Quiet Please (1945)

Quiet Please was the third Tom and Jerry cartoon to win the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. It's competition that year included Disney's Donald's Crime, George Pal's Jasper in the Beanstalk, Warner Brother's Life with Feathers, Terry Toon's Mighty Mouse in Gypsy Life, Walter Lantz's Poet and Peasant and Columbia's Rippling Romance. While there are some great films in that list, Quiet Please is still a great cartoon and deserves its win completely. 

This film has a very basic premise. Tom and Jerry's fighting has been keeping Spike the Bulldog awake. Spike catches Tom (but not Jerry) and tells Tom not to disturb his sleep or he will skin Tom alive. Jerry sees this as his opportunity to get the upper hand of his foe. 

This basic premise is not dissimilar to that of Tom and Jerry's first cartoon, Puss Gets the Boot (1940). In that short Tom's owner tells him that if he breaks one more thing in the house, she will kick him out. Naturally in that film Jerry too saw this as a way to get back at Tom. Yet a comparison of the two films shows a very different approach. The earlier cartoon not only moves at a slower pace, but it also has less gags. This film has a gag nearly every moment of screen time. The earlier short had a longer space between the gags. Yet the type of gags featured are also quite different. The earlier film had gags that had more of a grounding in reality and were less exaggerated. However, the exaggeration here is present in nearly every gag. Little happens in this later film that is even remotely in the realm of possibility. Yet the characters have become so real and distinct to us that there is never a moment where we doubt the reality of these characters. Without the strong characterizations that had been created by this time, these exaggerated gags wouldn't have worked near as well here. 

As well as a very well-constructed cartoon, this film is also laugh out loud funny. Every gag works perfectly. Even with a gag a minute here, there is not a single one that misses the mark. So many of these gags are with good reason etched in the mind of cartoon lovers everywhere and for good reason. Yet the delivery is even funnier than the gags sometimes. Tom playing Spike as a musical instrument after giving him knock out drops, wouldn't be anywhere near as funny without the look of sheer delight on Tom's face. Equally hilarious is the goofy voice given to Tom as he states, "one custard pie let me have it." The delivery of this line makes a rather routine cartoon gag into something very memorable and hilarious. One of the funniest moments is not even a gag. It is the moment after Spike states that he will skin Tom alive, and Jerry looks on with pure eager delight. The sheer joy he takes in the thought of Tom being skinned alive is simply hilarious. 

A scene from this film was recreated in the opening for the 1975 Tom and Jerry TV show. This scene features Tom chasing Jerry and coming to a stop when he sees Spike sleeping. The gag of Jerry making a drawing of Tom and writing "Stinky" underneath was reused in an episode of TV's The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show, called New Mouse in the House (1980). 

The credited animators on this film include Irven Spence, Kenneth Muse, Ray Patterson and Ed Barge.

This is one of the funniest Tom and Jerry cartoons to feature Spike the bulldog. 

Resources Used

Of Mice and Magic: A History of the American Animated Cartoon by Leonard Maltin.

https://tomandjerry.fandom.com/wiki/Quiet_Please!