The first Tom and Jerry cartoon was released in 1940 and was originally in black and white.

The first Tom and Jerry short premiered on February 10, 1940. It was produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. During this time, many cartoons were filmed in black and white to save money. Color film was a newer technology that cost much more to produce.Artists created these cartoons using hand-drawn animation. They drew every movement on clear plastic sheets called cells. A seven-minute cartoon required over 10,000 individual drawings. Each second of film used 24 different frames.Photographers used a rostrum camera to take pictures of each drawing one by one. This process was slow and required precise lighting. Most studios only used color for special projects or big movies. Tom and Jerry did not start using color regularly until 1943.The episode The Yankee Doodle Mouse was one of the first to use full color. By then, the technology was more affordable for the studio. Today, the original black and white versions are kept in film archives like the Library of Congress. They show how much animation technology has changed over the last 80 years.