The Unshrinkable Jerry Mouse is a 1964 cartoon directed and produced by Chuck Jones with backgrounds by Philip DeGuard. The title is a play on words on The Unsinkable Molly Brown, a popular Broadway musical that was made into a feature film, also in 1964.
The cartoon is essentially a Claude Cat and Marc Antony and Pussyfoot cartoon reworked for Tom and Jerry; most of the production staff on this cartoon had also developed those characters at Warners. Many of the gags were inspired by Warner Bros. cartoons of a similar theme to this short, such as Feline Frame-Up (1954), Feed the Kitty (1952), and Two's a Crowd (1950), which were mostly written by Michael Maltese and directed by Chuck Jones.
Plot
Tom wakes up in his basket stretches his foot then gets Jerry to fetch him a glass of milk, but when Jerry returns, he wants him to massage his shoulders. As he is done with it, he picks up Jerry and places him on his palm, pats him, and flips him back to his hole.
However, a cute brown and white kitten is delivered to the house, and the owner instantly falls in love with her, as does Jerry. However, a selfish Tom who doesn't want to share what he has with someone else takes an instant disliking to the kitten. As Jerry is still staring at the kitten, Tom pulls him up, angrily stares at him a moment, and flips him back to his hole again. Tom thinks on a window about an "equation" on him living with/without the kitten.
When the owner gets out of the house to get some food for the kitten as Tom waits for her to leave, Tom runs beside the door to wait for the right moment to get the kitten. He picks her up as she was shocked. Jerry hears the loud cry of the kitten, found her being kicked out by Tom, and gets angry. Using the string around him as a lasso, he runs on to Tom while whirling the string. As he is about to kick the kitten out, Jerry throws the string by his toe, pulls it as Tom spins backwardly and falls on the floor as the kitten was thrown away from his hand. Jerry sees the kitten about to fall on the floor. So he runs after her, sees a pillow and lands her safely onto it as she waves her tail. Jerry checks the kitten if she is okay when he thinks she's "dead" from the suffocation. The kitten turns her head up, Jerry is happy, pats her, and she licks him as a thank for saving her.
He sees Tom removed the string from his toe, angrily chases at him from the kitten. As Jerry picks the kitten up from the pillow, Tom manages to hide behind a kitchen door, waits and grabs the kitten from his hand. Jerry never notices it as he bumps onto a table leg, making a plate fall onto his hands. Tom does it again as Jerry manages to throw the plate by his foot, spinning him around, and saves the kitten again. As Tom is still spinning around, he was thrown out of the window, impacts on the ground, and Jerry locks him out of the house so that he won't bother the kitten again.
During the kitten's nap, Tom manages to catch Jerry's attention and threatens to persecute them if he continues to ignore him by keeping him out of the house. Tom gestures and formed gesture to kill. Jerry ignores him and antagonizes Tom further by letting the kitten drink milk from a straw. Because of this, Tom tries himself to catch the kitten. Jerry puts banana peel on the floor. Tom avoids them but Tom lands to the roller skates. Tom can't avoid them and goes inside the basement. Tom goes outside the basement, running, but he steps on banana peel. He gets stuck around the waist in a hole in the wooden garden gate. He manages to rip the board from the gate, but can't get himself out of the hole in the board. Desperately trying to get back into the house, he runs and finds out that with that board around his waist he can jump really high. That gives him the idea to jump though the upper level window, but due to the board around his waist he gets stuck in the window. From the impact, the window shuts itself and Tom is trapped with his upper body inside and his bottom and legs on the outside of the house. He tries to free himself but can't.
Now Jerry enters the scene. First, he closes the window's lock so that Tom has no chance to escape. That done, Jerry chuckles and rubs his hands gleefully. Tom, realizing his helplessness, begins to pray. Jerry decides that as his punishment for both his cruelty to the kitten and forcing him into slavery that Tom needs a good spanking. And he takes advantage of Tom's compromising situation to do just that. Next we see the scene from outside. Jerry has tied Tom's tail up high with a string so that he has unobstructed access to Tom's behind, effectively baring his bottom. Then he picks up a paddle (twice his own size) and carefully and deliberately takes aim. Taking his time and letting Tom think about what is about to happen. We see Tom on the inside sweating as he can see out the window. Jerry then begins spanking Tom's bare bottom hard and merciless with the paddle. This happens off screen, only Tom's expressions of pain are shown from inside. He gives him nine swats. The first three slow to let it sink in as Tom tries to endure the pain. Then a flurry of swats to drive Tom to tears. Then, from outside again, we see Tom's bare behind blinking like a red warning light, throbbing in pain, and Tom waves a white banner to signal his surrender.
After his surrender he is then forced to act as a slave for Jerry and the kitten. She happily sips milk from a straw and Jerry receives a shoulder massage from a disgruntled Tom.
Trivia
- The kitten bears a close resemblance to Pussyfoot from the Looney Tunes shorts, but with different colors.
- This is the only cartoon from the Chuck Jones era where Tom's owner is seen.
- The straw both Tom and the kitten use to drink milk has a pacifier attached to it.
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