Tom and Jerry M2: The Magic Ring is a 2002 direct-to-video film starring Tom and Jerry. This was the first direct-for-video attempt to recapture the style of Hanna and Barbera's original Tom and Jerry theatricals. Also, it was the final project and the last Tom and Jerry production to be produced by both William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, as Hanna died on March 22, 2001, almost a year before the film's release. This is also the first Tom and Jerry production produced by Warner Bros. Animation.
Plot[]
The story starts out in a creepy-looking mansion, where Tom and Jerry proceed with their usual chases.
Meanwhile in the basement, a wizard named "Chip" is making a magical potion, but becomes frustrated when he realizes that one of the ingredients (milk from a cow that lives in Calcutta) offers no substitutions, thus unable to magically create his potion.
Later, Tom shows up in the basement in a nick of time for Chip. Chip then orders him to guard his magic ring while he goes to Calcutta to milk a cow. If Tom succeeds, he'll be rewarded with a big juicy salmon. Otherwise, he shall be kicked out of the house. Chip leaves for Calcutta by using his magical motorcycle, leaving Tom to guard Chip's ring. Meanwhile Jerry, who sees Tom from a distance, climbs up on the table, finds the ring, and wears it on his head as if it were a crown. Tom spots Jerry, and orders him to give it back. This causes another chase with the cat and mouse which starts from the basement, to outside the mansion, and finally to a nearby town.
After briefly escaping from Tom, Jerry attempts to pull the ring off his head, only to realize that it is stuck. Looking around town, Jerry finds a jewelry store, thinking they can help him remove the ring. Meanwhile Tom, who makes his way through town, finally spots Jerry looking to the jewelry store. Then he sees the store's Jeweler heading out for lunch before locking the door. Right when the Jeweler leaves the building, Tom sneaks inside and disguises himself as the owner before welcoming Jerry inside. Tom uses several methods to get the ring removed from Jerry's head, all of which fails. Eventually Tom's disguise fails at some point, leading Jerry to realize the cat. A destructive chase ensues in the jewelry store until the Jeweler returns, causing the cat and mouse to eventually leave.
Jerry runs off into a fortune-teller store, where an Irish dog and Droopy are residing. Noticing the ring on Jerry's head and wanting it for himself, the Irish dog proceeds to help Jerry in removing the ring off his head, all of which fails. Seeing that the Irish dog cannot help him out, Jerry eventually leaves the store.
Later that evening, Tom (who frantically searches around town for Jerry) finally spots the mouse running into an alley. In the alley, Alley Cat wakes up and catches Jerry, thinking he'd be perfect for breakfast. However in a nick of time, Tom briefly immobilizes Alley Cat before seizing Jerry. Jerry meanwhile, having experienced the mishaps caused by the ring on his head, assures to Tom that the ring has magical powers. Initially skeptical, Tom finally concedes after seeing Jerry activating the ring to make random objects fall on Alley Cat. Meanwhile, the Irish dog (who has been searching for the ring from Jerry) goes after Tom and Jerry. After a brief struggle against Alley Cat and Irish dog, Tom and Jerry make a quick getaway.
A quick chase from the Irish dog and Alley Cat leads the cat and mouse to be taken shelter at a pet store. Tom is thrown into a cage with a bulldog named Spike and his son Tyke who immediately attack him, while Jerry is put in a cage with his ward a cute young mouse named Nibbles, as well as two mouse thugs named Freddie and his dumber partner named, Joey. After by being briefly harassed by Freddie and Joey, Jerry gives the two mice a taste of their own medicine by using his magic ring to turn them into cheese, while having Nibbles grow large enough to break the cage to come after them. Shortly, a Boy arrives to the store and buys Jerry. While playing with Jerry, the Boy unknowingly activates the magic ring and aims it on Tom, causing the cat to successfully escape from the cage and eventually the pet store. Tom then locates the Boy and his mother with Jerry in the streets, and snatches Jerry off the Boy's hands. Considering this a theft, the mother and son tell the policeman who sends 3 police cars after Tom.
After going through a brief chase from the police, Tom and Jerry escape. However, they momentarily run into Alley Cat and the Irish dog, who were looking for them this whole time, causing the cat and mouse to once again run off. Meanwhile, Spike and Tyke escape from the pet store themselves with Tyke being trampled by Tom during the midst of his chase. Now upset by this, Spike and Tyke go after Tom.
A series of intense chases then follow as Tom and Jerry attempt to evade from the Irish dog, Alley Cat, Spike, Tyke, and a squad of police cars. After several close escapes, the cat and mouse gratefully shake hands with each other few times. They race around town to avoid their adversaries but ultimately end up being cornered once they reach a dead-end in the alleyway. However, Jerry activates the magic ring on his head, freezing their pursuers in the process. Tom and Jerry shake hands one last time as they make their way home.
The next morning, Tom and Jerry finally return to the mansion (with Chip not yet home). Now that their troubles in town have ended, the only thing left for Tom and Jerry to do is to remove the ring on Jerry's head. However, this quickly escalates into another chase between the cat and mouse. Jerry, now hiding underneath the kitchen sink, finds a cleaning agent called "Ring Remover" and uses it to successfully remove the ring off his head. Shortly, Tom finds Jerry and angrily demands to give the ring to him. Jerry, however, wanting to poke fun at the cat, decides to hurl the ring into the far end of the house. Tom frantically rushes around the house to catch the ring, only to fall into a laundry chute.
Tom finds the ring on his hand, but his horror, is now stuck on his finger. Even worse, Chip calls out to him momentarily, that he is home. Tom frantically attempts to remove the ring in the basement, but not long before Chip comes down and finds him. Chip, shocked to see that his ring is on Tom's hand, accuses the cat for stealing it, and thus kicks Tom out of the house, by shooting lighting bolts at him. Tom, in an attempt to escape from the angered Chip, finally has the ring removed off his hand.
However in the ensuing struggle, the magic ring activates, causing all of the pursuers from town (Irish dog, Alley Cat, Spike, Tyke, and police cars) to wake up and spawn behind Tom. Screaming in terror, Tom immediately races through the neighborhood, as his adversaries are all in hot pursuit on him (followed by the cheese duo Joey and Freddie, who are still being chased by a large Nibbles).
Meanwhile Jerry, back at the front door of the mansion, overhears Tom's predicament and amusingly laughs to himself. When Chip becomes Jerry's owner then shows up and decides to give the juicy salmon he initially promised to Tom, to his new pet mouse instead. Jerry however, magically transforms the salmon into a large slab of cheese. He then proceeds to dig in, and winks to the audience before the iris closes on him.
Voice cast[]
- Jeff Glen Bennett as Tom, Psychic Droopy, Joey
- Frank Welker as Jerry, Jeweler, Tyke
- Charlie Schlatter as Chip
- Jim Cummings as Butch
- Maile Flanagan as The Boy
- Jess Harnell as Policeman
- Maurice LaMarche as Spike, Alley Cat
- Tress MacNeille as Margaret, The Boy's Mom
- Tara Strong as Nibbles
- Billy West as Freddie
Notes[]
- Almost all of the recurring animal characters (Spike, Tyke, and Nibbles) from the original cartoon shorts have appeared, with Quacker, Topsy, Lightning and Toodles Galore being the exceptions, and Butch and Meathead both being co-featured as the Alley Cat.
- The chase scene around the alleyway where the characters pop out randomly from the alleys is inspired by the chase sequences frequently shown in Scooby-Doo, as well as the door-to-door chase sequence from the Tex Avery MGM cartoon "Lonesome Lenny" (1946).
- Conversely, two unnamed Alley Cats can be seen in the chase sequence, with one Alley Cat rowing a boat on the street, and the other simply running from one end of the street to another.
- Each of Tom and Jerry's pursuers have different reasons to go after the duo.
- Irish dog wants the ring.
- Alley Cat wants to eat Jerry.
- Spike and Tyke want to attack Tom, in retaliation for accidentally stepping on Tyke.
- Police squad want Tom and Jerry (with the ring), more so they can arrest Tom for his crime of stealing Jerry from his new owner.
- This is the first Tom and Jerry film animated using digital ink-and-paint as opposed to traditional cel animation.
- This was the only Tom and Jerry film produced exclusively in full-screen format, as all the other Tom and Jerry direct-to-video films produced since then are produced in widescreen format.
- The previous Tom and Jerry film Tom and Jerry: The Movie, was also produced exclusively in full-screen format, but was matted to 1:85:1 widescreen format for it's theatrical release, and shown in it's original full-screen format on home media releases and early pre-2020 television airings.
- For the first time since the classic era, the two Spike Bulldogs (both the Tom and Jerry one and the Tex Avery one) are now featured as two separate characters as opposed to being merged as a single character in Filmation's The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show. This time, both of them are explicitly referred to as their respective names "Spike" and "Butch" respectively.
- Although Muscles Mouse does not appear in this film, Freddie (who shares the same physical likeness and voice) appears in this film. Unlike Muscles, who is loyal to Jerry as a cousin, Freddie is antagonistic towards both Jerry and Nibbles.
- In this film, Freddie is accompanied by his dimwitted henchman Joey, where Freddie and Joey's relationship parallels those of Rocky and Mugsy from Looney Tunes.
- The gag where Jerry summons various heavy objects to fall on Alley Cat with his magic ring is directly re-used from the Tex Avery MGM cartoon "Bad Luck Blackie" (1949) (which coincidentally also marked the official debut of Tex Avery's Butch the Irish Dog).
- For unknown reasons, both Spike and Tyke have light brown fur (similar to that of the unnamed bulldog from Tom and Jerry: The Movie) in this film instead of light grey or creamy tan fur as in other appearances.
- Tyke's paws are also white, a trait that Spike does not share. This is most likely inspired from his debut cartoon, Love That Pup.
- Similarly, Tom is colored with a darker shade of grey in this film, similar to his depictions in the 1940s cartoons, unlike the other Tom and Jerry films where Tom is colored with a medium shade of grey similar to his depictions in the 1950s cartoons. Since then, Tom's fur color has noticeably gotten lighter as the films progressed (likely due to different animation teams working on these later films) with his fur color noticeably changed to a more bluish-grey hue as of the 2011 beginning with Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz.
- Following the negative reception of Tom and Jerry: The Movie, both Tom and Jerry are once again portrayed as non-speaking characters beginning from this film.
- J. Eric Schmidt, whom is known for his music scoring work in Warner Bros. Animation's cartoon series The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, returned to provide the music score for this film. He also previously scored the made-for-TV Tom and Jerry short "The Mansion Cat" the previous year.
- Its the First Tom And Jerry Direct-to-video film series to be involved with Warner Bros Animation's founder Hal Geer that started with This Film and which ended with 2017's Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when the Founder Death on January 26 2017 before the film's release
- Coincidentally, this film is written by both Tim Cahill and Julie McNally, whom are best known for their work on The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries and Baby Looney Tunes for Warner Bros. Animation.
- Although the film was released in 2002, it was actually produced in 2001, according to the film's ending credits. Reasons it got postponed were due to Hanna-Barbera Productions' acquisition to Warner Bros. Animation and William Hanna's death from that same year.
- On the film's DVD release, the classic Tom and Jerry cartoon shorts "The Flying Sorceress" and "Haunted Mouse", both centered on the theme of magic and sorcery, were included as bonus features. The former cartoon was presented in 4:3 cropped pan-and-scan format.
Gallery[]
- Main article: Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring/Gallery