Tom and Jerry:1961

Once the amazing H-B Tom and Jerry cartoons came to an end, the series was placed in the hands of Gene Deitch. To say that the films took a bizarre turn would be an understatement. Watching these cartoons is like watching an eerie T&J nightmare.


"Down and Outing" sounds like it would be typical fare for H-B (Tom goes fishing with his owner and Jerry tags along), but in the hands of Deitch, who had never seen a Tom and Jerry cartoon before taking over the series, the situation becomes creepy.


Shaky animation, off-model characters and a tin-like soundtrack all contribute to the cartoon's lackluster quality. Am I being too harsh? Possibly since I am comparing the films to what had come before, and let's face it, there is no comparison.


Anyway, Tom is abused severly by his owner, even though some might say the cat brings it upon himself. After a hellish car ride to the lake, we are now ready for some fishng-type shenanigans.


However, we never really get any. The potential for such a set-up never pays off as Tom's owner opts to fish with Jerry while Tom is bound with rope in the boat.

A Year Already?

Well, it seems this blog is a year old today. I just wanted to take a moment to thank those of you who stop by here. I do appreciate it.
Again, I am sorry for the lack of updates but life is busy. Feel free to leave some comments as it might jump-start me into digging through my vhs tapes in order to continue with the Tom and Jerry tribute. Maybe I can actually finish it by the next anniversary.
I'll get to work on that, but I couldn't let one year and 10,000 visitors go by without saying thanks. Peace!

Tom and Jerry:1958

The final Hanna-Barbera directed Tom and Jerry cartoon from the Golden Age is "Tot Watchers". All that would follow in the long career of the famous cat and mouse would pale in comparison to the films from 1940-1958.


A negligent babysitter (who is more interested in talking on the phone than watching the baby) continuously mistakes Tom's attempts at maintaining the child's safety as a threat.


Tom and Jerry working as a team never sits too well with me, since they make much better adversaries, but I guess it is nice to see that they can put aside thier differences for a moment when a baby's life is at stake.


The obligatory construction site is always the perfect place for two heros to prove how far they will go to keep a child safe. The typical violence is absent here (well, except for Tom's run-in with Spike, but the thrashing is left to our imaginations as it takes place off screen).


A weary Tom and Jerry return home with the baby, only to be blamed for his kidnapping, and they are carted off to jail.
Is this the end of our Tom and Jerry tribute? Nope. Come back and bear the pain with me as we continue on to a rather disturbing phase of the cat and mouse's career.

Tom and Jerry:1957

Since I passed up the opportunity to feature "The Little Orphan" here, I will do the next best thing now by featuring the 1957 remake, "Feedin' the Kiddie".


This is almost an exact remake of "Little Orphan" (a brief shot of Mammy in the original film has been oddly omitted. Poor Mammy gets no respect.) Also, the backgrounds have been redesigned to accomodate the widescreen format of Cinemascope.


Nibbles, the ever-hungry relative of Jerry pays a visit just in time for Thanksgiving dinner...and we all know what happens when a Tom and Jerry film features a lavishly adorned dinner table, right? Yep, food fight!


Plenty of messy and dangerous fun ensues, leaving Tom broken and defeated, of course. Oh, and then there is this...


[Insert "these films are a product of thier time" disclaimer here.]

Tom and Jerry:1956

Probably the most depressing tone in a Tom and Jerry cartoon can be found in "Blue Cat Blues". The film opens with Tom sitting upon train tracks attempting to commit suicide. Jerry watches from above and, through a voice-over track, tells us what brought Tom to this low end.


Tom and Jerry are apparently friends this time, that is until a female cat saunters by. Tom is smitten and becomes the brunt of several visual gags. He is magnetically drawn to her and he is literally putty in her hands, as she sculpts his face into a donkey's.


Of course, in every romance there is a rival and in this case, the rival is Butch, who continuously upstages Tom for the female cat's affections.


Exhausting all of his money to impress the girl, Tom is left broke, beaten and defeated as he realizes that the female cat has married Butch. Jerry concludes the tale of heartbreak, glad that his girlfriend is true to him...or is she? Nope, she too has eloped with another mouse.


Tom makes room for the despondent mouse next to him on the train tracks. As the two await the end of thier lives, a train whistle can be heard approaching just before the iris out.

Tom and Jerry:1955

A memorable film from 1955 would be "Pecos Pest", if for nothing other than Uncle Peco's rendition of "Froggy went a-courtin'".


Uncle Pecos pays Jerry a visit before his big tv debut. While demonstrating his country stylings, Peco's guitar string breaks. The western mouse (who's face is obscured by his mustache and hat) sees a replacement guitar string in the form of Tom's whisker.


The rest of the cartoon deals with Pecos breaking guitar strings and hunting down Tom in order to rip another whisker from his face, with Jerry trying to protect his uncle from himself.


When at the mercy of Pecos weilding an axe, Tom finally surrenders and plucks his own whisker to give to the mouse, leaving him with only one left.


During his tv performance, Pecos breaks another guitar string. Tom's mocking laughter is cut short when Pecos reaches through the tv screen and plucks the feline's final whisker and finishes his song.

Tom and Jerry:1954

"Mice Follies" features one of the fastest freezing refrigerators of all time. Every mouse should have one for dealing with pesky cats.


Jerry and Nibbles (or was he called Tuffy by this point in his career?) overflow the faucets in the kitchen, then freeze the water with the fridge to create an ice rink. Complete with a spotlight enhanced by multi-colored gelatin, the mice seem to have the perfect skating spot until Tom catches sight of them.


Tom is not as graceful as the mice and cannot keep his balance on the icy surface, leaving Jerry and Tuffy to simply wait while the cat exhausts himself while trying to stay upright. Tom soon shifts the odds (but only momentarily) when he finds some ice skates in the closet.


Tom gets slammed into an inconveniently opened ironing board and is transformed into a living sled as he is squeezed beneath a door. The super-fast fridge comes in handy as Nibbles melts the ice, leaving Tom to take a dive into the water.


Now that the cat is soaked, Nibbles has only to use the powerful fridge once more to freeze the water with its incredible speed, creating a living ice sculpture out of Tom, who must watch helplessly as the mice covort around him.
This reminds me...I need to defrost my fridge.

Tom and Jerry:1953

"The Missing Mouse" opens with Tom tormenting Jerry. We can already expect the mouse to get his revenge. As a bottle of white ink falls on Jerry, a perfectly-timed radio announcement informs Tom that a white mouse has escaped from a laboratory. The mouse is filled with enough explosives to obliterate a city!


Since Jerry is already covered in white ink, it is the perfect chance to make Tom suffer. He threatens harm to himself repeatedly and Tom must put himself at risk to stop him, in order to prevent the explosion that the cat believes will occur.


Once Jerry falls into the sink, the ink is washed off and the jig is up. Tom boots the mouse out of the house...only to have the real white mouse arrive.


Tom manhandles the mouse, believing it is Jerry, but soon discovers that is actually the lab mouse. Thankfully, an update on the radio informs Tom that the lab mouse is no longer considered dangerous and that it will not explode.


Tom kicks the mouse out of the house, only to have it...yep, that's right...explode.
Radio announcer: "Repeat: the white mouse will not explode." Tom: "Don't you believe it!"

Tom and Jerry:1952

I'm back. I apologize yet again for my ridiculously long absense. If I keep this up, this Tom and Jerry tribute will never be completed. Now that I have had a relaxing vacation, I hope to go full steam ahead here at the Factory.


In "The Flying Cat", Jerry once more teams up with the canary from "Kitty Foiled". (at least that is what the bird looks like to me. Anyway, I digress).


After Jerry rescues the canary from Tom, the two friends hide out in a birdhouse atop a pole. The first half of the cartoon deals with Tom's attempts to scale the pole to reach his prey.


After his ladder is torched and his vaulting pole runs afoul of a conveniently placed roller skate, Tom resorts to making a pair of wings out of a pink girdle. (try not to think about it too much). Tom's new aerial abilities prove to be no contest for the mouse and bird, who invert the birdhouse's roof to deliver multiple nails into Tom's rear (making him a living watering can). In one of the most painful scenes ever (in my opinion), Tom severs a tree lengthwise with his crotch. I cringe every time I see this.


Tom is finally lured into a train tunnel where he is crushed into the shape of a train signal hanging from above the tracks while Jerry and friend ride off into the iris out.

Tom and Jerry:1951

"Slicked-Up Pup" is one of many cartoons that involves Jerry trying to frame Tom in order to get him in trouble. This time the trouble comes in the form of Spike the bulldog.


After inadvertantly knocking Spike's newly-bathed son into the mud, Spike warns Tom that if his son does not remain clean, there will be a thrashing administered.


Jerry, of course, does everything he can to get the puppy dirty and make it look as if Tom was the culprit. Tom repeatedly has to clean the puppy from Jerry's constant sabotage.


Jerry tricks Tom easily into a game of tic-tac-toe...using the puppy's body as the game board, and forces Tom to take a mud-dipping and a tomato to the face in order to shield the puppy from any potential grime. Tom thrwarts Jerry's ink-dousing attempt, only to accidentally dump the ink on the puppy himself.


As Tom tries to paint the puppy his natural color, Jerry switches the paint buckets causing the cat to turn Spike's son into a technicolor nightmare. The water hose is switched to dispense tar and Tom is forced to pass the puppy off as a chicken. Spike wises up and saves his son from the washing machine, only to throw the defeated feline into the machine instead.
I will never get tired of Tom's wild "takes", accompanied by his shrieks of terror, that are littered throughout the Tom and Jerry series.

Tom and Jerry:1950

The best Tom and Jerry cartoons are the ones that really stay away from any kind of story and just feature the cat and mouse beating the tar out of each other.


Such is the case with "Cueball Cat". Tom is playing pool in an empty billiards hall and Jerry has the misfortune of living within the pool table.


The gloves come off quickly. Both Tom and Jerry take thier knocks in this one, an equally painful competetion which is always nice to see.


Jerry is crushed and run down by numerous billiard balls, while Tom swallows more than his share of them. Jerry has a cringe-worthy encounter with a pool cue tossed javellin-style by Tom, and the mouse returns the favor by giving Tom a licking with an extremely flexible pool stick.


Tom gets 86'd (literally) and Jerry gets a good impression from the 8 ball. Fire hoses, hand injuries and a well-placed needle make for moral-free cartoon fun.

Tom and Jerry:1949

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I know that I have been very neglectful of this blog, but life is just very busy these days. I will do my best to post updates here at least once a week. So, on with the show.


In "Heavenly Puss", Tom's dangerous dealings with Jerry finally result in his own demise. A piano crushes Tom and sends him into the afterlife.


Tom rides a golden escalator into the sky and tries to sneak onto the train to heaven. However, the conductor knows all about Tom's evil ways on earth and will not allow the cat admission, unless he can obtain Jerry's signature on a document which absolves Tom of all wrongs inflicted on the mouse.


Faced with the alternative (an express ticket to hell), Tom returns to earth and tries to sweeten Jerry up in order to obtain his signature. Jerry's not falling for Tom's nice-guy-routine, and the cat attempts some forgery. He quickly learns that those in charge of heaven see all.


In a great pantomine scene, Tom begs and pleads with Jerry in desperation. He finally obtains Jerry's signature but it is too late. Tom is hurled straight down to the waiting cauldron of the devil, Spike.
Of course, it's all a dream and Tom awakens with a newfound affection for a confused Jerry.

Tom and Jerry:1948

I had another tough choice to make between "Kitty Foiled" and "Old Rockin' Chair Tom". I opted for the former simply because it is what Tom and Jerry are all about. This cartoon has no plot whatsoever but one is not needed. Cat chases mouse and bird. Plenty of cringe-worthy pain is inflicted upon cat.


This one is filled with slam/bang action from start to finish. The only brief pauses in the action are when Jerry and the canary don indian disguises to allude Tom and when the canary holds Tom at gunpoint.


Tom runs fast enough to gain some air, but only briefly, and finds his muzzle in the shape of a mouse hole more than once. A birdcage and floorboards are used as weapons against the cat, and Tom gets all of his teeth knocked out by Jerry weilding a hammer.


One amusing moment is when the canary has a gun pointed at Tom. The bird drops the gun, and Tom politely (but nervously) picks the weapon up and hands it back to the bird so that the threat can resume.


Tom's attempt to run Jerry over with a model train is foiled by the bird, who drops a bowling ball onto the tracks, sending Tom crashing through the floor. Not much more to say here really. Everything you could want in a T&J film. Though I do still really like "Old Rockin' Chair Tom" too. Oh well. The perils of only highlighting one cartoon per year.

Tom and Jerry:1947

It's a shame that there is some controversy surrounding "Cat Concerto" (You know, that whole "Rhapsody Rabbit" thing) because it can overshadow what is one of my favorite Tom and Jerry cartoons.


Tom takes to the stage to perform "Hungarian Rhapsody #2". Let me say right now how much this piece of music sticks with me. It has been used in so many cartoons over the years, but never as perfectly as it is used here.


Of course, Jerry is living inside of Tom's piano and his sleep is disturbed. Jerry is not antagonistic at first. He actually tries to enjoy the music until Tom flicks him away.


The battle is now on as Jerry tries to ruin Tom's concert. He slams the keyboard cover down on Tom's hands and uses a cleverly placed mousetrap. The mouse raises Tom's bench to ridiculous heights and interrupts the music by playing some jazz riffs on the piano hammers.


Tom gets his moments as well as he punishes Jerry inside the piano during the song's frantic climax. Finally however, Tom can not keep up with Jerry and wears himself out, allowing the mouse to receive the applause.

Tom and Jerry:1946

"Solid Serenade" is another Tom and Jerry cartoon that always sticks out in my mind, if for no other reason than Tom's rendition of "Is you is or is you aint my baby".


Tom sneaks over the wall with his bass fiddle to serenade his girl, but first he must deal with Killer the bulldog. A bit of taunting and some rope does the trick.


Tom's bass gives off enough vibrations to send Jerry bouncing helplessly around his home and the mouse is quick to break up the concert. What better way than flinging a pie laced with an iron at the cat? I can't think of one.


The chase is on as Tom ends up springboarding into a pile of dishes and Jerry slams a window on Tom's neck.


Jerry unties Killer but Tom subdues the dog with some trickery as well as a brick to the head. Tom pauses during the chase to swoon over the female cat, but at one point, Killer inadvertantly becomes the object of Tom's desires. "You set my soul on fire. It is not just a little spark but a flame."


Tom chases Jerry into the doghouse, where Killer awaits. The dog pummels Tom and ties him to the bass fiddle for a musical number of his own.