Surf-Bored Cat

Surf-Bored Cat
Title Card
Directed By	Abe Levitow
Produced by	Chuck Jones
Story By	Bob Ogle
Music By	Carl Brandt
Animation By	Dick Thompson Philip Roman Ben Washam Hal Ambro Don Towsley Carl Bell
Co-written By	Sid Marcus
Release Date	May 6, 1967
Distributed By	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Preceded By	The Mouse from H.U.N.G.E.R.
Followed By	Shutter Bugged Cat

Surf-Bored Cat is a 1967 Tom and Jerry 1967 cartoon. It is the 158th and fourth-to-last entry of the Tom and Jerry 1940-1967 series.

Characters

Starring

• Tom
• Jerry

Featuring

• Starfish
• Shark

Plot

Tom and Jerry are on a cruise ship heading to a tropical Caribbean beach, and Tom looks out the window seeing a surfer riding a wave. Tom leaps for joy and dashes preparing for surfing and wakes up Jerry. Tom carries his surfboard out to the deck, but runs into many bumps and falls until he finally makes it to the sea out of a fishing boat. Tom lands on a large blue lump that reveals itself to be a shark. Tom peers over at the other surfers and hits the shark on the head seven times until his head has four lumps, knocking him out.

Tom surfs a large wave until he spots the shark below him, laughing demonically. Tom pulls himself up to the top of the wave until he is sucked beneath the water and soon encounters the shark again. Tom turns his arms such that he rows with them and speeds away from the shark, launching a foot into the air. He taunts the shark again, but scrapes the sand and runs into a rock. A mound of sand covers him and the surfboard is up against the rock, giving the mound the appearance of a grave. Jerry walks onto the "grave" and drops a flower onto it. He takes off his hat as a salute but grabbed by Tom, who spits out the flower as Jerry laughs nervously. The sand comes off Tom's head and reveals that a red starfish has grabbed a hold of it.

The starfish makes a pose, takes off the hat, and imitates Jimmy "Shnozzola" Durante for a moment before Tom attempts to remove the echinoderm. After much tugging with the starfish, Jerry whispers a plan in Tom's ear. The starfish protests, but his pleas are ignored when Tom carries him out anyway: Running headfirst into a big rock. The starfish is still here, and as Tom cries and points to the rock and his head, until a bump forms, which means the impact pushes the starfish off and sends him running away whimpering.

Tom takes one last look at the starfish, and leaps excitedly, but turns around when joy does not last for too long as he sees Jerry has taken his surfboard and becomes irritated. Jerry does a sombrero dance with the hat, puts the hat back on, and poses, but then notices that he is not standing on anything when Tom takes the surfboard and waves at the mouse. Jerry flies through the air and lands into a coconut tree. Jerry gets his head lodged in a coconut and stumbles around the beach, while resembling a monkey. Tom paddles away, but soon encounters the shark yet again, jumping off his surfboard and swimming to shore, causing the board to fly into the shark's mouth. Tom laughs himself silly, but fails to watch as the shark expels the board and ends up throwing it into Tom's mouth. The shark laughs maniacally as he departs. Tom is then used as a surfboard by Jerry. He shrugs and decides surfing is surfing.

Notes

• This is the final Tom and Jerry short directed by Abe Levitow.
• The roar that the shark uses is the MGM Lion roar from 1958.
• This is the last apperance of the Shark.
• Tom's screams when he encounters the shark while surfing are reused from the Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
• Jerry getting his head stuck inside a coconut is similar to Cruise Cat.

Availability

The Art of Tom & Jerry: Volume III: The Chuck Jones Cartoons (LaserDisc)

Tom and Jerry: Classic Collection Volume 6 (DVD)

Tom and Jerry: The Chuck Jones Collection (DVD)

Tom and Jerry: Fur Flying Adventures - Volume 2 (DVD)

Tom and Jerry's Summer Holidays (DVD)

Double Trouble (Blu-ray)

Gallery

A comparison of the DVNR damage across various prints of this cartoon; from left to right: The Art of Tom & Jerry: Volume III: The Chuck Jones Cartoons laserdisc print, 1995 PAL Turner master from the UK Tom and Jerry: Classic Collection DVD, and the 2009 restoration (which has no DVNR damage).