Very disappointing...

Sick Product of a Sick System

Pretty Good

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

The Bowling Alley-Cat (1942)*** (out of 4)The action and laughs are the same but the setting is different. Jerry is at the bowling alley having some fun when he runs into Tom and chaos follows. THE BOWLING ALLEY-CAT has pretty much everything that the previous Tom and Jerry shorts did but the big difference here is that the action has gone from the house to a bowling alley. While there's really nothing new here there's no question that the new settling allowed for some creative fun. One of the highlights is when Tom plans on eating Jerry but instead gets pounded by some bowling balls. The animation is quite good as you'd expect and there's no doubt that the comic duo were really starting to come into their own.

I Consider the Realistic Animals Tom and Jerry era to start at Puss Gets the Boot and end in Sufferin' Cats.The Story is that Jerry is having some fun at the Bowling Alley, when Tom appears and wants to eat him, leading some fun and inventive gags, that didn't take place inside a House.This is Tom and Jerry first cartoon to take place outside a house. And for me, it's for the best, it allowed some new gags, that weren't seen in the earlier episodes, such as Jerry using a bowling pin as a baseball bat, Or Tom trying to catch a bowling ball like a baseball ball and gets smashed by it. Another Highlight was Jerry teleporting himself to other Bowling Ball inside another far away bowling ball.I recommend it to every Tom and Jerry fan.

This 'Tom and Jerry' short starts off gently with Jerry skating on the slippery surface of the alley; things don't remain gentle for long though as Tom appears and the two of them end up fighting it out as usual. Being in a bowling alley means plenty of violence involving heavy bowling balls and pins as well as the various mechanisms used to reset the pins and return the balls. Who has the upper hand switches between them although for the most part it is poor Tom taking the battering... frequently due to his own actions or stupidity... would any sane person try to catch a flying bowling ball!?This is a fairly standard 'Tom and Jerry' short although it benefits from the novelty of the location; if you are a fan of the duo I'm sure you'll have plenty of laughs here and if you aren't then odds are you won't. The animation is top notch with the balls given just the right amount of shine to make them look real and thus heavy; clearly the animators weren't rushing and making this on the cheap. The action is inventive as are the accompanying sounds; we hear a speeding steam train as a 'train' of bowling balls bears down on Jerry. Overall it is a fun cartoon than can be enjoyed by viewers of all ages.

For at least one reason, this was better than the rest of these 1942 Tom and Jerry cartoons: they got out of their house. With new surroundings - in this case, a bowling alley, - it allowed for different and better gags than the normal house scenes.This starts off slowly, however, and I wondered if it was every going to produce some laughs, but it did, especially with Tom caught in the automatic pinsetter and then the caravan of bowling bowls was pictured as a train. Decent, overall, with the really clever stuff to come in a couple of years. This would have been much better, let's say, in 1945, with crazier stunts. Nonetheless, this cartoons starts to set the stage for the really funny (and violent) material that also was to come.