Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Tom and Jerry
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
===Tom and Jerry=== {{Main|Tom Cat|Jerry Mouse}} [[Tom Cat|Tom]], named "Jasper" in his debut appearance, is a gray and white [[Domestic short-haired cat|domestic shorthair cat]]. "Tom" is a generic name for a male cat. He is usually but not always, portrayed as living a comfortable, or even pampered life, while [[Jerry Mouse|Jerry]], whose name is not explicitly mentioned in his debut appearance, is a small, brown [[house mouse]] who always lives in close proximity to Tom. Despite being very energetic, determined and much larger, Tom is no match for Jerry's wits. Jerry possesses surprising strength for his size, approximately the equivalent of Tom's, lifting items such as anvils with relative ease and withstanding considerable impacts.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Origins of Tom & Jerry |url=https://thelondonmagazine.org/article/the-origins-of-tom-jerry/ |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=The London Magazine |language=en-GB}}</ref> Although cats typically chase mice to eat them, it is quite rare for Tom to actually try to eat Jerry. He tries to hurt or compete with him just to taunt Jerry, even as revenge, or to obtain a reward from a human, including his owner(s)/master(s), for catching Jerry, or for generally doing his job well as a house cat. By the final "fade-out" of each cartoon, Jerry usually gets the best of Tom. Other results may be reached. On rare occasions, Tom triumphs, usually when Jerry becomes the aggressor or he pushes Tom a little too far. In ''[[The Million Dollar Cat]]'', Jerry learns that Tom will lose his newly acquired wealth if he harms any animal, especially mice. He then torments Tom a little too much until he retaliates. In ''[[Timid Tabby]]'' Tom's look-alike cousin pushes Jerry over the edge. Occasionally and usually ironically, they both lose, usually because Jerry's last trap or attack on Tom backfires on him or he overlooks something. In Chuck Jones' ''[[Filet Meow]]'', Jerry orders a shark from the pet store to scare Tom away from eating a goldfish. Afterward, the shark scares Jerry away as well. They occasionally end up being friends, although there is often a last-minute event that ruins the truce. One cartoon that has a friendly ending is ''[[Snowbody Loves Me]]''. Both characters display [[Sadism and masochism|sadistic]] tendencies, in that they are equally likely to take pleasure in tormenting each other, although it is often in response to a triggering event. However, when one character appears to truly be in mortal danger from an unplanned situation or due to actions by a third party, the other will develop a conscience and save him. Occasionally, they bond over a mutual sentiment towards an unpleasant experience and their attacking each other is more play than serious attacks. Multiple shorts show the two getting along with minimal difficulty, and they are more than capable of working together when the situation calls for it, usually against a third party who manages to [[torture]] and humiliate them both. Sometimes this partnership is forgotten quickly when an unexpected event happens, or when one character feels that the other is no longer necessary. This is the case in ''[[Posse Cat]]'', when they agree that Jerry will allow himself to be caught if Tom agrees to share his reward dinner, but Tom then reneges. Other times, Tom keeps his promise to Jerry and the partnerships are not quickly dissolved after the problem is solved. Tom changes his love interest many times. The first love interest is Toots who appears in ''Puss n' Toots'', and calls him "Tommy" in ''The Mouse Comes to Dinner''. He is interested in a cat called Toots in ''The Zoot Cat'' although she has a different appearance to the original Toots. The most frequent love interest of Tom's is [[Toodles Galore]], who never has any dialogue in the cartoons. Despite five shorts ending with a depiction of Tom's apparent death, his [[Comic book death|demise is never permanent]]. He even reads about his own death in a flashback in ''Jerry's Diary''. He appears to die in explosions in ''[[Mouse Trouble]]'', after which he is seen in [[heaven]], ''[[Yankee Doodle Mouse]]'' and in ''Safety Second'', while in ''[[The Two Mouseketeers]]'' he is guillotined [[offscreen]]. The short ''[[Blue Cat Blues]]'' ends with both Tom and Jerry sitting on the railroad tracks with the intent of [[suicide]] while the whistle of an oncoming train is heard foreshadowing their imminent death. ====Tom and Jerry speaking==== Although many supporting and minor characters speak, Tom and Jerry rarely do so themselves. One exception is ''The Lonesome Mouse'' where they speak several times briefly, primarily Jerry, to contrive to get Tom back into the house. Tom more often sings while wooing female cats. For example, Tom sings [[Louis Jordan]]'s "[[Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby]]" in the 1946 short ''[[Solid Serenade]]''. In that short and ''Zoot Cat'', Tom woos female cats using a deep, heavily French-accented voice in imitation of then-popular leading man, actor [[Charles Boyer]]. At the end of ''The Million Dollar Cat'', after beginning to antagonize Jerry he says, "Gee, I'm throwin' away a million dollars... BUT I'M HAPPY!". In ''[[Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring]]'', Jerry says, "No, no, no, no, no." when choosing the shop to remove his ring. In ''The Mouse Comes to Dinner'', Tom speaks to his girlfriend Toots while inadvertently sitting on a stove: "Say, what's cookin'?", to which Toots replies "You are, stupid." Another instance of speech comes in ''Solid Serenade'' and ''The Framed Cat'', where Tom directs Spike through a few dog tricks in a dog-trainer manner. In ''[[Puss Gets the Boot]]'', Jerry prays for his life when Tom catches him by the tail. Jerry has whispered in Tom's ear on several occasions. In ''Love Me, Love My Mouse'', Jerry calls Toots "Mama". Co-director William Hanna provided most of the squeaks, gasps, and other vocal effects for the pair, including the most famous sound effects from the series, Tom's leather-lunged scream, created by recording Hanna's scream and eliminating the beginning and ending of the recording, leaving only the strongest part of the scream on the soundtrack, and Jerry's nervous gulp. The only other reasonably common vocalization is made by Tom when some external reference claims a certain scenario or eventuality to be impossible, which inevitably thwarts Tom's plans β at which point, a bedraggled and battered Tom appears and says in a haunting, echoing voice "Don't you believe it!", a reference to the then-popular 1940s radio show ''[[Don't You Believe It!]]''.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.day3media.com/DontYouBelieveIt.mp3 |title=Sample audio: introduction to an episode of ''Don't You Believe It!'', January 4, 1947 (mp3 audio) |access-date=October 1, 2013 |archive-date=August 21, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160821115141/http://www.day3media.com/DontYouBelieveIt.mp3 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20131005035853/http://www.myoldradio.com/old-radio-episodes/don-t-you-believe-it-ep-154/1 Recording of ''Don't You Believe It!'' from January 4, 1947. ''My Old Radio Show''. Retrieved October 2, 2013]</ref> In ''Mouse Trouble'', Tom says "Don't you believe it!" after being beaten up by Jerry, which also happens in ''The Missing Mouse''. In the 1946 short ''Trap Happy'', Tom hires a [[Butch (Tom and Jerry)|cat]] disguised as a mouse exterminator who, after several failed attempts to dispatch Jerry and suffering a lot of accidents in the process, changes profession to ''Cat'' exterminator by crossing out the "Mouse" on his title and writing "CAT", resulting in Tom spelling out the word out loud before reluctantly pointing at himself. One short, 1956's ''Blue Cat Blues'', is narrated by Jerry in [[VoiceOver]], voiced by [[Paul Frees]], as they try to win back their ladyfriends. Jerry was voiced by [[Sara Berner]] during his appearance in the 1945 MGM musical ''[[Anchors Aweigh (film)|Anchors Aweigh]]''. ''[[Tom and Jerry: The Movie]]'' is the first, and so far only installment of the series where the famous cat-and-mouse duo regularly speaks or is able to be understood by humans. In that film, Tom was voiced by [[Richard Kind]], and Jerry was voiced by [[Dana Hill]].
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)