Tom & Jerry

Tom and Jerry is an American animated franchise and series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Best known for its 161 theatrical short films by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the series centers on the rivalry between the titular characters of a cat named Tom and a mouse named Jerry. Many shorts also feature several recurring characters. n its original run, Hanna and Barbera produced 114 Tom and Jerry shorts for MGM from 1940 to 1958. During this time, they won seven Academy Awards for Best Animated Short Film, tying for first place with Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies with the most awards in the category. After the MGM cartoon studio closed in 1957, MGM revived the series with Gene Deitch directing an additional 13 Tom and Jerry shorts for Rembrandt Films from 1961 to 1962. Tom and Jerry then became the highest-grossing animated short film series of that time, overtaking Looney Tunes. Chuck Jones then produced another 34 shorts with Sib Tower 12 Productions between 1963 and 1967. Three more shorts were produced, The Mansion Cat in 2001, The Karate Guard in 2005, and A Fundraising Adventure in 2014, making a total of 164 shorts.

A number of spin-offs have been made, including the television series The Tom and Jerry Show (1975), The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show (1980–1982), Tom & Jerry Kids (1990–1993), Tom and Jerry Tales (2006–2008), and The Tom and Jerry Show (2014–present). The first feature-length film based on the series, Tom and Jerry: The Movie, was released in 1992, and 13 direct-to-video films have been produced since 2002, with an upcoming live-action/animated hybrid film set to be released in 2021. A musical adaptation of the series, titled Tom and Jerry: Purr-Chance to Dream, debuted in Japan in 2019 in advance of Tom and Jerry's 80th anniversary.

## Plot

The series features comic fights between an iconic pair of adversaries, a house cat (Tom) and a mouse (Jerry). The plots of each short usually center on Tom and Jerry's numerous attempts to have the best of each other and the mayhem and destruction that follows. Despite Tom's clever strategies (whether they work or not), determined and energetic mindset, large size, and exceptional overall intelligence, he rarely succeeds in getting the best of Jerry, mainly because of Jerry's cunning abilities, luck, and his lack of tendencies in being a bit too reckless. However, on several occasions, they have displayed genuine friendship and concern for each other's well-being. At other times, the pair set aside their rivalry in order to pursue a common goal, such as when a baby escapes the watch of a negligent babysitter, causing Tom and Jerry to pursue the baby and keep it away from danger, in the shorts *Busy Buddies* and Tot Watchers respectively. Despite their endless attacks on one another, they have saved each other's lives every time they were truly in danger, except in The Two Mousekeeters, which features an uncharacteristically dark ending.

The cartoons are known for some of the most violent cartoon gags ever devised in theatrical animation: Tom may use axes, hammers, firearms, firecrackers, explosives, traps and poison to kill Jerry. On the other hand, Jerry's methods of retaliation are far more violent, with frequent success, including slicing Tom in half, decapitating him, shutting his head or fingers in a window or a door, stuffing Tom's tail in a waffle iron or a mangle, kicking him into a refrigerator, getting him electrocuted, pounding him with a mace, club or mallet, letting a tree or electric pole drive him into the ground, sticking matches into his feet and lighting them, tying him to a firework and setting it off, and so on. While *Tom and Jerry* has often been criticized as excessively violent, there is no blood or gore in any scene.

Music plays a very important part in the shorts, emphasizing the action, filling in for traditional sound effects, and lending emotion to the scenes. Musical director Scott Bradley created complex scores that combined elements of jazz, classical, and pop music; Bradley often reprised contemporary pop songs, as well as songs from MGM films, including The Wizard Of Oz and Meet Me in St. Louis, which both starred Judy Garland in a leading role.

Generally, there is little dialogue as Tom and Jerry almost never speak; however, minor characters are not similarly limited, and the two lead characters do speak English on rare occasions. For example, the character Mammy Two Shoes has lines in nearly every cartoon in which she appears. Most of the vocal effects used for Tom and Jerry are their high-pitched laughs and gasping screams.

## History

"Tom and Jerry" was a commonplace phrase for youngsters indulging in riotous behaviour in 19th-century London. The term comes from *Life in London, or Days and Nights of Jerry Hawthorne and his elegant friend Corinthian Tom* (1821) by Pierce Egan. However Brewer notes no more than an "unconscious" echo of the Regency era original in the naming of the cartoon.

### Hanna-Barbera era (1940–1958)

In June 1937, animator and storyman Joseph Barbera began to work for the Ising animation unit at MGM, then the largest studio in Hollywood. He learned that co-owner Louis B. Mayer wished to boost the animation department by encouraging the artists to develop some new cartoon characters, following the lack of success with its earlier cartoon series based on the Captain and the Kids comic strip. Barbera then teamed with fellow Ising unit animator and director William Hanna and pitched new ideas, among them was the concept of two "equal characters who were always in conflict with each other". An early thought involved a fox and a dog before they settled on a cat and mouse. The pair discussed their ideas with producer Fred Quimby, then the head of the short film department who, despite a lack of interest in it, gave them the green-light to produce one cartoon short.

The first short, Puss Gets The Boot, features a cat named Jasper and an unnamed mouse, named Jinx in pre-production, and an African American housemaid named Mammy Two Shoes. Leonard Matin described it as "very new and special [...] that was to change the course of MGM cartoon production" and established the successful *Tom and Jerry* formula of comical cat and mouse chases with slapstick gags. It was released onto the theatre circuit on February 10, 1940 and the pair, having been advised by management not to produce any more, focused on other cartoons including Gallopin’ Gals (1940) and Officer Pooch (1941). Matters changed, however, when Texas businesswoman Bessa Short sent a letter to MGM asking whether more cat and mouse shorts would be produced, which helped convince management to commission a series. A studio contest held to rename both characters was won by animator John Carr, who suggested Tom the cat and Jerry the mouse. Carr was awarded a first-place prize of $50. It has been suggested, but not proven, that the names were derived from a 1932 story by Damon Ryun, who took them from a popular christmastime cocktail, itself derived from an 1821 stage play by William Harvery, itself an adaptation of 1821 Egan's book titled *Life in London* that originating those name, itself based on George Cruikshank's, Robert Cruikshank's, and Egan's true story. *Puss Gets the Boot* was a critical success, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Short Subjects: in 1941 despite the credits listing Ising and omitting Hanna and Barbera.

After MGM gave the green-light for Hanna and Barbera to continue, the studio entered production on the second *Tom and Jerry* cartoon, *The Midnight Snack* (1941). The pair would continue to work on the series for the next fifteen years of their career. Early into the series, Jerry never started the conflict, and shorts typically involved Tom losing by the end. The composer of the series, Scott Bradley, made it difficult for the musicians to perform his score which often involved the 12 tone technique developed by Arnold Sochenberg. The series developed a quicker, more energetic and violent tone which was inspired by the work of MGM colleague Tex Avery. Hanna and Barbera made minor adjustments to Tom and Jerry's appearance so they would "age gracefully". Jerry went on to lose weight and his long eyelashes, while Tom lost his jagged fur for a smoother appearance, had larger eyebrows, and received a white and gray face with a white mouth. He adopted a quadrupedal stance at first, like a real cat, to become increasingly and almost exclusively bipedal.

Hanna and Barbera produced 114 cartoons for MGM, thirteen of which were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Subject and seven went on to win, breaking the winning streak held by Walt Disney’s studio in the category. *Tom and Jerry* won more Academy Awards than any other character-based theatrical animated series. Barbera estimated the typical budget of $50,000 for each *Tom and Jerry* cartoon which made the duo take "time to get it right". A typical cartoon took around six weeks to make.

As per standard practice for American animation production at the time, Barbera and Hanna did not work with a script beforehand. After coming up with a cartoon idea together, Barbera would flesh out the story by drawing a storyboard and provide character designs and animation layouts. Hanna did the animation timing - planning the music and temporal beats and accents the animation action would occur on - and subsequently assigned the animators their scenes and supervised their work. In addition, Hanna provided incidental voice work, in particular Tom's numerous screams of pain. Despite minimal creative input, as head of the MGM cartoon studio, Quimby was credited as the producer of all cartoons until 1955.

The rise in television in the 1950s caused problems for the MGM animation studio, leading to budget cuts on *Tom and Jerry*cartoons due to decreased revenue from theatrical screenings. In an attempt to combat this, MGM ordered that all subsequent shorts be produced in the widescreen CinemaScope format; the first, *Touché, Pussy Cat!*, was released in December 1954. However, the studio found that re-releases of older cartoons were earning as much as new ones, resulting in the executive decision to cease production on *Tom and Jerry* and later the animation studio on May 15, 1957. The final cartoon produced by Hanna and Barbera, Tot Watchers, was released on August 1, 1958. The pair were decided to leave and went on to focus on their own production company Hanna-Barbera Productions, which went on to produce such popular animated television series including The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, The Smurfs, and Scooby Doo!.

### Gene Deitch era (1961–1962)

In 1961, MGM revived the *Tom and Jerry* franchise, and contracted European animation studio Rembrandt Flims to produce 13 *Tom and Jerry* shorts in Prague, Czecholaiwa. All were directed by Gene Deitch and produced by William L. Snyder. Deitch himself wrote most of the cartoons, with occasional assistance from Larz Borune and Eli Bauer. Stepen Knociek provided the musical score for the Deitch shorts. Sound effects were produced by eletronic music composer Tod Dockster and Deitch. The majority of vocal effects and voices in Deitch's films were provided by Allen Swift and Deitch.

### Chuck Jones era (1963–1967)

After the last of the Deitch cartoons were released, Chuck Jones, who had been fired from his 30-plus year tenure at Warner Bros. Production, started his own animation studio, Sib Tower 12 Productions (later renamed MGM Animation/Visual Arts), with partner Les Goldman. Beginning in 1963, Jones and Goldman went on to produce 34 more *Tom and Jerry shorts*, all of which carried Jones' distinctive style (and a slight psychedelic influence).

Jones had trouble adapting his style to *Tom and Jerry*'s brand of humor, and a number of the cartoons favored full animation, personality and style over storyline. The characters underwent a slight change of appearance: Tom was given thicker eyebrows (resembling Jones' Grinch, Count Blood Count or Wile E. Coyote), a less complex look (including the color of his fur becoming gray), sharper ears, longer tail and furrier cheeks (resembling Jones' Claude Cat or Sylvester ), while Jerry was given larger eyes and ears, a lighter brown color, and a sweeter, Porky Pig-like expression.

Some of Jones' *Tom and Jerry* cartoons are reminiscent of his work with Wile E. Coyote and The Roadrunner, included the uses of blackout gags and gags involving characters falling from high places. Jones co-directed the majority of the shorts with layout artist Maurice Noble. The remaining shorts were directed by Abe Levitow and Ben Washam, with Tom Ray directing two shorts built around footage from earlier *Tom and Jerry* cartoons directed by Hanna and Barbera, and Jim Pabian directed a short with Maurice Noble. Various vocal characteristics were made by Mel Blanc, June Foray and even Jones himself. These shorts contain a memorable opening theme, in which Tom first replaces the MGM lion, then is trapped inside the "O" of his name. It was also with Blanc doing the vocal effects for the “Meow!”.

Though Jones's shorts were generally considered an improvement over Deitch's, they nevertheless had varying degrees of critical success. MGM ceased production of *Tom and Jerry* shorts in 1967, by which time Jones had moved on to television specials and the feature film The Phantom Tollbooth. The shorts were released on DVD in 2009 in "Tom and Jerry: The Chuck Jones Collection".