What a waste of my time!!!

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

"The Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit" is an American/Czechoslovakian cartoon from 1962, so this one had its 55th anniversary last year and despite the age, it is still among the later Tom and Jerry works. This is also proven by Gene Deitch having taken over at that point already from Hanna Barbera in this MGM production that runs for a bit over 6.5 minutes as they always do. I would say that story-wise and comedy-wise it isn't too bad and probably not worse than some of the weaker HB original T&J cartoons, maybe even better. The melon scenes were kinda okay and the martial arts judo stuff wasn't too shabby either, at least at the very end when the ground breaks under Tom. The title is really random though as it only refers to the first minute. And Jerry must be quite a talented fighter if he picks up all these amazing skills from a book without actual training. The film's biggest weakness though was not just the background animation, but the complete lack thereof and the longer it goes the more painful it becomes to see. Eventually it is just the two central characters in front of one background color. Essentialism is one thing, but I just cannot approve of that. A bit of a pity as plot- and comedy-wise it was solid for the most part, but the lows are lower than the highs are high, so I give this one a thumbs-down and recommend skipping the watch here.

As the voice-over for director Gene Deitch's The Tom & Jerry Cartoon Kit explains: "Anyone can now enter the lucrative field of animated cartoons". We know, Mr. Deitch—you're living proof!This one does away with a plot entirely, the cartoon consisting of totally random and surreal action, and keeps the need for drawing to an absolute minimum by making all of the backgrounds flat colour. What next? Pure white backgrounds? That would keep the costs down even further.Others here on IMDb seem to like The Tom & Jerry Cartoon Kit slightly more than Deitch's other efforts, but I don't get it, finding this just as wretched.

Growing up, I didn't realize that this short had narration. When I was watching the same short in another state years later, I suddenly noticed the narration (especially the coffee and cigarettes part) but every time I saw this on the WPIX NY station, there was only music and sound fx. That made for a trippy ride. But then again, I grew up on a lot of cartoons that were considered trippy. A lot of cartoons today are either too talky or everyone's shouting. But it does raise the question, why was there a version of this without narration? But this is one of the Gene Deitch T&J cartoons that I remember the most. It looked like it was set in some sort of two dimensional Be-bop Jazz world, which actually worked for the music that was playing. It never occurred to me that these were not American made, only that they were different from the Chuck Jones cartoons as much as the Chuck Jones toons were different from the Hanna Barbera (40s-50s) versions. Of course the classic HB shorts are the best, but I would put the Deitch versions a close second just because I like the atmospheric mood. It's just too bad that Gene Deitch hasn't been more prolific. His trippy style, while admittedly unusual for T&J, would have been ideal for serious science fiction adventure cartoons.

Okay so it's pretty far out there, but it isn't as bad as the safari one or the one where the same guy is barbecuing. Those are really, really wretched. Almost as bad as the series where Tom and Jerry are actually friends. I don't know maybe I just appreciate weird, but I thought there were a few cool moments in this one.