The Truce Hurts is a 1948 one-reel animated cartoon and is the 35th Tom and Jerry short. It was produced in Technicolor and released to theatres on July 17, 1948 by Metro-Goldwyn Mayer.
Characters
Butch Cat (cameo)
Dog (unknown and cameo)
Plot
Jerry is chased off the house by Tom and Spike. The mouse gets a pipe, the cat gets a pan and the dog gets a baseball bat. They start to fight about, but Spike all of a sudden stops it. He questions, "What's all this fighting getting in us, huh? Cats can get along dogs, can't they? And mice can get along with cats, can't they?" The three characters become friends in future, they sign a peace treaty in the house.
Then Spike prepares breakfast for himself and his pals whilist he sees Tom helping Jerry brush his teeth. Tom puts Jerry on a stack of books on a chair, as Spike pours milk into bottles for them and himself to drink. Before they drink milk in a bottle each the dog picks a ruler to measure the amount of milk in each cup. Tom, Jerry and Spike take a nap after this, sharing a blanket, and a flower then falls from a tree near the house and that goes into Tom's mouth. He then puts the blanket on Jerry. Jerry then closes Spike's mouth to stop him snoring. Spike manages to stop the alarm clock and sneaks off to the kitchen. While Tom helps Jerry brush his teeth, Spike prepares the milk. They seat each other, lick the lid of the milk, drink the milk and then share a tooth pick for their teeth.
When the episode fades to another scene, while Jerry is taking a stroll outside, an alley cat who happens to be scourging for food in trash cans, spots him and decides that he will make a delightful appetizer. Fortunately, Tom, who is nearby, immediately rushes to Jerry's rescue and subdues the black alley cat by slamming a trash can lid into his face. The black cat stares at him angrily, as if he is thinking that Tom is trying to mess with him. But then Tom brushes Jerry and kisses the little mouse on the cheek before sending him off, which leaves the alley cat looking on and screams terrifyingly, and repetitively knocks himself silly with a brick.
Tom is soon walking along the sidewalk where a dog is gnawing on a bone. He decides to make a meal out of Tom when he sees him, but Spike screams like a man and makes the save just in time by punching the dog and knocking out a mouth full of teeth. Spike tries to get Tom to speak before Tom points to the apple in his mouth. Spike pushes it down and accidentally knocks Tom out while trying to help him swallow it.
Later, the trio are walking until they come across a mud puddle. Spike uses his coat as a way of crossing before a delivery truck splashes them with mud, leaving them in blackface. The delivery truck drops a package leaving Tom, Jerry and Spike to see what's in it. They see that it is a steak and take it home to grill it. Before they decide eat it, they draw lines on it each with a chalk to determine on which one can have which size. After Spike gives Jerry a small piece, he gives Tom the bone which angers the cat into putting a fork in Spike's hand. The trio fight over the steak before the steak flies out of the house breaking the window and lands in a stream. The trio try to catch it but it fall into the sewers. Anguished by what happened, Tom, Jerry and Spike realise all of them no longer can be good pals. Spike shreds the peace treaty and then runs to the outside of the house, picking the baseball bat again up, while once again Tom picks up the pan and Jerry takes the pipe up one more time to resume their fight of getting each other to be beaten.
Voice Actors
Billy Bletcher as Spike Bulldog
William Hanna as Jerry's screams, Tom Cat's screams, Butch Cat's screams, Spike Bulldog's screams
Trivia
- The title is a pun on the phrase "the truth hurts."
- A truce is a treaty.
- The theme is We're to See The Wizard was used in soundtrack like in Professor Tom.
- This is one of the 5 cartoons where Tom rescues Jerry. He also saves him in The Night Before Christmas, Snowbody Loves Me, The Missing Mouse, and Dog Trouble.
- When signing the peace treaty, Spike's name is written as "Butch", which should not be confused with Butch the black cat, who is present in this episode, but his name is not revealed.
- This is the first time Spike saves Tom, the second was in the 2014 episode Pets Not Welcome.
Censorship
The censored scene in The Truce Hurts
The scene where the meat truck splatters mud all over Tom, Jerry and Spike, leaving them in blackface, is edited out on versions shown on Cartoon Network and the iTunes Store digital download.
External Links
The Truce Hurts at SuperCartoons.net
The Truce Hurts at B99.TV