Tom & Jerry Kids (also known as Tom & Jerry Kids Show) is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera and Turner Entertainment. The show premiered on Fox Kids on September 8, 1990 and continued airing until December 4, 1993, producing a total of 90 episodes. Cartoon Network and Boomerang aired reruns of the show.
Tom & Jerry Kids stars two kid-like versions of Tom and Jerry. Compared to the previous incarnations, they are much closer to the original Hanna-Barbera era Tom and Jerry shorts than the lasttwoTom and Jerry shows, but still less violent than the original theatrical shorts. In the series, Jerry wears the same red bowtie he wore in The Tom and Jerry Show (1975).
It is the first Tom & Jerry TV series without the involvement of MGM due to Turner Entertainment buying most of the pre-1986 movies, TV series and cartoons from MGM in 1986.
Frank Welker - Tom Cat, Jerry Mouse, McWolf, Wild Mouse, Urfo the Space Pup, Chino the Kitten, Chase School Students, Museum Manager, Stinky Jr., Orphan Kitten, Fido (season 3)
This is the first Tom and Jerry TV cartoon that features a buxom female character, namely Miss Vavoom. The Seal of Good Practice Television Code, which arguably explains the reasons for the absence of Red from the firsttwo series based on the franchise, ended in 1983. It is possible that Red's sensual aspects and seductive nature caused the character to have been excluded from both Tom and Jerry spin-offs due to being rejected by the Television Code for being too risque at the time.
This is the first cartoon in the series that features Red's lookalike, via Miss Vavoom, the second being Droopy, Master Detective. Due to legal issues from Turner Entertainment, the actual "Red" character would not be included as part of a Tom and Jerry character, thus a lookalike of the character was used. This generic concept expired circa 2010 after Warner Bros. reacquired rights to every Tex Avery character, officially adding Red as part in the franchise, completely removing Vavoom from the future of the series.
For the first time since the 1940s Tom and Jerry theatrical shorts, Spike and Tyke have light grey fur in this show, as opposed to having pale brown fur as in the 1950s Tom and Jerry theatrical shorts, The Tom and Jerry Show (1975) and The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show. Both Spike and Tyke would have light grey fur again in Tom and Jerry Tales later in 2007.
This series marks the first and so far only time in the history of Tom and Jerry where Tyke speaks.
The Wolf from Tex Avery's Red Hot Riding Hood (now referred to as "Slick Wolf") reappears in this series as a recurring antagonist of Droopy and Dripple. Droopy's other major antagonist from the original Tex Avery shorts, Butch Bulldog, is still absent from this show; he would not reappear as a separate character from Tom and Jerry's own Spike the Bulldog until Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring in 2001.
Home media releases
Starting in 1991, some episodes were put onto VHS cassettes although only a few million copies of this were made and have since become increasingly hard to find. Some episodes were also put onto video CDs. In 1997, it was released as a VHS packaging set with eight cassettes by Film Office in France, five years before that company's liquidation in 2002. In mid-2008, it was released on DVD in Germany by Kinowelt Home Entertainment, and it contained four discs. However, since Warner Bros. currently owns the rights to the Tom and Jerry franchise after the demise of the Hanna-Barbera studio in 2001. On April 30, 2013, Warner Home Video released the first season of the show on DVD for the first time, as latter seasons have yet to be released as box sets. In the United Kingdom, Season One was released as 2 separate DVDs on 12 August 2013, under the titles Baby Tom and Jerry, as part of WB's Big Faces range. Like the US release of Season One, Baby Tom includes the first seven half-hour episodes, while Baby Jerry includes the remaining 6 episodes.
