Tom and Jerry - The Magic Ring

Ah, isn’t it nice to see Itchy and Scratchy’s ancestors still giving each other hell? Well, actually we should make that ‘heck’, as in these hypersensitive days of political correctness gone mad we really don’t want to offend anybody, now do we?

Created in 2001, Tom and Jerry – The Magic Ring is billed as a movie, although it only runs just shy of 60 minutes. The premise of this latest creation involving Hanna and Barbera’s much loved, multi-Oscar winning cat and mouse duo is, well, simple pimple. The pair seems to be living under the roof of one mysterious (he must be, we can’t see his face) sorcerer with the somewhat un-sorceror-like name of Chip. He needs to pop on over to India for some milk, leaving Tom in charge of the titular magic ring. Should any foul fate befall said piece of jewellery, then Tom gets the boot.

What follows is a series of vignettes. Tom and Jerry chase each other lots. Jerry pops the ring on his bonce as a crown, and it gets stuck. They chase each other lots more. They destroy a jewellery store trying to remove the ring. They chase each other some more. They run into an alley cat who fancies Jerry as a snack. More chasing. They pop by Psychic Droopy – and chase each other more. They’re taken in by a collector of stray animals. Chase, chase, chase... you get the picture – until Chip returns from his travels and, well, that’s about it.

At this juncture a query must be proffered. Are Tom and Jerry like the dumbest of dumb dumbheads in the universe they inhabit? Both of them are incapable of speech other than the occasional grunts or rather frequent squeals of...

"Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!"

...yet every other creature around them seems to have mastered the art of talking. Dogs can do it, other felines, even lowly alley cats – can do it. Why gosh, even other meeses (oops, wrong cat and mouse duo) can do it! Still, when you’ve bashed seven shades of shady shtuff out of each other for fifty or more years, it could quite feasibly explain a touch of brain damage, and also why everything seems so tame now. Mind you, the sight of a space shuttle falling on a cat’s head can’t help but elicit a bit of a giggle. My, I am a sadistic cow...

Whilst great entertainment for kiddies, as long as you don’t mind them being exposed to a modicum of silly cartoon violence, adults will find little to no entertainment value within this feature. It seems that somewhere along the line the heart and soul of Tom and Jerry has been clinically excised in some way, for whereas their older escapades worked for the munchkins and also adults, that certain something is now conspicuous by its absence. Perhaps a quick read of the credits helps explain why. Regardless of some great voice talent – including the original Stimpy Billy West and Tress MacNeille, a name that should be familiar to fans of The Simpsons, the list of those involved in the ‘art’ side goes on forever. Sadly, in all this seems to be a definite case of too many cooks...

You wouldn’t really expect there to be much wrong with animation of such recent vintage, and you would be right. Colour is nice, bright and solid, all is sharp without being over-pointy, and there are no obvious nasties in the form of compression artefacts or speckles and the like. It’s all simply in full frame, and really the only negative comment that can be mustered is a tendency for some of the background pans to be a tad on the juddery side, which isn’t too appealing to these jaded old peepers, however of course others’ mileage may vary.

Spot the made for TV cartoon. Moving on from the full frame vision, we get to the basic, standard Dolby Digital 2.0 audio mix. Once again there isn’t a lot to say – it’s functional enough, with every scream, wail, skid and thud coming through loud and clear, but it also isn’t very exciting – it all sounds much as if a safe had been dropped on it, kind of flat. As for synch, I won’t insult your intelligence – it’s a cartoon dammit!

Meanwhile, the score comes from one J. Eric Schmidt, Whilst it is quite jaunty, almost too much so at times, it really lacks the subtlety and finesse of the classic Tom and Jerry toons, where the music was more often than not as integral to the story as what was happening on the screen.

Some effort has been made to bolster this discs’ value, with a number of special features included, hidden behind drably static menus. This is animation guys, so why not animate already!

Ahem. First up is a brief (only 5:26) Making of entitled Behind the Artist’s Brush. The only real let down here is the brevity of the feature, as after a brief capsule history of the cat and mouse duo we are given access to short behind the scenes snippets, including peeks at storyboarding, background work and voice talent in the studio. And all accompanied by such a hyperactive voiceover that you may be left huffing and puffing once it’s all over.

The money extras are next, in the form of two classic Tom and Jerry cartoons, one from 1955 and one from 1965. The first is The Flying Sorceress, where Tom gets a gig as a witch’s cat – or perhaps it’s all a dream, whilst the second, Haunted Mouse, sees Jerry get a visit from a somewhat magical acquaintance. The only thing that could possibly be deemed problematic about these two inclusions, other than their not so spiffy visual quality, is how utterly feeble and lobotomised they make the main feature look, as they both possess a snappiness and appeal to adults which The Magic Ring sorely lacks. Mind you, when you see the names of such bona fide geniuses as Chuck Jones and Mel Blanc attached, who would expect any less?

To complete the package we get a rather farcical featurette named Get the Picture, which claims that, “every cartoon starts with a simple drawing�, and proceeds in fast motion to show somebody sketching VERY intricate (certainly not simple!) pictures of Tom, then Jerry, then the two together, all accompanied by frenetic, and extremely annoying, noodle jazz. Next is a brief trailer, which is really just a promo for the home video and DVD release, and finally slipped inside the cover is an A3 poster which is, erm, quite colourful.

If you’re looking for an hour-long diversion for the kids, then you could do a lot worse than Tom and Jerry – The Magic Ring. Just don’t expect it to hold any adult entertainment value – run away and alphabetise your socks or something, for trust me, it would be preferable to sitting through this. When it’s over though, pop back in and check out the two classic bonus cartoons – from T and J’s pre-lobotomy days, they actually demonstrate why the pair has been blessed with such enduring popularity...