Mouse Trouble

**Mouse Trouble** is a 1944 Tom and Jerry cartoon directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.

## Mouse Trouble

* Original Title
* Reissue Title

### Starring:

Tom Cat
Jerry Mouse

## Crew

### Voice Characterizations:

Bill Hanna (uncredited)
Sara Berner (uncredited)

### Director:

William Hanna
Joseph Barbera

### Animated By:

Ray Patterson
Irven Spence
Ken Muse
Pete Burness

## Plot

Tom acquires a book on how to catch mice and for the rest of the cartoon, takes its advice to attempt to catch Jerry.

The first thing the book suggests is to locate the mouse. Tom "locates" the mouse, but when Tom tries to grab Jerry, the rodent steps off the book and slams Tom's nose in it.

Tom sets out the trap and tests it by snapping it by touching it with a feather. Jerry, however, succeeds in freeing the cheese from it. Shocked at the trap's failure, Tom tests it before the trap snaps as soon as he touches it, irritating him greatly.

Tom soon sets a snare trap around a piece of cheese, ready to pull the string but Jerry sneakily replaces the trap with a bowl of cream. When Tom peeks back at the trap, he sees the cream and drinks it while Jerry activates the trap, sending the cat out to the tree himself.

Tom's next attempt at catching Jerry is to laugh noisily while reading the book. A curious Jerry ventures out of his hole and Tom captures Jerry by shutting him into the book. But when Tom grabs him, Jerry pulls the same trick on him with his fists. Tom inspects them only to get punched in the eye and leaving Jerry to escape. (This trick was pulled again in *Safety Second*.) After reading in the book the fact that *A Cornered Mouse NEVER FIGHTS*, Tom pounces onto Jerry. But Jerry fights back and beats Tom offscreen, after this, Tom drones "*Don't you believe it!*". (Voiced by William Hanna.)

At this point, Tom stops reading from chapter-to-chapter and skims the book, trying suggestions that he likes or thinks will work. Upon reading Chapter VII, Tom uses a stethoscope to listen for Jerry within the walls of the house. Jerry screams into the microphone, which is almost deafening Tom. Tom forces a shotgun into Jerry's mousehole. However, the barrel of the gun bends outwards, pointing straight at Tom's head as the cat fires and ends up shooting himself in the head, rendering himself bald. In the next scene (and every scene after that until the end), Tom wears a dodgy, orange toupée.

Tom sets a bear trap and sticks it inside Jerry's hole. Just then, Jerry walks outside from another hole behind Tom and puts it behind him. Just as Tom sits down, the trap triggers, causing pain and sending him up into the roof.

Tom then tries to use a mallet to flatten Jerry. Jerry then pops out of a hole behind a picture right above Tom, grabs the mallet, and hits him, knocking him unconscious.

Tom then attempts to hide inside a large gift box before knocking on Jerry's wall. Jerry, seeing the box, knocks on it. With no response, he returns with a bunch of pins before sawing the box in half. Hearing nothing inside, Jerry looks inside the box, and in horror, he gulps and displays a sign reading "*IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE?*"

Tom, now covered in bandages (including one wrapped around his bisected torso), reads the twelfth chapter of the book, *Mice are Suckers for Dames*, which makes him wind up a toy mouse. Jerry, noticing the toy, walks with it. Tom attempts to lure Jerry into a mouse-sized "hotel," the door of which leads into Tom's open mouth, but to Tom's dismay, Jerry ushers the mechanical mouse into the hotel first, which Tom swallows. He repeatedly hiccups, an enraged Tom looks at his ruined teeth in a mirror, and then destroys both the mirror and the book before Tom goes insane and attempts to blow up Jerry with dozens of explosives. When Tom lights a piece of dynamite, he blows the fuse much too hard, resulting in all the explosives erupting and leaving Tom dead. Nothing at all remains of the house except Jerry, who is still alive, and his door, while Tom has died in heaven, with a harp and a halo repeatedly hiccuping *"come up and see me some time"* (The doll was voiced by Sara Berner).

## Characters

* Tom Cat
* Jerry Mouse
* Toy Mouse

## Notes

* This is the second Tom and Jerry short to win an academy award.