The Tom and Jerry cartoons are a slapstick comedy about a cat-and-mouse duo. As Jerry (the mouse) is often the victim of Tom (the cat) chasing and trying to eat him, it's easy for audiences to root for him whenever he gets one over on Tom...most of the time, anyway.
- Jerry comes off as this when he's just being mean for the sake of it. Most episodes do start out with Tom harassing Jerry for no reason other than to be mean, but sometimes he just does something that inconveniences Jerry and Jerry immediately goes for the nuclear response, or worse, Jerry decides to pick a fight with Tom for selfish reasons or even no reason at all. Yet even then, the writers usually take it for granted that the audience is going to be on Jerry's side. In the writers' defense, they weren't utterly oblivious to this, and actually let Jerry lose to Tom on a fair few occasions he really crossed the line.
- One good example of Tom actually winning is "Timid Tabby", where Tom's identical cousin George, who is scared of mice, comes over. Jerry mistakes him for Tom and keeps tormenting him when he realizes his fear, coming across as a jerk. Finally Tom and George work together to scare Jerry out of the house.
- Other examples where Jerry loses are "The Year of the Mouse", where he is particularly sadistic, and "The Million Dollar Cat", where when Tom learns he'll inherit a million dollars so long as he doesn't harm a mouse for the rest of his life, Jerry milks it for all it's worth and torments Tom throughout the short.
- There was one episode of the series where Tom was beheaded by his owner for failing to stop Jerry and Nibbles, who are Musketeers, from stealing food set out on a banquet table. It’s never explicitly stated in that episode that the banquet is for the king, and Tom is wearing a red uniform, which would typically be associated with Cardinal Richelieu, which might lead the watcher to assume that Jerry and Nibbles were stealing food from one of the king’s enemies, which would at least suggest the mice had a good reason to ruin the banquet and Tom was just an unavoidable casualty. But a later Musketeer episode would have Tom wear the same uniform as one of the king’s palace guards, meaning Jerry and Nibbles are stealing food from the king — the person they're supposed to be protecting. In other words, they're supposed to be on the same side, and the mice are still stealing the food. At the end of the episode, as the mice are walking away with their tiny arms loaded with food, we hear a drum roll, and they look up to see the rise and drop of the guillotine. Nibbles swallows the bite of food in his mouth with a momentarily surprised look, says "Pauvre, pauvre pussycat," then casually shrugs his shoulders and says "Ah, well, c'est la guerre!" and they go off happily munching with jaunty theme music in the background.
- The DtV movies are just as bad about this, with the exception being "The Fast and the Furry". In the others, Tom and Jerry often have to team up to save the day or find the MacGuffin, with Tom proving to be a good guy. But at the end, no matter what, Jerry screws over Tom without fail for no good reason. This, considering Tom not deserving it beyond being a cat, turns Jerry into a Jerkass bordering on Villain Protagonist.
- The attitude towards Tom being the villain and Jerry the hero no matter what was probably best shown in "Heavenly Puss", where Tom dies and is told by the Gatekeeper he will be sent to Hell if he doesn't get Jerry's forgiveness for all the times he's persecuted Jerry. Though it was All Just a Dream, it shows very well who was always the "Good Guy" in the creator's mind.
- In one episode of Tom and Jerry Tales, Tom actually uses this to his advantage, catching wise to the "small underdog trickster always prevails" formula, he hires an even smaller cuter ant to steal back all the food Jerry took, and takes pleasure watching Jerry become the bumbling pursuer for once. Similarly, this is a rare occasion in which Tom gets the last laugh.
- This is lampshaded and subverted in one episode where Tom is told by the King, who is trying to sleep, that if he hears a noise Tom loses his head. Jerry and Nibbles keep trying to make noise, finally causing Tom to scream in pain, waking the King. However, they realize that they have gone too far and Nibbles sings the King back to sleep, after which the mice and Tom quietly leave the room and resume fighting.
- Another example involving Nibbles and Jerry as musketeers: Jerry is in love with a female mouse and has Nibbles deliver love letters to her. Each time, Nibbles is beaten senseless by Tom and comes back badly wounded, even crawling to him at one point. At no point does Jerry show any concern nor try to help him, all he cares about is whether he received a love letter from the girl. And when the girl sends him a letter that spurns his affections, he rips it up, pulls out a portrait of another girl, and sends Nibbles out to do it all over again. Made even worse as Nibbles is a kid. In other words, Jerry is performing blatant child abuse on a kids' show.
- The basic premise of most shorts that involve Spike are as follows: Something Tom does angers Spike, Spike tells Tom not to do it again or else, Jerry overhears this and proceeds to ensure Tom gets in trouble from Spike and succeeds. "Hiccup Pup" actually subverts the part where Jerry succeeds by having Tom help Spike.
- Perhaps the most infamous example is the Tales episode Do Not Feed The Animals. In most Spike episodes, Tom at least initially angers Spike in the process of picking a fight with Jerry. In this episode, Tom is just doing his job as Spike's assistant zookeeper when Spike incorrectly thinks Tom is feeding the animals and chews him out for it. Jerry overhears this, and decides to get Tom in trouble, even though Tom had done nothing to harass Jerry. Tom goes through a lot of pain and eventually gets Eaten Alive by a lion trying to stop Jerry from feeding the animals, but Spike repeatedly thinks Tom was the one trying to feed them. And while Spike wasn't necessarily feeding the animals with food that was good for them, neither was Jerry. Jerry's actions could have easily made some of the zoo animals sick if Tom hadn't intervened.
