The movie begins with Jerry and his little nephew Tuffy watching the Christmas ballet in New York City, while a group of cats, including Tom, in an alley overlooking the Empire State Building, sing a song for the Cat King. Later, Jerry goes to the empty stage floor, where magic begins to happen. Toys come alive including Nelly the pony and Paulie the Christmas Ornament. A Music Box ballerina named La Petite Ballerina also comes to life thanks to the magic, and Jerry dances with her.
The stage is then transformed into a wintry wonderland, where the toys are enjoying a dinner. Tom hears this and he and the other cats raid the feast, trapping the toys and taking over the wonderland. Jerry, Paulie, and Nelly try to stop this but are stuffed into a can and shot out of a cannon, ending up worlds away. Now Jerry and his companions must venture to reclaim their kingdom from the cats before the sun rises and the wonderland becomes the cats's domain forever.
This is one of the few direct to video movies to be dubbed in Vancouver (the same dubbing team as Tom and Jerry Tales) instead of the US.
Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker's Tale contains examples of:
- Accidental Misnaming: The King of the Cats mistakenly calls Tom "Tim" when he calls for him to go after Jerry.
- Adaptational Heroism: Played With. Jerry in this version is called the "Mouse King", but he is on the side of the toys. Instead, the role of the Mouse King in the original play is filled by the King of the Cats.
- Adaptational Villainy: In most Tom and Jerry cartoons, Tom isn't villainous beyond chasing after Jerry, yet here he's shown partaking in the entrapment and enslavement of the toys. He's even been promoted to The Captain of the cat Guard.
- Adapted Out: Despite it being an adaption of The Nutcracker titled "A Nutcracker's Tale", the Nutcracker doesn't appear at all in this movie and his role is instead filled by Jerry.
- Big Bad: The Cat King, who leads the cats' takeover and enslavement of the toys.
- Big Good: The Toymaker, who made each of the toys and supplies Jerry with an army of toy soldiers to take back the kingdom.
- Cats Are Mean: Here they enslave a bunch of toys who have just recently been brought to life by magic.
- Damsel in Distress: La Petite Ballerina is captured early on....
- Damsel out of Distress: But, she manages to escape after Tuffy sneaks her the keys.
- The Dragon: Tom who acts as The Captain of the Cat King's guards.
- Fat Bastard: The King of the Cats is noticeably more portly than most of the other cats in the movie.
- Good Angel, Bad Angel: Parodied. Tuffy dresses up as an angel on Tom's shoulder to convince Tom not to go after Jerry and co., but after Tom glances at his other shoulder and becomes suspicious of Tuffy noticing there isn't a bad angel on it, Tuffy switches to a demon costume and begins arguing with himself to convince Tom to go after them.
- The Good Chancellor: Lackey tries to act as this for the King of the Cats, protesting the King's treatment of the Toys, but after the King refuses to listen, Lackey gives up.
- The Good King: Jerry's first action upon being crowned king by the magic is to host a feast for the now brought-to-life toys. Unfortunately, the cats show up to attack soon after.
- Heroic BSoD: Nelly leaves Jerry, Tuffy and Paulie out of guilt after telling the Cat Guards where they were heading, the Toymaker.
- Heroic Second Wind: But she returns during the Final Battle to save Jerry and assist the toys in driving out the cats.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Nelly sacrifices herself to push Jerry and La Petite Ballerina out of the way of collapsing rubble, causing her to get crushed under it. Luckily, she gets brought back to life by the magic soon after.
- Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Tom, surprisingly enough. The King of the Cats is ultimately a fat, lazy, and whiny simpleton, with Tom being the bigger threat to Jerry and the Toys. In fact, it was Tom who captured all the Toys in the beginning and he becomes The Captain of the cat Guard.
- Jerkass to One: Nelly towards Paulie, particularly noting she likes him without his head, going out of her way to have her string pulled to repeat as much. This is despite Paulie not doing much, if anything to warrant such mean-spirited behaviour. (And also having his head gone, yet somehow able to hear her.)
- King Mook: The King of the Cats, obviously.
- Losing Your Head: Paulie's head comes loose quite often, though he later gets it tightened on by the Toymaker.
- Mad Doctor: A cat named Dr. Malevolent appears as the Cat Guards are interrogating Nelly and states he can get Nelly to tell the Cat Guards where Jerry and his friends are heading to but, instead of torturing her as Tom feared, he just uses the pliers to pull her string to get her to talk.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The ending suggests the whole film might have been a play put on by Jerry for the ballerina of the Christmas play.
- Meaningful Name:
- Want to take any guesses as to who the King of the Cats is the king of?
- Also, the King of the Cats's Prime Minister is named "Lackey" and as his name suggests, he's little more than a henchman and attendant of the King.
- Mythology Gag: Multiple background cats are various cats from the Tom and Jerry shorts such as Butch, Fluff, Puff and Muff.
- Our Dragons Are Different: One of the worlds Jerry and friends travel through is a fiery cave home to several dragons, with rattlesnake tails.
- The Pollyanna: Paulie, who keeps an upbeat and cheerful attitude throughout most of the movie. He's a real Paulieanna.
- Santa Claus: The Toymaker is hinted to be him, as the calendar behind him has December 24th circled.
- Shout-Out:
- The King of the Cats' song is
a lot like Les Misérables' "Master of the House." - A stuffed bear in early scene eats honey out of a jar in a similar fashion to Winnie the Pooh.
- At the amusement park, the penultimate level of the hammer game is labeled "He-Man".
- After Jerry and his friends make their getaway from the Cat Guards by flying away on balloons, Tom dresses up like Batman to fly after them.
- The King of the Cats' song is
- Slimeball: The King of the Cats' song, like its inspiration, doesn't paint him in a particularly favorable light.
"King of the Cats, that's what he is.
Takin' all our sustenance,
like it was really his.
Greedy to a fault,
bully to us all,
he'll only be your friend so you can take the fall."
- Slasher Smile: Tom does a particularly wicked one once Nelly was forced to tell the cats that Jerry is heading to the Toymaker.
- Tempting Fate: Paulie pretty much does this as he, Jerry, and Tuffy are almost to the Toymaker's door saying "Nothing can stop us now." Cue Tom and his guard immediately appearing and blockading the door.
- Averted in that as the cat guard are doing their Evil Laugh at their Near-Villain Victory after mocking Tuffy about how they were so close and they failed, the Toymaker pulls a Deus ex Machina opening his door and smacking Tom and his crew away, causing them to turn into a large snowball and roll all the way back to the kingdom empty-handed, so their effort was All for Nothing.
- Villain Song: Some verses in "King of the Cats" have the King of the Cats himself sing about how mean he is.
- "The Villain Sucks" Song: A downplayed example with "King of the Cats", which calls the King of the Cats a greedy False Friend who bullies his minions and selfishly takes food from them. (Ironically, he doesn't seem to mind being called out for this; judging from his verses, he's proud of these traits.) However, it also says several times that he's undeniably "something special". What exactly is "special" about him is never really established.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Dr. Malevolent is never seen again after forcing Nelly to give information to where Jerry and his allies are heading, seemingly only there, in the first place, to get a paycheck.
- All the townfolk cat who cheered on Tom and his troop, as well as the wildlife with them are never seen after their appearance, either.
- A Wizard Did It: The explanation for the toys coming to life is just "magic."
