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YMMV / The Tom and Jerry Show (2014)

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  • Awesome Music: The Opening Music is a short, more upbeat remix of the classic Tom and Jerry theme. It may be done quickly, but it will bring you a sense of nostalgia.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: Butch is usually a Jerkass, but he takes it one major step further in one of the "Cat and Mouse Detective" shorts where he tries to outright murder Tom and Jerry with an axe several times - and all of his attempts are Played for Laughs.
  • Most Wonderful Sound: The show brings back the classic screams of pain from the classic shorts, and while they sound rather out of place due to the difference in sound quality (they were recorded with primitive mics on mono tape back in the 1940s while the rest of the sound production is done in 5.1 surround digital audio), they still sound as great as you remember them.
  • Narm: There is a common section in the show where Tom and Jerry work together as detectives… Yes, a job that primarily requires the workers to talk, something that the duo typically don’t do, making the mini- series especially awkward. This is only heightened further by there always being a narrator to speak in their stead, having to talk of the situation and characters’ thoughts instead of letting the duo do so by themselves.
  • Salvaged Story: While it’s a faithful franchise update in many ways, "The Tom and Jerry Show" bucks several of the tropes and formulas that have been a part of the Tom and Jerry franchise for decades, which fans were starting to find annoying. Starting with the first episode, Tom is established as having more of a backbone, so the frenemy dynamic between Tom, Jerry and Spike and the power imbalance between them is less straightforward and one-sided than it usually is: sometimes Tom scores a win over Jerry and Spike, sometimes Tom gives it as good as he gets when it comes to Spike's beatings. Jerry has also been on the receiving end of many karmic beatdowns throughout the show - whether they’re from Tom or Spike or someone else he screwed over - instead of managing to let Tom take the fall for him entirely, which makes him less of a Karma Houdini than he has been in previous iterations.
  • So Okay, It's Average: While the creators' hearts were in the right place, with the insistence on two 11-minute shorts instead of a Three Shorts format, making episodes feel longer than they need to be, a greater emphasis on side characters, and the not-as-fluid animation, it's just not nearly as fun to watch as the original or even the previous T&J series. And while the show attempted to fix some of these issues starting with its second season by going with a Three Shorts format and changing the artstyle to a more faithful one, the overall reception is still the same due to the remaining issues.

  • Win Back the Crowd: However on the flip side, some feel as though despite the flash animation, the writing itself is better in some areas even compared to past entries in the franchise; Jerry isn’t always a Karma Houdini who gets away with screwing over Tom scot-free most of the time, the secondary characters (such as Butch, the alley cats, Toodles, Quacker, etc.) appear more often, and the music can be much more jazz-like similar to the original shorts.


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