Mistletoe Bait

Jack Zander animates one of my favourite sequences in a Tom and Jerry cartoon in The Night Before Christmas. It’s when Jerry holds out the mistletoe to try to con Tom into giving him the traditional kiss. It works. Then Jerry kicks his the cat’s butt into the air.

There isn’t a huge range of emotions but just enough to make the scene charming.



Zander left for war service and when he got out, worked in New York City for Willard Pictures, and then Transfilm before opening his own commercial studio(s) on the East Coast. He died five months short of his 100th birthday in 2007.