- Not be confused with Catfish Follies, a cartoon from Tom and Jerry Tales.
Mice Follies is the 85th entry of the classic Tom and Jerry series.
Plot[]
Jerry & Tuffy turn on the kitchen sinks and the water dispenser to flood the entire kitchen with water. They then remove a pair of wires from the freezer before placing it on the now flooded floor. Tuffy turns on the freezer to freeze the pool, turning the entire kitchen into an ice skating rink and using the gelatins and a flashlight as a color-changing spotlight to shine on Jerry. Jerry happily skates around the sheet of ice, before Tuffy tags along, struggling to maintain his balance. Seeing Tuffy wants to join, Jerry ice skates together with him across the frozen kitchen floor.
Tom, meanwhile, who is sleeping in a nearby living room with a newspaper, is woken up by what is happening in the kitchen. As he opens the kitchen door, he peeks, wondering what Jerry is up to. Jerry skids through the kitchen floor with Tuffy behind. But just as the mouse grabs hold of a chair leg, Tuffy accidentally loses his grip on Jerry, causing the little grey mouse to slide across the kitchen floor. He grabs hold Tom's whiskers to keep himself from slipping before landing on the living room floor with Tom's whiskers in his hands.
Tuffy approaches a very displeased Tom, who is intensely eyeing on him for snapping his whiskers off. Tuffy futilely attempts to re-attach the whiskers onto Tom's face, before shyly burying them underneath the living room carpet and darting back towards Jerry. Tom, now upset, attempts to go after the mice. However, the moment he tries to chase them, he immediately slips onto the frozen kitchen floor. After several exhausting attempts to retain his balance, the cat extends his claws, briefly anchoring him on the frozen kitchen floor. Jerry, however, arrives with a pair of scissors, and trims off Tom's claws, causing the cat to slip once more on the frozen floor. Jerry and Tuffy then follow up by grabbing Tom by the tail, then skidding through the frozen kitchen floor to powerfully propel the cat around the kitchen. Tom crashes into a closet next door, but sees his opportunity to get even with the mice: a pair of ice skates.
With Tom out of the way, Jerry and Tuffy resume their ice skating together around the kitchen. However, unbeknownst to them, Tom is eventually trailing behind the mice by holding onto Tuffy's tail. As Jerry continues skating, Tom apparently restrains him by lifting Tuffy in the air. The two mice eventually realize what is happening. But before they can react, Tom pulls Tuffy's tail with enough force and releases it to propel the mice. Jerry and Tuffy hastily skates to escape from Tom. However, Tom, now wearing a pair of ice skates, quickly catches up to them and use the blades from his skates to dump ice from the frozen floor on the two mice, turning them into a makeshift ice sculptures. As he removes their sculptures, the mice attempts to flee once more. Tom, now matching the skating prowess of the mice, gains the advantage as he confidently chases the mice while gracefully jumping and ducking through many kitchen obstacles. Feeling proud of his performance, the cat becomes briefly distracted from his surroundings as he gets unceremoniously knocked out when he crashes into a wall-mounted ironing board, giving the mice extra time to escape.
Jerry, hiding in a corner alongside Tuffy, urges the little mouse to stay quiet as he inspects to see if Tom is close by. However, the moment the mouse peeks his head, Tom pops up, causing the cat and mouse to go into an intense chase. Jerry skates underneath a door, causing Tom to squeeze through and turn into a sled. However, the cat immediately recovers and resumes his chase towards the mouse. Tuffy then uses a loose plank from the table and sets it up like a ramp. Jerry immediately skates underneath it at a perfect time. But Tom gets caught by the ramp, causing him perform a high ski jump in the kitchen. As Tom helplessly flaps his arms mid-air, Jerry opens the cellar door to have the cat come crashing down into the cellar, before closing the door again.
Jerry, satisfied that he finally disposed the cat, walks away. However, Tom immediately emerges from the cellar, all bruised, wearing a broken metal bucket around his waist, and holding a shovel. Eyeing at Jerry with anger, the cat slams the shovel on the mouse, only for Jerry to promptly escape and leaving a distinct impression on the shovel, of the mouse mockingly sticking out his tongue. The chase resumes around the frozen kitchen floor.
However, Tuffy approaches the freezer and defrosts the ice, causing Tom to slip over on the watery floor and adjust to the changes. Tom then sees his opportunity once more, in the form of a soda siphon. Tom attempts to slow Jerry down by powerfully spraying the mouse with the siphon. The mouse desperately climbs up a shelf, which leaves him completely cornered. As the cat is ready to spray again, Tuffy takes the opportunity and sets the freezer to 'Quick Freeze', re-freezing the floor and Tom (who already became completely drenched with water after the defrost). Just as he sprays, Tom becomes completely trapped in his own icy display, while the water jet from the siphon makes a bridge for Jerry to skate across.
With only his eyes intact, the cat can't do much but helplessly watch Jerry giving him a satisfied look before climbing back down the frozen kitchen floor. Jerry & Tuffy resume their ice dancing, skating around the frozen cat who moves his eyes around the mice, begrudgingly viewing them as they skate across the floor.
Characters[]
Notes[]
- The title is a play on the Ice Follies, a touring ice show founded in 1936.
- This was the last Tom & Jerry cartoon to use the 1952 red and blue MGM Cartoon title. It was one of the only two cartoons to use the first version of the 1954 blue Tom & Jerry title card, the other being Baby Butch.
- The classical waltz that plays while Jerry and Tuffy happily ice skate together is The Sleeping Beauty by Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, which would later become the basis for "Once Upon A Dream" from Disney's Sleeping Beauty five years later.
- Likewise, the classical waltz that plays while Tom elegantly ice skates while flawlessly avoiding obstacles to chase the mice is called Voices of Spring by Johann Strauss II. This specific waltz is traditionally used by figure skaters during performances.
- This cartoon is referenced in The Powerpuff Girls episode "Ice Sore" when Bubbles tells Blossom to make the floor all ice like in the show, and she does.
- Bubbles mentions that Tom and Jerry is her favorite cartoon.
- This cartoon employs similar gags shown in the beginning portion of The Bowling Alley-Cat:
- The cartoon begins with Jerry happily skating in the bowling alley while the background waltz of The Sleeping Beauty plays.
- Tom struggles to maintain his footing on the slippery bowling alley, leaving Jerry to make sure the cat can continue to lose his balance.
- Jerry grabs Tom by the tail while skating before propelling the cat with enough force to make him crash into an ashtray on the other side of the room.
- The gag where Jerry leaves an impression of himself blowing a raspberry on Tom's shovel after getting hit is re-used from Saturday Evening Puss, where Topsy attempts to strike Jerry three times with a trash can lid, only to be left with three distinct impressions of Jerry blowing a raspberry on the lid.
- Jerry does not get mad at Tuffy in this cartoon.
- The only spotlight color shown on the bottom is the blue/indigo gelatin, as the yellow, green, and red gelatins show spotlights on the ice floor.
- The cartoon shares the same name as the 1960 Looney Tunes short.
Errors[]
- When Tuffy accidentally pulls down Tom's right whiskers, they were thrown under a mat. For the rest of the cartoon, Tom has his whiskers intact.
- In the same scene, Tom has six whiskers, while for the rest of the cartoon, he has four whiskers.
- The moment Tom becomes frozen, he also leaves out a frozen stream of water from his spray bottle. However, in the scene where Jerry and Tuffy happily skates around the frozen Tom, the frozen jet of water is now gone.
Availability[]
.jpg "Tom and Jerry Merry Mice DVD (frontside).jpg (160 KB)")
.jpg "Pint-Sized Pals (front side).jpg (1.17 MB)")
Gallery[]
Main article: Mice Follies/Gallery