In contrast to the previous Spotlight Collections and Golden Collections: this set is the first Tom and Jerry collection to present all original 114 shorts in chronological order, uncut, and restored from the best available elements. The set includes Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat – the first time they've ever been released on DVD or Blu-ray in the United States – as well as His Mouse Friday, which (for the very first time on any home media format), is presented completely uncut (which Mouse Cleaning, Casanova Cat, and His Mouse Friday were targeting adult audiences).
The set contains all 114 Tom and Jerry cartoons on the first five discs (with 20 audio commentaries), while the Blu-Ray version contains an exclusive sixth bonus disc with 3 hours of special features (including two newly released featurettes: Lady of the House: The Story of Mammy Two-Shoes and Animal Hijinks: The Friends and Foes of Tom) and a packaged collectible 32-page booklet with artwork and essays.[1]
Tom and Jerry: The Golden Era Anthology was released on December 2, 2025 to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the franchise.[2][3][4][5] It is similar to the Tom and Jerry Spotlight and Golden Collections, two previous DVD series that focused on the Hanna-Barbera era shorts,[6] and supersedes the scrapped[7][8][9][10][11]Golden Collection series.
Background
In the past Tom and Jerry has had problematic DVD and Blu-ray releases, mostly because the majority of the film negatives original pre-1951 MGM cartoons were destroyed in the George Eastman House fire of 1978, leaving only inferior duplicate copies.
Between 2004 and 2007, Warner Home Video released three volumes of the Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection DVD sets, which collected 112 of the original 114 Hanna-Barbera-directed shorts. However, two cartoons – Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat – were omitted due to brief blackface gags. While some cartoons were restored (including all the CinemaScope cartoons) – the majority of the shorts used unrestored 1990s Turner prints made for TNT and Cartoon Network. Several cartoons on Volumes 1 & 2 contained edits, however this was corrected through a disc replacement program, and modern pressings have the shorts unedited. Volume 3 however contained an edited copy of His Mouse Friday (which was never corrected), and the CinemaScope cartoon Pup on a Picnic was copped to 16:9.
In the 2011, Warner Home Video released the Tom and Jerry Golden Collection: Volume 1Blu-ray set - which contained the first 37 Tom and Jerry cartoons in uncut and in chronological order. This time the 27 cartoons were restored using Color Reversal Intermedites (CRIs), which restulted in more pristine image quality. However 10 of these cartoons (Puss N' Toots, The Bowling Alley Cat, Sufferin' Cats, Lonesome Mouse, The Zoot Cat, The Million Dollar Cat, Puttin' on the Dog, Mouse Trouble, Quiet Please and The Milky Waif) were sourced from washed out 1960s Metrocolor prints, resulting in an inferior image quality and criticism from fans and collectors.[12][13]
A second volume of the Golden Collection series was scheduled to be released in June 2013. However, in February 2013, it was announced that – Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat would once again not be included. The product received negative reviews on Amazon and various other websites, which eventually led Warner Home Video to cancel Volume 2 and the Golden Collection series.[14] The transfers made for Volume 2 (excluding Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat) were eventually made available on the ITunes Store and YouTube Movies. All of these cartoons were presented uncut and all of them were restored from CRIs with two exceptions: Heavenly Puss and Jerry's Diary – which were restored from the 1960s Metrocolor prints.
In February 2025, to coincide with Tom and Jerry's 85th Anniversary, Warner Archive Collection released Tom and Jerry: The Complete CinemaScope Collection, a single disc Blu-Ray set which contained all 23 CinemaScope Tom and Jerry cartoons presented in their correct aspect ratios – including Pup on a Picnic. The set also included three non-Tom and Jerry CinemaScope cartoons by Hanna and Barbera - Good Will to Men (1955), Give and Tyke and Scat Cats (both 1957) – which were included as extras. This set received mostly positive feedback from fans and collectors.[15][16]
In September 2025, Warner Archive announced Tom and Jerry: The Golden Era Anthology, a multi-disc Blu-ray set collecting the entirety of the original 114 Hanna-Barbera era shorts.[17][18][19] Released on December 2, 2025 and presented all 114 shorts in chronological order and uncut - including Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat - as well as (for the first time on any home media format) an unedited version of His Mouse Friday.
The set also features brand new transfers of 11 cartoons (including Mouse Cleaning which was restored from one of the few surviving nitrate negatives[20]) as well as quality improvements made to many others[21][22] In addition 5 out of the 12 cartoons originally restored from the Metrocolor prints (The Bowling Alley Cat, Sufferin' Cats, The Zoot Cat, The Million Dollar Cat and Puttin' on the Dog) – received new transfers from CRIs resulting in a more pristine image quality. The remaining 103 cartoons were the same High-Definition transfers made for the Golden Collection and CinemaScope Collection Blu-rays – as well as HBO Max and MeTV. This includes the remaining 7 cartoons (Puss 'N Toots, Lonesome Mouse, Mouse Trouble, Quiet Please, The Milky Waif, Heavenly Puss and Jerry's Diary) restored from the inferior Metrocolor prints – which drew some criticism from fans and collectors.
According to Warner Archive President George Feltenstein, he gave specific instructions to re-restore all 12 of the "Metrocolor" cartoons from CRIs – however the mastering team informed him that the CRIs to 7 of them had either been lost or suffered severe damage over the past several decades, and the Metrocolor prints were currently the best surviving source (whereas the older Turner Prints were taken from the CRIs when they were still available). Feltenstein acknowledged: "...there are just a small handful of shorts [on this set] that don’t look as great as I wish they did. But our team did the best that we could with the best elements we have…"[20]
The set included two featurettes, originally created for the cancelled Tom and Jerry Golden Collection Blu-Rays, but only released with this set: Lady of the House: The Story of Mammy Two-Shoes and Animal Hijinks: The Friends and Foes of Tom and Jerry (originally scheduled for Volume 2). The majority of the extras from the previous Spotlight, Golden and CinemaScope collections were carried over to this release - including 20 audio commentaries (6 of which were made for aborted Golden Collection: Vol. 2 finally released on this set).[20]
Contents
The set was released on December 2, 2025 in the US. All of the shorts are shown in their original aspect ratios.
An asterisk (*) indicates that the cartoon is restored from a washed-out Metrocolor print.
Two asterisks (**) indicates that the cartoon is re-restored using new transfers.
Tom and Jerry: The Golden Era Anthology received a mixed-to-positive reception from fans and collectors.[23][24]
Film preservationist and animation historian, Thad Komorowski, wrote a lukewarm review of the set, writing "...the picture and audio ranges from excellent to serviceable on most titles (the newly unleashed Mouse Cleaning in particular looks fantastic)..." However, he also criticized the seven cartoons still sourced from 1960s Metrocolor prints, which he described as looking "...as rotten as ever here, though technicians tried to 'hide it' by getting rid of the '60s MGM lion, as if no one could tell the difference by what the actual cartoon looks like... (In Lonesome Mouse's case, they forgot and left the '60s lion on!)..."[25] In particular he criticized the transfer on Heavenly Puss describing it as: "...the biggest disappointment of the whole set, an utter embarrassment that all but obliterates any of this unique cartoon's detail and art direction."[26] Still, he ultimately recommended the set, saying "... there has never been any kind of comprehensive home video collection [of Tom and Jerry] where errors didn't get through... By far: this is the best comprehensive presentation Tom & Jerry has ever received on home video. It took over thirty years to improve upon the scope of the Beck/Feltenstein Art of Tom & JerryLaserDisc collections, and to upgrade the middling jobs previously done on DVD and Blu-ray. We all expected most of these would end up on Blu-ray, never all of them with how much the characters remain an evergreen kids and family property. Everyone involved clearly went the extra mile with next to no time to do it, and we've all been rewarded with an unprecedented complete and uncensored collection."[25]
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