Zapping the Cat

On the night before Christmas, Jerry attempts to evade Tom by disguising himself as a light on a tree. The mouse doesn’t fool the cat.



The mouse, however, turns out to be a conductor of electricity.



Director Bill Hanna alternates a blue-ish card with still drawings of Tom and Jerry and the zapping effects, varying the number of frames for the alternating artwork. Below are some of the drawings.



Finally, there’s an explosion. Interestingly, Hanna elects not to reveal a frame of a singed or burned Tom (if it were a Tex Avery cartoon, there might have been a blackface gag here). Instead when the dark clouds appear, the scene has dissolved into Jerry running in a different part of the living room.



Cecil Surry is the animator of this scene and gives way to Bill Littlejohn in the running scene. George Gordon, Jack Zander and Irv Spence supply excellent animation as well.

The Night Before Christmas is a fine cartoon all-around. The story is solid, the cat and mouse show plenty of different emotions, the backgrounds are incredibly well-rendered and Scott Bradley's score fits the action from start to finish.

News reports at the time said MGM rushed the short to completion, forcing Warner Bros. to re-title an Edward G. Robinson feature with the same name.

The Venice Vanguard reported on Nov. 13, 1941 that MGM was making 112 extra prints of the cartoon so it could be seen in as many theatres as possible in South America, England, and other places outside the U.S. On Nov. 17, The Hollywood Reporter said the studio had reserved space on all Clipper planes to ensure it was seen in foreign countries on the official release date of Dec. 6. However, the Lyric in Havre, Montana screened it Nov. 20 with the Bob Hope/Paulette Goddard feature Nothing But the Truth.