Tom and Jerry walkaround costumes

For 80 years now, Tom and Jerry had the eternal chase of cat and mouse that left us all laughing and entertained.  The characters were the first to be created by Hanna-Barbera and the start of a legacy that continues to be felt to this day.  One would probably wanna meet Tom and Jerry.  While not as common to find as Bugs Bunny, they have made many different theme park appearances.  Today, we take a look at the many different mascot costumes we could find.

Notes:  1. This list is for Tom and Jerry only; no other MGM characters are covered here (it's difficult enough finding Tom and Jerry).  No other Hanna-Barbera characters either.
            2. These must be official costumes; no bootlegs will be mentioned (and there were A LOT of them)
            3. The names given are chosen by me; no official names have been given to these costumes.
            4. The list is incomplete; you can help complete this by commenting below.  Why incomplete?  There were so many with very little record
            5. All dates are approximate, not official.  A few have overlapped each other, and again, very little has been recorded.

The earliest known costumes were probably from the 1970's shown here with Henry Mancini.  As usual, the earliest known versions are off model.  Jerry's smile is creepily bigger than his mouth.  "Wanna know how I got these scars?????"  Tom's head is bad too.  It's too round and his eyebrows are just bad.  It IS known that Tom and Jerry made an appearance at Kennywood Park.  However, it was only as an event and no records show if this or another costume was used (or even if MGM licensed it).




It wouldn't be until 1987 when Universal Studios Hollywood brought Tom and Jerry over as part of their roster of cartoon character appearances (they changed up the park to include rides and attractions as opposed to just the backlot tour).  Now you would think they would have Tom and Jerry all cleaned up and ready to go.  There's only one footage of these costumes, and nothing could prepare you for this................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Cheap Tom and Jerry (1987-late 1980's)

These.....things......mixed in with other cartoon characters appear to be Tom and Jerry, but somehow these were approved by MGM/Turner.  Tom looks smaller than Jerry and looks more like a kitty cat than a cat.  Jerry is worse.  He looks like he was punched in the face.  Hard enough as if for his eyes to come out of their sockets, and hard enough to have a flat face on a round head.  They both look like cheap overstuffed animals.  No way that they are believable to be Tom and Jerry at all.  The good news however is that these costumes did not last long.

Universal Tom and Jerry (late 80's or early 90's-1992; 1995-2001)

Now that Turner had full control of Tom and Jerry, they were able to fix the costumes.  While not exactly on model, they look much much better.  Jerry is now smaller than Tom which meant better casting by Universal.  Tom has very big eyes and he now has side hairs which gives this costume more detail.  He also has slightly chubby cheeks.  Meanwhile, Jerry's eyes seem stiff....he's staring out into space.  Neither of the characters are smiling.  Both have strange hair on top that looks to be flattened when they should be sticking up.  Universal ended up retiring these costumes after only a few years.  Interestingly enough, Turner would use these again to help promote Cartoon Network alongside other Turner/Hanna-Barbera characters.

Disney MGM Tom and Jerry (1992-1993)

Interestingly enough, Tom and Jerry moved from Universal parks to Disney parks.  More specifically, the Disney-MGM Studios in Florida.  This was when Disney picked up characters to appear in the park just like Universal licensed Hanna-Barbera and others.  These characters include the Ninja Turtles, Muppets (with actual hopes of buying them but failed until 2004), and Barbie.  And to

promote their new movie where they talk, Tom and Jerry.  The Tom and Jerry at Disney is much better detailed than at Universal.  Tom got smaller eyes but has a more detailed expression.  He now has whiskers and he's smiling.  Like his previous costume, he also has side hairs, though not as curly as Universal's.  Meanwhile Jerry has a much smoother cuter face.  His eyes are now directly looking down at the kids
instead of straight ahead into nowhere's land.  Though the height limit appears to be extinct, he still looks like Jerry Mouse.  His mouth is now closed, and like Tom, he too gained whiskers.  The top hair on both Tom and Jerry is now much fuzzier.  Not more flat tubes, and this hair can stick up.  Unfortunately, the promotion didn't last too long and Tom and Jerry would no longer appear at Disney-MGM.

Standard Tom and Jerry (2002-present)

After the merger between Turner and WB, they began making new costumes to help promote their product.  This included Tom and Jerry.  The designs are now on model.  However, these costumes scream cheap.  Some of the molds even give the characters flat faces.  Still, the eyes on both costumes are much more skinny, but they lack detailed features.  For example, Tom lost his side hairs, instead replaced with it being a part of the mold.  Worse yet, these costumes never appeared at any Six Flags parks, rather Parque Warner Madrid and Warner Bos. Movie World Germany (that later lost the WB theme).  They also only appeared to promote Cartoon Network products and a strange foreign place called Warner Bros. Fun Zone.

Warner Bros World Tom and Jerry (2018-present)

When WB opened their new indoor theme park in Abu Dhabi, they made new costumes for their famous characters including Tom and Jerry.  The costumes are much better quality.  The size difference may still trigger some, but both Tom and Jerry are better looking than the previous costume.  They both have much rounder facial expressions.  The top hairs are much thicker.  Tom and Jerry have bigger smiles.  Jerry is much cutter.  The fur is much lighter making performances much better.  Tom still doesn't have his side hairs, but the mold shows enough detail to believe he has it.  In 2019, the characters began appearing at the Warner Bros. Studios Australia using these brand new designs.  Here's hoping they come to America soon.

Cartoon Destinations: Gadgets Restaurant

Pack your bags and get ready to travel.  Today's cartoon destination is a blast from the past.  Today, in honor of Bugs Bunny's 80th birthday and Looney Tunes 90th, we're going to try to resurrect a lost moment in Looney Tunes history....Gadgets!

With the success of Chuck E Cheese and Showbiz Pizza, Warner Bros. thought, "Why can't we get
into the act?"  After all, they have their own "Chuck E Cheese" character, and surprisingly not even Disney ever thought about opening such a place with THEIR famous mouse.  The only other studio that thought of this was Peter Peitch's company/Jay Ward enterprises with their Bullwinkle's concept.

Gadgets officially opened in 1983.  The first of these locations were Springfield, OH and Baltimore, MD.  Unlike its competitors, Gadgets offered a variety of menus items for both kids and adults.  Steaks, hamburgers, pizza, and yummy drinks (alcoholic and non alcoholic) were on the menu among other dishes.  The menu, of course, designed to look like Looney Tunes Dell comic books from the 60s.

 
 

But food was just the beginning.  Two different audio animatronic shows were going on.  One featured the Looney Tunes, the other an original character.  Sammy Sands played the piano and sang songs.  His piano housed some drinks, a pack of cigarettes, and an ash tray, making him feel right at home.  He performed at the bar where Sammy's Whammy, a drink named after him, could be sold, "and believe me," recalled Lyn Brown from Independent Network News, "after you've had one or two of these, it doesn't matter whether [Sammy] is human or humanoid."  In other words.......it's a Whammy!!!

While the adults were getting Whammied by Sammy's Whammy, the kids could get their game on in the arcade.  Like its competitors, Gadgets offered the latest video games to play using game tokens.  The tokens used multiple designs based off of the famous Looney Tunes characters.

 

But the main attraction is the Looney Tunes Revue animatronic stage shows.  United Press International reported, "Diners at Gadgets will see a completely automated 20-minute show every half hour or so featuring 8-foot robots with pre-recorded dialogue and songs.
But the robots are very special and familiar characters indeed: Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, Porky Pig, Speedy Gonzales, Tweety Bird and Sylvester, Henery Hawk, Foghorn Leghorn, the Tasmanian Devil and other wackos from the Warner Bros. cartoon factory,".  Henery, Foghorn, and Taz would eventually be cutback.  For sure what we know are three stages.  The center stage had Bugs Bunny, Yosemette Sam, Porky Pig, and Pepe le pew (as well as Foghorn, Henery, and Taz).  Porky played the saxophone, while Pepe played the piano. Taz would play the base and Foghorn on the drums. Speedy Gonzalas would randomly appear in different spots making the illusion of him being the fastest mouse in all of Mexico.  Stage left is Daffy playing the guitar, and stage right is Sylvester, Sylvester jr, and Tweety.  Tweety would be found in his bird cage, while Sylvester played the trumpet.  In smaller locations, only Bugs, Daffy, and Porky were used on smaller three stages.  Porky on center stage, Daffy stage right, and Bugs stage left.  The latter of which Bugs played the piano, possibly being the same mech for either Pepe le pew or Sammy Sands.

In total, around 50 to 55 different shows were recorded, all voices by legendary voice over artist Mel Blanc.  Blanc would become heavily involved with the Gadgets concept since there wasn't a whole lot of new projects with Warner Bros. cartoons.  He did interviews and as one employee recalled a Make a Wish where he called up a location to help talk to a young boy who wished to speak to Bugs Bunny, "I actually kinda talked to Mel Blanc once. There was a local child whose wish from the "Make a Wish" foundation was to meet and talk to Bugs. They had Mel call the store, and I was perched by the phone with explicit instructions from the manager to put him through immediately when he called. I was so excited when the call came, I forgot to put the phone on hold, and I hung up on him LOL!....Needless to say, I got a major reaming!"

Many of the showtapes ended up being lost.  One mp3 was found which has since been uploaded on Youtube

The smaller stage for smaller locations had Bugs on piano, Porky, and Daffy

Former employees who worked there all had great memories of working there, though they all agreed that they did not like the uniforms they were wearing.  Many of these comments remained anonymous and all come from John Cook's Misce-Looney-ous blog post  about Gadgets.  Historian Dave Mackey recalls working at the Ocean, NJ location including dressing up as the wabbit himself making a grave mistake, "Yes, I had heard of Gadgets. Mainly because I worked there! I worked at the unit in Ocean, NJ. I was hired to do game room, but was eventually taken off that and put on the food line. Even wore the Bugs Bunny suit one day but made the cardinal mistake of making him talk. (I did the damned voice PRETTY GOOD.) Our Gadgets eventually closed down and became an independent restaurant, and even later the offices for a radio station. The mall that it was in has since been demolished and redeveloped, so the building isn't around any more."

One former waitress still had the tokens left over from the Westbury, NY location, "I too worked at a Gadgets. The one located in Westbury, NY. I was a waitress there from its opening until it had a unexpected closing in '92. I was just going through some of my old things and came across some of the arcade coins. My son was wondering where they were from and if they had any value?" 

Another waitress talks about the uniforms.  This one was the very same employee that accidentally hung up on Mel Blanc, "I worked at Gadget's in Niles, Ohio at the Eastwood Mall, from 1983 through 1984 or early 1985 I think. I have to say, the uniforms sucked LOL! Waitresses had to wear those ankle long, wrap-around skirts that had to be pinned halfway down or you showed all the kiddies your stuff when the breeze from the kitchen doors hit it!"

Cinde was another employee of Gadgets recalling the night before opening day, "I worked at the Gadgets in Towson Maryland and have very good memories of that job while I was in college. Yes the skirts were crazy and were so long you stepped on them all the time. Before the grand opening we had mock trials where the waiters and waitresses waited on each other.... booze was flowing and we could all barely walk out...boy times have changed! It was a great concept and I think the food was pretty good also. I did get sick of everyone asking when the show was going to come on! Any other past Towson Employees....managers...it was a great group of people!"

150 locations were planned to open; only about 5 known locations opened.  Problems within the company caused downsizing such as high maintenance costs, demographics, and even the video game crash of 83.  This was when ET was highly anticipated for Atari, but when it came out and was discovered to be a terrible game, it resulted in many people not buying into video games for a while.  Adults were more invested to a bar atmosphere than a cartoony one.  The concept became Gadgets Cafe, but it too would belly up.  Gadgets would end up closing for good with a report of at least one location lasting up until 1992.

Gadgets ended up being lost in time until 2010 when Jon Cooke posted a blog post about it with very little information.  No pictures, no videos, no tokens, just old articles and stories.  Renewed interest began at the Retro Pizza Zone forums.  This interest brought about pictures of the animatronics, old tokens were found, and finally....video.  Coming from the WPIX archives, a news package showed in action the Looney Tunes Revue and Sammy Sands. Then...something amazing happened at an auction in 2020....................................................................

The Looney Tunes Revue complete and intact at the auction

WE FOUND THEM!!!!!!!  The original animatronics, the stage, the backround........EVERYTHING WAS SAVED!  Granted, they need some TLC.  I doubt they'll ever perform again nor do any showtapes come with it, but here they are...the last surviving audio aniamtronics from Gadgets.  What was once just a hidden piece of Looney Tunes history was now coming to light.  There's still more work to be done and prayers to be told that perhaps someday, we'll see more footage, pictures, and promotions of Gadgets, but since the blog post 10 years ago concerning Gadgets, we found more.  Much more.  More memories, actual audio, actual video, the now known fact that such a place even existed, and even the animatronics have been found.  Perhaps the Internet really is a time machine.  A time machine that led us....to today's Cartoon Destination.

UPDATES:

More footage showed up concerning the shows.  Our first update comes to us with a package.

This location is from Towson, MD and has rare footage of the Taz animatronic.  You could also barely see Foghorn Leghorn.

More showtapes have been found too.  They get very interesting referencing historical WB Cartoon moments at times from singing The Merry Go Round Broke Down to Daffy Duck and Egghead to how the 60's were a drag for Daffy (if you read any of my posts, you'd know why).  

Briar Patch Productions on Youtube provided video footage of The Looney Tunes Revue in action both at Gadgets and on the road.  These videos showed everything in action and we see how Exploded Daffy worked.  

Finally through this video, we get photos of the Foghorn animatronic.  

There are still things missing here and there such as more showtapes, the walkaround inside the stores, and more store footage, but the pieces of the puzzle are now coming together.  This hidden piece of Looney Tunes history is now brought back to life, and I for one am excited that after 12 to 13 years of research, we now know a whole lot more about Gadgets.  It's not just a memory anymore, it's well documented Looney Tunes history.