Tom and Jerry - Spotlight Collection

What strikes one about every episode on these discs is the lavish care Hanna-Barbera paid to Tom and Jerry, not only drumming up new, sometimes exotic settings (such as the swashbuckling "The Two Mousketeers," or for the Old West adventure "Texas Tom") but also consistently turning out gorgeous and wildly creative backgrounds, where straight lines rarely exist and the palette of a night sky includes multiple, dreamy shades of blue and green. Technicolor and novel visual ideas (e.g., shooting a scene through the tunnel-like view of a hollowed-out bread loaf) are sometimes more pleasing than the combative relationship between the two leads. But their rivalry is often renewed in very interesting ways, such as the wonderful "Tom and Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl," in which the pair play competing conductors against a lovely backdrop of L.A. landmarks. Special features include the Anchors Aweigh dance sequence featuring Jerry and Gene Kelly, and a featurette, "How Bill and Joe Met Tom and Jerry." --Tom Keogh