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Tom and Jerry is a series of animated theatrical shorts created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that centered on a never-ending rivalry between a housecat (Tom) and a mouse (Jerry) whose chases and battles often involved comic violence. Hanna and Barbera ultimately wrote and directed one hundred and fourteen Tom and Jerry cartoons at the MGM cartoon studio in Hollywood, California between 1940 and 1957, when the animation unit was closed. The original series is notable for having won the Academy Awards for Best Short Subject (Cartoons) seven times, tying it with Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies as the theatrical animated series with the most Oscars.
Beginning in 1960, in addition to the originals MGM had new shorts produced by Rembrandt Films, led by Gene Deitch in Eastern Europe. Production of Tom and Jerry shorts returned to Hollywood under Chuck Jones's Sib-Tower 12 Productions in 1963; this series lasted until 1967, making it a total of 161 shorts. The cat and mouse stars later resurfaced in television cartoons produced by Hanna-Barbera and Filmation Studios during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, a feature film, Tom and Jerry: The Movie, in 1992 and released domestically in 1993 and in 2000, their first made-for TV short, Tom and Jerry: The Mansion Cat for Cartoon Network. The most recent Tom and Jerry theatrical short, The KarateGuard, was written and co-directed by co-creator Joe Barbera and debuted in Los Angeles cinemas on September 27, 2005.
Today, Time Warner (via its Turner Entertainment division) owns the rights to Tom and Jerry (with Warner Bros. handling distribution). Since the merger, Turner has produced the series, Tom and Jerry Tales for The CW's Saturday morning "The CW4Kids" lineup, as well as the recent Tom and Jerry short, The KarateGuard, in 2005 and a string of Tom and Jerry direct-to-video films - all in collaboration with Warner Bros. Animation.
There are a total of 162 theatrical shorts starring Tom and Jerry. For a list of all the Tom and Jerry theatrical shorts, see list of Tom and Jerry cartoons. For a list of all the Tom and Jerry Tales episodes, see list of Tom and Jerry Tales episodes.
The plots of each short usually center on Tom's numerous attempts to capture Jerry and the mayhem and destruction that ensues. Since Tom rarely attempts to eat Jerry and because the pair actually seem to get along in some cartoon shorts, it is unclear why Tom chases Jerry so much. Some reasons given may include normal feline/murine enmity, duty according to his owner, Jerry's attempt at ruining a task that Tom is entrusted with, Jerry eating Tom's master's food which Tom has been entrusted with safeguarding, revenge, Jerry saving other potential prey (such as ducks, canaries, or goldfish) from being eaten by Tom, competition with another cat, and Jerry ruining Tom's attempts to seduce feline femme fatales of which Jerry does either out of disgust or jealousy, among other reasons.
Tom rarely succeeds in catching Jerry, mainly because of Jerry's cleverness, cunning abilities, and luck. Interestingly enough, many of the title cards show Tom and Jerry smiling at each other which seems to depict a love-hate relationship rather than the extreme annoyance each displays towards the other in each cartoon. There are also several instances within the cartoons where they display genuine friendship ("Springtime for Thomas" and concern for each other's well-being (such as in "Jerry and the Lion" where Jerry in one instance tricks Tom into thinking he has shot Jerry, and Tom comes running with the first aid kit).
The short episodes are famous for some of the most violent gags ever devised in theatrical animation: Jerry slicing Tom in half, shutting his head in a window or a door, Tom using everything from axes, pistols, explosives, traps and poison to try to murder Jerry, Jerry stuffing Tom's tail in a waffle iron (and also into what it seems as an old washing machine once), kicking him into a refrigerator, plugging his tail into an electric socket, pounding him with a mace, club or mallet, causing a tree or an electric pole to drive him into the ground, sticking matches into his feet and lighting them, and so on.[1] Despite all its popularity, Tom and Jerry has often been criticized as excessively violent.[2]:42[3]:134 Despite the frequent violence, there is no blood or gore in any scenes in the original cartoons that made the pair a household name. However, in a very rare instance, when Tom gets sliced into pieces in the opening credits of Tom and Jerry:The Movie, blood is clearly visible. A recurring gag involves Jerry hitting Tom when he's preoccupied, with Tom initially oblivious to the pain—and only feeling the effects moments later, and vice versa; and another involves Jerry stopping Tom in midchase (as if calling for a time-out), before he does something, usually putting the hurt on Tom.
The cartoon is also noteworthy for its reliance on stereotypes, such as the blackening of characters following explosions and the use of heavy and enlarged shadows (e.g., Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse). Resemblance to everyday objects and occurrences is arguably the main appeal of visual humor in the series. The characters themselves regularly transform into ridiculous but strongly associative shapes, most of the time involuntarily, in masked but gruesome ways.
Music plays a very important part in the shorts, emphasizing the action, filling in for traditional sound effects, and lending emotion to the scenes. Musical director Scott Bradley created complex scores that combined elements of jazz, classical, and pop music; Bradley often reprised contemporary pop songs, as well as songs from MGM films, including The Wizard of Oz and Meet Me In St. Louis. Generally, there is little dialogue as Tom and Jerry almost never speak, however minor characters are not similarly limited. For example, the character Mammy Two Shoes has lines in every episode in which she appears except The Little Orphan. Most of the dialogue from Tom and Jerry are the high-pitched laughs and gasping screams, which may be provided by a horn or other musical instrument.
Before 1954, all Tom and Jerry cartoons were produced in the standard Academy ratio and format; from late 1954 to 1955, some of the output was dually produced in both Academy format and the widescreen CinemaScope process. From 1956 until the close of the MGM cartoon studio a year later, all Tom and Jerry cartoons were produced in CinemaScope, some even had their soundtracks recorded in Perspecta directional audio. The 1960s Gene Deitch and Chuck Jones shorts were all produced in Academy format, but with compositions that made them compatible to be matted to Academy widescreen format as well. All of the Hanna and Barbera cartoons were produced in three-strip Technicolor; the 1960s entries were done in Metrocolor.
Characters
Title Characters
Thomas "Tom" Cat.
Tom and Jerry
Tom is a Russian Blue tomcat, who lives a pampered life, while Jerry is a small brown house mouse who always lives in close proximity to him. "Tom" is a generic name for a male cat or tomcat (the Warner Bros. cartoon character Sylvester was originally called "Thomas". Tom was originally called "Jasper" in the very first short, Puss Gets the Boot, while Jerry was named Jinx. Tom is very quick-tempered and thin-skinned, while Jerry is independent and opportunistic. Jerry also possesses surprising strength for his size, lifting items such as anvils with relative ease and withstanding considerable impacts with them. Despite being very energetic and determined, Tom is no match for Jerry's brains and wits. By the final "iris-out" or "fade-out" of each cartoon, Jerry usually emerges triumphant, while Tom is shown as the loser. However, other results may be reached; on rare occasions, Tom triumphs, usually when Jerry becomes the aggressor or when he crosses some sort of line (the best example of which occurs in The Million Dollar Cat where, after finding out that Tom's newly acquired wealth will be taken away if he harms any animal, including a mouse, he torments Tom until Tom finally loses his temper and attacks him). Sometimes, usually ironically, they both lose, usually when Jerry's last trap potentially backfires on him after it affects Tom (An example is in Chuck Jones' Filet Meow short where Jerry orders a shark to scare Tom away from eating a goldfish. Afterwards, the shark scares Jerry away as well) or when Jerry overlooks something at the end of the course. Sometimes, they both end up being friends (only for something to happen so that Tom will chase Jerry again). Both characters display sadistic tendencies, in that they are equally likely to take pleasure in tormenting each other. However, depending on the cartoon, whenever one character appears to be in mortal danger (in a dangerous situation or by a third party), the other will develop a conscience and save him. Sometimes, they bond over a mutual sentiment towards an unpleasant experience and their attacking each other is more play than serious attacks. Multiple shorts show the two getting along with minimal difficulty, and they are more than capable of working together when the situation calls for it, usually against a third party who manages to torture and humiliate them both. In one short, Tom first meets Meathead and he and the mangy mutt attempt to catch Jerry. But when Tom's devil forces him to hurt Meathead by beheading him, instead of beheading him, it causes a lump.
Despite five shorts ending with a depiction of Tom's apparent death, his demise is never permanent; he even reads about his own death in a flashback in Jerry's Diary. He appears to die in explosions in Mouse Trouble (after which he is seen in heaven) and in Yankee Doodle Mouse, while in The Two Mouseketeers he is guillotined offscreen.
Jerry Mouse.
Although many supporting and minor characters speak, Tom and Jerry rarely do so themselves. Tom, most famously, sings while wooing female cats; for example, Tom sings Louis Jordan's "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby" in the 1946 short Solid Serenade. In a couple of shorts, Tom, when romancing a female cat, woos her in a French-accented voice similar to that of screen actor Charles Boyer. Co-director William Hanna provided most of the squeaks, gasps, and other vocal effects for the pair, including the most famous sound effects from the series, Tom's leather-lunged scream (created by recording Hanna's scream and eliminating the beginning and ending of the recording, leaving only the strongest part of the scream on the soundtrack) and Jerry's nervous gulp. The only other reasonably common vocalization is made by Tom when some external reference claims a certain scenario or eventuality to be impossible, which inevitably, ironically happens to thwart Tom's plans - at which point, a bedraggled and battered Tom appears and says in a haunting, echoing voice "Don't you believe it!", a reference to some famous World War II propaganda shorts of the 1940s. In one episode, Tom hires a mouse exterminator who, after several failed attempts to dispatch Jerry, changes profession to Cat exterminator by crossing out the "Mouse" on his title and writing "Cat", resulting in Tom spelling out the word out loud before reluctantly pointing at himself. One short, 1956's Blue Cat Blues, is narrated by Jerry in voiceover (voiced by Paul Frees). Both Tom and Jerry speak more than once in the 1943 short The Lonesome Mouse. Tom and Jerry: The Movie is the first (and so far only) installment of the series where the famous cat-and-mouse duo regularly speak.
Recurring characters
Spike and Tyke
Spike the bulldog and his son Tyke, in the 1951 Tom and Jerry short Slicked-up Pup.
In his attempts to catch Jerry, Tom often has to deal with the intrusions of Butch, a scruffy black alley cat who wants to catch and eat Jerry, and Spike (sometimes billed as "Killer" or "Butch", an angry, vicious guard bulldog who tries to attack Tom for bothering his son Tyke (sometimes called "Junior" while trying to get Jerry. Spike spoke often, using a voice and expressions (performed by Billy Bletcher and later Daws Butler) modeled after comedian Jimmy Durante. Spike's coat has altered throughout the years between grey and creamy pink. The addition of Spike's son Tyke in the late 1940s led to both a slight softening of Spike's character and a short-lived spin-off theatrical series (Spike and Tyke).
[edit] Butch and Toodles Galore
Butch and Toodles Galore, in the 1946 Tom and Jerry short Springtime for Thomas.
As stated up above, Butch is a black alley cat who also wants to catch and eat Jerry. He is the most frequent adversary of Tom. However, for most of the episodes he appears in, he's usually seen rivaling Tom over Toodles. Butch also appeared as one of Tom's pals or chums as in some cartoons, where Butch is leader of Tom's buddies, who are Meathead and Topsy. Tom changes his love interest many times. The first love interest is Sheikie and speaks in a haughty tone in The Zoot Cat, and calls him "Tommy" in The Mouse Comes to Dinner. The second and most frequent love interest of Tom's is Toodles Galore, who never has any dialogue in Tom and Jerry cartoons.
Mammy Two Shoes
Mammy Two Shoes, the owner of Tom, who made many appearances in the 1940s and early 1950s Tom and Jerry shorts, as seen in 1947's Old Rockin' Chair Tom. Over the years, Tom and Jerry cartoons featuring Mammy have been edited, modified, or withheld from broadcast in various ways.
From the beginning, Tom also has to deal with Mammy Two Shoes (voiced by Lillian Randolph), a stereotyped African-American domestic housemaid. In the earliest shorts, Mammy is depicted as the maid taking care of the often opulent home in which Tom and Jerry reside. Later Tom and Jerry shorts are set in what appears to be Mammy's own house. Her face is never seen (with the exception of 1950's Saturday Evening Puss, in which her face is very briefly seen as she runs towards the camera), and she usually wallops the cat with a broom when he misbehaves. When Mammy was not present, other humans would sometimes be seen, usually from the neck down as well. Mammy would appear in many cartoons until 1952's Push-Button Kitty. Later cartoons would instead show Tom and Jerry living with a 1950s Yuppie-style couple. Soon after, virtually all humans in the series had visible faces.
Tuffy, formerly Nibbles
Tuffy is a mouse who is close to Jerry. He sometimes poses as Jerry's nephew. In many episodes, Tuffy is seen eating a lot (he's always hungry). In his first appearance, he was left on Jerry's doorstep, being abandoned by his parents because he eats too much. Tuffy appears frequently with Jerry. When he does, Tom enjoys chasing him as he does with Jerry. Strangely, in Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring, Tuffy, once again called Nibbles, is a random mouse in a pet shop that Jerry doesn't even know.
Nibbles, the little orphan mouse, later named "Tuffy".
Quacker
Quacker at the end of That's My Mommy.
Another recurring character in the series was Little Quacker the duckling, who was later adapted into the Hanna-Barbera character Yakky Doodle. He appears in Little Quacker, The Duck Doctor, Just Ducky, Downhearted Duckling, Southbound Duckling, That's My Mommy, Happy Go Ducky and The Vanishing Duck. Quacker talks a lot compared to Tom and Jerry. In many episodes, he is the only one who speaks. The last recurring character is a small unnamed green devil that looks like Tom but has the size of Jerry. He only appears in three episodes: Springtime for Thomas, Smitten Kitten, and Sufferin' Cats!. Whenever Tom falls in love with a female cat, the devil advises Jerry to try to break the two apart in Springtime for Thomas and Smitten Kitten. In Sufferin' Cats!, when Tom and Meathead plan to split Jerry in half with an axe, he advises Tom to instead chop Meathead's skull open and keep Jerry for himself.
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nu sunt un inger ce se zbate printre vise...
nu sunt un inger...ce-si saruta victimele...
nu sunt un inger pentru ca iubesc moartea...
nu sunt un inger..caci sunt doar o umbra a propriei mele vointe asteptand in tacere ziua mortii mele...
Frumusetea, dragostea, incantarea
Nu cunosc nici moartea nici schimbarea.
Simturile noastre-s prea obscure
Spre a percepe razele lor pure....
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