Jerry's Diary (1949)

 

Every cartoon fan is familiar with what is called a cheater cartoon. This is to say a cartoon that is mostly made up of clips from previous entries in the series. Jerry's Diary is the first cheater cartoon in the Tom and Jerry series. This short film includes clips from The Yankee Doodle Mouse (1943), Mouse Trouble (1944), Tee for Two (1945) and Solid Serenade (1946).

This short film starts with Tom outside Jerry's hole about to get revenge on his foe. However, Tom then overhears a radio announcer saying that it "Be Kind to Animals Week." Tom is swayed by the words of the radio announcer and decides that he is going to be kind to Jerry. He comes back with gifts for Jerry and knocks on the wall to get Jerry's attention. However, Tom finds that Jerry is not home. He also discovers that Jerry's diary is out. Tom gives into temptation and reads the diary. After reading of the previous fights between the two, Tom gets angrier and angrier. 

This film works in the most important aspect for a cheater cartoon. That is to say that the new footage is a lot of fun. The basic storyline is clever and well executed. There are some good gags in this new footage and some great character animation. I love the character animation that takes place when Tom is listening to the radio announcer. You can see him thinking and taking this all in. This is animated in a way that makes Tom feel completely real to us without him saying a word. Equally great is Tom going from feeling kind and generous to devious when he sees Jerry's diary. This is again captured in great character animation that truly captures who Tom is as a character. The ending gag is predictable but still funny and satisfying. 

However, this film does suffer from the same flaws as many other cheater cartoons. The clips are often too short, and the gags often work better in the context of the original cartoons. To me this type of cheater often works better in a longer format (where we get to see a larger portion of the older clips instead of isolated gags), then in the short 6-to-7-minute format. Still, it works well enough here.

Even with this being a cheater cartoon, a clip of the new footage made for this film would later appear in a later cheater cartoon, Matinee Mouse (1966). The credited animators on Jerry's Diary are Kenneth Muse and Ed Barge. This film was reissued to theaters in 1958. 

Here is an ugly movie poster for this film. Jerry is incredibly off-model.