content may be offensive. Unfortunately Warner Brothers chose to break the chronological order by omitting Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat from Golden Collection Volume 2. The racist gags in those two cartoons (Tom in blackface in the former and Jerry in blackface in the latter) are no worse than the gags in the cartoons in this collection. Anyway, I can watch these cartoons over and over and they never lose their humor.