Mouse Trouble

Overview

Transcript

Gallery

Mouse Trouble
Directed by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Produced by	Fred Quimby
Story by	Cal Howard
Music by	Scott Bradley
Animation by	Ray Patterson Irven Spence Kenneth Muse Pete Burness
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date	November 25, 1944 December 8, 1951 (reissue)
Color process	Technicolor
Running time	7:21
Preceded by	Puttin' on the Dog
Followed by	The Mouse Comes to Dinner

Mouse Trouble is a 1944 American one-reel animated cartoon and is the 17th Tom and Jerry short.

Plot

Tom gets a package in his mailbox and rushes out of the house to get it. After taking the package inside, he tears the wrappings which reveal an instruction manual on "How to Catch a Mouse".

Tom lies down to read Chapter I: First- Locate the Mouse. Unknown to him, Jerry is also reading the book underneath him, even stopping the cat from the turning the page until the mouse is done. Tom notices this, and pounces on Jerry. The mouse escapes and closes the book on the cat's nose, before retreating back to this mousehole. Annoyed, Tom opens the manual to Chapter II: Mouse Trap to start catching Jerry.

Tom tests a mousetrap, then places the trap with cheese as bait next to Jerry's hole. Jerry pops out of his hole to retrieve the cheese. After struggling to remove the cheese out of the trap, Jerry finally succeeds and eats the bait before retreating back to his hole unharmed. Tom, shocked at what happened, rushes to the mousetrap to see if it is jammed. However, the trap suddenly goes off on his finger, causing the cat to yell in pain.

Chapter III: Snare Trap. Tom prepares a snare trap by using a tree from outside the house. He places a piece of cheese next to the mousehole as bait before rushing into the corner to hide. Jerry immediately comes out of his hole and replaces the cheese with a bowl of cream. When Tom peeks back at the trap, he sees the cream and drinks it while Jerry activates the trap, sending the cat out to the tree himself.

Chapter IV: A Curious Mouse is Easy to Catch. Tom's next attempt is to spark Jerry's curiosity by noisily laughing from his book. This initially works, as a curious Jerry ventures out of his hole, with Tom capturing Jerry by shutting him into the book. But when Tom grabs him, Jerry pulls the same trick on him with his fists, with Tom ending up getting punched in the eye by the mouse.

A brief chase leads to Jerry being cornered in the walls. Tom takes the opportunity to read Chapter V: A Cornered Mouse NEVER FIGHTS from his manual. Feeling confident on this, Tom pounces on the mouse. A series of blows reveal a battered and bruised Tom, droning "Don't you believe it!" to the audience.

Chapter VII: Be Scientific in Your Approach. From this point on, Tom uses various approaches in capturing Jerry. His first approach is to use a stethoscope to listen for Jerry within the walls of the house. Eventually Tom was able to pick up the mouse's heartbeat next to the mousehole, unaware that the mouse was actually standing next to him, eating a piece of cheese. In an attempt to poke fun at Tom, Jerry proceeds to swallow the entire cheese to have cat hear various slamming noises inside the mouse's stomach from the stethoscope. Tom notices Jerry nearby. But the mouse picks up the microphone from the stethoscope and screams at it, deafening the cat. Jerry quickly retreats back to his mousehole, as Tom forces a double barreled shotgun into Jerry's mousehole. Unknown to Tom, the barrel of the gun passes through the wall and bends outwards, pointing straight on top of his head. The cat fires, shooting himself in the head, rendering himself bald.

In his next approach, Tom sets a bear trap and sticks it inside Jerry's hole. However, Jerry walks from the other side of the wall and places the trap behind Tom. Just as Tom sits down, the trap triggers, causing him to be painfully launched towards the ceiling with his head stuck, continuing to scream in pain.

Tom's next approach is to stand by the mousehole to flatten Jerry with a mallet. The cat repeatedly misses on hitting the mouse, until Jerry pops out of a hole behind a walled picture above Tom and snatches the mallet from the cat. Jerry proceeds to knock Tom down, causing the cat to collapse, dazed.

Chapter IX: Slip him a Surprise Package. Tom then attempts to hide inside a large gift box before knocking on Jerry's wall. Jerry, seeing the package, feels suspicious, thinking it could possibly be another one of Tom's traps. He then returns with a bunch of pins and pushes them into the box before sawing the box in half. Hearing nothing inside, Jerry drops his suspicions and looks inside the package. To his horror, the mouse pulls out his head from the package and nervously gulps before displaying a sign reading "IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE?"

An annoyed Tom, now covered in bandages proceeds in the manual to Chapter XII: Mice are Suckers for Dames. He winds up a toy female mouse, which repeats "Come up and see me some time". Jerry, noticing the toy, walks with it, mistaking it as a real female mouse. Tom attempts to lure Jerry into a mouse-sized "hotel," with the entrance leading to the cat's open mouth. As Jerry walks towards the "hotel", he ushers the mechanical mouse into the hotel first. To Tom's dismay, he accidentally chews and swallows the toy, causing him to repeatedly hiccup and repeat the phrase "Come up and see me some time." due to its voice box stuck in his throat. As Tom looks at his ruined teeth in a mirror, he gets so enraged that he shatters the mirror and tears the book into pieces, finding its tips completely worthless.

In a final attempt to dispose the mouse for good, Tom piles up dozens of high explosives at Jerry's mousehole. When Tom lights a piece of dynamite, he blows the fuse much too hard, resulting in all the explosives erupting and killing Tom. Nothing at all remains of the house except Jerry, who is still alive, and the entrance of his mousehole. Seeing the toupee slowly floating down, the mouse looks up above where an annoyed Tom is ascending into heaven, repeatedly hiccupping "Come up and see me some time.".

Characters

• Mailman (Arm only)
• Tom Cat (main antagonist)
• Jerry Mouse
• Toy Mouse

Voice Actors

• William Hanna as Tom, Jerry
• Harry E. Lang as Tom (laughing and talking)
• Sara Berner as Toy Mouse

Notes

• This is the second Tom and Jerry short to win an award, and the second such instance during World War II.
• When Tom winds the female mouse toy, he has multiple bandages covering him. When he accidentally eats the toy, all his bandages are gone.
• This is one of the few shorts where Tom gets killed in the end. Ironically, in Heavenly Puss, Tom dreams of getting sent to Hell as punishment for tormenting Jerry for the entirety of his life.
• The "How to Catch a Mouse" book Tom reads has the text "A Random Mouse Book" on the front; this is a reference to the American book publishing company Random House, which is the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world.
• "Don't... you... believe it!" would be used again in The Missing Mouse.
• The fist trick Jerry pulled out on Tom was used again in Safety Second.
• Several internet memes came from this episode, such as Tom laughing at the book, "Don't... you... believe it!", and the shotgun from the mouse hole.
• Harry E. Lang's iconic Tom laugh would be recycled later on during the series' run.
• This short uses "All God's Chillun Got Rhythm" as one of its background melodies.
• This was the first Tom and Jerry short to premiere on MeTV Toons.

Availability

Tom & Jerry Cartoon Festival: Volume 2 ((VHS, CED Videodisc, & LaserDisc)

Tom & Jerry's 50th Birthday Classics III (VHS)

The Art of Tom & Jerry: Volume I (LaserDisc)

Tom and Jerry: Classic Collection Volume 1 (DVD)

Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection, Vol. 1 (DVD)

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection (DVD)

Tom & Jerry's Greatest Chases Vol. 2 (DVD)

Tom and Jerry: The Deluxe Anniversary Collection (DVD)

Tom and Jerry Golden Collection: Volume One (DVD & Blu-ray)

Tom and Jerry: Mouse Trouble (DVD)

Gallery

Tom and Jerry read from How To Catch A Mouse.

Tom laughing.

"Don't... you... believe it!"

Tom's death.