Having recently rewatched Chuck Jones's "Feed the Kitty", I decided to check out the layouts (and comparison to the final cartoon) that Michael Sporn (whose death was on the 19th last year...my, how time flies!) posted on his Splog a while ago.
http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/?p=2344 Looking at the layouts, I am struck by how much they more resemble Jones's cartoons from the mid-50s and onward, especially his MGM work, rather than the cartoon as released in 1952. Even the poses look like Jones's Tom and Jerry cartoons. The final scene as animated by Ken Harris adapts the layouts rather loosely, and looks more natural (so to speak) and less angular in the drawing.
As the 50s (and early 60s) wore on, Chuck Jones's cartoons started looking much more like the layouts (as evidenced by
this layout for "Broomstick Bunny"), and the animators started getting harder to differentiate...finally, we end up with the very modern-looking, but pose-to-pose Tom and Jerry cartoons of the 60s. Did Jones make his animators rely more on his layouts over time? And did Jones always draw in his angular Tom and Jerry style during the 50s (and perhaps even the late 40s), with his animators at first being able to adapt them to the "house" style?
I would love to hear other thoughts on this.