I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Though that is not saying much, this cartoon is mediocre. However, along with Tall in the Trap and Calypso Cat it is one of the more tolerable Tom and Jerry cartoons that Gene Dietch made, I can't stand the rest. The animation is not great but it is better than the animation in the likes of Switchin' Kitten and Sorry Safari, as the colours are not as flat and the backgrounds not quite as static. The story is also an improvement, it is standard, but it is not non-existent or disturbing. And Tom and Jerry themselves are at least okay. However, the music is still rather creepy, the pace is uneven often feeling rushed and the sound effects are bizarre. While I raised a smile a few times, there was nothing I would deem as hilarious. Overall, this is not saying much but for me when it comes to Gene Dietch this is one of the better ones. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Growing up, I didn't realize that this short had narration. When I was watching the same short in another state years later, I suddenly noticed the narration (especially the coffee and cigarettes part) but every time I saw this on the WPIX NY station, there was only music and sound fx. That made for a trippy ride. But then again, I grew up on a lot of cartoons that were considered trippy. A lot of cartoons today are either too talky or everyone's shouting. But it does raise the question, why was there a version of this without narration? But this is one of the Gene Deitch T&J cartoons that I remember the most. It looked like it was set in some sort of two dimensional Be-bop Jazz world, which actually worked for the music that was playing. It never occurred to me that these were not American made, only that they were different from the Chuck Jones cartoons as much as the Chuck Jones toons were different from the Hanna Barbera (40s-50s) versions. Of course the classic HB shorts are the best, but I would put the Deitch versions a close second just because I like the atmospheric mood. It's just too bad that Gene Deitch hasn't been more prolific. His trippy style, while admittedly unusual for T&J, would have been ideal for serious science fiction adventure cartoons.

Gene Deitch could ruin ALPO. But, he managed to breathe some fresh air into the vastly overrated TOM and JERRY series, but only in this single cartoon. Its premise is that ANYONE (even himself, I suppose) could make cartoons. The bit about coffee and cigarettes for the animators is the best part of the cartoon. Other than that, it's the same old "Mouse beats up stupid cat" theme that was already years past anything original or valid.Deitch's style is way too eerie and absurd (see his Popeye cartoons--they ain't much better), and should NEVER have been used for a "serious" studio's product. This is the sole example of where it seemed to work.

When I was a kid, I would watch hours of Tom & Jerry every day (between TBS and the local stations, I could probably have spent 12 hours a day watching Tom & Jerry). I didn't know much about the history of animation, but I figured out a few "styles"... Early Hanna-Barbera, 50's Hanna-Barbera, Chuck Jones-style, 60's style, Filmation, and... the Gene Deitch ones.I instinctively didn't like the Filmation ones, but the Gene Deitch vignettes... these are the things the nightmares of children are built upon.I don't know how to properly convey how weird these things are in the pantheon of Tom & Jerry cartoons. Gene Deitch was a master animator, but of avant-garde subjects; his angular, flat style just doesn't work- it feels like you're watching a badly dubbed cartoon, rather than new-style animation. It actually felt like I was watching a cartoon done in a third-world country that "appropriated" the T&J characters- Stalinist cartoons, perhaps.The sounds, too... Tom & Jerry always had creepy bits (who doesn't remember "Don't you believe it!" after Tom gets blown up by the atomic white mouse?) but the Deitch shorts... the sf/x all sound synthesized and strange. If Jerry is confused, what do you hear? Not a tiny voice going "Hmmm", but a wobbling-sheet-metal sound, as if it were being done in an echo chamber.The over-all effect is the same feeling I get when watching Italian horror/sexploitation flicks, or Jorge Buttgereit's work (Nekromantik, Der Todesking)- this is *definitely* not what I should feel like when watching a Tom & Jerry cartoon...