Jerry attacks Tom with the lid of a garbage can in The Midnight Snack (1941).
MGM cartoons feature dry-brush work and multiples. You don’t see many of the latter because they are used as in-betweens to quickly move the characters. In this scene, you see a lot of them as the vibration action is on screen for several seconds.
This shows you MGM had a talented paint department, which is considered the lowest rung in the animation system (outside of a cel washer, which took no artistic ability). Ink and paint people get little recognition, which is why I was so pleased the late Martha Sigall published her memoires, giving fans of the Warners and MGM cartoons a fresh viewpoint.
Incidentally, publicity from MGM at the time of release named the cat and mouse Jasper and Jerry. The maid (played by Lillian Randolph) never had a name. You can read the story here.
The model sheet of Tom for this short also referred to him as Jasper. That begs the question, did they change the cats name before, during or after production?
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