Michael Donovan Movies
- 2006
Created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera in 1940, the animated cat-and-mouse team of Tom and Jerry had had a long theatrical-film run before its first reincarnation as a TV-cartoon property in 1975. This and subsequent TV versions tended to dampen the gloriously violent and slapsticky tone of the original "Tom and Jerry" cartoons, usually bowing to whatever was considered to be Politically Correct at the time. Happily, CW's half-hour Tom and Jerry Tales, produced not by the team's longtime home of MGM but instead by Warner Bros. Animation, restored the old knockabout pizzazz of the vintage T&J short subjects, right down to the familiar "Smash! Zing! Eeek!" sound effects. As a bonus, the three short cartoons per episodes were fully animated, just as the team's glory days (most TV versions of "Tom and Jerry" were about as animated as a frozen fire hydrant). Joining the indestructible cat and mouse was their perennial enemy Spike the dog, who likewise joined in the spirit of things with no holds barred. Debuting September 23, 2006, Tom and Jerry Tales was simultaneously released on DVD. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 2005
If the computer-animated Veggie Tales could serve up a dish of anthropomorphic talking vegetables, it was only fair that anthropomorphic talking fruit be given their own TV cartoon series. The setting of the weekly, half-hour Coconut Fred's Fruit Salad Island was a tiny tropical isle populated by humanized bananas, melons, berries, and citrus fruit. Coconut Fred (a coconut--what else?) was the wackiest resident of Fruit Salad Island, whose zany schemes and Herculean efforts to solve life's problems invariably brought trouble to his neighbors. Even so, Fred was a cockeyed coconut optimist, and never tired of hatching new ideas, each one "nuttier" than the last. There are those who intimated that this series, which featured two short adventures per episode, was an attempt to copy the popular cable effort SpongeBob SquarePants, but audiences were too busy laughing to worry about the comparision. Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, Coconut Fred's Fruit Salad Island was first telecast on the WB network's Saturday-AM schedule on September 17, 2005. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rob Paulsen, Michael Donovan, (more)
