Tom & Jerry @ 85: Still a beloved classic

It begins, as it always has, with a chase. A cat, a mouse, and, inevitably, chaos. Suddenly, you are seven again, smiling at the screen, watching the battle unfold with reckless abandon. Laughter comes naturally.

And as the protagonists — the eternally beloved Tom and Jerry — turn 85, isn’t it a fine excuse to be a bit nostalgic?

That’s eight and a half decades of frying pans, booby traps, exaggerated screams, and the timeless pursuit that has always been unfailingly funny since the first episode aired in 1940.