Frying Pan Tom

Joe Barbera tosses in a second cat into the Tom and Jerry battle in “Sufferin’ Cats” (1942). The plot’s simple. The cats battle each other while trying to chase the mouse. It has all the stuff that make the Tom and Jerry series lots of fun for a number of years—subtle pantomime by Jerry, thrashings of long limbs by the felines (all that movement is so exaggerated it doesn’t slow down the picture, even though the cats really aren’t getting too far), and poundings of Tom. Or, in this case, an anonymous cat.

Tom has a frying pan.



Down it comes.



Then the background changes to a solid colour to emphasize the impact.



Fans of Tom and Jerry are so used to the same animators, it seems odd finding these names on an early title card.



George Gordon moved on to John Sutherland, Wilson (Pete, not Peter) Burness to Warners and then UPA, Jack Zander headed back East to commercial house Transfilm and eventually opened his own studio.