Heavenly Puss is a 1949 American one-reel animated cartoon. It is the 42nd Tom and Jerry short.
Characters[]
Major[]
- Tom Cat
- Dream Tom
- Jerry Mouse
Main[]
- Gatekeeper Cooper
- Devil Dog (An evil version of Spike)
Minor[]
- Butch Cat
- Frankie (first appearance)
- Aloysius (first appearance)
- Fluff, Muff and Puff (debut)
Plot[]
The cartoon begins with Tom resting by the fireplace as Jerry peeks through his mousehole and runs under the chair. Tom, being partially awake, notices this, as he slowly opens one eye. Jerry climbs up the table and hides behind the candle and while he was checking the coast is clear, Tom picks up a knife getting ready to strike. Jerry puts his hand to pinch a biscuit when Tom hits his hand with a knife. Jerry sees Tom and ducks down as Tom chops the candle in half and dashes off. A violent chase then ensues with Jerry climbing the stairs, while Tom loosens the stairs' carpet to have the mouse slide back down. Far up the staircase, however, is a large piano that is about to come rolling down. Jerry notices this from middle of the staircase and escapes midway. Tom notices this as well and runs off, only to end being cornered before being lethally crushed by the piano, causing him to lie down dead in the process.
A golden escalator suddenly appears right in front of Tom's dead body, causing his soul to leave from his body to climb aboard. A long winding escalator ride eventually leads the cat to Heaven. As he approaches, he notices a golden fence with a sign that reads "Heavenly Express". Behind the fence is a golden train, where passengers are boarding. Nearby, a few cats stand on the ticket line. The gatekeeper calls out the names of Butch, Frankie, and Aloysius, granting them approval to pass. He calls out the names of three kittens, Fluff, Muff and Puff, before expressing disgust on their cause of death.
Tom tries to sneak past the gatekeeper. However, the gatekeeper immediately calls out his name and asks him to wait "Thomas, just a minute.". As he reads from his book that Tom has spent his whole life persecuting Jerry, the gatekeeper can't grant him to pass. The conductor adds on, however, that with the Heavenly Express not departing for another hour, Tom must ask Jerry to sign the "Certificate of Forgiveness" to be permitted to pass. Otherwise, he will be banished to Hell where Spike the Bulldog, personified as the devil, awaits, much to Tom's horror. The gatekeeper reminds him that he has only an hour to have Jerry sign the form, then teleports Tom back home.
Tom comes back to life, thinking it was all a dream. However, to his horror, realizes it is real when he sees he finds the certificate on his hand. A ghostly golden clock appears, with the voice of the gatekeeper urging Tom to have Jerry quickly sign the certificate "Hurry, Tom! Hurry!". Tom goes to Jerry's mousehole and offers him a whole cake that reads "To my pal". Jerry happily accepts and quickly digs into the cake without signing the certificate. Shocked by this, Tom grabs Jerry out of his mousehole and furiously demands the mouse to sign the certificate. Jerry thinks this is a joke, and responds by squirting him with the pen with blue ink, before disappearing! The golden clock displays half an hour left for the Heavenly Express to depart. Tom tries to sneakily forge Jerry's signature, but is stopped short when the gatekeeper catches him from the golden clock.
Tom then tries to get Jerry to sign it by bribing him with cheese. Having enough of Tom's ploy, Jerry angrily rips up the certificate as the last straw. Frightened and enraged, Tom grabs Jerry and attempts to smash him with a dustpan. To the cat's horror, however, Devil Spike suddenly pops in and reminds Tom of the consequence of doing so: "Attaboy, Tom! Hit him and let's go! Come on!" Acknowledging what Devil Spike says, he kisses Jerry before the demonic canine disappears.
Tom puts all the pieces of the certificate back together with tape. This time, he desperately pleads with Jerry to sign the paper by gesturing the fate that awaits him. The golden clock then chimes, signalling the Heavenly Express is about to depart. He also mimes an apology for how he has treated Jerry. Still skeptical but understanding Tom's predicament, Jerry finally decides to sign the certificate, but notices there is no ink left on the pen. Tom frantically grabs the pen to unleash some blue ink on the walls, before giving it back to Jerry, pleading him to sign. Jerry signs the certificate as Tom races up the stairway to heaven. However, the stairs vanish and a fiery pit forms below him, leading the cat deep within the bowels of Hell.
Tom lands into a boiling cauldron next to Devil Spike who laughs sadistically as the cat will now suffer from eternal damnation. The scenes of Hell suddenly changes to the nearby fireplace where Tom was seen sleeping earlier, where it shoots a red-hot piece of coal on him to wake him up. Tom awakes screaming in pain but is relieved when he realizes that everything that happened was all just a terrible nightmare. He runs over to Jerry and hugs and kisses him profusely. Utterly perplexed, Jerry shrugs in confusion as the cartoon iris out and ends.
Notes[]
- The Conductor who grants the passengers to enter the Heavenly Express resembles Tom Cat.
- He would later appear in Tom and Jerry Chase under the name "Cooper".
- This is the first cartoon where Butch is officially named "Butch". In his earlier appearances, he was an unnamed cat character.
- This short was shown in the 1987 movie Prince of Darkness and the 2013 movie Escape from Tomorrow.
- The Devil Dog appears in Tom and Jerry in War of the Whiskers, but used for Spike as an alternative costume.
- The Devil Dog also appears in the Game Boy Advance game, Tom and Jerry in Infurnal Escape, which it was loosely based on this Golden Age short as the main antagonist.
- Devil Dog or Evil Spike is also set to appear in the FNF mod The Basement Show in the mod update alongside the Gatekeeper Cooper.
- Tom in this cartoon draws some parallels to Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol", where Scrooge dreams of the third spirit banishing him to Hell for his greed, only to wake up on Christmas morning to redeem himself from his miserly ways.
- Likewise, Tom attempts to redeem himself by being kinder to Jerry.
- Unlike in A Christmas Carol, this cartoon doesn't takes place during the holiday season and probably not even the Winter time.
- Likewise, Tom attempts to redeem himself by being kinder to Jerry.
- This is the first appearances of the triplet kittens Fluff, Muff and Puff and the first of their two appearances in the classic Golden-era.
- Some scenes from this short were used in Shutter Bugged Cat.
- This short marks the final performance of Billy Bletcher as Spike Bulldog before he was replaced by Daws Butler starting with 1949's Love That Pup.
- The cartoon was remade for an episode on Tom & Jerry Kids Show.
Availability[]
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Streaming[]
Censorship[]
- This short is banned in the Middle East and Brazil for its frightening depictions of death, eternal damnation in Hell, and a brief scene implying animal abuse (the scene of Fluff, Muff, and Puff entering Heaven in a wet sack, implying that they were drowned). The short does air in some other countries like in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Gallery[]
