As one collector told Animation Magazine on the Moviecon floor: “You don’t realize how much love went into a single second of Tom getting an anvil dropped on him until you see the painted cel up close. Every whisker was deliberate.” The keyword moviecon animation tom and jerry is trending for a specific reason: exclusives. Moviecon has become a launchpad for physical media, art, and technology related to classic animation. Here is what was unveiled this year: 1. 4K Restoration of the Hanna-Barbera Theatrical Library Warner Bros. Discovery (current stewards of the MGM library) used Moviecon to screen the brand-new 4K restoration of “Tom and Jerry: The Gene Deitch Collection.” For the first time, fans saw the Eastern European-influenced Deitch shorts (1960-1962) with crystal-clear audio and colors that popped off the screen. The panel included a side-by-side comparison of the original battered prints versus the new scans—a revelation for animation students. 2. The “Chuck Jones” Figure Set Limited to 500 units, Moviecon unveiled a diorama of the Chuck Jones-era Tom and Jerry (the ones with the bushy eyebrows and the sharp, architectural angles). The set includes Tom playing a grand piano while Jerry saws at the leg. Retail price: $350. Resale value eighteen minutes after opening: $1,200. 3. The VR “Cannon” Experience For the first time, Moviecon allowed attendees to step into a cartoon. Using VR headsets, fans experienced a 90-second interactive short where they played a third-party mouse fleeing Tom through a digitally reconstructed 1940s kitchen. The physics were absurd, the mallets were oversized, and the laughter was genuine. It is the closest the world has come to living in an MGM cartoon. The Art of the Slapstick: A Masterclass at Moviecon One of the cornerstones of the Moviecon animation track was a live masterclass titled: “Timing, Music, and Violence: How Tom and Jerry Engineered Laughter.”
Led by veteran animator Eric Goldberg (of Aladdin and The Princess and the Frog fame), the class deconstructed a single 11-second sequence from “Tom and Jerry: The Two Mouseketeers” (1952). Goldberg showed how the animators used “half-frames” and musical staccato to create the illusion of painful, hilarious impact. moviecon animation tom and jerry
Because you cannot kill your best friend. You can only reset the cartoon and start the chase again. As one collector told Animation Magazine on the
At Moviecon, the animation track is dedicating an entire hall to this legacy. Attendees can view original cels from “The Night Before Christmas” (1941) and “Yankee Doodle Mouse” (1943). These are not reproductions. These are fragments of animation history, preserved under glass, showing the sweat and detail of hand-inked frames. Here is what was unveiled this year: 1