Sleepy-Time Tom

**Reissue:**
July of 1958

**Sleepy-Time Tom** is a 1951 *Tom and Jerry* cartoon directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.

## Plot

Tom and his cat friends—Butch, Lightning, and Meathead—are singing loudly in the middle of the night. The cats drop Tom off at home; he yawns and stretches, now very tired from the middle of the night. He climbs up onto the window ledge, deciding to sleep there. However, just as he drifts off to sleep, Mammy Two-Shoes (portrayed by Lillian Randolph) arrives and chastises Tom. Tom enters the kitchen and nearly falls asleep, until Mammy warns him to stay awake and keep Jerry out of the refrigerator, as she will kick him out of the house if she catches him sleeping. Jerry overhears Mammy's warnings and decides to make things difficult for Tom, encouraging the cat to fall asleep in order to get him thrown out.

First, when Mammy leaves the kitchen, Jerry offers Tom a bed made out of a table, a tablecloth as a blanket, and a loaf of bread as a pillow. Tom accepts this gift, but when he starts to sleep in it, he hears Mammy calling him and begins to chase Jerry. However, he trips over a carpet and his hand lands on a cushion, and as the carpet unrolls to cover him, he falls asleep again. He wakes up upon hearing Mammy's voice again, and nearly catches Jerry, who turns on the radio, which plays a soothing song (the final half of which is the opening to Brahm's Lullaby) and causes Tom to fall back asleep. He almost falls asleep on Mammy's shoe, but wakes up and resumes looking for Jerry. Tom finds Jerry in his mouse hole and waits for him to come out, taking a bat that he prepares to hit Jerry with. He yawns and starts to lie down, and Jerry brings him a pillow, which Tom's head falls on. Jerry manually closes his eyes, but Tom is awakened again when he loses grip of the bat, which hits him and startles him awake.

Then Tom ends up drinking a large amount of coffee for the caffeine to keep himself alert. Even after drinking from the whole pot, Tom still falls asleep until Mammy asks him *Was you sleeping?*. Tom shakes his head, and after Mammy leaves again, stating *You hadn't better be...* Tom continues to try everything to stay awake. For his first try, Tom sticks toothpicks under his eyes to try to keep them open, but both toothpicks snap under the weight of his eyelids. He then tries sticking tape onto the top of his head to keep his eyes open, only for his head to cover his eyes. Tom cunningly paints yellow circles on his eyelids to give the illusion that he is awake—though his eyes are closed and he is sleeping. Mammy is led to believe that Tom is awake, but Jerry sees through Tom's ploy, Jerry decides to rips off part of Tom's fur. The cat is immediately woken and chases after Jerry, but Jerry has made signs (which resemble the popular Burma-Shave road signs), Tom stops to read them: *Are you sleepy? Want a bed? Solid comfort - straight ahead*.

Jerry's signs lead Tom to Mammy's bedroom, where Tom falls asleep. Jerry watches as an unsuspecting Mammy sees Tom on her bed, and violently throws Tom out of the house. Tom crashes into a fence, but is too tired to care and simply falls back asleep while using a brick as a pillow. Tom's friends come around the corner, then upon spotting Tom having dozed off, they pick him up and tug him along with them through the alleyway, singing in the moonlight once again while they are leaving.

## Voice cast

* Lillian Randolph as Mammy Two Shoes (original) (uncredited)
* Thea Vidale as Mammy Two Shoes (1991 dubbed version) (uncredited)
* Daws Butler as Lightning Cat (uncredited)
* Paul Frees as Butch Cat (uncredited)

## Production

* Directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera
* Animation: Ed Barge, Kenneth Muse, Irven Spence, Ray Patterson
* Story: William Hanna and Joseph Barbera
* Layout: Dick Bickenbach
* Music: Scott Bradley
* Produced by: Fred Quimby

## Availability

* DVD - *Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection: Volume 2* (Warner Bros.)