There are more
Spike Brandt and
Tony Cervone directed cartoons on the just-released
Tom & Jerry Tales Volume 5 DVD.
They had their hand at
writing & directing another episode consisting of
3 cartoons.
"Xtreme Trouble",
"A Life Less Guarded" and
"Sasquashed" are nicely timed and animated.
Both directors worked on
another episode on
Volume 4.
http://jedaniels-adventures.blogspot.com/2008/03/brandt-cervone-on-t-tales.html
Xtreme Trouble has Jerry Mouse pursuing a cheese truck on his skateboard while Tom pursues in chase using various "Xtreme" equipment.
In a
A Life Less Guarded, Tom &
Droopy Dog compete to be the best for the position of lifeguard. Droopy receives some help from Jerry while a
caricature of Tex Avery and Miss Shapely look on. She's "great with figures"!
Tom goes Bigfoot hunting in Sasquashed so Jerry and Tuffy help out the hungry Andy Dick/Paul Lynd-esque Sasquatch elude him.
The bear from Tex Avery's
Rock-a-bye Bear (1952) makes a guest appearance.
A lot of
in-jokes were inserted into these cartoons and it seems only a fan of the
Golden Age would catch them all. The bear cameo is only funny if you've seen the
original cartoon. Most kids were probably left wondering why he was yelling at Tom? lol
Spike & Tony really understand how to handle these classic characters and I hope to see
more of their cartoons on future volumes!
You can see the writers were trying their best to be funny but the stories themselves fall flat with stiff animation, bad acting and a poor music score. At least they're trying.
