Borrowing

Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera weren’t above re-using and borrowing, even before opening their own studio. The Tom and Jerry series went on and on and, after a while, new ideas get harder and harder to find. So Bill and Joe populated the cartoons with an annoying duck. And because of the Oscar win of The Two Mouseketeers (1952), Bill and Joe went to the well two more times with cartoons that had a French Revolution-era setting and morphed Nibbles into an annoying French accented little mouse. They were nominated for an Oscar for Touche, Pussy Cat! (1956), then tried again in Royal Cat Nap (released in 1958).

It wasn’t only this setting that was re-used. There’s a gag that dates back to Puss Gets the Boot (1940), Jerry and Nibbles throw dishes from high up, and Tom catches them every which way to stop them from breaking.



In Royal Cat Nap, Tom runs outside to a nearby hill to deposit the chinaware.



Hey, wait a minute! Isn’t this a Tex Avery gag?

Well, yes. After all, Bill and Joe borrowed Tex’s snickering dog concept (turning it into Muttley) and made his Southern wolf into a dog (Huckleberry Hound). In this short, Jerry spreads Tex tax onto the floor. Tom stifles his noise so he won’t wake up the King, running outside to the hill to scream. This is right out of Tex’s Deputy Droopy and a few other of his cartoons, except Tex and Heck Allen came up with variations to build on the gag.



Remember how Avery and Mike Maltese had Charlie the polar bear play “Brahms’ Lullabye” to put a watchdog to sleep in The Legend of Rockabye Point? Tom pulls the same stunt here with the King.



The animators of this undistinguished short are Ken Muse, Lew Marshall and Carlo Vinci, with backgrounds by Bob Gentle and layouts by Dick Bickenbach. By the time this cartoon was released, they were all working for Hanna and Barbera making Ruff and Reddy for NBC.