George Rufle

After crash landing in Africa, Tom and Jerry masquerade as Africans in a futile attempt to adapt to a strange environment.

Tom and Jerry are doughnut-makers competing against an assortment of weirdos for first prize at a bakers' convention.

Tom and Jerry are hoboes, but the city is demolishing the hobo camp. They hop a ride on a freight train. The train comes to a lumber camp, where the Chinese cook has just prepared a huge platter of roast chicken; he invites the train people to eat, but hundreds of bums descend. He chases them off, into a log slide, and they end up right back in the original camp.

Tom and Jerry crash their plane in the cartoon wild, wild west. Surreal hi-jinx involving a vicious outlaw and robbery ensue.

Before the animation industry became dominated by the major studios and their familiar stable of characters, there were other companies who entertained theater audiences with wild excursions into cartoon fantasies. Experimentation was the rule as the boundries of cinematic animation were being pushed to the limit and many of these early productions have the raw look of a work in progress. These classic animated shorts from the early days of sound were created by nearly forgotten production pioneers like Van Beuren Studios and Max and Dave Fleischer. Hilarious, inventive, sometimes risque and often surreal, these films are the fabulous forerunners of every cartoon we've ever watched in the theater or on TV. Laugh again at the cartoons your grandparents enjoyed in the 1930s.

Tom and Jerry are washed ashore in a frigid land inhabited by music-loving animals, including walruses, penguins, and polar bears.

After crash landing in Africa, Tom and Jerry masquerade as Africans in a futile attempt to adapt to a strange environment.

Tom and Jerry are doughnut-makers competing against an assortment of weirdos for first prize at a bakers' convention.

Tom and Jerry are hoboes, but the city is demolishing the hobo camp. They hop a ride on a freight train. The train comes to a lumber camp, where the Chinese cook has just prepared a huge platter of roast chicken; he invites the train people to eat, but hundreds of bums descend. He chases them off, into a log slide, and they end up right back in the original camp.

Tom and Jerry crash their plane in the cartoon wild, wild west. Surreal hi-jinx involving a vicious outlaw and robbery ensue.

Before the animation industry became dominated by the major studios and their familiar stable of characters, there were other companies who entertained theater audiences with wild excursions into cartoon fantasies. Experimentation was the rule as the boundries of cinematic animation were being pushed to the limit and many of these early productions have the raw look of a work in progress. These classic animated shorts from the early days of sound were created by nearly forgotten production pioneers like Van Beuren Studios and Max and Dave Fleischer. Hilarious, inventive, sometimes risque and often surreal, these films are the fabulous forerunners of every cartoon we've ever watched in the theater or on TV. Laugh again at the cartoons your grandparents enjoyed in the 1930s.

Tom and Jerry are washed ashore in a frigid land inhabited by music-loving animals, including walruses, penguins, and polar bears.

A Van Beuren Studios cartoon....

Tom and Jerry are about to embark on on a voyage into space when their rocket ship is hijacked and they are taken hostage by an escaped convict.

Tom and Jerry are captured by cannibals while dancing and engaging in musical hi-jinx in the jungle. Can Jerry save their lives by impressing the chief with his yodeling skills?

Tom and Jerry work as piano tuners. After seeing them at work and several creative ways of tuning a piano (such as removing the offending key and cutting the key itself to a shorter length), the two attend an opera singers performance. The singer passes out when the piano plays a wrong note, and Tom and Jerry are pressed into service to re-tune the piano. After pulling the offending key from the keyboard like a bad tooth, the two give the opera audience a jazz piano performance, with the now recovered opera singer joining in.

An old farmer has let his entire farm go and it is falling down around him, with mice taking over. Tom and Jerry (the human versions, not the cat and mouse) show up with magical saxophones, and the music has amazing effects on the farm. A chicken lays dozens of eggs, a cow gives gallons and gallons and gallons of milk, and two woodpeckers don't just peck a tree, they cut it down and split it into firewood. Even the farmer's well changes, filling with beer (by the mug of course) instead of water. The farmer trades Tom and Jerry a huge bag of money for the saxophones, but he gets the better deal - the bag is full of the mice from the start of the cartoon, and they carry Tom and Jerry off to throw them into the pond.

Tom and Jerry have fun at the circus and then show their acrobatic talents on a tightrope. They get into trouble with an ornery lion and are chased from the Big Top by the feline's friends. When the defend themselves by spraying the lions away with an elephant's trunk, they accidentally flood the circus but are able to float away unscathed.

Tom and Jerry play with a bratty baby.

Tom and Jerry build an experimental rocket intending to go to the Moon. The rocket misfires, and they instead find themselves exploring a strange world at the bottom of the ocean.