Sunday, February 16, 2014

Tom & Jerry the Movie-Unseen Opening Sequence!

Way back in 1991 I was working on Tom & Jerry The Movie.  This was supposed to be the opening sequence....


  ...It ended up on the cutting room floor.  What is unique about this short, is the fact that it was done in collaboration with two animation legends,  Joe Barbera and Phil Roman. And Mike Peraza as well!.

First we had a story meeting, then I would go off and rough out my first pass at the board.  Then we would pin them up, and discuss different ways the story and gags could be told.  Man I had blast working with these fantastic talents.  .


Tom had conceived this elaborate Rube Goldberg  mouse trap, but Jerry showed up early....


... Tom gets mad at Jerry for knocking over the dominos, and lunges at Jerry, setting the trap in motion...
...with Tom in it....



All of this mayhem was to be timed to music by the great Henry Mancini himself...
At the end everything gets sucked into the hole and the scene goes black, credits roll!
This cartoon was never animated, but it should have been!
Oh, and they didn't talk until after this part, we were going for a more traditional
 Tom and Jerry cartoon for this opening sequence.