Tom & Jerry
Tom and Jerry are an animated cat (Tom) and mouse (Jerry) team who formed the basis of a successful series of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer theatrical short subjects created, written and directed by animators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (later of Hanna-Barbera fame). One hundred and fourteen Tom and Jerry cartoons were produced by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio in Hollywood from 1940 until 1957, when the animation unit was closed down. These shorts are notable for having won seven Academy Awards for Best Short Subject (Cartoons), tying it with Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies as the most-awarded theatrical animated series.
Plot and format
Tom and Jerry title card used during the late 1940s and early 1950s, attached to many reissues of early and mid 1940s shorts.
Tom and Jerry title card used in the early 1950s, and some reissues of 1940s shorts.
The plots of each short usually center on Tom's frustrated attempts to catch Jerry, and the mayhem and destruction that ensues. Because they seem to get along in some cartoon shorts (at least in the first minute or so), it is unclear why Tom chases Jerry so much, but some reasons given may include normal feline/mouse enmity, duty according to his owner, revenge, or competition with another cat, among other reasons.
Tom rarely succeeds in catching Jerry, mainly because of Jerry's craftiness and cunning abilities, but sometimes because of Tom's own stupidity. Tom usually beats Jerry when Jerry becomes the instigator or when he crosses some sort of line.
The shorts are famous for some of the most violent gags ever devised in theatrical animation: Jerry slicing Tom in half, shutting his head in a window or a door, Tom using everything from axes, pistols, dynamite, clubs and poison to try to murder Jerry, Jerry stuffing Tom's tail in a waffle iron, plugging his tail into an electric socket, hitting him with a mace and so on. Despite all the violence, there is no blood or gore in any scenes. A recurring gag involves Jerry hitting Tom when he's preoccupied, with Tom initially oblivious to the pain--and only feeling the effects moments later.
Characters
Tom and Jerry title card used in 1955 and 1956, when the series switched to the CinemaScope format.
The final "Tom and Jerry" title card used in 1956 until the final Hanna and Barbera short in 1958.
Tom and Jerry
Tom is a bluish-grey housecat, depending on the short (Tom's fur color is close to that of the Russian Blue breed of cats), who lives a pampered life, while Jerry is a small brown mouse who always lives in close proximity to him. Tom is very quick-tempered and thin-skinned, while Jerry is independent and opportunistic. Despite being very energetic and determined, Tom is no match for Jerry's brains and wits. By the iris-out of each cartoon, Jerry usually emerges triumphant, while Tom is shown as the loser. However, other results may be reached; on rare occasions, Tom triumphs. Sometimes, usually ironically, they both lose or they both end up being friends. Both characters display sadistic tendencies, in that they are equally likely to take pleasure in tormenting each other. However, depending on the cartoon, whenever one character appears to be in mortal danger (in a dangerous situation or by an enemy), the other will develop a conscience and save him. Sometimes they bond over a mutual sentiment towards an unpleasant experience.
Recurring characters
Mammy Two Shoes, the housemaid who made many appearances in the 1940s and early 1950s.
History and evolution
Hanna-Barbera era (1940 – 1958)
William Hanna and Joseph Barbera were both part of the Rudolf Ising unit at MGM's animation studio in the late 1930s. Barbera, a storyman and character designer, was paired with Hanna, an experienced director, to start directing films for the Ising unit; the first of which was a cat-and-mouse cartoon called Puss Gets the Boot. Completed in late 1939, and released to theatres on February 10, 1940, Puss Gets The Boot centers on Jasper, a grey tabby cat trying to catch an unnamed rodent, but without breaking anything; the African-American housemaid Mammy has threatened to throw Jasper out ("O-U-W-T, out!") if he breaks one more thing in the house. Naturally, the mouse uses this to his advantage, and begins tossing wine glasses, ceramic plates, teapots, and any and everything fragile, so that Jasper will be thrown outside. Puss Gets The Boot was previewed and released without fanfare, and Hanna and Barbera went on to direct other (non-cat-and-mouse related) shorts. "After all," remarked many of the MGM staffers, "haven't there been enough cat-and-mouse cartoons already?"
The pessimistic attitude towards the cat and mouse duo changed when the cartoon became a favorite with theatre owners and with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which nominated the film for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons of 1941. It lost to another MGM cartoon, Rudolph Ising's The Milky Way.
However, producer Fred Quimby, who ran the MGM animation studio, quickly pulled Hanna and Barbera off the other one-shot cartoons they were working on, and commissioned a series featuring the cat and mouse. Hanna and Barbera held an intra-studio contest to give the pair a new name; animator John Carr won with his suggestion of "Tom and Jerry". The Tom and Jerry series went into production with The Midnight Snack in 1941, and Hanna and Barbera rarely directed anything but the cat-and-mouse cartoons for the rest of their tenure at MGM.
Tom's physical appearance evolved significantly over the years. During the early 1940s, Tom had an excess of detail--shaggy fur, numerous facial wrinkles, and multiple eyebrow markings--all of which were streamlined into a more workable form by the end of the 1940s- and looked like a realistic cat; in addition from his quadrupedal beginnings Tom became increasingly, and eventually almost exclusively, bipedal. Jerry stayed essentially the same for the duration of the series. By the mid-1940s, the series had developed a quicker, more energetic (and violent) tone, because of inspiration from the work of MGM Animation colleague Tex Avery, who joined the studio in 1942.
Even though the theme of each short is virtually the same, Hanna and Barbera found endless variations on that theme. Barbera's storyboards and rough layouts and designs, combined with Hanna's timing, resulted in MGM's most popular and successful cartoon series. Thirteen entries in the Tom and Jerry series (including Puss Gets The Boot) were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons; seven of them went on to win the Academy Award, breaking the Disney studio's winning streak in that category. Tom and Jerry won more Academy Awards than any other character-based theatrical animated series.
Tom and Jerry remained popular throughout their original theatrical run, even when the budgets began to tighten somewhat in the 1950s and the pace of the shorts slowed slightly. However, after television became popular in the 1950s, box office revenues decreased for theatrical films, and short subjects. At first, MGM combated this by going to all-CinemaScope production on the series. After MGM realized that their re-releases of the older shorts brought in just as much revenue as the new films, the studio executives decided, much to the surprise of the staff, to close the animation studio. The MGM animation department was shut down in 1957, and the final of the 114 Hanna and Barbera Tom and Jerry shorts, Tot Watchers, was released on August 1, 1958. Hanna and Barbera established their own television animation studio, Hanna-Barbera Productions, in 1957, which went on to produce such popular shows as The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and Scooby-Doo.
High Steaks, a 1962 Tom & Jerry short directed by Gene Deitch.
Tom and Jerry hit television
Beginning in 1965, the Hanna and Barbera Tom and Jerry films began to appear on television in heavily edited form: the Jones team was required to take the shorts that featured Mammy, rotoscope her out, and replace her with a thin white woman, although in local telecasts of the cartoons, and in the ones shown on Boomerang , Mammy can once again be seen. Lillian Randolph's original voice tracks were replaced with June Foray performing in an Irish accent. Much of the extreme violence in the cartoons were also edited out. Starting out on CBS' Saturday Morning schedule on September 25, 1965, Tom and Jerry moved to CBS Sundays two years later and remained there until September 17, 1972.
Tom & Jerry's new owners
In 1986, MGM was purchased by Ted Turner. Turner sold the company a short while later, but retained MGM's pre-1986 film library, thus Tom and Jerry became the property of Turner Entertainment (where the rights stand today via Warner Bros.), and have in subsequent years appeared on Turner-run stations, such as TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, and Turner Classic Movies.
Tom and Jerry outside the United States
When shown on terrestrial television in the United Kingdom (from 1967 to 2000, usually on the BBC) Tom and Jerry cartoons were not cut for violence and Mammy was retained. As well as having regular slots, Tom and Jerry served the BBC in another way. When faced with disruption to the schedules (such as those occurring when live broadcasts overrun), the BBC would invariably turn to Tom and Jerry to fill any gaps, confident that it would retain much of an audience that might otherwise channel hop. This proved particularly helpful in 1993, when Noel's House Party had to be cancelled due to an IRA bomb scare at BBC Television Centre - Tom and Jerry was shown instead, bridging the gap until the next programme. Recently, a mother has complained of the smoking scenes shown in the cartoons since Tom often attempts to impress love interests with the habit. It has been said that these scenes will be edited out.
Due to its lack of dialog, Tom and Jerry was easily translated into various foreign languages. Tom and Jerry began broadcast in Japan in 1964. A 2005 nationwide survey taken in Japan by TV Asahi, sampling age groups from teenagers to adults in their sixties, in 2005 ranked Tom and Jerry #85 in a list of the top 100 anime of all time, while their web poll taken after the airing of the list ranked it at #58 - the only non-Japanese animation on the list (it should be noted that in Japan, the word "anime" refers to all animation regardless of origin, not just Japanese animation). [1] Tom and Jerry is also well-known in India, China, Indonesia, Iran, Thailand, Middle East and South Korea.
Tom and Jerry have long been popular in Germany. However, the cartoons are overdubbed with rhyming German-language verse that describes what is happening onscreen and provides addictional funny content. The different episodes are usually embedded in the episode Jerry's Diary (1949), in which Tom reads about past adventures.
In Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, India and Pakistan, Cartoon Network still airs Tom and Jerry cartoons nearly everyday. In Russia, local channels also airs the show in its daytime program. Tom and Jerry was one of the few cartoons of western origin broadcast in Czechoslovakia (1988) before the fall of Communism in 1989.
In 1975, Tom and Jerry were reunited with Hanna and Barbera, who produced new Tom and Jerry cartoons for Saturday mornings. These 48 seven-minute short cartoons were paired with Grape Ape and Mumbly cartoons, to create The New Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape Show, The Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape/Mumbly Show, and The Tom and Jerry/Mumbly Show, all of which ran on ABC Saturday Morning from September 6, 1975 to September 3, 1977. In these cartoons, Tom and Jerry (now with a red bow tie), who had been enemies during their formative years, became nonviolent pals who went on adventures together, as Hanna-Barbera had to meet the stringent rules against violence for children's TV.
Filmography
Notable cartoons
For a full list of theatrical Tom & Jerry cartoon shorts, see List of Tom and Jerry cartoons.
The following cartoons won the Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Short Subject: Cartoons:
These cartoons were nominated for the Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Short Subject: Cartoons, but did not win:
These cartoons were nominated for the Annie Award in the Individual Achievements Category: Character Animation, but did not win:
Original TV series
Feature films
Direct-to-video features
Video games
See also
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