Puss Gets the Boot

I always wondered what Tom and Jerry's first cartoon was, and now I know. It's only a few minutes long, but I thought it was a fine first appearance for the famous cat and mouse duo. In this short film, Jasper and Jinks, referred to as Tom and Jerry, are the featured characters.

Mammy Two-Shoes' "O-W-T-Out!" is amusing, and I adore Jerry/Jinks' squeaky prayers. If anyone wonders which version of Tom & Jerry I love the most, it is Tom & Jerry from Hanna-Barbera (1940-1958) and from Looney Tunes animator Chuck Jones (1963-1967). All in all, I believe Tom and Jerry are off to a great start in this cartoon.

On the 20th of February in the year 1940 William Hanna and Joseph Barbera along side Rudolph Ising did a little short about a cat chasing a mouse who gets the tables turned around. The premise seemed simple enough considering the fact that most Warner Bros. Cartoons were like that. But with the talent of Hanna-Barbera simple premise was turned into gold and they soon had a successful short and an Oscar Nomination. Since at the time MGM cartoons were either stupid musicals or Barney Bear shorts. The short "Puss Gets the Boot" seemed like good competition for the Warner shorts. So soon after Hanna-Barbera found themselves working on the wonderful Tom and Jerry shorts which they would continue to make for the next 15 years!

This cartoon itself is not the best but it's still funny and contains a lot of great gags.

4(****)out of 4(****)stars

A Great Start for the Tom and Jerry shorts!

I prefer them to be called Tom and Jerry. This cartoon was made way back in 1940 and features the very first appearance of the troublesome twosome. Though they look rather different.

I guess Hannah-Barbera didn't know, at the time, what a massive franchise they had in their hands. Puss gets the Boot almost seems like a one-off short. Granted, Tom and Jerry never really did anything else than chase, and that's exactly what they do here.

It also features the Tom's owner (or owners slave), the highly racist and so un-PC black woman with the stripey socks. This would never be allowed today unless in satire. How glorious the early 20th century was.

This was Tom & Jerry's first ever televised outing, but here in the early days they were unofficially known as Jasper & Jinx.

Here we see Tom/Jasper threatened with being put out if he breaks one more thing so Jerry/Jinx see's this as a chance to put the cat threat away for good!

It's quaint, it looks great, the soundtrack is fitting and it already has that infamous Tom & Jerry charm.

Jerry looks the same as he does decades later whereas Tom looks quite a bit different, arguably a more realistic feline.

The trouble with Tom & Jerry has always been that I tend to find myself cheering Tom on. With so much at stake I was doing the same here, but you know the drill in these kinds of things the outcome was never in doubt.

Cute early Tom & Jerry action and essential viewing for fans.

The Good:

Charming

Very well made

The Bad:

I've never felt more sorry for Tom!

Tom And Jerry has been a historical part of many childhoods, including the childhood of the 15 year-old geek writing this review. Many generations of children in the present day are forced to soak up the blandness and laziness of modern cartoons, such as The Amazing World Of Gumball, Phineas And Ferb, Teen Titans Go!(my lord....), Sanjay And Craig, and so on. I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't enjoying them as much as the heads of Hollywood think they are, but if there's one thing I learnt from the animation format in all my life, I found that Tom And Jerry is much more significant than any mainstream Saturday morning cartoon, both historically and in my humble opinion. Take Puss Gets The Boot- the first of several shorts of the Tom And Jerry series, it might be completely different from most Tom And Jerry cartoons you normally see on TV, but I blame that on Cartoon Network's executives and chairman. However, you must remember the theory of evolution- change over time. Throughout the years, the animation in Tom And Jerry has improved in designs and textures, the number of characters have increased, the music has gone more complex, the list goes on. In Puss Gets The Boot, the characters look a little scruffier and less simplistic than the later shorts, Tom meows instead of yelping in pain(fun fact: the voice actor of Donald Duck at the time lended the screeching of Tom's character), and there's more of a reliance on African American stereotypes. What makes this short film so satisfying is that it shows that even in the beginning, Tom And Jerry still had it's charms of seeing this poor cat always failing to get what he desires, and the supposedly innocent little mouse getting the better end of the deal. This may be very well one of the best Tom And Jerry shorts, even if it had differences in what you'd usually see. Also, Mammy Two-Shoes is the stealer of the show, hearing her yell "O-U-W-T, out!" is just hilarious!