Not to be confused with Baby Butch.
Baby Puss is a 1943 one-reel animated cartoon and is the 12th Tom and Jerry short.
Characters[]
- Tom Cat
- Jerry Mouse
- Nancy (debut)
- Butch Cat (debut in Tom & Jerry)
- Topsy Cat (debut)
- Meathead Cat
Plot[]
Nancy is playing house and is pretending to be the mother. She has also dressed Tom, apparently the family pet, up to be her pet kitten. She is berating Tom, who is hiding under some furniture. She drags Tom out by his tail and threatens to spank him. Tom is resentful over his treatment and feels embarrassed. She carries him to the bassinet, tucks him in, and shoves a bottle of milk in his mouth. She warns him, under threat of more spanking, to stay in bed while she goes downtown to buy a new girdle. Indignant at first, Tom gets a taste of milk and quickly accepts his lot, mumbling like a baby and drinking from his baby bottle.
Jerry peeks from behind a doll house and sees Tom. Incredulous at first, Jerry proceeds to mock him by playing "Rock-a-bye Baby" on the turntable and pretends to be a baby himself. Tom is furious and chases Jerry into the dollhouse. Just when it seems that Tom has Jerry cornered, Nancy returns and scolds Tom again. Tucking Tom back in bed, Nancy threatens to feed him castor oil if he gets out again. Tom goes back to his role playing.
Jerry emerges from the doll house and runs to the window to get the attention of three cats, Meathead, Butch and Topsy outside. The trio chase him until they notice Tom, and they begin to make fun of him. When Tom confronts the other cats, they continue to tease and humiliate him, tossing him like a ball causing him to land in a fish bowl, resulting in a wet diaper. They then proceed to change his diaper with oil and powder, before fitting him with rubber pants.
The three cats are caught up in their abuse of Tom, singing "Mamãe Eu Quero". Jerry looks behind the window and cackles. Suddenly Nancy reappears and the other three cats rush off from the scene, leaving Tom to take the heat as she becomes angry. Tom ends up in the baby high chair, as promised, and gets punished by being forced to have a spoon of castor oil. Tom resists, but thanks to Jerry squeezing a nutcracker on his tail, he takes the castor oil. He immediately feels nauseous and rushes off to the nearby window. Jerry, victorious, continues to laugh at Tom's humiliation. However, his triumph is short-lived as payback catches up to him, in the form of the castor oil spilling down from the highchair, and right into the mouse's laughing mouth. Jerry is also immediately overcome with nausea and rushes to be sick out of the window next to Tom.
Voice Actors[]
- William Hanna as Tom Cat (screams) and Jerry Mouse
- Sara Berner as Jerry Mouse
- Harry E. Lang as Tom Cat and Topsy Cat
- Leone LeDoux as Nancy
- Jack Mather as Butch Cat and Meathead Cat
- The King's Men as singing cats
Notes[]
- This is the first appearance of Nancy, Butch and Topsy.
- This is Butch's first appearance in the Tom and Jerry series after he previously appeared in 1941's The Alley Cat.
- This is also the first and only cartoon where Topsy speaks. Besides singing, he exclaims, "Hey, look! I'm dancin'! I'm dancin'!" while dancing with a doll.
- This is the first cartoon in which Tom starts behaving like a slapstick cartoon character, unlike his previous cartoons in which he is more "Disney-like" and "realistic".
- The scene with Tom and Jerry being sick out of the window is actually half-disproven; mice and all other rodents are not physically able to vomit.
- This is Tom and Jerry short is notable to be released on Christmas Day.
- This is the first cartoon to use "An MGM Tom and Jerry Cartoon" end title as well as "The End", which would be used until 1955 and continued on reissue prints.
- This was the first Tom and Jerry cartoon to have the lost 1943-1946 Tom and Jerry series title card in the original 1943 release's opening credits. Since the original negatives were burned in the 1978 George Eastman House Fire, none of the current backup prints use this original title card and instead feature the 1946-1954 reissue title card.
- On the Golden Collection set, when the captions say "[[ALL COO]]", Butch, Meathead, and Topsy allegedly say what the captions say.
- This short, along with Jerry and Jumbo, The Invisible Mouse, and Jerry and the Lion, can be heard in the background of the music video for Fatboy Slim's "Ya Mama" (A.K.A. "Push the Tempo") whenever the song is not playing.
- This is one of thirteenth cartoons in which both Tom and Jerry lose in the end. The other thirteen cartoons are Muscle Beach Tom, Fraidy Cat, Saturday Evening Puss, Polka-Dot Puss, A Mouse in the House, The Framed Cat, His Mouse Friday, Blue Cat Blues, Feedin' the Kiddie, Tot Watchers, Filet Meow, Advance and Be Mechanized, Safety Second, and Baby Butch.
- This is the first short not to have Mammy Two Shoes as Tom's owner.
Gallery[]
Main article: Baby Puss/Gallery