KEY CREW BEHIND THE STAR: William (Bill) Hanna & Joseph (Joe) Barber (directors and writers)

CAREER HIGH: The team stars in the Oscar winning (their 6th) THE TWO MOUSEKETEERS (1951) where they fight for food and honor. Jerry gets the food; Tom gets the guillotine.

Tom and Jerry are the ultimate cat and mouse team, and the most honored cartoon characters in motion pictures. This long running pair have won a total of 7 Oscars for Best Animated Short Subject. Only a handful of live filmmakers have won more Oscar statuettes than Tom and Jerry. The only other multiple Oscar winning cartoon characters are Tweety (Pie) and Mr. Magoo, both with two each.

However their life as Cartoon Superstars has been as hectic off screen as on. Starting at MGM under the team of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, they were then assigned to foreign director Gene Deitch, Warners' Chuck Jones and then back to Hanna-Barbera for TV work before doing a stint at Filmation and finally resting once again at Hanna-Barbera. More than most cartoon superstars, Tom and Jerry have had a varied career due to changes in directors, studios and mediums. Their characters have been developed and re-developed over the past 50 years.

In their classic shorts, of the 1940s and 1950s, Tom and Jerry were some of the most violent of all cartoon stars. In an almost sadistic way, the animators found joy at bringing the most pain possible to Tom. The creators were not content to fall back upon the standard jokes of hitting the characters with heavy objects. Sharp objects ranging from forks and knives to guillotines as well as fire and exploding mice were all part of the arsenal used on Tom. Few 'toons have suffered as much as Tom did. (Unless it is Roger Rabbit, found elsewhere in this book, whose animated adventures can be traced almost directly to the violence found in the MGM Tom and Jerry shorts.)

However, Tom and Jerry are more than a violent, one-joke, cat-chases-mouse cartoon series. The natural cat and mouse conflict inspired many studios including Paramount's Herman and Katnip, Paul Terry's Little Roquefort and Percy and even Hanna- Barbera's Pixie and Dixie battling Mr. Jinks. None of these series have achieved the status of Tom and Jerry. This is due to Tom and Jerry having distinctive, if not firm personalities.

Like Mickey Mouse, Tom and Jerry are actors who are able to assume roles. They can appear in any situation. Their most common locale is a modern home. But they have appeared in many lands and many different time periods. They've chased each other everywhere from the wild west (in POSSE CAT) to the Hollywood Bowl (TOM AND JERRY IN THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL). Traveling in time, they've lived as French King's "Mouseketeers" (THE TWO MOUSEKETEERS) and classical composer Johann Strauss' pets (JOHANN MOUSE). They even appeared in several classic MGM musicals opposite such live actors as Gene Kelly and Esther Williams.

A key factor to their personalities is their relationship. Unlike such other chase series as the Coyote and Road Runner, there is a mutual admiration between Tom and Jerry. One even gets the sense that these characters could be friends in a different life.

However the Coyote shorts are similar to Tom and Jerry in that the key characters don't speak... generally. Though the rule was for silence, Tom, like the Coyote, did give voice occasionally. Jerry seldom spoke in the shorts, though he did talk and sing with Gene Kelly in the feature ANCHORS AWEIGH.

Tom's voice was always a surprise. There seemed to be no consensus for his sound, so each time he spoke it was different. In fact in SOLID SERENADE (1946) he speaks in four distinctly different voices! A standard, nondescript male voice is used when he's tempting the dog with a stick. He uses a deep French- accent when talking with the female cat. He be-bops a song in a throaty soul style. The final one is a low, growling laugh when he thinks he has cornered Jerry for good.

On top of these voices was the classic Tom scream. This was allegedly done by taking a scream and cutting off the start and finish so only the ultimate force is heard.

Tom is always put in the position of villain. He tries to stop Jerry from getting food. In THE MIDNIGHT SNACK (1941) Tom catches Jerry in the act of stealing food. Tom holds the mouse captive while he, himself, samples the goodies. He throws parties in the house when the humans are gone. He shows off in front of other characters by humiliating Jerry. He is also a very competent mouser. In fact, Tom is a self-confident character. Like Bugs Bunny, he tries to maintain control of any situation.

Jerry is often the foil. At the beginning of each short, he is often seen getting the worse of it. (This is a clue to the power of Tom.) A trusting character, Jerry is willing to believe Tom when the cat pretends to be friendly. However Jerry is not above taking full advantage of a situation to seek revenge on Tom. In QUIET PLEASE (1945) a dog threatens Tom's life if the house isn't kept quiet. Jerry immediately attempts to wake the dog with any variety of objects from a shotgun to falling dishes. Jerry also enjoys stirring up things between Tom and other characters.

So even though Jerry is the smaller of the two, he is definitely not innocent. In fact some people feel that Tom is a hero in the shorts, representing the everyman trying to put up with little annoyances that continue getting bigger. Even when Tom has obviously lost the battle, Jerry cannot resist creating one more painful moment for Tom.

A GAME OF CAT AND MOUSE BEGINS

As stated above, Tom and Jerry have gone through many creative hands. The Tom and Jerry everyone knows and loves were created during the golden days of animation at MGM. Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera had just joined the studio and had worked on several pictures when they were teamed on a cartoon featuring the old cat and mouse story. PUSS GETS THE BOOT (1940) featured a very round and shaggy looking Jasper (cat) and an even more rounded mouse.

In this cartoon, the standard set up of the cat trying to catch the mouse is utilized. Jasper ultimately fails and is kicked out for the night. The art style was still similar to the cuter Disney look. The pacing was good, but not noticeably different from other MGM cartoons.

At just this time, Tex Avery had joined the MGM staff. Whether his wild humor and bizarre takes (see Droopy elsewhere in this book) had any direct effect on Bill and Joe is unknown. However, it did show MGM that cartoons didn't have to look like Disney to be successful. Bill and Joe quickly built Tom and Jerry into one of the fastest, most violent, yet loving cartoon series ever created.

During their early years, Tom and Jerry slowly evolved into a true team. The artwork became more and more slick and stylized. Together Bill and Joe created a team not unlike Laurel and Hardy. More than mere adversaries, there is a camaraderie about them. This underlying (at times completely hidden) feeling of friendship, admiration and even concern is apparent in numerous of the classic shorts.

A year after their debut, Tom and Jerry received their first Oscar nomination for THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS (1941). It was their third film. Then in 1943 they won the first of their seven Oscars with YANKEE DOODLE MOUSE. The short features them in an explosive (thanks to fireworks) battle in basement.

Sensing Tom and Jerry were a hot team, MGM had Bill and Joe cranked them out almost as fast as Tom and Jerry battled. By the mid-1940s, they were releasing four to five shorts per year! This rapid release schedule no doubt figured in the ever increasing world of locales and co-stars. This pace continued into the 1950s.

Bill and Joe were assisted in the shorts by a number of top animation talent including Ed Barge, Ken Muse, Ray Patterson, Irv Spence and Jack Zander. Also key to the success of the shorts was the jazzy music orchestrated by Scott Bradley.

For almost 20 years Bill and Joe continued on this one series of fast paced, still loved cartoons. Seven Oscars later, Bill and Joe were released from the studio in 1957 due to a lessening interest in the studio producing cartoons. Hanna and Barbera then established their own company and began producing shows for TV.

TOM AND JERRY IN PRAGUE

With animation becoming popular on TV, studios began rethinking theatrical shorts. MGM decided to get back into the shorts business. They hired European director Gene Deitch in 1961. Deitch, who had done numerous cartoons including the popular Tom Terrific series, produced over a dozen Tom and Jerry cartoons overseas.

Gene Deitch's Tom and Jerry are definitely different than the classic shorts by Hanna and Barbera. Deitch allegedly only had a few of the classic shorts to show his foreign crew as examples. For that reason, these don't always follow much of the Tom and Jerry legend. They created their own additions to the legend.

Although the shorts were never as funny as the classics, they did have a quirky style all their own. Deitch was able to maintain the inner side of the characters by having them show occasional feelings. One of the more bizarre examples is in MOUSE INTO SPACE (1962) when Tom feels he's caused Jerry to leave. Tom is so full of despair, he takes to the bottle!

Deitch also did some experimentation with the team. Though THE TOM AND JERRY CARTOON KIT (1962) was not really successful, it is an amusing idea and sometimes has gags that pay off.

1962 saw the release of THE TOM AND JERRY FESTIVAL OF FUN. This was a theatrical feature created by editing together a number of the classic shorts of the Hanna and Barbera era. This and the new Deitch shorts proved somewhat successful, so MGM decided to move ahead.

TOM AND JERRY AND CHUCK JONES

MGM then decided to continue making cartoons in the U.S. In 1962 they hired famed Warner Brothers director Chuck Jones. Tom and Jerry were probably the first cartoon characters Chuck Jones ever inherited fully grown. All of his Warners characters were either developed by him (Pepe LePew, Road Runner & Coyote) or still early in their development (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig) when he began working with them.

Jones later said about the series, "I couldn't really draw Tom very well; I had to turn him into a different cat really. So I purposefully said 'The hell with him.' And I tried to keep Jerry attractive personally, more like the Road Runner, in that he never really hurt Tom in my version."

The new team tried to make the concept work, but they never seemed to find the right combination of elements. Jones tried to use some of his Coyote and Road Runner themes, but they failed because Tom and Jerry operate under different desires.

No one can fault Jones for failing to come up to the high standards set over a decade before he took on the characters. Jones does deserve credit for creating some of the most graphically interesting Tom and Jerry shorts with the help of layout man Maurice Noble.

Jones' crew was also the team that removed "Mammy Two Shoes" from the cartoons. Mammy was the maid of the house that Tom lived in. She was generally only seen from the knees down and often shuffled through her scenes. When Jerry frightened her, everything from dice to switchblades might fall from her bloomers. When MGM became sensitive to the issue of racial stereotypes, they had Jones and company animate white legs over the previously black ones.

Phil Roman, one of those who did the new legs remembers the task. "We were brought in and spent days rotoscoping and re- animating the legs so that they would be thin and white; not thick and black. When we asked what they would do about the Black accent, they told us they were going to put a funny Irish voice in. We guessed it was all right to make fun of the Irish!"

MGM again closed their animation studio. It was 1967.

TOM AND JERRY COME TO TV

In 1965, the Hanna and Barbera Tom and Jerry cartoons were put on CBS's Saturday morning schedule. They ran on the network until 1972. Though they were well received in the ratings, parent groups criticized the highly violent nature of the shorts. 1975 saw the team revived when Hanna-Barbera, now one of the most successful TV animation studios, acquired the rights to produce new Tom and Jerry cartoons for Saturday Morning. Sadly, times had changed... and so had the creators. The team debuted in THE NEW TOM AND JERRY/GRAPE APE SHOW (1975) very much in tune with TV standards.

What Hanna-Barbera did was re-create Tom and Jerry for TV. The pair were changed into a sort of a silent Yogi Bear and Boo Boo. (Jerry even ended up wearing a bow tie.) Always buddies, the team wandered around the world. Tom and Jerry would often stare at each other, puzzled, as talking characters babbled on around them. No doubt old Tom and Jerry fans were equally puzzled, if not a little disappointed. Even Joe Barbera commented that he yearned for a return to the old days so that "when a cat chases a mouse, he doesn't have to stop and teach him how to blow glass or weave a basket."

Next to acquire the team was Filmation. They produced THE TOM AND JERRY COMEDY SHOW (1980). This series returned Tom and Jerry to being adversaries, but that was about the only saving grace. Tom and Jerry without speed and violence are not Tom and Jerry. It was like the Marx Brothers without Groucho.

In 1987, Turner Entertainment Company and Hanna-Barbera Productions announced a full length feature animated Tom and Jerry feature film. During pre-production, the studio admitted they were having difficulty developing a lengthy story for two characters who didn't speak. In late 1989, it was announced that Hanna-Barbera and Turner had put the project on the "back burner."

New for 1990 are TOM AND JERRY KIDS from Ted Turner and Hanna-Barbera. The team seems to have been to the same fountain of youth that the Muppets, the Flintstones and other characters have visited. How audiences will react to them is still not known.

TOM AND JERRY'S CO-STARS

Even though Tom and Jerry were the series stars, their co- stars sometimes garnered as much screen time as the team. Some even went on to their own shorts. The most recognized of their co-stars would be Spike and Tyke. Spike, a bulldog, menaced Tom almost from the start. Originally given a number of names like "Killer," he ended up with the moniker Spike and acquired a son, Tyke. A single parent, Spike was overly protective and proud of his young boy. This pair even starred in a few of their own shorts as well as series of stories in the Tom and Jerry comic books.

Jerry obtained a nephew called Nibbles or Tuffy, depending on the short. This tiny mouse was generally always hungry and frequently spoke. He was more prominent in the comic books as it gave Jerry someone to talk to.

Both characters had a series of relatives who would visit, and who were usually the opposite of their own personality. Tom's relations were often weak-kneed scaredy cats, while Jerry's family tree seemed to be largely made up of tough cat fighters. (The notable exception being the almost infant-like Nibbles mentioned above.)

Another semi-regular role was Tom's romantic interest. However there was no consistency here. Tom, living up to the Tom cat reputation, was always looking for new ladies.

THE ORIGINAL "TOM AND JERRY"

Actually, Tom and Jerry didn't start out as a cat and mouse. From 1931 to 1933 there was a series of cartoons featuring two humans called "Tom" and "Jerry." This series was produced by the Van Beuren studio in New York. The shorts were filled with wild surreal humor similar to the early Fleischer cartoons (Betty Boop, Popeye) and silent Felix the Cat cartoons. When the cartoons were later sold to TV, the characters were renamed "Dick and Larry" to avoid confusion with the now famous cat and mouse. Of some interest was one of the writers on that old series... Joe Barbera.

OTHER LIVES

Tom and Jerry have recently seen a rebirth in the merchandising field, but this cat and mouse have always been around in one form or another. In the 1940s and 1950s there were a number of toys produced on the pair. Today, MGM/Turner is beginning a whole new push to merchandise the characters. To attract new customers, they are updating the characters by dressing them in modern clothes.

They debuted in comic books in the first issue of Our Gang Comics (1942). By 1949 they had taken over the title and continued on with it up through 1982. The pair also appeared in a wide variety of children's books. Tom and Jerry also appeal to adults as evidenced by the ceramic figures, music boxes and a very expensive French book devoted to the duo.

SUPERSTAR QUALITY

Luckily, the best of Tom and Jerry are still available to viewers through constant repeats and a growing number of videocassettes. And in a way, videocassettes are the best way to view the team nowadays. That way every ax, every live wire, every gruesome action will be found intact. They were the ultimate cat-and-mouse pairing that set standards unreached by most other cartoon characters.

CREATOR QUOTES

"Hanna-Barbera handled the characters beautifully, much better than I did." - Chuck Jones

"We asked ourselves what would be a normal conflict between characters provoking comedy while retaining a basic situation from which we could continue to generate fresh plots and stories. We almost decided on a dog and a fox before we hit on the idea of using a cat and mouse." - William Hanna

"Some citizens for the protection of children of the world have decided cartoons are evil, that they're violent and full of mayhem. We showed the network folks five of the old Tom and Jerrys and they laughed so hard they had tears in their eyes. Then they said, 'We can't use them. If we put those on we'll get killed.'" - Joe Barbera

"For example, Jerry might drive a golf ball right through Tom's teeth and all of Tom's teeth would break and fall out. To me, that's pretty painful." - Chuck Jones

THE OSCAR WINNERS:
YANKEE DOODLE MOUSE (1943)
MOUSE TROUBLE (1944)
QUIET PLEASE (1945)
THE CAT CONCERTO (1946)
THE LITTLE ORPHAN (1948)
THE TWO MOUSEKETEERS (1951)
JOHANN MOUSE (1952)