history of tom and jerry

Tom and Jerry

This article is about the animal cartoon series.

Tom and Jerry is an American animated franchise and series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Best known for its 161 theatrical short films by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the series centers on a friendship/rivalry (a love-hate relationship) between the title characters Tom, a cat, and Jerry, a mouse. Many shorts also feature several recurring characters.

In its original run, Hanna and Barbera produced 114 Tom and Jerry shorts for MGM from 1940 to 1958.^[1] During this time, they won seven Academy Awards for Animated Short Film, tying for first place with Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies with the most awards in the category. After the MGM cartoon studio closed in 1957, MGM revived the series with Gene Deitch directing an additional 13 Tom and Jerry shorts for Rembrandt Films from 1961 to 1962. Tom and Jerry then became the highest-grossing animated short film series of that time, overtaking Looney Tunes. Chuck Jones then produced another 34 shorts with Sib Tower 12 Productions between 1963 and 1967. Three more shorts were produced, The Mansion Cat in 2001, The Karate Guard in 2005, and A Fundraising Adventure in 2014, making a total of 164 shorts.

A number of spin-offs have been made, including the television series The Tom and Jerry Show (1975), The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show (1980–82), Tom & Jerry Kids (1990–93), Tom and Jerry Tales (2006–08), and The Tom and Jerry Show (2014–present). The first feature-length film based on the series, Tom and Jerry: The Movie, was released in 1992, and 13 direct-to-video films have been produced since 2002, with an upcoming animated/live-action hybrid film to be released in 2020. A musical adaptation of the series, titled Tom and Jerry: Purr-Chance to Dream, debuted in Japan in 2019 in advance of Tom and Jerry's 80th anniversary.

Directed by          William Hanna (1940–58)
                            Joseph Barbera (1940–58)
                            Gene Deitch (1961–62)
                            Chuck Jones (1963–67)
                            Maurice Noble (1964–67)
                            Abe Levitow (1965–67)
                            Tom Ray (1966–67)
                            Ben Washam (1966–67)
Produced by        Rudolf Ising (1940)
                            Fred Quimby (1940–55)
                            William Hanna (1955–58)
                            Joseph Barbera (1955–58)
                            William L. Snyder (1961–62)
                            Chuck Jones (1963–67)
                            Walter Bien (1963–65)
                            Les Goldman (1963–67)
                            Earl Jonas (1965–67)
Written by            William Hanna (1940–58)
                            Joseph Barbera (1940–58)
                            Gene Deitch (1961–62)
                            Eli Bauer (1961–62)
                            Larz Bourne (1961–62)
                            Michael Maltese (1963–67)
                            Jim Pabian (1965)
                            Bob Ogle (1966–67)
                            John W. Dunn (1965–67)
Starring               Harry E. Lang
                           Clarence Nash
                           William Hanna
                           Red Coffee
                           Lillian Randolph
                           Billy Bletcher
                           Paul Frees
                           Daws Butler
                           Mel Blanc
                           Allen Swift
                          Gene Deitch
                          June Foray
                          Chuck Jones
                          Dick Nelson
                          Music by