It was the ultimate
game of cat and mouse.
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Jasper and Jinx in the beginning. |
While working for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, William
Hanna and Joseph
Barbera were paired up in a desperate move by MGM to recover from the
financially disastrous series of shorts the studio ran based on the Captain and the Kids
comic strip. Figuring a good short would have conflict, chases and action,
Barbera conceived of a concept with a built-in, classic and recognizable
conflict: a cat chasing a mouse. Initially, Hanna and other MGM staffers had no
confidence in the project, feeling the concept was unoriginal. However, the
short was made and in 1940 Puss Gets the Boot was released
to theaters. In it, cat Jasper sought to capture mouse Jinx, but was threatened
to be tossed out if their antics broke anything in the house by his owner Mammy
Two-Shoes (Lillian Randolph);
an African American housemaid.
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The evolution of Tom. |
When the short proved
a success and was nominated for the Academy
Award for “Best Short Subject: Cartoons,” Hanna and Barbera were pulled off
their other projects and commissioned to work on a series featuring the
characters. Holding a competition amongst their colleagues to come up with new
names for the pair, John Carr ultimately won with the suggestion of Tom and
Jerry. Tom’s designed was altered and streamlined as the series went on,
changing him from a realistic cat to anthropomorphized, and reducing the amount
of detail in his features. Jerry, however, changed very little.
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Dynamite is your friend. |
Although the essential plot was always the same (cat
chases mouse, mouse beats up cat), Hanna and Barbera’s talents allowed them to
find variations on the theme; altering the locations and elements of the
chases. The shorts became known for including some of the most violent cartoon
gags to ever appear in theatrical shorts, from the range of weaponry Tom used
(axes, hammers, guns, explosives, poison) to the instruments of retaliation
Jerry countered with (electrocution, slamming Tom’s head in a window, dropping
an anvil on him, etc.). Jerry’s actions in particular were the most violent
since Tom was usually on the receiving end, whereas Jerry’s cunning allowed him
to avoid most of Tom’s machinations. The energy and violence gradually
increased when Hanna and Barbera took inspiration from the work of Tex Avery, who joined MGM in
1942.
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Mammy Two-Shoes going to clean up the mess from a chase. |
Notably, Tom and
Jerry very rarely spoke outside of when a gag would have a call for one of them
to have some dialogue (such as Tom crooning to a potential love interest). It
was up to the minor characters to provide voices during the productions,
otherwise the musical scores composed by Scott Bradley, which blended
several genres together, was used in place of sound effects and to illicit
emotions in various scenes.
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Production sketch of Mammy Two-Shoes wielding a broom. |
Minor characters
featured in the shorts included, as mentioned, Mammy. Mammy was never seen
above her shoulders except for a brief glimpse of her face in the short Saturday Evening Puss.
Spike (sometimes named Killer and Butch), first appearing in Dog Trouble (1942), and his son Tyke, first appearing in Love That Pup
(1949), were a pair of bulldogs that Tom frequently encountered in his
pursuits of Jerry. Spike started out as indiscriminately vicious, however
usually attacking Tom. Gradually, he began to speak voiced by Billy Bletcher and Daws Butler in a Jimmy Durante-type voice, and
was often incorporated into the shorts by Tom and Jerry’s antics spoiling
something Spike was doing (and since he usually took it out on Tom, Jerry would
set Spike off on purpose). Tyke, voiced by Michael Dobson, was introduced and
softened Spike’s character a bit and gave Jerry a new weapon against Tom, as
whenever Tyke would end up hurt by Jerry Tom would be on the receiving end of
the punishment.
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Spike and Tyke. |
Butch (Frank Graham) was a black alley
cat who served as both Tom’s friend and his rival to eat Jerry or win the
affections of attractive white female cat Toodles Galore. Both characters
initially appeared in Hugh Harman’s 1941 short The Alley Cat
before they were integrated into the Tom
and Jerry series. A smaller diaper-wearing mouse, whose name fluctuated
between Nibbles and Tuffy, was originally introduced in Our
Gang Comics #1, 1942, before
being integrated into the shorts with 1946’s The Milky Waif.
Originally presented as a peer to Jerry, eventually he was made into
Jerry’s nephew in 1953’s Life with Tom. While
the comic initially changed the name of its character to Nibbles to match the
shorts, in 1957 the shorts officially changed the name back to Tuffy. He was
voiced by Francoise Brun-Cottan
and Lucille Bliss.
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Butch about to shoot Tom. |
1950s budget
tightening slowed the pace of the cartoons some, but the shorts continued to be
popular. But when television began making a dent in box office receipts, MGM
began to take money-saving majors. Primarily, they went to an all-CinemaScope production, but
upon seeing their returns on re-releases of older shorts were the same as the
new ones, the studio decided to close their animation studio down in 1957. 114 Tom and Jerry shorts were produced, with
the last released the year after Hanna and Barbera would go on to open their
own animation studio, Hanna-Barbera
Productions. 13 of them were nominated and 7 won Academy Awards for “Best
Short Subject: Cartoons,” making them the winningest characters in any
theatrical-based animated series.
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The Deitch-era Tom with his new, more abusive owner. |
The moratorium was
short-loved, however, as MGM revived the franchise in 1961. They contracted
European studio Rembrandt
Films to produce 13 new shorts at their overseas studios. The shorts were
directed by Gene Deitch (who despised
the original cartoons), produced by William L. Snyder, and composed
by Štěpán Koníček (renamed
Steven Konichek in the credits by Deitch to avoid being linked to Communism)
and Václav Lídl (renamed
Victor Little) with vocal effects mostly provided by Allen Swift. The team had
only seen a few of the original shorts and was working on a significantly
smaller budget of only $10,000, resulting in their shorts being regarded as
unusually bizarre. Tom’s threat to Jerry was diminished by a new grumpy,
middle-aged man who would frequently punish Tom brutally for the pair’s antics.
The character motions were also performed at high speeds, resulting in motion
blurs rendering the animation choppy. When the shorts were completed, head of
production John Vogel was fired from MGM and the studio opted not to renew
Rembrandt’s contract.
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Jones-era Tom and Jerry in his distinctive style. |
Although they were
unfavorably reviewed and failed to win any awards, the Deitch cartoons were a
commercial success. In 1963, MGM made another attempt by hiring Chuck Jones to produce
more shorts. Jones had just been fired from Warner
Bros. Cartoons and formed his own studio, Sib Tower 12
Productions, with partner Les
Goldman. Tom’s design was tweaked, giving him thicker eyebrows and furrier
cheeks, sharper ears, a longer tail and a new gray-colored coat. Jerry’s ears
and eyes were increased in size, his fur became a lighter brown, and he was
given a sweeter facial expression.
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Jerry avoids being eaten. |
Jones co-directed most of the 34 shorts produced with
layout artist Maurice Noble,
infusing his own style of comedy (with some difficulty) into the classic
formula. Abe
Levitow and Ben Washam
directed several of the others, while Tom Ray directed two shorts using footage
from the original series. Mel
Blanc and June
Foray, who followed Jones from Warner Bros., provided the vocals used.
Jones’ most notable contribution was the new opening for the shorts, in which
Tom replaced the MGM lion and then became trapped in the “O” of his name. MGM,
who had purchased Jones’ studio and renamed it MGM Animation/Visual Arts,
ultimately ceased production on the series in 1967 and closed the studio
entirely in 1970.
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The chase continues on the small screen. |
Despite no further theatrical shorts being made, Tom and Jerry still had some mileage to
go on television. Specifically, on Saturday mornings.
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