Ah, Sweet Mouse-Story of Life (1965)

 

When Chuck Jones began making films with the Tom and Jerry characters, the characters often felt more like Chuck Jones characters than the characters that William Hanna and Joseph Barbera directed. This is very clear in Ah, Sweet Mouse-Story of Life. This cartoon feels more like one of Chuck's Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons than an earlier Tom and Jerry short. 

Like Chuck's Roadrunner cartoons, there is no real story here beyond just a series of spot gags involving Tom chasing Jerry.

This is one of the best Chuck Jones Tom and Jerry shorts. It moves at a very fast pace and never once loses its sense of comic momentum. There is also a surreal quality to many of the gags (one example is that Jerry gets angry and daggers appear above his head, which he throws at Tom) that is simply a lot of fun. A surprising number of these gags are legitimately funny as well. In previous Chuck Jones directed Tom and Jerry shorts, the gags were often more clever than funny. Here they manage to be both funny and clever. Once again, the star of the character is the character animation. Though the character animation often more resembles Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner, it is still top notch and makes many of the pantomime gags even funnier.    


The credited animators on this film are Dick Thompson, Ben Washam, Ken Harris, Don Towsley and Tom Ray. Michael Maltese and Chuck Jones share a writing credit. Eugene Poddany receives a music credit. This is the 134th Tom and Jerry cartoon and the 7th Tom and Jerry short, produced and directed by Chuck Jones. This also marks the 1st Tom and Jerry film of 1965. It is available on the DVD sets, Tom and Jerry: Classic Collection Volume 6,  Tom and Jerry: The Chuck Jones Collection and Tom and Jerry: Fur Flying Adventures - Volume 3 as well as the Laserdisc set The Art of Tom & Jerry: Volume III: The Chuck Jones Cartoons and the VHS set Tom and Jerry: Blue Cat Blues, The cover for the VHS set is based off a scene in this cartoon. 

A clip from this cartoon was used in the feature length movie, Honeymoon in Vegas (1992) starring James Caan, Nicolas Cage and Sarah Jessica Parker. The title for the cartoon was based off of a song called Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life from the 1910 operetta Naughty Marietta. That operetta is probably best known for its 1935 film adaption starring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy.

-Michael J. Ruhland