This premiere episode of the Gene Deitch era of Tom and Jerry scores major points for its nice backgrounds and story.
Where this episode fails is in its execution. The events of the story unfold in a very boring way and the animation is very poor. The character designs of our titular duo are horrendous in most instances. A few fleeting moments in the short , they look just like their Hanna Barbara counterparts. The music by Victor Little (aka Vaclav Lidl) is a triumph and far superior to that of his replacement on this series. Stephen Konicek.
All gags in this episode fall flat except for that strange flower gag.
9 Reviews
Sorry I didn't like it
TheLittleSongbird30 March 2010
Don't get me wrong I adore Tom and Jerry, but Switchin' Kitten didn't work for me, and I do think it is quite possibly their worst cartoon.
The animation is usually outstanding for its time in Tom and Jerry cartoons, and one of the reasons why the cartoons work so well. Here it is very poor, which is highly unusual for a Tom and Jerry cartoon. The backgrounds were flat, dull and tacky and the characters were very wonkily drawn, Tom especially.
The music is not the rousing, lyrical and fun motifs I am used to. Here it was forgettable at best, and I think what ruined it were some of the most bizarre sound effects I have heard in a cartoon ever. Not only did they not sound like Hanna Barbera sound effect standard, but some of them were even poorly placed.
The story I initially had no problem with. It was different, and it would have been interesting to see Tom and Jerry doing something unique and different. Alas, the pacing was quite sluggish, and a vast majority of the funny gags are deliriously misconceived. And the violence? I know Cue Ball Cat was quite violent, but the violence was funny and breakneck. In Switchin' Kitten, the violence is crude, sadistic and even sickening. And it probably doesn't help that that cat who inflicts the violence on poor Tom who I felt so sorry for at the end of this was so unlikeable I couldn't relate to him at all. And Jerry was woefully underused here, Jerry usually inflicts the violence on Tom but here he seemed to have backed down to the thoroughly unlikeable character and in the process almost ignored.
All in all, I didn't like it. Nice premise but messy execution. 1/10 Bethany Cox
The animation is usually outstanding for its time in Tom and Jerry cartoons, and one of the reasons why the cartoons work so well. Here it is very poor, which is highly unusual for a Tom and Jerry cartoon. The backgrounds were flat, dull and tacky and the characters were very wonkily drawn, Tom especially.
The music is not the rousing, lyrical and fun motifs I am used to. Here it was forgettable at best, and I think what ruined it were some of the most bizarre sound effects I have heard in a cartoon ever. Not only did they not sound like Hanna Barbera sound effect standard, but some of them were even poorly placed.
The story I initially had no problem with. It was different, and it would have been interesting to see Tom and Jerry doing something unique and different. Alas, the pacing was quite sluggish, and a vast majority of the funny gags are deliriously misconceived. And the violence? I know Cue Ball Cat was quite violent, but the violence was funny and breakneck. In Switchin' Kitten, the violence is crude, sadistic and even sickening. And it probably doesn't help that that cat who inflicts the violence on poor Tom who I felt so sorry for at the end of this was so unlikeable I couldn't relate to him at all. And Jerry was woefully underused here, Jerry usually inflicts the violence on Tom but here he seemed to have backed down to the thoroughly unlikeable character and in the process almost ignored.
All in all, I didn't like it. Nice premise but messy execution. 1/10 Bethany Cox
an insult to the fans of Tom and Jerry
planktonrules13 June 2006
In the early 1960s, some evil trolls at MGM decided to revive the Tom and Jerry series but wanted it done with practically no budget at all. So, the cartoons were farmed out to be done in Czechoslovakia by people that had hardly any notion of who the characters were. As a result, they didn't look all that much like Tom and Jerry and they acted nothing like the originals. Apparently, the staff hadn't really seen the cartoons before but that didn't stop them! This cartoon isn't interesting at all. In fact, it's downright boring. And its production values are abysmal. It's really a shame as classic Tom and Jerry cartoons of the 40s and 50s were great cartoons. MGM in 1960-61 chose to abandon its fans and serve up this horrid mess! For shame, MGM.
A bite-sized piece of what was to come
TheGatesOfHades14 June 2019
Warning: Spoilers
I seem to remember seeing this short popping up right after the usual run of the 1940-58 Hanna-Barbara films were done, just shy over 20 years ago when I first got the Cartoon Network channel. It was as jarring then as it is now.
Quite a few things wrong with this Deitch cartoon (and same thing with all 13 of them). There's the rough edits and crude animation/art quality usually found in the Deitch T&J cartoons, as well as the amateur SFX (some of it can be unusually loud, some of it is synthesized) and the odd low-volume creepy music (which often resembles a poorly-imitated version of the 1940-58 shorts score, right down to the light-hearted and escalating moments, even doing the Tom and Jerry theme motif, which makes it all of the more disturbing and beyond creepy, also throw in the tense moments which sound downright menacing and evil). It's not as painful as some of the other deplorable Deitch shorts, but still there's something "off" about it compared to the earlier HB and the Chuck Jones shorts. This one threw me off since it seemed innocent enough to appear to be a strange and unusual T&J cartoon, but not of the level of sadism some of the following shorts had that'd be expected of Gene Deitch, but nevertheless, there was something eerie about it. This cartoon starts off with Tom getting thrown out of a passing horse carriage and then entering a stormy Dr. Frankenstein-style castle. Jerry's role consists of being the assistant to the mad scientist of this episode, though the mad scientist seems more of a background character while Jerry being more like Dr. Frankenstein.
It was creepy throughout but not intolerable. Tom wasn't beaten off-screen nor was he nearly maimed on-screen by his Clint Clobber owner in some way, but I can see some of the "force" effects with the screen in this cartoon whenever there's some means of impact or violence that'd be found in the Clobber episodes, it just has an unsettling feel to it, complete with the quiet "BOOM" sound effect as well as several odd synthesized SFX. There's a rather odd scene where Tom is struck in the head rather passively (compared to the Clobber cartoons) by the orange cat that had it's brain replaced by a dog's brain and all of Tom's bones break while the orange cat holds him by the neck, then takes him outside and buries him, which thereby after he "blossoms" out of the ground as a flower.
I give this a 2/10 due to the effort put into the rather high-detailed backgrounds and not having Tom's horrible "Clint Clobber" owner. I hate these Deitch shorts today just as much as I did 20+ years ago, they're the absolute WORST.
I HIGHLY recommend sticking to the classic Hanna-Barbara shorts and even checking out the Chuck Jones ones while avoiding these Deitch cartoons.
Quite a few things wrong with this Deitch cartoon (and same thing with all 13 of them). There's the rough edits and crude animation/art quality usually found in the Deitch T&J cartoons, as well as the amateur SFX (some of it can be unusually loud, some of it is synthesized) and the odd low-volume creepy music (which often resembles a poorly-imitated version of the 1940-58 shorts score, right down to the light-hearted and escalating moments, even doing the Tom and Jerry theme motif, which makes it all of the more disturbing and beyond creepy, also throw in the tense moments which sound downright menacing and evil). It's not as painful as some of the other deplorable Deitch shorts, but still there's something "off" about it compared to the earlier HB and the Chuck Jones shorts. This one threw me off since it seemed innocent enough to appear to be a strange and unusual T&J cartoon, but not of the level of sadism some of the following shorts had that'd be expected of Gene Deitch, but nevertheless, there was something eerie about it. This cartoon starts off with Tom getting thrown out of a passing horse carriage and then entering a stormy Dr. Frankenstein-style castle. Jerry's role consists of being the assistant to the mad scientist of this episode, though the mad scientist seems more of a background character while Jerry being more like Dr. Frankenstein.
It was creepy throughout but not intolerable. Tom wasn't beaten off-screen nor was he nearly maimed on-screen by his Clint Clobber owner in some way, but I can see some of the "force" effects with the screen in this cartoon whenever there's some means of impact or violence that'd be found in the Clobber episodes, it just has an unsettling feel to it, complete with the quiet "BOOM" sound effect as well as several odd synthesized SFX. There's a rather odd scene where Tom is struck in the head rather passively (compared to the Clobber cartoons) by the orange cat that had it's brain replaced by a dog's brain and all of Tom's bones break while the orange cat holds him by the neck, then takes him outside and buries him, which thereby after he "blossoms" out of the ground as a flower.
I give this a 2/10 due to the effort put into the rather high-detailed backgrounds and not having Tom's horrible "Clint Clobber" owner. I hate these Deitch shorts today just as much as I did 20+ years ago, they're the absolute WORST.
I HIGHLY recommend sticking to the classic Hanna-Barbara shorts and even checking out the Chuck Jones ones while avoiding these Deitch cartoons.
A Passable Start to a Bad Era...
Kalashnikovin18 June 2022
Tom and Jerry is my Favorite Cartoon series of all time, Chuck Jones' Cartoons are my Favorites Along with Hanna Barbera's and what to say about Gene Deitch...
After 1954 the Tom and Jerry Cartoons gave their animation a slump as they were too Expensive to Produce, so the Method continued until William Hanna and Joseph Barbera ended their series of Shorts in 1958 with the Infamous " Tot Watchers" a mediocre short that did not have the same production quality as the previous ones but seemed decent enough to rate it a 6.
After the End of the Original Series in 1960, they hired the Czechoslovak Studio "Rembrandt Films Productions" with headquarters in Prague and at the hands of Eugene Merril Deitch, better known as Gene Deitch and William L. Snyder, this Studio that same year won an Oscar for the great Short Film "Munro" which seemed decent enough to deserve its Award, as for the Animators I had no Idea of the Original Characters, since Tom and Jerry had never been broadcast in Czechoslovakia besides they did not know the Characters They didn't know how to speak English!
These problems were made worse since these animators also had no idea of Comedy Short Films since they were more Accustomed to different Short Films, with more Complex Stories, when in Tom and Jerry it is a Simple Story but well handled. The humor was degraded a lot since they didn't know much about the humor of the Americans, so they included scenes of "Comic" Violence that sadly turned out to be Unpleasantly Horrible.
And in 1960 the Short Film "Switchin Kitten" arrived, well actually it arrived in 1961 but the copyright was from the year 1960, a Short Film destroyed in Critics but well received Economically, many hate it even one of my favorite critics "The Little Song Bird "I brutally criticize it for very Bad things, and I understand it, the short film is bad but it is not so Bad to label it as the Worst of the Series, for me the Worst would be "High Steaks" but that Short Film will have a separate review, this short As I said before, I don't think it's as bad as others from this same era, but it's not the Best of this Era either.
The Animation is a Massive Downgrade from the Original Shorts and Even the Animation of the Latest Hanna Barbera Shorts was much better, the Movements are Jerky and very Choppy, the Backgrounds are Decent but the Animation Doesn't Help, the Colors are Very Gloomy and Too Dark to look Good, the Animations being the First Tom and Jerry Short of this Studio is Too Ugly and the Designs are Deformed too much by the simplicity of the design to the Point that they look Completely horrible.
The Music is too different from that of the Original Series since Scott Bradley was a Composer of First Category Who Composed in a Phenomenal Way, but it is not that the Music of this short is bad, instead of it I quite like it despite of its Strange and Unpleasant Tone but it is also not as good as Scott Bradley's but if it manages to be Quite Decent and Fits in many scenes, Vaclav Lidl Regrettably Did Not Compose The Remaining 12 Shorts Of This Era But Stepan Konicek Replaced It With Even More Music Bizarre but just as decent.
The Voice Acts are horrible (no offense to Allen Swift) since they are only Horrible Screams to the Ear, his Interpretation as the Mad Scientist is so Bad that it made me laugh at how bad it is, but that does not take away that it sounds Horrendous and very, very Inferior to the Brilliant Performances of the Original Series.
The Sound Effects are just as horrible as the Voice Acting, Being Metal with screeching sounds that make my stomach churn, they sound Too Horrendous and are poorly Synthesized.
Itself "Switchin Kitten" is a mediocre short full of errors but despite that I came to like it, since it was not as mediocre as Tot Watchers since this one is more entertaining due to its slow rhythm than after it gets fast, the Animation and Effects Involuntarily manage to be funny in itself, it is not the best of Deitch and not Joke the Best of the Series, but a Quite Passable one and better than the Next 8 that Follow it, for everything I said previously to I give this short a 7.
After 1954 the Tom and Jerry Cartoons gave their animation a slump as they were too Expensive to Produce, so the Method continued until William Hanna and Joseph Barbera ended their series of Shorts in 1958 with the Infamous " Tot Watchers" a mediocre short that did not have the same production quality as the previous ones but seemed decent enough to rate it a 6.
After the End of the Original Series in 1960, they hired the Czechoslovak Studio "Rembrandt Films Productions" with headquarters in Prague and at the hands of Eugene Merril Deitch, better known as Gene Deitch and William L. Snyder, this Studio that same year won an Oscar for the great Short Film "Munro" which seemed decent enough to deserve its Award, as for the Animators I had no Idea of the Original Characters, since Tom and Jerry had never been broadcast in Czechoslovakia besides they did not know the Characters They didn't know how to speak English!
These problems were made worse since these animators also had no idea of Comedy Short Films since they were more Accustomed to different Short Films, with more Complex Stories, when in Tom and Jerry it is a Simple Story but well handled. The humor was degraded a lot since they didn't know much about the humor of the Americans, so they included scenes of "Comic" Violence that sadly turned out to be Unpleasantly Horrible.
And in 1960 the Short Film "Switchin Kitten" arrived, well actually it arrived in 1961 but the copyright was from the year 1960, a Short Film destroyed in Critics but well received Economically, many hate it even one of my favorite critics "The Little Song Bird "I brutally criticize it for very Bad things, and I understand it, the short film is bad but it is not so Bad to label it as the Worst of the Series, for me the Worst would be "High Steaks" but that Short Film will have a separate review, this short As I said before, I don't think it's as bad as others from this same era, but it's not the Best of this Era either.
The Animation is a Massive Downgrade from the Original Shorts and Even the Animation of the Latest Hanna Barbera Shorts was much better, the Movements are Jerky and very Choppy, the Backgrounds are Decent but the Animation Doesn't Help, the Colors are Very Gloomy and Too Dark to look Good, the Animations being the First Tom and Jerry Short of this Studio is Too Ugly and the Designs are Deformed too much by the simplicity of the design to the Point that they look Completely horrible.
The Music is too different from that of the Original Series since Scott Bradley was a Composer of First Category Who Composed in a Phenomenal Way, but it is not that the Music of this short is bad, instead of it I quite like it despite of its Strange and Unpleasant Tone but it is also not as good as Scott Bradley's but if it manages to be Quite Decent and Fits in many scenes, Vaclav Lidl Regrettably Did Not Compose The Remaining 12 Shorts Of This Era But Stepan Konicek Replaced It With Even More Music Bizarre but just as decent.
The Voice Acts are horrible (no offense to Allen Swift) since they are only Horrible Screams to the Ear, his Interpretation as the Mad Scientist is so Bad that it made me laugh at how bad it is, but that does not take away that it sounds Horrendous and very, very Inferior to the Brilliant Performances of the Original Series.
The Sound Effects are just as horrible as the Voice Acting, Being Metal with screeching sounds that make my stomach churn, they sound Too Horrendous and are poorly Synthesized.
Itself "Switchin Kitten" is a mediocre short full of errors but despite that I came to like it, since it was not as mediocre as Tot Watchers since this one is more entertaining due to its slow rhythm than after it gets fast, the Animation and Effects Involuntarily manage to be funny in itself, it is not the best of Deitch and not Joke the Best of the Series, but a Quite Passable one and better than the Next 8 that Follow it, for everything I said previously to I give this short a 7.
Switchin' animators
BA_Harrison8 May 2017
Three years after shutting down their animation department, MGM contracted studio Rembrandt Films to produce thirteen Tom and Jerry shorts, all to be directed by Gene Deitch, the first of which was Switchin' Kitten, in which Tom pays a visit to a creepy castle where a mad scientist and his mouse assistant (Jerry) perform mind-swapping experiments on animals.
Produced on a tight budget, Deitch's animation is much cruder than that of Hanna and Barbera, with jerky movement and backgrounds rendered in a simpler style; also serving to make the films less satisfying than its predecessors is the sparse soundtrack that consists of bizarre electronic sound effects with heavy reverb.
Switchin' Kitten features some nice ideas (I like Tom being sucked through the glass scientific equipment, and his discovery of the subjects of the scientist's previous experiments), but lacking the charm and sophistication of Hanna-Barbera's work, Deitch's cartoon is, for the most part, quite painful to watch (and listen to).
Produced on a tight budget, Deitch's animation is much cruder than that of Hanna and Barbera, with jerky movement and backgrounds rendered in a simpler style; also serving to make the films less satisfying than its predecessors is the sparse soundtrack that consists of bizarre electronic sound effects with heavy reverb.
Switchin' Kitten features some nice ideas (I like Tom being sucked through the glass scientific equipment, and his discovery of the subjects of the scientist's previous experiments), but lacking the charm and sophistication of Hanna-Barbera's work, Deitch's cartoon is, for the most part, quite painful to watch (and listen to).
HORRIBLE!
TheMan305119 November 2002
I'm going to put this as politely as possible! IT SUCKS! Seriously had Gene Dietch ever even seen a Tom and Jerry cartoon?! Boy did he really mess it up. This is simply just a horrible short! I'm glad Chuck Jones later took over and fixed things up!
Zero(0)out of 4(****)stars
Zero(0)out of 4(****)stars
Unlike most of people think, this was a excellent episode for me
anonymus88724 October 2019
After the very crappy and lame Tom and Jerry shorts animated by CinemaScope, Gene Deitch decided to revive Tom and Jerry with an awesome cartoon.
This episode is very good and funny! I love the "brain switched" gags in this episode. The music is great, kinda weird, but good. The sounds effects are also weird. But this was an awesome cartoon
The only problem with this episode is the animation, Tom and Jerry looked a bit ugly for me in these shorts.
Anyways, in general, a good and funny Tom and Jerry cartoon. 10/10.
This episode is very good and funny! I love the "brain switched" gags in this episode. The music is great, kinda weird, but good. The sounds effects are also weird. But this was an awesome cartoon
The only problem with this episode is the animation, Tom and Jerry looked a bit ugly for me in these shorts.
Anyways, in general, a good and funny Tom and Jerry cartoon. 10/10.
Shockingly, NOT ONE of the previous eight . . .
pixrox119 November 2022
Warning: Spoilers
. . . reviewers have mentioned that SWITCHING KITTEN was released only a year before the dire Planet-threatening Cuban Missile Crisis. Awards-decorated KITTEN director Gene Val Gene was lured behind the Iron Curtain under false pretenses, forced to wed a Red Commie KGB operative and assigned to implant subliminal anti-American messages into a baker's dozen of Tom & Jerry episodes by a nefarious Tinsel Town Poverty Row film shack notorious throughout the 1900's for being in cahoots with the Hammer & Sickle of the Russian Bear. Instead of blindly following the orders of his KGB handlers, Gene the Valiant used this film series to alert America to the nefarious Crimes against Nature then being perpetrated by the soulless Communists. During KITTEN, Gene was the first whistle-blower to out the Reds for conducting a series of grisly Real Life mad scientist "experiments" to switch the heads of one dog with another mutt, of a cat noggin with a canine cranium and even of a dog top with a lady's head piece. Anyone familiar with such Russian depredations will recognize the KGB "safe house" serving as KITTEN's primary setting.
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