Obviously enough, we're not
talking about everyone's favorite cat & mouse couple, the S&M
friendenemies created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera that entered the
public consciousness in 1940 with the theatrical one-reel cartoon Puss Gets the Boot (full short) and has since
become a permanent part of pop culture over the course of 161 animated shorts and diverse
comic books, TV shows, direct-to-video or DVD releases and feature films. (They are
due for yet another commercial revival in 2021 with the release of their new,
feature-length live-action and cartoon mix film [trailer].) The Tom and
Jerry we have in mind you have probably never heard of: we're talking about
the long-forgotten cartoon bromancers Tom and Jerry, who were around almost a
decade before the cat "Jasper" and the mouse "Jinx" (seen below from their debut short) stole
their names.
Between 1931 and
1933, the Van Beuren Studies released some 26 or 27 cartoon shorts of the vertically
mismatched man couple — one (Tom) is tall, the other (Jerry) short — but the
duo never achieved the popularity of such contemporaries as Mickey Mouse or Betty
Boop and was eventually cancelled, some three years before the studio itself closed
its doors for good. (The firm's namesake and owner, Amedee J. Van Beuren [10 July 1879 – 12 Nov 1938], died soon afterwards.) In the later 40s,
after the Van Beuren film library was purchased by Leslie Winik's Official
Films*, Tom and Jerry were renamed Dick and Larry so as to not be
confused with the more-successful cat and mouse that stole their names. By now,
November 2020, the entire Tom & Jerry / Dick & Larry library has long entered
the public domain, so the shorts that still exist can generally to be found
somewhere online.
* At the time, Official also
purchased diverse Flip the Frog shorts, possibly including the one we present
as our Short Film of the Month for
February 2020, Room Runners (1932). The difference in
the artistic level of the animation between Flip and Tom and Jerry is notable
and noticeable, although Tom and Jerry are arguable a bit more surreal.
Cartoon Research points out that Tom
& Jerry were originally a "Mutt and Jeff-like cat and dog pair"
created by John
Foster (27 Nov 1886 – 16 Feb 1959) and named Waffles and Don (see: The Haunted Ship [full short], released
4/27/1930, directed by Foster and Mannie Davis [23 Oct 1894 – Oct 1975]). After
the artists George Stallings (9 Sept 1891 – 9 April 1963) and George Rufle (15
Feb 1901 – July 1974) joined the studios, they convinced Foster and Van Beuren
Studios to change the duo into humans.
The first short to feature the two as
humans is Wot a Night (1931 / full short), which we
almost presented as a Short Film of the
Month but decided not to because of an extended scene that just doesn't sit
right anymore. (The title card below, to the Tom & Jerry concept that ended
up being their Amos & Andy persiflage, 1932's Plane Dumb [full
short], "arguably one of the most racist cartoons ever
released", indicates what doesn't sit right in Wot a Night. In fact, the bit we dislike in Wot a Night is even revisited in Plane Dumb.) In Wot a Night,
the duo are cab drivers, but their professions, when relevant, changes film to film — in this
month's short film, for example, they are cops.
In any event, Magic Mummy is also the first Tom &
Jerry cartoon we ever stumbled upon, which is another reason we chose it as the
one to present as our Short Film of the
Month this month.
In their article
on Tom and Jerry, Cartoon Research
also points out what makes the duo's cartoons, as primitive as they might be
today, so appealing: "As the series progressed […] the films became
increasingly bawdy, boozy and bizarre. Van Beuren was second only to Fleischer
in depicting surreal, impossible feats on screen; Tom, Jerry, and their
surroundings did it all. Inanimate objects came to life; two singers could
share a single mouth. Old houses hid evil dancing skeletons; seas concealed
fish rabbis dressed in spy-drag black. In Piano
Tooners (1932 / full short]),
Jerry flushes a humanized 'sour note' down the toilet. In A Swiss Trick (1931 / full short]), eating too
much Swiss cheese causes our heroes to grow holes in their bodies." Other
titles worth checking out include Pots
and Pans (1932 / full
short), Jolly Fish (1932 / full short), Tuba Tooter (1932 / full short) and Pencil Mania (1932 / full short). For a list
and plot description of diverse Tom & Jerry cartoons, we suggest going to Dr Grob's Animation Review.
In 1933, Van
Beuren, who seems to have been a bit of a hard-nosed dickhead of a businessman,
"fired Foster and promoted Stallings to his position. Under Stallings, the
Tom and Jerry series seemed to lose much of its earlier charm." Magic Mummy, originally released on 3
February 1933, is the last Tom & Jerry cartoon in which John Foster was
involved. Enjoy.
Tom & Jerry in
Magic Mummy (USA, 1933):
Addendum: As indicated by
the advertisement below, Cartoon Research made an interesting discovery: "Before the cat and mouse,
before the humans and even before the cat and dog there seem to have been a man
and a mule! While we know very, very little about these silent shorts from
Arrow Films, the ad suggests that the heroes were animated puppets. It also
suggests that a full series was released […]." Go here
@ Cartoon Research for more info
on that lost team.
Addendum II: The voice of the female mummy when she
sings her song, Sing! Sing!, is
generally accepted as being that of no one less than Mae Questel (13 Sept 1908 – 4
Jan 1998), the definitive voice of both Betty Boop and Olive Oil. The song The Cop on the Beat, the Man in the Moon
and Me (words and music by J. P. Murray, Al Goodhart and Al Hoffman), sung
oh-so-effeminately by two plump cops seen further above on this page, had been released the year previously by Phil
Harris Orchestra, where it was sung by Leah Ray (16 Feb 1915 – 27 May 1999).
Original version of
The Cop on the
Beat, the Man in the Moon and Me:
Lastly, if you
would like to view more animated oddities from the early age of animation, let
us suggest you also check out the following Short Films of the Month:
March
2010: The
Skeleton Dance (USA, 1929)
Jan
2013: Bimbo's
Initiation (USA, 1931)
Oct
2013: Swing
You Sinners! (USA, 1930)
Aug
2014: Balloon
Land (USA, 1935)
Oct
2014: Hell's
Bells (USA, 1929)
Feb
2017: Der
Fuehrer's Face (USA, 1942)
Jan 2019: The
Snow Man (USA, 1940)
Feb 2020: Room
Runners (USA, 1932)
No comments:
Post a Comment