Cat Napping

Cat Napping
Directed by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Produced by	Fred Quimby
Story by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Music by	Scott Bradley
Animation by	Irven Spence Ed Barge Kenneth Muse Ray Patterson
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date	December 8, 1951
Color process	Technicolor
Preceded by	Nit-Witty Kitty
Followed by	The Flying Cat

Not to be confused with The Tom and Jerry Show (2014) episode Cat Napped.

Cat Napping is a 1951 one-reel animated cartoon and is the 62nd Tom and Jerry short directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and produced by Fred Quimby.

Characters

Main

• Tom Cat
• Jerry Mouse

Supporting

• Spike Bulldog

Minor

• Ants
• Bullfrog (cameo)

Plot

Jerry is snoozing in a hammock, until Tom walks out with a drink, a radio, a pillow and a newspaper and tries to sit on it. He spots the mouse and slides Jerry off the hammock and into the water; Jerry shortly wakes up after realizing he cannot breathe. In retaliation the mouse flips the hammock over, so Tom falls to the ground and swallows his drink glass.

After Jerry sits down to sleep, Tom shakes out the hammock such that Jerry is thrown into the air, but by pure fortune the mouse falls into a bird's nest. It stretches along with his weight and then throws the mouse onto the tree branches, through the trunk and right back onto the hammock before Tom can lay down. When he hears Jerry snoring again, Tom spots him and is dumbfounded. In response, he scoops up the mouse and drops him on top of a marching ant army. Jerry wakes up at this jostling, but before he can understand what has happened, he bumps his head on a steel sprinkler. Knowing who is responsible for this, Jerry redirects the ants such that they march onto the hammock, causing the strings to snap and roll the hammock up with the cat inside.

In the next scene, the broken strings are tied back together, and Tom keeps a lookout for Jerry while taking a refreshing drink. Meanwhile, Jerry walks onto a lily pad behind a bullfrog and kicks it into Tom's drink. Despite the splashing noise, Tom sees nothing extraordinary and drinks the drink - and the frog. The cat goes to sleep, but is awoken by the frog's croaking and leaping inside his body, who causes the cat to bounce like Luxo Jr. as he lurches Tom all the way back to his home pond. Sopping wet, the feline recovers and sees Jerry, who is stealing his drink to boot. Tom bolts after the mouse, who flees in fright but soon sets a lawn mower after his opponent. Tom, fearing the loss of his fur, runs away in terror until he gets tied up into the hammock and sheared into paper dolls.

Later, Tom goes to sleep with a baseball bat in the repaired hammock, but without disturbing the cat, Jerry hooks up the hammock to a rope connected to a well, cranks it as far as it goes, and then cuts the line. Tom is catapulted into the air, as if by a slingshot, still asleep and still holding the bat in the same position, to the music of "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze". Tom wakes up when he sees and hears an airplane, but it is not until a bird wakes him for a second time that he becomes suspicious and looks down, realizing that he is miles above the ground! With a screech of absolute terror, Tom plummets into the sea below, hitting the surface with such force that he splits into about 20 pieces.

Meanwhile, Jerry lures Spike onto the hammock with a bone, knowing what is about to happen: the cat is predictably irate and storms back faster than a speeding bullet to catch Jerry in the hammock. Without even looking, he wraps up the hammock and whacks it progressively harder each of seven times with the baseball bat. Tom reaches in and pulls out a dog collar, and pictures whose it could possibly be. He immediately discredits Jerry as he's too small and won't need a collar. He gets it right on the second guess, though: Spike! Tom gulps in fear as Spike starts growling and appears out from the wrapped up hammock, giving Tom a furious look in his face. Tom puts his dog collar on him and tries to flee. The enraged dog snaps his collar and beats up the cat off-screen. Spike is now taking a nap and continually kicking Tom, who is being forced to fan a sleeping Jerry by waving a leaf.

Trivia

• For some unknown reason, Cartoon Network and Boomerang USA/Latin America airings of the cartoon airs an awfully faded print taken from the Tom & Jerry II (a.k.a. Tom & Jerry Cartoon Festival Vol. 2) 1982 VHS (which also appears on Tom & Jerry's 50th Birthday Classics 2 1990 VHS and The Art of Tom and Jerry Vol. 1 laserdisc) after 1995 despite that a more superior-looking Turner print exists. As of 2020, Boomerang USA has started airing a restored print originally planned for the (currently-unreleased) Tom and Jerry Golden Collection Volume 2 Blu-Ray/DVD release.
• This is the final cartoon from the classic era where Spike is light grey; subsequent cartoons from the Hanna-Barbera era after this one had Spike colored creamy-tan (Spike, as well as his son Tyke, previously debuted with this new color scheme in "Slicked-Up Pup"). Spike and Tyke would not be light grey again for many years until The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show came out in 1980.
• The cartoon was originally called "Fraidy Cat" as seen in the poster.
• This is one of the five cartoons where Spike attacks Tom off-screen. The others are Quiet Please!, Love That Pup, Fit To Be Tied, and Tops With Pops.
• This is also one of the three cartoons where Tom gets mowed by a lawn mower. The others are Tee For Two, and Little Quacker.

Gallery

Jerry and the ants.

Jerry is Aim the Frog.

Tom's imagination (Jerry).

Tom's imagination (Spike).

Spike gets angry after Tom attacks him.

Spike breaks free from his collar and chases after Tom to skins him alive as payback.

Spike kicking an injured Tom forcing him to fan a leaf on Jerry.

Cat Napping 1951 poster.