Released in 2002 (but made in 2001),Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring is the first entry in the Tom and Jerry Direct-to-Video Film Series. Tom and Jerry return to their usual chase antics while living in the house of a magician named Chip. Tom is placed in charge of making sure the titular magic ring is protected. Naturally it ends up stuck to Jerry's head and the chase begins again.
Tropes in this film:
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: One of the animals in the pet shop is a bright yellow raccoon.
- Amusing Injuries: It's a slapstick film. Do the math.
- And Call Him "George": A boy who temporarily adopts Jerry acts like this, yelling to his mom he wants him with a creepy grin and eyes, holding him tight in his hand amd giving him multiple kisses when he first gets him. While walking a way from the pet store, his mom asks him to not let mouse end up like all the others, which Jerry pays no mind to.
- Blowing a Raspberry: The titular Jerry blows a strawberry at Tom. Doing so for so long that Tom has enough time to line up a ball ([[Blooper His point of view showing Jerry not blowing a raspberry despite the sound still playing]]) and steamroll the mouse with it, whom continues making the sound at a deeper pitch for a few more sexonds.
- The Bus Came Back: Droopy, Butch (Droopy's Butch), and Nibbles are among the other characters who made their first appearences in a while within this feature.
- Cats Are Mean: All the cats in this movie are antagonistic from Tom trying to attack Jerry early on to the Alley Cat trying to eat Jerry while trying to fight Tom for him and two other street cats joining in on the chase at one point, most likely with the same intentions as the Alley Cat.
- Chased Off into the Sunset: The ending has Tom being chased by several characters after the Ring brings them behind him, no less unfreezes his chasers. It also has Freddie and Joey getting chased around by a giant Nibbles.
- Clingy Macguffin: The titular ring gets stuck to Jerry's head. He spends a portion of the movie looking for a way to remove it.
- Contagious Laughter: An invoked example. Jerry feigns being Helpless with Laughter to make Tom start laughing uncontrollably himself.
- Covers Always Lie: Tom is shown trapped in a crystal ball in the cover, which never happens to him in the film, though it does happen to Butch, albeit with him shrunken, rather than squished in like Tom appears to be.
- The Dog Bites Back: As payback for bullying him with scary cat pictures and possibly other forms of assault in that cage, Nibbles, after being given a growth ray by Jerry, chases Joey and Freddie who have been turned into cheese.
- Enemy Mine: As is tradition, Tom and Jerry have to work together to escape greater dangers.
- Butch and the Alley Cat, after having fought each other and Tom, seemed to have agreed to put their differences aside offscreen to go after Tom and Jerry. Makes sense with the former just wanting the ring and the latter Jerry.
- "Eureka!" Moment: What does Jerry finally use to remove that ring? A bottle of ring remover. As in a cleaner that's used to remove rings/circles in a sink.
- The Faceless: We never see Tom's owner's face beyond his eyes.
- Helpless with Laughter: Invoked by Jerry, pretending to laugh uncontrollably to make Tom do just that. He did this to escape from Tom (who had caught him) before he could regain control of himself.
- After squashing Jerry flat with a ball, Tom is left laughing uncontrollably once more, allowing Jerry ample time to escape.
- Jerkass: Freddie and Joey, bullying poor Nibbles and then trying to beat up Jerry when he tries to stop them.
- Spike and Tyke, after Tom is placed into their cage, proceed to assault him for no reason other than to give a “proper dog-to-cat welcome.”
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: After Psychic Droopy makes the prediction Jerry will become a champion sumo wrestler, Jerry's only reaction is to look directly at the camera in confusion.
- Tom does the same after Jerry starts to suddenly laugh in his hands.
- While Nibbles watches the car chase around the mouse cage, he turns to the viewer and notes it’s a big cage, isn’t it?
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: The magic ring can do basically anything because... well... it's magic. Ranging from turning inanimate objects to animate, placing people into crystal balls, summoning random tools to fall on people’s head, increasing the size of objects like a banana peel, turning someone into goo for a moment to let them slip through a cage. freezing people and vehicles completely still and summoning a multitude of people to it’s position.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. This movie contains both the Spike from the classic Tom and Jerry cartoons and the Spike from the Droopy cartoons. Oddly enough, the latter is called Butch here while the Alley Cat resembles Butch Cat.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Tom dresses up as a jeweler to make an attempt at removing the ring from Jerry's head. Despite only wearing a hat and coat with his tail acting as a moustache, Jerry falls for it... at least until Tom moves his tail away from his face after being attacked by a buzzsaw the ring turned alive until its wire was pulled off.
- Tom pushes aside a lion statue, posing like it to give the cop cars the slip. It also works.
- Professional Butt-Kisser: Joey is very much this to Freddie, repeating and acknowledging what he says and acting like him telling Jerry to stay put while forcing him to spin around is the most hilarious joke ever.
- Rapid-Fire "No!": Jerry's response to several...less than desirable methods of getting the ring off his head.
- Reused Character Design: Freddie's appearance is recycled from Jerry's cousin, Muscles, which makes him picking on Jerry all the more odd for those who knew Muscles is nothing like that, let alone would never harm Jerry.
- Scooby-Dooby Doors: A variant chase happens in a crowded intersection with Tom being chased by various enemies and the police. Notably, amidst it,
two of the Alley Cat can be seen in the same scene. - Shout-Out: The scene where the Alley Cat runs away from objects getting dropped on him is a reference to Bad Luck Blackie, where a bulldog gets the same fate.
- Squashed Flat: The titular Jerry gets ran over by a ball-thingy and Tyke later gets squashed himself by Tom accidentally while he’s running from everyone else. Both instances, however, are Played for Laughs.
- Talking Animal: Virtually every cat, dog and mouse except for Tom, Jerry, Tyke and two random alley cats.
- Unexplained Recovery: It’s never shown how Butch gets out of the crystal ball Jerry unintentionally puts him in through the Magic Ring.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Chip assumes Tom to be this, calling him a “miserable, ungrateful cat” when catching him with his ring on his finger, ignoring him trying to show it’s stuck on, feeling insulted the cat tried to lie, let alone has it on, in the first place and zaps him out of the house.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The mom of the kid who tried to adopt Jerry is never seen after informing an officer that Tom stole Jerry right out of his hands, despite the kid later seen taking Jerry off of Tom’s hand and calling back the chasers to the cat, leading Tom to snatch Jerry right back as the chase resumes, the kid also never seen again from thereon.
- Amid the chases, three police cars are seen roaming after Tom. During the big one, though, one suddenly disappears, supposedly taking a wrong turn somewhere.
