TMC
02-24-2026, 07:52 PM
b7IpGBtDF4A
What if Tex Avery directed Tom and Jerry? Reimagining the classic MGM cartoon duo through Avery’s wild, fast-paced, fourth-wall-breaking animation style to see how similar, different — and how chaotic — the series might have been.
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By the time Tex Avery joined MGM from Warner Brothers in 1941, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera had been working together in their own cartoon unit for two years, debuting their Tom and Jerry characters the year before, and Tex Avery was given his own animation unit in the same building practically down the hall from the Tom and Jerry unit. Even though the directors worked in separate production units, they were colleagues at the MGM Cartoon Studio, each working under the supervision of producer Fred Quimby, and were familiar with each other's work, influencing each other to some degree.
It's not that far-fetched to imagine the two sets of directors collaborating on something together, which begs the question: What if Tex Avery had directed a Tom and Jerry cartoon? What if he was invited in as a guest director, or maybe even took over the franchise at some point? How similar would the cartoons look, sound and feel, and how different would they have turned out to be? Today we're speculating how Hanna and Barbera's famous cat and mouse duo would fare in the screwball world of Tex Avery, where the pace is hyper-accelerated, the gags are abstract, relentless and ridiculous, and the characters are aware of being in a cartoon?
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Chapters:
00:00 - 01:19 - Introduction
01:20 - 03:09 - Similarities
03:10 - 06:48 - Character designs
06:49 - 09:16 - Cartoon chases
09:17 - 10:35 - Plots
10:36 - 13:50 - Gags
13:51 - 15:26 - Conclusion
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What if Tex Avery directed Tom and Jerry? Reimagining the classic MGM cartoon duo through Avery’s wild, fast-paced, fourth-wall-breaking animation style to see how similar, different — and how chaotic — the series might have been.
----------
By the time Tex Avery joined MGM from Warner Brothers in 1941, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera had been working together in their own cartoon unit for two years, debuting their Tom and Jerry characters the year before, and Tex Avery was given his own animation unit in the same building practically down the hall from the Tom and Jerry unit. Even though the directors worked in separate production units, they were colleagues at the MGM Cartoon Studio, each working under the supervision of producer Fred Quimby, and were familiar with each other's work, influencing each other to some degree.
It's not that far-fetched to imagine the two sets of directors collaborating on something together, which begs the question: What if Tex Avery had directed a Tom and Jerry cartoon? What if he was invited in as a guest director, or maybe even took over the franchise at some point? How similar would the cartoons look, sound and feel, and how different would they have turned out to be? Today we're speculating how Hanna and Barbera's famous cat and mouse duo would fare in the screwball world of Tex Avery, where the pace is hyper-accelerated, the gags are abstract, relentless and ridiculous, and the characters are aware of being in a cartoon?
----------
Chapters:
00:00 - 01:19 - Introduction
01:20 - 03:09 - Similarities
03:10 - 06:48 - Character designs
06:49 - 09:16 - Cartoon chases
09:17 - 10:35 - Plots
10:36 - 13:50 - Gags
13:51 - 15:26 - Conclusion
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