Hit the Love Jackpot

Tom and Jerry and the female cat don't speak in Springtime for Thomas (1946), so words are not necessary to describe this fun sequence.



Ed Barge, Ken Muse and Mike Lah received screen credit for animation in this short (I think that's Muse doing the Cupid scene). Frank Graham supplies the voice of the evil aparition of Jerry.

Lightning Only Strikes Once

The Hanna-Barbara unit was still at the top in 1947 when it came to expressions, as you can see in Old Rockin’ Chair Tom.

It’s one of a pair of cartoons when the maid replaces Tom with a better mouse-catching cat (the idea was re-used with Mr. Jinks on TV). Chair has some fine lightning effects (visual and sound), Jerry faking being surprised, Scott Bradley finding a place for “The Trolley Song” on the soundtrack (as well as “Old Black Joe”), and the maid not being Lana Turner (in another fine screaming performance by Lillian Randolph).

This is another swallow-something-metallic-and-pulled-by-a-hidden-magnet cartoon. My favourite of this type is probably the Warners’ short Bugsy and Mugsy (1957), though it goes back at least as far as Cracked Ice (Warners, 1938). In this case, the object is an iron.



Here’s a lovely sploosh against a wall.



The MGM ink paint department’s dry brush artists do a nice job in a four-drawing cycle (on ones) of Lightning turning in mid-air.



As in the later Jiggers… It’s Jinks! (H-B, 1958), the meeces mouse and cat team up against the intruder to restore order by the end of the cartoon. Tom doesn’t come through altogether unscathed. As Lightning kicked him out of the house, he returns the favour, but forgets the iron is still planted in Lightning’s butt.



The cartoon ends with the two of them sharing a lemon meringue or banana crème pie served by the maid to the sound of another MGM-owned song, “I’m Sitting on Top of the World.”



Ray Patterson, Ed Barge, Ken Muse and Irv Spence are the animators.

The cartoon's official release date was Sept. 18, 1948, but title was mentioned by Fred Quimby in stories in both Boxoffice and The Motion Picture Herald dated July 19, 1947. Scott Bradley's score was copyrighted on Nov. 24, 1947. It was playing Aug. 29, 30 and 31, 1948 at the Riviera Theatre in St. Paul, Nebraska, and got a "good" rating out of Boxoffice and The Exhibitor. The short was re-released on Dec. 30, 1955 and again in the 1964-65 season.

Tom and Jerry Home Video News

Delightful news has come out from the Warner Archive Collection twice this year.

First, the company was able to release all four seasons of The Huckleberry Hound Show. Now comes word that the complete Hanna-Barbera theatrical run of Tom and Jerry will be on Blu-Ray AND DVD. Release date is December 2nd.

Let’s get right to the point. Anyone reading this likely knows a release of Tom and Jerry cartoons was stopped several years ago because of concerns about blackface gags. Here’s what Warners says:

The complete collection of Hanna Barbera’s Tom and Jerry Oscar® winning masterpieces, available at last! Including three shorts, Casanova Cat, Mouse Cleaning   and His Mouse Friday   which are now completely remastered and uncut for the very first time.

Six discs. 20 audio commentaries. From what I can tell, correct aspect ratios for cartoons released in Cinemascope. A 28-page booklet. Bonus features. They’re going all out on this.

I’ve mentioned over the years I’m not a huge Tom and Jerry fan, though I can name a number of cartoons I really like (none of which include an annoying duck). But this release sounds great.

You can read more at this site.

A minor announcement from yours truly: I’ve finished some partial posts and Tralfaz will be active again for a full week, starting Monday.

But Where Are the Dinner Guests?

Tom is sleeping and minding his own business for the first 4½ minutes of The Little Orphan (1949 general release). Then, thanks to Jerry and Nibbles mooching a feast put out on a long table by the maid, an orange is swatted out of the baby mouse’s body and flies into Tom.



This brings on a very swift cat vs mice war. For about the next 2½ minutes, Tom is bashed in the face with a champagne cork, stabbed in the butt with a fork launched from a tempting dish of delicious Jell-O (note the dry-brush), smacked with a spoon, swallows a boomeranged decorative bulrush he set on fire and splooshed in the face with a crème pie (we will guess it is banana).




Nibbles then fires a candle which lands on the cat’s tail. The flames go up his body and turn him into a black kid, complete with curls on his head. Someone will have to explain why this is funny. I don’t get it. (At least Scott Bradley didn’t put “Old Black Joe” in the background soundtrack like he would have in a Tex Avery cartoon).



Finally, a champagne bottle is popped open. The force of the bubbles turns it into a rocket that bams into Tom’s head, sending him flying.



There’s a crash. It’s off-camera. We see Jerry and Nibbles reacting to what we can’t see, as the camera shakes. It’s just like in a Pixie and Dixie cartoon of a decade later.



Mr. Jinks, er, Tom, is no longer a stereotype as he waves a flag of surrender.



The final scene shows the three giving Grace like good little Christians.



Someone at MGM smelled Oscar-bait with this film. It was shoved into a theatre to make it eligible for an award for 1948. The Miami Herald reported on December 8th.

HOLLYWOOD, Cal.—Preview reaction to M-G-M’s Tom and Jerry cartoon, “The Little Orphan,” resulted in the birth of a new star—Nibbles, baby mouse with ravenous appetite. Result—Nibbles series with William Hanna and Joseph Barbera co-directing. Fred Quimby producing.

Indeed, the cartoon did win the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoon). (1948 was the year Warners released What Makes Daffy Duck?, Back Alley Oproar and Bugs Bunny Rides Again. Not one was nominated. Boo).

You can see Quimby accepting the award below. I like how they didn’t waste time at the Oscars back then with endless speeches. Besides, what would Quimby say? “I really had nothing to do with making this cartoon. I’m just a mid-level executive.”

Speedy Cat

It’s been said the increasing pace of the action in Tex Avery cartoons at MGM rubbed off on the studio’s Hanna-Barbera unit.

Here’s an example from Mouse Cleaning (1948).

Tom’s been told by the maid to keep the house clean. In one scene, he realises eggs are going to fall from the air and splatter on the floor. The first drawing is held for ten frames.



Then he realises what’s about to happen. He scrunches down, then the take (with alternating drawings).



Tom scoots out of the scene.



Here’s the speed of the action. These frames are back to back. The first has Tom leaving. He’s already back in the second frame.



The usual team of Irv Spence, Ken Muse, Ed Barge and Ray Patterson receive the animation credit on screen. No background or layout artist are credited, but we could be viewing the work of Bob Gentle and Dick Bickenbach (to be honest, I don’t know which MGM cartoons were laid out by Gene Hazelton).