Popular in the USA and Britain and countless other countries Tom and Jerry celebrate their 80th birthday. Yes folks the cat who can survive being hit in the face with a frying pan, blown up with explosives, burned off ladders and stilts having his set tail on fire etc etc is still gamely trying to catch the mouse. The BBC have done a nice piece on them - but I would disagree with some of it "I'll bet when you watched them as a child, or even if you look at them right now, you would be hard-pressed to know when they were made," says Jerry Beck, a cartoon historian who has worked in roles across the industry Sorry Jerry but they are exactly things of their time. Think who is the character who appears in so many of the original Tom and Jerrys - the black, lawks a mercy, house keeper/servant - the cartoon version of the one in Gone with the Wind. I notice that the BBC have edited her out. Tom and Jerry besides all the cartoon mayhem give us a view of exactly what the cinema audience of the 40s expected to see as the norm in a middle class American home. Perhaps that is partly what their value is as a view of the past. Tom and Jerry: 80 years of cat v mouse
