Sufferin' Cats!
Tags: psychedelic, comic

Plot synopsis:
The cartoon opens with Jerry running with a fishing line tied to his tail, which proceeds to retreat; Jerry is pulled under the radiator, through a mousehole, and towards Tom at the end of the line. When Jerry reaches Tom, the cat makes a face and scares Jerry, causing him to run away. Tom starts to reel in Jerry again, but the mouse holds onto a bag of jerked beef, forcing Tom to struggle to regain control of the line. As the line returns to Tom, a piece of the bag is on the end, stating "JERK".
Jerry escapes through an open window and smashes into an alley cat, (Meathead), who is going through garbage cans trying to find lunch. Jerry quickly runs the other way, but then runs into Tom who is coming towards him. Choosing between evils, Jerry gives Meathead a kiss and hug, plays with his whiskers, and sticks his tongue out at Tom; in retaliation, Tom grabs Jerry and hisses at the alley cat, who grabs Jerry back and hisses much louder than Tom. Knowing he is outclassed, Tom retreats. Meathead makes a Jerry sandwich, but when he adds pepper, Jerry sneezes and is propelled away from the bread - and into the other cat. The mouse now hugs Tom and snubs Meathead, who grabs Jerry and breaks the bread over Tom's head. Tom then grabs Meathead's whiskers and pulls one of them out; after Meathead locks Jerry in a can, he returns the injury.
The two felines fight until Meathead, while holding Tom by the ears and fist back to punch him, spots the mouse walking out of the can. Meathead scolds Jerry and points to the can as if to say "You belong to me, get back in the can." Jerry complies grudgingly, but meanwhile Tom has replaced himself with a flower pot and stolen Jerry. Meathead chases after his rival, but runs into the front gate.
In the backyard, Tom sits on Jerry to hide the mouse and shows Meathead the empty sardine can as he comes by. Jerry reveals himself by sticking Tom with a gardening fork and runs away; Meathead attempts to catch him, but Tom has tied Meathead's tail to the garden hose, who is then pulled back into the spigot and rained on. Tom then chases Jerry and catches him near an open window; a pie is sitting on the deck, and the cat holds it out for Meathead to promptly hit. Tom runs away with Jerry, but soon trips into a garbage can and loses the mouse to the alley cat; as Tom emerges from the can, he wallops Meathead with a frying pan and flips Jerry in the pan a few times. The mouse escapes and wriggles through a hole in a fence, and when Tom peeks through, he is whacked with a length of pipe. When the cat sees his opponent arrive, he waves him ahead, and Meathead receives the same punishment.
Jerry runs away and disguises himself as an old mouse, using mop bristles in the shape of a beard. Both cats corner him, and Jerry points away from himself as if to say He went that way. The two cats shrug, run away, soon realize their error and go back to search the mop. They then look in front of the drainpipe the mouse has hidden in, who ties both cats' tails together and then provokes a chase. The alley cat moves first and drags Tom across the ground, and both cats end up tangled around a tree. Jerry continues running and sets out thumbtacks for the cats to step on; at their speed, they cannot avoid the tacks, but manage to survive the podiatric assault and catch Jerry. After a brief fight, a tree stump with an ax on it catches their eyes and they agree to cut Jerry in half. The alley cat holds Jerry while Tom readies the ax, and as Tom raises the ax over his head, his devilish conscience appears and convinces him that he doesn't have to share Jerry. He then makes an X on the alley cat's head, which Tom swings for, but stops short, panting at his inability to commit murder. The devil appears again, disgusted, using his famed reasoning to convince the cat that Tom had priorities on Jerry, successfully breaking through to Tom.
Tom prepares to chop Meathead in half, but the blade slides off and instead of being beheaded, Meathead is whacked on the head and a bump forms on the top and goes through his toupee. The incensed alley cat chases Tom and beats him with the stick, Tom hissing and spitting. Meanwhile, Jerry escapes and ducks under the front gate. The cats chase the mouse instead, but crash through the gate with their heads, hands and feet on the front side and their defenseless rear ends hanging out the back. Jerry arrives with a huge smile carrying a wooden plank, and goes behind the cats' back. He has decided that as punishment for tormenting him, that both cats deserve a good paddling, and uses their compromising position to do just that. Then he brushes off Tom's waiting rear to let him know what is about to happen. Then he takes aim with the plank; the cats look up to see a sign on the gate saying MAKE ALL DELIVERIES IN REAR, and Jerry uses the plank to give both of them a good spanking on their rears that make them yelp in pain.

Review: Two-Against-One.....Sort Of. Two cats fighting over Jerry?
Yup, that's the case here.
Tom is just tormenting his buddy but some stray outside means to have Jerry as part of a submarine sandwich.
Jerry tries to smooch up to each cat, playing up to one to stay away from other.
That only works once for each cat.
After that, this is just one big chase scene, but that's par for the course for a Tom and Jerry cartoon.
What's different is that there are two cats chasing the mouse.
Thankfully, for Jerry's sake, the cats are also beating each other up while trying to hold onto the elusive mouse.
Finally, Jerry starts producing pain for both cats, something he's used to doing to poor Tom.All in all, it makes for a fairly wild eight minutes, with most of the laughs in the second half of it, particularly when Tom is about to chop Jerry in half, but then gets another idea whispered in his ear from "the Devil." As always, the devil's advice winds up to be the wrong kind.
great antics.
Tom the cat has got Jerry the mouse on a fishing line and is toying with him much to Jerry's chagrin.
So after he gets away he runs into a cat that scares Tom. Jerry think he's saved onto to realize that the second cat just wants to eat him himself.
What follows is classic slapstick as the two cats fight over who gets the meal.
But they both get their just desserts in the end.
Tom and Jerry are in their top form here and are a delight to watch as they ALMOST are (the feature film where they're best pals is horrid, but I digress).This hilarious cartoon can be found on disc one of the Spotlight collection DVD of "Tom & Jerry" My Grade: A-.
Top Flight T&J.
MGM animation of the thirties and forties could often seriously rival the Disney studio for sheer lushness and elegance, and generaly had them beat for comedy.
"Sufferin' Cats" is a charming and funny early Tom and Jerry romp in which Tom is allowed to display a resoucefulness almost on a par with his rodent rival..
(1943) *** (out of 4) Jerry is once again running away from Tom who wants to eat him but he makes the mistake of running into another cat.
Af first Jerry thinks he's safe but it turns out this cat wants to eat him too so now the mouse finds himself running away from two cats.
SUFFERIN' CATS!
SUFFERIN' CATS!
SUFFERIN' CATS!
is another winner for the series and once again we're taken away from the house setting, which allows for some new and creative action.
One of the highlights happen when the cats agree to cut Jerry in half and share him but of course something else happens.
This short is fast, fun and contains enough action to keep it entertaining throughout..
A fun Tom and Jerry cartoon, but not a classic.
I adore Tom and Jerry and always have done.
Sufferin' Cats is not one of my favourites though, seeing as it is an early T&J I was expecting the sense that they were still finding their feet and that was the case here.
The story here is very routine, I do agree with those who have said that Sufferin' Cats is little more than one big chase, while the first half is not as funny or as crisply paced as the second, which is where the fun begins.
The gags in the second half are genuinely funny on the other point of view, the standout being Tom battling his devil conscience and it goes pear-shaped from there.
The ending is amusing as well.
The animation is clean and beautifully drawn, while the music adds so much to the effectiveness of the gags and is orchestrated in such a vibrant way.
All three characters are great, two cats fighting over one mouse is not a new idea but done in a very entertaining way here, and have inspired interplay between them.
Tom and Jerry themselves are true to personality, and the second cat is a good contrast to Tom. All in all, not a classic but fun.
7/10 Bethany Cox. Fun, but unexceptional..
As Tom and Jerry's creators get fully into their stride, so the duo become more and more like the cat and mouse we all know and love.
Sufferin' Cats sees the cartoon's style developed even further, with the content becoming more 'violent' and the characters more definedunfortunately, the story is the one weak element to this episode, with the whole thing being nothing more than a huge frantic chase scene (which is fun, for a while at least).There are some quite funny visual gags, and a fine example of the old 'devil on the shoulder' routine, as Tom deliberates whether he should cut Jerry in twoin order to share the mouse with an alley cat with whom he has been competingor plant the axe's blade in his rival's head (my 4 year old son actually found this bit disturbing).
But on the whole, this short is a distinctly average offering..
Rather generic cartoon.
Nothing of any particular interest or originality happens in this short.
Tom is having his usual fun tormenting Jerry but the mouse runs into a stray cat and pretends to be best friends with him (by kissing him-gay lovers?) to upset Tom. Soon both cats are feuding over Jerry whilst being set-up by him.
Oh, do watch my sides as they just might split!
I wasn't really impressed and there's not a lot to laugh at in the 8-minute running time.
The short actually has some dialogue in it but there's no credited voices for some reason on this page.
There's nothing I can recommend about this cartoon as it is Tom and Jerry at their most basic.
The title is rather generic too..
Somewhat different idea, but it's not really working.
If you know Tom & Jerry a bit, world's most famous cat and mouse duo, then you certainly also know the general idea behind these many many cartoons starring the two.
Cast hunts mouse and mouse fights back most of the time.
But this one here is different.
It is basically Tom and another cat arguing who gets Jerry for dinner.
Jerry plays along until almost the very end, but then the phrase "When two fight, the third one laughs last." becomes reality and Jerry shows us what he is capable of.
Sadly, I would say that this approach and plot idea are not really working and I found most of the comedy fairly forgettable and the slapstick also wasn't too great to be honest.
It is probably among Hanna/Barbera's more known T&J works, even if it did not get the Oscar nomination, but it's certainly not among their best.
Basically every time Jerry is on screen, it gets better, but it's just not (frequent) enough.
At 8 minutes, it is slightly longer than they usually are.
The year of production is 1943 (75th anniversary in 2018), the days of WWII still, and this time is probably also when Tom and Jerry may have been at their peak in terms of popularity.
The good thing as always is that you can enjoy it pretty much without subtitles, even if you don't speak English at all.
Even the scene towards the end with little devil Tom speaks for itself.
All in all, this is one of the weaker recent episodes from the series.
I give it a thumbs-down and don't recommend checking it out..
Good Fun..
Sufferin' Cats and The Bowling alley cat in my opinion are the best early Tom and Jerry shorts.
This one got really good laughs.The Story is about Tom chasing Jerry, then an Alley Cat appears (His name is Meathead), and then they start to fight each other in order to get Jerry.The Story might sound too simple, but the excellent animation, perfectly timed gags really help.
And this episode is a musical fun!
I couldn't stop humming to the song, it's really Jazzy and Catchy, it accomplishes the action on the cartoon, it's flawless.The Highlights of the cartoon are when Tom and Meathead decide to cut Jerry in a half to have equal parts to each other, but Tom's evil thought make him steal Jerry by a whole.All of these elements help this cartoon stand out.I Recommend it to every Tom and Jerry fan.