Jerry Gets His Christmas Present

Many things went into making the Tom and Jerry series a real joy to watch but the foundation is the wonderfully expressive pantomime by the two characters.

Here’s an example from “The Night Before Christmas” (1941). The cartoon begins and ends with Jerry in front of his mouse hole where Tom had placed a present of cheese on a mouse trap. At the outset, he ridicules it as an obvious attempt at capturing him. But at the end, he decides to extricate the cheese. Check out these poses as he discovers that Tom really has left him a present; the trap slowly springs back to play “Jingle Bells.”








The mouse shows a bunch of different emotions, raising the cartoon from the cutsey sentiment of a Rudy Ising MGM short to something far more satisfying.