Tom and Jerry is an American animated series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. It centers on a rivalry between the title characters Tom, a cat, and Jerry, a mouse. Many shorts also feature several recurring characters.

In its original run, Hanna and Barbera produced 114 Tom and Jerry shorts for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1940 to 1958.^[1] During this time, they won seven Academy Awards for Animated Short Film, tying for first place with Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies with the most awards in the category. After the MGM cartoon studio closed in 1957, MGM revived the series with Gene Deitch directing an additional 13 Tom and Jerry shorts for Rembrandt Films from 1961 to 1962. Tom and Jerry then became the highest-grossing animated short film series of that time, overtaking Looney Tunes. Chuck Jones then produced another 34 shorts with Sib Tower 12 Productions between 1963 and 1967. Three more shorts were produced, The Mansion Cat in 2001, The Karate Guard in 2005, and A Fundraising Adventure in 2014, making a total of 164 shorts.

A number of spin-offs have been made, including the television series The Tom and Jerry Show (1975), The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show (1980–82), Tom and Jerry Kids (1990–93), Tom and Jerry Tales (2006–08), and The Tom and Jerry Show (2014–present). The first feature-length film based on the series, Tom and Jerry: The Movie, was released in 1992, and 13 direct-to-video films have been produced since 2002.

• 3Characters
  • 3.1Tom and Jerry
• 4History
• 9Cultural influences
• 12Television

Plot

The series features comic fights between an iconic pair of adversaries, a house cat (Tom) and a mouse (Jerry). The plots of each short usually center on Tom's numerous attempts to capture Jerry and the mayhem and destruction that follows. Tom rarely succeeds in catching Jerry, mainly because of Jerry's cleverness, cunning abilities, and luck. However, on several occasions they have displayed genuine friendship and concern for each other's well-being. At other times, the pair set aside their rivalry in order to pursue a common goal, such as when a baby escapes the watch of a negligent babysitter, causing Tom and Jerry to pursue the baby and keep it away from danger, in the shortsBusy Buddies and Tot Watchers respectively. Despite their endless attacks on one another, they have saved each other's lives every time they were truly in danger.

The cartoons are known for some of the most violent cartoon gags ever devised in theatrical animation: Tom may use axes, hammers, firearms, firecrackers, explosives, traps and poison to kill Jerry. On the other hand, Jerry's methods of retaliation are far more violent, with frequent success, including slicing Tom in half, decapitating him, shutting his head or fingers in a window or a door, stuffing Tom's tail in a waffle iron or a mangle, kicking him into a refrigerator, getting him electrocuted, pounding him with a mace, club or mallet, letting a tree or electric pole drive him into the ground, sticking matches into his feet and lighting them, tying him to a firework and setting it off, and so on.^[2] Because of this, Tom and Jerry has often been criticized as excessively violent. However, there is no blood or gore in any scene.^{[3]:42[4]:134}

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, which both starred Judy Garland in a leading role.

Generally, there is little dialogue as Tom and Jerry almost never speak; however, minor characters are not similarly limited, and the two lead characters do speak English on rare occasions. For example, the character Mammy Two Shoes has lines in nearly every cartoon in which she appears. Most of the vocal effects used for Tom and Jerry are their high-pitched laughs and gasping screams.

Production

Before 1954, all Tom and Jerry cartoons were produced in the standard Academy ratio and format; in 1954 and 1955, some of the output was dually produced in dual versions: one Academy-ratio negative composed for a flat widescreen (1.75:1) format and one shot in the CinemaScope process. From 1955 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. All of the Hanna and Barbera cartoons were shot as successive color exposure negatives in Technicolor; the 1960s entries were done in Metrocolor but returned to the standard Academy ratio and format. The 2005 short The Karate Guard was also filmed in the standard Academy ratio and format.

Characters

Tom and Jerry

Tom (named 'Jasper' in his debut appearance) is a grey and white domestic shorthair cat. ('Tom' is a generic name for a male cat.) He is usually but not always, portrayed as living a comfortable, or even pampered life, while Jerry (named 'Jinx' in his debut appearance) is a small, brown, house mouse who always lives in close proximity to Tom. Despite being very energetic, determined and much larger, Tom is no match for Jerry's wits. Jerry also possesses surprising strength for his size, approximately the equivalent of Tom's, lifting items such as anvils with relative ease and withstanding considerable impacts. Although cats typically chase mice to eat them, it is quite rare for Tom to actually try to eat Jerry. Most of his attempts are just to torment or humiliate Jerry, sometimes in revenge, and sometimes to obtain a reward from a human for catching Jerry. By the final '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 he pushes Tom a little too far. In The Million Dollar Cat Jerry learns that Tom will lose his newly acquired wealth if he harms any animal, especially mice; he then torments Tom a little too much until he retaliates. In Timid Tabby Tom's look-alike cousin pushes Jerry over the edge. Occasionally and usually ironically, they both lose, usually because Jerry's last trap or attack on Tom backfires on him or he overlooks something. In Chuck Jones' Filet Meow, Jerry orders a shark from the pet store to scare Tom away from eating a goldfish. Afterwards, the shark scares Jerry away as well. Finally, they occasionally end up being friends, although within this set of stories, there is often a last minute event that ruins the truce. One cartoon that has a friendly ending is Snowbody Loves Me.

Both characters display sadistic tendencies, in that they are equally likely to take pleasure in tormenting each other, although it is often in response to a triggering event. However, when one character appears to truly be in mortal danger from an unplanned situation or due to actions by a third party, the other will develop a conscience and save him. Occasionally, 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. Sometimes this partnership is forgotten quickly when an unexpected event happens, or when one character feels that the other is no longer necessary. This is the case in Posse Cat, when they agree that Jerry will allow himself to be caught if Tom agrees to share his reward dinner, but Tom then reneges. Other times, however, Tom does keep his promise to Jerry and the partnerships are not quickly dissolved after the problem is solved.

Tom changes his love interest many times. The first love interest is Toots who appears in Puss n' Toots, and calls him 'Tommy' in The Mouse Comes to Dinner. He is also interested in a cat called Toots in The Zoot Cat although she has a different appearance to the original Toots. The most frequent love interest of Tom's is Toodles Galore, who never has any dialogue in the cartoons.

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), Yankee Doodle Mouse and in Safety Second, while in The Two Mouseketeers he is guillotined offscreen. The short Blue Cat Blues ends with both Tom and Jerry sitting on the railroad tracks with the intent of suicide while the whistle of an oncoming train is heard foreshadowing their imminent death.

Tom and Jerry speaking

Although many supporting and minor characters speak, Tom and Jerry rarely do so themselves. One exception is The Lonesome Mouse where they speak several times briefly, primarily Jerry, to contrive to get Tom back into the house. Tom more often 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 that short and Zoot Cat, Tom woos female cats using a deep, heavily French-accented voice in imitation of then-popular leading man, actor Charles Boyer. At the end of The Million Dollar Cat, after beginning to antagonize Jerry he says, 'Gee, I'm throwin' away a million dollars.. BUT I'M HAPPY!' In Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring, Jerry says, 'No, no, no, no, no,' when choosing the shop to remove his ring. In The Mouse Comes to Dinner, Tom speaks to his girlfriend Toots while inadvertently sitting on a stove: 'Say, what's cookin'?', to which Toots replies 'You are, stupid.' Another instance of speech comes in Solid Serenade and The Framed Cat, where Tom directs Spike through a few dog tricks in a dog-trainer manner.

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 the then-popular 1940s radio show Don't You Believe It.^[5][6] In Mouse Trouble, Tom says 'Don't you believe it!' after being beaten up by Jerry, which also happens in The Missing Mouse. In the 1946 short Trap Happy, Tom hires a cat disguised as a mouse exterminator who, after several failed attempts to dispatch Jerry and suffering a lot of accidents in the process, 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) as they try to win back their ladyfriends. Jerry was voiced by Sara Berner during his appearance in the 1945 MGM musical Anchors Aweigh. 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. In that movie, Tom was voiced by Richard Kind, and Jerry was voiced by Dana Hill.

Spike and Tyke

In his attempts to catch Jerry, Tom often has to deal with Spike (known as 'Killer' and 'Butch' in some shorts), an angry, vicious but easily duped bulldog who tries to attack Tom for bothering him or his son Tyke while trying to get Jerry. Originally, Spike was unnamed and mute (aside from howls and biting noises) as well as attacking indiscriminately, not caring whether it was Tom or Jerry though usually attacking Tom. In later cartoons, 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 tan. 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).

Most cartoons with Spike in them conform to a theme: usually Spike is trying to accomplish something (such as building a dog house or sleeping) when Tom and Jerry's antics stop him doing it. Spike then (presumably due to prejudice) singles out Tom as the culprit, and threatens him that if it ever happens again, he will do 'something horrible' to him (effectively forcing Tom to take the blame) while Jerry overhears; afterwards Jerry usually does anything he can to interrupt whatever Spike is doing while Tom barely manages to stop him (usually getting injured in the process). Usually Jerry does eventually wreck whatever Spike is doing in spectacular fashion and leaves Tom to take the blame, forcing him to flee from Spike and inevitably lose (usually because Tom is usually framed by Jerry and that Spike just doesn't like Tom). Off-screen, Spike does something to Tom and finally Tom is generally shown injured or in a bad situation while Jerry smugly cuddles up to Spike unscathed. Tom sometimes gets irritated with Spike (an example is in That's My Pup!, when Spike forces Tom to run up a tree every time his son barked, causing Tom to hang Tyke on a flag pole). At least once, however, Tom does something that benefits Spike, who promises not to interfere ever again; causing Jerry to frantically leave the house and run into the distance (in Hic-cup Pup). Spike is well known for his famous 'Listen pussycat!' catchphrase when he threatens Tom, his other famous catchphrase is 'That's my boy!' normally said when he supports or congratulates his son.

Tyke is described as a cute, sweet looking, happy and a lovable puppy. He is Spike's son; but unlike Spike, Tyke does not speak and only communicates (mostly towards his father) by barking, yapping, wagging his tail, whimpering and growling. Spike would always go out of his way to care and comfort his son and make sure that he is safe from Tom. Tyke loves his father and Spike loves his son and they get along like friends, although most of time they would be taking a nap or Spike would teach Tyke the main facts of life of being a dog. Like Spike, Tyke's appearance has altered throughout the years, from grey (with white paws) to creamy tan. When Tom and Jerry Kids first aired, this was the first time that viewers could hear Tyke speak.

Butch and Toodles Galore

Butch is a black, cigar-smoking alley cat who also wants to eat Jerry. He is Tom's most frequent adversary. However, for most of the shorts he appears in, he is usually seen rivaling Tom over Toodles. Butch was also Tom's chum as in some cartoons, where Butch is leader of Tom's alley cat buddies, who are mostly Lightning, Topsy, and Meathead. Butch talks more often than Tom or Jerry in most shorts.

Butch and Toodles were originally introduced in Hugh Harman's 1941 short The Alley Cat, but were integrated into Tom and Jerry rather than continuing in their own series.

Nibbles

Nibbles is a small grey mouse who often appears in shorts as Jerry's nephew. He is a carefree individual who very rarely understands the danger of the situation, simply following instructions the best he can both to Jerry's command and his own innocent understanding of the situation. This can lead to such results as 'getting the cheese' by simply asking Tom to pick it up for him, rather than following Jerry's example of outmaneuvering and sneaking around Tom. Many times Nibbles is an ally of Jerry in fights against Tom, including being the second Mouseketeer. He is given speaking roles in all his appearances as a Mouseketeer, often with a high-pitched French tone. However, during a short in which he rescued Robin Hood, his voice was instead more masculine, gruff, and cockney accented.

Mammy Two Shoes

Mammy Two Shoes is a heavy-set middle-aged woman who often has to deal with the mayhem generated by the lead characters. Voiced by character actress Lillian Randolph, she is often seen as the owner of Tom. Her face was only shown once, very briefly, in Saturday Evening Puss. Mammy's appearances have often been edited out, dubbed, or re-animated as a slim white woman in later television showings, since her character is a mammy archetype now often regarded as racist.^[7] She was mostly restored in the DVD releases of the cartoons, with an introduction by Whoopi Goldberg explaining the importance of African-American representation in the cartoon series, however stereotyped.

History

'Tom and Jerry' was a commonplace phrase for youngsters indulging in riotous behaviour in 19th-century London. The term comes from Life in London, or Days and Nights of Jerry Hawthorne and his elegant friend Corinthian Tom (1823) by Pierce Egan.^[8] However Brewer notes no more than an 'unconscious' echo of the Regency era original in the naming of the cartoon.^[9]

Hanna-Barbera era (1940–1958)

In June 1937, animator and storyman Joseph Barbera began to work for the Ising animation unit at MGM, then the largest studio in Hollywood.^[10][11] He learned that co-owner Louis B. Mayer wished to boost the animation department by encouraging the artists to develop some new cartoon characters, following the lack of success with its earlier cartoon series based on the Captain and the Kids comic strip. Barbera then teamed with fellow Ising unit animator and director William Hanna and pitched new ideas, among them was the concept of two 'equal characters who were always in conflict with each other'.^[11] An early thought involved a fox and a dog before they settled on a cat and mouse. The pair discussed their ideas with producer Fred Quimby, then the head of the short film department who, despite a lack of interest in it, gave them the green-light to produce one cartoon short.^[11]

The first short, Puss Gets the Boot, features a cat named Jasper and an unnamed mouse,^[12] named Jinx in pre-production, and an African American housemaid named Mammy Two Shoes. Leonard Maltin described it as 'very new and special [..] that was to change the course of MGM cartoon production' and established the successful Tom and Jerry formula of comical cat and mouse chases with slapstick gags.^[13][11] It was released onto the theatre circuit on February 10, 1940 and the pair, having been advised by management not to produce any more, focused on other cartoons including Gallopin' Gals (1940) and Officer Pooch (1941).^[11] Matters changed, however, when Texas businesswoman Bessa Short sent a letter to MGM asking whether more cat and mouse shorts would be produced, which helped convince management to commission a series.^[14][10] A studio contest held to rename both characters was won by animator John Carr, who suggested Tom the cat and Jerry the mouse after the Christmastime drink. Carr was awarded a first place prize of $50.^[15]Puss Gets the Boot was a critical success, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Short Subject: Cartoons in 1941 despite the credits listing Ising and omitting Hanna and Barbera.^[13][11]

After MGM gave the green-light for Hanna and Barbera to continue, the studio entered production on the second Tom and Jerry cartoon, The Midnight Snack (1941).^[12] The pair would continue to work on the series for the next fifteen years of their career.^[16] Early into the series Jerry never started the conflict and shorts typically involved Tom losing by the end. The composer of the series, Scott Bradley, made it difficult for the musicians to perform his score which often involved the twelve-tone technique developed by Arnold Schoenberg.^[12] The series developed a quicker, more energetic and violent tone which was inspired by the work of MGM colleague Tex Avery. Hanna and Barbera made minor adjustments to Tom and Jerry's appearance so they would 'age gracefully'.^[12] Jerry went on to lose weight and his long eyelashes, while Tom lost his jagged fur for a smoother appearance, had larger eyebrows, and received a white and grey face with a white mouth.^[12] He adopted a quadrupedal stance at first, like a real cat, to become increasingly and almost exclusively bipedal.

Hanna and Barbera produced 114 cartoons for MGM, thirteen of which were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Subject and seven went on to win, breaking the winning streak held by Walt Disney's studio in the category. Tom and Jerry won more Academy Awards than any other character-based theatrical animated series. Barbera estimated the typical budget of $50,000 for each Tom and Jerry cartoon which made the duo take 'time to get it right'.^[11] A typical cartoon took around six weeks to make.^[12] He and Hanna did not work with a script beforehand, instead worked on the story as they drew scenes.^[10] Quimby was credited as the producer of all cartoons until 1955.^[12]

The rise in television in the 1950s caused problems for the MGM animation studio, leading to budget cuts on Tom and Jerry cartoons due to decreased revenue from theatrical screenings. In an attempt to combat this MGM ordered for all subsequent shorts produced in the widescreen CinemaScope format; the first, Touché, Pussy Cat!, was released in December 1954. However, the studio found that re-releases of older cartoons were earning as much as new ones, resulting in the executive decision to cease production on Tom and Jerry and later the animation studio on May 15, 1957.^[10] The final cartoon produced by Hanna and Barbera, Tot Watchers, was released on August 1, 1958.^[12] The pair were fired and focused on own production company Hanna-Barbera Productions, which went on to produce such popular animated television series including The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, The Jetsons and Scooby-Doo.^[12]

Gene Deitch era (1961–1962)

In 1961, MGM revived the Tom and Jerry franchise, and contracted European animation studio Rembrandt Films to produce 13 Tom and Jerry shorts in Prague, Czechoslovakia.^{[17][18][19][20]} All were directed by Gene Deitch and produced by William L. Snyder.^[17][20] Deitch himself wrote most of the cartoons, with occasional assistance from Larz Bourne and Eli Bauer. Stěpan Koniček provided the musical score for the Deitch shorts. Sound effects were produced by electronic music composer Tod Dockstader. The majority of vocal effects and voices in Deitch's films were provided by Allen Swift.^[21]

Deitch states that, being a 'UPA man', he was not a fan of the Tom and Jerry cartoons, thinking they were 'needlessly violent'.^[22][23] However, after being assigned to work on the series, he quickly realized that 'nobody took [the violence] seriously', and it was merely 'a parody of exaggerated human emotions'.^[22] He also came to see what he perceived as the 'biblical roots' in Tom and Jerry's conflict, similar to David and Goliath, stating 'That's where we feel a connection to these cartoons: the little guy can win (or at least survive) to fight another day.'^[22]

Since the Deitch/Snyder team had seen only a handful of the original Tom and Jerry shorts, and since the team produced their cartoons on a tighter budget of $10,000, the resulting films were considered surrealist in nature, though this was not Deitch's intention.^[18][23] The animation was limited and jerky in movement, compared to the more fluid Hanna-Barbera shorts. Background art was done in a more simplistic, angular, Art Deco-esque style. The soundtracks featured sparse and echoic electronic music, futuristic sound effects, heavy reverb, and dialogue that was mumbled rather than spoken. According to Jen Nessel of The New York Times, 'The Czech style had nothing in common with these gag-driven cartoons.'^[24]

Whereas Hanna-Barbera's shorts generally took place in and outside of a house, Deitch's shorts opted for more exotic locations, such as a 19th-century whaling ship, the jungles of Nairobi, an Ancient Greek acropolis, or the Wild West. In addition, Mammy Two-Shoes was replaced as Tom's owner by Clint Clobber, a bald, overweight, short-tempered, middle-aged white man who was also much more brutal and violent in punishing Tom's actions as compared to previous owners, by beating and thrashing Tom repeatedly, stomping on his hand, searing his head with a grill, forcing him to drink an entire carbonated beverage, slamming his fingers with a lunchbox lid and even wrapping a shotgun over his head and firing it.

To avoid being linked to Communism, Deitch romanized the Czech names of his crew in the opening credits of the shorts (e.g. Stêpan Koniček became 'Steven Konichek' and Vaclav Lidl became 'Victor Little'). In addition, these shorts are among the few Tom and Jerry cartoons not to carry the 'Made In Hollywood, U.S.A.' phrase on the end title card; due to Deitch's studio being behind the Iron Curtain, the production studio's location is omitted entirely on it.^[23] After the 13 shorts were completed, Joe Vogel, the head of production, was fired from MGM. Vogel had approved of Deitch and his team's work, but MGM decided not to renew their contract after Vogel's departure.^[23] The final of the 13 shorts, Carmen Get It!, was released on December 21, 1962.^[18]

Deitch's shorts were commercial successes. In 1961, the Tom and Jerry series became the highest-grossing animated short film series of that time, dethroning Looney Tunes, which had held the position for 16 years; this success was repeated once more in 1962.^[20] However, unlike the Hanna-Barbera shorts, none of Deitch's films were nominated for nor did they win an Academy Award.^[20] In retrospect, these shorts are often considered the worst of the Tom and Jerry theatrical output.^[22] Deitch stated that due to his team's inexperience as well as their low budget, he 'hardly had a chance to succeed', and 'well understand[s] the negative reactions' to his shorts. He believes 'They could all have been better animated – truer to the characters – but our T&Js were produced in the early 1960s, near the beginning of my presence here, over a half-century ago as I write this!'^[25] Despite the criticism, some fans wrote positive letters to Deitch, stating that his Tom and Jerry shorts were their personal favorites due to their quirky and surreal nature.^[26] The shorts were released on DVD in 2015 in Tom and Jerry: The Gene Deitch Collection.

Chuck Jones era (1963–1967)

After the last of the Deitch cartoons were released, Chuck Jones, who had been fired from his 30-plus year tenure at Warner Bros. Cartoons, started his own animation studio, Sib Tower 12 Productions (later renamed MGM Animation/Visual Arts), with partner Les Goldman. Beginning in 1963, Jones and Goldman went on to produce 34 more Tom and Jerry shorts, all of which carried Jones' distinctive style (and a slight psychedelic influence).

Jones had trouble adapting his style to Tom and Jerry's brand of humor, and a number of the cartoons favored full animation, personality and style over storyline. The characters underwent a slight change of appearance: Tom was given thicker eyebrows (resembling Jones' Grinch, Count Blood Count or Wile E. Coyote), a less complex look (including the color of his fur becoming gray), sharper ears, longer tail and furrier cheeks (resembling Jones' Claude Cat or Sylvester), while Jerry was given larger eyes and ears, a lighter brown color, and a sweeter, Porky Pig-like expression.

Some of Jones' Tom and Jerry cartoons are reminiscent of his work with Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, included the uses of blackout gags and gags involving characters falling from high places. Jones co-directed the majority of the shorts with layout artist Maurice Noble. The remaining shorts were directed by Abe Levitow and Ben Washam, with Tom Ray directing two shorts built around footage from earlier Tom and Jerry cartoons directed by Hanna and Barbera, and Jim Pabian directed a short with Maurice Noble. Various vocal characteristics were made by Mel Blanc and June Foray. These shorts contain a memorable opening theme, in which Tom first replaces the MGM lion, then is trapped inside the 'O' of his name.^[27]

Though Jones's shorts were generally considered an improvement over Deitch's, they nevertheless had varying degrees of critical success. MGM ceased production of Tom and Jerry shorts in 1967, by which time Jones had moved on to television specials and the feature film The Phantom Tollbooth.^[27] The shorts were released on DVD in 2009 in Tom and Jerry: The Chuck Jones Collection.

Tom and Jerry hit television

Beginning in 1965, the Hanna and Barbera Tom and Jerry cartoons began to appear on television in heavily edited versions. The Jones team was required to take the cartoons featuring Mammy Two Shoes and remove her by pasting over the scenes featuring her with new scenes. Most of the time, she was replaced with a similarly fat white Irish woman; occasionally, as in Saturday Evening Puss, a thin white teenager took her place instead, with both characters voiced by June Foray. However, recent telecasts on Cartoon Network and Boomerang retain Mammy with new voiceover work performed by Thea Vidale to remove the stereotypical black jargon featured on the original cartoon soundtracks. The standard Tom and Jerry opening titles were removed as well. Instead of the roaring MGM Lion sequence, an opening sequence featuring different clips of the cartoons was used instead. The title cards were also changed. A pink title card with the name written in white font was used instead.

Debuting on CBS' Saturday morning schedule on September 25, 1965, Tom and Jerry moved to CBS Sundays two years later and remained there until September 17, 1972.

Second Hanna-Barbera era: The Tom and Jerry Show (1975)

In 1975, Tom and Jerry were reunited with Hanna and Barbera, who produced new Tom and Jerry cartoons for Saturday mornings. These 48 seven-minute short cartoons were paired with Grape Ape and Mumbly cartoons, to create The Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape Show, The Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape/Mumbly Show, and The Tom and Jerry/Mumbly Show, all of which initially ran on ABC Saturday mornings between September 6, 1975 and September 3, 1977. In these cartoons, Tom and Jerry (now with a red bow tie), who had been enemies during their formative years, became nonviolent pals who went on adventures together, as Hanna-Barbera had to meet the stringent rules against violence for children's TV. This 1975-styled format was no longer used in the newer Tom and Jerry entrees.^[27]

Filmation era (1980–1982)

Filmation Studios (in association with MGM Television) also tried their hands at producing a Tom and Jerry TV series. Their version, The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show, debuted in 1980, and also featured new cartoons starring Droopy, Spike (from Tom & Jerry, and the same version also used in Droopy), Slick Wolf, and Barney Bear, not seen since the original MGM shorts. The Filmation Tom and Jerry cartoons were noticeably different from Hanna-Barbera's efforts, as they returned Tom and Jerry to the original chase formula, with a somewhat more 'slapstick' humor format. This incarnation, much like the 1975 version, was not as well received by audiences as the originals, and lasted on CBS Saturday mornings from September 6, 1980 to September 4, 1982.^[27]

Tom and Jerry's new owners

In 1986, MGM was purchased by WTBS founder Ted Turner. Turner sold the company a short while later, but retained MGM's pre-1986 film library, thus Tom and Jerry became the property of Turner Entertainment Co. (where the rights stand today via Warner Bros.), and have in subsequent years appeared on Turner-run stations, such as TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, The WB, Boomerang, and Turner Classic Movies.

Third Hanna-Barbera era: Tom and Jerry Kids (1990–1994)

One of the biggest trends for Saturday morning television in the 1980s and 1990s was the child versions of famous classic cartoon stars 'babyfication' of older, classic cartoon stars, and on March 2, 1990, Tom and Jerry Kids, co-produced by Turner Entertainment Co. and Hanna-Barbera Productions (which would be sold to Turner in 1991) debuted on Fox Kids and for a few years, aired on British children's block, CBBC. It featured a youthful version of the famous cat-and-mouse duo chasing each other. As with the 1975 H-B series, Jerry wears his red bowtie, while Tom now wears a red cap. Spike and his son Tyke (who now had talking dialogue) and Droopy and his son Dripple, appeared in back-up segments for the show, which ran until November 18, 1994. Tom and Jerry Kids was the last Tom and Jerry cartoon series produced in 4:3 (full screen) aspect ratio.

One-off productions (2001; 2005)

In 2001, a new television special titled Tom and Jerry: The Mansion Cat premiered on Boomerang. It featured Joe Barbera (who was also a creative consultant) as the voice of Tom's owner, whose face is never seen. In this cartoon, Jerry, housed in a habitrail, is as much of a house pet as Tom is, and their owner has to remind Tom to not 'blame everything on the mouse'.

In 2005, a new Tom and Jerry theatrical short, titled The Karate Guard, which had been written and directed by Barbera and Spike Brandt, storyboarded by Joseph Barbera and Iwao Takamoto and produced by Joseph Barbera, Spike Brandt and Tony Cervone premiered in Los Angeles cinemas on September 27, 2005. As part of the celebration of Tom and Jerry's sixty-fifth anniversary, this marked Barbera's first return as a writer, director and storyboard artist on the series since his and Hanna's original MGM cartoon shorts, and last overall; he would die shortly after production ended. Director/animator, Spike Brandt was nominated for an Annie award for best character animation. The short debuted on Cartoon Network on January 27, 2006.

Warner Bros. era (2006–present)

During the first half of 2006, a new series called Tom and Jerry Tales was produced at Warner Bros. Animation. Thirteen half-hour episodes (each consisting of three shorts, some of them—like The Karate Guard—were produced and completed in 2003 as part of a 30-plus theatrical cartoon schedule aborted after the financial disaster of Looney Tunes: Back in Action) were produced, with only markets outside of the United States and United Kingdom signed up. The show then came to the UK in February 2006 on Boomerang, and it went to the U.S. on Kids' WB on The CW.^[28]Tales is the first Tom and Jerry TV series that utilizes the original style of the classic shorts, along with the slapstick. The series was canceled in 2008, shortly before the Kids' WB block shut down. Tales is also the first Tom and Jerry production presented in 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio (which was aired on Cartoon Network in the United States) but cropped to 4:3 fullscreen aspect ratio (which was aired on The CW and Boomerang in the United States).

Cartoon Network, which began rerunning the Tom and Jerry Tales in January 2012, subsequently aired a second series consisting of two 11-minute shorts per episode that likewise sought to maintain the look, core characters and sensibility of the original theatrical shorts. Similar to other reboot works like Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated and The Looney Tunes Show, several episodes the new series brought Tom and Jerry into contemporary environments, telling new stories and relocating the characters to more fantastic worlds, from a medieval castle to a mad scientist's lab. Titled The Tom and Jerry Show, the series is produced by Warner Bros. Animation, with Sam Register serving as executive producer in collaboration with Darrell Van Citters and Ashley Postelwaite at Renegade Animation. Originally slated for an undated 2013 Cartoon Network premiere^[29] before being pushed back to April 9, 2014, this is the second Tom and Jerry production presented in 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio.^[30]

In November 2014, a two-minute sketch was shown as part of the Children In Need Telethon in the United Kingdom, the sketch was produced as a collaboration with Warner Bros.^[31]

Outside the United States

When shown on terrestrial television in the United Kingdom (from April 1967 to February 2001, usually on the BBC) Tom and Jerry cartoons were not edited for violence, and Mammy was retained. As well as having regular slots (mainly after the evening BBC News with around two shorts shown every evening and occasionally shown on children's network CBBC in the morning), Tom and Jerry served the BBC in another way. When faced with disruption to the schedules (for example when live broadcasts overran), the BBC would invariably turn to Tom and Jerry to fill any gaps, confident that it would retain much of an audience that might otherwise channel hop. This proved particularly helpful in 1993, when Noel's House Party had to be cancelled due to an IRA bomb scare at BBC Television Centre; Tom and Jerry was shown instead, bridging the gap until the next programme.^{[citation needed]} In 2006, a mother complained to OFCOM about the smoking shown in the cartoons, since Tom often attempts to impress love interests with the habit, resulting in reports that the smoking scenes in Tom and Jerry films may be subject to censorship.^[32]

Due to its very limited use of dialogue, Tom and Jerry was easily translated into various foreign languages. Tom and Jerry began broadcast in Japan in 1965. A 2005 nationwide survey taken in Japan by TV Asahi, sampling age groups from teenagers to adults in their sixties, ranked Tom and Jerry #85 in a list of the top 100 'anime' of all time; while their web poll taken after the airing of the list ranked it at #58 – the only non-Japanese animation on the list, and beating anime classics like Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, A Little Princess Sara, and the ultra-classics Macross and Ghost in the Shell. (In Japan, the word 'anime' refers to all animation regardless of origin, not just Japanese animation.)^[33]Tom and Jerry also serve as long-time licensed mascots for Gifu-based Juroku Bank.Unlike some other Western cartoons such as Bob the Builder and Postman Pat, whose characters had to be doctored to have five fingers in each hand instead of the original four,^[34]Tom and Jerry aired in Japan without such edits, as did other series starring non-human protagonists such as SpongeBob SquarePants.

Tom and Jerry have long since been popular in Germany. The different shorts are usually linked together with key scenes from Jerry's Diary (1949), in which Tom reads about his and Jerry's past adventures. The cartoons are introduced with rhyming German language verse, and when necessary, a German voice spoke the translations of English labels on items and similar information.

The show was aired in mainland China by CCTV in the mid-1980s to early 1990s, and was extremely popular at the time. Collections of the show are still a prominent feature in Chinese book stores.

In the Philippines, the series was aired on ABS-CBN from 1966 until its closure due to the country's declaration of martial law in 1972, with the later Hanna-Barbera shorts from Barbecue Brawl to Tot Watchers and all of Gene Deitch and Chuck Jones shorts. RPN aired most of Hanna-Barbera shorts from 1977 until 1989. ABS-CBN would later return to the air after the restoration of democracy in 1986 and air the same shorts as in the pre-martial law era. This lasted until the end of 1988.

In Indonesia, the series was aired on TPI (later re-branded as MNCTV) from mid-1990s to early 2010s and RCTI during 2000s.

Even though Gene Deitch's shorts were created in Czechoslovakia (1960–1962), the first official TV release of Tom and Jerry was in 1988. It was one of the few cartoons of western origin broadcast in Czechoslovakia (1988) and Romania (until 1989) before the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989.

The Pakistani ice cream brand OMORÉ has launched a chocolate bar ice cream based on the show.^[35]

Feature films

Tom and Jerry's first feature film appearance was in the 1945 MGM musical Anchors Aweigh, in which Jerry performs a dance number with Gene Kelly. In this scene, Tom also made a cameo as a servant. Filmmakers had wanted Mickey Mouse for the scene, but Roy Disney had rejected the deal, as the Disney studio was focusing on its own cartoons to help pay off its debts after World War II.^[36] William Hanna and Joe Barbera supervised animation for the scene.

Tom and Jerry's second feature film appearance was swimming with Esther Williams in a dream sequence in another MGM big-screen musical, Dangerous When Wet (1953).

On October 1, 1992, the first international release of Tom and Jerry: The Movie arrived when the film was released overseas to theaters in Europe^[37] and then domestically by Miramax Films on July 30, 1993,^[38] with future video and DVD releases that would be sold under Warner Bros., which, following Disney's acquisition of Miramax and Turner's subsequent merger with Time Warner, had acquired the film's distribution rights. Barbera served as creative consultant for the picture, which was produced and directed by Phil Roman. The film was a musical with a structure similar to MGM's blockbusters, The Wizard of Oz and Singin' in the Rain. In 2001, Warner Bros. (which had, by then, merged with Turner and assumed its properties) released the duo's first direct-to-video movie, Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring, in which Tom covets a ring that grants mystical powers to the wearer, and has become accidentally stuck on Jerry's head. It would mark the last time Hanna and Barbera co-produced a Tom and Jerry cartoon together, as William Hanna died shortly after The Magic Ring was released.

Four years later, Bill Kopp scripted and directed two more Tom and Jerry DTV features for the studio, Tom and Jerry: Blast Off to Mars and Tom and Jerry: The Fast and the Furry, the latter one based on a story by Barbera. Both were released on DVD in 2005, marking the celebration of Tom and Jerry's 65th anniversary. In 2006, another direct-to-video film, Tom and Jerry: Shiver Me Whiskers, tells the story about the pair having to work together to find the treasure. Joe came up with the storyline for the next film, Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale, as well as the initial idea of synchronizing the on-screen actions to music from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. This DTV film, directed by Spike Brandt and Tony Cervone, would be Joe Barbera's last Tom and Jerry project due to his death in December 2006. The holiday-set animated film was released on DVD in late 2007, and dedicated to Barbera. A new direct-to-video film, Tom and Jerry Meet Sherlock Holmes, was released on August 24, 2010. It is the first made-for-video Tom and Jerry movie produced without any of the characters' original creators. The next direct-to-video film, Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz, was released on August 23, 2011 and was the first made-for-video Tom and Jerry movie made for Blu-ray. It had a preview showing on Cartoon Network. Robin Hood and His Merry Mouse was released on Blu-ray and DVD on October 2, 2012.^[39]Tom and Jerry's Giant Adventure was released in 2013 on Blu-ray and DVD.^[40]Tom and Jerry: The Lost Dragon was released on DVD on September 2, 2014.^[41]Tom and Jerry: Spy Quest was released on DVD on June 23, 2015.^[42]Tom and Jerry: Back to Oz was released on DVD on June 21, 2016.^[43]Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was released on DVD on July 11, 2017.^[44]

On April 6, 2015, a new theatrical feature film was announced. It was originally going to be completely animated and were 'in the same vein' as the source material. Cate Adams and Jesse Ehrman were oversee the movie.^[45] However, in October 2018, it was announced that it will instead be a live action/2D animated hybrid film.^[46] The film will be directed by Tim Story and will begin filming at Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden later in 2019.^[47] In April 2019, Chloë Grace Moretz joined the cast as Kayla, a girl who works at a hotel that gets occupied by Jerry, forcing her to bring in Tom to get rid of him.^[48] The film is set to be released on April 16, 2021.^[49]

Controversy

Like many animated cartoons from the 1930s to the early 1950s, Tom and Jerry featured racial stereotypes.^[7]After explosions, for example, characters with blasted faces would resemble stereotypical blacks, with large lips and bow-tied hair. Perhaps the most controversial element of the show is the character Mammy Two Shoes, a poor black maid who speaks in a stereotypical 'black accent' and has a rodent problem. Joseph Barbera, who was responsible for these gags, claimed that the racial gags in Tom and Jerry did not reflect his racial opinion; they were just reflecting what was common in society and cartoons at the time and were meant to be humorous.^[14] Today, the blackface gags are often censored when these shots are aired. Mammy Two-Shoes' voice was re-dubbed by Turner in the mid-1990s to make the character sound less stereotypical; the resulting accent sounds more Irish. Three shorts in particular, His Mouse Friday,^[a] the depiction of cannibals, in Casanova Cat, a scene where the face of Jerry is blackened by Tom with cigar smoke and Mouse Cleaning where Tom is shown as blackface has been removed from the Blu-ray DVD edition.

In Tom and Jerry's Spotlight Collection DVD, a disclaimer by Whoopi Goldberg warns viewers about the potentially offensive material in the cartoons and emphasizes that they were 'wrong then and they are wrong today', borrowing a phrase from the Warner Bros. Golden collection. This disclaimer is also used in the Tom and Jerry Golden Collection: Volume 1 on iTunes.

As of 2011, most shorts that feature Mammy Two Shoes, except Part Time Pal, are rarely seen on Cartoon Network and Boomerang. There are other shorts (The Lonesome Mouse^[b] and Blue Cat Blues^[c]) that are found inappropriate for the intended audiences rather than just having racist contents and are censored from the two channels as well.

In 2006, the British version of the Boomerang channel made plans to edit Tom and Jerry cartoons being aired in the UK where the characters were seen to be smoking. There was a subsequent investigation by UK media watchdog Ofcom.^[32] It has also taken the U.S. approach by censoring blackface gags, though this seems to be random as not all scenes of this type are cut.

In 2013, it was reported that Cartoon Network of Brazil censored 27 shorts on the grounds of being 'politically incorrect'.^[51] In an official release, the channel confirmed that it had censored only two shorts (The Two Mouseketeers^[d] and Heavenly Puss^[e]) 'by editorial issues and appropriateness of the content to the target audience—children of 7 to 11 years'.^[52]

In other media

Tom and Jerry began appearing in comic books in 1942, as one of the features in Dell Comics' Our Gang Comics. In 1949, with MGM's live-action Our Gang shorts having ceased production five years earlier, the series was renamed Tom and Jerry Comics. That title ran 212 issues with Dell before being handed off to Western Publishing, where it ran until issue #344 in 1984. Tom and Jerry continued to appear in various comic books for the rest of the 20th century.^[53] Tom and Jerry comics were also extremely popular in Norway, Germany, Sweden, the U.K., the Netherlands, and Australia.^[54]

A Tom and Jerrycomic strip was syndicated from 1950 to 1952. Although credited to MGM animation studio head Fred Quimby, experts believe the strips were ghosted by Gene Hazleton and possibly Ernie Stanzoni and Dan Gormley.^[55] Tom and Jerry was revived as a comic strip from 1989 to 1994, syndicated to the South American market by Editors Press Service. The strip was produced by Kelley Jarvis^[56] during this era, with the exception of a short period in 1990–1991 when it was done by Paul Kupperberg & Rich Maurizio.^{[citation needed]}

The pair have appeared in a number of video games as well, spanning titles for systems for the Sega Genesis plus also Sega Game Gear and the Sega Master System and their rival console around the 1990s, Nintendo Entertainment System and Super NES and Nintendo 64 to more recent entries for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube and also on the portable Nintendo consoles, Game Boy and Nintendo DS.

Cultural influences

Throughout the years, the term and title Tom and Jerry became practically synonymous with never-ending rivalry, as much as the related 'cat and mouse fight' metaphor has. Yet in Tom and Jerry it was not the more powerful Tom who usually came out on top.

In January 2009, IGN named Tom and Jerry as the 66th best in the Top 100 Animated TV Shows.^[57]

Appearances or influences in popular culture

In 1945, Jerry made an appearance in the live-action MGM musical feature film Anchors Aweigh, in which, through the use of special effects, he performs a dance routine with Gene Kelly. Tom is briefly seen in Anchors Aweigh. He appears as a servant, offering King Jerry some food on a tray.

Both Tom and Jerry appear with Esther Williams in a dream sequence in another big-screen musical, Dangerous When Wet (1953).

In 1973, the magazine National Lampoon referenced Tom and Jerry in a violence-filled comic book parody, Kit 'n' Kaboodle.^[58][59][60]

In The Simpsons, The Itchy & Scratchy Show is a spoof of Tom and Jerry—a 'cartoon within a cartoon'.^[2][61][62] In an episode of the series titled 'Krusty Gets Kancelled', Worker and Parasite, a replacement cartoon for Itchy & Scratchy, is a reference to Soviet-era animation.^[63]

In an interview found on the DVD releases, several MADtv cast members stated that Tom and Jerry is one of their biggest influences for slapstick comedy. Also in the Cartoon Network show MAD, Tom and Jerry appear in three segments 'Celebrity Birthdays', 'Mickey Mouse Exterminator Service', and 'Tom and Jury'. Johnny Knoxville from Jackass has stated that watching Tom and Jerry inspired many of the stunts in the movies.^[64]

Home media

In the pre-video era, Tom & Jerry cartoons were a popular subject for 8mm home movies, with the UK-based Walton Films issuing dozens of titles as colour one-reel Super 8 films, in both silent and sound editions. Walton's agreement with MGM obligated them to release the films in slightly edited form, even though the single-reel format would have comfortably accommodated the cartoons' seven to eight minute running time.

MGM/UA released a series of Tom & Jerry laserdisc box sets in the 1990s. The Art of Tom & Jerry volumes 1 and 2, contain all the MGM shorts up to (but not including) the Deitch Era, including letterboxed versions of the shorts filmed in CinemaScope. The cartoons are all intact save for His Mouse Friday (dialogue has been wiped) and Saturday Evening Puss, which is the re-drawn version with June Foray's voice added. A third volume to The Art of Tom & Jerry was released and contains all of the Chuck Jones-era Tom and Jerry shorts.

There have been several Tom and Jerry DVDs released in Region 1 (the United States and Canada), including a series of two-disc sets known as the Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection. There have been negative responses to Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, due to some of the cartoons included on each having cuts and redubbed Mammy Two-Shoes dialogue. A replacement program offering uncut versions of the shorts on DVD was later announced. There are also negative responses to Vol. 3, due to Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat being excluded from these sets and His Mouse Friday being edited for content with an extreme zooming-in towards the end to avoid showing a particularly race-based caricature.

There have been two Tom and Jerry DVD sets in Region 2. In Western Europe, most of the Tom and Jerry shorts have been released (only two, The Million Dollar Cat and Busy Buddies, were not included) under the name Tom and Jerry: The Classic Collection. Almost all of the shorts contain re-dubbed Mammy Two-Shoes tracks. Despite these cuts, His Mouse Friday, the only Tom and Jerry cartoon to be completely taken off the airwaves in some countries due to claims of racism, is included, unedited with the exception of zooming-in as on the North American set. These are regular TV prints sent from the U.S. in the 1990s. Shorts produced in CinemaScope are presented in pan and scan. Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat are presented uncut as part of these sets.

Tom and Jerry: The Classic Collection is available in six double-sided DVDs (issued in the United Kingdom) and 12 single-layer DVDs (issued throughout Western Europe). Another Tom and JerryRegion 2 DVD set is available in Japan. As with Tom and Jerry: The Classic Collection in Western Europe, almost all of the shorts (including His Mouse Friday) contain cuts. Slicked-up Pup, Tom's Photo Finish, Busy Buddies, The Egg and Jerry, Tops with Pops and Feedin' the Kiddie are excluded from these sets. However, most of these cartoons are included in the UK version. Most shorts produced in CinemaScope are presented in pan and scan for showing on the 4:3 aspect ratio television screen.

Prior to 2015, the Gene Deitch-era shorts saw limited home media release outside of Europe and Asia. In Japan, all thirteen shorts were released on the Tom and Jerry & Droopylaserdisc and VHS, as well as on the bonus DVD for those who have purchased all the ten titles of the DVD collection series at its initial release. In the United Kingdom, the shorts are available on the second side of the Tom and Jerry: The Classic Collection: Volume 5 DVD. In the United States, The Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit, Down and Outing, and Carmen Get It! were included on the Paws for a Holiday VHS and DVD,^[65] the Summer Holidays DVD, and the Musical Mayhem DVD, respectively. On June 2, 2015, Tom and Jerry: The Gene Deitch Collection DVD was released in the United States, with all thirteen shorts as well as special features.

The Chuck Jones-era Tom and Jerry shorts were released in a two-disc set titled Tom and Jerry: The Chuck Jones Collection on June 23, 2009.^[66] On October 25, 2011, Warner Home Video released the first volume of the Tom and Jerry Golden Collection on DVD and Blu-ray.^[67] This set featured newly remastered prints and bonus material never before seen. The sets were aimed at the collector in a way that the previous 'Spotlight' DVD releases were not.^[68] A second set was due for release at June 11, 2013. In February 2013, it was announced by TVShowsOnDVD.com that Mouse Cleaning was not part of the list of cartoons on this release, as well as the cartoon Casanova Cat that was also skipped over on the 2007 DVD release. Many collectors and fans^{[weasel words]} have posted negative reviews of the product on Amazon and other various websites to make Warner put Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat on the release.^[69]

Theatrical shorts

The following cartoons won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons:^[70]

• 1943: The Yankee Doodle Mouse
• 1944: Mouse Trouble
• 1945: Quiet Please!
• 1946: The Cat Concerto
• 1948: The Little Orphan
• 1952: The Two Mouseketeers
• 1953: Johann Mouse

These cartoons were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons, but did not win:

• 1940: Puss Gets the Boot
• 1941: The Night Before Christmas
• 1947: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse
• 1949: Hatch Up Your Troubles
• 1950: Jerry's Cousin
• 1954: Touché, Pussy Cat!

Television

Television shows

• The Tom and Jerry Show (ABC, 1975)
• The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show (CBS, 1980–1982)
• Tom & Jerry Kids (FOX, 1990–1994)
• Tom and Jerry Tales (The CW, Cartoon Network, 2006–2008)
• The Tom and Jerry Show (Teletoon, Cartoon Network, 2014–present)

Packaged shows and programming blocks

• Tom and Jerry (1960s packaged show) (CBS, 1965–1972)
• Tom and Jerry (BBC, 1967–2001)
• Tom and Jerry's Funhouse on TBS (TBS, 1986–1989)
• Cartoon Network's Tom and Jerry Show (Cartoon Network, 1992–present)

Television specials

• Hanna-Barbera's 50th: A Yabba Dabba Doo Celebration (TNT, 1989)
• Tom and Jerry: The Mansion Cat (Boomerang, 2001)
• Tom and Jerry: Santa's Little Helpers (Warner Home Video, 2014)^[71]

List of feature films

(*) = Theatrical release

See also

• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio and MGM Animation/Visual Arts

Notes

1. ^This has since been removed from circulation due to the on-running depictions on black stereotypes involving cannibals.
2. ^This short, which was released during World War II (1943) contains a reference where Jerry paint marks on a picture of Tom's face like Adolf Hitler and then spits on it. This scene is cut out of reruns
3. ^The subplot of this short is considered dark since it had references of alcoholism and suicide.
4. ^This short has a dark offscreen ending where Tom was guillotined.
5. ^The subplot of this short is considered dark since it had a reference of damnation in Hell.

References

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64. ^'Behind the Scenes with Johnny Knoxville'. Vice Magazine. Archived from the original on May 13, 2013. Retrieved December 3, 2010.
65. ^Pratt, Douglas (June 2004). 'Tom and Jerry Paws for a Holiday (Warner, 65721)'. Doug Pratt's DVD: Movies, Television, Art, Adult, and More! – Volume 2 L–Z. Douglas Pratt. p. 1247. ISBN978-1-932916-00-3.
66. ^'Tom and Jerry: New 2-DVD set collects the Chuck Jones Shorts into One Package'. Tvshowsondvd.com. Archived from the original on October 18, 2012. Retrieved November 16, 2012.
67. ^'Tom and Jerry DVD news: Announcement for Tom and Jerry – Golden Collection Volume 1'. TVShowsOnDVD.com. Archived from the original on October 19, 2012. Retrieved November 16, 2012.
68. ^'The Bugs Bunny/Looney Tunes Comedy Hour DVD news: Jerry Beck guest stars on Stu's Show'. TVShowsOnDVD.com. May 25, 2007. Archived from the original on October 4, 2012. Retrieved November 16, 2012.
69. ^'Tom and Jerry DVD news: Details for Tom and Jerry - Golden Collection Volume 2 - TVShowsOnDVD.com'. tvshowsondvd.com. Archived from the original on August 21, 2017. Retrieved August 21, 2017.
70. ^Vallance, Tom (December 20, 2006). 'Joseph Barbera: Animation pioneer whose creations with William Hanna included the Flintstones and Tom and Jerry'. The Independent (London).
71. ^'Tom and Jerry: Santa's Little Helpers (DVD) DVD-Movies & TV: On Sale-WBshop Savings WBshop.com - Warner Bros'. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved August 21, 2017.

References

• Barbera, Joseph (1994). My Life in 'Toons': From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century. Turner Publishing. ISBN978-1-57036-042-8.</ref>

• Beck, Jerry; Maltin, Leonard (1987). Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons, Revised and Updated Edition. Plume. ISBN978-0-452-25993-5.

Further reading

• Adams, T.R. (1991). Tom and Jerry: Fifty Years of Cat and Mouse. Crescent Books. ISBN0-517-05688-7.
• Aravind, Aju. Mammy Two Shoes: Subversion and Reaffirmation of Racial Stereotypes in Tom and Jerry. The IUP Journal of History and Culture, Vol. V, No. 3, July 2011. Pp. 76–83. ISSN0973-8517.
• Barrier, Michael (1999). Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-503759-6.
• Brion, Patrick (1990) Tom & Jerry: The Definitive Guide to their Animated Adventures, New York: Harmony Books. ISBN978-0-517-57351-8.

A complete list of Tom and Jerry animated shorts, from the Hanna-Barbera era that began in 1940, to the brief Gene Deitch era in 1961, and finally the Chuck Jones era beginning in 1963.

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1.Puss Gets the Boot(1940)

Approved9 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom (Jasper) gets told that if he breaks one more thing he is getting thrown out, so Jerry tries his best to make Jasper 'Get the Boot'.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna, Rudolf Ising Star:Lillian Randolph

Votes:1,590

2.The Midnight Snack(1941)

Approved9 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Jerry's raiding the fridge, carrying off a giant wedge of cheese. Tom's feeling playful, so he piles the cheese high with dishes, builds a set of bread-slice steps, and ends them on a .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna, Rudolf Ising Star:Lillian Randolph

Votes:1,167

3.The Night Before Christmas(1941)

Passed9 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Well, a mouse *is* stirring.. And he's having fun playing with the toys, until he mistakes Tom for a stuffed toy and wakes him up.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna, Rudolf Ising Stars:The Debutantes, Frank Graham, The King's Men

Votes:1,534

4.Fraidy Cat(1942)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom hears a ghost story on the radio and is spooked by it; Jerry notices this and takes advantage of it, using a variety of tricks to scare Tom.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna, Rudolf Ising Stars:William Hanna, Lillian Randolph, Martha Wentworth

Votes:839

5.Dog Trouble(1942)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom's chasing Jerry when he runs, literally, right into the sleeping (and quite nasty) dog later known as Spike. Spike chases Tom up a lamp; Jerry's quite amused, until Spike turns on him .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna, Michael Lah Star:Lillian Randolph

Votes:1,020

6.Puss n' Toots(1942)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom is playing with Jerry when someone delivers a cute lady cat for Mammy to take care of. Tom is smitten at first sight, and primps a bit. He offers a fish and a canary, but she's not .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna, Michael Lah Star:Lillian Randolph

Votes:884

'Everybody took a piece out of Big that's on the charts right now. This whole generation took pieces and bits,' AZ says. And he only released two albums. 'Big influenced a generation.

7.The Bowling Alley-Cat(1942)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

As the title implies, Tom and Jerry are in a bowling alley. Both spend a lot of time sliding on the well-polished lanes. Eventually, Jerry takes up residence among the pins and Tom tries to bowl him down.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:997

8.Fine Feathered Friend(1942)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Jerry takes advantage of a rather mean tempered hen (that looks suspiciously like a rooster) to hide from Tom.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:877

9.Sufferin' Cats!(1943)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom and another cat fight over Jerry.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Frank Graham

Votes:792

10.The Lonesome Mouse(1943)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Jerry crashes a vase onto Tom's head, which gets Mammy to throw Tom out. Jerry revels in his freedom, among other things turning Tom's picture into a Hitler caricature then spitting on it. .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Stars:William Hanna, Harry Lang, Lillian Randolph

Votes:914

11.The Yankee Doodle Mouse(1943)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Action

In honor of the U.S. military during WWII, Tom and Jerry do battle in the basement, using household items as war weapons and vehicles.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:1,291

12.Baby Puss(1943)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom is dressed up and treated like a baby by the little girl of the house, and he hates it aside from the bottle of milk, that is. Jerry brings in some alley cats, who tease Tom.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Stars:Sara Berner, William Hanna, The King's Men, Harry Lang

Votes:884

13.The Zoot Cat(1944)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

'Square' Tom becomes the coolest cat of all when he puts on homemade green and orange zoot suit,

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Stars:Sara Berner, Billy Bletcher, William Hanna

Votes:912

14.The Million Dollar Cat(1944)

Not Rated7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom inherits $1,000,000 from an eccentric aunt on the condition that he not harm any living thing - even a mouse. And guess which mouse keeps following him around and pointing this out to him?

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:William Hanna

Votes:938

15.The Bodyguard(1944)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Spike the bulldog, grateful to Jerry for getting him out of the dogcatcher's van, offers to help the little mouse any time he whistles. Tom, Jerry's feline tormentor, seeks to overcome this new disadvantage.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Billy Bletcher

Votes:853

16.Puttin' on the Dog(1944)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Jerry runs into a dog pound (and right on top of a napping Spike) to escape a rather mangy-looking Tom. To avoid being ripped to shreds, Tom borrows the head of a nearby dog statue. This .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:856

17.Mouse Trouble(1944)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom's new book on 'how to catch a mouse' doesn't prove too helpful against Jerry; actually, Jerry seems to make better use of it than Tom.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Harry Lang

Votes:1,465

18.The Mouse Comes to Dinner(1945)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom invites Toots to an elegant dinner. However, he's made the mistake of trying to put Jerry to work, as a serving boy, a corkscrew, and other tasks. Jerry puts up with a little of this, .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Stars:Sara Berner, William Hanna, Lillian Randolph

Votes:900

19.Mouse in Manhattan(1945)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Jerry Mouse gets tired of living the country life and decides to head to the big city. However, the experience doesn't turn out quite like Jerry had expected.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:1,168

20.Tee for Two(1945)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

While golfing, Tom puts Jerry to work as a tee, but Jerry intentionally messes things up.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:868

21.Flirty Birdy(1945)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom is all set to eat Jerry when a hawk swoops down and grabs Jerry. To get Jerry back, Tom poses as a female hawk and quickly finds his new lover to be more than he bargained for.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:785

22.Quiet Please!(1945)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

The bulldog wants to take a nap. Tom wants to chase Jerry around the house. Naps and noise don't mix, and so the bulldog threatens Tom to keep quiet or else.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Stars:Billy Bletcher, William Hanna

Votes:1,507

23.Springtime for Thomas(1946)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

It's spring, and Tom is much more interested in the female cat next door than in Jerry.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Frank Graham

Votes:853

24.The Milky Waif(1946)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Jerry finds himself in charge of a foundling mouse called Nibbles, who is eager to steal milk from Tom's bowl and oblivious to the danger.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Stars:Mel Blanc, Lillian Randolph

Votes:853

25.Trap Happy(1946)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom calls the exterminators, but they send a cat, who despite his various tools, doesn't fare much better than Tom usually does.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Dick Nelson

Votes:869

26.Solid Serenade(1946)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom's love song (Is You Is, or Is You Ain't My Baby) to his girlfriend Toots wakes up Jerry, so he unties Spike (Tom had tied him up).

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Stars:Billy Bletcher, Buck Woods

Votes:1,068

27.Cat Fishin'(1947)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom is a feline fisherman, Jerry is his live bait, and Spike is the bulldog guarding the lake.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:948

28.Part Time Pal(1947)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom becomes Jerry's friend after falling into a barrel of cider while chasing him.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Stars:Harry Lang, Lillian Randolph

Votes:803

29.The Cat Concerto(1947)

Passed8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Jerry is determined to disrupt Tom's concert while Tom fights him with the piano without missing a single note.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:3,533

30.Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse(1947)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom, sick of Jerry stealing the milk out of his bowl, poisons it. Instead of killing the mouse, the potion transforms him into a muscular beast.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:1,254

31.Salt Water Tabby(1947)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

It's a grand day at the beach for Tom and his girlfriend Toots - that is, until Jerry shows up (and, for a while, gets a rather vicious crab involved as well).

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:787

32.A Mouse in the House(1947)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Mammy Two-Shoes tells Tom and Butch that the cat who gets rid of the icebox-raiding, breadbox-invading mouse (Jerry) is the one who can stay.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Lillian Randolph

Votes:849

33.The Invisible Mouse(1947)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom chases Jerry into a bottle of invisible ink, and Jerry then proceeds to have fun torturing Tom.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:832

34.Kitty Foiled(1948)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom subjects Jerry to his usual harassment; but the cat finds a new enemy, and the mouse finds a new friend, in the canary of the house.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:933

35.The Truce Hurts(1948)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom, Jerry, and Butch sign a peace treaty.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Stars:William Hanna, Billy Bletcher

Votes:882

36.Old Rockin' Chair Tom(1948)

Passed8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Mammy Two-Shoes replaces Tom with a younger cat who is a lightning-quick mouser. Tom and Jerry form an alliance in order to get rid of this dangerous newcomer.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Lillian Randolph

Votes:836

37.Professor Tom(1948)

Passed8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom, complete with mortarboard, is teaching a kitten the basics: 'cats chase mice.' But Jerry keeps subverting this lesson at every opportunity, adding his own phrases, like 'cats and mice .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:837

38.Mouse Cleaning(1948)

8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Mammy Two-Shoes threatens to throw Tom out of the house if he makes a mess. Jerry sees an opportunity to rid himself of his feline nemesis.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Lillian Randolph

Votes:693

39.Polka-Dot Puss(1949)

Approved8 minAnimation, Family, Short

Tom pretends to have a cold in order to trick Mammy into letting him stay inside for the night. Jerry tricks Tom by making him think he really is sick - with the measles.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Lillian Randolph

Votes:781

40.The Little Orphan(1948)

Approved8 minFamily, Short, Animation

The Bide-a-Wee Mouse Home has sent the orphan mouse, Nibbles, to spend Thanksgiving with Jerry. But Jerry's cupboard is bare, and Nibbles is always hungry. They start by raiding Tom's milk .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:1,262

41.Hatch Up Your Troubles(1949)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

A baby woodpecker mistakes Jerry for his mother. The mouse rejects the newly hatched bird but soon finds himself protecting it against his feline nemesis, Tom.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:835

42.Heavenly Puss(1949)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom is 'killed' while chasing Jerry (as usual). He goes to heaven and meets the cat who meets dead cats boarding the 'Heavenly Express.' Tom is given one hour to have Jerry sign a letter of.. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Stars:Billy Bletcher, Daws Butler

Votes:1,241

43.The Cat and the Mermouse(1949)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

A day at the beach. Tom wants to lay in the sand, but his rest is disturbed by Jerry, who walks by to go fishing. Tom ends up falling off the end of the pier as he chases Jerry and lands .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:762

44.Love That Pup(1949)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

When a bulldog threatens Tom to keep away from his puppy, Jerry realizes that sticking close to the boy is the best way to keep away his feline tormentor. But Tom is not about to let the mouse evade him so easily.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Daws Butler

Votes:515

45.Jerry's Diary(1949)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

The kiddie radio host, Uncle Dudley, reminds his listeners that it is 'Be Kind to Animals' week. Tom resolves to be kind to his mouse-nemesis, Jerry, but the cat changes his mind after sneaking a look at Jerry's diary.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Joseph Forte

Votes:731

46.Tennis Chumps(1949)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom plays championship tennis against a cigar-smoking bully, but both cats find themselves battling Tom's much-abused lackey, Jerry Mouse, for the trophy.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:605

47.Little Quacker(1950)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom steals an egg from a mother's nest, cracks it over a frying pan and then discovers he can have roast duck. But the uncooperative hatchling runs away from the cat and into a mouse hole, where he finds an able protector in Jerry.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Red Coffey

Votes:824

48.Saturday Evening Puss(1950)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

While Mammy Two-Shoes enjoys her evening with the Lucky Seven Saturday Night Bridge Club, Tom and his friends have a party in the house. Jerry, unable to sleep, emerges from his mouse hole to stop it.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Stars:William Hanna, Lillian Randolph

Votes:763

49.Texas Tom(1950)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Toots arrives at the ranch where Tom is tormenting Jerry, and Tom puts on all his best moves, though Jerry does his best to sabotage Tom.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:The King's Men

Votes:804

50.Jerry and the Lion(1950)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Jerry agrees to help an escaped circus lion, whose first need is food. But first they'll have to evade Tom, who heard the news bulletin and is armed with a shotgun.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Stars:Paul Frees, Frank Graham

Votes:685

51.Safety Second(1950)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Jerry forbids young Nibbles from lighting fireworks on the Fourth of July, but both mice find these dangerous toys to be useful weapons when their cat-nemesis, Tom, starts trouble.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:746

52.Tom and Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl(1950)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom is conducting a symphony at the Hollywood Bowl when Jerry comes out to 'help' him.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:1,173

53.The Framed Cat(1950)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom filches a drumstick from a fresh-baked chicken. When Mammy is about to discover him, he hands it off to Jerry; this lets him be a hero to Mammy and still get his chicken. Jerry is .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Lillian Randolph

Votes:646

54.Cue Ball Cat(1950)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom is in a pool hall after hours; as he soon discovers, Jerry is sleeping in the corner pocket. Tom chases Jerry around the table and the rest of the pool hall.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:764

55.Casanova Cat(1951)

Passed6 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom heads for a big city penthouse to become acquainted with a rich pretty female cat that lives there. He brings her Jerry as a gift and does some humiliating things to Jerry. Jerry, in .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:567

56.Jerry and the Goldfish(1951)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom, whose appetite was whetted by a radio cooking program, wants to make a meal out of the pet goldfish. Jerry, who is friends with the fish, does what he can to thwart their feline foe.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Daws Butler

Votes:643

57.Jerry's Cousin(1951)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

When Tom's harassment gets out of hand, Jerry writes to his Cousin Muscles, a tough inner city mouse, and asks for his help.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Paul Frees

Votes:952

58.Sleepy-Time Tom(1951)

Approved7 minAnimation, Family, Short

Tom is desperate for sleep after a night of revelry with his friends, but Mammy Two-Shoes demands that he stay awake to keep the mouse out of the refrigerator. Jerry, being a clever mouse, sees his opportunity to get rid of the cat.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Stars:Daws Butler, Paul Frees, Lillian Randolph

Votes:762

59.His Mouse Friday(1951)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom is shipwrecked on an island, which is inhabited by at least one mouse - Jerry. To thwart the hungry cat, Jerry disguises himself as a cannibal.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Paul Frees

Votes:553

60.Slicked-up Pup(1951)

Approved6 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Spike has just washed his pup. Tom and Jerry's chase knocks him into a mud puddle. Spike makes Tom clean him up again and promise to keep him clean which of course is Jerry's opening to get Tom in trouble.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Daws Butler

Votes:592

61.Nit-Witty Kitty(1951)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom has amnesia and believes he's a mouse. Jerry, finding him more obnoxious as a fellow rodent than as a cat, seeks to cure him with a blow to the head.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Lillian Randolph

Votes:614

62.Cat Napping(1951)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom's getting ready to settle into the hammock, but Jerry has beat him to it and the battle begins.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:544

63.The Flying Cat(1952)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

When Jerry befriends a canary Tom finds it necessary to construct a makeshift pair of wings.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:652

64.The Duck Doctor(1952)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom is duck hunting, and he wings a little duckling that can't quite keep up with the flock. Jerry gets to the fallen duck before Tom, bandages his wing, and shelters him from Tom as he .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Red Coffey

Votes:579

65.The Two Mouseketeers(1952)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

This Tom and Jerry cartoon is set in 17th century France. Tom, who is a soldier in the King's castle, is assigned to guard the food laid out on a banquet table. Jerry and a smaller mouse .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Francoise Brun-Cottan

Votes:1,099

66.Smitten Kitten(1952)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom's in love again, and Jerry's devil conscience reminds him of times this has happened in the past (which, of course, we see, in the form of clips from earlier shorts), and how that's .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Paul Frees

Votes:457

67.Triplet Trouble(1952)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Mammy Two-Shoes agrees to babysit three seemingly innocent kittens. But while she is away buying cream, the trio of brats torment Tom and Jerry.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Lillian Randolph

Votes:631

68.Little Runaway(1952)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

A baby seal escapes from the circus and ends up in Jerry's backyard pond. Tom finds out soon enough when Jerry grabs a fish from Tom's plate, and when the circus offers a $10,000 reward, .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:571

69.Fit to Be Tied(1952)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Jerry removes a tack from Spike's paw. In gratitude, Spike gives Jerry a bell to ring when he's in trouble. Soon, Tom is acting as Jerry's servant. But then the city passes a leash law, and.. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Daws Butler

Votes:597

70.Push-Button Kitty(1952)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom's being especially lazy, which makes it even easier for Mammy to toss him out when her new mouse-catching robot cat, Mechano, arrives. Mechano is frighteningly efficient, foiling .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Lillian Randolph

Votes:620

71.Cruise Cat(1952)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom is the official cat on the cruise ship S.S. Aloha, but he'll be kicked off if the captain finds even one mouse. That one, of course, is Jerry, who sneaks on board just before sailing .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Paul Frees

Votes:635

72.The Dog House(1952)

Approved6 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Spike is building his dream house when Tom crashes into it mid-chase. Of course, Jerry then takes every opportunity to route the chases through the construction project.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Daws Butler

Votes:556

73.The Missing Mouse(1953)

Approved6 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Upon hearing about a white mouse that could explode is on the loose, Jerry decides to impersonate it to torment Tom.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Paul Frees

Votes:588

74.Jerry and Jumbo(1953)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

A baby elephant rolls off the circus train and right into Tom's bed. He quickly allies himself with Jerry, and with a rolled-up trunk and some paint, passes himself off as a giant mouse. .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:704

75.Johann Mouse(1953)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

At the home of Austrian composer Johann Strauss, lived Johann Mouse. Whenever the composer played his waltzes, the mouse would dance to the music, unable to control himself. One day, when .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Hans Conried

Votes:1,076

76.That's My Pup!(1953)

Approved7 minAnimation, Family, Short

Spike explains to his son the rules of being a dog: 1: be man's best friend (begging, lying at feet); 2: bury bones; 3: chase cats. Just then, Tom (and Jerry) run by, offering the perfect .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Daws Butler

Votes:592

77.Just Ducky(1953)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Jerry Mouse befriends a newly hatched duck who can't swim and ends up protecting him against his feline nemesis, Tom.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Red Coffey

Votes:643

78.Two Little Indians(1953)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

The Bide-a-wee Mouse Home sends two orphans over for a hike with Scoutmaster Jerry. Trouble is, the orphans, dressed as Indians, want to shoot arrows and tomahawk-chop everything in sight, .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:521

79.Life with Tom(1953)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Mail call. Nothing for Tom, but at Jerry's box, Tom finds a package; inside is a book, 'Life with Tom' by Jerry Mouse. As Tom flips to chapters and hears, first a radio audience, then a .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:429

80.Puppy Tale(1954)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Jerry rescues a bag of puppies from the river. Most of them run away as soon as Jerry releases them, but one stays behind. Jerry tries to get rid of it, but ultimately takes pity and .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:479

81.Posse Cat(1954)

Approved6 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom and Jerry are in a cabin in the wild west. Jerry's rustling food, so Tom's owner won't let him eat until he's gotten rid of Jerry.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Stan Freberg

Votes:433

82.Hic-cup Pup(1954)

Approved6 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Spike has just put Tyke to bed for his nap when Tom and Jerry chase out the door to Tyke's crib, waking him up. This gives Tyke an attack of hiccups. Spike warns Tom not to wake him up .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Daws Butler

Votes:533

83.Little School Mouse(1954)

Passed7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Professor Jerry teaches a course in how to outwit cats, but his pupil seems to know more than Jerry.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:527

84.Baby Butch(1954)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

An alley cat disguises himself as an abandoned baby in order to con his way inside the house of Tom and Jerry.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:601

85.Mice Follies(1954)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Jerry and his friends flood the kitchen, then use the freezer to turn it into a skating rink. Even though Tom finds a pair of ice skates, the mice have no problem out maneuvering him.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:641

86.Neapolitan Mouse(1954)

Approved7 minFamily, Animation, Short

Tom chases Jerry through the streets of Naples; they meet a local mouse who recognizes them from their cartoons and shows them around. Meanwhile, some local dogs are shadowing them.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:446

87.Downhearted Duckling(1954)

Approved6 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Jerry's little duckling friend is depressed because he's just read The Ugly Duckling and thinks that he's ugly. Jerry does his best to help. Tom gets involved when the suicidal duck offers .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Red Coffey

Votes:515

88.Pet Peeve(1954)

Approved6 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom and Spike, whose cat food and dog food is getting too expensive, are forced to compete as mousers. The one who catches Jerry gets to stay.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Stars:Daws Butler, June Foray

Votes:545

89.Touché, Pussy Cat!(1954)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Musketeer Jerry's old friend, François Mouse, sends his son for training. But when Jerry has to save the tyke from a run-in with Tom, the little one is sent packing until he manages to save Jerry.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Francoise Brun-Cottan

Votes:630

90.Southbound Duckling(1955)

Approved6 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Jerry's little duckling friend has packed his bag and is all set to fly south for the winter despite the book Jerry keeps showing him that points out that domestic ducks do not fly south, .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Red Coffey

Votes:581

91.Pup on a Picnic(1955)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Spike is taking his son on a picnic. Jerry keeps hiding in the basket, so Tom keeps disrupting the picnic while chasing him.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Daws Butler

Votes:470

92.Mouse for Sale(1955)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom sells Jerry to a local pet story that's buying white mice. Yes, Jerry's brown, but a little paint fixes that. The lady of the house finds the money Tom got and uses it to buy a cute .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Stars:Daws Butler, June Foray

Votes:438

93.Designs on Jerry(1955)

Approved6 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Tom designs a better mousetrap that would have made Rube Goldberg jealous. While he sleeps, the mouse that Tom drew wakes Jerry and they get chased by the cat Tom drew. As Tom awakes, they .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:531

94.Tom and Chérie(1955)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Mousketeer Jerry has a love letter to deliver to darling Lilli. He gives it to his young pupil, who has a hard time getting past Tom to deliver it, but he does. They send a few more letters.. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Francoise Brun-Cottan

Votes:592

95.Smarty Cat(1955)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Nobody's home, so Tom invites his alley cat friends in to look at home movies (clips from earlier cartoons where Tom gets the drop on Spike). While they're showing them, Spike sneaks in.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Daws Butler

Votes:444

96.Pecos Pest(1955)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

Jerry's eccentric uncle, Pecos, a Texas mouse, comes to spend the night with him before his musical performance on television the next day. He decides to rehearse with his guitar for the .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Stars:Daws Butler, Shug Fisher

Votes:613

97.That's My Mommy(1955)

Approved6 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

When a duck hatches from the egg underneath Tom, he is convinced he is his mother. Tom thinks that he would like to eat the newborn duck, but Jerry shows him the truth while saving him from being eaten.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:Red Coffey

Votes:520

98.The Flying Sorceress(1956)

Approved7 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

After Tom's mistress orders him to clean up the mess he made while chasing Jerry, Tom spies an ad for a cat needed as companion to an old lady. Tom leaves this inhospitable atmosphere for a.. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Star:June Foray

Votes:443

99.The Egg and Jerry(1956)

Approved8 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

A baby woodpecker mistakes Jerry for his mother. The mouse rejects the newly hatched bird but soon finds himself protecting it against his feline nemesis, Tom.

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna

Votes:310

100.Busy Buddies(1956)

6 minAnimation, Short, Comedy

The baby is left alone with a sitter, and Tom and Jerry are raiding the kitchen and, since the sitter is spending all her time on the phone, watching over the baby, who seems amazingly .. See full summary »

Directors:Joseph Barbera, William Hanna Stars:Daws Butler, Janet Waldo

Votes:414