Can anyone tell whether there're new restorations of Tom and Jerry? And if so, which ones are newly restored?
Thanks,
All of the post-1953/pre-CinemaScope
Tom and Jerry cartoons (from
Baby Butch to
Pecos Pest, respectively) are presented here in brand-new, HD restorations.
Every single one of them look absolutely phenomenal, and I am absolutely blown away by the drastic improvement they are to the old Turner copies. I’m also quite pleasantly surprised that WB actually decided to revisit the remastering of the
Tom and Jerry filmography, especially considering that we were all under the impression that they weren’t moving forward with that specific project.
The four Tex Avery shorts that have made their way onto the new streaming platform are quite breath-taking in their visual presentation, as well. One thing I did notice about
Ventriloquist Cat, in particular, is that it looks considerably dustier and grainier than most of the other new remasters I’ve looked at, thus far. To comment on the user who inquired about whether these shorts were actually newly remastered or just upscaled Turner prints, none of the cartoons I’ve seen on HBO Max seem to be sourced from off-the-shelf TV copies (the only exception being the 1939
Porky Pig cartoon
Chicken Jitters, which seems to be taken from an upscaled analogue transfer...though, I could be wrong).
The shorts initially remastered for the
Golden Collection sets are presented as is, so no new scans were made for
The Bowling Alley-Cat,
Sufferin’ Cats,
Puttin’ on the Dog, or
Mouse Trouble...murky Metrocolor blemishes and all. I suppose that’s a small price to pay, though.
The Famous Studios
Popeyes that have been uploaded, as of this writing, utilize Warner Archive’s recent restorations found on the Blu-ray sets. Thank goodness they’re not using those crappy A.A.P prints!
For a streaming service that just launched within the last 24 hours, I will say that WB has
really stepped up its game. I’m impressed!