Well, this is a surprise!

Today, HBO Max has unexpectedly dropped two new "special" Tom and Jerry shorts from the team behind Looney Tunes Cartoons. And just in time for their new movie, too!

They were both really good! I know quite a few people aren't happy with the violent take of the new Looney Tunes shorts, but with Tom & Jerry it works really well!!! I hope they release more of these soon!!!!!!!!!!

To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement. This is, by far, the truest-to-form Tom & Jerry media I've seen since Tales, and most newer movies and iterations just haven't done it for me, so this is a surprising return to form.

The art style is pure eye candy, and dare I say it has better color styling than Looney Tunes Cartoons? (Specifically, color contrast on both the backgrounds and characters is a lot better.) You can tell the designers ate, drank, and breathed the 40s Tom & Jerry shorts. The subtle shadow underneath the lineart is also a nice touch.

The only complaint I have is how HBO Max advertises the shorts. They're not on the "Just Arrived" page, they're not advertised on the landing page to my knowledge, and I had to use the search bar to find them. Better promotion ("Get a zesty slice of cat-and-mouse mania before the new Tom & Jerry movie hits theaters and HBO Max!") would definitely help.

Jim Soper said that more shorts will be posted throughout the week.  Can't wait to see them! As pointed out by several other people, Soper's phrasing probably referred to the art he was going to post, and not the shorts on Max. My bad.

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To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement.

I agree wholeheartedly. I enjoyed those two shorts immensely more than I did the Looney Tunes cartoons, which had left me pretty cold, despite the fact that a number of people here did like them.

I also thought they did a great job on these with the sound design, the screams and other effects seemed closer to the originals than the Karate Guard type remakes from years ago.

A thought that kept going through my mind while watching these was how much they benefitted from the lack of dialogue. (The Japanese sushi chef notwithstanding.) Without some of the talky weirdness of the Looney Tunes Cartoons, these just kept moving at a nice clip with plenty of legitimate old fashioned Tom & Jerry style violence to hit you with.

And a quick thanks to those of you who posted about those here...if you hadn't, I wouldn't have had any idea that these had been added.

Doesn't Jim Soper's "Posting more through the week" mean more production materials to be revealed by him on Twitter?

Doesn't Jim Soper's "Posting more through the week" mean more production materials to be revealed by him on Twitter?

I just realized that seconds before I read your post. (Soper's wording was admittedly pretty vague.) Shame if there's only two shorts, but I'm gonna owe up to spreading potential misinformation.

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This may sound hot, but I would argue these are the best T&J shorts since HB. No disrespects to the other teams, but I always found most of them were interested in doing things, and most Spike and Tony shows relied too heavily on dialogue and story telling, and the timing felt too even (I never got into Tales because of that issue). These shorts somehow get everything right about why HB's shorts are so iconic while still doing what they want

Sounds like they did their homework.

To be fair, a lot of H-B shorts had a character talking. Heck, it happened in the first short!

They were both really good! I know quite a few people aren't happy with the violent take of the new Looney Tunes shorts, but with Tom & Jerry it works really well!!! I hope they release more of these soon!!!!!!!!!!

I agree that the violence we've seen in some of the new Sylvester and Tweety cartoons does work much better with Tom and Jerry, even if it gets to be "Herman and Katnip"-like levels of violence at times.
But anyways it's nice that both the Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry are getting equal tip-top treatment again, compared to much of the last couple of decades. And since it's the same crew as "Looney Tunes Cartoons," despite being uncredited as usual I can still tell Ken Young did the sound design/editing here, since at times it still does sound like one of the 90s Nicktoons he worked on (like "Rocko's Modern Life" or "The Angry Beavers"), and the H-B sound effects also kind of fit better here than they do on "Looney Tunes Cartoons," particularly the "Shell screaming whine down" (which actually originated from MGM Cartoons, no less!)

I agree that the violence we've seen in some of the new Sylvester and Tweety cartoons does work much better with Tom and Jerry, even if it gets to be "Herman and Katnip"-like levels of violence at times.

I still don't get the issue with that. New people will always mean new sensibilities, and new takes aren't a bad thing at all, considering other takes on Tom and Jerry have been much lower down

I agree these are visually the best T&J have looked since the 1940s! The pacing is pretty good too. I did find the comedy itself lacking though (mostly seemed like gags with no setup). Hopefully they'll get more comfortable and learn to open up the situations more so the gags pay off better. Can't wait to see more!