Midnight Stab

The expressions are the highlights of the early Tom and Jerry cartoons. You always know what the cat and mouse are thinking. In the climax of The Midnight Snack, Tom jumps on an ironing board to get Jerry only to get his tail caught in it. He realises his predicament, then does a head-shake take as he realises Jerry is trotting off into the kitchen to grab a barbecue fork.



The cat knows what’s next, even though this is only his second cartoon. He’s going to get stabbed in the butt, go flying across (and breaking) everything in front of him and land in the fridge.



Here’s how the Lillian Randolph housekeeper finds him when she opens the fridge door.



This whole sequence takes almost a minute, which shows you Bill Hanna was still using Rudy Ising-style lumbering pacing (the cartoon runs nine minutes).