Tom and Jerry were an animated cat (Tom) and mouse
(Jerry) team who formed the basis of a massively
successful series of theatrical short cartoons
created, written, and directed by animators
William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (later of
Hanna-Barbera fame), and produced by Metro-Goldwyn
Mayer from 1940 to 1958. MGM later had more Tom &
Jerry cartoons produced by outside studios in the
1960s (Gene Deitch's Rembrandt Films from 1961 to
1962, and Chuck Jones' Sib Tower 12 Productions
from 1963 to 1967). Tom and Jerry later resurfaced
in TV cartoons produced by Hanna-Barbera
Productions (1975-1977; 1990-1993) and Filmation
Studios (1980 - 1982). The original Hanna and
Barbera shorts are notable for having won seven
Academy Awards, tying it with Walt Disney's Silly
Symphonies as the most-awarded theatrical cartoon
series.

Plot and format
The plots of each short usually center on Tom's
frustrated attempts to catch Jerry, and the mayhem
and destruction that ensues. Because they seem to
get along in some cartoon shorts (at least in the
first minute or so), it is unclear why Tom chases
Jerry so much, but some reasons given may
include:

normal feline hunger 
duty (often it is Tom's job, as a house cat, to
catch mice and failure would equal eviction) 
the simple enjoyment of tormenting him 
revenge 
a misunderstanding (especially in shorts that
start with them ambivalent or friendly to each
other) 
a conflict when both of them want the same thing
(usually food) 
a need to have Jerry out of the way 
However, Tom usually never succeeds in defeating
Jerry, mainly because of Jerry's own craftiness
and cunning, but sometimes because of Tom's own
stupidity. The shorts are famous for using some of
the most destructive and violent gags ever devised
for theatrical animation: Jerry slicing Tom in
half, Tom using everything from axes, pistols,
rifles, dynamite, and poison to try and murder
Jerry, Jerry stuffing Tom's tail in a waffle
iron, and so on. The Simpsons's
"cartoon-within-a-cartoon", Itchy and Scratchy,
mercilessly parodies the violence of Tom and Jerry
by featuring even more extreme violence.

Neither Tom nor Jerry usually speak in the
cartoons. There are brief exceptions, but their
vocals are generally restricted to screams of pain
(almost entirely from Tom), or nervous gulps.
Facial expressions and gestures easily convey the
characters' feelings and intentions. Tom
occasionally displays a surprising singing
ability, usually to attract a lady friend. This is
excusable as it generally copies a famous crooner,
and is perhaps a reference of cats yowling during
the night.

Music plays a very important part in the shorts,
emphasising the action and lending appropriate
emotion to the scenes. Musical director Scott
Bradley created complex scores that combined
elements of jazz, classical, and pop music;
Bradley often reprised actual contemporary pop
songs, as well as songs from MGM films such as The
Wizard of Oz and Meet Me In St. Louis.

Before 1953, all Tom and Jerry cartoons were
produced in the standard Academy ratio and format;
from 1953 to 1956 some of the output was dually
produced in both Academy format and the widescreen
CinemaScope process. From 1956 until the close of
the MGM animation studio a year later, all Tom and
Jerry cartoons were produced in CinemaScope; some
even had their soundtracks recorded in stereo. The
1960s Gene Deitch and Chuck Jones shorts were all
produced in Academy format, but with compositions
that made them compatible to be matted to Academy
widescreen format as well. All of the Hanna and
Barbera cartoons were produced in three-strip
Technicolor; the 1960s entries were done in
Metrocolor.


Characters

Tom and Jerry
Tom is a grey house cat who lives a pampered life,
whilst Jerry is a small brown mouse who always
lives in close proximity to him. Tom is very
quick-tempered and thin-skinned, whilst Jerry is
independent and opportunistic. Though very
energetic and determined, Tom is no match for
Jerry's brains and wits. By the iris-out of each
cartoon, Jerry is usually left in a triumphant
situation and Tom in a bad one. However, many
other results have been reached: on rare
occasions, Tom triumphs. Sometimes, usually
ironically, they both lose. Once in a while,
particularly at Christmas, Tom may actually save
Jerry's life, or at least share gifts with him.

Both characters display sadistic tendencies, in
that they are equally likely to take pleasure in
tormenting each other. However, unlike Jerry, Tom
has an enormously powerful conscience, and often
panics if he thinks that Jerry is seriously
injured, dying or dead. Jerry sometimes uses this
to his advantage.

Although many supporting and minor characters
speak, Tom and Jerry rarely do so. Tom, most
famously, sings while wooing female cats; for
example, he lip-syncs Louis Jordan's "Is You Is
Or Is You Ain't My Baby" in the 1946 short Solid
Serenade. His most noted spoken line occurs in
three different shorts where Tom clearly says in
an eerie, echoing voice "don't you believe it".
Co-director William Hanna provides most of the
squeaks, gasps, and other vocal effects for the
pair, including the most famous sound effect from
the series, Tom's leather-lunged scream (created
by recording Hanna's scream and chopping the head
and tail off of the recording, leaving only the
strongest part of the scream on the soundtrack).


Other characters
In his attempts to catch Jerry, Tom often has to
deal with the intrusions of characters such as
Butch, a scruffy black alley cat who also wants to
catch and eat Jerry; Spike (sometimes billed as
"Killer"), a vicious guard bulldog who tries to
beat up the cat; and "Mammy-Two-Shoes", Tom's
African American owner (voiced by Lillian
Randolph), who usually wallops the cat with a
broom when he misbehaves.

In the late 1940s, Jerry adopted a little grey
mouse foundling named Nibbles (also known as
"Tuffy"). During the 1950s, Spike is shown to
have a son of his own named Tyke, an addition that
lead to both a slight softening of Spike's
character and a short-lived spin-off theatrical
series (Spike and Tyke). Tyke's appearance also
gave Jerry one more weapon against Tom, as
disturbing Tyke was sure to bring Spike's wrath
down on the apparent culprit, usually Tom.
Occasionally Spike spoke, so to speak, using a
voice and expressions modelled after Jimmy
Durante, as in "Dat's my boy!".


History and evolution

The Hanna-Barbera years
William Hanna and Joseph Barbera were both part of
the Rudolf Ising unit at MGM's animation studio
in late 1930s. Barbera, a storyman and character
designer, was paired with Hanna, an experienced
director, to start directing films for the Ising
unit; the first of which was a cat-and-mouse
cartoon called Puss Gets the Boot (completed in
late 1939, and released to theatres on February
20, 1940), Puss Gets The Boot centers around
Jasper, a grey tabby cat trying to catch Jinx, a
cute little mouse, but without breaking anything;
Jasper's owner Mammy has threatened to throw
Jasper out ("O-U-W-T, out!") if he breaks one
more thing in the house. Naturally, Jinx uses this
to his advantage, and begins tossing wine glasses,
ceramic plates, tea pots, and any and everything
fragile, so that Jasper will get thrown outside.
Puss Gets The Boot was previewed and released
without fanfare, and Hanna and Barbera went on to
direct other (non-cat-and-mouse related) shorts;
after all, said many of the MGM staffers, haven't
there been enough cat-and-mouse cartoons already?

The pessimistic attitude towards Jasper and Jinx
changed when the cartoon became a favorite with
theatre owners and with the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences, which nominated the
film for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject:
Cartoons of 1941. Another competitor for the award
was Tex Avery's Merrie Melodies cartoon A Wild
Hare, which featured the first appearance of the
mature form of Bugs Bunny. Both nominees lost to
another MGM cartoon, Rudolph Ising's The Milky
Way.

However producer Fred Quimby, who ran the MGM
animation studio, quickly pulled Hanna and Barbera
off of the other one-shot cartoons they were
working on, and commissioned a series featuring
the cat and mouse. Hanna and Barbera held an
intra-studio contest to give the pair a new name;
animator John Carr won with his suggestion of
"Tom and Jerry." The Tom and Jerry series went
into production with The Midnight Snack in 1941,
and Hanna and Barbera never helmed anything but
the cat-and-mouse cartoons for the rest of their
tenure at MGM.

 
Tom & Jerry in the 1946 Academy Award winning
cartoon The Cat ConcertoTom's physical appearance
evolved significantly over the years. During the
early 1940s, Tom had an excess of detail--shaggy
fur, numerous facial wrinkles, and multiple
eyebrow markings--all of which were streamlined
into a more workable form by the end of the 1940s;
Jerry stayed essentially the same for the duration
of the series. By the mid-1940s, the series had
developed a quicker, more energetic (and violent)
tone, thanks to inspiration from the work of MGM
Animation colleague Tex Avery, who joined the
studio in 1942.

Even though the basic theme of each short is
virtually the same, Hanna and Barbera found
endless variations on that theme. Barbera's
storyboards and rough layouts and designs,
combined with Hanna's timing, resulted in the
most popular, successful, and highly acclaimed
series the MGM animation department ever had. 13
entries in the Tom and Jerry series (excluding
Puss Gets The Boot) were nominated for the Academy
Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons; seven of
them went on to win the Academy Award, breaking
the Disney studio's winning streak in that
category. Tom and Jerry won more Academy Awards
than any other character-based theatrical animated
series.

Tom and Jerry remained popular throughout their
original theatrical run, even when the budgets
began to tighten a little in the 1950s and the
pace of the shorts slowed slightly. However, after
television became popular in the 1950s, box office
revenues decreased for theatrical films, and short
subjects. At first, MGM combated this by going to
all-CinemaScope production on the series; but
after the MGM accountants realized that their
re-releases of the older shorts brought in just as
much revenue as the new films, the studio
executives decided, much to the surprise of the
staff, to close the animation studio. The MGM
animation department was shut down in 1957, and
the final of the 115 Hanna and Barbera Tom and
Jerry shorts, Tot Watchers, was released on August
1, 1958. Hanna and Barbera started their own
television animation studio, Hanna-Barbera
Productions, in 1957, which went on to produce
such popular shows as The Flintstones, The
Jetsons, and Scooby-Doo.


The Gene Deitch era
In 1960, MGM decided that they wanted to produce
new Tom and Jerry shorts again, and had producer
William Snyder make an arrangement with Czech
animation director Gene Deitch and Deitch's
studio, Rembrandt Films, to make the films
overseas in Prague, Czechoslovakia. The
Deitch/Snyder team turned out 13 shorts, all
released in 1961 and 1962. The Deitch shorts are
generally considered as being the worst of the Tom
and Jerry theatrical shorts, although some have an
affinity for their surreal qualities.

Since the Deitch/Snyder team only saw a handful of
the original Tom and Jerry shorts, the films that
resulted from the arrangement were considered
unusual and, in many ways, bizarre. The
characters' gestures were often performed at a
high rate of speed, often resulting in heavy
motion blur. The soundtracks featured sparse
music, spacey sound effects, dioalgue that was
mumbled rather than spoken, and featured heavy
uses of reverb.

Also notable is the fact that these shorts are the
only Tom and Jerry cartoons not to carry the
phrase "Made In Hollywood, U.S.A." at the end.
Due to Deitch's studio being behind the Iron
Curtain, the production studio's location is
omitted entirely.


The Chuck Jones era
After the last of the Deitch cartoons were
released, MGM turned to American director Chuck
Jones, who had just ended his thirty-plus year
tenure at the Warner Bros. Animation Department
and started his own animation studio, Sib Tower 12
Productions, with partner Les Goldman. Jones and
Goldman went on to produce 34 more Tom and Jerry
shorts starting in 1963, all of which carried
Jones' distinctive style (and a slight
psychedelic influence), but with varying degrees
of critical success. Jones co-directed around half
of the shorts with Maurice Noble; the remaining
shorts were directed by Abe Levitow. MGM ceased
production of animated shorts in 1967, by which
time Sib Tower 12 had become part of MGM, and
Jones had already begun to move on to television
specials and the feature film The Phantom
Tollbooth.


Tom and Jerry hit television
Beginning in 1965, the Hanna and Barbera Tom and
Jerry films began to appear on television in
heavily edited form: the Jones team was required
to take the shorts that featured Mammy, rotoscope
her out, and replace her with a thin white woman.
Lillian Randolph's original voice tracks were
replaced with June Foray performing in an Irish
accent. Much of the extreme violence in the
cartoons was also edited out. Starting out on
CBS' Saturday Morning schedule on September 25,
1965, Tom and Jerry moved to CBS Sundays two years
later and remained there until September 17,
1972.

 
The title card for Hanna-Barbera's 1975 Tom and
Jerry ShowWhen shown on television in the United
Kingdom (from the late 1960s, usually on the BBC)
Tom and Jerry cartoons were not cut for violence
and Mammy was retained. As well as having regular
slots, Tom and Jerry served the BBC in another
way. When faced with disruption to the schedules
(such as those occurring when live broadcasts
overrun), the BBC would invariably turn to Tom and
Jerry to fill any gaps, confident that it would
retain much of an audience that might otherwise
channel hop.

In 1975, Tom and Jerry were reunited with Hanna
and Barbera, who produced new Tom and Jerry
cartoons for Saturday morning. These 48 7-minute
short cartoons were paired with Grape Ape and
Mumbly cartoons, to create The New Tom &
Jerry/Grape Ape Show, The Tom & Jerry/Grape
Ape/Mumbly Show, and The Tom & Jerry/Mumbly Show,
all of which ran on ABC Saturday Morning from
September 6, 1975 to September 3, 1977. In these
cartoons, Tom and Jerry (with red bow tie), who
had been enemies during their formative years,
became nonviolent pals who went on adventures
together, as H-B had to meet the stringent rules
against violence for children's TV.

In 1980, Filmation Studios (in association with
MGM Television) also tried their hands at
producing a Tom and Jerry TV cartoon series, this
one called The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show and also
featuring new cartoons starring MGM cartoon star
Droopy, and supporting characters such as Spike
and Barney Bear, not seen since the original MGM
productions. Although they returned Tom and Jerry
to the original chase formula, the Filmation
cartoons were of noticeably lesser quality than
Hanna-Barbera's efforts; this incarnation lasted
on CBS Saturday Morning from September 6, 1980 to
September 4, 1982.

One of the biggest trends for Saturday morning
television in the 1980s and 1990s was the
"babyfication" of older, classic cartoon stars,
and on September 8, 1990, Tom and Jerry Kids,
produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in
association with Turner Entertainment, debuted on
FOX, featuring a youthful version of the famous
cat-and-mouse duo chasing each other. Spike and
his son Tyke, and Droopy and his son Dripple,
appeared in back-up segments for the show, which
ran until October 2, 1993.


Tom & Jerry's new owners
In 1986, MGM was purchased by Ted Turner. Turner
sold the company in 1988, but retained MGM's film
library, thus Tom and Jerry became the property of
Turner Entertainment (where the rights stand today
via Warner Bros.), and have in subsequent years
appeared on Turner-run stations, such as TBS, TNT,
Cartoon Network, Boomerang, and Turner Classic
Movies.


Feature films
In 1945, Jerry made an appearance in the
live-action MGM musical feature film Anchors
Aweigh, in which, through the use of special
effects, he performs a dance routine with Gene
Kelly. In this sequence, Gene Kelly is telling a
class of school kids a fictional tale of how he
earned his medal of honor. Jerry is the king of a
magical world populated with cartoon animals, whom
he has forbidden to dance as he himself does not
know how. Gene Kelly's character then comes along
and guides Jerry through an elaborate dance
routine, resulting in Jerry awarding him with a
medal. Jerry speaks and sings in this film; his
voice is performed by Sara Berner. Tom has a cameo
in the sequence as one of Jerry's servants.

1992 saw the overseas release of Tom and Jerry:
The Movie, produced by Film Roman, was released to
United States theatres in 1993 by Miramax. A
musical in the typical Disney-esque vein, Tom and
Jerry: The Movie was criticized by reviewers and
audiences alike for being unoriginal, predictable,
and for giving Tom and Jerry dialogue (and songs)
through the entire film. The movie did poor
business in America. In 2001, Warner Bros. which
had by then merged with Turner and assumed most of
its properties, released the direct-to-video movie
The Magic Ring, in which Tom covets a ring that
Jerry wears on his head that will give him
mystical powers.


Other formats
Tom and Jerry began appearing in comic books in
1942, as one of the features in Our Gang Comics.
In 1949, with MGM's live-action Our Gang shorts
long out of production, the series was renamed Tom
and Jerry Comics. The pair continued to appear in
various books for the rest of the 20th century.

The pair have also appeared in a number of video
games as well, including:

Tom and Jerry for Nintendo Entertainment System 
Tom and Jerry: The Movie for Sega Game Gear 
Tom and Jerry for Super Nintendo & Sega Genesis 
Tom and Jerry: Mouse Attacks for Game Boy Color 
Tom and Jerry: Infurnal Escape for the Game Boy
Advance 
Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring for the Game Boy
Advance 
Tom and Jerry: War of the Whiskers for the
PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Nintendo GameCube 
Tom and Jerry: House Trap for the PlayStation 
Tom and Jerry: Fists of Furry for Nintendo 64 and
PC 

Trivia
A 2005 nationwide survey taken in Japan by TV
Asashi, sampling age groups from teenagers to
adults in their sixties, in 2005 ranked Tom and
Jerry #85 in a list of the top 100 anime of all
time. A web poll taken after the airing of the
list ranked it at #58. [1] 
In the Philippines, residents sometimes call the
cartoon series Wowowee. 

The Oscar-winning shorts
The following cartoons won the Academy Award for
Best Short Subject: Cartoons:

1943: The Yankee Doodle Mouse 
1944: Mouse Trouble 
1945: Quiet, Please! 
1946: The Cat Concerto 
1948: The Little Orphan 
1952: The Two Mouseketeers 
1953: Johann Mouse see (Johann Strauss II) 
These cartoons were nominated for the Academy
Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons, but did
not win:

1940: Puss Gets the Boot (Jasper and Jinx) 
1941: The Night Before Christmas 
1947: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse 
1949: Hatch Up Your Troubles 
1951: Jerry's Cousin 
1954: Touché, Pussy Cat! 

Compare To
Herman and Katnip 
Itchy & Scratchy (from The Simpsons) 

References
Barrier, Michael (1999). Hollywood Cartoons:
American Animation in Its Golden Age. Oxford:
Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-503759-6. 
Maltin, Leonard (1980, updated 1987). Of Mice and
Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons.
New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-452-25993-2. 

External links
Randy's Tom & Jerry Cartoon Information Site 
Aaron's New Tom & Jerry Information Site 
Tom & Jerry Online 
Cartoon Network: Tom & Jerry 
Tom and Jerry: The Movie official website 
Ford Mondeo - Tom and Jerry - TV Advert 
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