Weird Sound

Gene Deitch, 'Tom and Jerry,' 'Wild Things' and the art of audio.

Gene Deitch’s Where the Wild Things Are (1974)

Yesterday, on Twitter, someone was confused by those Gene Deitch Tom and Jerry cartoons again.

They’ve polarized people since the early ‘60s. Deitch was a respected American director and producer, with an impressive track record at UPA (the Piels Beer ads), Terrytoons (Flebus) and beyond. Yet he made his Tom and Jerry films in another country altogether: Czechoslovakia. He’d been appointed to supervise an outsource team behind the Iron Curtain, in secret, at the height of the Cold War.