Tennis Chumps (1949)

 

This short film marks the last Tom and Jerry cartoon of the 1940’s. Though it may not be the best-known Tom and Jerry cartoon, it is a solid fun film that makes for a perfect ending for the cat and mouse duo’s best decade. 

In this short film Tom and Butch are having a tennis match. Tom makes Jerry carry all of his equipment. This is a job Jerry is not too fond of and he does everything he can to sabotage Tom's game. 

This is a wonderful cartoon. The whole film moves at a fast pace and provides gag after gag. Despite this there is not one weak gag in the whole film. Many of the gags are even laugh out funny. The amount of truly clever slapstick gags this cartoon was able to get from tennis alone is absolutely remarkable. Not only are the gags wonderful but the delivery is perfect. William Hanna's timing has never been better than it is here. Every gag is timed perfectly. Also helping is some incredible animation. Though this is a fast-paced film that constantly jumps from one gag to another, it still makes room for some fantastic character animation. This character animation makes all three characters seem perfectly real to us and let us know what is going through their minds at all times. To be able to do this, while keeping the cartoon moving at a breakneck speed is an incredible feat. That fact that the filmmakers are able to do this and make it seem so natural and effortless shows the pure mastery that was behind the best Tom and Jerry cartoons. Scott Bradley's score here is also wonderful, especially a lively rendition of All God's Chillun Got Rhythm. This film shows Tom and Jerry at their best and is a perfect coda to the duo's greatest decade/

The credited animators on this cartoon are Ray Patterson, Irven Spence, Ed Barge and Kenneth Muse. The film would be reissued to theaters in 1957 and again in 1965. 

In 2006, Turner Broadcasting edited 1,700 cartoons in their library for when they aired in the UK. This was after the Office of Communications received a complaint about two Tom and Jerry cartoons (Tennis Chumps (1949) and Texas Tom (1950)). Their complaints about these cartoons were that the films included scenes with characters smoking and there for it was deemed inappropriate to air these cartoons on TV channels heavily aimed at children. Turner Broadcasting issued the following statement, “Turner recognizes that it is not suitable for cartoons aimed at children to portray smoking in a cool context and has additionally pledged to review the entire Hanna-Barbera catalog to remove scenes that appear to glamorize or encourage smoking.” Personally, I grew up watching these cartoons on TV and have never smoked in my life.  

Below is the movie poster for this cartoon. Though not perfect it is much better than many of the movie posters for this series. 

Resources Used

https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/animation-anecdotes-234/

https://lantern.mediahist.org/