High Steaks

Tom and Jerry are in the garden fighting while Clint Clobber is trying to cook steak on his barbecue.

As a kid, I would watch Tom and Jerry on the BBC (just before the 6 o'clock news, I seem to remember), but I don't recall having seen any of the cartoons directed by Gene Deitch; most likely whoever did the buying for the Beeb back in the '70s didn't deem them worthy of broadcasting.

High Steaks is truly awful from start to finish, with the usual craptabulous Deitch animation (in one scene Tom falls into a swimming pool but only the top half of his body is visible, despite the water being crystal clear), the usual awful music and sound effects, and the usual dreadful gags.

1/10. The worst one yet!

I will give some credit, High Steaks is not the worst of the Gene Dietch Tom and Jerry cartoon. It is not as sadistic as Switchin' Kitten or Sorry Safari or as creepy as Dicky Moe and Landing Stripling. However, that is saying very little, even for Tom and Jerry High Steaks is very painful to watch and epitomises everything that makes the Gene Dietch cartoons so horrible to watch.

The animation is incredibly shoddy for starters. The facial expressions are forced, the colours are flat, the backgrounds are static and the editing is all-over-the place. The music is abysmal as well, there are no memorable, beautiful or energetic motifs, instead it is annoying, repetitive and creepy.

The cartoon is further disadvantaged by some truly stomach-churning sound effects, dull pacing, a predictable story and some sickening violence, so much so I felt compelled to turn the television off. When it comes to the characters, I really sympathised with Tom, Jerry is underused and really annoying and when it comes to talking about the support characters on Tom and Jerry the owner gets my vote as my most hated, I absolutely despised him with all my heart, it actually went beyond supposing to hate him.

Overall, while not the worst, this is a painful cartoon and to be avoided. 2/10 Bethany Cox

I saw this one and Sorry Safari when I was a kid and they've stuck in my head. I just plain hated it then and hate it now. It isn't just that the animation is bad and the sound effects like something out of a nightmare; these cartoons have a sadistic streak a mile wide. When I watch these entries in the Tom and Jerry series I can't help but dislike Mr. Deitch, not just for the shoddy production values but for even thinking these things up in the first place. Jerry is just plain evil here and in the others, and Tom exists to be tortured. In the Deitch year Tom and Jerry really was about like the Itchy and Scratchy cartoons on The Simpsons. The only one of the lot that's any good at all is the Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit.

This episode has haunted me to this day-Poor Tom! Like some other comments, Jerry is pure evil in this and other episodes-Buddies Thicker than Water would've been way better if Jerry didn't scare Tom back outside- Some parts are really unbearable to watch-Tom being "grilled", Tom being filled up by that pop bottle (what the heck? He didn't do ANYTHING!) and Jerry purposely getting Tom's tail stuck in the grill when he's grilling (?? what did HE do? He was just minding his own business basically throughout this whole episode!) and he ends up nearly drowning in the pool. That mean owner grabs him by the neck (can someone call animal cruelty? An animal nearly drowning and then being CHOKED?) and being tied up. In the end, Tom deserved that steak after all he'd been through, not Jerry. If was a H-B cartoon, then it would probably be way better.

Gene deitch who made these shorts thought these were better than Hanna and Joe's shorts. Sorry this short has bad music as well as bad jokes. At least the owner is not as bad as he is in sorry safari. Still this is a bad cartoon.