Filet Meow (1966) Poster

(1966)

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6/10
Not the best, but is actually watchable
TheLittleSongbird23 June 2010
I have to disagree with the previous reviewer, I have loved Tom and Jerry since I was 6 and I still love them now. This cartoon is mediocre, with lacklustre animation, uneven pacing and choppy editing. Plus the story is not exactly unfamiliar territory. However, the music is jazzy and upbeat, there are some interesting gags especially the one with the shark and the goldfish is really cute and beautiful. And Tom and Jerry are always watchable, Tom isn't quite himself but Jerry is as cunning as ever.

So overall, this is hardly Tom and Jerry's best cartoon, but it is not their worst either, I have always considered Switchin' Kitten and Carmen Get It! worse. 6/10 Bethany Cox
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5/10
Not directed by Chuck Jones, and it shows
michael-anthoney6 September 2018
The director here is Abe Levitow, not Chuck Jones. Jones is the producer only, as he apparently is for most of this era of Tom and Jerry cartoons. I've started streaming these and I must have gotten lucky that the first few I've seen Jones was the sole director. Those couple were pretty good! This one, and the several others so far not by Jones alone are decidedly mediocre.

Everything is just off. Timing, which makes or breaks comedy, is off. Character's faces at times don't accurately convey their mental state, so you're left to wonder what they're thinking. Sure there's chasing and hijinks, but it's not all that funny. It's just ... there. The characters look good (though the animation can be pretty limited) and this cartoon in particular has a nice jazzy soundtrack. So not everything is terrible. It's just quite bland.

Jones imbued both Tom and Jerry with personality in his couple shorts. The others, including this one, Filet Meow, they're just going through the motions. Maybe that's what people like about Tom and Jerry, endless chases and recycled sight gags? For me, there's no comparison. Give me a genuine Chuck Jones effort. The earlier Hanna Barbera Tom and Jerry's beat these easily.
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3/10
The ridiculous and never-ending chase between a cat and a mouse…. and a shark?
highclark22 July 2005
Warning: Spoilers
As a cartoon addicted child of the 1970's, I always valued the Tom & Jerry cartoons as an awful waste of a good Saturday morning. This idea of value was made all the more real when these dreadful cartoons were put up against the animated powerhouse that was 'The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour'. Tom & Jerry looked absolutely sterile by comparison when put up against the likes of Bugs, Daffy, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote?

Actually, Tom & Jerry did most of the same things the Looney Toons crew would do when it came to the art of the chase, it's just that Tom & Jerry did their chasing without any hint of humor that the Warner Brothers cartoons had in spades. That may sound a bit harsh to Tom & Jerry fans, but Tom & Jerry don't stack up against any two teamers offered up through the ranks of the Looney Toons.

When I happened to find one of Tom & Jerry's cartoons (Filet Meow) tacked onto the end of a movie I had TiVoed off of Turner Classic Movies, I decided to see if Tom & Jerry were really as sterile and dire as I remembered. This was their big chance at redemption. I was no longer a child, so this time around Tom & Jerry would have my undivided attention, Bugs and friends were not competing on another channel, and as luck would have it, it wasn't a Saturday morning.

There's no use in explaining the plot line of any cartoon, let alone this one. I think that if you've seen one of these 'chase around the house' episodes, you've seen them all. This episode is really no different, that is until a shark comes into the house via the outside garden hose. It's a cartoon, so you just have to go with it. But for some reason or another, I'm not in the mood to suspend belief to the length required of me. I have watched all 6 minutes of this cartoon and my only thought is that Tom & Jerry have failed me again. Blah…

3/10 Clark Richards
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10/10
One of my favorite Chuck Jones Tom & Jerry shorts
ja_kitty_7118 September 2010
Like I said: if anyone wonders which version of Tom & Jerry that I love the most, it is Tom & Jerry from Hanna/Barbera (1940-1958) and from Looney Tunes animator Chuck Jones (1963-1967). You know, I have heard some negativity about the Chuck Jones Tom & Jerry shorts - but personally I love 'em.

This is one of my favorite Chuck Jones Tom & Jerry shorts. It kind of shows a simple plot: Jerry tries to protect a pretty girl goldfish, who almost looks like Cleo from Disney's "Pinocchio," from an hungry Tom. I love the scene where Tom removes the pin Jerry stuck him with from his behind, but soon finds he is stuck in a trash can. He pops his arms and eyes out of the can and tests himself with the pin; it will not work on the steel. Tom grabs an axe and rushes into the house. Jerry is terrified at the sight of "the evil trash monster" and runs toward his hole, suffering numerous near misses from the axe. Tom continues chopping at the hole, but Jerry inserts Tom's tail in the axe's path. Tom soon realizes that he's cut up his own tail and screws it back on before he hears Jerry whistling to him. I love the tearful mumblings Tom makes while screwing the tail pieces together.

So anway, I love this cartoon.
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4/10
Jerry fancies a fish!?!
BA_Harrison29 May 2017
Jerry fancies a sexy goldfish (with blonde 'hair', blue eye-shadow and pink lipstick) and tries to protect her from a hungry Tom.

After the lamentable Gene Deitch cartoons, I began the Chuck Jones era of Tom and Jerry with just a little optimism. I've slowly come to realise that, although not quite as bad as Deitch, Jones is totally unsuited to the T&J format, his animation and sense of humour completely at odds with the characters.

Filet Meow isn't totally without merit, with at least one funny moment where Tom siphons a shark from a bath-tub, but as a huge fan of the series earlier shorts (some of which won Oscars!), I cannot help but feel disappointed by the rather scrappy animation (Tom's underwater scene being particularly poor) and the generally weak gags.

3.5 out of 10, generously rounded up to 4 for IMDb.
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8/10
This picture proves that no matter how many . . .
pixrox110 November 2022
Warning: Spoilers
" . . . Production supervisors, production managers and empty suits in charge of production" Leo the Groaning Fat Cat appointed to oversea Along-Came-Jones and his team of Warner Bros. Saboteurs, none of the pusillanimous Poverty Row feather bed refugees could prevent the Warner dudes from exacting revenge for the RHAPSODY RABBIT scandal, seven rigged elections for the gelded statuette and scores of plagiarized intellectual property thefts by Tom the back alley cat and Jerry the rapacious rodent. FILET MEOW pictures a tanker truck allegedly from a pet shop making a home delivery of a 20-foot shark! This violent T & J outing also depicts Tom chopping off SEVEN slices of his own tail, removing his fur like an overcoat several times and being capable of quickly digging a miles-long ditch to drain a basement he's filled with water from a single one gallon fish bowl!
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