Tom & Jerry

The cat Tom and the mouse Jerry were created in the late 1930s by Joseph Barbera and William Hanna. The two men joined forces in 1957 to found the animation studio Hanna-Barbera, forerunner of the great animation companies: alongside Tom and Jerry, they would go on to create many other celebrated series, including Scooby-Doo, Wacky Races, Mumbly, Captain Caveman and The Flintstones.

A fine provenance from a great lover of cinema and animation studios: Pierre Tchernia.

“One cannot help — even forcing one’s disagreeable nature — but love Pierre Tchernia, for he is a man — no, more than a man, a child — a child whose favorite pastime is above all to share with us his pleasures, his tastes and his friendships” (Henri Jeanson, L’Aurore, December 24, 1968).

For more than twenty years, Pierre Tchernia hosted “Monsieur cinéma” (1966–1988), a program mixing film clips, interviews and games, on which virtually every French actor and director of the era appeared. “I belong to that generation who went into television because cinema would not open its doors to us. And in making television, we did not realize we would be harming the cinema we loved so much […] Television has stolen enough viewers from it that one might try to give a few back,” Tchernia recalled in May 1987, a man who made friendship a cardinal virtue. He was honored with the affection of Lino Ventura and René Goscinny, who caricatured his imposing figure in five of the Astérix albums. Through him, audiences also discovered the work of Walt Disney, Tex Avery, and all the productions of the Hanna-Barbera studio, which he held especially dear.