Sufferin' Cats (1943)

The idea of Tom fighting another cat for Jerry was an idea the series would use very often. Sufferin' Cats was the first Tom and Jerry film to use this story.

In this film Tom and Jerry are once again fighting. Jerry runs away from Tom, until he runs into another cat. Jerry starts a feud between Tom and this other cat.

This is an excellent cartoon. It may not be one of the best Tom and Jerry films, but that is because the other cartoons are so good. William Hanna was often in charge of the timing of these cartoons and here you can see just how good he was at it by this time. The timing is just perfect here. Unlike in Dog Trouble and Puss N' Toots there are plenty of jokes along with the great timing. The jokes are very funny as well. The animation is fantastic and the facial expressions of the characters get quite a few laughs. 

The animators on this film are Pete Burness, George Gordon, Kenneth Muse, and Jack Zander. All of who had worked on previous Tom and Jerry cartoons. This is the second cartoon in which they rightful receive screen credit (as well as Music director Scott Bradley). However Frank Graham who does the voice of the devil on Tom's shoulder does not receive any credit. It is worth noting however at this time no voice actor received on screen credit at any of the major Hollywood cartoon studios. Mel Blanc would break that unfortunate reality the next year by receiving credit for doing voices in Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons (though the other voice artists for those series still received no credit).

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
Of Mice and Magic: A History of the American Animated Cartoon by Leonard Maltin.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036399/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt

Fine Feathered Friend (1942)

With Fine Feathered Friend, finally people other than William Hanna, Joseph Barbera and Fred Quimby receive screen credit. Now credited as well are animators Kenneth Muse, Pete Burness (as Peter Burness), George Gordon, Jack Zander and Bill Littlejohn (who doesn't receive credit on the later re-issue of the film  and musical composer Scott Bradley. Most of these people had worked on previous Tom and Jerry cartoons, and it is good to see them finally credited for what they brought to the series. This was however the first Tom and Jerry short to feature Kenneth Muse as an animator (he had come from Disney where he animated for Pinocchio (the I've Got No Strings Number), Fantasia (he worked on The Sorcerer's Apprentice segment) and various Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck cartoons). He would stay with the Tom and Jerry series until Tot Watchers the last one Bill and Joe directed. Cecil Surry also animated on this cartoon but receives no credit.

In this cartoon Tom is chasing Jerry across a farm. Here Jerry uses a protective hen, to protect him from Tom.

This cartoon is well paced, and the animation is excellent. However like Dog Trouble and Puss N' Toots, this film features too few gags, to be considered one of the cat and mouse's best outings. However the gags that do appear in this cartoon are quite funny, such as when Tom accidently catches a little chick instead of Jerry. The cartoon is fun and the characters are quite likable. Also helping is Scott Bradley's great musical score. This may not be one of the best Tom and Jerry cartoons but it is still a good one.

 -Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
Of Mice and Magic: A History of the American Animated Cartoon by Leonard Maltin
http://www.bcdb.com/bcdb/cartoon.cgi?film=3145

The Bowling Alley Cat (1942)

Tom and Jerry cartoons seem to have improving with each individual film (the kind of exception being The Night Before Christmas as that was an early masterpiece) at this point and this cartoon only helps set that trend.

This cartoon marks the first Tom and Jerry cartoon not take place inside house. This instead takes place at a bowling alley as hinted at by the title. The story however remains basically the same as tom spends the film trying to catch Jerry and failing at it.

This film not only showed an improvement over previous Tom and Jerry films, but the series reaching it's full height. This film shows the chase cartoon at it's best. Not only does this show the improvements in pacing that Dog Trouble and Puss n' Toots, but this cartoon features much more gags than both those put together. Every gag here works great. Jerry using a pin as a baseball bat, Tom turning into a pin, a mountain of cigarette ashes turning into a volcano, and Tom being used to make a strike is the series at it's best. This is the first Tom and Jerry cartoon without dialogue and it's never missed because the pantomime is so good. An early scene with Jerry skating on the bowling alley floor is extremely well animated and makes one think of later more elaborate scenes in Mice Follies and Mouse in Manhattan. Scott Bradley's music is also very important to why this cartoon works so well. Using train music as bowling balls are chasing Jerry is fantastic. 

The animators on this film include Pete Burness, Bill Littlejohn, George Gordon, Irven Spence, Jack Zander. All of them have been animators on previous Tom and Jerry cartoons. Unfortunately again only Bill, Joe and Fred Quimby received credit.

A fantastic cartoon and a must watch for every cartoon fan.

-Michael J. Ruhland


Resources Used
Of Mice and Magic: The History of the American Animated Cartoon by Leonard Maltin
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034547/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Puss 'n Toots (1942)

Puss n' Toots marks the first of many cartoons in which Tom falls for a girl cat. In this film Mammy Two Shoes is asked to take care of a female cat, who Tom instantly gets a crush on. Tom tries to offer Jerry as a present to her, which doesn't work at all how Tom planned.

The pacing had been continuing to improve and by this film, it was near perfect. This pacing was mainly handled by William Hanna, and it is obvious that even this early in the series he had worked his craft to near perfection. The character's reaction here are funnier and more wild than they had been previously. They may not be at their height in this cartoon but by the next year those reactions would reach perfection. This is definitely a big step in the direction of the comedic brilliance of the cartoons to come.

Fitting the great pacing perfectly is Scott Bradley's music. Scott Bradley felt that working for cartoons was not only a privilege but an advantage he had over other composers. He had a particularly  strong love for Tom and Jerry, because the cartoons' lack of dialogue. He felt this allowed him to experiment with music more than other directors would. This passion for what he did shows why his scores are so good. Unlike Carl Stalling (who composed music for Warner Brothers cartoons at this time), Bradley was not interested in using songs as puns to comment directly on the action. His scores instead were focused mostly on keeping the momentum of the cartoons going. Since the Tom and Jerry cartoons were speeding up so was the music. Bradley would state "... the average amount of music in a cartoon, due to it's fast tempo, is about 500 measures". This faster music fit this new faster pace perfectly.

However there aren't as many jokes as their would be in later Tom and Jerry cartoons, despite these other huge improvements. However this film is funnier than the previous cartoon Dog Trouble which had the same problem. A scene involving a record player is laugh out loud funny. The quality of the humor and the great pacing and character reactions make up for the fact that (strangely for such a fast paced cartoon) there just aren't many actual gags.

The animators on this film are George Gordon, Irven Spence, Jack Zander and Bill Littlejohn. All of them had worked on previous Tom and Jerry cartoons. However George Gordon, Bill Littlejohn and Jack Zander wouldn't stay with the series much longer. Bill Littlejohn would leave the series later the same year, while George Gordon and Jack Zander would leave the next year. Irven Spence would stay with Tom and Jerry until 1957.  Again only William Hanna, Joseph Barbera and Fred Quimby would receive credit.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
Of Mice and Magic: The History of the American Animated Cartoon by Leonard Maltin
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035226/
The Cartoon Music Book by Daniel Goldmark and Yuval Taylor

Dog Trouble (1942)

Dog Trouble marked the first cartoon where Tom and Jerry had to team up to fight a greater evil. This evil was Spike the bulldog in his film debut.  Spike here is quite different from the Spike who would come later. For one thing here he hates Jerry as much as he does Tom. Also he does not speak yet. Of course many of us cartoon lovers associate him with the Jimmy Durante-esque voice he was later given (often provided by Daws Butler, who had a future with Bill and Joe voicing many of their TV characters).

The film begins with Tom chases Jerry and the usual slapstick ensuing. However when they run across Spike, he decides to make both their lives miserable. Tom and Jerry call a brief truce and put their minds together to help get rid of this dog.

The animators on this film were George Gordon, Bill Littlejohn, Irven Spence, Cecil Surry and Jack Zander. All of them had worked on previous Tom and Jerry cartoons. Sadly again only directors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and producer Fred Quimby receive screen credit.

This cartoon show the pace picking up. This contains some of the fastest action to appear in one of these films at this time. Also it shows some of the best facial expressions of Tom and Jerry at this time. These facial expressions and reactions are often the funniest part of this cartoon and quite a few future ones. Though I do not know for sure who animated these scenes, my guess would be Irven Spence, who was a master at comic reactions. However sadly this cartoon seems to have less gags than a normal Tom and Jerry cartoon for some reason, because of this it does not rank as one of the duo's funniest outings. However this cartoon still manages to be a good one due to great animation, characters and energy.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources UsedTom and Jerry: The Definitive Guide to Their Animated Adventures by Patrick Brion
Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034657/?ref_=nm_flmg_anm_183

Fraidy Cat (1942)

This cartoon begins with Tom listening to a spooky radio show called The Witching Hour and being frightened out of his wits. This was in fact a real radio show (it was also known as The Witch's Tale) from the 1930's (it started in 1931). This show helped create the fad of spooky hosts introducing scary stories, a trend which we associate with television personalities like Elvira. The spooky hosts here were Old Nancy, The Witch of Salem, with her black cat, Satan. The original voice of Old Nancy was a woman named Adelaide Fitz-Allen. She however died in 1935 at the age of 75. The voice was then briefly taken over by a 13 year old girl named Miriam Wolfe. She was a part of a children's radio show called Let's Pretend, and never auditioned for the role of Old Nancy. However one time just for fun she did the Old Nancy voice for radio producer Alonzo Dean Cole (who some say did the voice of Satan for the series). She got the part. She did this part briefly, but for some reason unknown to me she eventually stopped doing the voice, and the part was taken over by a woman named Martha Wentworth. Martha Wentworth is actually heard here doing the voice of Old Nancy for this Tom and Jerry cartoon. Back to the story Jerry sees how scared Tom is and decides to have a little fun with Tom, by scaring the poor cat even more out of his wits.

The animation for this film was done by George Gordon, Irven Spence, Cecil Surrey and Jack Zander. All of the had worked on previous Tom and Jerry cartoons and would work on more in the future. Though Tom and Jerry don't talk in this cartoon, their screams, laughs and other noises were provided by William Hanna himself. Bill would continue doing the voices clear into the 1950's. Lillian Randolph returns as the voice of Mammy Two-Shoes and Scott Bradley is still doing the music. Despite all this people working on the film again only William Hanna, Joseph Barbera and Fred Quimby would get credit.

This is an excellent cartoon. The jokes all work great (particularly one about Tom's nine lives), the animation is fantastic and the characters are as well written as ever. The pace here is still slower than future cartoons would be but the pace works perfectly with the material given, and the material is still pure Tom and Jerry slapstick.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
Tom and Jerry: The Definitive Guide to Their Animated Adventures by Patrick Brion
https://www.otrcat.com/p/witchs-tale
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034753/?ref_=rvi_tt

The Night Before Christmas (1941)

T'was the Night Before Christmas and all through the house
not a creature was stirring except Tom Cat and Jerry mouse.
 Jerry is playing around the Christmas tree with care
Not knowing Tom was still there.
Tom chases Jerry.
Making Christmas anything but merry.
Tom throws Jerry out of the house.
Letting the weather freeze the mouse.
Tom feels bad and wants to make amends.
Tom helps Jerry and now they are friends.

The Night Before Christmas was the third Tom and Jerry cartoon and one of the best. It is clear that Bill, Joe and the rest of the team were now fully understanding how to use these characters just right.

The animators on the film included some of those who had worked on the previous two cartoons. These were Jack Zander, George Gordon and Pete Burness. It also introduced some new animators to the series. These included Irven Spence  Irven Spence would stay with the studio until 1957. Other new animators for the series included Bill Littlejohn and Cecil Surry, both of whom would only stay with the series one more year.

The opening scenes with Jerry playing around the tree, the mistletoe scene and the ending were all animated by Jack Zander. George Gordon animated the scene of Jerry bouncing on Tom, and a very funny sequence involving boxing gloves. Cecil Surry animates Jerry freezing outside. Bill Littlejohn animates the scene of Jerry pretending to be a toy solider. Irven Spence who would later become one of the most prominent Tom and Jerry animators (known for animating over the top reactions) has a very limited role here. He animates Tom feeling guilty about Jerry freezing outside, while he is trying to sleep and a very brief scene of Tom shaking snow off of Jerry. Even his animation of Tom feeling guilty is interrupted by Cecil Surry animating Jerry freezing.

This is one of the best Tom and Jerry cartoons. The pace has picked up a lot since the last two films, and the timing couldn't be more perfect. William Hanna (who did most of the timing for these cartoons) is completely at his element here. The animation is fantastic, and the characters are as likable as ever. This film was also nominated (though it didn't win) for an Oscar.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
Tom and Jerry: The Definitive Guide to Their Animated Adventures by Patrick Brion
http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/mgms-the-night-before-christmas-1941-with-tom-jerry/