He briefly took over 'Tom and Jerry' from Hannah and Barbera. His era is not highly regarded by fans.
https://terribletvshows.miraheze.org/wiki/Tom_and_Jerry_(Gene_Deitch_Era)
Posted on 04/18/2020 10:34:54 AM PDT by Borges
American director and animated film producer Gene Deitch, living in Prague with his Czech wife, animator and producer Zdenka Najmanova, died there last night at the age of 95 years, Garamond publishing house owner Petr Himel told CTK today.
Deitch directed the Czechoslovak-American animated film Munro, which won an Oscar for the Best Animated Short Film in 1961.
Garamond published Deitch’s memoirs, For the Love of Prague, in 2018. In the book, he describes his experience from the American and Czech film world.
Deitch arrived in the communist Czechoslovakia from Hollywood in 1959. Originally, he intended to stay for up to ten days only, but then he met a producer of the Prague animated film studio, Zdenka Najmanova, fell in love and stayed with her for more than 50 years, he recollected in his book.
They got married in 1964 only after they both divorced.
Deitch, with his full name Eugene Merrill Deitch, was born on August 8, 1924, in Chicago.
As an animator, he got the Gold Medal of the New York Art Directors Club for the best commercials twice at end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s. These works of his were the first to enter the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
From 1955, he worked for the Terrytoons studio operating under 20th Century Fox. In 1968-1993, he was an animator for the production company Weston Woods. He also shot 12 new Tom and Jerry shorts for MGM and some episodes of Popeye the Sailor.
He said the Czechoslovak authorities had never interfered in his work. However, his animated film The Giants (Obri) from 1969 was banned in Czechoslovakia for 20 years since it was perceived as criticism of the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of the country.
Deitch said he loved Prague, where he had shot 70 animated films and seven TV series, and was very happy there. He won the Winsor McCay Award for his lifetime contributions in animation in 2004, which he appreciated more than the Oscar, he admitted in one of his interviews.
https://terribletvshows.miraheze.org/wiki/Tom_and_Jerry_(Gene_Deitch_Era)
He also did Nudnik, Tom Terrific and Munro—the Jules Feiffer story about a
four year old that gets drafted.
RIP and thanks for the laughs.
L
His version of Tom and Jerry was scary as f—k.
The one I remember from Dietch is Tom and Jerry get launched into space. It looked like it was made at 12 frames or fewer per second.
As a kid I always hated when his Tom and Jerry toons came on (though I had no idea who he was). They looked so much worse than what I was used to
One of his episodes had Tom being yelled at by this man in the car. It was so disturbing I remember my Mom saying “Turn that s—t off!” I haven’t seen his other work, but his version of Tom/Jerry was just bizarre.
I am laughing so hard right now, I can totally hear my mom saying the same thing! In fact she probably did many times.
Heh heh, that's where my tagline came from. And I was going to post that very same observation.
Count me as one. When I see the Dietch name I the opening credits I groan. My wife liked him. Seemed too 60’s weird to me.
RIP.
...But Gene Deitch introduced pioneering singer-songwriter Connie Converse to America by using what connections he had in swinging a national appearance on Walter Cronkite’s morning show on CBS in 1954.
Connie’s story is one of the saddest and strangest in American music. Gene’s part in it was in opening the door to what might have been her big career break.
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