The Lonesome Mouse

Tom and Jerry talk in “The Lonesome Mouse” (1943), which has always bothered me. They’re not supposed to talk.

The concept driving the plot (Jerry getting Tom to agree to a fake fight in the house so the cat can ultimately move back in) could have been handled in pantomime after the narrator sets up Jerry’s thoughts. And if the woman of the house has kicked out Tom for good, why does she think the cat’s going to be able to get back in the house merely by screaming for him?

Well, instead of focusing on this, let’s look at some brushwork. Tom has a run cycle in some of the cartoons where all his legs are off the ground at the same time and at the same height. It’s in eight drawings on ones. One of the drawings has the legs merely as a blur of brush strokes.



The brush is used to a nice effect later in the cartoon when Tom is clobbered. He remains on twos, while the brush lines expand on ones. This is the second drawing.



Oh, and it’s an MGM cartoon, meaning Tom running past the camera in perspective.



Scott Bradley’s score (pts. 2, 8, 10) are copyright May 10, 1943. He mixes classical music with a jazz interlude, tunes in the MGM catalogue and ‘Ach Du Lieber Augustin’, the standard melody whenever there’s a Hitler gag. Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera get the only credits, so the experts can weigh in if Ken Muse, Irv Spence, Jack Zander and Pete Burness animated this one. And I don’t have any idea who is talking for Tom and Jerry.