Puss Gets the Boot

Puss Gets the Boot is a 1940 American one-reel animated cartoon and is the first short in what would become the Tom and Jerry cartoon series.[1] It was directed by William Hanna, Joseph Barbera and Rudolf Ising, and produced by Rudolf Ising and Fred Quimby. As was the practice of MGM shorts at the time, only Rudolf Ising is credited. It was released to theaters on February 10, 1940 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Puss Gets the Boot
Title card
Directed byWilliam Hanna
Joseph Barbera
Rudolf Ising
(all three uncredited)
Produced byRudolf Ising
Fred Quimby and William Hanna (co-producers; both uncredited)
Story byWilliam Hanna
Joseph Barbera
Gus Arriola
(all three uncredited)
StarringHarry E. Lang
William Hanna
Lillian Randolph (original)
June Foray (1966 edited)
Thea Vidale (1989 edited)
Music byMusical direction:
Scott Bradley (uncredited)
Animation byCharacter animation:
Don Williams
Michael Lah
Jack Zander
Peter Burness
Rudy Zamora
Ray Abrams
Tony Pabian
Carl Urbano
Robert Allen
George Gordon
Lovell Norman
(all uncredited)
Solo effects animation:
Al Grandmain (merely uncredited)
Layouts bySolo character and background layout:
Harvey Eisenberg (merely uncredited)
Backgrounds bySolo background layout:
Robert Gentle (solely uncredited)
Color processTechnicolor
Production
company
MGM Cartoons
Rudolf Ising Productions
Distributed byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date
  • February 10, 1940 (1940-02-10)
Running time
9:08
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

In this first short, the cat is named Jasper, and appears to be a mangy, battle-hardened street cat, more malicious than the character that Tom would develop into over time. The unnamed mouse was similar to the ultimate Jerry character, just a bit skinnier. The basic premise was the one that would become familiar to audiences; in The Art of Hanna-Barbera, Ted Sennett sums it up as "cat stalks and chases mouse in a frenzy of mayhem and slapstick violence.[2] The studio heads were unimpressed, but audiences loved the film, and it was nominated for an Academy Award.[2]

Synopsis

A cat named Jasper takes great pleasure in tormenting a mouse named Jinx (not referred to in name on-screen), who is trying to run away from Jasper while he keeps grabbing Jinx's tail to keep him from running anywhere. Eventually, Jinx breaks free but goes into Jasper's mouth, narrowly escaping. Jasper then draws a mouse hole on the wall to trick Jinx into entering it. Jinx bangs against the wall so hard that it knocks him silly. Jasper revives him using water from the fish tank and picks him up. Having slowly realized the situation, Jinx punches Jasper in the eye, causing him to yelp and screeched in pain. The angered cat chases Jinx and accidentally bumps into a Greek pillar, where it breaks upon falling onto him along with the flowerpot that was standing on it. Mammy Two Shoes enters the room and scolds Jasper for his unacceptable behavior, issuing him an ultimatum that if she catches him making one more mess, he will get kicked out of the house. Jasper sulks off, Jinx chuckles at him and this causes Jasper to chase him, but when Jinx holds a glass over the edge of the table, Jasper backs off after seeing a furious Mammy walking away with the remains of the broken flowerpot, fearing that he will get himself into trouble again.

After Jinx puts the cup down, seeing his chance, Jasper rushes at him, but he holds back Jasper by threatening to drop the glass again. Then Jinx drops the cup and Jasper rushes to catch it. Jinx throws more cups, making it very hard for Jasper to catch them all. As Jinx walks away with the last cup, feeling pretty smug that he has the advantage, Jasper gets the idea: he drops a bunch of pillows on the ground. When Jinx tries to humiliate Jasper by dropping the cup, it stays intact when it lands on the soft surface of one of the pillows. Jinx tries to escape but Jasper catches him by the tail. Jasper inadvertently throws Jinx onto a shelf, where he escapes and begins pelting him with several dishes, making sure that in order to blackmail Jasper, he will force him to immediately "get the boot". Jasper begins to feel tired of holding all the dishes, after which, in humiliation, Jasper can only watch as Jinx drops one last dish on the ground, breaking it, and thus alerting Mammy to thinking Jasper violated her ultimatum.

Mammy once again enters the room in frustration just as Jinx swims in Jasper's milk bowl, uses his tail as a towel and finally kicks Jasper, causing Jasper to drop all of the dishes, creating a huge mess and forcing him to take the blame. Enraged, Mammy hits and throws Jasper out of the house and shuts the door. As soon as Jasper is kicked out from the house, Jinx waves to him, sticks his tongue out, puts a HOME SWEET HOME sign in front of his hole, and enters it.

Production and release

In June 1937, animator and storyman Joseph Barbera began to work for the Ising animation unit at MGM, then the largest studio in Hollywood.[3][4] He learned that co-owner Louis B. Mayer wished to boost the animation department by encouraging the artists to develop some new cartoon characters, following the lack of success with its earlier cartoon series based on the Captain and the Kids comic strip. Barbera then teamed with fellow Ising unit animator and director William Hanna and pitched new ideas, among them was the concept of two "equal characters who were always in conflict with each other".[4] An early thought involved a fox and a dog before they settled on a cat and mouse. The pair discussed their ideas with producer Fred Quimby, then the head of the short film department who, despite a lack of interest in it, gave them the green-light to produce one cartoon short.[4]

The short, Puss Gets the Boot, featured a cat named Jasper and an unnamed mouse,[5] named Jinx in pre-production, and an African American housemaid named Mammy Two Shoes. Leonard Maltin described it as "very new and special [...] that was to change the course of MGM cartoon production" and established the successful Tom and Jerry formula of comical cat and mouse chases with slapstick gags.[6][4] It was released onto the theatre circuit on February 10, 1940, and the pair, having been advised by management not to produce any more, focused on other cartoons including Gallopin' Gals (1940) and Officer Pooch (1941).[4] Matters changed, however, when Texas businesswoman Bessa Short sent a letter to MGM asking whether more cat and mouse shorts would be produced, which helped convince management to commission a series.[7][3] A studio contest held to rename both characters was won by animator John Carr, who suggested Tom the cat and Jerry the mouse after the Christmastime drink. Carr was awarded a first place prize of $50.[8] Puss Gets the Boot was a critical success, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Short Subject: Cartoons in 1941 despite the credits listing Ising and omitting Hanna and Barbera.[4][2]

After MGM gave the green-light for Hanna and Barbera to continue, the studio entered production on The Midnight Snack (1941).[5] The pair would continue to work on Tom and Jerry cartoons for the next fifteen years of their career.[6]

Reception

Motion Picture Exhibitor reviewed the short on March 6, 1940: "Puss teases the mouse but when the latter learns that breakage in the house will lead to Puss being thrown out, the fun begins. Windup has the crockery crashing, the mouse victorious, Puss getting the boot."[9]

Voice cast

Availability
Blu-ray
DVD
VHS
  • Tom & Jerry's 50th Birthday Classics[11]
Laserdisc
  • The Art of Tom and Jerry Volume 1, Disc 1, Side 1
iTunes
  • Tom and Jerry, Volume 2

References
  1. Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 149–150. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7.
  2. Sennett, Ted (1989). The Art of Hanna-Barbera: Fifty Years of Creativity. Studio. pp. 14–17. ISBN 978-0670829781. Retrieved June 2, 2020.
  3. Voger, Mark (May 22, 1994). "Cartoon czars". Asbury Park Press. Retrieved January 19, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. Arnold, William (August 8, 1993). "Tom and Jerry make their big screen comeback". Caster Star-Tribune. Retrieved January 18, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. "Low-Down – More than 20 things you'll need to know about... Tom & Jerry". The Observer. September 22, 1991. p. 79. Retrieved January 20, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. Maltin, Leonard (1987). Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons (Revised ed.). Plume. pp. 288–289. ISBN 0-452-25993-2.
  7. Leonard Maltin (1997). Interview with Joseph Barbera (Digital). Archive of American Television.
  8. Barbera 1994, p. 76.
  9. Sampson, Henry T. (1998). That's Enough, Folks: Black Images in Animated Cartoons, 1900-1960. Scarecrow Press. p. 64. ISBN 978-0810832503.
  10. "From Homer to the Top Cat". Irish Independent. March 1, 2005. Retrieved August 18, 2012.
  11. "..:: The Tom and Jerry Online :: An UnOfficial Site Site : TOM AND JERRY DVD/VHS ::." Retrieved September 28, 2012.
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