MGM Cartoons version differences discussion

[Charly9631]

Bad end title card cropping in the Pan & scan Turner Print of The Vanishing Duck (NTSC version).

 

[NewBogus :)]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Tom-Jerry-...817191?hash=item3af377ca27:g:7~QAAOSwIJlZ6xsQ - another post-1951 T&J short with original opening titles found.

 

[Daffyrocks]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Tom-Jerry-...817191?hash=item3af377ca27:g:7~QAAOSwIJlZ6xsQ - another post-1951 T&J short with original opening titles found.

Wait, "the An MGM Tom and Jerry Cartoon" end card actually changed and got smaller when MGM still used the red background logo?!!!

But if I think more about it, I think that the MGM logo seen there was just spliced on the still-reissued version of the cartoon. I may be wrong. but you can see the MGM title card being of a little different quality than all the other screenshots.

This is just an assumption.

 

[Charly9631]

And it looks so Eastman print to me. The color looks so horrible.
Also,

Wait, "the An MGM Tom and Jerry Cartoon" end card actually changed and got smaller when MGM still used the red background logo?!!!

I guess they were too lazy to crop that end screen, since they're usually bigger with that red MGM logo.

 

[MTGM]

Here are some screenshots of the remastered cartoons that air on Boomerang. For some strange reason, most of these cartoons seem to be rendered in a 16:9 video format because there is a large black letterbox throughout.

 

[NewBogus :)]

Here are some screenshots of the remastered cartoons that air on Boomerang. For some strange reason, most of these cartoons seem to be rendered in a 16:9 video format because there is a large black letterbox throughout.
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So it seems that That's My Pup and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse are airing restored on Boomerang US. Better than nothing, so they can finally test the restored prints in TV.

 

[MTGM]

Here are some more screenshots. I'll compile a full list of the shorts currently airing in their remastered format at a later time.

 

[Charly9631]

I don't know why did they cut one part in the end of the episode "Mouse Cleaning" with Thea Vidale dub, but remain the same "Thomas!!!" scream from Lilian Randolph.

 

[A-Cecil]

I don't know why did they cut one part in the end of the episode "Mouse Cleaning" with Thea Vidale dub, but remain the same "Thomas!!!" scream from Lilian Randolph.

For Mouse Cleaning the Thea Vidale dub is done after the cuts are made. I guess that Cartoon Network was lazy to redub that one line "Thomas!!!" at the end, as well as Mammy's grunts at 0:32 and at 6:32-6:37.
http://www.peteava.ro/id-776229-tom-jerry-038-mouse-cleaning-1948-12-11

 

[NewBogus :)]

Here are some more screenshots. I'll compile a full list of the shorts currently airing in their remastered format at a later time.
View attachment 112941 View attachment 112861 View attachment 112871 View attachment 112881 View attachment 112891 View attachment 112901 View attachment 112911 View attachment 112921 View attachment 112931

So I see that The Two Mouse-keeters with its restored print from WBHAAC DVD release is only airing in Full Screen on Boomerang USA.
At least you have better than Boomerang CEE, where 1995 prints of T&J shorts are still aired.

 

[Daffyrocks]

Sorry, but what's the point of cropping the Cinemascope shorts, when they're in the original remastered form?? Please tell me!!

If I do see "Tom and Cherie" kept in widescreen, then I guess there's no point of wasting the effort for this. Unless they accidentally forgot to do this thing on "Tom and Cherie" as well...

 

[Cool_Cat]

You guys in Europe, feel lucky if you have the unrestored versions. It's very likely they'll use the UK versions like they did with Boomerang France.

As for Mouse Cleaning, I have a feeling Thea Vidale initially redubbed the whole short and then when they made the cut they switched to the original track for some reason. There may be a PAL copy with the redub but who knows...

By the way, if you guys are interested I have ALL the UK tapes from the 80s. I still have to digitize the one which includes Quiet Please because I accidentally slipped when holding it and it broke. The tape inside is still intact (it was a new copy) so I'll just have to take it to repair.

 

[MTGM]

You guys in Europe, feel lucky if you have the unrestored versions. It's very likely they'll use the UK versions like they did with Boomerang France.

As for Mouse Cleaning, I have a feeling Thea Vidale initially redubbed the whole short and then when they made the cut they switched to the original track for some reason. There may be a PAL copy with the redub but who knows...

By the way, if you guys are interested I have ALL the UK tapes from the 80s. I still have to digitize the one which includes Quiet Please because I accidentally slipped when holding it and it broke. The tape inside is still intact (it was a new copy) so I'll just have to take it to repair.

In all honesty I would have preferred that they kept using the older material for U.S. broadcasts, but at least most of it is available on the Spotlight Collections. The only stuff I'm really missing out on are the Gene Deitch prints (which they stopped airing completely) and any of the laserdisc prints that were airing ('Cat Napping' is still a laserdisc print, luckily).

 

[StickerBoy]

You guys in Europe, feel lucky if you have the unrestored versions. It's very likely they'll use the UK versions like they did with Boomerang France.

As for Mouse Cleaning, I have a feeling Thea Vidale initially redubbed the whole short and then when they made the cut they switched to the original track for some reason. There may be a PAL copy with the redub but who knows...

By the way, if you guys are interested I have ALL the UK tapes from the 80s. I still have to digitize the one which includes Quiet Please because I accidentally slipped when holding it and it broke. The tape inside is still intact (it was a new copy) so I'll just have to take it to repair.

@Cool_Cat We'd be pretty lucky if this is true about the redub PAL copy. We might as well wait and see if it turns up.

Also, I'd be quite interested in regards to the UK VHS tapes.

 

[Daffyrocks]

By the way, if you guys are interested I have ALL the UK tapes from the 80s. I still have to digitize the one which includes Quiet Please because I accidentally slipped when holding it and it broke. The tape inside is still intact (it was a new copy) so I'll just have to take it to repair.

Well, I may be interested

 

[A-Cecil]

In all honesty I would have preferred that they kept using the older material for U.S. broadcasts, but at least most of it is available on the Spotlight Collections. The only stuff I'm really missing out on are the Gene Deitch prints (which they stopped airing completely) and any of the laserdisc prints that were airing ('Cat Napping' is still a laserdisc print, luckily).

The reason why in 1995 Cartoon Network started replacing a lot of the old transfers with the Turner prints is in order to make them marketable for TV. While almost all of the old transfers of MGM shorts are replaced by Turner prints, however there are a few shorts in some regions that they forgot to replace it with Turner prints even after 1995 (based on what I found out):

1. USA/Latin America
* Cat Napping
* Muscle Beach Tom
* The Cat Above & The Mouse Below
* Off Feline Bondage
* The Stork's Holiday (evidence from the Toonheads episode "Baby Boom Toons")
* The Uninvited Pest (perhaps, because the print aired has thin blue borders around the opening titles, which doesn't fade out with the MGM lion?)

2. France
* Trap Happy (Cartoon Festival VHS master)
* Part Time Pal
* The Lonesome Mouse
* Puss n' Toots
* Puss Gets The Boot
* Cock-A-Doodle Dog
* The Bodyguard (uses the CBS version)
* That's My Pup!
* Hic-Cup Pup (early-1980s VHS master)
* Jerry's Cousin (early-1980s VHS master)

3. Germany (Most of the old transfers here use very faded ones, some are Metrocolor versions)
* Half-Pint Palomino
* Wee Willie Wildcat
* Barney's Hungry Cousin
* Sleepy-Time Squirrel
* Barney Bear's Polar Pest
* The Prospecting Bear
* The Bear & The Bean
* Daredevil Droopy
* Field & Scream
* The First Bad Man
* Magical Maestro
* Lucky Ducky
* Dumb-Hounded
* Doggone Tired
* One Cab's Family
* Little Tinker
* Screwball Squirrel
* King Size Canary
* What Price Fleadom
* Hound Hunters

4. Spain
* Dog Trouble (uses the 1960s Metrocolor version with "white Mammy")

5. Central & Eastern Europe/Italy
* Push-Button Kitty

6. Unknown Europe regions?
* Jerry's Diary
* Slicked-Up Pup (Metrocolor version)
* Cruise Cat
* Down Beat Bear
* Royal Cat Nap
* Happy Go Ducky
* The Vanishing Duck (Metrocolor version)
* Give & Tyke (rare faded pan-and-scan version with partially cropped letterboxing borders)

7. Southeast Asia (despite this, on TV3 Malaysia all these shorts mentioned below are broadcast as Turner prints on that channel unlike CN/Boomerang Southeast Asia)
* Puss Gets The Boot (faded print with June Foray's voice over the Black Mammy footage)
* The Midnight Snack
* The Night Before Christmas
* Fraidy Cat
* Dog Trouble (uses the 1960s Metrocolor version with "white Mammy")
* Puss n' Toots
* Fine Feathered Friend
* Sufferin' Cats
* The Lonesome Mouse
* The Zoot Cat
* The Million Dollar Cat (Cartoon Festival VHS master)
* The Mouse Comes To Dinner
* Mouse In Manhattan (Cartoon Festival VHS master)
* Tee For Two
* Flirty Birdy
* Quiet Please!
* Springtime For Thomas
* Solid Serenade (sometimes)
* The Cat Concerto (Cartoon Festival VHS master)
* Dr Jekyll & Mr Mouse (Cartoon Festival VHS master)
* Polka-Dot Puss
* The Little Orphan (1960s Metrocolor version with blackface gag redrawn by Chuck Jones)
* Heavenly Puss
* Saturday Evening Puss (1960s redrawn version by Chuck Jones with June Foray's voice-over)
* Texas Tom
* Safety Second
* The Framed Cat (LD master with June Foray's voice-over)
* Casanova Cat
* Jerry's Cousin (early-1980s VHS master)
* Sleepy Time Tom
* His Mouse Friday (LD master with cannibal dialogue muted out)
* The Two Mouseketeers (uses the CBS version)
* Smitten Kitten
* Fit To Be Tied
* Johann Mouse
* Life With Tom
* Neapolitan Mouse
* Hic-Cup Pup (early-1980s VHS master)
* Downhearted Duckling (sometimes)
* Southbound Duckling
* Tom & Cherie
* Smarty Cat
* That's My Mommy
* The Flying Sorceress
* Down Beat Bear
* Blue Cat Blues
* Barbecue Brawl
* Timid Tabby
* Mucho Mouse
* Happy Go Ducky
* Royal Cat Nap
* Robin Hoodwinked
* Landing Stripling
* Dicky Moe
* Calypso Cat
* Buddies Thicker Than Water
* Carmen Get It!
* Pent-House Mouse

One thing for sure is that the MGM shorts were not "Turnerized" on TV as much as the pre-1948 Looney Tunes shorts, as if you compare with the pre-1948 Looney Tunes shorts on TV in PAL countries (including European countries) all the pre-1948 Looney Tunes shorts' old AAP transfers have been replaced by Turner prints by at least 1998.

@MTGM the reason why the Gene Detch shorts are generally rarely shown on TV (and now no longer shown on TV in the U.S.) is because of their general unpopularity - fans generally hate them for not only for its extremely low production quality (ugly character designs, messy-looking art style, choppy animation, sloppy editing, dreadful-sounding voice acting, music and sound effects) and also how Deitch generally ruined the format of the Tom & Jerry cartoons (the cartoon violence is much more cruel, sadistic and sickening than funny, its extremely mean-spirited tone in contrast to the Hanna-Barbera and Chuck Jones era cartoons, and how the cartoons depict the rivalry to be completely one-sided and cruel with loads of Tom Torture Porns (or call it TTPs if you like) where Tom is abused non-stop by both Jerry and his owners, and these abusers always get away scoff-free without any consequences for their actions at all).

 

[Charly9631]

From my perspective, I remember back in 2011 when I first watched Blue Cat Blues episode on CN Asia, what I found is : the intro for it also had black border, Just like the Turner Print, and the audio is the same as the PAL Turner version.
Also, they didn't broadcast the Turner print of Royal Cat Nap (since it had the purple border) instead, but it's good to know though.

 

[MTGM]

Whilst I compile my list, here's a friendly reminder that this exists.

 

[Cool_Cat]

Just like I did it with Looney Tunes, these are the prints of MGM shorts aired in Italy. Sadly I do not have much info outside of Tom and Jerry.

So, first of all, it looks like MGM shorts were dubbed for theaters back then. I have no idea which ones, but it seems to me Deputy Droopy and Little Johnny Jet were theatrical dubs, judging by the quality.

Then shorts were dubbed for RAI in the same way Looney Tunes shorts were. I've only seen Tom and Jerry shorts, and depending on the title style they were dubbed in different times.

I think these were the oldest ones. They generally have a bad audio quality, and they do not use the m/e track. Instead they use cues from other shorts to cover the dialogues. This version of Sufferin Cats is still aired by Italia 1 somehow.

Then the second batch of dubs had these titles. They do not use the m/e track and mute the audio on dialogues.

Then the third batch just had the voice translating the title and they use the m/e track.

There's another batch which doesn't use voices at all, and has the same titles as some of the Looney Tunes dubs. Quiet Please and Neapolitan Mouse were part of this batch, and they were not dubbed. The majority of the Chuck Jones shorts belong to this one.

I have no idea if they made dubs for RAI for the non Tom and Jerry shorts, because I've never seen them.

MGM U/A released in the 80s various tapes from the UK. They left the Tom and Jerry tapes in English, but dubbed the two Droopy ones and 3 MGM Cartoon ones at the same time they did with some pre 48 Looney Tunes release. These dubs were really done on cheap.

Still speaking of VHS dubs, Warner Home Video in the 90s (which had rights for the Turner library distribution in Italy before the merge), released 3 Tom and Jerry tapes also released in the UK and 3 Tex Avery tapes all with new dubs.

In the 90s Rai 2 kept airing the oldest dub prints for T&J, but I've seen a couple shorts remuxed with the same titles as the Looney Tunes ones. I mean, a frozen shot with the Italian title below. I've seen Smitten Kitten and The Mouse from H.U.N.G.E.R like this, but there may be more. I'll check next time.

Then I've seen on Italia 1 shorts with the Italian audio muxed on really old prints. They show occasionally, probably by accident.

Warner Home Video in the late 90s released 3 Tom and Jerry tapes which used the NTSC prints sped up to 25 fps (with heavy DVNR) and the Italian dubs. On The Truce Hurts the audio went out of sync on the censored scene for 30 seconds. Sufferin Cats was a new dub, which sounds like it was done at the same time as the new ones of Tot Watchers and The Vanishing Duck were made.

Then when Cartoon Network Italy launched, they were using the exact same prints as the UK, with some short having Italian audio. The majority of them was only in English though. These versions had black bars on the sides and dot crawl.

Then the FTA channels got new muxes which used the Italian audio (often in bad shape, with audio compression and glitches very often, like at the beginning of Downhearted Duckling), on the Turner prints with heavy dot crawl, as they were taken from an old magnetic tape format, and they had a frozen shot with a translated title, this time replacing the original one. These muxes were really badly done in general, they even forgot to sync the audio on Down Beat Bear and other shorts. 3 non MGM shorts were included in this package, they all had English audio anyway.

Then Quiet Please, Puss Gets the Boot, Dog Trouble, and probably some other MGM cartoon got redubbed, and after that it looks like they synced the audio from the muxes above with the raw Turner prints, as Boomerang replaced some short with these somewhere in 2009. I've also seen them on RSI La 1, even though they're known for muxing the audio themselves so I can't be certain.

Busy Buddies and Down Beat Bear were apparently redubbed over the Spotlight versions when the Greatest Chases series continued.

Then in 2007 WHV released two Droopy DVDs in Italy. This is when I start to get confused. Two shorts sound to me they were dubbed in the late 80s (Dumb Hounded and Wild and Woolfy), some were from the MGM U/A VHS dubs, one was an old dub (which sounds to me a theatrical dub). Many of them though had clearly recent dubs, with the same voice cast as Droopy Master Detective and Tom & Jerry Kids. These dubs though had the dialogues badly equalized (bass was too loud).

When WHV in 2009 released the Academy Awards collection, these were the shorts (not including the T&J ones which were taken from the remuxes I talked about before):

-The Milky Way: same as Dumb Hounded
-The Dot and the Line: new dub with loud bass
-Peace on Earth: same as Dumb Hounded
-Blitz Wolf: same as The Dot and the Line, in this case I can confirm this was done on the Turner print due to the edits
-Little Johnny Jet: 80% it's a theatrical dub
-Good Will to Men: same as The Dot and the Line

Interestingly So Much for So Little and Now Hear This have the same dub with the loud bass, so I need to investigate more on those.

With this said, I first need to get this on both DVD and VHS (the VHS apparently uses the theatrical dub of The Night Before Christmas, and I'll give more info):

 

[Charly9631]

Whilst I compile my list, here's a friendly reminder that this exists.View attachment 114021View attachment 114031 View attachment 114061View attachment 114081 View attachment 114091View attachment 114101 View attachment 114121View attachment 114141 View attachment 114151 View attachment 114161

Hmm... Odd to see that MGM logo in this episode. I usually thought, that with that MGM logo, the end card should be bigger tho.