Tom and Jerry (cartoon)
See Tom and Jerry for other uses of the phrase "Tom and Jerry".
Animated cat (Tom) and mouse (Jerry) team who formed the basis of a massively successful series of cartoons made by animators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, first for MGM's Fred Quimby from the 1940s to the 1960s, then again, for their own company in the mid-1970s. The plot usually consists of Tom's frustrated attempts to eat Jerry, and the mayhem and destruction that ensues. Often Tom has to deal with the intrusions of a scuzzy black alley cat named Butch, who also wants to eat Jerry, Spike (sometimes billed as "Killer"), a vicious guard dog who in later shorts was moderately softened into an overprotective father when son Tyke was added, and Mammy, his black owner, who usually whallops Tom with a broom when he misbehaves. Prints with Mammy's original undubbed voice are fairly rare, as she is considered a racist character.
The cat-and-mouse duo began life as a Harman-Ising short, "Puss Gets the Boot", in 1940. Tom was then called "Jasper"; the mouse had no name. "Puss" was nominated for an Oscar. They later appeared in their own shorts through the fifties and into the sixties and seventies. Bill Hanna provided Tom's leather-lunged howls of agony whenever the cat was burned, stabbed in the bottom, or struck in the head by Jerry.
Tom's appearance evolved as different artists drew him and other directors helmed his pictures--in early shorts, he had a white stripe between his eyes, and there was a period in the fifties which his whiskers tapered together into a vaudevillain mustache. The Gene Dietch cartoons are characterized by bizarre sound effects and a surreal art style, the Chuck Jones-directed shorts seem to turn Tom into a Claude Cat or a Wile E. Coyote retread, and the Filmation period shorts are characterized by precious little violence, flat jerky animation and clunky scores.
Tom and Jerry also appeared in a series of comic books.
Jerry appeared without Tom in the film Anchors Away (1945), in which he performed a dance routine with Gene Kelly.
The music for all the Tom and Jerry cartoons up to 1958 was written by Scott Bradley.
