Tuesday, 13 October 2026

I Hear Slurping

Purely as a plot device, Jerry laps up the cream Tom has stolen from a bottle on the porch in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse.

Tom finally shoves the dish into a safe and slams it shut. But like Droopy in Tex Avery’s Northwest Hounded Police, Jerry is always there. Tom hears slurping from inside the safe. Here’s the anticipation and the take.



Jerry scrambles in reaction. Here are some drawings.



Tom opens the safe and looks inside. Reaction drawings.



The best part of this cartoon is the wild transformation drawings when Jerry gains and loses his strength. Jerry pops from one odd shape to the next.

Thad Komorowski has mentioned this is one of a number of MGM cartoons where Ray Patterson and Pete Burness did not get screen credit. The credited animators here are Ken Muse, Ed Barge, Mike Lah and Al Grandmain, who generally handled effects. Someone reading may know who is responsible for the pose drawings.

The June 30, 1945 issue of Boxoffice magazine announced the cartoon was going into production. The short was released June 14, 1947.

4 comments:

  1. This is Mike Lah's animation, Yowp.

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    1. Thanks. I thought so but didn't want to guess, though I see I still left Lah's name in the labels.

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  2. I am not the world's biggest Tom and Jerry fans, but this is one of the ones I have most admired (not simply enjoyed, like Jerry's Cousin). And one of the things that fascinates me is to think of how scary it must have looked to people watching on the big screen when Tom grew to that frighteningly large size and looked so menacingly at Jerry. I thought that was tremendous work.

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  3. Always been one of my favorite T&Js.

    By the way, it's Tom scrambling in those frames, not Jerry ;)

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