The greatest game of cat and mouse began eighty-six years ago. On February 10th, 1940, MGM debuted the animated short Puss Gets the Boot and, with it, introduced an early, prototypical version of Tom and Jerry.
The short was created and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, who would go on to helm over 100 shorts featuring Tom and Jerry, during the Studio’s Golden Age of animated cartoons.
“Bill and Joe were often underestimated,” says Greg Ehrbar, author of Hanna-Barbera: The Recorded History and host of The Funtastic World of Hanna and Barbera Podcast. “When they suggested a cat and mouse series to their colleagues at MGM Animation, they were told it was already overdone. The studio desperately needed a cartoon series with popular lead characters, so Bill and Joe were allowed to pitch their take on the idea.
“They created what is now called an ‘animatic,’ widely used in film and advertising today, basically a filmed storyboard with a few embellishments. This was the perfect way to showcase Barbera’s gags and poses and Hanna’s precise comedy timing. It was something like the ‘Baby Weems’ sequence Walt Disney did a few months later in The Reluctant Dragon. It got Bill and Joe the green light from MGM to make the film.”
Puss Gets the Boot opens with a mouse running in place, trying to get away, while a cat holds the mouse’s tail down. The cat then playfully tortures the poor mouse, threatening to put him in its mouth and preventing the mouse from returning to his hole. The cat even paints a fake mousehole on the wall, causing the little mouse to run into the wall over and over.
The cat then chases the mouse and knocks over a vase. The Lady of the House (voiced by actress Lillian Randolph) then comes in, yelling at the cat (we learn his name in this short is Jasper, which eventually, of course, will become Tom). She threatens Jasper, informing him that if he breaks one more thing, he will be thrown out of the house.
The mouse sees his opportunity and then threatens to break a martini glass to get the cat in trouble, as humble Jasper slinks away. But when the mouse puts the glass down, Jasper tries to attack again, as the mouse picks the glass up, threatening to drop it again.
The mouse then begins dropping all the martini glasses off the table, and Jasper scrambles to catch them all.
Frustrated Jasper then lines the floor with throw pillows, which allows the cat to go back to his old ways, until the mouse begins throwing dishes and Jasper must scramble again to grab them all.
The exhausted Jasper tries to hold the enormous stack upright, but the mouse throws a plate, causing them to crash to the floor. And, as promised, Jasper is tossed out of the house.
As the short concludes, the mouse walks triumphantly back into his mousehole, placing a “Home Sweet Home Sign” above it.
Although an early version of both characters’ designs, the paradigm of their future shorts was squarely in place here, with Jasper/Tom going to desperate lengths to keep himself out of some trouble, while attempting to capture the unnamed mouse/Jerry.
The animation in Puss Gets the Boot is filled with kinetic movements and creative sight gags that became hallmarks of the Tom and Jerry shorts. With masters such as Michael Lah and Pete Burness working on the short, sequences, such as the one where Jasper attempts to balance an ever-teetering stack of dishes, bowls, and cups, are made even funnier thanks to the staggering amount of movement and action.
The cartoon was part of the eagerly awaited Tom and Jerry: The Golden Era Anthology, 1940-1958 Blu-Ray and DVD (reviewed here on Cartoon Research by Thad Komorowski), which was released in December, and included the duo’s theatrical shorts from this time period, as well as commentaries and documentaries (featuring our own Jerry Beck).
Puss Gets the Boot would go on to garner an Academy Award Nomination. The characters would receive their official names, Tom and Jerry (which came from a studio contest to name them, won by animator John Carr), in their next short, The Midnight Snack (1941).
“Tom and Jerry became the most honored continuous characters in theatrical animation,” Greg adds. “They won seven Oscars, more than any other theatrical short cartoon characters. Because there is little or no dialogue, and their ‘frenemies’ relationship is so relatable, Tom and Jerry cartoons are among the most popular worldwide.”
After their theatrical shorts at MGM, Tom and Jerry would later find fame on TV when their classic cartoons were re-packaged as a series. There were also new animated versions on television in the 1970s (produced, again, by Hanna and Barbera), as well as the 80s and 90s. The pair have appeared in their own full-length feature in 1993, a slew of direct-to-video movies, and a big-budget live-action/animated film in 2021.
But this long-standing game of cat and mouse all started 86 years ago with Puss Gets the Boot.
Michael Lyons is a freelance writer, specializing in film, television, and pop culture. He is the author of the book, Drawn to Greatness: Disney’s Animation Renaissance, which chronicles the amazing growth at the Disney animation studio in the 1990s. In addition to Animation Scoop and Cartoon Research, he has contributed to Remind Magazine, Cinefantastique, Animation World Network and Disney Magazine. He also writes a blog, Screen Saver: A Retro Review of TV Shows and Movies of Yesteryear and his interviews with a number of animation legends have been featured in several volumes of the books, Walt’s People. You can visit Michael’s web site Words From Lyons at: 
While the scores to MGM cartoons were always incredibly lavish, the scores for “Tom and Jerry” cartoons were quite nice because the characters themselves had no dialogue. Everything was acted out through what has been termed “Pantomime.” Just listen to the opening situation in the cartoon and note how perfect in timing the score is to the action happening onscreen. If anything, to me, awards should have been given to those Tom and Jerry cartoons for their scores alone! “Puss gets the boot“ is a perfect example of this, and there would be even better examples in years to come. These scores were so inventive that a double CD set was released years ago called “Tom and Jerry and TEX Avery two“. I was always hoping that a second volume was in the works, but nothing came of it.
Jerry, or “Pee Wee” as he was referred to in MGM publicity for this cartoon, changed very little in appearance after his debut; he merely grew a little pudgier and lost a few hairs on his head, as many of us do as we grow older. But the changes in Tom’s design over the ensuing years were more drastic. His shaggy fur got smoother, his rounded ears developed points, and the blaze between his eyes faded and eventually disappeared. In fact, it disappears occasionally even in the early cartoons; in “Puss Gets the Boot”, for example, Tom (that is, “Jasper”) loses his blaze for a single frame just after catching the fallen vase. That blaze, and his shaggy outline, must have given the Ink & Paint staff no end of trouble in the early years of the series.
When I bought the Tom and Jerry Golden Collection Volume One on DVD years ago, I noticed that, as Jerry is marching across the top of the sideboard with a martini glass slung over his shoulder, he, too, disappears for a single frame, glass and all.
You have to hand it to Hanna and Barbera. They took an overdone cliché and proved that any overdone cliché worth doing is worth overdoing. I notice that they also got a lot of mileage out of the line spoken by Lillian Randolph in this cartoon, “Out! O-W-T, out!” I recall that it was used on “The Flintstones” decades later.
Not long ago I was chatting with a neighbour of mine from India, and she told me that Tom and Jerry are by far the most popular American cartoon characters in that country. Not surprising, as most of the shorts would require only a bare minimum of dubbing. Coming in second place, she said, was Scooby-Doo. At my request she taught me how to say “meddling kids” in Malayalam, but I forgot it almost immediately.
For sheer longevity and versatility, there are few franchises that match the ongoing popularity and success of Tom & Jerry. Eight decades later, still going strong. There are still new Tom & Jerry projects. Their images can be seen on T-shirts and other merchandise.
Much of their appeal can be attributed to the fact that for the most part, they don’t speak, so their antics are largely visual. Even that first theatrical feature in 1993, while it breaks that “rule,” yet manages to open with a lengthy sequence in the classic mode. And it is these non-speaking bits that appear to be the most popular aspect. Which is why their speaking roles have been few and far between. And without dialogue, there is doubtless greater international appeal as the visual gags don’t require much in the way of translation.
For some fascinating accounts of their origin, I highly recommend Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera’s autobiographies. Each man provides his own perspective but the books agree in the fundamentals. Hanna’s book is “A Cast of Friends” and Barbara’s is “My Life in ‘Toons.” Each devotes considerable ink to the origin and development of Tom & Jerry.
Will these characters still be popular and viable when they’ve been around 160 years? Here’s hoping!
The early model sheet of Tom is fascinating! Not just as an artifact, but it indicates what Joe and Bill and their team finallly DIDN’T want. This Tom is too cute, too coy, too pretty— he lacks the menacing quality of the character who finally reached the screen.
If there isn’t the possibilty that Tom might actually eat Jerry at some point (just like a real cat with a real mouse, where playtime always ends badly for the mouse), the shorts would have fallen flat and probably have disappeared after just a few releases. But instead, we got one of the longest-running cartoon series of them all!
I really like the drawing on the model sheet, but it was a very good call not to use this version of Tom in production.
*If there isn’t the possibilty that Tom might actually eat Jerry at some point (just like a real cat with a real mouse, where playtime always ends badly for the mouse), the shorts would have fallen flat and probably have disappeared after just a few releases.*
I don’t think I would completely agree with it. True, Tom did consider eating Jerry in a few instances, for example, “The Bodyguard” and “Flirty Birdy” (in “Sufferin’ Cats” and “Heavenly Puss”, though, while he was brutal enough to murder Jerry, it was unclear if he would eat him), and Chuck Jones later did it in “Pent-House Mouse” and “The A-Tom-inanble Snowman”. Still, at least most of the time, they just make trouble on each other, and it doesn’t require Tom to eat Jerry.
Jasper & Jinx are the OGs, Tom & Jerry is an extended AU.
I never realized how rich the animation of this series was until I got the Golden Era Anthology. Makes me wonder how they stood the stiffness of the limited animation illustrated radio that marked the greater part of their career. Weren’t they grinding their teeth at all those characters standing still, hands at their sides, blabbing away?
An interesting detail which comes clear from these model sheets is that Jerry is conceived as a little man while Tom is a real cat.
“The Lady of the House” was known as Mammy Two Shoes.
Obviously, Jerry Beck was named after Jerry Mouse 😀
By the way how did I get the idea that they were originally called Jasper and Jinks? In other words, that Jerry Mouse was originally called Jinks (or Jinx)? There doesn’t seem to be a single bit of evidence that he was ever called Jinks.
The year of 1940 was a great year for new cartoon stars, just as 1939 was a great year for Hollywood movies. “Puss Gets the Boot” with Tom and Jerry, “A Wild Hare” with the definitive versions of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, “Knock Knock” with the debut of Woody Woodpecker… a great year.
FYI – Bill Hanna tells the origin of Tom & Jerry in his autobiography, “A Cast Of Friends” (1996, Taylor Publishing). On page 40 he says they named the characters “Jasper and Jinx”.
I was wondering where the Jinx name originated from, cause the earliest MGM publicity articles seem to refer Jerry as Pee Wee instead. Then for the Midnight Snack, the publicity refers them as “Jasper and Jerry”, though I’m pretty sure the original titles had the name Tom for the series’ name.
Aren’t you gonna add the decades that followed to that? There have been subsequent new Tom and Jerry animated TV shows in the 2000s, 2010s and 2020s (Tom and Jerry Tales, The Tom and Jerry Show, and Tom and Jerry in New York, respectively).