Texas Tom

Overview

Texas Tom is a 1950 American one-reel animated cartoon and the 49th Tom and Jerry short directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and produced by Fred Quimby. It was animated by Kenneth Muse, Ray Patterson, Irven Spence, and Ed Barge and released to theaters on March 11, 1950.

Plot[]

Within the valleys of Texas lies "Dude Ranch". Tom and Jerry begin their day by engaging in some Western-style cat-and-mouse games. Tom starts out straightening his lasso before removing an empty flowerpot nearby, revealing Jerry, who is cowering in fear. Jerry attempts to flee, but Tom unleashes his lasso to capture the mouse, before pulling him back in. Jerry angrily sits as he is being dragged, before momentarily getting pricked by a spur and a prickly pear cactus, which ends up sticking to his bottom. As the cat pulls Jerry right next to him, the mouse retaliates by slamming the prickly pear cactus on Tom, causing the cat to briefly wince in pain as thorns are now lodged onto his face. Jerry runs away once more, but not without having Tom pull the mouse back towards him with his lasso. Tom then takes out his revolver and holds Jerry at gunpoint. However, Jerry responds by blowing the barrel to send all six bullets into the cat's mouth, then kicks the empty revolver off of Tom's hand before striking the cat on the back of the head to make the shots go off. Unamused by the mouse's actions, Tom spits out the empty bullet casings and grabs Jerry, angrily glaring at him.

Suddenly, a cab is seen rushing through the desert, stopping nearby where the cat and mouse are, before speeding by to reveal a pretty cowgirl cat named Tara. Tom, completely infatuated by the cowgirl, quickly rushes to the nearby shed with Jerry in his hands, to dress up in his best cowboy duds. As Tara applies her makeup, she notices Tom, who is proudly approaching towards her. He then attempts to woo her with a formal Texas greeting: planting some tobacco on a piece of paper, then using Jerry's tongue to turn it into a cigarette, before tossing it up in the air to light it up by shooting it with his revolver. Tom catches the now lit cigarette with his mouth and smokes to breathe out the word "HOWDY" as greetings. The cowgirl is flustered and giggly. At one point he sings a song for her on a guitar but has a record player secretly playing the song for him; Jerry then takes the chance to mess with the speed of the recorder, and therefore, makes Tom sing in whatever speed he chooses. Jerry then gets hit by the guitar from Tom. As Tom continues the song, Jerry, angry for getting whacked, gets revenge on the cat by using a branding iron with a TJ-shape (for Tom and Jerry). He uses a tree like a slingshot and shoots the branding iron to Tom's exposed butt. Tom then jumps out of his clothing in pain, cooling off in a horse trough.

Tom chases after Jerry for humiliating him and tries to lasso the mouse. Jerry manages to evade capture and throws the lasso around the left horn of a nearby bull. He then angrily yanks the horn off, thinking it was Jerry, and uses it like a horn. He attaches the horn back, shapes it to the correct position, but the bull starts bellowing angrily. When Tom is confronted by the angry bull, he tries to flee. The bull charges at Tom, trying to ram him into a tree, but Tom hung on to a branch, causing the bull to smack into the tree. Tom then hides behind the gate, but the bull broke through, decapitating Tom. The bull notices golden horns on a door and trades his white horns off for the more dangerous golden horns. Tom then hides into a chicken coop, but the bull uses his golden horns to lift the coop up. The hens then flee, laying eggs in fear. Tom then grabs an egg, clucks at the bull, and eggs him before running away. However, Tom reached a fence on all directions. He resigns himself to his fate with a blindfold, smokes his last cigarette, as the bull charges right at him. Tom then goes flying in the air, bounces down the rooftop and falls down a waterspout, completely knocked out.

With Tom out of commission, Jerry now wears his own cowboy duds, and he waves his hat over to the cowgirl cat, then excitedly runs up to her face, grabs her by the cheeks and presses his lips onto the cowgirl's red lips, giving her a big kiss, and gives out a loud cry of "Yip-ee!" before riding off into the sunset on Tom's back like a horse.

Characters[]

Starring[]

Featuring[]

Tara
Bull
Hen (cameo)
Cows

Censorship[]

Due to the United Kingdom's ban on television characters smoking, Tom's smoking of a cigarette is omitted from Boomerang in the UK. It is shown in the US and on DVD releases uncensored.

Gallery[]

Main article: Texas Tom/Gallery

Availability[]

Notes[]

Posse Cat would later be released in 1954 as a spiritual successor to this cartoon, as it shares the same Wild Western setting and atmosphere, with both Tom and Jerry wearing their cowboy attires.
- Tom retains his white cowboy hat from his new duds. However his hat would lack the red band wrapped around it, and the scarf around his neck would be magenta colored, instead of being red or light green in color.
- Jerry's attire in the later cartoon is more faithful, as he still dons the same black cowboy hat and yellow scarf. The only difference is like that of Tom's in the later cartoon, Jerry's hat lacks the red band.
- The Bull returns in the later cartoon. Unlike this cartoon, he wears a nosering.
Tom's cowboy outfit has also appeared in Tom and Jerry in War of the Whiskers and MultiVersus.
A print with the original titles was released on DVD by Thunderbean.
This is Tara's only appearance until the The Tom and Jerry Show (2014) episode "Day of the Jackalope".
Hen makes a cameo appearance in the cartoon along with other hens.
The Bull replacing its white horns with bigger ones is similar to how Spike replaces his teeth in Solid Serenade.
The gag where Jerry blows the barrel of Tom's revolver to lodge all the bullets into the cat's mouth before firing off the shots, would later be re-used in Jerry's Cousin in a similar fashion. Instead of Jerry, however, it is Muscles who performs it, by blowing the twin barrels of Tom's shotgun to lodge the shells into the cat's eyes, before whacking the cat's head on the back with a hammer.
Excerpts of this cartoon are seen in two other shorts: Smitten Kitten and Cruise Cat.
Tom with hearts in his eyes was previously shown in Springtime for Thomas and Puss n' Toots.
The song that plays during the opening credits is "I Tipped My Hat (And Slowly Rode Away)", written by Larry Markes and Dick Charles, possibly in 1947. It is sung in this cartoon by The Kingsmen, who sang the song live on the Fibber McGee and Molly radio show on April 5, 1947. They are uncredited in this cartoon.
The song that Tom sings to Tara from the record player is "If You're Ever Down in Texas, Look Me Up", first released in the 1940s as a folk song by Terry Shand and "By" Dunham. The vocal performance for the song in this cartoon is provided by an uncredited Ken Darby.