Studio: Sib Tower 12 Productions / MGM Animation/Visual Arts
Distributor: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Short Synopsis
Plot detail for this Chuck Jones-era Tom and Jerry is thin in the sources this book could check, and this summary follows the surviving film. Tom is in love with Toodles, an elegant white cat with a pink bow, and wants to impress her. He decides that the perfect gift is a mouse, and he catches Jerry and offers him to her. But Toodles, rather than eating Jerry, is enchanted by him: she cuddles the little mouse, holds him to her cheek and treats him as her pet. Tom's gift has made Jerry the favourite, and the rest of the film is a struggle between the cat and the mouse for Toodles's affection, played out through her pastel-pink home, with Tom at one point flying through the air across the room. The individual gags and the outcome are not described in any source this book could check.
Why It Matters
- Under Chuck Jones, the Tom and Jerry films took on a new look: stylised, thinner character designs, pastel colour schemes and more facial acting, with Tom given heavier eyebrows and more expressive reactions. This short shows that style clearly, in its soft pinks and the delicate design of Toodles.
- It comes from the series' 1963-1967 revival at MGM, made by Jones's own studio after he left Warner Bros. These films divide fans, but they show one of the great Warner directors reinterpreting someone else's characters. It was Toodles' last appearance in the series.
Notes and Trivia
- Toodles had been Tom's love interest in Hanna-Barbera's original series since the 1940s.
- Ben Washam, a longtime Jones animator, co-directed.
- See also: Designs on Jerry (1955), Puss Gets the Boot (1940).