Trivia / Tom and Jerry

• Accidentally-Correct Writing:
  • As the titular duo demonstrates with their actions instead speech, in real life cats prefer to communicate and show emotion through body language rather than vocal sounds and mice vocalizations cannot be heard by human ears.
  • In the 1955 cartoon "That's My Mommy!", Quacker mistakes Tom for his mother. In 2013, a real-life case was documented of a mother cat adopting orphaned baby ducklings. There have been also recorded cases of mother cats adopting ducklings.
• Adored by the Network:
  • The shorts had gotten this treatment on Cartoon Network for the longest time. They were reran on the network nearly 25 years straight, from the channel's launch in 1992 up to 2017, always finding its way back on the schedule, and marathons happened frequently as well, promoted or otherwise.
  • Its adoration by Boomerang^note A TV network that airs cartoons and other media that are mostly aimed for children is the stuff of a legend. Aside from being the only program to have aired continuously since the channel's launch, it gets frequent and daily reruns, a lot of promotion (to the point where an ad from the network's rebrand turned into Memetic Mutation), and gives it more marathons than Cartoon Network ever did.
  • Within the series, the shorts directed by Chuck Jones are some of the most frequently rerun. One reason is that compared to earlier shorts in the series, they lack racist imagery and have comparatively less violence.
• Banned Episode: In addition to all of the racially insensitive shorts (see below), the Tom and Jerry section on HBO Max is missing "The Two Mouseketeers" and "Downhearted Duckling", possibly because of Tom's death in the former and the duckling's suicide attempts in the latter.
• Colbert Bump: Please raise your hand if you actually heard of Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No.2, the music used for "The Cat Concerto", and the overture to Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus, the music used in "The Hollywood Bowl", before watching this show. It is noted that the classical music pieces used in various other shorts are mostly responsible for classical music being appreciated and studied in the 21st century.
• Creator Backlash: Both Gene Deitch and Chuck Jones stated they believed their renditions didn't match up to Hanna Barbera's. This is quite ironic in the case of Jones, who created the Road Runner series specifically as parody of the simplicity of the Tom and Jerry series.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: Joe Barbera's favourite shorts were The Cat Concerto and Johann Mouse.
• Creator's Oddball: The series was this to Hanna-Barbera, being a lavishly animated, theatrically-released production in a sea of their Limited Animation tv shows. It’s actually a shame to see what the duo was capable of given proper resources.
• Crossdressing Voices:
  • Although he's male, some voice actresses have voiced Jerry.
  • Several females have played Nibbles/Tuffy, who's a guy.
• Descended Creator: Series co-creator Bill Hanna provided Tom's iconic "leather-lunged" screams. Thankfully, even after Hanna's passing in 2001, some or most of Hanna's screams provided for Tom are still recycled or reused whenever necessary.
• Fandom Life Cycle: Like Looney Tunes and the Classic Disney Shorts, it is one of those cartoons that never goes away, helped by constant reruns, the limited dialogue making it very easy to export, and revivals like Tom & Jerry Kids.
• Flip-Flop of God: Regarding the name of the proto-Jerry in "Puss Gets the Boot". Joe Barbera claimed the mouse was nameless, while Bill Hanna claimed in his biography that the mouse was named Jinx, though some have questioned the validity of that statement since it was made decades after the fact, and no physical evidence has surfaced of that ever being the mouse's name, not even in the characters original model sheet. Muddling things further is that according to a press story made for the cartoon, the mouse's name was supposed to be Pee-Wee.
• In Memoriam: Tom and Jerry: Return to Oz was dedicated to the memory of Joe Alaskey (who voiced the Wizard of Oz, Butch, and Droopy) and died several months before the film was released.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • "Casanova Cat" and "Mouse Cleaning", which weren't present on the Spotlight Collections. They are available on VHS and Laserdisc, though.
  • "His Mouse Friday" is pretty easy to find on home video... in its edited versions. There are two edited versions as mentioned on the main page, but the uncensored version has become increasingly hard to find. And even the edited versions rarely air on TV.
  • Likewise, the two shorts from the 1957 spin-off series Spike and Tyke, "Give and Tyke" and "Scat Cats", are only available on The Art of Tom and Jerry: Volume 2 Laserdisc.
  • "The Mansion Cat" has never been on any home media.
  • Good luck finding any of the bowdlerised edits of various Hanna-Barbera episodes done by the Chuck Jones team. Only two of them were released on home media: Saturday Evening Puss (both video and audio) and The Framed Cat (audio synced to the original animation with the black Maid).
• Missing Episode:
  • The CinemaScope remakes of "The Little Orphan", "Hatch Up Your Troubles" and "Love That Pup", "Feeding the Kiddie", "The Egg and Jerry" and "Tops with Pops", respectively, rarely air on TV in favor of their originals because they have to air in Pan and Scan.
  • Starting sometime around 2010 or later, Cartoon Network and Boomerang ceased to broadcast any of the shorts which feature The Maid in them, in acknowledgement of the character being racially insensitive or outright offensive (though this doesn't stop the two networks from including clips from cartoons with her in their promos [albeit without the character]). They are also absent from Boomerang's streaming service and HBO Max.
• Money, Dear Boy: Reportedly, Gene Deitch hated Tom & Jerry and this was the only reason he agreed to direct shorts.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Since 1940, Tom and Jerry characters (including Tom and Jerry themselves) have had multiple voice actors, notably William Hanna, Mel Blanc, June Foray, Daws Butler, John Stephenson, Don Brown, Spike Brandt and even Frank Welker. Yeah, Tom & Jerry suffered from Died During Production for years, even their creators' deaths. ^note William Hanna died in 2001, and Joseph Barbera in 2006. Also Hanna provides the voice of Tom's screams. Some or most of these screams provided by William Hanna are still reused and recycled to this day.
  • At one point, for Tom & Jerry's first film appearance in 1992, since they talked entirely for the first time in the film, they are voiced by Richard Kind and Dana Hill, the latter who would made her last film appearance before her death in 1995.
  • Spike was originally voiced by Billy Bletcher, known for his booming baritone voice. Starting with the Tom and Jerry short "Love That Pup," Spike was voiced by Daws Butler using a Jimmy Durante impersonation.
  • The Chuck Jones era featured voice legend Mel Blanc providing the voices of Tom and Jerry (with June Foray also providing some voice work of her own)
  • While it's also a role reprisal from the Sherlock Holmes movie, Jeff Bergman replaces Joe Alaskey as the voice of Droopy in the DVD movie line due to the latter's death.
• Out of Order: For HBO Max. While there is no need for every short to be in exact order, you know something is up when Tex Avery's MGM cartoons are listed in the Tom and Jerry section. This is in stark contrast to how the Looney Tunes and Popeye sections are organized on the same service.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: There's a recurring rumor that final original short released was one where Tom and Jerry die by being Spurned into Suicide. That short does exist but the rumor is false. The episode is the 103rd episode, 1956's "Blue Cat Blues". It is not the last episode. Heck, one month later "Barbecue Brawl" was released. The final MGM short was 1958's "Tot Watchers" but the franchise continued even after that.
• Posthumous Credit: Joe Alaskey (the voice of The Wizard of Oz, Butch, and Droopy) in both Tom and Jerry: The Wizard of Oz and Tom and Jerry: Return to Oz', passed away several months before the latter film was released.
• Recycled Script:
  • "Busy Buddies" was later remade as the final Tom & Jerry cartoon, "Tot Watchers"; while the type of gags were different, the basic premise (Jeannie the babysitter is talking on the phone instead of watching the baby, while Tom & Jerry have to make sure the baby doesn't get into any harm) is the same.
  • The very first T&J short, "Puss Gets the Boot", was later remade as "Mouse Cleaning". In both cartoons, the black mammy-type maid warns Tom not to make a mess or out he goes. Naturally, Jerry tries to make the biggest mess possible, while Tom tries frantically to clean it up. The main difference between the two films is that "Mouse Cleaning" is, befitting the cartoons of the period, Denser and Wackier, something out of a Tex Avery cartoon of the same period.
  • A couple of shorts were re-animated in the new CinemaScope aspect ratio, but had virtually identical plots and gags: "Hatch Up Your Troubles" was redrawn as "The Egg and Jerry", and "The Little Orphan" was redrawn as "Feedin' the Kiddie".
  • The Chuck Jones short "The Year of the Mouse" is essentially a remake of the Hubie & Bertie short Mouse Wreckers.
• Referenced by...: Has its own page.
• The Shelf of Movie Languishment: Tom and Jerry: Golden Collection vol. 2. Hoo boy... where to begin. The set was slated for release in 2013; everything about the set was done: The cartoons had been restored, the liner notes had been written, and (presumably) the discs had been pressed. But before its release, fans reacted to the press release of the set's contents with disgust: They had skipped over "Casanova Cat" and "Mouse Cleaning" again! The reaction was understandable, considering this line was meant for collectors, who recognize the historical significance of the shorts (warts and all), not the kid/family audience, and it was going through the filmography in order, so omissions more easily stand out. Warner had previously confirmed that "Mouse Cleaning" would be included, and that they were restoring it from the original negative, and Jerry Beck confirmed that he wrote liner notes for it. This led to some fans boycotting this set before it was even released, including leaving one-star reviews on Amazon. Unfortunately, this bad publicity for Warner Bros. had the opposite effect of what was intended: Instead of WB delaying the release, going back and including these two cartoons, they simply postponed the set indefinitely. So instead of getting a set that admittedly would've been incomplete, we got nothing. Supposedly Warner wants to release the set with the cartoons (most likely with disclaimers), but there's a higher-up that refuses to release them while she works there.
• Unfinished Episode: There were numerous stories on the drawing board that didn't make it to the screen. One cartoon, "Little Bird-Mouse" (thought up before the MGM cartoon studio closed), ended up being rewritten as a Pixie & Dixie short at Hanna & Barbera's own studio.
• What Could Have Been: Hanna and Barbera only parted from the series because MGM closed down their studio, at which point they decided to move their direction to television animation. Who knows how differently their history and influence on the medium, along with Tom and Jerry's own future, may have played if MGM hadn't let them go:
  • Less than a week before MGM's animation unit closed, a studio messenger boy named Jack Nicholson (yes, THAT Jack Nicholson) was interviewed for a job as a cleanup artist.
  • Only a year prior to the shut down, Hanna and Barbera dabbled with a spin off series of cartoons for Spike and Tyke. Only two were made, with the final year devoted to completing whatever Tom and Jerry shorts the unit had started on.
  • In the early 1960s, Tedd Pierce of Looney Tunes fame penned a script involving Sylvester and Speedy Gonzales that Robert McKimson disapproved of. Pierce sold it to Gene Deitch, who was desperate for a good Tom and Jerry story; the script became 1962's Tall in the Trap.

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