Puss 'n Toots (1942)

Puss n' Toots marks the first of many cartoons in which Tom falls for a girl cat. In this film Mammy Two Shoes is asked to take care of a female cat, who Tom instantly gets a crush on. Tom tries to offer Jerry as a present to her, which doesn't work at all how Tom planned.

The pacing had been continuing to improve and by this film, it was near perfect. This pacing was mainly handled by William Hanna, and it is obvious that even this early in the series he had worked his craft to near perfection. The character's reaction here are funnier and more wild than they had been previously. They may not be at their height in this cartoon but by the next year those reactions would reach perfection. This is definitely a big step in the direction of the comedic brilliance of the cartoons to come.

Fitting the great pacing perfectly is Scott Bradley's music. Scott Bradley felt that working for cartoons was not only a privilege but an advantage he had over other composers. He had a particularly  strong love for Tom and Jerry, because the cartoons' lack of dialogue. He felt this allowed him to experiment with music more than other directors would. This passion for what he did shows why his scores are so good. Unlike Carl Stalling (who composed music for Warner Brothers cartoons at this time), Bradley was not interested in using songs as puns to comment directly on the action. His scores instead were focused mostly on keeping the momentum of the cartoons going. Since the Tom and Jerry cartoons were speeding up so was the music. Bradley would state "... the average amount of music in a cartoon, due to it's fast tempo, is about 500 measures". This faster music fit this new faster pace perfectly.

However there aren't as many jokes as their would be in later Tom and Jerry cartoons, despite these other huge improvements. However this film is funnier than the previous cartoon Dog Trouble which had the same problem. A scene involving a record player is laugh out loud funny. The quality of the humor and the great pacing and character reactions make up for the fact that (strangely for such a fast paced cartoon) there just aren't many actual gags.

The animators on this film are George Gordon, Irven Spence, Jack Zander and Bill Littlejohn. All of them had worked on previous Tom and Jerry cartoons. However George Gordon, Bill Littlejohn and Jack Zander wouldn't stay with the series much longer. Bill Littlejohn would leave the series later the same year, while George Gordon and Jack Zander would leave the next year. Irven Spence would stay with Tom and Jerry until 1957.  Again only William Hanna, Joseph Barbera and Fred Quimby would receive credit.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
Of Mice and Magic: The History of the American Animated Cartoon by Leonard Maltin
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035226/
The Cartoon Music Book by Daniel Goldmark and Yuval Taylor

Dog Trouble (1942)

 

Dog Trouble (1942)

Dog Trouble marked the first cartoon where Tom and Jerry had to team up to fight a greater evil. This evil was Spike the bulldog in his film debut.  Spike here is quite different from the Spike who would come later. For one thing here he hates Jerry as much as he does Tom. Also he does not speak yet. Of course many of us cartoon lovers associate him with the Jimmy Durante-esque voice he was later given (often provided by Daws Butler, who had a future with Bill and Joe voicing many of their TV characters).

The film begins with Tom chases Jerry and the usual slapstick ensuing. However when they run across Spike, he decides to make both their lives miserable. Tom and Jerry call a brief truce and put their minds together to help get rid of this dog.

The animators on this film were George Gordon, Bill Littlejohn, Irven Spence, Cecil Surry and Jack Zander. All of them had worked on previous Tom and Jerry cartoons. Sadly again only directors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and producer Fred Quimby receive screen credit.

This cartoon show the pace picking up. This contains some of the fastest action to appear in one of these films at this time. Also it shows some of the best facial expressions of Tom and Jerry at this time. These facial expressions and reactions are often the funniest part of this cartoon and quite a few future ones. Though I do not know for sure who animated these scenes, my guess would be Irven Spence, who was a master at comic reactions. However sadly this cartoon seems to have less gags than a normal Tom and Jerry cartoon for some reason, because of this it does not rank as one of the duo's funniest outings. However this cartoon still manages to be a good one due to great animation, characters and energy.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources UsedTom and Jerry: The Definitive Guide to Their Animated Adventures by Patrick Brion
Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034657/?ref_=nm_flmg_anm_183

Fraidy Cat (1942)

This cartoon begins with Tom listening to a spooky radio show called The Witching Hour and being frightened out of his wits. This was in fact a real radio show (it was also known as The Witch's Tale) from the 1930's (it started in 1931). This show helped create the fad of spooky hosts introducing scary stories, a trend which we associate with television personalities like Elvira. The spooky hosts here were Old Nancy, The Witch of Salem, with her black cat, Satan. The original voice of Old Nancy was a woman named Adelaide Fitz-Allen. She however died in 1935 at the age of 75. The voice was then briefly taken over by a 13 year old girl named Miriam Wolfe. She was a part of a children's radio show called Let's Pretend, and never auditioned for the role of Old Nancy. However one time just for fun she did the Old Nancy voice for radio producer Alonzo Dean Cole (who some say did the voice of Satan for the series). She got the part. She did this part briefly, but for some reason unknown to me she eventually stopped doing the voice, and the part was taken over by a woman named Martha Wentworth. Martha Wentworth is actually heard here doing the voice of Old Nancy for this Tom and Jerry cartoon. Back to the story Jerry sees how scared Tom is and decides to have a little fun with Tom, by scaring the poor cat even more out of his wits.

The animation for this film was done by George Gordon, Irven Spence, Cecil Surrey and Jack Zander. All of the had worked on previous Tom and Jerry cartoons and would work on more in the future. Though Tom and Jerry don't talk in this cartoon, their screams, laughs and other noises were provided by William Hanna himself. Bill would continue doing the voices clear into the 1950's. Lillian Randolph returns as the voice of Mammy Two-Shoes and Scott Bradley is still doing the music. Despite all this people working on the film again only William Hanna, Joseph Barbera and Fred Quimby would get credit.

This is an excellent cartoon. The jokes all work great (particularly one about Tom's nine lives), the animation is fantastic and the characters are as well written as ever. The pace here is still slower than future cartoons would be but the pace works perfectly with the material given, and the material is still pure Tom and Jerry slapstick.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
Tom and Jerry: The Definitive Guide to Their Animated Adventures by Patrick Brion
https://www.otrcat.com/p/witchs-tale
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034753/?ref_=rvi_tt

The Night Before Christmas (1941)

 

T'was the Night Before Christmas and all through the house
not a creature was stirring except Tom Cat and Jerry mouse.
 Jerry is playing around the Christmas tree with care
Not knowing Tom was still there.
Tom chases Jerry.
Making Christmas anything but merry.
Tom throws Jerry out of the house.
Letting the weather freeze the mouse.
Tom feels bad and wants to make amends.
Tom helps Jerry and now they are friends.

The Night Before Christmas was the third Tom and Jerry cartoon and one of the best. It is clear that Bill, Joe and the rest of the team were now fully understanding how to use these characters just right.

The animators on the film included some of those who had worked on the previous two cartoons. These were Jack Zander, George Gordon and Pete Burness. It also introduced some new animators to the series. These included Irven Spence  Irven Spence would stay with the studio until 1957. Other new animators for the series included Bill Littlejohn and Cecil Surry, both of whom would only stay with the series one more year.

The opening scenes with Jerry playing around the tree, the mistletoe scene and the ending were all animated by Jack Zander. George Gordon animated the scene of Jerry bouncing on Tom, and a very funny sequence involving boxing gloves. Cecil Surry animates Jerry freezing outside. Bill Littlejohn animates the scene of Jerry pretending to be a toy solider. Irven Spence who would later become one of the most prominent Tom and Jerry animators (known for animating over the top reactions) has a very limited role here. He animates Tom feeling guilty about Jerry freezing outside, while he is trying to sleep and a very brief scene of Tom shaking snow off of Jerry. Even his animation of Tom feeling guilty is interrupted by Cecil Surry animating Jerry freezing.

This is one of the best Tom and Jerry cartoons. The pace has picked up a lot since the last two films, and the timing couldn't be more perfect. William Hanna (who did most of the timing for these cartoons) is completely at his element here. The animation is fantastic, and the characters are as likable as ever.

This film was nominated for an Oscar. Its competition this year was Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B (1941, Walter Lantz), Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt (1941, Warner Brothers, starring Bugs Bunny), How War Came (1941, Columbia), Lend a Paw (1941, Disney, starring Mickey Mouse and Pluto), Rhapsody in Rivets (1941, Warner Brothers), The Rookie Bear (1941, MGM, starring Barney Bear), Rhythm in the Ranks (1941, George Pal Puppetoon), Superman (1941, Fleischer Studios) and Truant Officer Donald (1941, Disney). Lend a Paw won the Oscar this year. 

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
Tom and Jerry: The Definitive Guide to Their Animated Adventures by Patrick Brion
Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin
http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/mgms-the-night-before-christmas-1941-with-tom-jerry/ 

The Midnight Snack (1941)

 

The Midnight Snack was the second Tom and Jerry cartoon, and the first where they were called Tom and Jerry. Joseph Barbera later wrote that he and William Hanna invited people working at the studio to write down names for the characters. These names were put into a hat, and whichever one was pulled out would be the characters' names. Naturally Tom and Jerry were pulled out. These names were written by an MGM animator named John Carr. He got fifty dollars for these names.

Producer Fred Quimby was not a big fan of the first Tom and Jerry cartoon, and didn't want it to become a series originally. Because of this William Hanna and Joseph Barbera made various cartoons with one shot characters after Puss Gets the Boot (the first cat and mouse cartoon). However after that first cartoon was released it became a huge hit, and even spent larger than normal amounts of time in one theater (it is important to remember that these cartoons were short films shown before feature films in theaters) and nominated for an Oscar, Quimby asked for more cat and mouse cartoons.

The animators on this film had all worked on Puss Gets the Boot. These animators were Pete Burness, Carl Urbano, Jack Zander and George Gordon. The only animator from the first cartoon that didn't work on this film was Tony Pabian.

Unlike Puss Gets the Boot, Bill and Joe along with Fred Quimby would receive credit here. However the animators, Composer Scott Bradley and Mammy Two Shoes' voice Lillian Randolph would remain uncredited.

The story is once again very simple. Jerry tries to get a midnight snack and Tom tries to stop him and fails.

This cartoon is a definite improvement over the first film. The designs look much more like the ones we know and love and the jokes are funnier. However the pace is still too slow and therefore it lacks the punch of later Tom and Jerry films. However this cartoon is still quite good.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
Tom and Jerry: The Definitive Guide to Their Animated Adventures by Patrick Brion
Of Mice and Magic: A History of the American Animated Cartoon by Leonard Maltin
My Life in Toons: From Flatbush to Bedrock in Less Than a Century by Joseph Barbera 

Puss Gets The Boot (1940)

 

Hello and welcome to Tom and Jerry Toon by Toon. Here I will discuss each Tom and Jerry cartoon individually and in order. I will give background information, story descriptions and my thoughts on each film, along with some general discussion. This will cover all of Tom and Jerry's theatrical short films. Because of this feature films and cartoons from TV will not be discussed here. I hope you will enjoy this blog, as much as I enjoy writing about it.

In the mid and late 1930's MGM's main cartoon directors were Hugh Harmon and Rudolph Ising (also the founders of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies in the early 1930's). Harmon and Ising both had something many people working in animation at this time had. This was called the Disney syndrome. At this time the Disney studio was at the height of it's popularity, and all cartoons that weren't Disney were considered second rate in comparison, because of this the majority of American animation was trying to copy what they felt made Disney cartoons so popular. This was no truer of anyone than it was of Harmon and Ising, who had in fact worked for Walt Disney on the silent Alice Comedies and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit series. They didn't only want to copy Disney's work, but to beat the Disney studio at it's on game. Because of this their cartoons for MGM, often went over budget and overschedule. Producer Fred Quimby was not happy about this and wanted directors who would turn in cartoons on time and on budget.

Two of the men who were chosen were William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. William Hanna had worked as an animator for Rudolph Ising and even co-directed the cartoon To Spring with Rudy, as well as directing three Captain and the Kids cartoons himself (Blue Monday, What A Lion and Old Smokey, all three from 1938). Joseph Barbera had worked as a writer. He had written five MGM cartoons (The Captain's Christmas (1938), Petunia National Park, Mama's New Hat, The Bookworm and The Mad Maestro (1939)). Bill and Joe would make the perfect team. Bill was incredibly good at timing, and Joe was extremely talented on the creative end. Like other great duos in film history (Laurel and Hardy for instance), though they were both very talented, they would complete each other. None of these films would have been anywhere near as good if just one of them was working on it.

William Hanna later recounted how the directing team would make Tom and Jerry films of this period. Bill would state, "I would do all the timing on the bar sheets, and [Joe] would do the sketches. We worked full size, and we didn't do storyboards .... I used to take those character layout sketches and time them, and then we would shoot them." William Hanna would also state that he was the one who assigned the animation to the animators. Throughout the Tom and Jerry shorts, the duo would make together, William Hanna was often in charge of the timing, while Joseph Barbera was heavily involved on the story and gag side. The two also had a different sense of cartoon comedy. Animator Michael Lah would later remember that William Hanna "loved cutesie stuff ... Joe was the other way, wild as hell."

The first film these two directors made as a team was Puss Gets the Boot, which also introduced two of the most popular cartoon characters of all time. This was of course Tom and Jerry. However, in this film the cat and mouse had not yet acquired their names. Their names here were Jasper (later Tom) and Jinks (later Jerry). Though Jinks' name was never said in this cartoon, Bill and Joe would later reuse the name for the Pixie Dixie and Mr. Jinks segment of The Huckleberry Hound Show. This cartoon also introduced Tom's owner, often called Mammy Two-Shoes. Her voice was provided by Lillian Randolph, who you can see in such live action films as It's A Wonderful Life and Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte.

The animators on this film are Jack Zander, Pete Burness, George Gordon, Tony Pabian, and Carl Urbano. This was the only Tom and Jerry film Tony Pabain would work on. George Gordon and Jack Zander would stay on until 1943. Carl Urbano would also work on the next two Tom and Jerry films. However Gordon and Pabian would later work on Hanna-Barbera's TV output. Pete Burness would stay until 1947 and then move to work at Warner Brothers on Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. Despite all this and the fact that he did very little work for the short only Rudolph Ising was credited for the cartoon. 

Still visually this film looks like one of Rudolph Ising's cartoons at this time. This is heavily due to a man named Bob Allen. Bob Allen drew the model sheets for the cat and the mouse here. He also did the character designs for many of Ising's films of the period. 

The story is very simple. Jasper chasing Jinks breaks various things around the house. Mammy tells Jasper that if one more thing breaks, he is out of the house. Jinks overhearing this decides to try to break everything to which Jasper continuously tries to stop.

This cartoon is good, but later cartoons in the series would be much better. The animation here is so realistic that some slapstick gags seem almost painful, and the pacing is much slower than it would be later and due to this you can see slapstick gags coming too early and then they take too long to happen. These faults would be more than made up for in later Tom and Jerry cartoons, when the timing and humor would be near perfect. However, this film still features some great animation (even when it clashes with the humor), well thought out characters, and a good story. The series would get much better, but what is seen in this film is still good.

The following is an exhibitor's review from the Motion Picture Herald. "PUSS GETS THE BOOT: MGM Cartoons - This is a dandy color cartoon. A very different type of humor predominates this in which a mouse discovers one way to keep an advantage over a cat. You'll like it and so will your audience. Running time, eight minutes -W. Varrick Nevins III, Alfred Co-op Theatre, Alfred, N.Y. Small college town and rural patronage."

This short was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. Its competition this year would only include two cartoons. These were The Milky Way (1940, MGM) and A Wild Hare (1940, Warner Brothers). The Oscar would go to The Milky Way, which would mark the first Oscar winner in this category to not go to a Disney film. A Wild Hare is another very historically important cartoon. That Tex Avery directed short is often considered to be the first true Bugs Bunny cartoon. That Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry (as well as Woody Woodpecker) premiered in the same year is nothing short of amazing.  

Along with a group of other Tom and Jerry shorts this film would be reissued to theaters in 1963. 

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin
Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in its Golden Age by Michael Barrier
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032953/?ref_=rvi_tt
https://lantern.mediahist.org/