Tom and Jerry Toon by Toon: Puss Gets the Boot
Hello and welcome to Tom and Jerry Toon by Toon. Here I will discuss each Tom and Jerry cartoon individually and in order. I will give background information, story descriptions and my thoughts on each film, along with some general discussion. This will cover all of Tom and Jerry's theatrical short films. Because of this feature films and cartoons from TV will not be discussed here. I hope you will enjoy this, as much as I enjoy writing about it.
In the mid and late 1930's MGM's main cartoon directors were Hugh Harmon and Rudolph Ising (also the founders of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies in the early 1930's). Harmon and Ising both had something many people working in animation at this time had. This was called the Disney syndrome. At this time the Disney studio was at the height of it's popularity, and all cartoons that weren't Disney were considered second rate in comparison, because of this the majority of American animation was trying to copy what they felt made Disney cartoons so popular. This was no truer of anyone than it was of Harmon and Ising, who had in fact worked for Walt Disney on the silent Alice Comedies and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit series. They didn't only want to copy Disney's work, but to beat the Disney studio at it's on game. Because of this their cartoons for MGM, often went over budget and overschedule. Producer Fred Quimby was not happy about this and wanted directors who would turn in cartoons on time and on budget.
Two of the men who were chosen were William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. William Hanna had worked as an animator for Rudolph Ising and even co-directed the cartoon To Spring with Rudy, as well as directing three Captain and the Kids cartoons himself (Blue Monday, What A Lion and Old Smokey, all three from 1938). Joseph Barbera had worked as a writer. He had written five MGM cartoons (The Captain's Christmas (1938), Petunia National Park, Mama's New Hat, The Bookworm and The Mad Maestro (1939)). Bill and Joe would make the perfect team. Bill was incredibly good at timing, and Joe was extremely talented on the creative end. Like other great duos in film history (Laurel and Hardy for instance), though they were both very talented, they would complete each other. None of these films would have been anywhere near as good if just one of them was working on it.
The first film these two directors made as a team was Puss Gets the Boot, which also introduced two of the most popular cartoon characters of all time. This was of course Tom and Jerry. However in this film the cat and mouse had not yet acquired there names. Their names here were Jasper (later Tom) and Jinks (later Jerry). Though Jinks' name was never said in this cartoon, Bill and Joe would later reuse the name for the Pixie Dixie and Mr. Jinks segment of The Huckleberry Hound Show. This cartoon also introduced Tom's owner, often called Mammy Two-Shoes. Her voice was provided by Lillian Randolph, who you can see in such live action films as It's A Wonderful Life and Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte.
The animators on this film are Jack Zander, Pete Burness, George Gordon, Tony Pabian, and Carl Urbano. This was the only Tom and Jerry film Tony Pabain would work on. George Gordon and Jack Zander would stay on until 1943. Carl Urbano would also work on the next two Tom and Jerry films. However Gordon and Pabian would later work on Hanna-Barbera's TV output. Pete Burness would stay until 1947 and then move to work at Warner Brothers on Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. Despite all this and the fact that he did very little work for the short only Rudolph Ising was credited for the cartoon.
The story is very simple. Jasper chasing Jinks breaks various things around the house. Mammy tells Jasper that if one more thing breaks he is out of the house. Jinks overhearing this decides to try to break everything to which Jasper continuously tries to stop.
This cartoon is good, but later cartoons in the series would be much better. The animation here is so realistic that some slapstick gags seem almost painful, and the pacing is much slower than it would be later and due to this you can see slapstick gags coming too early and then they take too long to happen. These faults would be more than made up for in later Tom and Jerry cartoons, when the timing and humor would be near perfect. However this film still features some great animation (even when it clashes with the humor), well thought out characters, and a good story. The series would get much better, but what is seen in this film is still good.
-Michael J. Ruhland
Resources Used Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032953/?ref_=rvi_tt