Dog Trouble is a 1942 American one-reel animated cartoon and is the fifth Tom and Jerry short.
Plot[]
Jerry is running across a tablecloth, not going anywhere. As Jerry runs, Tom is pulling the cloth like a treadmill. Tom reaches the end of the cloth and Jerry runs across to the other side of the table as Tom gives chase. Jerry tries to stop at the end of the table, but Tom's open mouth is waiting! Although he cannot stop, Jerry uses one of the cat's whiskers to swing himself back out, then escapes into his mouse hole. Tom then knocks on the wall to get Jerry to come out, and patiently waits as Jerry tiptoes through an electrical outlet on the other side of the wall. He sees a piece of cheese on a mousetrap and holds it out for Tom's tail to fall into. When the cat's jumping tail repeatedly misses, Jerry simply does the job himself, and then runs for his life as Tom yelps in agony at his throbbing tail.
Jerry tries to run out the door, but he runs directly into a large sleeping bulldog and almost hits him. Tom's chase runs him into the dog, causing them both to kiss. The bulldog wakes up in rancor at this disturbance and the cat runs away, finding shelter by climbing up a lamp. Jerry gets his due as well when the bulldog hears him laughing at Tom's misfortune and starts to give chase to the mouse instead.
Jerry escapes by climbing up the cuckoo clock, but accidentally activates it, causing the bird to pop out with Jerry hanging onto it, giving the bulldog several failed chances to chomp on him.
In delight, Tom comes down from the lamp, but the alert bulldog forces him to climb back up. The same thing happens to Jerry, and this time when the cuckoo bird pops out with Jerry on board, the bulldog succeeds in destroying the cuckoo but he misses the mouse. Still, Jerry has to scramble in thin air to hold on for dear life. Tom again tries to sneak away quietly, and succeeds until the floor creaks causing the bulldog to go after him again.
Off-screen, sounds of a horrific brawl are heard, and the mortified mouse resolves to assist his rival in fighting the greater danger. The cat jumps onto a desk as the bulldog attempts to bite him, and Jerry whistles for Tom to join him on top of the clock where it's safe. To avoid the next chomp, Tom leaps all the way to the clock, but his grip is unstable and Tom's whiskers start snapping under the tension. As he starts to fall, the cat gropes in thin air to safety, and Tom extends his paw to Jerry in gratitude. When Jerry loses balance trying to shake the cat's paw, Tom returns the favor and saves him by lowering his tail to pull him out of the bulldog’s mouth, and with this alliance fully sealed, they shake paws.
The new allies connive a plan together; Jerry sneaks across the ceiling sides, down a curtain, and into a sewing basket. He ties a piece of the long thread of yarn to his body and starts to sneak through the house. As a cover for Jerry's plan, Tom taunts the dog and holds out his tail, continually pulling it up every time the bulldog tries to bite it. Meanwhile, the mouse has woven the entirety of the yarn through the house as a trap for the bulldog. As the dog pants angrily, Jerry pulls up behind and kicks him in the rear, causing the dog to scream in pain. When the bulldog lands, he sticks out his tongue and throws the bulldog's lips over his own face, provoking the bulldog to chase him around the corner. The mouse then hides and leaves the bulldog to fall into the yarn trap, completely wrecking the room. This causes Mammy Two Shoes to promptly enter and survey the scene and the bulldog, bitter from his predicament, is then dragged across the floor by a bickering Mammy before being thrown out.
Tom and Jerry wave to the bulldog as they watch him get thrown out, and Tom breathes a sigh of relief until a snap is heard behind the curtain that they are hiding. Tom's tail has gotten caught in another mousetrap, and despite Jerry's mournful denial, the chase resumes.
Voice Actors[]
- Harry E. Lang and William Hanna as Tom Cat
- Lillian Randolph as Mammy Two Shoes
- June Foray as Mammy Two Shoes (1960s redubbed)
- Thea Vidale as Mammy Two Shoes (1989 redubbed)
- William Hanna as Jerry Mouse
Characters[]
Starring[]
Featuring[]
- Spike Bulldog (unnamed)
- Mammy Two Shoes
Notes[]
- This is the first and one of the few cartoons where Tom and Jerry team up together.
- This is the first appearance of Spike Bulldog, albeit unnamed.
- This is the second time Tom saves Jerry. He also saves the little mouse's life in The Missing Mouse, The Night Before Christmas, Snowbody Loves Me, and The Truce Hurts.
- The scene where a scornful Spike is being dragged out by a bickering Mammy Two Shoes is much similar to how Tom ends up in the same predicament from Puss Gets the Boot.
- This is the first cartoon where Mammy Two Shoes doesn't interact with Tom.
- The promotional posters for the short in both its original release and subsequent reissue show a Bulldog with reddish-brown fur, but in the actual short his fur is grey as is also the case for all of his subsequent appearances.
- This is the only time where Spike shares an antagonistic role towards Jerry. In future appearances, both he and Jerry are shown as allies.
- Since this is the first time a dog-and-cat chase happens, it marks the first time hearing of offscreen-brawl sounds though in later episodes featuring Spike, off-screen brawls would also include broken furniture being thrown from offscreen.
- This is the second cartoon where it has the title after the opening credits.
- The original working title for this short was "Comrades Mix".
Censorship[]
- Some versions of this cartoon exists, particularly on the earliest television airings in the 1960s such as on CBS, where Mammy Two-Shoes is recolored as a white woman and her voice is redubbed by June Foray.
- The version of this cartoon on the Turner-owned cable networks Cartoon Network and Boomerang use the original theatrical version, but has Thea Vidale redub Mammy Two-Shoes' dialogue to correct her English language usage. This edit also applies to the cartoon when released on the European PAL Tom and Jerry Classic Collection Volume 1 DVD.
Availability[]
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Gallery[]
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References[]