Studio: Van Beuren Studios (Tom and Jerry series)
Distributor: RKO Radio Pictures
Short Synopsis
Tom and Jerry, Van Beuren's human comedy duo, a tall thin man and a short fat one who have nothing to do with the later MGM cat and mouse, are stage magicians, and the act goes the way their acts always go: the tricks work too well, the props take on lives of their own, and the magic turns on the magicians. Rabbits multiply out of hats, a sawn-in-half assistant walks off in two directions, and the theatre fills with runaway conjuring until the pair are chased off their own stage. The gags are built on Gene Rodemich's score, and the drawing is in the studio's loose, slightly unhinged manner. Detailed descriptions of the individual tricks are not in the sources used here; the outline follows the premise and the series pattern.
Why It Matters
- The Van Beuren Tom and Jerry cartoons are the strangest series of the early 1930s, two interchangeable men wandering through surreal situations, and a magic act is the ideal setting for the studio's fondness for transformation gags that obey no rule at all. Where Disney was building personality, Foster and Stallings were building chaos, and the result is funnier than its reputation.
- The series ran from 1931 to 1933, 26 cartoons, and was the studio's main product between the Fables and Cubby Bear; its names were later borrowed, unknowingly, by Hanna and Barbera at MGM, which is why these films are now usually listed as "Van Beuren Tom and Jerry". Magic Art is a mid-series entry and a representative one.
Notes and Trivia
- The two characters were renamed Dick and Larry for television in the 1950s to avoid confusion with the MGM pair.
- Pencil Mania (1932), in which the pair draw their own cartoon with a magic pencil, is the series' best-known film.
- See also: Pencil Mania (1932), Toy Time (1931), Cubby's Picnic (1933).
