Here we go. I’m holding NOTHING back. This will be LONG! Madness time:

The basic dynamics of where the desired sympathies of the audience of a Tom & Jerry cartoon are clearly meant to go make no goddamn sense whatsoever! ESPECIALLY when you bring the freaking dog into it!

Like why is Spike (beloved pet & member of a family home) helping protect Jerry (the invasive and no doubt disease-ridden intruder into said home) over Tom (Spike’s brother pet & clearly equally beloved family member)who is simply (& correctly) just trying to do his JOB?

Like yeah no I get David vs Goliath power dynamics & rooting for the (heh) underdog & all that garbage but can we get real for a minute here people? Tom is a kitty! Scientifically proven to be the most adorable creature to ever exist on this planet. You can’t argue with science!

While Jerry is a hardened street mouse - not some cute little pet but a wild and vicious (if admittedly small) animal. Oh you don’t think Jerry’s vicious? Go watch ANY Tom and Jerry cartoon and then come back to me with that garbage. Jerry is a killer. He will fucking end you.

And I already know what some of you are going to say: “But Shaun... Tom is a real asshole!” And you’re not wrong but that’s because the creators of the cartoons were going so hard against basic rationality with their setup they had to do everything they could to tilt the scales.

Because as I said when you actually think about it the setup for Tom & Jerry is just incredibly stupid. Like think of their closest counterparts: Sylvester & Tweety. Once again you have an example of the cutest species on the planet going up against… Some weird mutant freak.

As a brief aside I have never liked any version of Tweety’s design. It made sense in his first appearance where they were deliberately going for the grotesque but since then... While I prefer cats I’m not gonna sit here & say that birds can’t be adorable as well. But not THIS!

Anyways leaving my own admitted bias towards visual designs aside, I think the Sylvester and Tweety setup works from a common sense perspective in way the Tom & Jerry setup simply does not. To start with: S&T usually has both of them be part of Granny’s family as much loved pets.

And even in cases where Sylvester has a different background - like say being some unseen other person’s pet or just a stray cat - outside of weird aberrations on the formula?Tweety is basically always someone’s pet. Which is an important point of difference from Tom & Jerry.

Unlike home invader Jerry, Tweetie almost always belongs in the environment where Sylvester ends up stalking him. Maybe it’s his home or someplace he’s been left temporarily but regardless by going after Tweety it is SYLVESTER who is serving as instigator not Tweety.

Remember in the majority of Tom & Jerry cartoons JERRY DOES NOT BELONG IN TOM’S HOME! He is not a contributing and welcome member of the household but instead an intruder who is baldly stealing from those who live there without even token recompense. Jerry is a parasite.

Which actually leads to another important point but more on that in a sec. Right now the key thing to keep in mind is that even when the creators frame Tom as starting trouble & Jerry just minding his own business that is never actually true because Jerry does not belong there!

As such while Tom may indeed be an asshole he is not in fact wrong for going after Jerry. By contrast when Sylvester goes after Tweety he is unquestionably performing an unlawful act. Tweety is not an uninvited presence to his environment but a valued & even desired one.

Sylvester is not acting in defense against an intruder in his home (assuming in the given scenario it even IS his home) and by dent of this his attempts to defeat & consume Tweety can only be judged to be malicious in nature. Which brings us to that aforementioned other point:

In the respective worlds that Tom & Jerry and Sylvester & Tweety exist in all four of these characters are fully sentient beings. They are not simple animals acting out of basic nature and instinct alone but creatures capable of higher thoughts & speech & moral choices.

So when Sylvester attempts to eat Tweety he’s attempting to kill a fellow sentient for basically sheer sport alone. Rarely(if ever) does it appear that Sylvester needs to consume Tweety for outright survival purposes. Other options are almost always available.

Which only further serves (consciously or not) to place the sympathies of the audience on the side of Tweety. Tweety is rarely ever doing anything outright wrong & certainly not to the degree that being killed could be viewed as an appropriate retaliation for said actions.

So despite Sylvester being a cat I almost never feel any sympathy for him. He brings it on himself. If he just left Tweety alone everything would be OK. The only exception are the cartoons Sylvester appears in without Tweety thus allowing him to take on the role of actual victim.

In summary the basic formula of Sylvester & Tweety works in a way that allows it to remain emotionally honest. So, for example, when Hector the Bulldog is added into the mix and ends ups protecting Tweety from Sylvester there is no dissonance because Sylvester is in the wrong.

Whereas when Spike (who remember is part of a species famous for their loyalty to humans) arbitrarily & seemingly for no real reason betrays a member of his family to protect an individual whose entire raison d'être is the behave hostility to said family it just feels wrong.

And to anyone who wants to justify such behavior by saying dogs just don’t like cats to you I say: FUCKING BULLSHIT! Do you know how many people I know who own both a cat and a dog and have never had any problems between the two? So many I can’t even count!

Cats and dogs fighting is just an example of lazy bad writing. Also I love Ghostbusters but Peter Venkman can go straight to hell! There is NOTHING weird or a natural about cats and dogs living together WHATEVER the FUCK this GROSS conman says!

EGON IS SMARTER, WINSTON IS COOLER & RAY IS NICER! YOU BRING NOTHING TO THE TABLE PETER YOU SLEEZY POS! I WOULD PICK ANY OF THE 2016 GHOSTBUSTERS OVER YOU IN A MOMENT! BECAUSE THEIR MOVIE WAS GREAT AND HOLTZMANN FOREVER AND AND...dizzy. WhaUh. Lost myself. Sec there. Where was I?

Right right getting irrationally angry & offended at the creators of Tom & Jerry not Ghostbusters. Which in all seriousness remains one of my favorite franchises of all time. Anyways it’s really dumb that Spike goes after Tom. Like clearly he needs to be re-homed.

Any dog that aggressive does not belong in the same home as another pet much less one that potentially includes children or elderly family members. Maybe he comes from an abusive background or something but regardless in this context there’s only one thing to call him: a bad dog.

And look I’m sure long before now many of you reached the point of “what is she going on about?” “Who cares?” “What does it matter?” “Tom and Jerry have been around forever. Clearly the formula works.” Because in truth it does and it doesn’t. Please let me explain.

Think of all the bad Tom & Jerry cartoons that been produced especially i the last few decades. You know the ones. Where, the formula long haven’t gotten beyond tired & worn out, gets twisted & stretched to their breaking point in the attempt to make things interesting again.

Think of the various bizarre Tom & Jerry crossover movies in recent years that just plops them completely awkwardly in the middle of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Wizard of Oz or whatever. Sure they are popular with little kids but that doesn’t mean they aren’t dreadful.

Whereas Sylvester & Tweety remain flexible enough to star in a mystery series back in the 90s that was actually more often than not legitimately clever and fun. It worked as a procedural series while also still maintaining the spirit & essence of the Sylvester & Tweety formula.

And that’s just one example I could give. Because the basis of S&T was rocksolid its remained far easier to do more with them across the years to better results. Whereas creators working on Tom & Jerry have long since had to break their formula to get them to work at all anymore.

It’s not an accident that these days it’s more and more common for them to team up. The old cartoons were really Tom versus Jerry. But these days it truly is Tom AND Jerry. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It absolutely can work. But what it’s not is the original formula.

Shorn of the ability to deploy the deliberately over-the-top ultraviolence that was long a trademark of Tom & Jerry cartoons what remains is a mostly hollow and empty storytelling engine. The violence could cover up this weakness in the old days but not anymore.

Sure 99% of people on this planet are not ever going to think this deeply about Tom and Jerry of all things. It takes a “special” mind indeed to spend God knows how many tweets getting into all this in this way but my nonetheless this stuff matters when telling a story.

When creating any kind of narrative - be it via a video game or a novel or TV series or yes a series of deliberately silly cartoon shorts - good writing and storytelling matter. Giving your work a strong foundation to build upon matters. Thinking things through matters.

Because even if the audience doesn’t think too deeply about what they’re watching or experiencing on some level if things don’t fit together right it will register with most of them and leave them dissatisfied. Even if they can’t quite put into words why...

But also seriously #FuckJerry! He’s a little piece of shit and I’m not afraid to say so. And thanks for putting up with my nonsense. I feel a lot better now that I’ve gotten all that off my chest. Happy #CaturdayEve & goodnight! #BackCats #DownWithMouse #SupportOurFelines