Studio: MGM Cartoons
Distributor: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Produced by: Fred Quimby, William Hanna (both uncredited)
Short Synopsis
On Christmas Eve, Jerry sneaks past a festive mousetrap and plays among the presents under the tree, licking candy canes and bouncing on a squeaky toy lion, until he bounces onto Tom and wakes him. Tom lunges; Jerry slaps a "Do not open till Xmas" sticker over his mouth. The chase runs through the toys: Jerry fires a toy cannon, hides in a Christmas light, salutes Tom from among the toy soldiers, rides a toy train and boxes Tom with a glove and a jack-in-the-box. Finally Tom catches him and throws him out through the mail slot of the front door into the snow, then locks the slot. Back by the fire, Tom starts to feel guilty. He opens the slot for Jerry, and when the mouse doesn't come back, goes out to look and finds him frozen solid on the doorstep. Tom carries him in and thaws him by the fire. When Jerry comes round, Tom gives him a candy cane. Jerry repays him by fishing a mousetrap he had hidden in Tom's milk out of the bowl, then goes home and hooks the cheese off his own mousetrap, which closes slowly, chiming "Jingle Bells".
Why It Matters
- The frozen-Jerry scene gives the series an unexpected heart: Tom's guilt, shown entirely through expression and posture, turns a chase cartoon into a small Christmas story about mercy, without any dialogue. It suggests the softer side of Tom that the series would return to.
- It was the third Tom and Jerry cartoon and was nominated for the Academy Award, losing to Disney's Lend a Paw, the only time a Tom and Jerry nominee lost to a Disney film. Released the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor, it has been described as one of the last expressions of peacetime goodwill on American screens.
Notes and Trivia
- The cartoon opens with the first line of Clement Clarke Moore's poem, "Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse", and Jerry immediately stirs.
- See also: Puss Gets the Boot (1940).