Baby Puss

Baby Puss
Tom and Jerry series
Re-release poster for Baby Puss
Directed by William Hanna
Joseph Barbera
Produced by Fred Quimby (unc. on original issue)
Voices by Sara Berner (unc.)
Jack Mather (unc.)
Harry E. Lang (unc.)
The King's Men
Music by Scott Bradley
Animation by Kenneth Muse
Ray Patterson
Irven Spence
Pete Burness
Assistant animation:
Barney Posner (uncredited)
Studio MGM Cartoons
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s)
  • December 25, 1943 (1943-12-25) (U.S.)
  • July 29, 1950 (1950-07-29) (U.S.)
  • (re-release) ((re-release))
Color process Technicolor
Running time 7:51
Language English
Preceded by The Yankee Doodle Mouse
Followed by The Zoot Cat

Baby Puss is a 1943 one-reel animated cartoon and is the 12th Tom and Jerry short directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and produced by Fred Quimby. It was released to theaters on Christmas Day, 1943 by Metro-Goldwyn Mayer.

This is the second Tom and Jerry short to be animated by Ray Patterson, who arrived from Walt Disney Productions after working on The Old Army Game, a Donald Duck cartoon also released in 1943. Except some time spent at Walter Lantz Productions in the 1950s, Patterson would continue to work for Hanna and Barbera until the 1980s.

Plot

A little girl named Nancy is playing dollhouse and pretending to be the mother, and has also dressed Tom, apparently the family pet, up to be her baby. She scolds Tom, who is hiding under some furniture. She drags Tom out by his tail and threatens to spank him with a hairbrush. Tom is resentful over his treatment and feels humiliated. She carries him to the bassinet, tucks him in, and shoves a bottle of milk in his mouth. She warns him, under threat of more spanking, to stay in bed while she goes downtown to buy a new girdle. Indignant at first, Tom gets a taste of milk and quickly accepts his lot, cooing like a baby and drinking from his baby bottle.

Jerry peeks from behind a dollhouse and sees Tom. Incredulous at first, Jerry proceeds to mock him by playing "Rock-a-bye Baby" on the phonograph and pretends to be a baby himself. Tom is furious and chases Jerry into the dollhouse and puts a sign that reads "Measles". Tom looks in the window to see that Jerry is in the bathtub, pretending he is bathing and brushing himself and humming the melody of "How About You?". Seeing Tom, he screams, hits him with the brush, runs downstairs to the bedroom and hides in a bed, causing a doll to turn up and shout "Mama!" Jerry uses the doll's clothes to disguise himself as a girl holding an umbrella, but his shirt falls off of him leaving his shoes on his feet and white pants that goes under it. Tom tries to open the dollhouse roof when Nancy returns and scolds him again. Spanking Tom (off screen) and tucking him back in bed, then she threatens to feed him castor oil if he gets out again.

Tom goes back to playing. Jerry emerges from the dollhouse and runs to the window to get the attention of Butch, Topsy, and Meathead, Tom's three alley cat friends who are outside. When the trio see Tom, they begin to ridicule him. When Tom confronts the other cats, they continue to humiliate him, tossing him like throwing a ball, causing him to land in a fishbowl, resulting in a wet diaper. They then capture him and change his wet, dirty diaper with a fresh diaper, a safety pin, baby oil, baby powder, and a tight frilly pair of girl's rubber pants over the new diaper and Topsy throws the fish from the fishbowl into his pants and they sing "Mamãe Eu Quero" with Jerry joining in. But the whole song stops when Nancy returns and demands to know what is going on. The other cats flee as Nancy prepares to scold Tom. She then takes Tom to a high chair, forcing him to take castor oil. He resists at first. Jerry then squeezes a nutcracker on Tom's tail to make Tom yell in pain and therefore drink the spoonful of castor oil. Tom becomes sick to his stomach and rushes to a windowsill to vomit. Jerry laughs at his misfortune, but karma comes to bite him as the castor oil bottle, having turned over after Tom ran off the high chair he was sitting on, spills some of the castor oil out and Jerry ends up taking a dose of it himself, becomes sick as well and quickly joins Tom vomiting at the windowsill.

Production

  • Directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera
  • Story: Seymour Kneitel, I. Sparber
  • Director of Animation: Steve Muffati
  • Animation: Kenneth Muse, Irven Spence, Ray Patterson, Pete Burness, Steve Muffati, Arnold Gillespie
  • Assistant Animation: Barney Posner
  • Effects Animation: Stan Quackenbush
  • Backgrounds: Robert Gentle
  • Sequence Director: Dave Fleischer
  • Music: Scott Bradley
  • Produced by: Fred Quimby

Voice cast

Availability

DVD

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