The Van Beuren Tom and Jerry (as said already not the famous cat and mouse, this is a human duo that lasted for just under 30 cartoons, 29 if memory serves correct, between 1931 and 1933) series was interesting but uneven and not easy to rate as an overall whole. At the series' best, the cartoons were good, very good in a few cases. At its worst, they were really bad.
'Puzzled Pals' is not Tom and Jerry's very worst, a strong contender for that is 'Plane Dumb' (the series at its most racially offensive and more so than most of the Censored 11 cartoons). To me though, it is one of their worst and perhaps the worst since that cartoon. The best thing about it is the music score which is the high point of even the worst cartoons and is so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated and full of energy, doing so well with enhancing the action.
Of the characters, the best one by quite some way is the stork, the only one you actually feel anything for. The early glimpses of vacuum cleaners being used in a very early cartoon back when they were more a luxury than the necessary item they are today were interesting. Otherwise, that is pretty much all that 'Puzzled Pals' has going for it.
Conversely, once again, the animation is very unappealing to look at. A vast majority of it is crude and simplistic with a fair share of static moments. Tom and Jerry look primitive and all the movements would be more at home in the 20s in silent film melodrama. Likewise with Tom and Jerry's antics.
While the Tom and Jerry cartoons are absurdist and weird in their style of humour, this doesn't come through here in 'Puzzled Pals' (for this series, the humour here is pretty subdued) in a cartoon where the number of gags also aren't enough. The timing is limp and lacks energy, while it's all too predictable, sometimes repetitive and disjointed.
It's a paper thin cartoon in story once again, true of most cartoons in the series, with everything feeling like filler. Tom and Jerry are bland, but other than it being visually unappealing and very bland humour-wise the worst thing about 'Puzzled Pals' is the baby, even for a character that is meant to be a brat the cartoon goes too far in that direction so the character is really irritating rather than cute.
To conclude, pretty weak but not unwatchable. 3/10 Bethany Cox