The Year of the Mouse (1965)

 

Note: This review contains spoilers. 

The Year of the Mouse was a remake of a short film that Chuck Jones had made for Warner Brothers, Mouse Wreckers (1949). In that cartoon mice Hubie and Bertie find a nice house to live in but unfortunately for them a cat, Claude Cat to be exact, is already living there. They decide to make Claude feel like he is losing his mind to get the house to themselves. 

In The Year of the Mouse, Jerry and another mouse, decide (for no other reason than that they find it funny) to make Tom think he is going insane through a series of rather gruesome practical jokes. 

The main difference between this film and Mouse Wreckers is the ending. In Mouse Wreckers, Hubie and Bertie drive Claude to a mental breakdown and have the house to themselves. In Year of the Mouse Tom catches Jerry and his friend and put the two mice in trap. The mice are trapped in a bottle and can't pull the cork out of the bottle or the gun will go off. As this is one of those shorts (like The Two Mouseketeers (1952)) where Jerry is the clear antagonist. This makes Tom's victory over Jerry very satisfying.

 

This is a very well-made film. The character animation is excellent, especially in Tom's reactions to Jerry's practical jokes. Tom has really felt more relatable and sympathetic than he does here and how real the animation and expressions make him feel plays a major role in this. The humor is quite dark and violent but so over the top that it comes off as quite funny (even if we feel very sorry for Tom). The main reason this cartoon works so well is that the ending is so incredibly satisfying.  

This marks the 141st Tom and Jerry cartoon. The film is available on the DVD sets Tom and Jerry: Classic Collection Volume 6 and Tom and Jerry: The Chuck Jones Collection as well as the VHS sets, Tom and Jerry: Puss 'n' Toots and Tom and Jerry: Part Time Pals and the LaserDisc set, The Art of Tom & Jerry: Volume III: The Chuck Jones Cartoons. 

THe credited animators on this film are Dick Thompson, Ben Washam, Ken Harris and Don Towsley. Michael Maltese and Chuck Jones share a writing credit. The credited background artist is Philip DeGuard. Eugene Poddany gets a music credit. Mel Blanc and June Foray are credit for the voices in this cartoon (though there are no actual spoken words; the characters make vocal sounds). 


The Tom and Jerry Wiki gives the name of Jerry's friend as Nipper. The character only appeared in this one cartoon and is not named in it. The name "Nipper" however seems to have come from the mobile game, Tom and Jerry Chase. 

There would later be an episode of the streaming series Tom and Jerry in New York entitled Year of the Mouse (2021). That episode (directed by Darrell Van Citters and written by Robert F. Hughes) Tom chases Jerry through Chinatown during the Lunar New Year. Meanwhile Jerry falls for a beautiful female mouse. 

-Michael J. Ruhland