Tom and Jerry:1933

In "The Magic Mummy", Tom and Jerry are police officers sent on the trail of a mummy that was stolen from a museum. They track down a mysterious figure who goes underground at a graveyard.


The mystery sorcerer brings the mummy back to life and forces it to sing for him. Our heros try to apprehend the villian but get thier skin literally ripped off thier bodies momentarily by the sorcerer's magic and are locked away in the wall.


Tom and Jerry escape and try once more to stop the sorcerer, who is now making the mummy preform in front of a ghoulish skeleton audience.


In the confusion, Jerry grabs the coffin, believing it contains the mummy, but when he returns to the police station, it is revealed that Tom is actually inside.

Tom and Jerry:1932

Piano doctors, Tom and Jerry, are in charge of getting the star's instrument in perfect order for a big performance.


While Jerry deals with interfering mice, Tom literally extracts a sour note from the piano. Jerry whacks the note with a mallet, then kills it by smacking it on the wall before flushing the note down the toilet.


The hefty star of the show crams herself into her outfit, only to collapse during her performance. Tom and Jerry to the rescue.


The duo give the piano a check-up, complete with stethescope and some pulse-taking by Jerry. Tom pulls a key from the piano like a bum tooth.


The star recovers and interrupts Tom and Jerry's party with a performance that literally raises the roof. All in all, a must-see cartoon.

Tom and Jerry:1931

Tom and Jerry climb aboard a train in the Swiss Alps,, but when the train gets tired out from climbing a vertical slope, it's up to a rescue dog to save the day. The dog is surprisingly not a St. Bernard, but it does have the barrel of booze required to get the train up and running again.


The train deserts our heros, who then have a run-in with a goat and a bear. While playing around with the echos in the mountains, Tom's head is knocked off momentarily by his own rebounding voice.


The duo is lured by a piece of swiss cheese into a tavern, where thier musical hijinks please the crowd.


Tom and Jerry swipe a piece of swiss cheese and share it with each other. All seems well, until holes began to form all over thier bodies.


Since the two now look like pieces of cheese themselves, they are chased off by a horde of mice from the tavern. Surrealism, without a doubt.

Van Beuren's Tom and Jerry

Long before a certain cat and mouse blazed across the screen, two humanoid characters named Tom and Jerry were introduced at the Van Beuren studio.

Cartoons in the 1930s tended to be very surreal, and the films of Tom and Jerry were no exception. The short-lived series only lasted 3 years, so the cartoons have slipped out of public consciousness, especially since the character's names are now completely associated with MGM's cat and mouse.

The Tom and Jerry cartoons are a decent representation of the Van Beuren studio and over the next three days, they will be highlighted here.

PD Warehouse:1932

In Van Beuren's "The Cat's Canary", we begin with a grisly scene in which a cat sets a trap to catch birds, succeeds, and eats his prey.


The trouble begins for the cat, however, when the only sounds that eminate from his mouth are the chirpings of the bird in his stomach. He quickly seeks out a doctor's assistance.


The doctor's treatment apparently involves banging the cat on the floor and smacking his rear, in an attempt to get the bird out. Eventually, the cat gets ejected from the office.


After dealing with lovesick birds, who are attracted to the chirping coming from the cat, he joins up with a group of alley cats, who eventually accept the chirping feline. Debris is thrown from a nearby building to silence the cat's tune, resulting in the cat getting hit with a birdcage, which allows the bird in his stomach to escape.


The trouble isn't over yet for the cat, as the bird quickly rounds up his buddies, who launch and aerial assault on the feline. The cat is pelted with eggs and even a cannonball launched from the bill of a pelican, delivering sweet revenge from the birds.