Tom and Jerry Tales is an American animated television series which began production in 2005. As the title suggests, this series stars the well-known title characters from the classic Tom and Jerry shorts, and also is the first made for TV iteration of the cartoons to emulate the theatrical shorts. It grew from the direct-to-video movies, The Magic Ring (2001), Blast Off to Mars (2004), and The Fast and the Furry (2005) as well as the theatrical short The Karate Guard (2005), the last Tom and Jerry short co-directed by the characters' co-creator, Joseph Barbera since the original shorts.
Barbera also served as an executive producer before his death, as well as receiving story credit on some short cartoons, of the Tom and Jerry Tales show's first season, produced by Warner Brothers in 2006. The series had its premiere on Kids' WB on The CW on September 23, 2006. Each episode consists of three short cartoons with approximately the same runtime as the original theatrical shorts. Also, each of the three shows that air in a 30 minute episode have some type of theme. For example, the first episode (Tiger Cat/Feeding Time/Polar Peril) has a theme of animals.
It has aired on Cartoon Network and Boomerang in reruns; for a while, it aired as a part of the Cartoon Network block Cartoon Planet. It was added to Netflix in June 2023.
This series was the first Tom and Jerry television show in 13 years, following the 1993 series finale of Tom & Jerry Kids. It is the longest amount of time between such shows.
This series is produced in 16:9 aspect ratio. It was formatted in 4:3 in its original time slot. When it was syndicated on Cartoon Network in 2011, it was rebroadcast in its original widescreen format due to the elimination of the 4:3 televisions by the global sales of 16:9 plasma television sets.
The series was rated TV-Y during its original time slot. It was re-rated TV-Y7 for syndication.
This is the first Tom and Jerry series to be produced by Warner Bros. Animation and the first series that aired in the 21st century.
This is the only Tom and Jerry production to be broadcast on Kids' WB, which closed down in 2008.
In the intro of Tom and Jerry Tales, the duo appear as a stick figure cat (Tom) and a stick figure mouse (Jerry), similar to Designs on Jerry, before going inside a mouse hole and later appearing in their normal appearances.
Spike and Tyke have light gray fur in this series, much like in the 1940s cartoons for the first time since Tom & Jerry Kids.
Different musical instruments were played in the background for the characters in the first season, such the clarinet for Tom and xylophone for Jerry. The background music changed in the second season, as the separate instruments are no longer played for specific characters.
This was the first Tom & Jerry series to have voice acting recorded in Canada.
Spanish (NOTE: most of these voice actors are Mexicans)
Rolando de la Fuente as Jerry
Miguel Ángel Ghigliazza as Spike
Jorge Ornelas as Butch
Liliana Barba as Nibbles (season 1)
Cristina Hernández as Nibbles (season 2)
Arturo Mercado as Droopy (season 1)
Ismael Castro as Droopy (season 2)
Bardo Miranda as Mauricio & Bartholomew J. Bunny
Loretta Santini as Mrs. Two Shoes (season 1)
Erika Mireles as Mrs. Two Shoes (season 2)
José Lavat as Narrator
Mario Castañeda as Narrator
Reception
Tom and Jerry Tales received mainly positive attention according to the audience score of 7.3/10 on IMDb since it seems to have drawn closer to the Golden MGM-era. It was even praised for the writing and the higher-quality animation.
