Not to be confused with The Invisible Cat.
The Invisible Mouse is a 1947 American one-reel animated cartoon and is the 33rd Tom and Jerry short.
Characters[]
Starring[]
Featuring[]
- Spike Bulldog (cameo)
Plot[]
The cartoon begins with Tom taunting Jerry with cheese tied to a string: as Jerry jumps at it, Tom draws it back. On his third try, Jerry fakes Tom out once, but still fails to stop the cat from pulling the string completely back. Jerry meets Tom armed with an iron, and Tom drops it; Jerry moves Tom's foot, which gets smashed instead. Tom chases Jerry up the stairs of the house and both animals slide down the railing, but Jerry moves onto an alternate path while Tom is thrown into the wall and a cuckoo clock falls on him, causing Tom to cuckoo.
Tom spots a fireplace bellows on the chase and sucks Jerry away from his mousehole, tosses him into the air, but cannot hold onto the mouse, as Jerry catches onto the shelf of plates near the ceiling and breaks a plate over Tom's head. Jerry hides in an invisible ink bottle labeled Chemo Set as Tom searches for him.
After the coast is clear, Jerry gets out and soon discovers he's half invisible, so he completes the job and has some fun by himself, chowing down a whole bowl of chocolate truffles and trekking across a table and chairs. When he finds Tom has set up another cheese/iron trap for him, the invisible Jerry walks toward his hole, chomps the cheese and walks away. Tom is puzzled and puts the iron on the nearest table to examine the situation, but Jerry smashes Tom's foot with the iron again, then stuffs the cat's tail into an electric socket and gives him a shock.
Tom dashes away in fright and exhaustion, scared stiff from what has happened to him; he settles down for a drink of milk, but Jerry moves the dish back and forth as Tom rubs his eyelids. Seeing nothing, the cat tries to drink his milk, but Jerry slurps every last drop and spits it into Tom's face.
Tom checks himself to make sure nothing is hanging from any part of his body, and overcome with exhaustion, draws up a pillow and goes to sleep. His nap does not last long, as the mouse lights a book of matches between Tom's toes; Tom starts to sweat in bed and wakes up. He sees nothing originally, but then smells the smoke and soon notices his foot is on fire; yelping in pain, he dashes over to a piano stool and sticks his foot in the goldfish bowl, putting out the fire.
Tom then hears the piano playing with no visible assistance and peeks inside the belly of the instrument, but Jerry drops the cover on him. Tom sees a banana being eaten of its own accord and then spots the shadow of Jerry on the nearby wall; now realizing the truth, he stealthily whacks Jerry with a book, whose shadow reveals that he has incurred a bump on his head. Tom grabs at where Jerry was, but Jerry grabs an apple and flees. Tom follows him under a refrigerator and, when the mouse throws away his apple core, Tom throws flour all over the kitchen to force Jerry to leave tracks when he comes out. Tom slaps at Jerry with a frying pan, but Jerry writes a cursive "missed me" in the flour.
The second swing from the cat encourages Jerry to run away; Tom chases Jerry and grabs at where the footprints are, but when he opens his hand, Jerry twists his whiskers. Tom seizes a curtain and covers the mouse's footprints with it, trapping the mouse in his tracks as Jerry is shown to struggle helplessly. Tom grabs another book and starts beating the mouse, but Jerry escapes unseen from the cat's hold and swing hits Tom's rear with a golf club, causing the cat to briefly grimace in pain. Jerry takes the chase outside. When outside, Tom stops and sees Jerry, but can do nothing as Jerry whacks a sleeping Spike on the head and the golf club is planted on him. Spike, now thoroughly incensed, emerges with a bump on his head and starts whacking Tom repeatedly with the golf club all the way down the street. Inside, Jerry procures a straw and drinks Tom's chocolate milk, which "fills in" his empty silhouette and renders him visible again. And there he is, he is now back to normal was... Jerry the Mouse. Seemingly oblivious, he continues sipping.
Notes[]
- When Jerry puts his hand in the ink, his hand is invisible, but when he jumps his whole self in the ink, the hand is visible. Therefore, it would have made more sense if he had dived into the bottle headfirst, but then flipped vertically so that his head is faced upwards.
- This cartoon can be compared to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse in many ways: where the short uses a somewhat bright lighting and cast shadows for the scenery, Jerry goes through some type of experiment which causes and gives him the advantage to turn the tables on Tom, Jerry plugs Tom's tail into an electric machinery (waffle iron and outlet) which affects Tom's tail, and the end results showing Tom being chased away or whacked by an item proving to be menacing for him and Jerry is hit with a book.
- This is the first time Spike makes a cameo appearance.
- This is the first time that Jerry becomes invisible. He became invisible again in The Vanishing Duck and Of Feline Bondage.
- This cartoon references The Invisible Man.
- Kenneth Muse does uncredited animation in this short.
- A Patreon user, "Antonio Gabriele Fiori"/"cartoon98100", uploaded a rare 16mm black and white Kodak print of the cartoon with the original titles intact.
- In the German version, the cursive text "Missed me!", written by Jerry when Tom misses the target to hit invisible Jerry, is translated to "Nicht getroffen!" which translates into "Not hit!"
- The cartoon was remade in the 1960s with the scene where Spike hits Tom with a golf club, the sky and background looks like evening than afternoon.
Gallery[]
