Muscle Beach Tom
| Muscle Beach Tom | |
|---|---|
| Tom and Jerry series | |
 Title Card | |
| Directed by |
William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Produced by |
William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Story by |
William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Music by | Scott Bradley |
| Animation by |
Lewis Marshall Kenneth Muse Ed Barge Irven Spence |
| Layouts by | Richard Bickenbach |
| Backgrounds by | Robert Gentle |
| Studio | MGM Cartoons |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date(s) |
|
| Color process |
Technicolor CinemaScope |
| Running time | 6:45 |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | Busy Buddies |
| Followed by | Down Beat Bear |
Muscle Beach Tom is a one-reel animated Tom and Jerry short, released on September 7, 1956 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed and produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and animated by Lewis Marshall, Kenneth Muse, Ed Barge and Irven Spence (erroneously credited as Irvin Spence), with backgrounds by Robert Gentle, layouts by Richard Bickenbach and music by Scott Bradley.[1]
Plot
Several cats are working out with weights on a busy day at Muscle Beach. Tom and his girlfriend arrive on a date and Tom carelessly dumps their equipment on top of a sunbathing Jerry. An annoyed Jerry ignores the cat, until Tom happens to stick his parasol through Jerry's towel, ripping it, and throws his discarded food onto Jerry. Fed up, Jerry marches up to Tom and slaps him with a banana peel, and is rewarded by being inflated into a balloon by Tom, making Jerry pop and rocket into the distance. Tom's delight at Jerry floating away then turns to anger when he sees Butch impressing his girlfriend weightlifting.
Tom confronts his rival, but Butch sends Tom flying into a pole with elastic string. Jerry then returns and exacts revenge on Tom by hanging the string onto the pole, stopping Tom from confronting Butch again. Tom fruitlessly tries to grab Butch as he crashes back into the pole, which splits and crushes Tom. Tom waddles as a crab, scaring a real crab out of its wits. Jealous of Butch, Tom challenges him to a weightlifting contest as the two fight to win the heart of the girl cat. Tom's determination in lifting a heavy barbell that Butch cannot lift results in him falling sideways and getting flattened between the weights.
Butch then steals Tom's beach ball to dance with the girl cat, while Jerry dances with the banana peel. Tom digs a sand pit and clips a crab to Butch's shorts to steal his place, but Butch defeats Tom by launching his rival into the trash bin. Outmuscled but refusing to give up, Tom stuffs helium balloons into his bathing suit in a last-ditch effort to outsmart and look stronger than Butch. After the balloons make the cat float over the ground, Tom ties an anchor around his waist to hold himself down. Tom storms back to Butch and punches him, but Butch's return makes the balloons flip Tom upside down. Butch then asks Tom for a return punch, but instead, Tom knocks Butch out with a swing of the anchor, vanquishing his rival and winning his girlfriend back.
Tom is flexing his "muscles" to his girlfriend in delight, but is forced to stop by Jerry eating noisily nearby on his picnic basket. Tom flips the basket's lid onto Jerry's head to silence Jerry, which backfires when Jerry unties Tom from his anchor. Tom floats over the ground again while kissing his girlfriend and has to hold onto his beach umbrella in desperation, allowing Jerry to inflate Tom's bathing suit with a helium canister and burst Tom's balloons with a safety pin, dispatching Tom and sending him whooshing off into the distance. Tom and Butch defeated, Jerry attempts to lift Tom's tomatoes as a barbell to steal the female cat's heart. However, like Tom earlier in his successful but short-lived effort to win his girlfriend back, Jerry also falls sideways and gets crushed between the "weights," leaving no winner and the female cat single once again.
Availability
DVD
- Tom and Jerry's Greatest Chases, Vol. 4
- Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection Vol. 2, Disc Two