Tom's Photo Finish is a 1957 Tom and Jerry cartoon with backgrounds by Robert Gentle and layouts by Dick Bickenbach.
Characters
- Tom Cat (as the main antagonist)
- Jerry Mouse
- George and Joan
- Spike Bulldog
Plot
Tom sneaks into the kitchen to the fridge. He grabs a whole chicken and takes a couple of bites out of it before he hears George coming his way. Tom hurriedly shoves the chicken back into the refrigerator and hides. George, upon discovering the half-eaten chicken, first asks his wife Joan whether she has eaten the chicken before concluding that either Tom or Spike is guilty and is determined to figure out which, even if it means X-raying them. Panicked, Tom frames Spike; he creates phony ink footprints leading from the sleeping dog to the refrigerator. As Tom moves to plant the chicken on Spike, a bright light flashes, and Jerry, holding a camera, runs off. Joan and George see the "evidence" implicating Spike and kick him out of the house. Spike laments being framed as he watches George and Joan allow Tom to gobble down the remainder of the chicken.
Meanwhile, Jerry happily emerges from his darkroom, having made numerous copies of his photo of Tom framing Spike. He plants copies of the photos in places where George or Joan are likely to see them, hoping to get Tom expelled from the house and clear Spike's name.
Realizing that Jerry knows the truth about him framing Spike, Tom is forced to use the guise of being a recklessly playful cat as he swoops in to destroy the photos before George and/or Joan see them. To make matters worse, Tom taunts Spike from inside, leading George to think that the cat has gone crazy, and pulls down the window-shade with the photos. But Joan tries to convince him otherwise.
Jerry begins folding the photos into paper airplanes and tosses them towards Joan in the kitchen and George in the den. Tom swallows the airplane and the cake meant for Joan and begins frantically chasing the airplane headed towards George with a pair of scissors. Tom's efforts to stop the plane only serve to cut up George's newspaper and his trousers. George intercepts him right before the cat nearly cuts his head off and he grabs Tom's tail with one hand after having enough of his crazy behavior. He prays for mercy as George catches the paper plane with his other hand and unfolds it. Upon learning about Tom's deception in framing Spike now knowing it was Tom who really did eat the chicken, he decides to kick him out of the house as his punishment for being a liar and framing Spike.
As George kicks Tom out of the house, Jerry has his camera out again and photographs the moment. Joan and George let Spike back into the house and ask for forgiveness for falling into Tom's deception, which the dog gladly grants. Then Jerry calls Spike over and gives him something that he laughs heartily over: a photo of Tom being kicked out the house by an angry George in his boxers.
Voice Actors
Daws Butler as George and Spike Bulldog
June Foray as Joan
William Hanna as Tom Cat's screams
Trivia
- Jerry made a total of 41 copies of the photo of Tom framing Spike in this episode, with 36 of them destroyed by Tom himself, four of them still remaining intact pasted on the window-shade, and only one of them which George successfully caught near the ending.
Errors/Goofs
On the infamous pan-and-scan version, the shot where Tom's head pops from his shoulders is poorly-framed, as the panning camera aimed at Tom's legs while the headless shoulders and the head are cropped out.