Advance and Be Mechanized

The future: Jerry uses a remote controlled metal mouse to pilfer cheese being mined by robots. Tom's job is to stop him, via the use of a jet-propelled robot cat.

One of my most hated Tom and Jerry cartoons outside of the Gene Deitch era is Guided Mouse-Ille, which also took place in the future and involved a robot mouse and cat. The animation and the humour was absolutely abysmal. Advance and Be Mechanized is like watching that one all over again: pure audio visual torture for a whole 6 minutes.

Still, only one more cartoon to go and I'm done!

O Solar Meow was a Short that began with the Chuck Jones Space Trilogy and Advance and be Mechanized was not a suitable Ending for this trilogy, this is the shortest short of the Chuck Jones Era and Tom and Jerry in General with only 5 Minutes and 52 Seconds but if we remove the Intro and Credits it is only 4 Minutes and 48 Seconds which is a Disgrace for a Tom and Jerry Short.

The theme is the same as the 2 previous shorts, Tom and Jerry in Space, this short is at the same degree as Mouse Into Space because both showed potential losses, or Solar Meow took great advantage of the theme making one of my favorite shorts by Jones, but the Second of the Trilogy was already a drop with respect to O Solar Meow and Advance and be Mechanized is already a Disgrace.

The Animation is Mediocre for a Short by Chuck Jones, the Previous ones had better animation but Advance and be Mechanized presents choppy animation, jerky movements and recycled animation from the previous cartoon such as the chase of the robot cat and the robot mouse, the Colors are still looking good but the animation is worse compared to the other Jones shorts.

Dean Elliot offers much more memorable music than Eugene Poddany (although that doesn't mean that Poddany is a bad composer), the music fits all the scenes and makes the short not so mediocre.

The Voice Acting is nothing to write home about, it's just Laughter and typical Mel Blanc Vocal Effects!.

In itself, Advance and be Mechanized is not the worst of Chuck Jones but it is a disgrace for the Name of Tom and Jerry, It had everything to gain but recycling animation and making weaker movements made this short one of the most mediocre of Jones, but despite that it has some funny scenes and is quite entertaining to watch, for everything I said previously to Advance an be Mechanized I rate it a 6.

The Les Goldman/Chuck Jones produced Tom and Jerry cartoons made between 1965 and 1967 have a very distinct style: garish colors, pouty lipped characters, and often using an over-powering, jazzy score by Dean Elliott that makes ones expect "Shazam!" and "Pow!" to flash on the screen. This means that these cartoons don't have the "timeless" qualities of some other Tom and Jerrys, but they certainly are fun to watch. "Advance and Be Mechanized" is one of the more bizarre, and maybe the plot-line isn't so clear or logical, but so what? Tom and Jerry are living on the moon controlling robot versions of themselves. Tom's hungry because the only thing the automated cafeteria will serve him is robot oil. How cool is that? There's clearly some Jetson's influence here, but Tom and Jerry's future world is much darker, and if you accept the overall premise, is really very clever.

Tom and Jerry is a classic, and I always love watching it. Advance and be Mechanized is not too bad, but it is not exceptional I feel. The animation is a little too garish for my tastes, the story is largely absent and the pacing is rather leisurely. But.. what I did like was that despite its misgivings Advance and be Mechanized was actually quite clever. The futuristic world Tom and Jerry live in is a wonder, and there are some clever and original visual ideas. And while there is nothing laugh out loud funny, most parts are amusing and kept my attention mostly for its dark tone. So overall, this cartoon is worth watching I think, but I'll be honest, I have seen better. 7/10 Bethany Cox