Professor Tom is a 1948 one-reel animated cartoon and is the 37th Tom and Jerry short.
Plot[]
Tom is a professor trying to teach a small gray kitten name Topsy on how to catch mice. Tom begins his lesson on the blackboard, but Topsy becomes bored and eventually drifts to sleep in class. Tom, noticing this, repeatedly taps on the blackboard few times with his pointer in an attempt to have his pupil stay focused. As Tom continues his lessons, Jerry appears and modifies some of Tom's lessons by writing "Mice are very nice" on the blackboard. Upon seeing this, the cat instructor attempts to go after Jerry, but not before the mouse scratches the blackboard with the chalk, causing a painful screeching sound that hurts Tom's ears. Infuriated by this, Tom chases Jerry before immediately cornering him. As he grabs the mouse, he is greeted by another painful screeching sound from the chalkboard, this time caused by Topsy.
Tom stops his pupil and sternly reminds him on the lesson that he just gave: "Cats chase mice". He then sends Topsy to go after Jerry as his first assignment. The pupil kitten makes his way to Jerry. Jerry, seeing how naïve and innocent Topsy is, attempts to befriend him with a handshake, which the pupil cat happily obliges. Witnessing this, Tom screams in sheer aggravation, causing Jerry to help Topsy resume his lesson by letting the pupil kitten chase him. The chase goes into the living room with Topsy either bumping or getting stuck between furnitures. Jerry helps the pupil a few times. But Topsy eventually slips into a rug, causing him and the mouse to crash into a glass door of a shower stall in the bathroom.
Tom arrives at the scene, and catches Topsy playfully faking a shower. Frustrated by this, Tom sternly orders his pupil to come out and return to class. The kitten did as he was told, holding a towel as he makes his way. Tom then spots Jerry hiding in the other end of the towel, causing the mouse to quickly flee out of the bathroom in terror.
Tom goes after him, but spots Topsy standing in the corner of the room. The cat professor gives a suspicious glare on Topsy, which Topsy shrugs that he did not see Jerry. Not trusting his pupil lightly, Tom immediately looks around the back of Topsy a few times, with Jerry standing on the back of Topsy, but positioning himself where he is completely hidden in plain sight from Tom. Tom eventually lifts up his pupil to see if the mouse was there (Jerry is now holding onto Topsy's tail, still undetected by Tom). Seeing that Jerry is not with Topsy, Tom puts down his pupil and immediately goes through the halls, searching for the mouse.
As the cat professor makes his way to the teaching area, he immediately screams in terror on what he just sees: Jerry, taking his place as the professor, is now giving Topsy a lesson that "Cats and mice are buddies, cats and mice are pals, cats and mice are chums." But the lesson is cut short when Tom angrily interrupts. Jerry responds by playfully poking him with the pointer few times, tickling him. Topsy, wanting to join the fun, asks the mouse to give him a chance to poke Tom. Unfortunately for the pupil, the fun doesn't last long as his professor quickly snapped out of his daze, sternly looking at him to stop. Slapping the pointer off of Topsy's hands, Tom angrily orders his pupil to resume his lesson on going after Jerry. Topsy obliges, but not before being redirected by his professor to Jerry's direction.
Jerry happily sees Topsy innocently passing by him doing his lessons. But his happiness turns into fear as he sees Tom immediately coming right after him, causing the mouse to flee. Topsy, spotting his professor chasing Jerry, immediately runs into their direction. Just as Tom is ready to catch Jerry, Topsy arrives from the opposite direction, causing Tom to suddenly ride above his pupil's head before bumping onto the side of the table.
As Topsy continues his Jerry into the halls, Tom appears and hands a nearby vase to his pupil, before he starts chasing Jerry around the halls in circles After a few laps around, Tom stops his chase and stands right behind Topsy, with Jerry eventually following suit behind him. Frustrated to see his pupil not even paying attention to what's going on, Tom instructs Topsy to hit Jerry by pointing at the vase and the mouse. Topsy, apparently misunderstanding his teacher's directions, hands the vase over to Jerry instead, causing the mouse to hit Tom before fleeing.
Jerry runs to his hole and Tom grabs a cigar and begins to repeatedly inhale the smoke and blow it into Jerry's mousehole, but the smoking soon makes him literally turn green with sickness and pass out. Jerry then emerges from the mousehole with a clothespin on his nose, seeing a sick Tom. Tom soon recovers and jumps at him, but Jerry stuffs the cigar into his face, making him sick all over again.
Jerry runs back to where Topsy is, who happily grabs the mouse in admiration. Tom then approaches and becomes exhilarated when he sees Jerry in Topsy's hand, thinking that his pupil has successfully completed his first lesson on catching the mouse. Giving his pupil endless praise with handshakes, kisses, and a pat on the head, Tom then happily orders his pupil to hand Jerry over to him.
Topsy, however, looks at his professor in a confused manner. Tom, becoming confused as well, holds his hand out once more to sternly demand his pupil to hand over Jerry to him. Topsy however, still refuses. Now irritated by his pupil, Tom furiously demands Jerry in a manner of a final warning, but Topsy refuses again and releases Jerry. Tom begins to chase Jerry, but Topsy trips him. This has become the final straw for Tom. The cat professor grabs Topsy and administers a repeated spanking on him as punishment. Jerry sees from a distance on what is going on. Shocked by such cruel treatment from Tom, the mouse charges towards the instructor and furiously snaps the tip of the cat's tail with his knee. Tom stops to scream in pain before examining that his tip of his tail has limply drooped down.
Tom immediately races towards Jerry and rolls up a golden carpet where Jerry is running, to trap the mouse inside. Now having caught the mouse, Tom then takes the carpet outside to dispose Jerry. However, unknown to the cat, Jerry escapes from the carpet from the other end and pulls with enough force to drag Tom towards one end of the rolled carpet, before throwing it with Tom into a garden pool.
Jerry runs back into the house and slams the door in Tom's face and closes the windows before Tom can get in, trapping Tom's fingers in the process. After the front door gets slammed in Tom's face, Tom decides to break the door down. He takes a few steps back to get a good running start, ultimately running towards the door at full force. Jerry sees this through the mail slot and quickly clears the way for Tom. Topsy then opens the door and promptly gets flattened by a barreling Tom. Jerry then runs to the back of the house and stretches an innertube across two posts on the backyard deck. Still running at full speed, Tom plows into the innertube and gets sling-shotted back through the house and through the mailbox and is stuck with his head out one side, his arms trapped by his side, and his defensless rear end hanging out the other.
Jerry arrives with a 2x4 board and is just about to start spanking Tom. However Topsy stops him and gently pets Tom's backside, to show whatever tiny respect the pupil has left of his professor. However, Topsy then immediately uses all of his strength and gives Tom a solid whack on the cat's bottom, as payback for spanking him earlier. The pupil kitten then takes Tom's hat and places it on Jerry's head. Now acknowledging the mouse as his new teacher, the pupil walks away, arm in arm with Jerry, as he continues on to resume his schooling.
Characters[]
Voice actors[]
- William Hanna as Tom, Jerry
Availability[]
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Streaming[]
Censorship[]
- Due to the United Kingdom's 2006 ban on TV show characters smoking, the scene of Tom smoking a cigar and blowing smoke in Jerry's mousehole until Tom gets sick (and Jerry shoving the cigar in Tom's nose when Tom tries to catch Jerry) was cut on the UK version of Boomerang. The US version of Boomerang (and, by proxy, Cartoon Network) leaves the scene uncut, despite often cutting scenes of tobacco smoking in classic cartoons.
- The Boomerang UK version also cuts the scene of Tom spanking Topsy for letting Jerry go and Jerry breaking Tom's tail in retaliation, which is another scene the US version of this channel did not edit.
Notes[]
- This cartoon marks the second appearance of Topsy after Baby Puss.
- The ending tune where Topsy happily accepts Jerry as his new teacher plays "We're Off to See the Wizard" from the classic 1939 MGM film, "The Wizard of Oz".
- The scene where Tom instructs Topsy to hit Jerry with a vase is loosely taken from "The Milky Waif", only with the roles reversed (Jerry telling Tuffy to hit Tom), but sharing the same outcome of Tom getting smacked in the end.
- Little School Mouse would be released in 1954 as a follow-up of Professor Tom, with the roles completely reversed. Jerry, now acting as the teacher, instructs Tuffy on how to evade from Tom, only to disastrously backfire on the mouse's end when his pupil decides to befriend the cat instead.
Gallery[]
- Main article: Professor Tom/Gallery