Cat and Mouse: Enemies. Friends

Author: (American) Hanna-Barbera, illustrated by Hong Pei-ge translated and compiled
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Features: In the past, "Tom and Jerry" had a glorious history, and now its reputation has reached its peak. Its television animation ratings are extremely high, and almost every hour on television screens around the world, stories of "Tom and Jerry" appear. TV audiences can see their favorite Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoons every day. People from all over the world have been captivated by this character. Countries like Italy and Russia create a large number of children's picture books featuring Tom and Jerry every year, and Italy and other countries still publish magazines about "Tom and Jerry." "Tom and Jerry" (also translated as "Tom and Jerry") is a world-famous animated series. Its creators, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, are "legendary figures" in the American Hollywood animation industry. William Hanna was born in Melrose, New Mexico, and at the age of seven, he moved with his parents to California. After growing up, he studied engineering, journalism, and music in turn. During the Great Depression of the 1930s in the United States, he worked part-time at an animation studio as a story editor. His employer quickly discovered his talent and promoted him continuously until he became an independent animated film director. Cartoonist Joseph Barbera was born in New York and had a natural talent for drawing from a young age. Initially, he worked at a bank and dedicated his spare time to animation. His extraordinary talent and hard work helped him quickly find a job he loved at an animation studio. In 1937, Hanna and Barbera first met at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation studio. In 1938, Hanna worked on the animated series "Looney Tunes" and "Merrie Melodies," while Barbera worked on the animated series "Terrytoons." Hanna had a gift for comedy and famous directors' organizational skills, while Barbera had exceptional drawing talent. They both realized that they should form a partnership, and thus began a successful collaboration that lasted several decades. In 1939, they jointly directed the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animated film "Puss Gets the Boot," where the cat was named Jasper and the mouse was named Jinx. Hanna wrote a vivid story, and Barbera created excellent images, especially the expressions of the cat and mouse were full of moving humor. After the first episode of the film was released in 1940, it became a sensation and was warmly received by audiences. Since Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer did not like the names of the two main characters in the animation, they held a reader's poll and eventually changed them to the names we know today, Tom and Jerry. "Tom and Jerry" is entirely characterized by slapstick comedy, with very lively plots. Tom is a common gray and white house cat with a strong desire to catch Jerry, the mouse that lives with him but is hard to catch. He constantly tries to drive away these annoying roommates but always fails. In reality, the fun he gets from chasing is far greater than actually catching the mouse. Even when he occasionally catches Jerry, he doesn't know what to do with the mouse! "Tom and Jerry" uses the prototypes of a cat and a mouse, and their pranks are very amusing. No matter how intense or tense the game is, Jerry knows he won't be seriously hurt, while Tom is always subjected to some physical harm. Jerry lives in the same mouse hole with Tuffy, the urinating little gray mouse, in this house. Although it seems as if Tom is watching over them, Jerry is very clever and always turns Tom's cunning schemes against him, making sure Tom gets what he deserves. This story of a clever mouse and a foolish cat is comparable to the stories of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. There is no cruelty of the strong oppressing the weak in the animal world, only the daily trivialities and conflicts between two neighbors, such as Jerry stealing Tom's cheese or Tom setting a mouse trap at the entrance to Jerry's hole. Interwoven with countless pranks and humorous scenes, it brings back the innocence and joy of childhood. Their relationship often changes in an instant—from enemies to friends or sworn enemies: when enemies, they exhaust all their wits and refuse to yield; when friends, they are as close as brothers, holding no grudges. "Tom and Jerry" has a total of 116 comic characters, and each episode pairs 2 to 3 characters with different personalities to tell a "gag" story. Its story content is simple but always surprising yet reasonable, reflecting the creators' extraordinary wisdom. It adopts a silent format, relying entirely on humorous actions without dialogue. Compared to "Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck," it is sometimes difficult to understand what the story of the latter is about, while the silent comedy of "Tom and Jerry" is clear and direct, leaving a very vivid and profound impression on the audience. "Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck" has been popular worldwide for decades, and its characters, voiceovers, and strong promotion played important roles. In contrast, "Tom and Jerry" has almost no dialogue, relying entirely on vivid images and plots that are full of twists and rich imagination. "Tom and Jerry" has produced over 200 animated films, including "Dumb Mouse Yankee" (1943), "Be Quiet" (1945), "Cat Concerto" (1947), "Clean Mouse" (1948), "Two Catnaps" (1952), and "John Mouse" (1953), which have won Academy Awards. "Christmas Eve" (1941) and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse" (1947) were also nominated. In the history of Hollywood animation, "Tom and Jerry" is the animated series with the most Academy Awards. In the 1945 animated film "Hoist the Colors," Jerry's performance with Gene Kelly and in the 1956 animated film "Wet and Wild" with Tom, Jerry, and Esther Williams' water-splashing antics remarkably blended animation with real photography, becoming a milestone in film history. "Two Catnaps" also gave rise to another series of animated films set in a medieval French royal castle, such as "Good to Go, Cat!" (1954) and "Noble Cat Napoleon" (1958). Other "Tom and Jerry" stories also gave rise to different series of animated films. "Two Catnaps" also had a comic book series. In 1956, when Disney used "Catnaps" for the "Mickey Mouse Club" television series, the comic book's name was changed to "Mascots." In 1945, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer established its animation department, Hanna and Barbera became its presidents. In 1955, due to rising animation production costs and other factors, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer decided to withdraw from the animation industry, so the two decided to start their own company. After their tenure at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer ended in 1957, they formed their own studio, Hanna-Barbera Studios. During their ten years at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Hanna and Barbera focused on producing the "Tom and Jerry" animated series, with only three films not starring Tom and Jerry. After founding their own studio, the creation of "Tom and Jerry" was interrupted for several years. In 1961, "Tom and Jerry" returned in a short commemorative series, produced by Gene Deitch in Czechoslovakia. In 1963, Chuck Jones, a veteran of Warner Bros., took over Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's animation department, causing a huge change in the direction of "Tom and Jerry." Jones' 1967 "How to Get along with People" was the last animated film series of "Tom and Jerry." In 1975, the thriving Hanna-Barbera Studios bought the animated characters they had created from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and produced a television animation series, which ran for 48 episodes by 1977. After bringing "Tom and Jerry" to the television screen, Hanna and Barbera opened up a new realm, achieving even greater success and impact, and more audiences around the world became familiar with "Tom and Jerry" through television. "Tom and Jerry" comic books are a derivative of the animated series and have also had a full 60-year history. In 1942, like all of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's works, "Tom and Jerry" was included in the comic book magazine "Our Gang," published by Dell/Western, becoming a highly successful series of comic books. "Our Gang" was originally a comic book magazine drawn by Walt Kelly based on the Hal Roach children's comedy of the same name. The success of "Tom and Jerry" surpassed the guiding album of this magazine, and from the 40th issue onwards, Tom and Jerry became the cover characters of the magazine. In 1948, "Tom and Jerry" reached its peak of popularity in the 193rd issue and completely replaced "Our Gang" starting from the 194th issue. Additionally, Tom and Jerry appeared in many special issues published by Western Publishing, including "Tom and Jerry's Summer Fun," "Tom and Jerry's Winter Carnival," "Golden Comics Select," and "Comics Progress." Most of these special issues also included other Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer characters like "Barney Bear," "Droopy," "Woody," "Prairie Dog," and "Spike and Tyke." In 1961, the "Tom and Jerry" comic book magazine was suspended for a year and continued its run until the 291st issue in 1974. Like Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Hanna-Barbera Studios began publishing their works with Dell Comics in 1958, then with Gold Key in 1962, which ran until 1970. They were then published by Charlton Comics, followed by the two most famous comic book companies in the United States, Marvel, from 1977 to 1979. After a few interruptions, they were published by Harvey Comics from 1992 to 1994, and from 1955 to 1997, they were published by Archie Comics. Today, "Tom and Jerry" comic books are published and distributed in over 30 countries worldwide. In the past, "Tom and Jerry" had a glorious history, and now its reputation has reached its peak. Its television animation ratings are extremely high, and almost every hour on television screens around the world, stories of "Tom and Jerry" appear. TV audiences can see their favorite Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoons every day. Through rental and sales of videotapes, even more audiences can see various stories of "Tom and Jerry." Today, although the United States no longer publishes the "Tom and Jerry" comic book magazine, people around the world have been captivated by this character, and they continue to create stories of Tom and Jerry. Countries like Italy and Russia create a large number of children's picture books featuring Tom and Jerry every year, and Italy and other countries still publish magazines about "Tom and Jerry." The United States is a country that pioneered the new form of comic books, with a history of popular comic books spanning over a hundred years. Not only do newspapers have fixed comic strips, but countless comic book magazines have also appeared, producing world-famous comic books like "The Yellow Kid," "The Little Rascals," "Superman," "Batman," "Spider-Man," "Wonder Woman," "Peanuts," and "Tom and Jerry." Our company has been interested in compiling these American comic book masterpieces into the "Translators' World Comic Classics Series" for many years. This time, we have finally been authorized by Warner Bros. to publish the comic books of "Tom and Jerry." We hope this is a good start, and we hope that the classic American comic books can be introduced to Chinese readers as soon as possible.