In June of 1937 after facing budget issues with their third-party cartoon producers Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising on their series of Happy Harmonies, MGM decided they were ready to start their own cartoon studio. Unfortunately, it was a fiasco, trying to adapt Rudolph Dirks’ The Captain and the Kids as an attempt to recapture the success Fleischer had with Popeye, but it didn’t jell. Attempts at trying to spice up the product with Milt Gross and Henry Hirschfield didn’t help either, leaving many productions started but unfinished in their wake. It didn’t help that audiences were not interested in these cheaper Black and White cartoons, after years of Technicolor Magic in the Happy Harmonies.
After a disastrous first year of production, Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising were brought back on as lot producers to supervise a series of high-budget cartoons to compete with Walt Disney’s lavish productions and the irreverent humor of Leon Schlesinger’s color Merrie Melodies that were growing in popularity. The MGM studio was finally settling in a more stable form, and it was during this period of the studio’s existence many people would join the studio or leave. Director Friz Freleng grew dissatisfied with the everchanging policies and politics of Metro’s cartoon studio and jumped back to his safe haven at Schlesinger’s Termite Terrace in the spring of 1939, following completion of The Mad Maestro and The Bookworm under Hugh Harman.
This left an opening for a director position under the supervision of one of the producers to supplement the releases. On August 12, 1939, The Hollywood Reporter announced in a blurb that William Hanna, who directed alongside Freleng on the earlier Captain and the Kids at Metro, was selected as a co-director under Rudy Ising. Then, Joseph Barbera, a storyman who played a hand in the studio’s political maneuvers, was promoted to Hanna’s co-director under Ising’s supervision. While the Hollywood Reporter indicates the unit would only make musical cartoons, it appears the true intention was for Bill and Joe to emulate the Schlesinger cartoons by producing cartoons with more humor and rowdiness compared to Harman and Ising’s typically gentle output.
Hanna and Barbera were seemingly allotted to do any story they wanted for their first cartoon. Barbera chose a cat-and-mouse story, perhaps a safe haven from his days at Terrytoons, although the idea was perceived as hackneyed and retrograde within the studio.
Model Sheet by Bob Allen for Bill and Joe’s Cat and Mouse Cartoon.
The cartoon, which became 1940’s Puss Gets the Boot, sees a housecat named Jasper in control of a mouse he intends to eat, but remains playful with it. That is, until the Mouse pokes Jasper in the eye, which leads to a chase that breaks a vase. The Maid of the House (voiced by radio talent Lillian Randolph) threatens to throw out Jasper if anything else is broken. Now, the Mouse takes control of the dynamic, attempting to break the glassware and the dinner plates to frame The Cat. Finally, a large tower of dishes lands and shatters on the floor. The Cat receives the blame and gets the boot for good, just as the title dictates.
“Ouch!”
As noted before, the Cat in this cartoon is named Jasper. The Mouse however remains nameless on screen, and despite legends of being given the name Jinx, there is no period documentation that gives him this name. In fact, Joe Barbera notes in his book My Life in Toons that this Mouse did not have a name, which is supported by a lack of names in surviving artwork and the studio copyright. The only period name for this character was in MGM’s Short Story Magazine, used to promote Metro’s short subjects. In the January-February 1940 issue, the description for Puss Gets the Boot labels the Mouse as Pee Wee, and while the only example of this name’s usage, is the closest to the duo having any official name.
Click To Enlarge
After production of Puss Gets the Boot, despite internal interest in doing more with the pair, Quimby ordered Bill and Joe to create more miscellaneous cartoons such as Swing Social, Gallopin’ Gals, and The Goose Goes South. The first was a return to black music that hadn’t been seen since the Singing Frog cartoons of the Happy Harmonies, and the latter two were primarily in the mold of Tex Avery’s spotgag/documentary parody cartoons that gained a lot of traction in 1939, with Detouring America being nominated for the Academy Award. Joe remembered later in life being dissatisfied making these cartoons, later calling them “horrible” and “turkeys”. In truth, these cartoons lack characterization as appealing and thorough as Jasper and Pee Wee, and the non-storytelling approach did not mesh as well as Avery’s efforts.
This still left Metro with the issue they had little to offer in cartoon stardom. While the cartoons were still very successful, Metro had struggled for over a decade to maintain any cartoon stardom. Harman and Ising couldn’t materialize true marquee stars in their earlier Happy Harmonies. MGM’s only cartoon stars in 1940 were Hugh Harman’s Bear Family, but they were cast out after two releases that year; Rudy Ising’s lumbering Bear, eventually named Barney, would not become a key player to Disney’s Donald Duck and Mickey, or Schlesinger’s Porky Pig and the newly introduced Bugs Bunny. Thankfully, Hanna and Barbera would not be stuck on these cartoons much longer.
When Puss Gets the Boot was released in February 1940, it immediately gained traction critically and commercially, which allowed Hanna and Barbera to leave Ising’s supervision and gain their own separate unit. By March, Besa Short wrote to the studio inquiring about more Cat and Mouse cartoons. Besa wasn’t just another fan of the cartoon, she booked programs for nearly 200 theaters in Texas and placed a special focus on short subjects and their advertising. Naturally, a person of her reputation and eye was someone to listen to, so Quimby finally relinquished and had Bill and Joe develop a followup as MGM’s first true character series in 7 years. (As a detour, click here to learn more about Miss Besa Short)
This next cartoon, named The Midnight Snack, streamlined and improved the dynamic in Puss in ways that allowed for longevity. Barbera was wise to remove the predator-prey instinct and change into something more of a playful rivalry, where the Mouse fails to obtain cheese without being caught, with Jasper using the Mouse as a frame to obtain food himself. After a chase, the Mouse gets his revenge and gets Tom blamed for more destruction of the house.
Both designs were streamlined, especially in The Cat, which helped better convey the comedy on screen, as well as Scott Bradley’s playful scores, using “Sing Before Breakfast” (from MGM’s Broadway Melody of 1936) when Tom makes way into the icebox. But the most significant change to audiences would be the names, from Jasper the Cat and the Mouse, to Tom and Jerry. The common story, and the one Barbera claims in his book, was that this was pulled out of a hat with that specific suggestion being from animator Jack Carr, which seeming logical, does not appear to be the case.
Click To Enlarge
The earliest mention of a name change to Tom is from November 1st 1940, with a separate model sheet that same day with the previous Jasper name. As for why the name Jerry, I suspect Metro initially wanted a Mickey Mouse naming style, but someone reconsidered and requested a new name for the Cat in return. Tom seems an obvious choice because of “Tom Cat,” but he wouldn’t have been the only one at MGM during this period. While The Midnight Snack was in production, Hugh Harman produced and directed The Alley Cat, which introduced a cat that would later be paired as a Tom and Jerry character, Butch. However, in the MGM Short Story blurb for The Alley Cat, the title character is named Tom, the same name on his October 3rd, 1940 model sheet. Whether or not Hanna and Barbera directly borrowed the name from this character for the cat in their cat-and-mouse team remains unclear, but it’s possible to consider.
Joe Barbera would admit decades later the names were “unoriginal”, which was certainly true. Joe maintained they were named after a popular drink that was named after a duo in an 19th century novel, but there were earlier screen uses of the name. Readers may be familiar with Van Beuren’s Tom and Jerry cartoons, but it should be noted Barbera did not work on this series but was likely aware of the duo as he began in animation when Burt Gillett was running the Van Beuren studio into the ground. And before the cartoons, there were separate live action (in 1916) and stop motion series (in 1924) during the silent era with the Tom and Jerry name, and while not the biggest films of the world, they did exist. In MGM’s own The Captain’s Christmas, when John Silver sings to try and get money for new toys, one is his lines is “Tom and Jerry half-and-half/Drink it down and laugh and laugh”, showing clear familiarity with the name and giving credence to that being why Tom was chosen as the name beyond Tom Cat.
It should be noted that Tom and Jerry, beyond those earlier pairups, were already associated with a cartoon Cat and Mouse in minor uses. In Paul Terry’s Fable of The Two Explorers from 1922, copyright and publicity establish that the stars are Tom Cat and Jerry Mouse. Additionally in 1931, in Oswald the Rabbit’s Country School, we hear during the Teacher’s roll call for two students named Tommy Cat and Jerry Mouse in succession. As for whether there was a pre-established media that popularized calling mice Jerry and paired with a Tommy Cat remains unclear, but it’s intriguing nonetheless.
Returning to Bill and Joe, they would make one more miscellaneous cartoon, Officer Pooch, before almost exclusively turning out Tom and Jerry cartoons for the next 15 years. The characters would continue to evolve and develop, eventually becoming the most beloved Cat and Mouse cartoon. Tom and Jerry would go on, but the story I’ve told ends here, not bad at all for where Jasper and Pee-Wee first began.
(Big Thanks to Devon Baxter, David Gerstein, Kamden Spies, Zoran Sinobad, & Don Yowp)
Strummer Cash Petersen is an animation researcher and a student of the craft, currently studying for a graphic design Associate’s at his NY College. When not drawing, he focuses on researching early animation, primarily the transitionary period to sound.
You know in that “captain and the kids cartoon“ called “The Captain’s Christmas“, I thought I heard the names “Tom and Jerry“ mentioned in the lyrics, but I was not sure of that. Thank you for pointing that out.
I’m not even sure of the visuals at the time of that, but it sounds like something crashes down on the unusual door to door Christmas carolers. I’m not even sure who directed “The Captain’s Christmas“. Could that have been Bill and Joe? It is assumed that Friz Freleng directed the cartoon, but I don’t know. I also thought at one point that both Bill and Joe might have had a hand in creating gag content for “The Alley Cat“ since it is so close to what Bill and Joe would do later with Tom and Jerry, but I guess this was all completely Hugh Harman‘s creation?
It’s Friz Freleng. Bill and Joe didn’t start directing till 1940.
Terrific article, the link to “learn more about Miss Besa Short” is not available by the way.
So glad you enjoyed the article! Not sure why the link didn’t translate to this post. Here is the link intended for that part:
https://tralfaz.blogspot.com/2023/11/she-saved-tom-and-jerry.html
I suppose the many “Tommy and Jerry”-named cat and mouse duos come from WWI.
British soldiers were nick-named “Tommies” and German soldiers were “Jerries”.
How would you call a cartoon tomcat? “Tommy”. What’s the first name you associate with “Tommy” in the years immediately following the war? “Jerry”
Hey “S”, I wondered about this too. However, it never came up between Bill or Joe as a source, perhaps because the subject of War wasn’t terribly big with them. It struck me as strange, too. Because the Mice usually win out in cartoons, why would Germany, the villain and losing side of WW1, be given to the Mouse? You’re definitely right about the association, although I think if that played a part in it, it was in reverse, as I very much believe Jerry was given his name first
Too bad those magazine articles aren’t bylined. Whoever wrote them was quite a prose stylist. I’m still trying to get my head around that opening sentence: “Since Eve evolved from Adam’s rib….” However, it seems obvious to me that the anonymous author must have had access to the cartoon’s storyboard. It would have been practically impossible, in those days before the invention of the pause button, to transcribe such a detailed synopsis after a single viewing; and it would make little sense to run repeated screenings in the projection room for the reviewer’s benefit when the story materials were readily at hand. The name “Pee-Wee” is never mentioned in the finished cartoon, so where else could it have come from?
The Tom & Jerry Golden Collection DVD has a reissue print of “The Midnight Snack” with titles that identify its stars as “Tom” and “Jerry”. Their design on the opening card comes from the mid-1940s: Tom lacks the light grey blaze between his eyes, and Jerry the chubby cheeks, displayed by the characters in the cartoon itself. Evidently Lillian Randolph re-recorded her lines for the reissue, addressing the cat as “Thomas” rather than “Jasper.”
The narrator of a 1938 short story by Damon Runyon professes: “This Tom and Jerry is an old time drink that is once used by one and all in this country to celebrate Christmas with, and in fact it is once so popular that many people think Christmas is invented only to furnish an excuse for hot Tom and Jerry, although of course this is by no means true.” When I was little, I found a Tom & Jerry punchbowl and set of cups in my grandfather’s basement, and it puzzled me that the cartoon cat and mouse weren’t pictured on them, like Baloo and Shere Khan on my Jungle Book glasses.
The Tom & Jerry cocktail was popularised in the United States by a bartender who called himself “Professor” Jeremy Thomas, and who first published the recipe in his “Bar-Tenders’ Guide” of 1862. He claimed to have named it after, not a cat and a mouse, but two white mice that he kept as pets. However, it’s likely that the “Professor” came across it in London, where the play “Tom and Jerry” enjoyed a run of over 100 performances in the West End.
Hey Paul! You’re definitely right that “Tom and Jerry” was used in the lyrics of Captain Silver’s song because of its relevance to Christmas. I suspect if Randolph first recorded her lines, they were scrapped before its first release. I can hear what sounds like some quick editing in the track that would make it seem like it was done quickly, but as I cannot confirm this, I didn’t write about it above. I’m sure you’re right that Jeremy named his drink over the play and book
Paul, while Warner seems not to possess a first-release element on THE MIDNIGHT SNACK itself, prints do exist—and in them, the cat is named Tom WRT both the title cards and the dialogue track. I showed them here long, long ago: https://ramapithblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/tho-mas-come-up-and-see-some-rarities.html
Great article. I find interesting the anonymity that MGM perpetuated for the African American “housekeeper.” The script or dialogue continuity from MGM for each episode with her gave to her labeled her as “the maid” and “the housemaid.” This anonymity persisted over a twelve-year period.
That was a great article, Strumm. I learned a lot about tom and Jerry’s formative years here, particularly how the Hanna + Barbera team was supposed to make “rowdier” cartoons.
Sorry for everything. You’re really come into your own as a historian.
This is wonderful. Thanks for putting the pieces together in one place. I had never seen the Hollywood Reporter blurbs. I still wonder about the backroom manoeuvres that put Hanna with Ising.
Yowp
https://yowpyowp.blogspot.com
I’m a day late (and a dollar short?) for this post, but I’d like to pass on my opinion of the reason for the failure of “The Captain and the” [Katzenjammer] “Kids” cartoon series at M-G-M.
Friz Freleng said later on that the series failed because they were “humanoid” characters, and people didn’t like “humanoid” characters in cartoons. I disagree. Popeye was as popular as ever then. (And all of the Popeye cartoons at that time, except for the special two-reel ones, were in black & white.)
I think it was those _particular_ human characters that was (who were?) the reason for the series failure.
I learned about the Katzenjammer Kids when I was a kid myself, back in the 1960s, and I didn’t (and still don’t) like them at all. They’re brats – juvenile delinquents and candidates for reform school.
And I think there’s another reason that series failed: “The Captain and the Kids” are German. EVERYbody knew what was going on in Germany at the time, in the 1930s (translation: Hitler and the Nazis), and that couldn’t have helped the popularity of the series any.
(Ironically, there was also a “Katzenjammer Kids” cartoon series here in the U.S. during World War I. There was, understandably, a lot of hostility against the Germans here then too. And… the series failed. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it?))
The M-G-M cartoon executives told Friz Freleng, at the beginning of his “sentence” at M-G-M, that he could make any kinds of cartoons he wanted. In other words, they lied to him. I know Freleng was glad to go back to work for Schlesinger. He may have made less money there, but at least he _could_ make whatever cartoons he wanted.
Even for those who did like the bratty antics of Hanz and Fritz (which was the strip’s main draw), there was very little of that in the series. Half of the entries revolve around antics with Der Captain, Mama and the Inspector, with the kids notably absent.
So yeah, nobody wins. People who didn’t read the strip were upset due to anti-German sentiments, and people who were fans got a series that never really captured the same kind of humor. I feel MGM would have been better off if they led with Count Screwloose – a much less popular strip, yes, but with greater potential for funny premises.
At least both series had great animation, for what it’s worth.
There’s a scene in the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon “Country School” (Lantz/Nolan, 1931) where we hear the teacher calling roll as the animal children are filing into the schoolhouse — and the second and third names she calls are “Tommy Cat” and “Jerry Mouse”!
William Hanna’s autobiography (A Cast of Friends) is one of the few places where I’ve seen the “Jinx” name show up. Mind you, in the same book he keeps spelling “Mr. Jinks” as “Mr. Jinx” so…make of that what you will.