- Not to be confused with See Dr. Jackal and Hide.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse is a 1947 American one-reel animated cartoon and the 30th Tom and Jerry short.
Plot[]
Near a basement window are two empty milk bottles whom the milkman comes and replaces them with new ones. Through the basement window, Tom reaches snatches one of the bottles, rushing into the living room to lick the lid of the milk and pour it into his bowl. Then he puts the empty milk bottle in a potted plant and drinks it, but Jerry also wants Tom's milk. Tom makes various attempts to catch Jerry, but when they all fail, the cat dreams up a murderous plot to rid himself of his annoyance.
The next scene shows Tom mixing dangerous chemicals such as moth balls, acid, ammonia, and poison into his milk. Upon mixing the deadly elixir, the chemicals cause the spoon to dissolve. After seeing a fly taking a little sip from the bowl before crying in pain and then dropping dead, Tom carefully carries the bowl and places it outside Jerry's hole, confident that his potion works, gleefully watching Jerry about to drink from the bowl.
Seeing the bowl of milk once again, the mouse drinks the milk, causing him to yell in pain and collapse "dead". Just before Tom can celebrate over the "dead" mouse, the full effects of the potion take place: Jerry starts to turn into a super-strong mega-muscular version of himself who is now more than able to defend himself against the cat, only one thing is on Jerry's mind: To fight back against Tom! Tom panics and backs off as Jerry advances. He first smashes a book from the telephone desk on Jerry, but the book punches through Jerry, who proceeds to rip the book apart. Tom then tries whacking Jerry with a fire poker, but only leaves imprints of Jerry on it. He then rushes and shuts the door to the living room, but Jerry knocks it over, and Tom rushes to hide in the safe, only for Jerry to drill a hole in the safe's door with his bare fist and pull Tom out. Jerry's seemingly infinite strength allows him to smack Tom against a safe, but the potion's effects wear off and Jerry returns to his normal size.
After realizing he can no longer pull the cat around, he dives away from the cat and into the milk bowl. Tom grabs the mouse out of the bowl as he screams and turns into the super-Jerry a second time, who now grabs Tom and hurls him by his whiskers before the potion wears off. As Jerry realizes he is normal again he simply ties Tom's whiskers and tries to drink more potion. The feline upends the bowl with his foot before the mouse can drink enough, and the chase continues across the kitchen. Jerry first traps Tom's tail in a waffle maker, making Tom scream in pain and turning his tail into a waffle. He then hides in the refrigerator, and as Tom opens to look for him, Jerry is revealed to be at the door of the refrigerator and kicks Tom in, trapping him inside.
Once launching Tom into the kitchen refrigerator, Jerry frantically attempts to make more of the concoction himself, with a different formula such as shoe cleaner, more mothballs, a little acid, ammonia, and a drop of red poison. Tom, however, escapes from the refrigerator covered with food, and asparagus popping out from his mouth. Seeing the cat, Jerry immediately dives into the bowl of milk concoction in hopes to be super-sized, but Tom immediately takes it away. With the milk concoction on his hands, the cat snarls at the mouse before stomping on Jerry's tail to prevent him from escaping. Then seeing the bowl of concoction in his hands, Tom sadistically glares at Jerry, forcing the helpless mouse to watch as the cat drinks the entire potion to turn himself into a super-strong mega-muscular version. The cat grins evilly at Jerry as Tom grows to an enormous size, but then an explosion erupts from Tom, resulting in him shrinking to a slightly smaller size than Jerry.
For a second, both of them stare at each other. Then, Jerry realizes, much to his delight, that Tom is now smaller than him. Jerry yanks his tail from under Tom's foot with one hand causing Tom to lose his balance and fall. A terrified Tom tries to flee, but Jerry stomps on Tom's tail and catches him. Tom looks helplessly at Jerry who happily punches him on the face. This triggers the cat to shrink even more to about a quarter the size of Jerry. Jerry then pulls Tom's tail and snaps it. Tom yells in a high-pitched scream and runs in circle clutching his backside in agony as Jerry looks on in amusement. Tom shrinks one last time all the way to the size of a little ant. The tide changes for the roles of both cat and mouse, Jerry chases an ant-sized Tom with a flyswatter repeatedly swatting him as Tom tries to flee for dear life.
Characters[]
- Tom Cat (main antagonist)
- Jerry Mouse
- Milkman
Notes[]
- This is one of the five cartoons where Jerry literally beats up Tom. The others are Mouse Trouble, The Milky Waif, Jerry and the Lion, and Matinee Mouse.
- This is the last cartoon where Tom's claws are always shown, making the rest without any claws and making him anthropomorphic. In later cartoons, they only appear when Tom uses them.
- The opening where Tom enjoys his bowl of milk, only to see Jerry drinking from it as well, is re-imaged from the opening of Mouse Trouble, where Tom casually reads through his manual on how to catch mice, only for Jerry to be underneath him, reading alongside the cat.
- The gag where Tom traps Jerry by repeatedly putting him in multiple bigger boxes would be re-used in That's My Mommy, with Tom using a string of cylindrical containers before tying the biggest container and throwing it down the well.
- This is the first of the two cartoons where we actually see a character die with the seen character. The other one was The Duck Doctor.
- It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons in 1947, but lost to Warner Bros.' Tweetie Pie.
- This is the third Tom and Jerry short to be nominated.
- Monster Jerry later reappears, decades later in the video game, Tom and Jerry in War of the Whiskers. He is the final boss for all the big characters except for Spike who fights Robocat instead. He is unlocked after defeating him while playing as the Eagle from Flirty Birdy. In Challenge, if Jerry drinks the green flask or is hit by it, he'll transform right back into Monster Jerry. His kicks are very powerful and can instantly take away a huge portion of the player's health.
- The episode's title is a play on Robert Louis Stevenson's book, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
- Chuck Jones would later release Is There a Doctor in the Mouse? in 1964, which would share the similar ending scenario of Jerry considerably outsizing Tom, causing the cat to cower in fear. The only exception is Tom would retain his original size, as it is only Jerry who would grow into a monstrous proportion.
- A shot of the cartoon's original titles was found, but only in black and white. The original Technicolor version has not been found as of 2018. On October 7, 2018, a YouTube user cartoon98100 uploaded the full black and white titles of the cartoon taken from a 16mm Agfa print.
- This short was shown in the 1983 movie, The Hunger.
- Despite not appearing in its entirety on the MGM Cartoon Magic Volume 1: Featuring Barney Bear and King-Size Canary 1983 VHS/laserdisc set, a small 1-minute preview clip of this cartoon could be seen at the very beginning of the VHS/LD set before the featured program begins with the Barney Bear cartoon The Unwelcome Guest (1945), as an attempt to promote the Tom and Jerry Cartoon Festival VHS tape collection, which was released by MGM/UA Home Video at the time. The clips from this cartoon shown in the preview clip were Tom mixing the chemicals in the milk, Jerry drinking the potion for the first time, and a super-muscular Jerry violently trashing Tom for the second time.[1]
- Monster Jerry appears in Tom and Jerry Chase. Any mouse will transform into Monster Jerry after drinking Transformation Drink.
- This is the last Tom & Jerry cartoon to be animated by Pete Burness (although he was uncredited).
- The short shares its name with an episode of Garfield and Friends.
- This was the first Tom & Jerry short to be officially uploaded to YouTube by the Warner Bros. Classics channel, having occurred on October 6, 2024.[2]
- The short's premise bears similarities with the 1937 Mickey Mouse short The Worm Turns. One scene from said cartoon shows a cat and a mouse, looking similar to Jerry. The way the mouse tortures the cat is similar to how Jerry punishes Tom. It is unknown if the Disney short served as inspiration to this short.
Availability[]
.jpg "Tom and jerry classic collection volume 2 cover (UK version).jpg (43 KB)")
Streaming[]
Errors[]
- The book that Tom uses to hit Jerry is yellow on the shelf. When he grabs it, the book turns green.
Gallery[]
- Main article: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse/Gallery