Tom and Jerry without a soundtrack is like a lion's head meatball without the fat, mapo tofu without Sichuan peppercorns, or hot pot beef that isn't fresh.
You could say it's edible—barely—but it just doesn't taste right.
The production of Tom and Jerry followed the customs of the silent film era: no dialogue, and heavy use of music to express emotion.
Unlike the sound era, where music merely accompanied the emotion, the silent film era had a much higher demand for music due to its heavy reliance on soundtracks.
The most common solution was to make extensive use of classical symphonies. It was a very pragmatic approach—picking suitable pieces from the vast library of historical music, which also handily avoided any copyright issues.
A fully equipped symphony orchestra was standard for many film studios during the silent film era.
However, thanks to advanced recording Magic, Zog had skipped the silent film era entirely.
They had sound from the very beginning.
