Say, Something IS Burning Around Here

Even when there’s dialogue, the pictures tells the story in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. This is from “The Zoot Cat.” Tom stops his flame/fire/buring love analogies to remark “Say! Something is burning around here.



One of the treats of these early Tom and Jerrys is Jerry’s expressions. Sometimes they were pretty subtle.

Ray Patterson, Ken Muse, Irv Spence and Pete Burness got screen credits. Tom’s line is uttered by Jerry Mann. Sara Berner’s also in this cartoon, and I can’t tell who is doing the faux Boyer voice Tom uses.

METRO PROGRAMS 16 SHORT CARTOONS ON NEW SKED
Metro has 16 one-reel cartoons, which comprise entire program for 1943-44, and four additional pen-and-inkers from current slate's re-leases now In works at studio, under supervision of Fred Quimby.
Eight will have Tom and Jerry characters as stars. These include 'Zoot Cat,' 'Million Dollar Cat,' Baby Puss,' Bodyguard,' 'Puttin’ on the Dog,' 'Kitty Foiled,' Mouse Comes to Dinner' and 'Tee for Two.'
New cartoon star, Squirrely Squirrel [sic], will star in seven shorts, 'Screwball Baseball,' 'Nuts in May,' 'Little Heel-watha,’ The Shooting of Dan McGoo,' 'Screwy Truant,' 'House of Tomorrow' and 'Screwball Squirrel.'
Remainder include 'Worst Aid,' 'Strange Innertube,' Bear Raid Warden,' 'Bedtime for Barney' and 'Some Skunk.'

And Variety then announced on February 3, 1944:

'Zoot' Opens New Year
"The Zoot Cat" has been set as Metro's initial cartoon release for 1944, hitting the theatres Feb. 26. Short is first of six in new Tom and Jerry series.

Pepper Makes Him Sneeze, You Say?

Was there even one cartoon studio which didn’t use the pepper/sneeze gag? (Besides maybe UPA). It goes back at least as far as “Felix Gets Broadcasted” (1923). Here’s an MGM version of the old routine in “Sufferin’ Cats” (released in 1942).



The layout in the last frame is unique. I wonder if Harvey Eisenberg is responsible.

Receiving animation credits are Ken Muse, Jack Zander, Pete Burness and George Gordon.

Missing Mouse

“I didn’t go back and still-frame it,” said animation writer and historian Earl Kress, “but it looked to me like Jerry disappeared for a frame.”

He’s talking on a commentary track for “Puss Gets the Boot.” Well, let’s still frame it for Earl.



Say, he’s right. Earl usually was. We miss you, Earl.

Oh, and here’s the missing drawing of Jerry from earlier in the walk cycle.

I Chase Meeces To Pieces

You know how Mr. Jinks used to chase Pixie and Dixie along the same baseboard, past the same light socket 16 times. The bicycling background concept wasn’t something Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera invented, nor was it something they only used in TV cartoons.

Here’s an example from “Dog Trouble,” a 1942 Tom and Jerry cartoon. In a few of the early T&Js, Tom had a run cycle of eight drawings with his front paws sweeping down from above his head and back paws flapping in mid-air. Here are the drawings.



We’ve turned it into an endless run cycle. It’s a little bit slower than in the actual cartoon.



There are no animators credited on the copy of the cartoon on DVD but a full draft from the MGM files listing the animators on each scene still exists. Mark Kausler reveals the animator of this scene in the comments.

Long Arm of the Teenager

Jeannie the babysitter can’t wait to gab on the phone in “Tot Watchers” (released August 1958). Her arm stretches in an Avery-like exaggeration and pulls her toward the phone. Look, folks! It’s a Cinemascope gag!



Tom gets a stretch job himself.



Below, Jeannie is in shock when she realises there’s no cord connecting the handset to the phone. Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera are already learning how to cut corners as they anticipate TV animation, although even the cheap Yogi Bear cartoons had a phone cord when needed.



This sorry cartoon brought to an end the Tom and Jerrys made on the Metro lot in Culver City. Ken Muse, Lew Marshall and Jim Escalante get the animation credits. The old Hanna-Barbera unit had pretty much broken up. Ed Barge (Billboard, May 5, 1956) and Irv Spence (Variety, Aug. 30, 1956) had left for commercial house Animation, Inc. Muse and Marshall would follow Hanna and Barbera to their own studio, Escalante was an effects animator who apparently went into the ministry.

Happy Homer Brightman received the screen credit for the story. The cartoon would have been started before July 18, 1956 as that’s when Variety announced Walter Lantz had signed Brightman to an exclusive, five-year contract (Brightman had been freelancing the previous two years).

The voice actors on this cartoon are a little baffling, other than Bill Thompson pulls out his Irish accent to the play the sceptical cop (a staple stereotype in later Hanna-Barbera TV cartoons). No, Janet Waldo is not the voice of Jeannie. If I recall, voice historian Keith Scott said the babysitter was played by Louise Erickson, who (like Waldo) made a career playing squealing teenaged girls on network radio. The mother may be Perry Sheehan; Variety reported on April 13, 1956 that she and Dick Anderson had been signed by MGM to supply voices for the suburbanite couple in the Tom and Jerry cartoon “The Vanishing Duck.”

Hot and Cold Cat

The vile Jerry Mouse tortures Tom by freezing him then boiling him a phoney attempt to cure him of the measles (which he doesn’t have) in “Polka-Dot Puss” (1949).



Tom’s fake sneeze blows himself apart at the beginning of the cartoon.



The usual animators are at work: Ken Muse, Ray Patterson, Ed Barge and Irv Spence.

More Than a Piece of Cake

Tom attempts to hide endless copies of incriminating photos from being seen by his suburban owners in “Tom’s Photo Finish” (released Nov. 1, 1957). One snapshot gets in between layers of a cake George’s wife is baking. Here’s how Tom destroys the evidence in ten consecutive drawings.



Six animators are credited: Ken Muse, Lew Marshall, Bill Schipek, Jack Carr, Herman Cohen and Ken Southworth.

Daws Butler is the voice of George and Spike. The nameless wife sounds like Julie Bennett. Variety reported on January 31, 1955 and again August 27, 1956 that she had been hired to voice cartoons for MGM. Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera signed her again in 1959 to play Sagebrush Sal on Quick Draw McGraw, but she’s probably best known as the voice of Cindy Bear (“Cutest b’ar in these h’yar parts - Julie Bennett inked to play a running role as Yogi Bear's girl friend,” Variety, Dec. 30, 1960). Sadly, her whereabouts are unknown today.

Cage Away!

New characters were added to Tom and Jerry cartoons by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera to keep the series fresh. One of them was a canary in “Kitty Foiled” (1947).

The bird unhooks the bottom of its cage so it’ll fall on Tom, allowing Jerry to escape. You can see the weight in the first drawing below as the bird pulls on the latch. In the second drawing, you can see the sense of balance as the bird is thrown backward a bit by the force of the latch loosening.



Then the impact as the cage bottom flattens Tom’s head. Who else in the H-B unit but Irv Spence would draw like this? (See the answer in the comment section).



Ken Muse, Ed Barge and (for a change) Irv Levine receive the other animation credits.